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We now, as a people, desires to be elevated, and we desires to do all we can to be educated, and we hope our friends will aid us all dey can. 
As to our going back to the counties we came from and to the rebels again, we knows for the truth, by thousands of witnesses, the sight of the darkies who left the rebels in the time of war is now as a dose of pizen in their eyes, because we left the rebels and went to the Yankees. 
We now feels unprotected against de rebels and we feels unprotected wid dem; and though de rebels have and do scoff us for calling de North our friends, we hope we shall nebber lose our confidence in dem,-I mean our friends in the North.
Oh, most respectable Friends ob de North, please consider our interests; we feels sometimes as if our welfare in dis life depends on you. 
Mr. Vining, the Superintender of Schools, held a mass meeting on Friday night, and he departed to us some very good, perm'ent instructions, such as we believes are based on the very foundations of Truth; and immegiately we agrees with him to take his counsel, believing it is for our benefit, and we has every reason to believe he is a friend of ours. 
I may state to all our friends, and to all our enemies, that we has a right to the land where we are located. For why? I tell you. Our wives, our children, our husbands has been sold over and over again to purchase the lands we now locates upon; for that reason we have a divine right to the land. 
Den again, the United States, by deir officers, told us if we would leave the Rebs and come to de Yankees and help de Government, we should have de land where dey put us as long as we live; and dey told us dat we should see'd after and care for by de Government, and placed in a position to become men among men. 
And de Government furder promised to protect us from de rebels as long as we lived, and we sacrificed all we had, and left de rebels and came to the Yankees. 
Some of us had some money to buy our freedom, and some of us had a house, and some of us had cattle with which we hoped sometimes to buy ourselves; but we left all depending on [[??]] of de Yankees.
Dey told us dese lands was 'fiscated from the Rebs, who was fightin' de United States to keep us in slavery and to destroy the Government. De Yankee officers says to us: "Now, dear friends, colored me, come and go with us; we will gain de victory, and by de proclamation of our President you have your Freedom, and you shall have the 'fiscated lands."
And now we feels disappointed dat dey has not kept deir promise. O educated men! men of principle, men of honor, as we once con-idered you was! Now we don't seem to know what to consider, for de great confidence we had seems to be shaken, for now we has orders to leave dese lands by the Superintender of the Bureau. 
We was first ordered to pay rent, and we paid de rent; now we has orders to leave, or have our log cabins torn down over our heads. Dey say "de lands have been 'stored to de old owners, and dey must have it."
And now where shall we go? Shall we go into the streets, or into de woods, or into de ribber? We has nowhere to go! and we now wants to know what we can do? 
I is not here to ask de Government to help me nor my family. I has never asked any help from de Government nor from friends, and I never has received any. I has got a living by honest, hard work since I came to the Yankees, and I has saved something besides. I owes no man any thing, but my people cannot all do this. Dey has been bought and sold like horses; dey has been kept in ignorance; dey has been sold for lands, for horses, for carriages, and for every thing their old masters had. I want some gemmen to tell me of one thing that our people hasn't been sold to buy for deir owners. 
And den didn't we clear the land, and raise de crops of corn, ob cotton, ob tobacco, ob rice, ob sugar, ob eberything. And den didn't dem large cities in de North grow up on de cotton and de sugars and de rice dat we made? Yes! I appeal to de South and to de North if I hasn't spoken de words of truth? 
I say dey has grown rich, and my people is poor. We lives in slab cabins, on ground for floor, and many of us has not food, and we goes ragged and most naked. 
God heard our groans. He saw our afflictions, and he came down and delivered us; but anudder king is now risen.-Andy Johnson! I will not call him king or President; he is not our friend; he has forgotten the afflictions of Joseph, if he ever knowed them, and we are now turned back to the old taskmasters. Our cabins are threatened to be turned down over our heads if we do not go, and we must be drove about from place to place, and chased as hounds chase rabbits. And we must go; and I ask again, where shall we go, and who shall we trust? 
I tell you who we is to trust. We is to trust God, and he will bring us all out ob de wilderness, somehow, and sometime, and somewhere. I cannot tell how nor when He'll do it, but I'm bound to believe He will do it. Gemmen, we must not depend on the warlike nations around us to help us; dey have all deceived us; dey has combined against us to keep us out of de promised land.
Now, we must be united; we must take care

Transcription Notes:
A part of the page is ripped, so I could not decipher a few words in the 9th paragraph.