Four Letters from Slaves to Their Former Masters (1840 to 1865)
EXCERPT, JOSEPH TAPER, LETTER TO JOSEPH LONG (November 11, 1840)
I now take this opportunity to inform you that I am in a land of liberty, in good health . . . I
arrived in the month of August 1839 . . . Since I have been in the Queens dominions [i.e.
Canada] I have been well contented, Yes well contented for Sure, man is as God intended he
should be. That is, all are born free & equal. This is a wholesome law, not like the Southern
laws which puts man made in the image of God, on level with brutes. O, what will become of
the people, & where will they stand in the day of Judgment? Would that the 5th verse of the 3d
chapter of Malachi were written as with the bar of iron, & the point of a diamond upon every
oppressors heart that they might repent of this evil, & let the oppressed go free . . .
And now I must here inform you that I was forced away in consequence of bad usage; Only for
that, & I should be in America, though I do not regret coming, & if I had known how easy I
could get along I should started 10 years sooner, for it would have been better for me. Besides
having a good garden, this summer I have raised 316 bushels potatoe, 120 bushels corn, 41
bushels buckwheat, a small crop of oats, 17 Hogs, 70 chickens, I have paid 50 dolls rent this
year, next year I expect to build. The Queen of England, has granted 50 acres of land, to every
colored man who will accept of the gift & Become an actual settler, also a yoke of oxen, &
plough for every two families . . . We have good schools, & all the colored population supplied
with schools. My boy Edward who will be six years next January, is now reading, & I intend
keeping him at school until he becomes a good scholar. I have enjoyed more pleasure with one
month here than in all my life in the land of bondage . . .
I send my respects to Mrs. Stevens. I thank her for her kind usage to me in time of Sickness.
She acted more like a mother than a mistress. Respects to all who know me. I hope this letter
will find them all well & as for old Milla, I expect she is dead & gone to the devil long ago, if
she is not, I think the imps are close at her heels, & will soon put her where there are nothing
else but nasty, stinking black dogs a plenty.
My wife and self are sitting by a good comfortable fire happy, knowing that there are none to
molest or make afraid. God save Queen Victoria, The Lord bless her in this life, & crown her
with glory in the world to come is my prayer,
Yours With much respect
Most obt, Joseph Taper
Source: Joseph Taper, St. Catherine’s, Upper Canada, to Joseph Long, New Town, Virginia, 11
November 1840, Joseph Long Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North
Carolina
EXCERPT, HENRY BIBB, LETTER TO WILLIAM GATEWOOD (MARCH 23, 1844)
I am happy to inform you that you are not mistaken in the man whom you sold as property, and
received pay for as such. But I thank God that I am not property now, but am regarded as a man
like yourself, and although I live far north, I am enjoying a comfortable living by my own
industry. If you should ever chance to be traveling this way, and will call on me, I will use you
better than you did me while you held me as a slave. Think not that I have any malice against
you, for the cruel treatment which you inflicted on me while I was in your power. As it was the
custom of your country, to treat your fellow men as you did me and my little family, I can
freely forgive you.
I wish to be remembered in love to my aged mother, and friends; please tell her that if we
should never meet again in this life, my prayer shall be to God that we may meet in Heaven,
where parting shall be no more.
You wish to be remembered to King and Jack. I am pleased, sir, to inform you that they are
both here . . . and doing well. They are both living in Canada West. They are now the owners of
better farms than the men are who once owned them.
You may perhaps think hard of us for running away from slavery, but as to myself, I have but
one apology to make for it, which is this: I have only to regret that I did not start at an earlier
period. I might have been free long before I was. I think it is very probable that I should have
been a toiling slave on your property today, if you had treated me differently.
To be compelled to stand by and see you whip and slash my wife without mercy, when I could
afford her no protection, not even by offering myself to suffer the lash in her place, was more
than I felt it to be the duty of a slave husband to endure, while the way was open to Canada. My
infant child was also frequently flogged by Mrs. [William] Gatewood, for crying, until its skin
was bruised literally purple. This kind of treatment was what drove me from home and family,
to seek a better home for them. But I am willing to forget the past. I should be pleased to hear
from you again, on the reception of this and should also be very happy to correspond with you
often, if it should be agreeable to yourself. I subscribe myself a friend to the oppressed, and
Liberty forever.
Source: Henry Bibb to William Gatewood, Detroit, March 23, 1844 in Narrative of the Life and
Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself. (New York: Published by the Author,
1849), 175–78.
EXCERPT, JERMAIN WESLEY LOGUEN, LETTER TO SARAH LOGUE
(MARCH 28, 1860)
Mrs. Sarah Logue: You sold my brother and sister, Abe and Ann, and twelve acres of land, you
say, because I ran away. Now you have the unutterable meanness to ask me to return and be
your miserable chattel, or in lieu thereof, send you $1000 to enable you to redeem the land, but
not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I were to send you money, it would be to get my
brother and sister, and not that you should get land. You say you are a cripple, and doubtless
you say it to stir my pity, for you knew I was susceptible in that direction. I do pity you from
the bottom of my heart. Nevertheless, I am indignant beyond the power of words to express,
that you should be so sunken and cruel as to tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you
should be willing to impale and crucify us all, out of compassion for your poor foot or leg.
Wretched woman! Be it known to you that I value my freedom, to say nothing of my mother,
brothers and sisters, more than your whole body; more, indeed, than my own life; more than all
the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants under heaven.
You say you have offers to buy me, and that you shall sell me if I do not send you $1000, and in
the same breath and almost in the same sentence, you say, "You know we raised you as we did
our own children." Woman, did you raise your own children for the market? Did you raise them
for the whipping-post? Did you raise them to be driven off, bound to a coffle [a group of slaves
being driven to market] in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can you
tell? Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked and cuffed, and
whipped, and to groan and die; and where no kin can hear their groans, or attend and
sympathize at their dying bed, or follow in their funeral? Wretched woman! Do you say you did
not do it? Then I reply, your husband did, and you approved the deed-and the very letter you
sent me shows that your heart approves it all. Shame on you!
But, by the way, where is your husband? You don't speak of him. I infer, therefore, that he is
dead; that he has gone to his great account, with all his sins against my poor family upon his
head. Poor man! gone to meet the spirits of my poor, outraged and murdered people, in a world
where Liberty and justice are Masters.
But you say I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to learn that
I had a better right to the old mare, as you call her, than Mannasseth Logue had to me? Is it a
greater sin for me to steal his horse, than it was for him to rob my mother's cradle, and steal me?
If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall not I infer that you forfeit all your
rights to me? Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take
my liberty and life, you forfeit your own liberty and life? Before God and high heaven, is there
a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?
If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard my rights,
they need but come here, and lay their hands on me to enslave me. Did you think to terrify me
by presenting the alternative to give my money to you, or give my body to slavery? Then let me
say to you, that I meet the proposition with unutterable scorn and contempt. The proposition is
an outrage and an insult. I will not budge one hair's breadth. I will not breathe a shorter breath,
even to save me from your persecutions. I stand among a free people, who, I thank God,
sympathize with my rights, and the rights of mankind; and if your emissaries and venders come
here to re-enslave me, and escape the unshrinking vigor of my own right arm, I trust my strong
and brave friends, in this city and State, will be my rescuers and avengers.
Source: Jermain Wesley Loguen, Letter to Sarah Logue (March 28, 1860). First printed as “Mr.
Loguen’s Reply,” in The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts), vol. 30, no. 17 (Whole no. 1531)(April 27,
1860), 1.
EXCERPT, JOURDON ANDERSON, LETTER TO HIS FORMER MASTER,
COLONEL P.H. ANDERSON (AUGUST 7, 1865)
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find 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 . . . Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I am
glad you are still living . . .
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing
tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for
Mandy . . . and the children—Milly, Jane and Grundy—go to school and are learning well . . .
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 Col. Anderson. Many darkies 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 . . .
Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely 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 $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has 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 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 . . . 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 Matilda and Catherine. I
would rather stay here and starve, and die if it comes 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.
P.S. —Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you
were shooting at me.
Source: "Letter from Jourdan Anderson to His Former Master," in Leon F. Litwack, ed., Been in the
Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (New York: Knopf, 1979).