Jan. 14. Lidian's grandmother had a slave Phillis whom she freed. Phillis went to the little colony on the outside of Plymouth which they called New Guinea. soon after, she visited her old mistress. "Well, Phillis, what did you have for dinner on Thanksgiving Day?" "Fried ‘taturs, Missy:" replied Philis. “And what had you to fry the potatoes in?" said Mrs Cotton. "Fried in Water, Missy;" answered the girl. "Well Phillis," said Mrs Cotton, "how can you bear to live up there, so poor, when here you used to have every thing comfortable, & such good dinner at Thanksgiving?" - "Ah Missy, Freedom's sweet,” returned Phillis.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson—
—from Journal C, 1837-1838–

Wow.

Words to live by.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/free-mans-1865-letter-his-former-slave-owner-180957278/


Based on his sardonically civil letter, it's clear what Jourdon thought of the Colonel. "Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon," he writes. But, he adds, "I have often felt uneasy about you." Jourdon, who explains he was freed by the "Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville" in 1864, had no need to consider the offer. He describes his life in Dayton, Ohio:

"I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks 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."

In the letter, Jourdon asks that the Colonel what "good chance" he proposes to pay for the work. He also asks for the wages owed to him and his family: 32 years' worth for himself and 20 years' worth for his wife. The total tallied to $11,680, plus interest. The sly humor of Jourdon's response was no rare thing, report Allen G. Breed and Hillel Italie for the AP. "Slaves had to be guarded as to what they said because they would be punished if caught critiquing or offending the master class—thus they developed sophisticated forms of indirection and other forms of masking," Glenda Carpio, a professor of African and African-American studies at Harvard University, tells Breed and Italie.



##########

The story is even more interesting.

Descendants of Colonel Anderson are still angry at Jourdan for not coming back to help save his former master's farm.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Anderson#Letter_and_aftermath

Colonel Anderson, having failed to attract his former slaves back, sold the land for a pittance to try to get out of debt.[1] Two years later, he was dead at the age of 44.[1] In late 20th century, reparations activist Raymond Winbush located and interviewed descendants of Colonel Anderson in preparation for his 2003 book Should America Pay?. He reported that these descendants were "still angry at Jordan for not coming back" and that they "say that he should have been faithful and come back to the plantation to help out because he knew that the plantation was in such disrepair because of the Civil War."[5][1]


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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2025 09:41AM by anybody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Manning_James#Sealing_as_a_servant_in_the_Smith_family

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/ksr9n0/joseph_smiths_eternal_servant_its_been_too_long/?rdt=46493


"James continued to ask that she and her family be given the ordinance of adoption so that they could be sealed together forever. Her justification for asking to be the exception to the church’s rule was Emma Smith’s offer in 1844 to have her sealed to the Smith family as a child. James was now reconsidering her decision, and asked to be sealed to the Smiths. Her requests were again refused. Instead, the First Presidency “decided she might be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant, which was done, a special ceremony having been prepared for the purpose.” The ceremony took place on May 18, 1894, with Joseph F. Smith acting as proxy for Joseph Smith, and Bathsheba W. Smith acting as proxy for James (who was not allowed into the temple for the ordinance). In the ceremony, James was “attached as a Servitor for eternity to the prophet Joseph Smith and in this capacity be connected with his family and be obedient to him in all things in the Lord as a faithful Servitor."

Some people don't get it and will never get it. It's a mental gap that I will never for the life of me understand.

The prizes of society, the trumpet of fame, the privileges of learning, of culture, of religion, the decencies and joys of marriage, honor, obedience, personal authority and a perpetual melioration into a finer civility—these were for all, but not for them. For the negro, was the slave-ship to begin with, in whose filthy hold he sat in irons, unable to lie down; bad food, and insufficiency of that; disfranchisement; no property in the rags that covered him; no marriage, no right in the poor black woman that cherished him in her bosom, no right to the children of his body; no security from the humors, none from the crimes, none from the appetites of his master: toil, famine, insult and flogging; and, when he sank in the furrow, no wind of good fame blew over him, no priest of salvation visited him with glad tidings: but he went down to death with dusky dreams of African shadow-catchers and Obeahs hunting him. Very sad was the negro tradition, that the Great Spirit, in the beginning offered the black man, whom he loved better than the buckra, or white, his choice of two boxes, a big and a little one. The black man was greedy, and chose the largest. “The buckra box was full up with pen, paper and whip, and the negro box with hoe and bill; and hoe and bill for negro to this day.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson--
--from EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES--

[Emerson delivered this address in the Court House in Concord on August 1, 1844. Many people in Concord were reluctant to have such a controversial subject discussed at a public meeting. It is said that Thoreau arranged the meeting at which Emerson spoke and rang the bell to summon the audience to the Court House.]”

When you realize the conditions that most slaves had to live in, the mistress's statement about missing the good food at the big house sounds, frankly, bizarre.

I have never heard of the Parting Ways / New Guinea Afro-American settlement near Plymouth — and I've lived in MA and gone to Plymouth many times.


So much of this history was left out of my education.


Whether that was by chance or design I don't know, but I've tried hard to make up for it.


Thanks for this story, Human.


##########


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parting_Ways_(Plymouth,_Massachusetts)#:~:text=Parting%20Ways%20was%20an%20African,Parting%20Ways%20New%20Guinea%20Settlement.

https://www.ethicarch.org/today-in-ma/black-history-(and-archaeology)%3A--%22new-guinea---parting-ways%22-and-blacks-who-freed-america-


Parting Ways was an African-American settlement of freedmen adjacent to present-day Route 80 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, near the Plymouth/Kingston town line. Other names for Parting Ways include the Parting Ways Archeological District and the Parting Ways New Guinea Settlement.[2] It was founded on 94 acres (380,000 m2) by four former enslaved people who fought in the American Revolutionary War: Cato Howe, Prince Goodwin, Plato Turner, and Quamony Quash and their families. They were granted their freedom by the Massachusetts courts due to their service in the war. The land was granted in 1792 as part of an agreement with the town of Plymouth, that whosoever could clear the land could claim ownership of it.[3] Part of this land was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 19, 1979.[1]cnn.com

“So much of this history was left out of my education.”

Yes, out of all of our educations; which is why, in part, a month is dedicated to this, reminding us to do as you have done, “make up for it”.

“Aunt Rachel [60yo], how is it that you’ve lived sixty years and never had any trouble?”

…

Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and now she towered above us, black against the stars.

“Dey put chains on us an’ put us on a stan’ as high as dis po’ch,— twenty foot high,—an’ all de people stood aroun’, crowds an’ crowds. An’ dey ’d come up dah an’ look at us all roun’, an’ squeeze our arm, an’ make us git up an’ walk, an’ den say, ‘Dis one too ole,’ or ‘Dis one lame,’ or ‘Dis one don’t ’mount to much.’ An’ dey sole my ole man, an’ took him away, an’ dey begin to sell my chil’en an’ take dem away, an’ I begin to cry; an’ de man say, ‘Shet up yo’ dam blubberin’,’ an’ hit me on de mouf wid his han’. An’ when de las’ one was gone but my little Henry, I grab’ him clost up to my breas’ so, an’ I ris up an’ says, ‘You shan’t take him away,’ I says; ‘I’ll kill de man dat tetches him!’ I says. But my little Henry whisper an’ say, ‘I gwyne to run away, an’ den I work an’ buy yo’ freedom.’ Oh, bless de chile, he always so good! But dey got him—dey got him, de men did; but I took and tear de clo’es mos’ off of ’em, an’ beat ’em over de head wid my chain; an’ dey give it to me, too, but I didn’t mine dat.”

—Mark Twain—
—“True Story, Repeated Word For Word As I Heard It”—

{{shivers}}

Utterly poignant.

And eloquent.

In some folks, the human spirit is indomitable in even the worst of times. Maybe especially in the worst of times.

At least they were slaves against their will. Mormons volunteer for it.

Wow.

When the Brunswick canal was built in Georgia [1836-], the black slaves and white Irish workers were segregated, the excuse being that they would do violence against one another. That may well have been true, but Fanny Kemble, the famous actress and wife of a planter, wrote in her journal:

‘But the Irish are not only quarrelers, and rioters, and fighters, and drinkers, and despisers of nig***s—they are a passionate, impulsive, warm-hearted, generous people, much given to powerful indignations, which break out suddenly when not compelled to smoulder sullenly—pestilent sympathizers too, and with a sufficient dose of American atmospheric air in their lungs, properly mixed with a right proportion of ardent spirits, there is no saying but what they might actually take to sympathy with the slaves, and I leave you to judge of the possible consequences. You perceive, I am sure, that they can by no means be allowed to work together on the Brunswick Canal.’

The need for slave control led to an ingenious device, paying poor whites—themselves so troublesome for two hundred years of southern history—to be overseers of black labor and therefore buffers for black hatred.

—Howard Zinn—
—A People's History of the United States—

Let's look up Howard Zinn quoted there:
"In Madison, Wisconsin, in 2009, Zinn said:

'Let's talk about socialism. I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country...'"

Gee, I wonder if that book was written to encourage such ideas?