President Lincoln,
I am writing this letter to tell you about the wickedness of slavery and the way slavery affects us. Our life is spent on the plantation growing tobacco, planting and picking cotton. Some of us don't know any better, so we are used to it.
Our homes are like little dog houses. We do the best we can with the food they give us, and that is the parts of the animals they don't even give their dogs. They throw it at us and laugh after us. It is shameful how they treat us. If we are lucky, sometimes they will give us vegetables. Even their dogs they treat better.
There is talk around massa Jefferson plantation that we will soon be free. We will be happy if that is true, but massa Jefferson says that is not going to happen because we are his property, and hell will freeze over before he let us go.
Massa had his way with my sister, and just yesterday, she had a baby boy. She is crying because she knows massa will sell her baby to the highest bidder. I was lucky that I was not sold away from my mother. I saw the devil take advantage of her body. Over and over, she was whipped just because she fought them to save her dignity.
I was forced to watch in horror and held back from attacking the devil who was so cruel to my mother. I am only fourteen years old, but one day, I rushed to cover her nakedness and was beaten blue of a different hue. I screamed like a young barrel owl till I fainted, but nobody helped me. They were afraid to get whipped too.
President Lincoln, the whippings are brutal. It is savage and only savages would do what those folks did to my mother and sister. Mr. President, I'm begging you, I say please end this nightmare. Slavery is horrible, horrible, but it is our reality. So Mr. President, go ahead and sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
Johnathan Jefferson.
17 окт 2024
