WORDSWORTH McANDREW
GUYANA'S FOREMOST FOLKLORIST

 Guyana’s greatest folklorist is often said to have been most appropriately named. His name: Wordsworth McAndrew connects him with words. And not only was he an excellent conversationalist and writer, but he was a student of words, especially those with cultural significance. 

Everybody called him Mac. But because of his varied activities, he was called other things as well: culturologist, poet, performer, radio broadcaster, among them.

His burning passion was the celebration of the cultural aspects of Guyanese life especially at the level of its varied roots.  He promoted folk things with missionary zeal, and wanted Guyanese to understand, love and accept them as part of their existence.

Wordsworth McAndrew was born on November 22, 1936 and grew up in the Cummingsburg and  Newtown, Kitty areas in Georgetown, Guyana.

His early working life took him to places where words were important, including the Guyana Information Services (GIS), the Guyana Graphic newspaper and The Daily Chronicle newspaper. He also worked as a broadcaster with the Guyana Broadcasting Service (GBS), after training at the BBC in the United Kingdom in 1968.

As far back as anyone can remember, Mac was consumed by folk life. He was widely regarded as an authority and was sought after by those researching folklore and related matters. John Rickford of the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University, reports that he got to know Mac quite well from about 1974 when they did fieldwork together in Guyana at Better Hope and other rural areas, interviewing people about language, folklore, and folk life. This was just one of Mac’s numerous such projects.

Mac gathered information from anywhere, including the street and the rum-shop, and he would spend long hours, especially with rural folk, immersing himself in African, Indian, Amerindian and other folk life.

In a 1970 article he wrote: “In the far interior, Amerindian tribes or tribal groupings still dance their native dances (even if to a European beat these days), along the coast, the que-que, yamapele, cumfa dance, Kali Mai Poojay, Bhagwat, Katha and the like still proliferate, and it is all ritual wherever folk men still exist.”

Mac was also a poet.  When A J Seymour’s A Treasury of Guyanese Poetry, was published in 1980, Mac’s poems Barriat, Blue Gaulding, Legend of the Carrion Crow, Lines to a Cartman, Pushing, Independence and To A Civil Servant were included. Ian McDonald, the litterateur, noted that “a few of his poems will always find a place in any Guyanese or West Indian anthology of poems.” 

Mac’s poem "Ole Higue," has long been a favorite.  Not only did he himself perform it on stage at theTheatre Guild in Georgetown and elsewhere, but it was a favorite of other performers such as Francis Quamina Farrier and Marc Matthews.

Although Mac was more than competent in Standard English, his radio programs were done, to the dismay of some, in creolese.  While he was dealing with Congo music and describing the settings for songs, the drums etc or while he was describing playing taw, for example, he was using creolese.

Mac contributed significantly to the "Festival of Guyanese Words" conference in Georgetown, featuring research presentations by students and faculty of the University of Guyana and the general involvement of just about anyone of any walk of life who could contribute.

In 1970, an important publication “Co-operative Republic Guyana 1970 – A Study of Aspects of our Way of Life” featured a chapter by McAndrew titled “Guyana – A Cultural Look.”

Mac also published a small folklore magazine called Ooiy! Naturally, the magazine dealt with various subjects, but among the most memorable was the issue in which he documented his famous 40 stages of Guyanese "typee" - love, Guyanese-style.

After Mac emigrated to the United States, admirers encouraged him to publish once more. However, the New York environment was not kind.

In some matters, Mac was puzzlingly unbending. As in Guyana, he insisted on dressing unconventionally. His regular attire was an African daishiki, trousers and rubber slippers or sandals. Nor would he respond to offers to publish the scripts he was believed to have carried around in his ancient knapsack. Businessman and former broadcaster Vic Insanally tried to persuade him to return to Guyana, if that would make it easier for him to do the work he loved - to no avail.

Recognizing Mac’s contributions, the Guyana Folk Festival organization in New York established the Wordsworth McAndrew Awards in 2002. The award honors Guyanese who made outstanding contributions to Guyana's Cultural heritage, many of whom had gone unrecognized over the years.

Vibert Cambridge at the University of Ohio, prominent among the voices insisting that Mac’s work and life be remembered and celebrated, had already researched his life and published an article on him in June 2004 - Wordsworth McAndrew  - A Guyanese National Treasure.

Professor Cambridge and others had been already working on a symposium in Mac’s honor in connection with  Carifesta 2008 in Guyana when Mac died in New Jersey on April 25,  2008.

 Mac had written: “In fact, the march of progress has been so unkind and unyielding in its forward movement that a lot of the ritual tradition of yesterday’s Guyana will be unknown to the citizens of the new Republic.”

This shared concern drives the efforts that are being made to honor his work.

Read his 1970 article: Guyana - A Cultural Look
 

DRINKING JAMAICA
On Sorrel and Hibiscus 

Sorrel drink with its unique, tart, cranberry-like flavor is probably the most popular special events beverage in the Caribbean. For many people in all parts of the Caribbean, Christmas would not be Christmas without sorrel, but it is an established favorite in and out of the season.

 Jamaica has a special claim to sorrel. There, when served chilled and sweet it is called “Jamaica”. Served hot, it is called “hibiscus tea” or “karkade” (pronounced kar-ka-day).  Another name for sorrel is roselle – almost sorrel with its first three letters reversed in order.

 Sorrel is popular not only in the Caribbean. In Mexico, “agua de Jamaica”, as it is called there, is a popular item in restaurants. It is often made from dried sorrel in a packet labeled “flor de Jamaica.” Sorrel is also a growing favorite in Southern California and Central America.

 The beverage is prepared by steeping the fresh or dried calyces of the sorrel flower in boiling water, straining the mixture, pressing out the juice, and adding sugar. It is then served chilled.

Sorrel, Hibiscus sabdariffa, is a member of the hibiscus family. Hibiscus tea is very popular in some parts of the Middle East. In Egypt and Sudan, wedding celebrations are traditionally toasted with a glass of hibiscus tea. In downtown Cairo, vendors do good business selling the drink to native Egyptians and tourists alike.

Back in the Caribbean, a Trinidad and Tobago brewery, creatively produces a sorrel shandy in which the tea is combined with beer.

Sorrel’s pleasant taste and growing reputation for being high in Vitamin C has made it into a pro-health drink these days. It is also believed to be a mild diuretic and to reduce high blood pressure. Sorrel also has anthocyanins - powerful antioxidants that are the subject of research, as it is suspected to have health benefits affecting cancer, aging, neurological diseases, inflammation, diabetes and bacterial infections.

Traditionally, the people of the Caribbean grew hibiscus in their front yards and sorrel on the farm or in their backyards. In the front yard, hummingbirds could be seen sipping nectar from the hibiscus. Notable among these birds is the resplendent Jamaica Hummingbird, or “doctor bird” as Jamaicans call them.

We ourselves can make more use of the hibiscus. After enjoying the delicate beauty of the flower in our gardens, we can use it to make food coloring, syrups, sweet pickles, tart and pie fillings, jellies and jams.

Strange as it may seem to some of us, many are already enjoying double benefit from the hibiscus, and sorrel too, this way. 

PASSION FRUIT
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 

One of the hot favorites among flavors used in refreshing drinks nowadays is passion fruit. And many people from the Caribbean are asking about it - not knowing that passion fruit has been, and still is, very common in the Caribbean. 

Passion fruit comes from a huge family of plants. The fruit has many relatives and a thousand names. In Guyana, the most common name is semitoo (passiflora laurifolia), sometimes yellow granadilla or just granadilla. Others call it water lemon, bell-apple, sweet cup, Jamaica honeysuckle, vinegar pear, even golden apple. 

Passion fruit is readily propagated from seeds or cuttings and grows on a vine. The rind is leathery, thick, white and spongy. Within the rind, the fruit holds a juicy viscous pulp composed of seeds, with the aroma of a pleasant perfume and a somewhat pleasantly sour taste. 

Passion fruit is common in South America and the Caribbean. It is well known and enjoyed in Surinam, Guyana, French Guiana, Venezuela, and down through the Amazon region of Brazil to Peru. Though it is more plentiful in the interior areas of Guyana, in season the fruits are regularly sold in coastland markets. The vine is also cultivated in Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba.

Semitoo or passion fruit is nearly round or ovoid, between 1-1/2 and 3 inches wide. The most popular varieties have a light yellow or pumpkin-color, but some types are closer to purple. Within the fruit is a cavity more or less filled with double walled sacs containing a pulpy juice and as many as 250 small, dark seeds.

One popular way children and adults enjoy passion fruit is to make a hole in one end of the fruit and suck out the pulp and seeds. Some people cut or tear the fruit open, spoon out the pulp, and enjoy its strong, sweet, tart flavor. North Americans generally buy thick concentrated passion fruit, dilute it with water, add sugar, and drink it.

And why is it called passion fruit? The origin of the name has nothing to do with strong amorous feelings. The story goes that a group of priests who encountered the plant used the flower to illustrate Christ' Passion. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, the corona represents the crown of thorns; the styles represent the nails used in the Crucifixion; the stamens represent the five wounds; and the five sepals and five petals represent 10 of the apostles, excluding Judas, who betrayed Jesus, and Peter, who denied him three times on the night of his trial.

THE DEAD SEA

Alive With Strangeness

No other body of water in the world has so many names. Its best known name, first used by Greek writers, is the “Dead Sea.” Among its other names are the “Sea of Lot," the "Sea of Salt," the “Sea of Sodom,” the "Sea of Death", the “Sea of the Devil,” the “Stinking Sea” and the "Eastern Sea.”

Not a sea in the normal sense of the term, it is a large, narrow, salt lake lying between Jordan and Israel.  It is called "dead" because its high salinity means no fish or other sea animals can live in it, though small quantities of bacteria and fungi are present.

At 1371 feet below sea level (year 2006), the Dead Sea is the lowest exposed point on the Earth's surface. It is about 48 miles long, varying in width from 3 to 11 miles.

Its dead qualities arise from the fact that whatever goes into the Dead Sea stays there. The Jordan River is the only major stream flowing into it, but nothing flows out. It receives between 2 and 4 inches of rainfall a year.

The Dead Sea has attracted interest and visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. It was a place of refuge for ancient Israel’s King David, the world's first health resort for Herod the Great, and the supplier of products as diverse as balms for Egyptian mummification and potash for fertilizers.

The mineral content  consists of about 53% magnesium chloride, 37% potassium chloride and 8% sodium chloride (salt). The rest is made up of various trace elements. Because of its unusually high concentration of salt, (about six times as salty as regular ocean water), anyone can easily float in the Dead Sea because the higher density of the water gives it natural buoyancy.

From the Dead Sea brine is manufactured large quantities of  potash,  elemental bromine,  caustic soda, magnesium metal, and sodium chloride.

The water of the Dead Sea has a greasy feel to it. It causes even minor cuts to sting, and is painful to the eyes. However, some tourists apply its mud to their bodies, believing or hoping that the minerals would benefit them in some way.

One of the most unusual properties of the Dead Sea is its discharge of asphalt. The Greeks knew the Dead Sea as "Lake Asphaltites," due to the naturally surfacing asphalt.  The Dead Sea constantly throws up small pebbles of the black substance.  After earthquakes, however, huge chunks may surface.

Just north of the Dead Sea is Jericho, reportedly the oldest continually occupied town in the world. Somewhere, perhaps on the Dead Sea's southeast shore, are the cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis which were destroyed in the times of Abraham: Sodom and Gomorrah and the three other "Cities of the Plain".  The later King David hid from the then King Saul at Ein Gedi nearby.

Jesus, John the Baptist and Herod the Great were associated in history with the Dead Sea and its surroundings in more recent times.

The ancient Nabateans discovered the value of bitumen extracted from the Dead Sea needed by the Egyptians for embalming their mummies.

In Roman times the Essenes settled at Qumran on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. There, they carved out storage caves for their library in the soft marl in the area.  Two thousand years later, their library was found and given the name "the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Although no animals can survive in the water of the Dead Sea, there is a fair amount of animal life on land in the area. Among them are the human species – among other things, enjoying, as tourists today, the unusual feeling of  being kept afloat by the high density of water that would not let them sink. 

THE AMAZING PRINCE RANDIAN OF GUYANA

Exactly how P.T. Barnum, the American showman, learnt that in British Guiana (now Guyana) he could find a person so unusual that hundreds of thousands would pay to see him, we may never know. We do know however that in 1889 he had such a person brought to the United States. 

The young man, born to Hindu parents in 1871with neither arms nor legs, was then eighteen years old. Barnum transported him from the “Demerara district” and right away exhibited him as a “human oddity” or “freak” – a practice common in those days. 

He was named “Prince Randian” and was billed as "The Caterpillar Man”, "The Armless and Legless Wonder”, “The Human Torso” even “The Human Worm” and for 45 years, entertained audiences primarily at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York, but also in other parts of the United States - at circuses, carnivals and museums.  He drew large crowds who watched him perform tasks using only his lips and teeth where one would ordinarily use one’s hands.

He was often introduced as the 'human caterpillar who crawls on his belly like a reptile.' This was because he moved from one place to another by wiggling his shoulders and hips. In his performances he wore a woolen garment of one piece that covered him like a sack. At one end was a busy head. The rest was torso. 

One of his so-called “tricks” was rolling cigarettes, which was really making cigarettes out of raw tobacco leaf and paper. His other activities included writing with a pen or pencil, painting with brushes and shaving with a razor fixed in a wooden block – all done by the skilful use of his lips.

Randian claimed that the box in which he kept his smoking materials and the other paraphernalia for his act had been made by him, using a saw, knife and hammer. He also said he had painted it, holding the brush with his teeth and that it was he who fitted it with a lock.

“Someday,” he used to say, “I’ll build myself a house.”

 Randian also became an actor. When Tod Browning made his famous movie "Freaks" in 1932, Prince Randion was featured rolling a cigarette.

Prince Randian spoke English, German and French. He also raised a family. The “Prince” had a wife, “Princess Sarah,” four sons and a daughter. Their home was at 174 Water Street, Patterson, New Jersey.

He died at the age of 63, shortly after a performance at Sam Wagner’s 14^th Street Museum in New York City on December 19, 1934. The newspapers of the day, calling him Randian, or Randion, or Radion, or Radian took note of his passing.

A picture of Prince Randian

CHOLERA EPIDEMIC IN THE CARIBBEAN
AN UGLY, AWFUL TIME

Way back in the 1850s, there was serious outbreak of cholera in the Caribbean which decimated many populations. It was frightening especially because very little was known about how to deal with this ugly and fatal disease.

Cholera is described as an acute, diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Severe infection results in profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps. The rapid loss of body fluids leads to dehydration and shock. Without treatment the patient dies within hours.

Cholera is typically caused by drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food.  In an epidemic, the source of the contamination is usually the feces of an infected person. The disease can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water.

In 1851 cholera swept the island of Jamaica and more than 40,000 people died. The burial registers there contain entries stating that the bodies of unidentified persons were buried in great haste - 25, 75 or more at a time, sometimes in the dead of night. The intention was to stop the spread of the disease.

It seems that the disease traveled from Jamaica to Barbados on the ship "Derwent" and by 14th May 1854 the first report of a Cholera epidemic came from Barbados. Within a few weeks the disease had raced throughout the entire population and by early June the death toll was already 745.

 Inter-island trading was affected. Traffic between Barbados and other islands dried up. In spite of this, by July cholera moved on and appeared in Saint Lucia. Although Castries saw a great number of cases of cholera, most were treated successfully. However, in Soufriére as many as 50 died of the disease. Vieux-Fort was hit the hardest. About one-sixth of the inhabitants died from the disease and many fled from the area. Among them was a doctor.

In St Kitts 3920 people died.  The need for burial plots created a crisis, which the Government dealt with by buying land at Springfield for use as a Cemetery for the Parish of St. George. In 1858, the government passed legislation prohibiting burials anywhere else in Basseterre than at the Springfield Cemetery.

The disease struck Trinidad and not only brought death to the island, but when on June 10, 1854, cholera appeared among Artillerymen at Fort George in Grenada, the source was known to be Trinidad, through men recently arrived from that island. The disease then spread to the general population. A cholera hospital was set up in the barracks buildings behind the fort, and became the beginning of today’s Grenada General Hospital.

Guyana was only relatively lightly affected. However, Rev. W.H. Brett, a Missionary in British Guiana, recorded in his diary that cholera had turned up at the Mission at Cabacaburi in the interior in February1857.

The first case was that of an Amerindian boy who fell ill with the disease in a corial (dugout canoe) on the river. He was so weak he could not climb the hill get home, and got into the corial and paddled himself to his settlement. Two men went to assist him but they fled in terror of the disease, having never seen anything like it before. Eventually the boy was brought to land but he died in a few hours.

 The next day, Sunday, after Divine Service, cholera attacked the church congregation at the settlement. The wife of a man who helped move the boy became ill and died in a few hours. Two other young people from the same house succumbed. Panic spread, and many Amerindians fled from the Mission leaving about 25 who remained to attend the sick.

Cholera did not begin in the Caribbean. The first pandemic of the disease which ran from 1816-1826, began in Bengal, spread across India by 1820, then moved into China and reached the Caspian Sea. The second pandemic1829-1851 reached Europe, Canada, New York and the Pacific coast of North America by 1834.

It was during the epidemic in Jamaica that Mary Seacole started the work that culminated in the worldwide recognition of her achievements as a nurse. She gained invaluable experience and learnt much from a doctor who was one of her lodgers at that time.

Curiously, an unusual number of marriages took place during that time. At Castries, for a period of twelve months, the number of marriages increased five-fold. The reason? It is reported that cholera “had put the "Fear of the Lord" into people and that many irregular unions were regularized by the Church.”

FLYING FISH EGGS THE NEW CAVIAR

Fish eggs have been very popular as a food. Perhaps the best known of them is caviar. Caviar is a delicacy, much spoken of, if not as much eaten, because of its great cost. However, that’s changing in a way.

Most traditional caviar comes from three types of sturgeon fish: beluga, ossetra, and sevruga. However, because it is so expensive, eggs from other species such as flying fish, paddlefish and salmon have become popular as well, especially because they also taste good. Flying fish eggs have earned the name Golden Caviar and are much sought after today. They have become a staple at sushi and other restaurants.

Flying fish lay eggs on drifting pieces of wood or grass in the sea. When the flying fish season comes in some parts of the world, fishermen traditionally lay straw mats on the water. When they retrieve them later, thousands of yellow fish eggs would be found on the mats. These are then prepared and eaten.

Flying fish eggs have had great impact on the economy in the Mandar Province in Indonesia. The Mandarese depended for centuries upon successful exploitation of the products of the sea. Important among them was catching flying fish Flying Fish (Cypselurus spp.)

There, during the East Mon-soon, flying fish once traveled in dense "flocks" or swarm like sparrows and bees. They would come gliding and skimming over the surface of the straits like silver missiles. The traditional way of capturing Flying Fish was based on buaro traps. Buaro traps are barrel-shaped baskets made with bamboo tied together with twine and covered over with tresses of vegetable material. They are so constructed that when flying fish dart into them they cannot exit.

Mandarese fishermen made a good living catching flying fish. They also knew that the schools of flying fish search for floating debris on which to deposit and fertilize their eggs. The buaros, launched and floating on the ocean surface took the place of naturally occurring seaweed and twigs, and the fish would deposit their eggs on them.

So when the buaros are hauled back to the boats, heavy with flying fish, there were also eggs deposited on the tresses and the sides of the traps. These were a nice byproduct of the search for flying fish and were distributed freely among neighbors and villagers.

When however, a Japanese market for flying fish eggs opened up, the eggs became more profitable than the flying fish themselves. Mandarese fishermen focused on maximizing the intake of eggs.

Today, the fishermen now use gill nets with such efficiency that overfishing and intensive collection of flying fish eggs have resulted in a serious reduction of flying fish populations in the area. Scientists are now saying that continued use of devices focused on egg collection are likely to reduce stocks of flying fish below acceptable levels for reproduction.

Sushi chefs, who continue to use them in California rolls - sushi made with rice, avocado and flying fish eggs rolled up in seaweed – will probably find that prices will steadily go up.

Meantime, restaurants are increasingly calling flying fish eggs "caviar." They taste just as good to most people, and can be made to look black, green, brown, yellow or gray like the original caviar.

THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT
A SHAMEFUL EPISODE IN AMERICAN HISTORY

 This is a very ugly and painful story. The saddest thing about it is that it is also true. The story is often titled the "Tuskegee Syphilis Study." 

Starting in 1932, in Macon County, Alabama in and around the county seat of Tuskegee, a terrible experiment was conducted. It involved 600 black men - 399 of whom had syphilis, and 201 who did not have the disease, but were chosen to serve as controls. 

The study was set up by the United States Public Health Service to study "untreated syphilis in the male Negro." Initially, the plan was to compare it to a study of white men and women done in long before in Oslo, Norway, at a time when doctors did not know of any cure for syphilis and other venereal diseases.

All the syphilitic Macon County men were in the late stage of the disease when the study began. There was still no cure. However they were led to believe that they were patients of a federal and local medical program at the Tuskegee Institute and that they were going to be treated for their "bad blood." To them “bad blood” could mean a lot of different things, including syphilis and anemia.

In the fall of 1932, fliers were circulated among church goers. They promised "special treatment" for men with "bad blood." Medical care of any kind was expensive, but this was free and there was no lack of men willing to sign up.

Taliford Clark of the Health Service, said in a report that Macon County was "a natural laboratory; a ready-made situation. The rather low intelligence of the Negro population, depressed economic conditions, and the common promiscuous sex relations not only contribute to the spread of syphilis but the prevailing indifference with regard to treatment."

Reliant as it was on federal money, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington to educate former slaves and their descendants, readily volunteered office space and its hospital for exams and autopsies.

In order to get and maintain their involvement, officials lied to the men, even coerced them whenever they felt it was necessary. According to Herman Shaw, a survivor of the experiment, “We got three different types of medicine. A little round pill--sometime a capsule--sometime a little vial of medicine--everybody got the same thing.”

In answer to questions about why the painful "back shots" (spinal taps) were necessary,  researchers told the men the shots were treatments when in fact they were intended to observe how the disease was affecting the spinal canal and the brain.

 From 1947, penicillin, established as effective in curing syphilis, was available. Centers were set up for people with syphilis to be given the drug, but the doctors withheld it from the men in their study. The medical staff examined the men as they provided them with a number of placebos, tonics and aspirins.

A black nurse named Eunice Rivers, helped with transportation to the clinic, free meals, and free burials. And when one man, Herman Shaw, went to Birmingham to get a penicillin shot, she followed him to ensure that he did not get it. Shaw said they gave him breakfast and put him on the bus and sent him back to Tuskegee. He was told, “You ain't supposed to be there--you're a Macon County patient.”

Many of the men suffered neurological complications, mental dysfunction and blindness. In the end, many died without ever being given penicillin. As they observed the manner in which syphilis ravaged the subjects’ organs and tissues, the authorities got the men or their families to agree to allow autopsies while they provided burial insurance to encourage cooperation.

It may seem strange to us today that the researchers involved saw nothing wrong with what was going on. They had the support of the United States Surgeon General and defended what they did in the name of science. Meantime, fifteen reports on the study were published in medical science journals of good standing such as the Journal of Venereal Disease Information to the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The painful deception was still continuing in 1972 when, in late July that year, Jean Heller of the Associated Press broke the story. The ugly goings-on were leaked to AP by Peter Buxtun, a former Health Service employee. The AP story mentioned "serious doubts about the morality of the study."

In 1974, while 120 of the men were still alive, the federal government settled with affected men their families out of court. The settlement included payments to wives and also children that contracted congenital syphilis during delivery.

In 1997, twenty-five years later, President Bill Clinton finally tendered the government's apology to the eight survivors living at that time, to their families, and to African Americans generally. He also promised funds for a bioethics center at Tuskegee University.

 President Clinton said, “The United States Government did something that was wrong, deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. We can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people what the United States Government did was shameful, and I am sorry.”

TIME TO PAY

About the reply of a former slave to a letter from his former master offering him employment.

One of the important documents available today is a touching letter from a former slave of the American South to his master who wanted him to return. The former master was offering better conditions of work.

The letter is remarkable for its dignity and its lack of bitterness. It is clear however that the writer was clearly not about to be lured into a situation that resembled the one from which he was now free.

The slave was Jourdon Anderson. He had escaped from his master in Tennessee at the close of the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln had already issued his emancipation proclamation, which declared free the more than three million slaves living in confederate states still “in rebellion.”
 

Free slaves were now reorganizing their lives based on the new realities. Jourdan Anderson, now in Ohio, had secured good wages for himself and schooling for his children.

Many former slave masters, themselves adjusting to new realities, found it difficult to live in their accustomed fashion without servants. Jourdon Anderson’s former owner, Major Anderson, had written his former slave requesting that he return to work for him.

Jourdan’s reply was committed to paper by Lydia Maria Child, a white abolitionist woman, who was inspired by a strong sense of justice and love of freedom. The letter went:

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, “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 Col. Anderson. Many darkies 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.

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 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. 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.

P.S. —Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson  

This letter, composed in 1865 and published in “The Freedmen’s Book”, a collection of African-American writings compiled by Lydia Child, tells its own story. 

It is most unlikely that Jourdan Anderson returned to work for his former master.  

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