Sister Tries to Save her Kidnapped Brother, 1903

(transcribed using standard spelling and punctuation) Mr. President, I have a brother about 14-years old. A colored man came here and hired him from me and said that he would take good care of him and pay me five dollars a month for him and I heard of him no more. He went and sold him to McRee and they has been working him in prison for 12 months and I has tried to get them to send him to me and they wont let him go. . . .’‘
He has no mother and no father. They are both dead and I am his only friend and they won’t let me have him. He has not done nothing for them to have him in chains. So I write to you for you to help me get my poor brother. His name is James Robinson and the man that carried him off his name Dan Cal. He sold him to McRee at Valdosta Ga. Please let me hear from you at once. Carry Kinsey

Sister Tries to Save her Kidnapped Brother 1903

Carrie Kinsey’s 14-year-old brother was kidnapped and sold to a plantation owner in Georgia, who kept him in chains. In desperation, Ms. Kinsey wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt for help. It appears that he never saw the letter. It was sent to the Justice Department, where it was filed away in a box with hundreds of others like it.

National Archives, General Records of the Department of Justice