What is the significance of the Jourdon Anderson Letter?

The significance of this letter is that it tells us
something about the attitudes of freed slaves towards their masters. This is very
important, especially given the attitudes of many modern
historians.

Today, historians feel that it is important to
look at the lives and thoughts of the "little people."  They think that historians of
the past focused too much on the doings of important people like government leaders and
not enough on the lives of common people who were not famous or
important.

This is why the Jourdon Anderson letter is so
significant.  Slaves were pretty much the epitome of people who were not famous or
"important."  At the same time, they were part of one of the most important chapters of
history.  Therefore, it is important to historians to know how they
felt.

Sadly, there is not much material about how slaves
felt.  There are a few slave narratives in book form.  There are oral histories
collected in the 1930s.  Both of these are valuable sources, but both are limited. 
Slave narratives were typically written before the end of slavery by slaves who had
escaped.  They were written for an abolitionist audience.  Both of these things make
them a bit skewed as sources.  The oral histories, obviously, were collected long after
the fact from people who were quite young at the end of
slavery.

By contrast to these things, Anderson's letter is
a contemporary account of a freed slaves attitudes towards his master.  This makes it a
relatively rare window into the lives and attitudes of freed slaves.  For this reason,
it is a significant source for historians.