What a load of exculpatory bollocks. As if slaves didn’t know they were slaves. Here’s a letter (original here ) from an actual former slave (not a made up person in Sage Rat’s head) to his old master who has recently offered him a position. Jourdon Anderson seems to have a pretty clear idea of what being a slave meant for him and his family and how much better he is out of it. He also has a fine line in stiletto-sharp sarcasm:
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 Colonel 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 that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance…eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars . Add to this the interest for the time our wages have 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…
Jourdon Anderson.
No, but sure - if you’d asked Mr Anderson on a random day how his day was, he would have said “Good”. Of course he would. If it was a day he wasn’t watching Matilda and Catherine being raped, for instance. Or being shot at by his “master”. Or had forgotten that he was being treated like cattle or cheated out of a lifetime’s earnings. “Oh sure,” he’d say. “Today was a good day”.
