Beschreibung:

JACKSON, ANDREW, President. Autograph letter signed in full ("Andrew Jackson" with paraph) to an unnamed correspondent ("Dear Major"), Hermitage (near Nashville, Tenn.), 25 January 1838. One page, 4to, written in the characteristic blue ink of Jackson's late letters, light square discoloration at top. THE FORMER PRESIDENT TRIES TO HELP A FORMER SLAVE A fascinating letter from Jackson, well-known for his kindness to slaves, who here attempts to help an elderly former slave freed by his wife Rachel's uncle, and now separated from her friends and family by the Liberia settlement plans of the American Colonization Society. "The inclosed letter [ no longer present ] is from an old woman, who with the rest of his negroes, was liberated by Mr. Alexander Donelson. All the family but herself and husband, have left for Liberia. Her son and daughter, John and Celia, have reached there, and since their arrival have lost three children. The ballance [ sic ] of the negroes fifteen or twenty in number, not heard from since they left. The old woman is anxious to send them a letter. Will you have the goodness to hand the inclosed to the Secretary of the Colonization Society in Washington with a request that he take charge of it and have it sent to them. My household unite with me in warm regards...." Founded in 1817, the American Colonization Society worked for the suppression of the slave trade, raised funds for the outright purchase of some slaves, who were manumitted and provided free passage to Liberia, where agricultural settlements were founded. Their hopeful endeavors, which between 1821 and 1867 returned an estimated 6,000 slaves to the continent of their birth, were hampered and opposed by extremists on both sides of the slavery question prior to the Civil War.