Letter from Bartlett Shanklyn to Abraham Hooe

In May 1820, Bartlet Shanklyn wrote with obvious emotion, perhaps anger, to his former owner, Abraham Hooe. Shanklyn had escaped slavery and was among the 3,400 formerly enslaved people who fled from the Chesapeake region during the War of 1812. Most of them resettled in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Trinidad. His letter reads: “I take this opportunity of writing these lines to inform you how I am situated hear. I have [a] Shop & Set of Tools of my own and am doing very well when I was with you [you] treated me very ill and for that reason i take the liberty of informing you that i am doing as well as you if not better. When i was with you I worked very hard and you neither g[ave] me money nor any Satisfaction but sin[ce] I have been hear I am able to [make] Gold and Silver as well as you. The night that Cokely Stoped me he was very Strong but I shewed him that Subtilty Was far preferable to Strength and brought away others with me who thank God are all doing well.”