Fugitive Slaves Respond to Owners

1860

As a consequence of abolitionists refusing to assist local authorities in capturing runaway slaves, some African Americans wrote to their former owners. These two were in response to their former owners request that they return.

J.W. Lougen, Syracuse, N.Y.

Mrs. Sarah Logue:

Yours of the 20th of February is duly received, and I thank you for it. You sold my brother and sister, Abe and Ann, and twelve acres of land, you say, because I ran away. Now you have the meanness to ask me to return and be your chattel, or in lieu thereof, send you $1,000 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....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 cruel as to tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you should be willing to crucify us all, out of compassion for your poor foot or leg. Wretched woman! 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 of 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 $1,000, 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 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.... 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!

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 than Mannasseth Logue had to me? Is it a greater sin for me to steal a 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? I stand among a free people, who, I thank God, sympathize with my rights and the rights of mankind....

Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New York, 1979)

Jourdan Anderson, Rochester, N.Y.

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 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 [food] and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy--the folks here 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.

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 32 years, and Mandy 20 years. At $25 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 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.

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 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 school opened for colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life 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 hand when you were shooting at me.

Source: Milton Meltzer, ed., In Their Own Words: A History of the American Negro, 1619-1865. New York, 1967.