Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of US History since 1865

By Jennifer Jensen Wallach

A collection of interpreted primary source documents designed to complement textbooks used in US history survey courses, Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of the American Past is a collaboration with the Department of History at the University of North Texas that supports the learning experience by providing a curated selection of letters, literature, journalism, art, and other documents, with analysis and instructional support from the university’s teacher-historians.

This two-volume work includes nearly two hundred primary documents and images that narrate many aspects of United States history from the period before European contact and colonization through the twenty-first century. The sources assembled capture the voices of Americans of varied age, race, ethnicity, and gender, historical actors who represent not only diverse subject positions but also a wide variety of belief systems and varied circumstances. Combined with interpretive headnotes and discussion questions, the layered approaches of the contributors deliver an unusually complex and rich portrait of the American past while also offering readers glimpses of the many dimensions of the historians’ craft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781610757812

Book preview

Cover Page for Containing Multitudes

Containing Multitudes

Containing Multitudes

A Documentary Reader of US History

Edited by Wesley G. Phelps and Jennifer Jensen Wallach

Volume II: since 1865

The University of Arkansas Press

Fayetteville

2022

Copyright © 2022 by The University of Arkansas Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book should be used or reproduced in any manner without prior permission in writing from the University of Arkansas Press or as expressly permitted by law.

eISBN: 978-1-61075-781-2

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Interpreting the Past with Primary Sources

15. Reconstruction

Document 15.1: Jourdan Anderson, a Formerly Enslaved Person from Tennessee, Declines His Former Master’s Invitation to Return to His Plantation

Document 15.2: Laura Spicer and Her Husband Cope with the Aftermath of Family Separation during Slavery

Document 15.3: Elizabeth Hyde Botume Describes the Trauma of Family Separation during Slavery

Document 15.4: Description of Rev. Elias Hill Being Attacked by the Ku Klux Klan

Document 15.5: Annabella P. Hill Offers White Southern Women Advice on How to Cook after the Civil War, 1867

Document 15.6: Thomas Nast Cartoon Offers a Critique of Presidential Reconstruction

Document 15.7: Drawing of Andrew Johnson Pardoning Confederates at the White House

Document 15.8: Depiction of Freedman’s Bureau School

16. Capitalism and Inequality

Document 16.1: Mary Elizabeth Lease Encourages Women’s Participation in the Farmers’ Alliances, 1891

Document 16.2: National People’s Party Platform, 1892

Document 16.3: William Jennings Bryan Warns against a Cross of Gold, 1896

Document 16.4: Eugene V. Debs Describes How He Became a Socialist, 1902

Document 16.5: Illustration of Battle during Chicago Railroad Workers’ Strike, 1877

17. The West

Document 17.1: Henry George Predicts What the Railroad Will Mean for California, 1868

Document 17.2: Sarah Winnemucca Describes the Reservation of Pyramid and Muddy Lakes, 1883

Document 17.3: Kenneth M. Young Describes a Train Trip to Denver, 1890

Document 17.4: Maxi’diwiac (Buffalo Bird Woman) Compares Native American and Colonial Farming Practices, 1917

Document 17.5: Elizabeth Roe Remembers Growing Up in Tarrant County, Texas, during the Civil War and Reconstruction Years, 1941

Document 17.6: Illustration of San Francisco’s Three Graces, 1882

Document 17:7 Photograph of San Francisco’s Chinatown, 1900

18. Challenges of Industrialization

Document 18.1: Ralph Waldo Trine Explores Flesh as Food, 1899

Document 18.2: Mary Church Terrell Describes Lynching from an African American’s Point of View, 1904

Document 18.3: Upton Sinclair Describes The Jungle, 1906

Document 18.4: Swift and Company Welcomes Visitors with a Reference Book, 1914

Document 18.5: Angelina Weld Grimke Depicts the Effects of Lynching in Rachel, 1916

Document 18.6: Photograph of Immigrants Awaiting Processing on Ellis Island, 1900

19. American Imperialism

Document 19.1: Rudyard Kipling Describes the White Man’s Burden, 1899

Document 19.2: H. T. Johnson Describes the Black Man’s Burden, 1899

Document 19.3: Ernest Crosby Describes the Real White Man’s Burden, 1899

Document 19.4: Victor Gillam Depicts the White Man’s Burden, 1899

Document 19.5: Life Magazine Depicts the Price of Imperialism, 1902

20. An Era of Reform

Document 20.1: Mary Hinman Abel Advises the Poor about How to Cut Down on Food Costs, 1890

Document 20.2: US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan Offers a Dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

Document 20.3: Booker T. Washington Describes the Education of Native Americans at the Historically Black Hampton Institute, 1901

Document 20.4: The State of Indiana Passes a Sterilization Law, 1907

Document 20.5: The US Supreme Court Rules on Women’s Labor, 1908

Document 20.6: Domestic Scientist Pearl Idelia Ellis Advocates for Dietary Reform as a Tool of Assimilation, 1929

Document 20.7: Photograph of a History Class at the Tuskegee Institute, 1902

21. World War I

Document 21.1: Woodrow Wilson Proclaims Neutrality, 1914

Document 21.2: German Foreign Officer Arthur Zimmermann Proposes Alliance with Mexico, 1917

Document 21.3: Woodrow Wilson Issues the Fourteen Points, 1918

Document 21.4: Congress Passes the Sedition Act, 1918

Document 21.5: World War I Military Enlistment Poster, 1918

22. The 1920s

Document 22.1: Theodore Roosevelt Expresses His Thoughts on Reproduction, 1913

Document 22.2: A. Philip Randolph Embraces Socialism, 1919

Document 22.3: Calvin Coolidge Asks, Whose Country Is This?, 1921

Document 22.4: Ellen Welles Page Appeals to Parents, 1922

Document 22.5: Ellison Smith Supports Immigration Restriction, 1924

Document 22.6: Robert H. Clancy Denounces Immigration Quotas, 1924

Document 22.7: Elise Johnson McDougald Describes the Double Task, 1925

Document 22.8: The Literary Digest Proposes a Solution to the Immigration Problem, 1921

23. The Great Depression and New Deal

Document 23.1: Franklin D. Roosevelt Delivers His Second Fireside Chat, 1933

Document 23.2: Working People Write Letters to New Dealers, 1935–1939

Document 23.3: The Carter Family Sings No Depression in Heaven, 1936

Document 23.4: The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Publishes a Residential Security Map of Dallas, 1937

Document 23.5: Poster Proclaims the Enemy Is Syphilis, 1940

24. World War II

Document 24.1: Franklin D. Roosevelt Calls for an International Quarantine, 1937

Document 24.2: Franklin D. Roosevelt Declares December 7 a Day of Infamy, 1941

Document 24.3: US Commanding General Calls for Navajo Enlistment, 1942

Document 24.4: Photograph of Japanese American Business Owner Proclaiming I Am an American, 1942

Document 24.5: Photograph of a Japanese Internment Camp in California, 1943

Document 24.6: Poster Encourages Canning to Preserve Food, 1944

25. The Cold War

Document 25.1: Ho Chi Minh Declares Independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945

Document 25.2: Henry A. Wallace Expresses Concern about the Cold War, 1946

Document 25.3: The National Security Council Issues NSC-68, 1950

Document 25.4: Dwight D. Eisenhower Issues Executive Order 10450, 1953

Document 25.5: Atomic Bomb Instruction Card, 1950

26. Postwar Affluence

Document 26.1: Poster Proclaims the Benefits of DDT, 1947

Document 26.2: Edith M. Stern Declares Women Are Household Slaves, 1949

Document 26.3: Percy L. Julian Decries Racial Segregation in Dallas, 1956

Document 26.4: C. Wright Mills Warns of Cheerful Robots, 1959

Document 26.5: Photograph of the Little Rock Nine Being Escorted into School by US Troops, 1957

27. The 1960s

Document 27.1: Charlie Cobb Highlights the Importance of Relevant Education in the South, 1963

Document 27.2: Fannie Lou Hamer Addresses the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention, 1964

Document 27.3: Lyndon B. Johnson Announces Signing of a New Immigration Law, 1965

Document 27.4: US Supreme Court Issues Ruling on Interracial Marriage, 1967

Document 27.5: Cesar Chavez Reports on Grape Strike from Delano, 1969

Document 27.6: Shirley McLendon Describes First African American History Course Offered at the University of North Texas, 1969

Document 27.7: Photograph of Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Supporters at the Democratic National Convention, 1964

28. The Long 1970s

Document 28.1: Country Joe and the Fish Sing about the Vietnam War, 1967

Document 28.2: The Kerner Commission Issues Report on Urban Riots, 1968

Document 28.3: Richard Nixon Announces a New Strategy for the Vietnam War, 1969

Document 28.4: Phyllis Schlafly Laments the Fraud of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1972

Document 28.5: Jimmy Carter Describes a National Crisis of Confidence, 1979

Document 28.6: Photograph of Vietnam Moratorium Rally in New York City, 1969

29. The Rise of Modern Conservatism

Document 29.1: The Advisory Committee of People with AIDS Issues the Denver Principles, 1983

Document 29.2: C. Everett Koop Encourages the Fight against AIDS, 1987

Document 29.3: Vito Russo Explains Why We Fight for the Rights and Dignity of People with AIDS, 1988

Document 29.4: Patrick Buchanan Addresses the Republican National Convention, 1992

Document 29.5: Poster Encouraging Compassion for Children with AIDS, 1987

30. Challenges of a New Millennium

Document 30.1: George H. W. Bush Declares the Cold War Is Over, 1990

Document 30.2: George W. Bush Outlines a New National Security Strategy, 2002

Document 30.3: Robert Byrd Warns against a War with Iraq, 2003

Document 30.4: Lester Brown Describes Outgrowing the Earth, 2004

Document 30.5: Donald Trump Withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord, 2017

Document 30.6: Photograph of Demonstration against War on Terror, 2001

Document 30.7: Photograph of Young Boy with President Barack Obama, 2009

Assessment and Reflection Questions, Volume II

Contributors

Acknowledgments

These volumes are the result of a collaborative process that brought together the efforts of more than two dozen participants. However, like all undertakings of its kind, there was someone whose efforts were indispensable to the project. In this case, Wesley G. Phelps did the bulk of the work of soliciting suggestions for documents to include, filling in gaps, and creating an initial draft of the primary documents. Jennifer Jensen Wallach joined his effort later, helping to coordinate the revisions and performing some of the editorial work necessary to weave the contributions of nineteen different historians into a cohesive whole. We owe a large debt to our colleagues in the Department of History at the University of North Texas who helped select documents and who wrote the introductory headnotes and discussion questions designed to help readers interpret them. You can read short biographies of each contributor at the end of the volumes. J. L. Tomlin and Danielle Dumaine deserve special recognition for also writing the reflection questions and essay prompts that conclude these readers, which were designed to help readers synthesize what they learned.

Jami McQueen Thomas and Coleton Caldwell offered valuable administrative support to help keep this joint effort on track. Miranda Leddy performed editorial work, supervised student researchers, and completed numerous miscellaneous tasks that helped us get to the finish line. We could not have done it without her. University of North Texas Department of History graduate students Zacharie Barber, Michael Stout, Constance Wallace, Rhealee Andrews, Cairan Bergstrom, Duncan Harding, Payton Molina, and Keely Sanders transcribed documents, performed copyediting, and wrote captions and citations. Their imprint can be found on every page, and we are grateful that they used their skills as rising historians to help us with this important task.

Finally, at the University of Arkansas Press, David Cajías Calvet offered expert editorial assistance. We are grateful to Jenny Vos and to Betty Pessagno for their careful attention to detail while editing the manuscript and for their excellent suggestions. Editor-in-chief David Scott Cunningham, who was unceasingly generous with his time, went above and beyond in helping us refine our vision. We appreciate his enthusiasm, his tremendous skills as an editor, and his belief in this project.

Introduction

The two-volume Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of US History includes nearly two hundred primary documents and images that narrate many aspects of US history from the period before European contact and colonization through the twenty-first century. Each chapter is framed by an introduction designed to help readers interpret the rich collection of historical snapshots that follow and includes discussion questions designed to deepen engagement with those specific documents. Each volume also concludes with a list of questions that encourage readers to synthesize what they have learned and to engage in further inquiry. The volumes can stand on their own, giving any interested reader a rich tour through the history of the nation, as told from the perspective of many generations of historical subjects. Containing Multitudes is also designed to support the teaching of a two-part college-level survey class in US history.

A survey class can be one of the most rewarding classes that faculty teach; it can also be one of the most challenging. It is through this course that most college students are introduced to the professional study of history. Thus, many professors think of this class as an opportunity not only to offer engaging content that will open students up to the intellectual richness of historical study but, sometimes, also to present a necessary corrective. Although some students enter the college classroom with an excellent foundation of historical knowledge, others know history mainly through rote memorization and through exclusive focus on the outcomes of elections and military conflicts at the expense of the experiences of everyday life. Good teachers know that students who have not been trained to see themselves and their families as subjects of history or to realize that every subject or activity that interests them is embedded in its own historical context can sometimes feel disconnected from the discipline’s content. Faculty teaching introductory classes have a crucial opportunity to add nuance and new dimensions to the perspective students bring from their high school training. They can also help these students discover how an informed historical framework can positively shape their experience and understanding of their social world. While expanding their students’ understanding of the broad range of topics offered by historians, these teachers can also introduce them to some of the many methodological tools historians have at their disposal. Herein lies not only the opportunity but also the challenge of teaching an introductory course.

Because the topics and perspectives of historical study are so expansive and the chronological reach of a survey class is so extensive, a number of difficult decisions present themselves: Which subjects should be covered? Whose experiences should be highlighted, and which events can be skimmed over? Faculty also must decide which interpretive and methodological lenses to emphasize and how to balance the insights offered by political, social, and cultural perspectives. The vast array of textbooks and course materials that are available to support teaching the US history survey course highlights the wide diversity of approaches to the subject. These texts are inevitably shaped by the perspectives of those who created them, a fact that ultimately and necessarily defines and limits their interpretive frameworks. Containing Multitudes is designed to push against some of these inherent limitations by offering multiple perspectives and by seeking to capture as many interpretive visions of the American past as possible.

The documents assembled here capture the voices of Americans (along with some others who had connections to the Americas) of various ages, races, ethnicities, and genders. These historical actors represent not only diverse subject positions but also a wide variety of belief systems and circumstances. Assembling these documents was a collaborative process involving more than nineteen historians (see Contributors). These historians were selected on the basis of their ability to shed light on a number of important historical moments and issues. In their choices of documents, these contributors were mindful of the problem of affordability for students, opting not to include documents that required expensive permission fees. As is true of all document collections, this one represents a starting place for readers seeking familiarity with the major themes of US history, and the editors sincerely hope it inspires further investigation and research. Some of the documents collected here, including famous political speeches or influential pieces of legislation, will be familiar to many readers. Other documents, such as recipes, poetry, song lyrics and sheet music, and images ranging from the figure of a grieving widow to the daily activities of school children, offer less familiar glimpses of past realities and help capture some of the intimacy of lived experiences.

The broad range of voices captured here is certainly one of the strengths of the collection, but our endeavor to capture the voices of people from different subject positions also raised some ethical issues that led to some difficult editorial choices. If we want to capture the past in all its complexity, we have to include the perspectives of enslavers as well as those of the enslaved, of Native Americans intent upon maintaining traditional ways of living as well as those working to violently displace them, and so on. All too often, documents created by someone intent on dehumanizing or limiting the rights of another are couched in harsh and offensive language. As editors, we know that this language, even that spoken or written hundreds of years ago, still has the power to wound. We want our classrooms to be safe spaces where students do not have to be afraid of hurtful language; yet we also must aim for historical accuracy.

The act of studying history necessitates grappling with uncomfortable truths and navigating changing social norms. In an imperfect attempt to balance a desire to make our classrooms safer spaces, while also demonstrating fidelity to the historical record, we made the editorial decision to replace one frequently used and deeply offensive epithet with the label n-word. Our hope was that doing so would prevent any students reciting in class from uttering a word that we know is potentially one of the most offensive words in our contemporary language. We felt we could do this without altering the historical integrity of the text since readers will understand what slur is being replaced. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a simple solution to some of the other words or phrases in the book that were designed to denigrate others. In these instances, it proved to be impossible to signal what the speaker intended to impart by making a simple substitution. For example, the label Chinaman can certainly be regarded as offensive and dismissive, but to remove the word or to come up with our own nonstandardized substitution could alter the meaning. Therefore, for lack of a solution that could simultaneously serve two different aims, we left language intact when we thought that altering it would alter the author’s intent. After all, to deny the racism of the past would also inflict harm and be contrary to our goal as keepers of the past. For these reasons, we recommend that instructors using this book have a frank conversation with their students about these issues and caution them to read critically and with great care. You might also invite them to weigh the merits of our editorial solution and come up with other alternatives for how they might have handled this dilemma.

Not only do the documents themselves represent a multiplicity of past perspectives and experiences, the interpretive apparatus designed to help readers appreciate their significance represents an unusual degree of intellectual diversity. Nineteen different historians contributed editorial content to these volumes, writing the headnotes that introduce the documents and the discussion questions designed to help students and other readers grapple with the particular historical issues involved. As professional historians, the contributors represent a wide range of chronological, thematic, and geographical concentrations. They range from specialists in different American regional histories to scholars of the history of religion or warfare or food, to specialists in the history of gender and sexuality or of race and ethnicity. They exhibit a similarly broad range of methodological approaches, variously centering their historical work on, for example, the questions central to military, environmental, or medical history. Some foreground the methods of the political historian interested in the pasts encoded in official governmental records. Others are most influenced by the social historian, who is most interested in capturing the experiences of everyday people or the dynamics of social movements, or by the cultural historian, who is focused on locating the meanings of rituals, artifacts, ephemera, and other forms of expression, none of which were intended to constitute a formal historical archive. The varied, often layered, interpretive approaches of the contributors to this volume combine to deliver an unusually complex and rich portrait of the American past, while also offering readers glimpses of the many dimensions of the historian’s craft.

Interpreting the Past with Primary Sources

This collection of documents contains a diverse selection of primary sources, including excerpts from letters, diaries, memoirs, legal codes, maps, newspapers, poetry collections, speeches, novels, song lyrics, government documents, and much more. A primary source is a firsthand account of a historical event, usually produced during the period under study, by people or groups who participated in or witnessed the events or topics under consideration. Historians rely on a variety of primary sources to interpret the past. Primary sources remind us that the historian’s craft is not simply designed to recite interesting or important events that occurred in the past. Rather, the aim of the historian is to find meaning in the past to help us make sense of the present and to chart a better future. Primary sources make achieving this goal possible.

When engaging with primary sources, it is important that students of history read them with a critical eye to analyze the content, extract its meaning, and determine any insight it may reveal about the historical period under study. To critically analyze a primary source, students should ask the following questions about each document they encounter:

1. Who is the author? Who produced the source?

2. When was the source produced?

3. Who was the intended audience for the source? What group or groups of people was the author trying to reach with the source?

4. What was the purpose of the source? What messages did the author wish to convey to the intended audience?

5. What was the historical context in which the source was produced? What important events related to the source were occurring during the time the source was produced?

6. What is the historical significance of the source? What insights does the source reveal about the period during which it was produced? What can be learned about this historical era by analyzing this source?

As students engage with primary sources, it is important that they remember that there is not just one valid way to answer historical questions. Historians critically analyze multiple primary sources to make claims about the complex meanings of the past, and they often disagree about how to interpret their sources. In their ongoing debates about the past, historians rely on primary sources as evidence to support their arguments. These disagreements help to keep the discipline of history vibrant and exciting, as historians discover new primary sources and new ways to interpret familiar ones.

Primary sources are the bedrock on which historical interpretation rests, and they serve as an important entry point for students to learn about the value of studying history. By engaging directly with primary sources, students get the opportunity to practice their analytical skills, amass evidence, develop their own interpretations, construct arguments, and engage in the work of professional historians. Along the way, students develop the ability to think historically, a skill that will prove invaluable in meeting the challenges of our modern world.

Containing Multitudes

15

Reconstruction

In the bloody aftermath of the Union’s defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, the United States began the arduous process of rebuilding the nation. The decade that followed, known as Reconstruction, again pitted the North against the South in a postwar struggle that revolved around three major questions.

First, what was to be done with the ex-Confederates? Every Southerner who had supported the war against the United States (which included Confederate soldiers but also anyone who had supported the Confederate military or worked for the Confederate government, all the way down to postal clerks) had committed treason as defined by the US Constitution. Were they to be punished for waging war against the United States? Were they ever to regain the citizenship of the United States they had renounced in 1861?

Second, what was to be done with the eleven Southern states that had seceded? These states had broken up the United States and waged war against it. If they were brought back into the Union, would they regain their full political representation and power? Would ex-Confederates be allowed to lead and represent these newly reunited states in the US Congress?

Third, and most pressing, what would become of the newly emancipated freedpeople? The most important outcome of the Civil War—the end of legalized slavery in the United States—meant that four million men, women, and children could no longer be held as the property of another person. But in 1865 their fate remained entirely unclear. Would they become full US citizens, or would they perhaps hold some secondary status within the nation?

Northerners and Southerners held vastly different perspectives on how those questions should be answered. Andrew Johnson, a Southerner who became president following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, moved quickly to restore both ex-Confederates and rebellious states to their prewar status with as little changed as possible. Johnson also made no effort to intervene when ex-Confederates began passing laws that denied basic citizenship rights to their former slaves.

Northerners responded with outrage, and the US Congress, in turn, wrested control of Reconstruction away from President Johnson. Congress passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, which, among other things, defined the freedpeople as citizens of the United States and prescribed penalties to states that attempted to keep African Americans from voting.

At the same time, newly freed African Americans worked to reunite their families, sought education for their children, and built their communities. They also began casting ballots and elected African Americans to state legislatures and the US Congress, although they often did so in the shadow of violent efforts by ex-Confederates to prevent Black Americans from voting or exercising the rights of citizenship.

By the mid-1870s, ex-Confederates managed to regain political power in most of the Southern states. When they did so, these former rebels usually rewrote their state constitutions in ways meant to undermine the legal protections promised African Americans—and all citizens—by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. As a result, Reconstruction ended with Southern states laying the groundwork for the practices of disfranchisement and segregation that would define the South during the late 1800s through the mid-twentieth century.

Discussion Questions

1. What do the descriptions by Jourdan Anderson (Document 15.1), Laura Spicer (Document 15.2), and Elizabeth Hyde Botume (Document 15.3) tell us about what African Americans experienced in the aftermath of slavery?

2. What do the letter by Jourdan Anderson (Document 15.1) and the Depiction of Freedmen’s Bureau School (Document 15.8) tell us about what education meant to newly emancipated African Americans?

3. Why do you think the members of the Ku Klux Klan felt so deeply threatened by Rev. Elias Hill (Document 15.4)? How would you have reacted if you were Rev. Elias Hill?

4. What does Annabella Hill (Document 15.5) believe that cooking can do for white Southern women in the aftermath of the Civil War? Why do you think this is important to her?

5. Compare the different ways that artists chose to portray President Andrew Johnson in Documents 15.6 and 15.7. What was emphasized differently in each? Why do you think that each artist presented such a different vision of Johnson?

Document 15.1: Jourdan Anderson, a Formerly Enslaved Person from Tennessee, Declines His Former Master’s Invitation to Return to His Plantation

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

---

To: My Old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

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. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

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 (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, The 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 was, 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.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free-papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. 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 $25 a month for me, and $2 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. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. 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.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

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 a Freedman to His Old Master, Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Daily Tribune, August 22, 1865, 7, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030213/1865-08-22/ed-1/seq-7.

Document 15.2: Laura Spicer and Her Husband Cope with the Aftermath of Family Separation during Slavery

I don’t know whether I have told you Laura Spicer’s story. She was sold from her husband some years ago, and he, hearing she was dead, married again. He has had a wavering inclination to again unite his fortunes with hers; and she has received a letter from him in which he said, I read you letters over and over again. I keep them always in my pocket. If you are married I don’t ever want to see you again. And yet, in some of his letters, he says, I would much rather you would get married to some good man, for every time I gits a letter from you it tears me all to pieces. The reason why I have not written you before, in a long time, is because your letters disturbed me so very much. You know I love my children. I treats them good as a Father can treat his children; and I do a good deal of it for you. I was sorry to hear that Lewellyn, my poor little son, have had such bad health. I would come and see you, but I know you could not bear it. I want to see you and I don’t want to see you. I love you just as well as I did the last day I saw you, and it will not do for you and I to meet. I am married, and my wife have two children, and if you and I meets it would make a very dissatisfied family.

Some of the children are with the mother and the father writes, Send me some of the children’s hair in a separate paper with their names on the paper. Will you please git married, as long as I am married. My dear, you know the Lord know both of our hearts. You know it never was our wishes to be separated from each other, and it never was our fault. Oh, I can see you so plain, at anytime, I had rather anything to have happened to me most than ever have been parted from you and the children. As I am, I do not know which I love best, you or Anna. If I was to die, today or tomorrow, I do not think I would die satisfied till you tell me you will try and marry some good, smart man that will take good care of you and the children; and do it because you love me; and not because I think more of the wife I have got than I do of you. The woman is not born that feels as near to me as you do. You feel this day like myself. Tell them [the children] they must remember they have a good father and one that cares for them and one that thinks about them every day.—My heart did ache when reading you very kind and interesting letter. Laura I do not think that I have change any at all since I saw you last—I thinks of you and my children every day of my life. Laura I do love you the same. My love to you never have failed. Laura, truly, I have go another wife, and I am very sorry, that I am. You feels and seems to me as much like my dear loving wife, as you ever did Laura.

Source: Lucy Chase, undated letter (1869), Chase Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, https://www.americanantiquarian.org/Freedmen/Manuscripts/Chase/1869.html.

Document 15.3: Elizabeth Hyde Botume Describes the Trauma of Family Separation during Slavery

These people had a marvelous way of tracing out the missing members of their families, and inflexible perseverance in hunting them up.

Where is Martin’s wife? I asked.

Don’t you know, ma’am? She is Jane Ferguson.

Why, Sarah! Jane has taken another husband! I exclaimed.

She looked earnestly at me.

Never mind, ma’am. Jane b’longs to Martin, an’ She’ll go back to him. Martin been a sickly boy, an’ de secesh treat him too bad, an’ we never ‘specs him to lib t’rough all.

Just then Jane came in.

Bless de Lord, gal! said Sarah. Martin is alive an’ coming back to we.

What will you do now, Jane? I asked. You Have got another husband.

She drew herself up, and said deliberately,—

Martin Barnwell is my husband, madam, I am got no husband but he. W’en de secesh sell him off we nebber ‘spect to see each odder more. He said, ‘Jane take good care of our boy, an’ w’en we git to hebben us will lib togedder to nebber part no more.’ You see, ma’am, w’en I come here I had no one to help me.

That’s so, chimed in the mother. I tell you, Missis, it been a hard fight for we.

So Ferguson come. continued Jane, "an’ axed me to be his wird. I told him I never ’spects Martin could come back, but if he did he would be my husband above all others. An’ Ferguson said, ‘That’s right, Jane;’ so he cannot say nothing, ma’am."

"But supposing he does say something, and is not willing to give you up, Jane?"

"Martin is my husband, ma’am, an’ the father of my child; and Ferguson is a man. He will not complain. And we had un understanding, too, about it. And now, please, ma’am, to write a letter for me to Ferguson,—he was with the Thirty Fourth Regiment. I want to treat the poor boy well."

I wrote the letter for word as she dictated. It was clear and tender, but decided. Ferguson was not quite so ready to give her up as she expected.

He wrote,—

"Martin has not seen you for a long time. He cannot think of you as I do. O Jane! do not go to Charleston. Come to