- Aug 2017
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historymatters.gmu.edu historymatters.gmu.edu
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Lydia Maria Child
Hmm, interesting. I know that Lydia Maria Child was a pretty famous abolitionist and writer. I wonder how her editing of this book had to do with the selection of a letter like this one? Where do you think she got the letter?
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You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine
What is he referring to here do you think? Who are Matilda and Catherine?
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ive 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 eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars.
Wow, I'm beginning to think I was misreading this letter! This is clearly a shift in tone and Jourdon Anderson is obviously trying to get his former "master" to understand and respond to the injustice of having held him as a slave.
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the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson
I guess I'm thinking a lot about this theme of respect and how people are addressed, but this just seemed really important to me. He's really emphasizing that he and his wife are better off, not only economically, but in terms of how they're treated by people around them.
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My Old Master,
Interesting that he addresses him as "My Old Master" even before his title. Why is that? I wonder if it's a way of his ingratiating himself so he can ask for a job? Or maybe it's reflective of the continuing power dynamics in the South: this is pretty soon after Emancipation and the South is still pretty dangerous for African Americans. This kind of supplication might have been necessary. What do other people think?
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