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In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).
Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I'll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end.
Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. 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. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
{ j/k}
That's quite a letter.
As a kid I was proud my mother's family came from the North, and had fought against slavery in the Civil War. Then I found the slave records from my mother's great grandfather's and and great-great grandfather's plantations in Maryland and Virginia.
I wonder what stories might come from the Somali Bantus?
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Somali_Bantu
Grant , with all due respect , you have become very Somalized .
This story is about YOUR people and the way they have treated the Africans in America .
First you deny it, then you half way feign to admit something , then point the finger at somebody else
Just reppin the tol......
Thank u Advo aka Alpha--for posting this letter. It is truly a magnificent read. 
Of the 12 million-- 15% died during the Sea voyage, in which they were thrown over-board to be fed to the sharks. Angola and Chad are the majority of slaves origins. African queens and kings--sold their people to the dutch and portoguese merchant travellers. It is WRONG-- to talk about White people enslaving Adoons when WE DO NOT mention--- the adoons who betrayed their people in the first place.I think--that was the FIRST SIN, of all. Even in modern work area, the adoons are the turtle tales people who snitch on people.(me thinks, this is vastly because of their small brain, where it only is concerned with self preservation, a very humanistic trait aptly handy in the unknown jungle world) Jesus was snitched by his fellow jews to the romans. It is not a surprise therefore that these TWO races--ended up being the most notorious slaves in modern history. 
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
Just reppin the tol......
It shows a good deal of relationship between master and slave. First of all, this letter prooves that the master was good to his slave. He taught him how to read and write. To write such a tolerable, legible, somewhat - good grammar letter such as this-- is a testament to the poor white master. (it was Illegal to teach a slave how to read and write in those days) It also, striking to see the mixed emotions he has for his former enslaver. The idea of praying for him, pointing out his faults, and also sharing--in a humanistic level--the development of his slave family, lovingly updating the progress of his daughters and family life. He went back and forth on these feelings-- of having a lovin bond yet a wounded relationship.(except of course, the heart wrenching ending of once again, reminding his master, that he wanted to shoot him. So sad. lol) If i didnt know well, i would have guessed this was a brother writing to his long estranged brother about a family feud. What a comical endeavor, the slave era was.
THIS LETTER WAS DICTATED BY THE EX-SLAVE... WHICH MEANS HE HAD SOMEONE ELSE WRITE WHAT HE WAS SAYING. SMH
Basra, I swear I am amazed at you. Do you misread everything you read, thereby completely missing the whole passage, and coming to some strange conclusion? The freed-slave was not at all brotherly, but gloating, sarcastic, and thoroughly rubbing it in the face of his former master. He was speaking to his old master as if he was speaking to an elder who could not come to grips with new times, and despite trying to outwardly change, the old ways are too thoroughly ingrained. The freed-slave is astonished at the audacity of the former master to even contact him in anyway but complete admission of regret of his sinful, unjust ways. He knows full well that the master still feels some right to him as his once slave, therefore he would never even consider going back to him. The letter has a light-heartened superficial surface, but the former master and the former slave have no doubt what is being said between them. He mentions his progress, something unthinkable as a slave, his children getting an education, which was a privilege of wealthy WHITE people. He is saying to his former master, look how great I am doing now, look how much they pay me, look how my children are doing, look at the great changes I have made, and you expect me to give that all up to be your wage-slave? He even says how he is surpised he wasn't killed by the yankees, what he really is saying is I'm dissapointed you didn't get killed by the yankees.
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