Slave Family
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Mother being whipped for wanting to go back to the tree and protect
her child from the snake in the grass.
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Dr. Edna Medford of Howard University discussed the family structure of African American families and the importance of family.
She demonstrated how the images of slave families and the letters from Spotswood Rice can be used as resources in classrooms to discuss this importance and the difficulties African Americans faced in maintaining these relationships.
My Children I take my pen in hand to rite you A few lines
to let you know that I have not forgot you and that I want to see
you as bad as ever now my Dear Children I want you to be
contented with whatever may be your lots be assured that I
will
have you if it cost me my life on the 28th of the mounth.
8 hundred White and 8 hundred blacke solders expects to start up the
rivore to Glasgow and above there thats to be jeneraled by a jeneral
that will give me both of you when they Come I expect
to be with, them and expect to get you both in return. Dont be uneasy
my children I expect to have you. If Diggs dont give
you up this Government will and I feel confident that I will get you
Your Miss Kaitty said that I tried to steal you But I'll let
her know that god never intended for man to steal his own flesh and
blood. If I had no cofidence in God I could have
confidence in her But as it is If I ever had any Confidence
in her I have none now and never expect to have And I want
her
to remember if she meets me with ten thousand soldiers she [will?]
meet her enemy I once [thought] that I had some respect
for them but now my respects is worn out and have no sympathy for Slaveholders.
And as for her cristianantty I expect the
Devil has Such in hell You tell her from me that She is
the frist Christian that I ever hard say that aman could Steal his own
child especially out of human bondage
You can tell her that She can hold to you as long as she can
I never would expect to ask her again to let you come to me
because I know that the devil has got her hot set againsts that that
is write now my Dear children I am a going to close my
letter to you Give my love to all enquiring friends
tell them all that we are well and want to see them very much and Corra
and Mary receive the greater part of it you sefves and dont think hard
of us not sending you any thing I you father have a
plenty for you when I see you Spott & Noah sends their
love to both of you Oh! My Dear children how I do want to see
you
[Spotswood Rice]
[Spotswood Rice] to My Children, [3 Sept. 1864], enclosed in F. W. Diggs
to Genl. Rosecrans, 10 Sept. 1864, D-296 1864, Letters Received, ser.
2593, Dept. of the MO, U.S. Army Continental Commands, Record Group
393 Pt. 1, National Archives. The first fourteen lines of the letter
appear to be in Private Rice's handwriting, but the remainder is in
another hand. Rice, a tobacco roller and the slave of Benjamin Lewis, had
enlisted in early February 1864 at Glasgow, Missouri. On the date of
this letter, he was hospitalized with chronic rheumatism. (Service record
of
Spottswood Rice, 67th USCI, Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations:
Civil War, ser. 519, Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94,
National Archives.)
[Benton Barracks Hospital, St. Louis, Mo. September 3, 1864]
I received a leteter from Cariline telling me that you say I tried to
steal to plunder my child away from you now I want you to
understand that mary is my Child and she is a God given rite of my
own and you may hold on to hear as long as you can but I
want you to remembor this one thing that the longor you keep my Child
from me the longor you will have to burn in hell and the
qwicer youll get their for we are now makeing up a bout
one thoughsand blacke troops to Come up tharough and wont to
come through Glasgow and when we come wo be to Copperhood rabbels and
to the Slaveholding rebbels for we dont expect
to leave them there root neor branch but we thinke how
ever that we that have Children in the hands of you devels we will trie
your [vertues?] the day that we enter Glasgow I want you
to understand kittey diggs that where ever you and I meets we are
enmays to each orthere I offered once to pay you forty
dollers for my own Child but I am glad now that you did not accept
it Just hold on now as long as you can and the worse it
will be for you you never in you life befor I came down hear
did you
give Children any thing not eny thing whatever not even a dollers worth
of expencs now you call my children your
pro[per]ty not so with me my Children is my
own and I expect to get them and when I get ready to come after mary I
will
have bout a powrer and autherity to bring hear away and to exacute
vengencens on them that holds my Child you will then
know how to talke to me I will assure that and you will
know how to talk rite too I want you now to just hold on to
hear if
you want to iff your conchosence tells thats the road go
that road and what it will brig you to kittey diggs I have
no fears
about geting mary out of your hands this whole Government
gives chear to me and you cannot help your self
Spotswood Rice
Spotswood Rice to Kittey diggs, [3 Sept. 1864], enclosed in F. W. Diggs
to Genl. Rosecrans, 10 Sept. 1864, D-296 1864, Letters Received, ser.
2593, Dept. of the MO, U.S. Army Continental Commands, Record Group
393 Pt. 1, National Archives.
Published in The Black Military Experience, pp. 689-90, in Free at Last,
pp. 480-82, in Families and Freedom, pp. 195-97, and in Freedom's
Soldiers, pp. 131-33.