Neill Brown correspondence, 1792-1867, undated

Containers:

Box 2

Scope and content:

Family correspondence to Neill Brown and other relatives, including Hugh and Duncan Brown and John Gillespie, Neill Brown's son-in-law. Topics include family health, the family's migration from the Carolinas to Tennessee, "land got from Indians" and subsequent colonization and settlement by white slaveholding communities, and Presbyterian ministry efforts.

Includes a note written by an unnamed enslaved man to "master John" asking for the reason "you always preach to the white folks and keep your back to us." The letter writer continues, "If I should ask you what must I do to be saved perhaps you would tel me pray let the bible be your gide [.] this would do very well if we could read I do not think there is one in fifty that can read but I have been more fortunate than the most of the black people I can read and write in my way as to be understood I hopes. I have a weak mind about the duteys of religious people If God sent you to preach to siners did he direct you to keep your face to the white folks constantly or is it because these give you money if this is the cause we are the very persons that labored for this money but it is handed to you by our masters." This letter follows a letter from John Fort Jr., Wayne Co. South Carolina, to Hugh Brown, Robeson Co. N.C., dated 1821 June 26. There is a typescript of the note alongside the original in the collection.

Processing information:

Formerly cataloged and digitized as a single-folder collection called the Neill Brown Papers. This folder was incorporated into the Brown-Buie Family Papers following an addition to the collection in 2023.

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