“I remain your truly husband until death.”
Dinah Jones,
My Dear wife I take the pleasure of writing you these few lines with much regret to inform you that I am Sold to a man by the name of Peterson a treader and Stays in new orleans. I am here yet But I expect to go before long but when I get there I will write and let you know where I am. My Dear I want to Send you Some things but I donot know who to Send them By but I will try to get them to you and my children. Give my love to my father & mother and tell them good Bye for me. and if we Shall not meet in this world I hope to meet in heaven. My Dear wife for you and my Children my pen cannot Express the griffe I feel to be parted from you all. I remain your truly husband until death.
Abream Scriven, from a letter to his wife. Scriven and Jones had four children together, living and working on Colonel’s Island before he was sold down the river. Dinah attempted to have another owner on the island buy her husband back but to no avail. She married another slave in the spring of 1861, dying later that year of typhoid fever. It is on record that Scriven was remarried and living in Atlanta in 1863.
Slavery was the energy industry of the ancients—no part of the empire was untouched by its effects. More
