What is not said in the source?
As you read
Sometimes what isn’t said in a source can be as interesting as what is said. Ask yourself, what did I expect to have seen here that I didn’t see? For example, it would seem odd to find a letter written the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor that didn’t mention that event — you might wonder, “Why didn’t this person write about the Pearl Harbor attack? Did she not know about it? Was it not important to her or to her audience? Was it so much on everyone’s mind that she didn’t feel a need to write about it?” You may have no good answers to these questions, but thinking about what seems missing can help you imagine the writer’s frame of mind and motivations a bit more clearly.
Reading the hints
Passages that will help you answer these questions are highlighted. Move your mouse over these passages to learn more.
Abner Jordan, interviewed by Daisy Whaley at his home in Durham County, North Carolina, WPA Slave Narrative Project, North Carolina Narratives, Volume 11 Part 2, Federal Writers’ Project, United States Work Projects Administration (USWPA); Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Accessed via Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938, American Memory, Library of Congress.
Abner Jordan
Ex-slave, 95 years.
“I wus bawn about 1832 an’ I wus bawn at Staggsville, Marse paul Cameron’s place. I belonged to Marse Paul. My pappy’s name wus Obed an’ my mammy wus Ella Jordan an’ dey wus thirteen chillun on our family.
I wus de same age of Young Marse Benehan, I played wid him an’ wus his body guard. Yes, suh, Where ever young Marse Benehan went I went too. I waited on him. Young Mrse Benny run away an’ ‘listed in de war, but Marse Paul done went an’ brung him back kaze he wus too young to go and fight de Yankees.
Marse Paul had heap if niggahs; he had five thousan’. When he meet dem in de road he wouldn’ know dem an’ when he ased dem who dey wus an’ who dey belonged to, dey’ tell him dey belonged to Marse Paul Cameron an’ den he would say dat wus all right for dem to go right on.
My pappy wus de blacksmith an’ foreman for Marse Paul, an’ he blew de horn for de other niggahs to come in from de fiel’ at night. Dey couldn’ leave de plantation without Marse say dey could.
When de war come de Yankees come to de house an’ axed my mammy whare de folks done hid de silver an’ gol’, an’ dey say dey gwine to kill mammy if she didn’ tell dem. But mammy say she didn’ know whare dey put it, an’ dey would jus’ have to kill her for she didn’ know an’ wouldn’ lie to keep dem from hurting her.
De sojers stole seven or eight of de ho’ses an’ foun’ de meat an’ stole dat, but dey didn’ burn none off de buildin’s nor hurt any of us slaves.
My pappy an’ his family stayed wid Marse Paul five years after de surrender den we moved to Hillsboro an’ I’s always lived ‘roun’ dese parts. I ain’ never been out of North Carolina eighteen months in my life. North Carolina is good enough for me.”
Comments
- I belonged to Marse Paul.
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Mr. Jordan doesn’t ever offer an opinion of Paul Cameron.
- But mammy say she didn' know whare dey put it, an' dey would jus' have to kill her for she didn' know an' wouldn' lie to keep dem from hurting her.
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Mr. Jordan doesn’t indicate whether his mother actually did or didn’t know the location of the Cameron family’s gold and silver — only that she told the Yankees that she didn’t know.
- My pappy an' his family stayed wid Marse Paul five years after de surrender
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Mr. Jordan doesn’t explain the circumstances under which his family lived at Stagville in the five years after the Civil War. Since his father was a skilled craftsman, we might assume that he continued to do that sort of work after the war. His family could also have become sharecroppers, tending the land on the plantation in exchange for a percentage of the crop.
The Historic Stagville Foundation indicates that a contract, which Paul Cameron proposed in April 1865 to govern the sharecropping relationship between former slaves and members of his family, existed. For more information about sharecropping and the abuses that often occurred under that system of labor, see Reconstruction: the Second Civil War from PBS’s The American Experience, or these articles about sharecropping from the University of Illinois.
Contents
- Thinking About Thinking: Reading Primary Sources
- Reading Primary Sources: An Introduction for Students
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Commentary and sidebar notes by Kathryn Walbert.
Original source available from Library of Congress.
