Ever been in a situation where you just knew the perfect thing to say?
Not me, but some of us have.
Today in 1865, newspapers published a letter from one Jordan Anderson, who had a note perfect response to a guy who probably shouldn’t have written to him in the first place.
The title when the response was first published; “Letter From A Freedman To His Old Master.”
Jordan was likely born in Tennessee in late 1825, and ended up being sold and enslaved around age seven or eight to a plantation owner, who gave the child to his own son, Henry Anderson.
Jordan spent more than three decades working for Henry, until Union soldiers reached the plantation in 1864.
They offered Jordan, his wife and their 11 children freedom, and the family took the offer, though their former master was so mad that he shot his pistol at them until a neighbor took it away.
Jordan Anderson ended up in Dayton, Ohio, which is where he got a letter from Henry Anderson.
He wrote that the plantation was in trouble, physically and financially, and maybe Jordan would like to come back and help get it back into shape?
Henry said that Jordan would be paid this time.
Jordan Anderson couldn’t read or write himself, but when someone read him this letter he dictated a reply that was straight fire.
After some very sarcastic greetings, he says of the job offer that his wife “says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly.”
The proof he wanted was back pay, and he did the math: for their decades of unpaid service, plus interest, he wanted $11,680, which would be hundreds of thousands of dollars today.
He asks about educational opportunities for Black children in Henry’s part of Tennessee, or whether there’s now protection for Black women from the “violence and wickedness” of the young masters he remembers.
The letter ends with one last roast: “Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.”
A friend got this letter into the newspapers; readers celebrated Jordan Anderson’s ability to bring up serious topics in a wickedly funny way.
And you could say Jordan Anderson got the last laugh: he lived to be 81.
His former master only made it to his forties; just two years after he had to sell his plantation for a song to get out of debt.
Starting today in Illinois, it’s the Dekalb Corn Fest.
The fest started when a food company gave out corn to locals at the start of the harvest; now it’s three days of live music, games, crafts, carnivals and, of course, food.
Thrillist even called it “the Lollapalooza of Corn!”
How did ex-slave’s letter to master come to be? (Salt Lake Tribune via Conifer)
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