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Letter from slave to former owner. - 2/5/2012 8:19:15 PM

Iamsemisweet

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This letter is amazing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/in-recently-discovered-le_n_1247288.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

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Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Alice: How do you know I'm mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.

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RE: Letter from slave to former owner. - 2/5/2012 9:15:05 PM

Missokyst

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I particularly loved the part where he mentions being shot twice. And the salary thing.. priceless!

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pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding ~Gibran, Kahlil

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― Bob Marley

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RE: Letter from slave to former owner. - 2/5/2012 10:24:50 PM

Aylee

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Unless someone has updated the spelling and grammar, I just do not believe that this is a real letter.

It is cute though.

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RE: Letter from slave to former owner. - 2/6/2012 7:03:42 AM

sunshinemiss

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I couldn't find it on Snopes, so I sent them a request to research it. :) Love me some Snopes.

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RE: Letter from slave to former owner. - 2/6/2012 7:56:39 AM

Iamsemisweet

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Well, the article discusses that records exist naming some of the people in the letter, particularly the slave owner. It also mentions that the barrister mentioned in the letter was a real person in the area, as was the former slave and his children, one of whom was literate. Beyond that, who can ever know? If it is a hoax, it is an old one, since the letter was originally published in the NY Tribune in 1865.

< Message edited by Iamsemisweet -- 2/6/2012 8:01:15 AM >

_____________________________

Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Alice: How do you know I'm mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.

(in reply to sunshinemiss)

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RE: Letter from slave to former owner. - 2/6/2012 8:04:21 AM

kalikshama

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But the letter could have been written by his 19-year-old daughter, Jane, who was listed as literate in 1870.

"The letter probably reflected his sentiments," Johnson said, who added that Anderson lived in a neighborhood surrounded by working-class white neighbors who were literate, according to the census. It is also possible one of them may have written the letter for him, Johnson said.

But the person who most likely wrote the dictated letter is another person listed in Anderson's letter.

In the letter Anderson refers to a V. Winters. According to Johnson a person by the name of Valentine Winters, a "barrister" in Dayton's 3rd ward who claimed property worth $697,000, also appears in the 1870 federal census.

"He may well have been the person who actually wrote the letter since he is the person Jourdan Anderson asks his former master to send his wages to," Johnson said.

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