Anderson Slavery Documents 2 Libretto

Selected Text from T.J. Anderson Slavery Documents 2
(words by Loren Schweninger, source: The Southern Debate Over Slavery Vol. 1. 1778-1864, Negro Spirituals)

John Winston, a free man of color, requests a law permitting him to reside in the State with his family. He would also like to forfeit his freedom for domestic happiness and the most ardent and tender love he feels for his wife and his two children.

Oscar Taliaferro, a man of color, requests four hundred dollars. This amount was lent his master before he was sold to the South and Separated from his wife, a slave in Richmond.

Free people of color living in the state of Virginia, some descendents of soldiers of the Revolution, seek relief in general from the growing evils and dangers.

Any slave or colored free person living with a white person should be subjected to a Five Hundred dollar fine and the informer of such a case should have one half of the fine.

Lucy Andrews. A free person of color and a descendant of a white woman and a slave father cannot enjoy herself as she is now. She therefore prefers slavery to freedom and her present condition. She is now far advanced in life, all her children with the exception of one were sold into other slave states by her master’s decrees. She seeks this body to enact a law authorizing and permitting her to go voluntarily and select her own master.

Petition to the General Assembly. This we have said.

Runaway, Runaway, Runaway

I hired me a black boy named Nathan ten or eleven years old. I took possession of him and was very much pleased. He was obedient, active and intelligent far beyond most boys of his age. In about two weeks he ran away.

I had an iron color made and put a large padlock on it. On the same night he eloped again.

A Negro boy named Joshua ran away from me. On that night my blacksmith shop was burned down between the hours or eleven and twelve.

He returned to my neighborhood and remained concealed until the night. That night my stable was burnt down.

This application to the Supreme Court is to ask for a permit to sell.

We petition the State for the privilege of Shooting and destroying all runaway slave who may Refuse to submit to Said Authority.

The remedy suggested is that authority should be given by law to kill any slave runaways while lying in the woods, swamps, or other secret places.

Runaway, Runaway, Runaway.We know of no remedy and at the same time so little liable to objection as the absolute prohibition of all schools for the instruction of colored persons.

The opinion on reading and writing does not contribute to increase their Comfort and happiness, it may seriously affect the peace and good Order of our Society.

We consider how deeply the welfare of our State is involved in this subject. As domestics, cultivators of the soil and laborers they have always been employed.

Beyond these to anything that requires the exercising of greater intelligence and improvement They should not be allowed to aspire.Who is this great God, whom you and all men are to serve?

Just believe in Jesus, He’s goin to raise up the nations that do obey.

My mother told me to meet her in Galilee.

Sit down and rest a little while,

Jubilee, Jubilee, Oh my Lord what a Jubilee.

Where shall we be when the trumpet sounds.

Why don’t ya steal away, Steal away to Jesus. Steal away home, I ain’t got long to stay here.