“It’s Heritage Not Hate!” by Kevin

Nah, it was pretty much always hate:

Jourdan Anderson
Annotation Jourdon Anderson, an ex- Tennessee slave, declines his former master’s invitation to return as a laborer on his plantation.
Year 1865
Text 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.

… I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. 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.

… 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.

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

It was treason in defense of slavery, for God’s sake. It’s hard to hate a man more than you must hate him to make him a slave.

Link — and do go read the whole letter — via Justine Larbalestier