Ex-slave wants to buy land from Ex-slaveowner,
September 5th 1868

Remember that the Emancipation Proclamation had not included Kentucky, so that legally, Kentuckians still owned slaves until December 18, 1865, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution went into effect. Also, the date of this letter becomes all the more poignant when one remembers that former slaves did not have citizen status or equal protection of the laws until July 28, 1868, when the 14th Amendment went into effect. The spelling is as was written -- not much different from most Kentuckians of this era.

Lexington Ky     Sep 5th 1868

 Dear sir Mr Col* Preston

I under[stand] that you have some land to Exspose of and if you have I will Except of some of it if we can agrea upun it

I understood that you said that you would put it out to Colored peoples they could aquire and also houses for them to live in

answer it ameadiately if you pleas so that I will know what to depent upon

from your umble survent Green Banks
Lexington Ky

*William Preston was a colonel before the Civil War. Since all his white acquaintances -- including former Unionists -- write to him addressing him as "General" (the title he earned while in the Confederate Army), this author has effectively denied Preston's role in the recent war. (Go back to top of letter.)

 

Wickliffe-Preston Family Papers, Box 57, University of Kentucky Special Collections and Archives
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Posted March 13, 2000
email: dolph@pop.uky.edu
http://www.uky.edu/~dolph/HIS316/sources/exslave.html