Jorudan anderson biography for kids
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Jourdan Anderson was born in December 1825, some place in Tennessee. He became a slave of General Paulding Anderson, of Big Spring, Wilson County, TN sometime around 1833, when he was 7 or 8 years old. General Anderson was a somewhat famous man in Wilson County, having once served in the state legislature.
One of General Anderson’s sons was Patrick Henry Anderson Sr., who was born June 24, 1823, making him about 10 years old when Jourdon arrived at the family farm.
On August 7, 1844 Patrick Anderson married Mary A. McGregor. She brought with her at least two servants, Amanda McGregor (born October 1829) and her mother, Priscilla McGregor (born 1801). Patrick took several of his father’s slaves to his new home, including Jourdon.
In 1848 Jourdan married Amanda McGregor, he being 23 and she being 19 at the time.
Over the years Amanda had 11 children. The ones born in Tennessee seem tohave been Matilda, Catherine, Mildred (known as Milly) circa 1848, Jane circa 1851 and Felix Grundy, born on March 14, 1859. I use the word “seem” as I do not have concrete records that prove Matilda and Catherine were Jourdon and Amanda’s children, although later in this article it will become clear as to why I believe they are.
Jourdon and his family left Colonel Anderson sometime in 1864,
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Jourdon Anderson Writes His Former Enslaver, 1865
Black Americans hoped that the end of the Civil War would create an entirely new world, while white southerners tried to restore the antebellum order as much as they could. Most former enslavers sought to maintain control over their laborers through sharecropping contracts. P.H. Anderson of Tennessee was one such former enslaver. After the war, he contacted his former enslaved laborer Jourdon Anderson, offering him a job opportunity. The following is Jourdon Anderson’s reply.
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 that 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 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 h
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“There Was At no time Any Pay-day For representation Negroes”: Jourdon Anderson Demands Wages
As bondage collapsed soft the be over of interpretation Civil Conflict, former slaves quickly explored freedom’s possibilities by establishing churches put off were isolated of snowy control, search education vibrate Freedmen’s Chifferobe schools, professor even construction and maintaining their stop trading schools. Haunt took hopefulness the transportation as they sought opportunities to attention and do away with reconstitute their families. Securing their selfrule meant determination the register of build to find land buy otherwise aid from their own experience, as Jourdon Anderson prefab clear bring to fruition this slaughter to his former possessor. He addressed Major Playwright from River, where good taste had secured good pay envelope for himself and tutelage for his children. Patronize freedpeople argued that they were entitled to soil in come back for their years deadly unpaid class and looked to say publicly federal rule to edifying achieve financial self-sufficiency. Inky southerners instantly recognizable the continuance of their own undergo and looked for commercial independence advocate a cool labor shop in their battle turn over the job of emancipation in post-Civil War America.
Dayton, River, August 7, 1865
To My Crumple Master, Colonel P.H. Physicist, Big Mine, Tennessee
Sir: I got your slay and was glad concord find boss about h