Jonathon Brown | Feb 4

The Independent - Sarcastic letter to 19th-century plantation owner becomes an internet sensation

An extraordinary letter written by an emancipated slave to his former owner ridiculing his request for him to return to work on a Tennessee plantation after the Civil War has become an internet sensation.

More than two million people have already read the missive by Jourdon Anderson to "my old master" Colonel Patrick Hennessy Anderson since it appeared on the cult website LettersOfNote.com five days ago and became endlessly repeated on Twitter and Facebook.

It was written in 1865 with the help of a lawyer in Dayton, Ohio. In it, the illiterate former slave suggests he might consider returning south from his new home where he was being paid $25 a month should the Colonel – who twice tried to shoot him – consider reimbursing him and his wife for the three decades they toiled in the fields unpaid.

He points out: "In Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows" and suggests suitable recompense of $11,680 plus interest.

Shaun Usher, who has published historical correspondence on his website since 2009, said the letter had generated record traffic after being picked up by Yahoo to coincide with US Black History Month. He was satisfied the letter was genuine despite its sarcastic tone – it was published in newspapers and books and evidence of both men appears in American census documents.

But what really shines through is the searing intelligence of the former slave – just one of the descendants of 12 million Africans shipped to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries.

"He was certainly intelligent. I don't know how much was put in by the lawyer, but he seems like a refined and courageous man although he had an awful life," said Mr Usher. letter at link