‘To My Old Master’: Nah. I’m Not Coming Back.

This former slave scoffed at the idea of returning to the plantation

Artist Marina Amaral reminded us all of an interesting part of history with a Twitter thread about a letter exchange between former slave Jourdon Anderson and his old “master,” Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee. In this thread the colorist (Amaral adds color to old black-and-white photos) shows an image of and letter from the Black Anderson to the White Anderson. The freedman, quite frankly, issues a 1865-era takedown that in today’s terms would be known as a read.

Anderson asks for the wages deferred from a lifetime of slavery: “At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing… and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio.”

And this part, I truly appreciate: “If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have…