I Want to See You and Your Wife and Children Very Bad

Abstract

After a silence of nearly four years, Tolbert Major writes again to Ben Major in 1847. He asks Ben to send writing paper, its scarcity accounting, in part, for the long delay between letters. Tolbert’s letter is filled with family news. He writes, “I want to see you and your wife and children very bad,” and asks Ben to send a drawing of him and his wife, Lucy, “for my children to look at when I am dead.” The relationships between enslaved people, their owners, and the owners’ families were complex, and this chapter explores that complexity. The chapter also explores the value colonists placed on education and the experiences of widows in Liberia.