As a followup to this letter, Jason Kottke and others did some research on Jourdan Anderson’s further life. It looks like it was a good one:
At the time, Anderson and his wife Mandy were in their 70s and had been married for 52 years. Mandy had borne 11 children, six of whom were still living (Anderson’s letter, written in 1865, references five children, two of whom were “brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters”…not sure if they had died or not). The three children living with them in 1900 were all in their 20s, born several years after the letter was written.
Obviously, it could have been a life of family turmoil, but I prefer (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) to envision one of domestic happiness and calm. I also have this tiny little fantasy that every Christmas, Mr. Anderson sent a Christmas card to his former enslaver. “Still free.”
The Edge of the American West 
3 comments
February 3, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Dr J
This really made my day.
I bet I’ve taught that letter in 20 different classes, going back to the first US history survey course I ever taught. (I ripped off the idea from the late Dave Bowman, for whom I had recently TAed; I’m pretty sure he ripped it off from Leon Litwack, for whom he TAed while at Berkeley.)
You couldn’t possibly come up with a more perfect, more succinct, wittier statement of what freedmen wanted in the Reconstruction era. And boy, do the students respond to it. But… it’s always struck me as just a little too perfect. Could it have been written by V. Winters, Esq., the attorney mentioned in the letter as a willing recipient of any back wages Col. Anderson wants to send to Ohio? Or did Jourdan write it with Winters’ help? There’s no way to answer that, I guess, but I’m so excited that I’ll be able to answer the question of what happened to Jourdan the next time I teach this. Thank you.
February 4, 2012 at 3:46 am
Dave
Really, basic reading comp, please. The letter says “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.”
There’s nothing there that says the ‘shamed girls’ were his children, and the way he says ‘my girls’ rather implies the opposite. Maybe they were, but the blogger is leaping to conclusions beyond the evidence.
February 4, 2012 at 7:09 am
elizardbreath
But… it’s always struck me as just a little too perfect.
It’s clearly nineteenth century faux-naive humor; that “I’m just an honest guy straightforwardly saying things as I see them. Not trying to be funny here, no, siree.” Someone was cracking themselves up as they wrote it. The ‘too perfect’ feeling is you recognizing that it was intentional satire.
Making the jump to thinking the satirist wasn’t the nominal author doesn’t necessarily follow. If could be true — if a white guy thought of it, he might have used a freedman he knew or knew of as a sock puppet. But it’s equally possible that Jourdan was just a funny guy.