I was born and raised in Alabama by grandparents and remember being told of days spent picking cotton with a baby at your ankles and one on the hip. Sons leaving school at 3rd grade to "tend the fields". I attended school where the black students still had to ride in the back of the bus. FYI, I am 33…
So this is ever present for me. It makes me cry for the youth today who have zero respect for the many who sacrificed their lives.

Beautifully and intelligently written. He let old massa know that he was a free man, that he was a smart man, that he was a forgiving man but not a forgetful man. He let old mass know, his spirit was not broken despite the abuse he and his family suffered. He let old massa know that there was still debts to be paid and repentance to be made. He let old mass know (in my Miss Celie voice)

"Everything you done to me, I already done to you".

God bless the souls of our ancestors and their offspring and the offspring that followed. AmeriKKKa has been a wicked and evil place to those of African descent. Don’t let the bling, the right to vote, the cars and the homes, the ballers and shot callers fool you. We our still fighting for our freedom.

I would also love to read a letter written by a Native American because they caught unspeakable hell also. The sad part is, the white man did a better job of genocide against the red man than he did the black man. The mistreatment of any aboriginal peoples by invaders is always heartbreaking. One day we, meaning humanity, will learn that underneath the color of skin runs the red blood and beating heart. We are all different yet the same.

Praise be unto God for giving Jourdan a voice that has carried on for centuries up till this very day. AMEN!

Thank you for the reminder.

@No#1Dad/ Kamalla
And the Mayans say the world will end on December 21, 2012! I still think it’s fake! That’s my opinion and I will not away from it. Thank you for respecting that. It’s so ironic that the letter is 147 years old and I’m just hearing about it on the first day of Black History month, 2012. Yeah, it could be authentic…I won’t stress it. This is a gossip blog, I will use it as such and not a platform to educate myself based on yours or anyones "sound" advice from here. I come to this site to be entertained, but when I thirst for knowledge, there are millions of books in this world and people that I know personally that are descendents of slaves that give me exactly what I require. I am not the type of individual to go back and forth with anyone to make it a point to validate the one subject I have done my homework on. This is for amusement. There are so many more pressing issues I concern myself with in this world that I really don’t have the time or extra energy be get online and "get people straight", i.e., the Haitian crisis, HIV in our communities, etc. It sort of creates a negative division among us. However, I do appreciate your communication to me. It does show that my comments were of some value to someone and in some small way, you educated me. Thanks and take care.

very well written and straight to the point from mr. jourdan anderson (he has his master’s last name). is the letter from colonel anderson available for posting to accompany this? that would only add to this… thanks.

yo dude was bout his paper!!! he basically said pay me or f**k off. Well written, just wish alot of our ppl wouldve made a power move like dat. i know most of them had little to no choice, strong men do what has to be done for their families sake, like this gentleman did. WELL DONE SIR!!! *tips hat*

wow!

Oh it just surfaced after 100 yrs huh…..smh bull

I felt this like poetry and I love the sarcasm of it…Our ancestors were never stupid or incompetent as one would suggest. Our ancestors built this country without a manual. The letter overwhelmed me and made me feel more appreciative for what I have

Tommy Ross You’re welcome. But it’s actually a repost… I posted it last year this time. 🙂

WOW ALL I CAN SAY IS THANK YOU LORD

Not sure how authentic this letter is

While this letter is beautifully written I feel as if it is a fake. Even if he dictated it to another to write this was in the 1800s maybe it was dictated however the way he broke down his due wages would suggest he was good at math. Back then weren´t most slaves if not all ignorant in that of having no education? And its no fault of their own he could have been an intelligent man in other aspects but this was slavery days. Either way well read!

Not all slaves were not ignorant to good math skills and many were educated. This is why we as black people need to research and study black history. Smh

Crazy how we craft lies for people that don´t no history. It´s a good article, but not real… Just gives black people reason to hate white people and themselves as well

I can totally relate as my maternal grandfather was born a slave in tennessee. We know the British man who owned him and his mother as she worked in and managed the house. Grew up in the house with his white half sisters who then taught him to read and he taught himself as well was given hundreds of acres of land and as the youngest was the ONLY child his mother was allowed to keep.

Great letter

Whether it is real or not it was a good read. It shows some of what he endured & how we shouldn´t take our lives for granted. Thanks for posting!!

He want his Money in good faith . Love it .

These comments are crazy, and coming from black people I´m appalled. Did you read the letter, it said to send the money to an Esquire aka attorney, so I´m sure the attorney helped him prepare this letter. Prejudice within our race will continue to set us back hundreds If not thousands of years.

For the Lack of Pride in one´s race keeps us back! and never learning the truth.

Well said @Pamela Denise… Whether he wrote it or not, his experience was real and this event could very likely have happened especially if that Colonel didn´t want to lose any slaves to Freedom. These comments are reflections of why the following generations behave and think as they do. Being Native American it´s heartbreaking that in current times we can´t rise above ignorance yet our ancestors, who endured the most, showed more strength in surviving their circumstances only to have the following generations continuously take for granted everything they fought for.

I find it ironic that the day I found and read this letter, the photo above it was that of Porsha Williams getting her hair done. It is a sad and pathetic irony, however– I am white (Irish) and am always curious and learning about the racism and injustices incured by my irish immigrant ancestors, which I in turn pass on to my children. We learn from our past. These injustices suffered by Irish Catholics, however are slight– minute in comparison to those of which were suffered by our black community at the hands of white people like myself. However getting back to my original point– it is a true disgrace in every sense of the word that Porsha Williams, in this day and agr, could be so ignorant of the underground railroad. Itis even more of a disgrace that her parents didn’t inform her of her ethnic history, (maybe they did but she was too stupid to understand). Finally, it is even more of a disgrace that during the entirity of her life thus far– all of her friends, aquaintances, business partners, Husband, neighbors, etc, failed to communicate this valuable information to this girl. It is a sad commentary to be so ignorant of not only of history as a whole, but of ones own rich heritage– I am aware it was a mere coincidence, but her picture needs to be removed– banned! Such a disgrace to the black community should not be allowed to even share the same space as the admirable and clever writer of this letter, who would turn in his grave to know that a famous black woman, truthfully, in front of millions of people, disclosed she thought the underground railroad used actual trains! Horrible!

I love it!

Lol…i take it he didn’t get a reply.

Wow, he said it all and with eloquence. What a Man!

I want to believe that this letter is true, yet growing up during my elementary years, we were taught that slaves did not know how to read nor write. A few of them learned but hid it from the slave owners. Also the negro dialect was never spoken so eloquently. Every Black History narrated storybook we checked out of the library dated back to the 1800’s was always in broken english. Even the written letters. Nice letter I guess…..but I get the feeling that “massa” could have fooled him right back to the plantation with the right response. Thank goodness he never looked back. Show me the original not some modified version.

Sharyn Johnson

I love it, shade is nothing new honey!

Awesome Historic Letter. Much Love

I love being on Ancetry Dot Com…. These people did exist!

LOVED THE LETTER, WISHED THEY WOULD HAVE COOKED OLD MASSA A CORN BREAD WITH CRUSHED GLASS IN IT