Requests from Ex-slaves for Pensions from Ex-slaveowners, 1870s

What happened to the strange relationships between slaves and those who claimed to own them -- after their emancipation by the 13th Amendment? Evidence from the William Preston family papers shows several intriguing aspects:
  1. that many African-Americans freed finally by Federal law in Kentucky (one of the last states to have legal slavery) left for the old Northwest territory (the first area in which American slavery was banned) to try to make it on their own;
  2. that it was difficult not to appeal to their wealthy former owners when in the final throes of need;
  3. that when they did make an appeal for help, it was made with a sense of dignity -- the words were crafted as from one human being to another -- not begging, not grovelling. The letters I have found seem to intimate an assuredness that the reader would feel the bond at that moment just as surely as he had caused the bond to be felt by the writer during slavery times.
I put these letters on the same page since they come from related sources, however, at the bottom I have presented to you some hotlinks to other letters found earlier in my research.

Charlestown Ind DC 10th 1870

Mr Preston Dear Sir

I am at liberty to pen you few lines although confine to my bed I am very much in misery and have been for four weeks unable to move from my bed I am now helpless and in need for necessary comforts of life I appeal to your sympathy and humanity to help me in my sickness for I am really in need No more to say

yours Truly friend Joseph Smith

Direction Charlestown Indiana Clark County

Do my brother help me if you can possibly do it for I am want for the necessary comfort of life
Joseph Smith

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Charlestown Ind DC 10th 1870

Mrs Susan Heavens [Hepburn -- this is William Preston's sister]

Dear friend I am now very sick with pain in my breast confine to my bed I have been this way for four weeks or more I am very much in misery in my breast I have hope to get better some day. My whole body is sore I want you to write to your brother and tell him to help me in my sickness I am in want I am in need I am unable to do anything for myself. I tell you now I am in need I have no desire to go to the poor house if I cant help it I want the friends to help me if possible My old wife do all she can for want she could not stand much please write to William Preston and tell him that I am sick unable to move and I want is help

No more I remain
Your friend
Joseph Smith

Direct your Charleston Ind

My love to Mrs Preston

***********
[flowery penmanship]

Charlestown, Dec 29 1870

Dear Old Master.

Your kind and welcome letter of the 19th reached me, with enclosure of Ten dollars. Please accept my warmest gratitude for your remembrance of and sympathy with your old servant in his illness and need. I do not think I shall ever get well. The money you speak of as having been sent by Miss Susan was not received. The letter to Nelly was handed to her. She will write you about the horse.

Yours aff.
Jos Smith.

***********

Charlestown Ind Decemb 15 1870

Mr William preston i tak my pen in hand as a frind to inform you of my Distreses at this time i have Bin so importunate as to lose my pore old horse from a dredful fall i take this privilag of asking you plese to send me a horse if you hav it to Spare i have got my Winters would together and i can not get it in Without paying 3 dollars a day if you Will rite me Word an i Will send Sam down to get it remember me to Mis margret and all the children tell hir She has forgotton me i never shal forget you

Nothing
more
Het present
But still
remain yours
humbell
Sirvent
Mis
Nelly Williams

give my love to gren and tell him to come aper and see me

Wickliffe-Preston Family Papers, Box 59, University of Kentucky Special Collections and Archives

***********

June the 8 85
Olympia Ky

Mr W.P. Preston
my oner who once wer

I realy stand in nead I am not well nor my family is not well I hav bin warking on the Oar bank* I have a rising on my hand now my wife has bin sick for about three months as last year was a bad seson I did not rais enoug to do me more than half the wintter if I had a cow I could do some better. their is no work on this side of the creek to do closer than the Oar bank so tha my children cannot assist me any and I would thank yo verry kindly for a little of yor assistence if you please sir your servent

Sam Giles

I would not bother yo if I did not realy stand in nead.

Respectfully yours
Sam Giles

* Giles had been given some farming land in Bath County after the 1870s when another former slave, Peter Thompson, had been killed by the Ku Klux Klan for living (like Sam Giles was) as a tenant at the Preston's Fayette County farm, Ellerslie. Giles was obviously not able to make it as a farmer - the land was probably already no good - and had to become a wage laborer at the Preston mines near Olympia. Preston had leased from his sister-in-law, Mary Howard Wickliffe Preston, 300 acres of her Bath County farm called "Maryland" for 30 years. He was organizer of the Wickliffe Mining Co. and was working on building a mining village called West Olympia. Any information on this village would be greatly appreciated. Please BACK TO MAIN MENU

Other letters from ex-slaves to William Preston:

Posted October 20, 1997; revised Feb. 2, 1998
email: dolph@pop.uky.edu
http://www.bluegrass.kctcs.edu/LCC/HIS/scraps/joe.html