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The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

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Title: The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

Author: Carter Godwin Woodson


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11089]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO PRIOR TO 1861 ***

The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States
from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War


By

C.G. Woodson.

1919




PREFACE


About two years ago the author decided to set forth in a small volume
the leading facts of the development of Negro education, thinking that
he would have to deal largely with the movement since the Civil War.
In looking over documents for material to furnish a background for
recent achievements in this field, he discovered that he would write
a much more interesting book should he confine himself to the
ante-bellum period. In fact, the accounts of the successful strivings
of Negroes for enlightenment under most adverse circumstances read
like beautiful romances of a people in an heroic age.

Interesting as is this phase of the history of the American Negro, it
has as a field of profitable research attracted only M.B. Goodwin, who
published in the Special Report of the United States Commissioner
of Education of 1871 an exhaustive _History of the Schools for the
Colored Population in the District of Columbia_. In that same document
was included a survey of the _Legal Status of the Colored Population
in Respect to Schools and Education in the Different States_. But
although the author of the latter collected a mass of valuable
material, his report is neither comprehensive nor thorough. Other
publications touching this subject have dealt either with certain
localities or special phases.

Yet evident as may be the failure of scholars to treat this neglected
aspect of our history, the author of this dissertation is far from
presuming that he has exhausted the subject. With the hope of vitally
interesting some young master mind in this large task, the undersigned
has endeavored to narrate in brief how benevolent teachers of both
races strove to give the ante-bellum Negroes the education through
which many of them gained freedom in its highest and best sense.

The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. J.E.
Moorland, International Secretary of the Young Men's Christian
Association, for valuable information concerning the Negroes of Ohio.

C.G. Woodson.

Washington, D.C. _June 11, 1919._




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

     I.--Introduction

    II.--Religion with Letters

   III.--Education as a Right of Man

    IV.--Actual Education

     V.--Better Beginnings

    VI.--Educating the Urban Negro

   VII.--The Reaction

  VIII.--Religion without Letters

    IX.--Learning in Spite of Opposition

     X.--Educating Negroes Transplanted to Free Soil

    XI.--Higher Education

   XII.--Vocational Training

  XIII.--Education at Public Expense

  Appendix: Documents

  Bibliography

  Index




The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


Brought from the African wilds to constitute the laboring class of
a pioneering society in the new world, the heathen slaves had to be
trained to meet the needs of their environment. It required little
argument to convince intelligent masters that slaves who had some
conception of modern civilization and understood the language of their
owners would be more valuable than rude men with whom one could not
communicate. The questions, however, as to exactly what kind of
training these Negroes should have, and how far it should go, were to
the white race then as much a matter of perplexity as they are now.
Yet, believing that slaves could not be enlightened without developing
in them a longing for liberty, not a few masters maintained that the
more brutish the bondmen the more pliant they become for purposes of
exploitation. It was this class of slaveholders that finally won the
majority of southerners to their way of thinking and determined that
Negroes should not be educated.

The history of the education of the ante-bellum Negroes, therefore,
falls into two periods. The first extends from the time of the
introduction of slavery to the climax of the insurrectionary movement
about 1835, when the majority of the people in this country answered
in the affirmative the question whether or not it was prudent to
educate their slaves. Then followed the second period, when the
industrial revolution changed slavery from a patriarchal to an
economic institution, and when intelligent Negroes, encouraged by
abolitionists, made so many attempts to organize servile insurrections
that the pendulum began to swing the other way. By this time most
southern white people reached the conclusion that it was impossible
to cultivate the minds of Negroes without arousing overmuch
self-assertion.

The early advocates of the education of Negroes were of three classes:
first, masters who desired to increase the economic efficiency of
their labor supply; second, sympathetic persons who wished to help the
oppressed; and third, zealous missionaries who, believing that the
message of divine love came equally to all, taught slaves the English
language that they might learn the principles of the Christian
religion. Through the kindness of the first class, slaves had their
best chance for mental improvement. Each slaveholder dealt with the
situation to suit himself, regardless of public opinion. Later,
when measures were passed to prohibit the education of slaves, some
masters, always a law unto themselves, continued to teach their
Negroes in defiance of the hostile legislation. Sympathetic persons
were not able to accomplish much because they were usually reformers,
who not only did not own slaves, but dwelt in practically free
settlements far from the plantations on which the bondmen lived.

The Spanish and French missionaries, the first to face this problem,
set an example which influenced the education of the Negroes
throughout America. Some of these early heralds of Catholicism
manifested more interest in the Indians than in the Negroes, and
advocated the enslavement of the Africans rather than that of the Red
Men. But being anxious to see the Negroes enlightened and brought into
the Church, they courageously directed their attention to the teaching
of their slaves, provided for the instruction of the numerous
mixed-breed offspring, and granted freedmen the educational privileges
of the highest classes. Put to shame by this noble example of the
Catholics, the English colonists had to find a way to overcome the
objections of those who, granting that the enlightenment of the slaves
might not lead to servile insurrection, nevertheless feared that their
conversion might work manumission. To meet this exigency the
colonists secured, through legislation by their assemblies and formal
declarations of the Bishop of London, the abrogation of the law that
a Christian could not be held as a slave. Then allowed access to the
bondmen, the missionaries of the Church of England, sent out by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen in Foreign
Parts, undertook to educate the slaves for the purpose of extensive
proselyting.

Contemporaneous with these early workers of the Established Church of
England were the liberal Puritans, who directed their attention to the
conversion of the slaves long before this sect advocated abolition.
Many of this connection justified slavery as established by the
precedent of the Hebrews, but they felt that persons held to service
should be instructed as were the servants of the household of Abraham.
The progress of the cause was impeded, however, by the bigoted class
of Puritans, who did not think well of the policy of incorporating
undesirable persons into the Church so closely connected then with the
state. The first settlers of the American colonies to offer Negroes
the same educational and religious privileges they provided for
persons of their own race, were the Quakers. Believing in the
brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, they taught the colored
people to read their own "instruction in the book of the law that they
might be wise unto salvation."

Encouraging as was the aspect of things after these early efforts, the
contemporary complaints about the neglect to instruct the slaves show
that the cause lacked something to make the movement general. Then
came the days when the struggle for the rights of man was arousing the
civilized world. After 1760 the nascent social doctrine found response
among the American colonists. They looked with opened eyes at the
Negroes. A new day then dawned for the dark-skinned race. Men like
Patrick Henry and James Otis, who demanded liberty for themselves,
could not but concede that slaves were entitled at least to freedom of
body. The frequent acts of manumission and emancipation which followed
upon this change in attitude toward persons of color, turned loose
upon society a large number of men whose chief needs were education
and training in the duties of citizenship. To enlighten these freedmen
schools, missions, and churches were established by benevolent and
religious workers. These colaborers included at this time the Baptists
and Methodists who, thanks to the spirit of toleration incident to the
Revolution, were allowed access to Negroes bond and free.

With all of these new opportunities Negroes exhibited a rapid
mental development. Intelligent colored men proved to be useful and
trustworthy servants; they became much better laborers and artisans,
and many of them showed administrative ability adequate to the
management of business establishments and large plantations. Moreover,
better rudimentary education served many ambitious persons of color as
a stepping-stone to higher attainments. Negroes learned to appreciate
and write poetry and contributed something to mathematics, science,
and philosophy. Furthermore, having disproved the theories of
their mental inferiority, some of the race, in conformity with the
suggestion of Cotton Mather, were employed to teach white children.

Observing these evidences of a general uplift of the Negroes, certain
educators advocated the establishment of special colored schools. The
founding of these institutions, however, must not be understood as a
movement to separate the children of the races on account of caste
prejudice. The dual system resulted from an effort to meet the needs
peculiar to a people just emerging from bondage. It was easily seen
that their education should no longer be dominated by religion.
Keeping the past of the Negroes in mind, their friends tried to unite
the benefits of practical and cultural education. The teachers of
colored schools offered courses in the industries along with advanced
work in literature, mathematics, and science. Girls who specialized in
sewing took lessons in French.

So startling were the rapid strides made by the colored people in
their mental development after the revolutionary era that certain
southerners who had not seriously objected to the enlightenment of the
Negroes began to favor the half reactionary policy of educating them
only on the condition that they should be colonized. The colonization
movement, however, was supported also by some white men who, seeing
the educational progress of the colored people during the period of
better beginnings, felt that they should be given an opportunity to
be transplanted to a free country where they might develop without
restriction.

Timorous southerners, however, soon had other reasons for their
uncharitable attitude. During the first quarter of the nineteenth
century two effective forces were rapidly increasing the number of
reactionaries who by public opinion gradually prohibited the education
of the colored people in all places except certain urban communities
where progressive Negroes had been sufficiently enlightened to provide
their own school facilities. The first of these forces was the
worldwide industrial movement. It so revolutionized spinning and
weaving that the resulting increased demand for cotton fiber gave rise
to the plantation system of the South, which required a larger number
of slaves. Becoming too numerous to be considered as included in the
body politic as conceived by Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone,
the slaves were generally doomed to live without any enlightenment
whatever. Thereafter rich planters not only thought it unwise to
educate men thus destined to live on a plane with beasts, but
considered it more profitable to work a slave to death during seven
years and buy another in his stead than to teach and humanize him with
a view to increasing his efficiency.

The other force conducive to reaction was the circulation through
intelligent Negroes of antislavery accounts of the wrongs to colored
people and the well portrayed exploits of Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Furthermore, refugees from Haiti settled in Baltimore, Norfolk,
Charleston, and New Orleans, where they gave Negroes a first-hand
story of how black men of the West Indies had righted their wrongs. At
the same time certain abolitionists and not a few slaveholders were
praising, in the presence of slaves, the bloody methods of the
French Revolution. When this enlightenment became productive of
such disorders that slaveholders lived in eternal dread of servile
insurrection, Southern States adopted the thoroughly reactionary
policy of making the education of Negroes impossible.

The prohibitive legislation extended over a period of more than a
century, beginning with the act of South Carolina in 1740. But with
the exception of the action of this State and that of Georgia the
important measures which actually proscribed the teaching of Negroes
were enacted during the first four decades of the nineteenth century.
The States attacked the problem in various ways. Colored people beyond
a certain number were not allowed to assemble for social or religious
purposes, unless in the presence of certain "discreet" white men;
slaves were deprived of the helpful contact of free persons of color
by driving them out of some Southern States; masters who had employed
their favorite blacks in positions which required a knowledge of
bookkeeping, printing, and the like, were commanded by law to
discontinue that custom; and private and public teachers were
prohibited from assisting Negroes to acquire knowledge in any manner
whatever.

The majority of the people of the South had by this time come to the
conclusion that, as intellectual elevation unfits men for servitude
and renders it impossible to retain them in this condition, it should
be interdicted. In other words, the more you cultivate the minds of
slaves, the more unserviceable you make them; you give them a higher
relish for those privileges which they cannot attain and turn what you
intend for a blessing into a curse. If they are to remain in slavery
they should be kept in the lowest state of ignorance and degradation,
and the nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes the better
chance they have to retain their apathy. It had thus been brought to
pass that the measures enacted to prevent the education of Negroes had
not only forbidden association with their fellows for mutual help and
closed up most colored schools in the South, but had in several States
made it a crime for a Negro to teach his own children.

The contrast of conditions at the close of this period with those
of former days is striking. Most slaves who were once counted as
valuable, on account of their ability to read and write the English
language, were thereafter considered unfit for service in the
South and branded as objects of suspicion. Moreover, when within a
generation or so the Negroes began to retrograde because they had been
deprived of every elevating influence, the white people of the South
resorted to their old habit of answering their critics with the bold
assertion that the effort to enlighten the blacks would prove futile
on account of their mental inferiority. The apathy which these
bondmen, inured to hardships, consequently developed was referred to
as adequate evidence that they were content with their lot, and
that any effort to teach them to know their real condition would be
productive of mischief both to the slaves and their masters.

The reactionary movement, however, was not confined to the South. The
increased migration of fugitives and free Negroes to the asylum of
Northern States, caused certain communities of that section to feel
that they were about to be overrun by undesirable persons who could
not be easily assimilated. The subsequent anti-abolition riots in the
North made it difficult for friends of the Negroes to raise funds to
educate them. Free persons of color were not allowed to open schools
in some places, teachers of Negroes were driven from their stations,
and colored schoolhouses were burned.

Ashamed to play the role of a Christian clergy guarding silence on the
indispensable duty of saving the souls of the colored people, certain
of the most influential southern ministers hit upon the scheme of
teaching illiterate Negroes the principles of Christianity by memory
training or the teaching of religion without letters. This the clergy
were wont to call religious instruction. The word instruction,
however, as used in various documents, is rather confusing. Before the
reactionary period all instruction of the colored people included the
teaching of the rudiments of education as a means to convey Christian
thought. But with the exception of a few Christians the southerners
thereafter used the word instruction to signify the mere memorizing of
principles from the most simplified books. The sections of the South
in which the word instruction was not used in this restricted sense
were mainly the settlements of Quakers and Catholics who, in defiance
of the law, persisted in teaching Negroes to read and write. Yet it
was not uncommon to find others who, after having unsuccessfully used
their influence against the enactment of these reactionary laws,
boldly defied them by instructing the Negroes of their communities.
Often opponents to this custom winked at it as an indulgence to the
clerical profession. Many Scotch-Irish of the Appalachian Mountains
and liberal Methodists and Baptists of the Western slave States did
not materially change their attitude toward the enlightenment of the
colored people during the reactionary period. The Negroes among
these people continued to study books and hear religious instruction
conveyed to maturing minds.

Yet little as seemed this enlightenment by means of verbal
instruction, some slaveholders became sufficiently inhuman to object
to it on the grounds that the teaching of religion would lead to the
teaching of letters. In fact, by 1835 certain parts of the South
reached the third stage in the development of the education of the
Negroes. At first they were taught the common branches to enable them
to understand the principles of Christianity; next the colored people
as an enlightened class became such a menace to southern institutions
that it was deemed unwise to allow them any instruction beyond that
of memory training; and finally, when it was discovered that many
ambitious blacks were still learning to stir up their fellows, it was
decreed that they should not receive any instruction at all. Reduced
thus to the plane of beasts, where they remained for generations,
Negroes developed bad traits which since their emancipation have been
removed only with great difficulty.

Dark as the future of the Negro students seemed, all hope was not yet
gone. Certain white men in every southern community made it possible
for many of them to learn in spite of opposition. Slaveholders were
not long in discovering that a thorough execution of the law was
impossible when Negroes were following practically all the higher
pursuits of labor in the South. Masters who had children known to be
teaching slaves protected their benevolent sons and daughters from the
rigors of the law. Preachers, on finding out that the effort at verbal
education could not convey Christian truths to an undeveloped mind,
overcame the opposition in their localities and taught the colored
people as before. Negroes themselves, regarding learning as forbidden
fruit, stole away to secret places at night to study under the
direction of friends. Some learned by intuition without having had the
guidance of an instructor. The fact is that these drastic laws were
not passed to restrain "discreet" southerners from doing whatever they
desired for the betterment of their Negroes. The aim was to cut off
their communication with northern teachers and abolitionists, whose
activity had caused the South to believe that if such precaution were
not taken these agents would teach their slaves principles subversive
of southern institutions. Thereafter the documents which mention the
teaching of Negroes to read and write seldom even state that the
southern white teacher was so much as censured for his benevolence.
In the rare cases of arrest of such instructors they were usually
acquitted after receiving a reprimand.

With this winking at the teaching of Negroes in defiance of the law a
better day for their education brightened certain parts of the
South about the middle of the nineteenth century. Believing that an
enlightened laboring class might stop the decline of that section,
some slaveholders changed their attitude toward the elevation of
the colored people. Certain others came to think that the policy of
keeping Negroes in ignorance to prevent servile insurrections was
unwise. It was observed that the most loyal and subordinate slaves
were those who could read the Bible and learn the truth for
themselves. Private teachers of colored persons, therefore, were often
left undisturbed, little effort was made to break up the Negroes'
secret schools in different parts, and many influential white men took
it upon themselves to instruct the blacks who were anxious to learn.

Other Negroes who had no such opportunities were then finding a way of
escape through the philanthropy of those abolitionists who colonized
some freedmen and fugitives in the Northwest Territory and promoted
the migration of others to the East. These Negroes were often
fortunate. Many of them settled where they could take up land and had
access to schools and churches conducted by the best white people
of the country. This migration, however, made matters worse for the
Negroes who were left in the South. As only the most enlightened
blacks left the slave States, the bondmen and the indigent free
persons of color were thereby deprived of helpful contact. The
preponderance of intelligent Negroes, therefore, was by 1840 on the
side of the North. Thereafter the actual education of the colored
people was largely confined to eastern cities and northern communities
of transplanted freedmen. The pioneers of these groups organized
churches and established and maintained a number of successful
elementary schools.

In addition to providing for rudimentary instruction, the free Negroes
of the North helped their friends to make possible what we now call
higher education. During the second quarter of the nineteenth century
the advanced training of the colored people was almost prohibited by
the refusals of academies and colleges to admit persons of African
blood. In consequence of these conditions, the long-put-forth efforts
to found Negro colleges began to be crowned with success before the
Civil War. Institutions of the North admitted Negroes later for
various reasons. Some colleges endeavored to prepare them for service
in Liberia, while others, proclaiming their conversion to the doctrine
of democratic education, opened their doors to all.

The advocates of higher education, however, met with no little
opposition. The concentration in northern communities of the crude
fugitives driven from the South necessitated a readjustment of things.
The training of Negroes in any manner whatever was then very unpopular
in many parts of the North. When prejudice, however, lost some of its
sting, the friends of the colored people did more than ever for
their education. But in view of the changed conditions most of these
philanthropists concluded that the Negroes were very much in need
of practical education. Educators first attempted to provide such
training by offering classical and vocational courses in what they
called the "manual labor schools." When these failed to meet the
emergency they advocated actual vocational training. To make this new
system extensive the Negroes freely coöperated with their benefactors,
sharing no small part of the real burden. They were at the same time
paying taxes to support public schools which they could not attend.

This very condition was what enabled the abolitionists to see that
they had erred in advocating the establishment of separate schools for
Negroes. At first the segregation of pupils of African blood was, as
stated above, intended as a special provision to bring the colored
youth into contact with sympathetic teachers, who knew the needs of
their students. When the public schools, however, developed at the
expense of the state into a desirable system better equipped than
private institutions, the antislavery organizations in many Northern
States began to demand that the Negroes be admitted to the public
schools. After extensive discussion certain States of New England
finally decided the question in the affirmative, experiencing no great
inconvenience from the change. In most other States of the North,
however, separate schools for Negroes did not cease to exist until
after the Civil War. It was the liberated Negroes themselves who,
during the Reconstruction, gave the Southern States their first
effective system of free public schools.




CHAPTER II

RELIGION WITH LETTERS


The first real educators to take up the work of enlightening American
Negroes were clergymen interested in the propagation of the gospel
among the heathen of the new world. Addressing themselves to this
task, the missionaries easily discovered that their first duty was to
educate these crude elements to enable them not only to read the truth
for themselves, but to appreciate the supremacy of the Christian
religion. After some opposition slaves were given the opportunity to
take over the Christian civilization largely because of the adverse
criticism[1] which the apostles to the lowly heaped upon the planters
who neglected the improvement of their Negroes. Made then a device for
bringing the blacks into the Church, their education was at first too
much dominated by the teaching of religion.

[Footnote 1: Bourne, _Spain in America_, p. 241; and _The Penn. Mag.
of History_, xii., 265.]

Many early advocates of slavery favored the enlightenment of the
Africans. That it was an advantage to the Negroes to be brought within
the light of the gospel was a common argument in favor of the slave
trade.[1] When the German Protestants from Salsburg had scruples about
enslaving men, they were assured by a message from home stating that
if they took slaves in faith and with the intention of conducting
them to Christ, the action would not be a sin, but might prove a
benediction.[2] This was about the attitude of Spain. The missionary
movement seemed so important to the king of that country that he at
first allowed only Christian slaves to be brought to America, hoping
that such persons might serve as apostles to the Indians.[3] The
Spaniards adopted a different policy, however, when they ceased their
wild search for an "El Dorado" and became permanently attached to the
community. They soon made settlements and opened mines which
they thought required the introduction of slavery. Thus becoming
commercialized, these colonists experienced a greed which,
disregarding the consequences of the future, urged the importation
of all classes of slaves to meet the demand for cheap labor.[4] This
request was granted by the King of Spain, but the masters of such
bondmen were expressly ordered to have them indoctrinated in the
principles of Christianity. It was the failure of certain Spaniards to
live up to these regulations that caused the liberal-minded Jesuit,
Alphonso Sandoval, to register the first protest against slavery in
America.[5] In later years the change in the attitude of the Spaniards
toward this problem was noted. In Mexico the ayuntamientos were under
the most rigid responsibility to see that free children born of slaves
received the best education that could be given them. They had to
place them "for that purpose at the public schools and other places of
instruction wherein they" might "become useful to society."[6]

[Footnote 1: Proslavery Argument; and Lecky, _History of England_,
vol. ii., p. 17.]

[Footnote 2: Faust, _German Element in United States_, vol. i., pp.
242-43.]

[Footnote 3: Bancroft, _History of United States_, vol. i., p. 124.]

[Footnote 4: Herrera, _Historia General_, dec. iv., libro ii.; dec.
v., libro ii.; dec. vii., libro iv.]

[Footnote 5: Bourne, _Spain in America_, p. 241.]

[Footnote 6: _Special Report U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 389.]

In the French settlements of America the instruction of the Negroes
did not early become a difficult problem. There were not many Negroes
among the French. Their methods of colonization did not require many
slaves. Nevertheless, whenever the French missionary came into contact
with Negroes he considered it his duty to enlighten the unfortunates
and lead them to God. As early as 1634 Paul Le Jeune, a Jesuit
missionary in Canada, rejoiced that he had again become a real
preceptor in that he was teaching a little Negro the alphabet. Le
Jeune hoped to baptize his pupil as soon as he learned sufficient to
understand the Christian doctrine.[1] Moreover, evidence of a general
interest in the improvement of Negroes appeared in the Code Noir which
made it incumbent upon masters to enlighten their slaves that they
might grasp the principles of the Christian religion.[2] To carry
out this mandate slaves were sometimes called together with white
settlers. The meeting was usually opened with prayer and the reading
of some pious book, after which the French children were turned over
to one catechist, and the slaves and Indians to another. If a large
number of slaves were found in the community their special instruction
was provided for in meetings of their own.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Jesuit Relations_, vol. v., p. 63.]

[Footnote 2: Code Noir, p. 107.]

[Footnote 3: _Jesuit Relations_, vol. v., p. 62.]


After 1716, when Jesuits were taking over slaves in larger numbers,
and especially after 1726, when Law's Company was importing many to
meet the demand for laborers in Louisiana, we read of more instances
of the instruction of Negroes by French Catholics.[1] Writing about
this task in 1730, Le Petit spoke of being "settled to the instruction
of the boarders, the girls who live without, and the Negro women."[2]
In 1738 he said, "I instruct in Christian morals the slaves of our
residence, who are Negroes, and as many others as I can get from their
masters."[3] Years later François Philibert Watrum, seeing that some
Jesuits had on their estates one hundred and thirty slaves, inquired
why the instruction of the Indian and Negro serfs of the French did
not give these missionaries sufficient to do.[4] Hoping to enable
the slaves to elevate themselves, certain inhabitants of the French
colonies requested of their king a decree protecting their title to
property in such bondmen as they might send to France to be confirmed
in their instruction and in the exercise of their religion, and to
have them learn some art or trade from which the colonies might
receive some benefit by their return from the mother country.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., vol. lxvii., pp. 259 and 343.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. lxviii., p. 201.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., vol. lxix., p. 31.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., vol. lxx., p. 245.]

The education of Negroes was facilitated among the French and Spanish
by their liberal attitude toward their slaves. Many of them were
respected for their worth and given some of the privileges of
freemen. Estevanecito, an enlightened slave sent by Niza, the Spanish
adventurer, to explore Arizona, was a favored servant of this
class.[1] The Latin custom of miscegenation proved to be a still more
important factor in the education of Negroes in the colonies. As the
French and Spanish came to America for the purpose of exploitation,
leaving their wives behind, many of them, by cohabiting with and
marrying colored women, gave rise to an element of mixed breeds. This
was especially true of the Spanish settlements. They had more persons
of this class than any other colonies in America. The Latins, in
contradistinction to the English, generally liberated their mulatto
offspring and sometimes recognized them as their equals. Such Negroes
constituted a class of persons who, although they could not aspire to
the best in the colony, had a decided advantage over other inhabitants
of color. They often lived in luxury, and, of course, had a few
social privileges. The Code Noir granted freedmen the same rights,
privileges, and immunities as those enjoyed by persons born free, with
the view that the accomplishment of acquired liberty should have on
the former the same effect that the happiness of natural liberty
caused in other subjects.[2] As these mixed breeds were later lost, so
to speak, among the Latins, it is almost impossible to determine what
their circumstances were, and what advantages of education they had.

[Footnote 1: Bancroft, _Arizona and New Mexico_, pp. 27-32.]

[Footnote 2: The Code Noir obliged every planter to have his Negroes
instructed and baptized. It allowed the slave for instruction,
worship, and rest not only every Sunday, but every festival usually
observed by the Roman Catholic Church. It did not permit any market to
be held on Sundays or holidays. It prohibited, under severe penalties,
all masters and managers from corrupting their female slaves. It did
not allow the Negro husband, wife, or infant children to be sold
separately. It forbade them the use of torture, or immoderate and
inhuman punishments. It obliged the owners to maintain their old and
decrepit slaves. If the Negroes were not fed and clothed as the law
prescribed, or if they were in any way cruelly treated, they might
apply to the Procureur, who was obliged by his office to protect them.
See Code Noir, pp. 99-100.]


The Spanish and French were doing so much more than the English to
enlighten their slaves that certain teachers and missionaries in the
British colonies endeavored more than ever to arouse their countrymen
to discharge their duty to those they held in bondage. These reformers
hoped to do this by holding up to the members of the Anglican Church
the praiseworthy example of the Catholics whom the British had for
years denounced as enemies of Christ. The criticism had its effect.
But to prosecute this work extensively the English had to overcome
the difficulty found in the observance of the unwritten law that
no Christian could be held a slave. Now, if the teaching of slaves
enabled them to be converted and their Christianization led to
manumission, the colonists had either to let the institution gradually
pass away or close all avenues of information to the minds of their
Negroes. The necessity of choosing either of these alternatives
was obviated by the enactment of provincial statutes and formal
declarations by the Bishop of London to the effect that conversion did
not work manumission.[1] After the solution of this problem English
missionaries urged more vigorously upon the colonies the duty of
instructing the slaves. Among the active churchmen working for this
cause were Rev. Morgan Goodwyn and Bishops Fleetwood, Lowth, and
Sanderson.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 352.]

[Footnote 2: On observing that laws had been passed in Virginia to
prevent slaves from attending the meetings of Quakers for purposes of
being instructed, Morgan Goodwyn registered a most earnest protest. He
felt that prompt attention should be given to the instruction of the
slaves to prevent the Church from falling into discredit, and to
obviate the causes for blasphemy on the part of the enemies of the
Church who would not fail to point out that ministers sent to the
remotest parts had failed to convert the heathen. Therefore, he
preached in Westminster Abbey in 1685 a sermon "to stir up and
provoke" his "Majesty's subjects abroad, and even at home, to use
endeavors for the propagation of Christianity among their domestic
slaves and vassals." He referred to the spreading of mammonism and
irreligion by which efforts to instruct and Christianize the heathen
were paralyzed. He deplored the fact that the slaves who were the
subjects of such instruction became the victims of still greater
cruelty, while the missionaries who endeavored to enlighten them were
neglected and even persecuted by the masters. They considered the
instruction of the Negroes an impracticable and needless work of
popish superstition, and a policy subversive of the interests of
slaveholders. Bishop Sanderson found it necessary to oppose this
policy of Virginia which had met the denunciation of Goodwyn. In
strongly emphasizing this duty of masters, Bishop Fleetwood moved the
hearts of many planters of North Carolina to allow missionaries access
to their slaves. Many of them were thereafter instructed and baptized.
See Goodwyn, _The Negroes and Indians' Advocate_; Hart, _History Told
by Contemporaries_, vol. i., No. 86; _Special Rep. U.S. Com. of Ed._,
1871, p. 363; _An Account of the Endeavors of the Soc._, etc., p. 14.]

Complaints from men of this type led to systematic efforts to
enlighten the blacks. The first successful scheme for this purpose
came from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts. It was organized by the members of the Established Church in
London in 1701[1] to do missionary work among Indians and Negroes.
To convert the heathen they sent out not only ministers but
schoolmasters. They were required to instruct the children, to teach
them to read the Scriptures and other poems and useful books, to
ground them thoroughly in the Church catechism, and to repeat "morning
and evening prayers and graces composed for their use at home."[2]

[Footnote 1: Pascoe, _Classified Digest of the Records of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, p. 24.]

[Footnote 2: Dalcho, _An Historical Account of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in South Carolina_, p. 39; _Special Rep. U.S. Com. of
Ed._, 1871, p. 362.]

The first active schoolmaster of this class was Rev. Samuel Thomas of
Goose Creek Parish in South Carolina. He took up this work there in
1695, and in 1705 could count among his communicants twenty Negroes,
who with several others "well understanding the English tongue" could
read and write.[1] Rev. Mr. Thomas said: "I have here presumed to give
an account of one thousand slaves so far as they know of it and are
desirous of Christian knowledge and seem willing to prepare themselves
for it, in learning to read, for which they redeem the time from their
labor. Many of them can read the Bible distinctly, and great numbers
of them were learning when I left the province."[2] But not only had
this worker enlightened many Negroes in his parish, but had enlisted
in the work several ladies, among whom was Mrs. Haig Edwards. The Rev.
Mr. Taylor, already interested in the cause, hoped that other masters
and mistresses would follow the example of Mrs. Edwards.[3]

[Footnote 1: Meriwether, _Education in South Carolina_, p. 123].

[Footnote 2: _Special Rep. U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 362.]

[Footnote 3: _An Account of the Endeavors Used by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, pp. 13-14.]

Through the efforts of the same society another school was opened in
New York City in 1704 under Elias Neau.[1] This benefactor is commonly
known as the first to begin such an institution for the education of
Negroes; but the school in Goose Creek Parish, South Carolina, was
in operation at least nine years earlier. At first Neau called the
Negroes together after their daily toil was over and taught them at
his house. By 1708 he was instructing thus as many as two hundred.
Neau's school owes its importance to the fact that not long after its
beginning certain Negroes who organized themselves to kill off their
masters were accredited as students of this institution. For this
reason it was immediately closed.[2] When upon investigating the
causes of the insurrection, however, it was discovered that only one
person connected with the institution had taken part in the struggle,
the officials of the colony permitted Neau to continue his work and
extended him their protection. After having been of invaluable service
to the Negroes of New York this school was closed in 1722 by the
death of its founder. The work of Neau, however, was taken up by Mr.
Huddlestone. Rev. Mr. Wetmore entered the field in 1726. Later there
appeared Rev. Mr. Colgan and Noxon, both of whom did much to promote
the cause. In 1732 came Rev. Mr. Charlton who toiled in this field
until 1747 when he was succeeded by Rev. Mr. Auchmutty. He had the
coöperation of Mr. Hildreth, the assistant of his predecessor. Much
help was obtained from Rev. Mr. Barclay who, at the death of Mr. Vesey
in 1764, became the rector of the parish supporting the school.[3]

[Footnote 1: _An Account of the Endeavors Used by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, pp. 6-12.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 9.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 362.]

The results obtained in the English colonies during the early period
show that the agitation for the enlightenment of the Negroes spread
not only wherever these unfortunates were found, but claimed the
attention of the benevolent far away. Bishop Wilson of Sodor and Man,
active in the cause during the first half of the eighteenth century,
availed himself of the opportunity to aid those missionaries who
were laboring in the colonies for the instruction of the Indians
and Negroes. In 1740 he published a pamphlet written in 1699 on the
_Principles and Duties of Christianity in their Direct Bearing on the
Uplift of the Heathen_. To teach by example he further aided this
movement by giving fifty pounds for the education of colored children
in Talbot County, Maryland.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, 1871, p. 364.]

After some opposition this work began to progress somewhat in
Virginia.[1] The first school established in that colony was for
Indians and Negroes.[2] In the course of time the custom of teaching
the latter had legal sanction there. On binding out a "bastard or
pauper child black or white," churchwardens specifically required
that he should be taught "to read, write, and calculate as well as to
follow some profitable form of labor."[3] Other Negroes also had an
opportunity to learn. Reports of an increase in the number of colored
communicants came from Accomac County where four or five hundred
families were instructing their slaves at home, and had their children
catechized on Sunday. Unusual interest in the cause at Lambeth, in the
same colony, is attested by an interesting document, setting forth
in 1724 a proposition for "_Encouraging the Christian Education of
Indian, Negro, and Mulatto Children_." The author declares it to be
the duty of masters and mistresses of America to endeavor to educate
and instruct their heathen slaves in the Christian faith, and
mentioned the fact that this work had been "earnestly recommended by
his Majesty's instructions." To encourage the movement it was proposed
that "every Indian, Negro and Mulatto child that should be baptized
and afterward brought into the Church and publicly catechized by the
minister, and should before the fourteenth year of his or her age
give a distinct account of the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments," should receive from the minister a certificate which
would entitle such children to exemption from paying all levies until
the age of eighteen.[4] The neighboring colony of North Carolina
also was moved by these efforts despite some difficulties which the
missionaries there encountered.[5]

[Footnote 1: Meade, _Old Families and Churches in Virginia_, p. 264;
Plumer, _Thoughts on the Religious Instruction of Negroes_, pp.
11-12.]

[Footnote 2: Monroe, _Cyclopaedia of Education_, vol. iv., p. 406.]

[Footnote 3: Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, in J.H.U. Studies,
Series xxxi., No. 3, p. 107.]

[Footnote 4: Meade, _Old Families and Churches in Virginia_, pp.
264-65.]

[Footnote 5: Ashe, _History of North Carolina_, pp. 389-90.]

This favorable attitude toward the people of color, and the successful
work among them, caused the opponents of this policy to speak out
boldly against their enlightenment. Some asserted that the Negroes
were such stubborn creatures that there could be no such close dealing
with them, and that even when converted they became saucier than
pious. Others maintained that these bondmen were so ignorant and
indocile, so far gone in their wickedness, so confirmed in their
habit of evil ways, that it was vain to undertake to teach them such
knowledge. Less cruel slaveholders had thought of getting out of the
difficulty by the excuse that the instruction of Negroes required more
time and labor than masters could well spare from their business. Then
there were others who frankly confessed that, being an ignorant and
unlearned people themselves, they could not teach others.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a summary of this argument see Meade, _Four Sermons
of Reverend Bacon_, pp. 81-97; also, _A Letter to an American Planter
from his Friend in London_, p. 5.]

Seeing that many leading planters had been influenced by those opposed
to the enlightenment of Negroes, Bishop Gibson of London issued an
appeal in behalf of the bondmen, addressing the clergy and laymen in
two letters[1] published in London in 1727. In one he exhorted masters
and mistresses of families to encourage and promote the instruction of
their Negroes in the Christian faith. In the other epistle he directed
the missionaries of the colonies to give to this work whatever
assistance they could. Writing to the slaveholders, he took the
position that considering the greatness of the profit from the labor
of the slaves it might be hoped that all masters, those especially who
were possessed of considerable numbers, should be at some expense in
providing for the instruction of those poor creatures. He thought
that others who did not own so many should share in the expense of
maintaining for them a common teacher.

[Footnote 1: _An Account of the Endeavors Used by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, pp. 16, 21, and 32; and
Dalcho, _An Historical Account_, etc., pp. 104 et seq.]

Equally censorious of these neglectful masters was Reverend Thomas
Bacon, the rector of the Parish Church in Talbot County, Maryland.
In 1749 he set forth his protest in four sermons on "the great and
indispensable duty of all Christian masters to bring up their slaves
in the knowledge and fear of God."[1] Contending that slaves
should enjoy rights like those of servants in the household of the
patriarchs, Bacon insisted that next to one's children and brethren
by blood, one's servants, and especially one's slaves, stood in the
nearest relation to him, and that in return for their drudgery the
master owed it to his bondmen to have them enlightened. He believed
that the reading and explaining of the Holy Scriptures should be made
a stated duty. In the course of time the place of catechist in each
family might be supplied out of the intelligent slaves by choosing
such among them as were best taught to instruct the rest.[2] He was of
the opinion, too, that were some of the slaves taught to read, were
they sent to school for that purpose when young, were they given
the New Testament and other good books to be read at night to their
fellow-servants, such a course would vastly increase their knowledge
of God and direct their minds to a serious thought of futurity.[3]

[Footnote 1: Meade, _Sermons of Thomas Bacon_, pp. 31 et seq.]

[Footnote 2: Meade, _Sermons of Thomas Bacon_, pp. 116 _et seq._]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 118.]

With almost equal zeal did Bishops Williams and Butler plead the same
cause.[1] They deplored the fact that because of their dark skins
Negro slaves were treated as a species different from the rest of
mankind. Denouncing the more cruel treatment of slaves as cattle,
unfit for mental and moral improvement, these churchmen asserted that
the highest property possible to be acquired in servants could not
cancel the obligation to take care of the religious instruction of
those who "despicable as they are in the eyes of man are nevertheless
the creatures of God."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 363.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 363.]

On account of these appeals made during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries a larger number of slaves of the English colonies were
thereafter treated as human beings capable of mental, moral, and
spiritual development. Some masters began to provide for the
improvement of these unfortunates, not because they loved them, but
because instruction would make them more useful to the community. A
much more effective policy of Negro education was brought forward in
1741 by Bishop Secker.[1] He suggested the employment of young Negroes
prudently chosen to teach their countrymen. To carry out such a plan
he had already sent a missionary to Africa. Besides instructing
Negroes at his post of duty, this apostle sent three African natives
to England where they were educated for the work.[2] It was doubtless
the sentiment of these leaders that caused Dr. Brearcroft to allude to
this project in a discourse before the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1741.[3]

[Footnote 1: Secker, _Works_, vol. v., p. 88.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. vi., p. 467.]

[Footnote 3: _An Account of the Endeavors Used by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, p.6.]

This organization hit upon the plan of purchasing two Negroes named
Harry and Andrew, and of qualifying them by thorough instruction in
the principles of Christianity and the fundamentals of education, to
serve as schoolmasters to their people. Under the direction of Rev.
Mr. Garden, the missionary who had directed the training of these
young men, a building costing about three hundred and eight pounds was
erected in Charleston, South Carolina. In the school which opened in
this building in 1744 Harry and Andrew served as teachers.[1] In the
beginning the school had about sixty young students, and had a very
good daily attendance for a number of years. The directors of the
institution planned to send out annually between thirty and forty
youths "well instructed in religion and capable of reading their
Bibles to carry home and diffuse the same knowledge to their fellow
slaves."[2] It is highly probable that after 1740 this school was
attended only by free persons of color. Because the progress of Negro
education had been rather rapid, South Carolina enacted that year a
law prohibiting any person from teaching or causing a slave to be
taught, or from employing or using a slave as a scribe in any manner
of writing.

[Footnote 1: Meriwether, _Education in South Carolina_, p. 123;
McCrady, _South Carolina_, etc., p. 246; Dalcho, _An Historical
Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina_, pp.
156, 157, 164.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., pp. 157 and 164.]

In 1764 the Charleston school was closed for reasons which it is
difficult to determine. From one source we learn that one of the
teachers died, and the other having turned out profligate, no
instructors could be found to continue the work. It does not seem that
the sentiment against the education of free Negroes had by that time
become sufficiently strong to cause the school to be discontinued.[1]
It is evident, however, that with the assistance of influential
persons of different communities the instruction of slaves continued
in that colony. Writing about the middle of the eighteenth century,
Eliza Lucas, a lady of South Carolina, who afterward married Justice
Pinckney, mentions a parcel of little Negroes whom she had undertaken
to teach to read.[2]

[Footnote 1: _An Account of the Endeavors Used by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, p. 15.]

[Footnote 2: Bourne, _Spain in America_, p. 241.]

The work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts was also effective in communities of the North in which the
established Church of England had some standing. In 1751 Reverend Hugh
Neill, once a Presbyterian minister of New Jersey, became a missionary
of this organization to the Negroes of Pennsylvania. He worked among
them fifteen years. Dr. Smith, Provost of the College of Philadelphia,
devoted a part of his time to the work, and at the death of Neill in
1766 enlisted as a regular missionary of the Society.[1] It seems,
however, that prior to the eighteenth century not much had been done
to enlighten the slaves of that colony, although free persons of
color had been instructed. Rev. Mr. Wayman, another missionary to
Pennsylvania about the middle of the eighteenth century, asserted that
"neither" was "there anywhere care taken for the instruction of Negro
slaves," the duty to whom he had "pressed upon masters with little
effect."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 362.]

[Footnote 2: Wickersham, _History of Education in Pennsylvania_, p.
248.]

To meet this need the Society set the example of maintaining
catechetical lectures for Negroes in St. Peter's and Christ Church of
Philadelphia, during the incumbency of Dr. Jennings from 1742 to 1762.
William Sturgeon, a student of Yale, selected to do this work, was
sent to London for ordination and placed in charge in 1747.[1] In this
position Rev. Mr. Sturgeon remained nineteen years, rendering such
satisfactory services in the teaching of Negroes that he deserves to
be recorded as one of the first benefactors of the Negro race.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., p. 241.]

Antedating this movement in Pennsylvania were the efforts of Reverend
Dr. Thomas Bray. In 1696 he was sent to Maryland by the Bishop of
London on an ecclesiastical mission to do what he could toward the
conversion of adult Negroes and the education of their children.[1]
Bray's most influential supporter was M. D'Alone, the private
secretary of King William. D'Alone gave for the maintenance of the
cause a fund, the proceeds of which were first used for the employment
of colored catechists, and later for the support of the Thomas Bray
Mission after the catechists had failed to give satisfaction. At the
death of this missionary the task was taken up by certain followers
of the good man, known as the "Associates of Doctor Bray."[2] They
extended their work beyond the confines of Maryland. In 1760 two
schools for the education of Negroes were maintained in Philadelphia
by these benefactors. It was the aid obtained from the Dr. Bray fund
that enabled the abolitionists to establish in that city a permanent
school which continued for almost a hundred years.[3] About the close
of the French and Indian War, Rev. Mr. Stewart, a missionary in North
Carolina, found there a school for the education of Indians and free
Negroes, conducted by Dr. Bray's Associates. The example of these men
appealing to him as a wise policy, he directed to it the attention of
the clergy at home.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., p. 252; Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol. iv., p.
23; and vol. v., p. 431.]

[Footnote 2: Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431.]

[Footnote 3: Wickersham, _History of Education in Pennsylvania_, p.
249.]

[Footnote 4: Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in North Carolina_, Johns
Hopkins University Studies, vol. xv., p. 226.]

Not many slaves were found among the Puritans, but the number sufficed
to bring the question of their instruction before these colonists
almost as prominently as we have observed it was brought in the case
of the members of the Established Church of England. Despite the fact
that the Puritans developed from the Calvinists, believers in the
doctrine of election which swept away all class distinction, this sect
did not, like the Quakers, attack slavery as an institution. Yet if
the Quakers were the first of the Protestants to protest against the
buying and selling of souls, New England divines were among the first
to devote attention to the mental, moral, and spiritual development of
Negroes.[1] In 1675 John Eliot objected to the Indian slave trade, not
because of the social degradation, but for the reason that he desired
that his countrymen "should follow Christ his Designe in this matter
to promote the free passage of Religion" among them. He further
said: "For to sell Souls for Money seemeth to me to be dangerous
Merchandise, to sell away from all Means of Grace whom Christ hath
provided Means of Grace for you is the Way for us to be active in
destroying their Souls when they are highly obliged to seek their
Conversion and Salvation." Eliot bore it grievously that the souls of
the slaves were "exposed by their Masters to a destroying Ignorance
meerly for the Fear of thereby losing the Benefit of their
Vassalage."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Pennsylvania Magazine of History_, vol. xiii., p. 265.]

[Footnote 2: Locke, _Anti-slavery Before 1808_, p. 15; Mather, _Life
of John Eliot_, p. 14; _New Plymouth Colony Records_, vol. x., p.
452.]

Further interest in the work was manifested by Cotton Mather. He
showed his liberality in his professions published in 1693 in a set of
_Rules for the Society of Negroes_, intended to present the claims of
the despised race to the benefits of religious instruction.[1] Mather
believed that servants were in a sense like one's children, and that
their masters should train and furnish them with Bibles and other
religious books for which they should be given time to read. He
maintained that servants should be admitted to the religious exercises
of the family and was willing to employ such of them as were competent
to teach his children lessons of piety. Coming directly to the issue
of the day, Mather deplored the fact that the several plantations
which lived upon the labor of their Negroes were guilty of the
"prodigious Wickedness of deriding, neglecting, and opposing all
due Means of bringing the poor Negroes unto God." He hoped that
the masters, of whom God would one day require the souls of slaves
committed to their care, would see to it that like Abraham they have
catechised servants. They were not to imagine that the "Almighty God
made so many thousands reasonable Creatures for nothing but only to
serve the Lusts of Epicures, or the Gains of Mammonists."[2]

[Footnote 1: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 15.]

[Footnote 2: Meade, _Sermons of Thomas Bacon_, p. 137 _et seq_.]

The sentiment of the clergy of this epoch was more directly expressed
by Richard Baxter, the noted Nonconformist, in his "Directions to
Masters in Foreign Plantations," incorporated as rules into the
_Christian Directory_.[1] Baxter believed in natural liberty and
the equality of man, and justified slavery only on the ground of
"necessitated consent" or captivity in lawful war. For these reasons
he felt that they that buy slaves and "use them as Beasts for their
meer Commodity, and betray, or destroy or neglect their Souls are
fitter to be called incarnate Devils than Christians, though they be
no Christians whom they so abuse."[2] His aim here, however, is not to
abolish the institution of slavery but to enlighten the Africans and
bring them into the Church.[3] Exactly what effect Baxter had on this
movement cannot be accurately figured out. The fact, however, that his
creed was extensively adhered to by the Protestant colonists among
whom his works were widely read, leads us to think that he influenced
some masters to change their attitude toward their slaves.

[Footnote 1: Baxter, _Practical Works_, vol. i., p. 438.]

[Footnote 2: Baxter, _Practical Works_, vol. i., p. 438-40.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 440.]

The next Puritan of prominence who enlisted among the helpers of the
African slaves was Chief Justice Sewall, of Massachusetts. In 1701
he stirred his section by publishing his _Selling of Joseph_, a
distinctly anti-slavery pamphlet, based on the natural and inalienable
right of every man to be free.[1] The appearance of this publication
marked an epoch in the history of the Negroes. It was the first direct
attack on slavery in New England. The Puritan clergy had formerly
winked at the continuation of the institution, provided the masters
were willing to give the slaves religious instruction. In the _Selling
of Joseph_ Sewall had little to say about their mental and moral
improvement, but in the _Athenian Oracle_, which expressed his
sentiments so well that he had it republished in 1705,[2] he met more
directly the problem of elevating the Negro race. Taking up this
question, Sewall said: "There's yet less doubt that those who are of
Age to answer for themselves would soon learn the Principles of our
Faith, and might be taught the Obligation of the Vow they made in
Baptism, and there's little Doubt but Abraham instructed his Heathen
Servants who were of Age to learn, the Nature of Circumcision before
he circumcised them; nor can we conclude much less from God's own
noble Testimony of him, 'I know him that he will command his Children
and his Household, and they shall keep the Way of the Lord.'"[3]
Sewall believed that the emancipation of the slaves should be promoted
to encourage Negroes to become Christians. He could not understand
how any Christian could hinder or discourage them from learning the
principles of the Christian religion and embracing the faith.

[Footnote 1: Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts_, p. 91.]

[Footnote 2: Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts_, p. 92; Locke,
_Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 31.]

[Footnote 3: Moore, _Notes on Slavery_, etc., p. 91; _The Athenian
Oracle_, vol. ii., pp. 460 _et seq_.]

This interest shown in the Negro race was in no sense general among
the Puritans of that day. Many of their sect could not favor such
proselyting,[1] which, according to their system of government,
would have meant the extension to the slaves of social and political
privileges. It was not until the French provided that masters should
take their slaves to church and have them indoctrinated in the
Catholic faith, that the proposition was seriously considered by many
of the Puritans. They, like the Anglicans, felt sufficient compunction
of conscience to take steps to Christianize the slaves, lest the
Catholics, whom they had derided as undesirable churchmen, should put
the Protestants to shame.[2] The publication of the Code Noir probably
influenced the instructions sent out from England to his Majesty's
governors requiring them "with the assistance of our council to find
out the best means to facilitate and encourage the conversion of
Negroes and Indians to the Christian Religion." Everly subsequently
mentions in his diary the passing of a resolution by the Council Board
at Windsor or Whitehall, recommending that the blacks in plantations
be baptized, and meting out severe censure to those who opposed this
policy.[3]

[Footnote 1: Moore, _Notes on Slavery_, etc., p. 79.]

[Footnote 2: This good example of the Catholics was in later years
often referred to by Bishop Porteus. _Works of Bishop Porteus_, vol.
vi, pp. 168, 173, 177, 178, 401; Moore, _Notes on Slavery_, etc., p.
96.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 96.]

More effective than the efforts of other sects in the enlightenment of
the Negroes was the work of the Quakers, despite the fact that they
were not free to extend their operations throughout the colonies. Just
as the colored people are indebted to the Quakers for registering in
1688 the first protest against slavery in Protestant America, so are
they indebted to this denomination for the earliest permanent and
well-developed schools devoted to the education of their race. As the
Quakers believed in the freedom of the will, human brotherhood,
and equality before God, they did not, like the Puritans, find
difficulties in solving the problem of enlightening the Negroes.
While certain Puritans were afraid that conversion might lead to the
destruction of caste and the incorporation of undesirable persons into
the "Body Politick," the Quakers proceeded on the principle that all
men are brethren and, being equal before God, should be considered
equal before the law. On account of unduly emphasizing the relation of
man to God the Puritans "atrophied their social humanitarian instinct"
and developed into a race of self-conscious saints. Believing in human
nature and laying stress upon the relation between man and man the
Quakers became the friends of all humanity.

Far from the idea of getting rid of an undesirable element by merely
destroying the institution which supplied it, the Quakers endeavored
to teach the Negro to be a man capable of discharging the duties of
citizenship. As early as 1672 their attention was directed to this
important matter by George Fox.[1] In 1679 he spoke out more boldly,
entreating his sect to instruct and teach their Indians and Negroes
"how that Christ, by the Grace of God, tasted death for every man."[2]
Other Quakers of prominence did not fail to drive home this thought.
In 1693 George Keith, a leading Quaker of his day, came forward as a
promoter of the religious training of the slaves as a preparation for
emancipation.[3] William Penn advocated the emancipation of slaves,[4]
that they might have every opportunity for improvement. In 1696 the
Quakers, while protesting against the slave trade, denounced also the
policy of neglecting their moral and spiritual welfare.[5] The
growing interest of this sect in the Negroes was shown later by the
development in 1713 of a definite scheme for freeing and returning
them to Africa after having been educated and trained to serve as
missionaries on that continent.[6]

[Footnote 1: Quaker Pamphlet, p. 8; Moore, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p.
79.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 79.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, p. 376.]

[Footnote 4: Rhodes, _History of the United States_, vol. i., p. 6;
Bancroft, _History of the United States_, vol. ii., p. 401.]

[Footnote 5: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, p. 32.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 30.]

The inevitable result of this liberal attitude toward the Negroes
was that the Quakers of those colonies where other settlers were
so neglectful of the enlightenment of the colored race, soon found
themselves at war with the leaders of the time. In slaveholding
communities the Quakers were persecuted, not necessarily because they
adhered to a peculiar faith, not primarily because they had manners
and customs unacceptable to the colonists, but because in answering
the call of duty to help all men they incurred the ill will of the
masters who denounced them as undesirable persons, bringing into
America spurious doctrines subversive of the institutions of the
aristocratic settlements.

Their experience in the colony of Virginia is a good example of how
this worked out. Seeing the unchristian attitude of the preachers in
most parts of that colony, the Quakers inquired of them, "Who made you
ministers of the Gospel to white people only, and not to the tawny and
blacks also?"[1] To show the nakedness of the neglectful clergy there
some of this faith manifested such zeal in teaching and preaching to
the Negroes that their enemies demanded legislation to prevent them
from gaining ascendancy over the minds of the slaves. Accordingly, to
make the colored people of that colony inaccessible to these workers
it was deemed wise in 1672 to enact a law prohibiting members of that
sect from taking Negroes to their meetings. In 1678 the colony enacted
another measure excluding Quakers from the teaching profession by
providing that no person should be allowed to keep a school in
Virginia unless he had taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy.[2]
Of course, it was inconsistent with the spirit and creed of the
Quakers to take this oath.

[Footnote 1: Quaker Pamphlet, p. 9.]

[Footnote 2: Hening, _Statutes at Large_, vol. i., 532; ii., 48, 165,
166, 180, 198, and 204. _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_.,
1871, p. 391.]

The settlers of North Carolina followed the same procedure to check
the influence of Quakers, who spoke there in behalf of the man of
color as fearlessly as they had in Virginia. The apprehension of the
dominating element was such that Governor Tryon had to be instructed
to prohibit from teaching in that colony any person who had not
a license from the Bishop of London.[1] Although this order was
seemingly intended to protect the faith and doctrine of the Anglican
Church, rather than to prevent the education of Negroes, it operated
to lessen their chances for enlightenment, since missionaries from
the Established Church did not reach all parts of the colony.[2] The
Quakers of North Carolina, however, had local schools and actually
taught slaves. Some of these could read and write as early as 1731.
Thereafter, household servants were generally given the rudiments of
an English education.

[Footnote 1: Ashe, _History of North Carolina_, vol. i., p. 389. The
same instructions were given to Governor Francis Nicholson.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., pp. 389, 390.]

It was in the settlements of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York
that the Quakers encountered less opposition in carrying out their
policy of cultivating the minds of colored people. Among these Friends
the education of Negroes became the handmaiden of the emancipation
movement. While John Hepburn, William Burling, Elihu Coleman, and
Ralph Sandiford largely confined their attacks to the injustice of
keeping slaves, Benjamin Lay was working for their improvement as a
prerequisite of emancipation.[1] Lay entreated the Friends to "bring
up the Negroes to some Learning, Reading and Writing and" to "endeavor
to the utmost of their Power in the sweet love of Truth to instruct
and teach 'em the Principles of Truth and Religiousness, and learn
some Honest Trade or Imployment and then set them free. And," says he,
"all the time Friends are teaching of them let them know that they
intend to let them go free in a very reasonable Time; and that our
Religious Principles will not allow of such Severity, as to keep them
in everlasting Bondage and Slavery."[2]

[Footnote 1: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 31.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 32.]


The struggle of the Northern Quakers to enlighten the colored people
had important local results. A strong moral force operated in the
minds of most of this sect to impel them to follow the example of
certain leaders who emancipated their slaves.[1] Efforts in this
direction were redoubled about the middle of the eighteenth century
when Anthony Benezet,[2] addressing himself with unwonted zeal to the
uplift of these unfortunates, obtained the assistance of Clarkson and
others, who solidified the antislavery sentiment of the Quakers and
influenced them to give their time and means to the more effective
education of the blacks. After this period the Quakers were also
concerned with the improvement of the colored people's condition in
other settlements.[3]

[Footnote 1: Dr. DuBois gives a good account of these efforts in his
_Suppression of the African Slave Trade_.]

[Footnote 2: Benezet was a French Protestant. Persecuted on account of
their religion, his parents moved from France to England and later to
Philadelphia. He became a teacher in that city in 1742. Thirteen years
later he was teaching a school established for the education of the
daughters of the most distinguished families in Philadelphia. He was
then using his own spelling-book, primer, and grammar, some of the
first text-books published in America. Known to persecution himself,
Benezet always sympathized with the oppressed. Accordingly, he
connected himself with the Quakers, who at that time had before
them the double task of fighting for religious equality and the
amelioration of the condition of the Negroes. Becoming interested in
the welfare of the colored race, Benezet first attacked the slave
trade, so exposing it in his speeches and writings that Clarkson
entered the field as an earnest advocate of the suppression of the
iniquitous traffic. See Benezet, _Observations_, p. 30, and the
_African Repository_, vol. iv., p. 61.]

[Footnote 3: Quaker Pamphlet, p. 31.]

What the other sects did for the enlightenment of Negroes during this
period, was not of much importance. As the Presbyterians, Methodists,
and Baptists did not proselyte extensively in this country prior to
the middle of the eighteenth century, these denominations had little
to do with Negro education before the liberalism and spirit of
toleration, developed during the revolutionary era, made it possible
for these sects to reach the people. The Methodists, however, confined
at first largely to the South, where most of the slaves were found,
had to take up this problem earlier. Something looking like an attempt
to elevate the Negroes came from Wesley's contemporary, George
Whitefield,[1] who, strange to say, was regarded by the Negro race
as its enemy for having favored the introduction of slavery. He was
primarily interested in the conversion of the colored people. Without
denying that "liberty is sweet to those who are born free," he
advocated the importation of slaves into Georgia "to bring them within
the reach of those means of grace which would make them partake of a
liberty far more precious than the freedom of body."[2] While on a
visit to this country in 1740 he purchased a large tract of land at
Nazareth, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of founding a school for the
education of Negroes.[3] Deciding later to go south, he sold the site
to the Moravian brethren who had undertaken to establish a mission
for Negroes at Bethlehem in 1738.[4] Some writers have accepted the
statement that Whitefield commenced the erection of a schoolhouse at
Nazareth; others maintain that he failed to accomplish anything.[5] Be
that as it may, accessible facts are sufficient to show that, unwise
as was his policy of importing slaves, his intention was to improve
their condition. It was because of this sentiment in Georgia in 1747,
when slavery was finally introduced there, that the people through
their representatives in convention recommended that masters should
educate their young slaves, and do whatever they could to make
religious impressions upon the minds of the aged. This favorable
attitude of early Methodists toward Negroes caused them to consider
the new churchmen their friends and made it easy for this sect to
proselyte the race.

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 374.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 374.]

[Footnote 3: Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, p. 128.]

[Footnote 4: Equally interested in the Negroes were the Moravians who
settled in the uplands of Pennsylvania and roamed over the hills of
the Appalachian region as far south as Carolina. A painting of a
group of their converts prior to 1747 shows among others two Negroes,
Johannes of South Carolina and Jupiter of New York. See Hamilton,
_History of the Church known as the Moravian_, p. 80; Plumer,
_Thoughts on the Religious Instruction of Negroes_, p. 3; Reichel,
_The Moravians in North Carolina_, p. 139.]

[Footnote 5: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1869, p. 374.]




CHAPTER III

EDUCATION AS A RIGHT OF MAN


In addition to the mere diffusion of knowledge as a means to teach
religion there was a need of another factor to make the education of
the Negroes thorough. This required force was supplied by the response
of the colonists to the nascent social doctrine of the eighteenth
century. During the French and Indian War there were set to work
certain forces which hastened the social and political upheaval called
the American Revolution. "Bigoted saints" of the more highly favored
sects condescended to grant the rising denominations toleration,
the aristocratic elements of colonial society deigned to look more
favorably upon those of lower estate, and a large number of leaders
began to think that the Negro should be educated and freed. To
acquaint themselves with the claims of the underman Americans
thereafter prosecuted more seriously the study of Coke, Milton, Locke,
and Blackstone. The last of these was then read more extensively in
the colonies than in Great Britain. Getting from these writers strange
ideas of individual liberty and the social compact theory of man's
making in a state of nature government deriving its power from the
consent of the governed, the colonists contended more boldly than ever
for religious freedom, industrial liberty, and political equality.
Given impetus by the diffusion of these ideas, the revolutionary
movement became productive of the spirit of universal benevolence.
Hearing the contention for natural and inalienable rights, Nathaniel
Appleton[1] and John Woolman,[2] were emboldened to carry these
theories to their logical conclusion. They attacked not only the
oppressors of the colonists but censured also those who denied the
Negro race freedom of body and freedom of mind. When John Adams heard
James Otis basing his argument against the writs of assistance on the
British constitution "founded in the laws of nature," he "shuddered at
the doctrine taught and the consequences that might be derived from
such premises."[3]

[Footnote 1: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 19, 20, 23.]

[Footnote 2: _Works of John Woolman_ in two parts, pp. 58 and 73;
Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Mass._, p. 71.]

[Footnote 3: Adams, _Works of John Adams_, vol. x., p. 315; Moore,
_Notes on Slavery in Mass._, p. 71.]

So effective was the attack on the institution of slavery and its
attendant evils that interest in the question leaped the boundaries
of religious organizations and became the concern of fair-minded men
throughout the country. Not only did Northern men of the type of John
Adams and James Otis express their opposition to this tyranny of men's
bodies and minds, but Laurens, Henry, Wythe, Mason, and Washington
pointed out the injustice of such a policy. Accordingly we find
arrayed against the aristocratic masters almost all the leaders of the
American Revolution.[1] They favored the policy, first, of suppressing
the slave trade, next of emancipating the Negroes in bondage, and
finally of educating them for a life of freedom.[2] While students of
government were exposing the inconsistency of slaveholding among a
people contending for political liberty, and men like Samuel Webster,
James Swan, and Samuel Hopkins attacked the institution on economic
grounds;[3] Jonathan Boucher,[4] Dr. Rush,[5] and Benjamin Franklin[6]
were devising plans to educate slaves for freedom; and Isaac Tatem[7]
and Anthony Benezet[8] were actually in the schoolroom endeavoring to
enlighten their black brethren.

[Footnote 1: Cobb, _Slavery_, etc., p. 82.]

[Footnote 2: Madison, _Works of_, vol. iii., p. 496; Smyth, _Works of
Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431; Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol.
ix., p. 163; Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. i., p. 227;
Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies, 1794,
1795, 1797.]

[Footnote 3: Webster, _A Sermon Preached before the Honorable
Council_, etc.; Webster, _Earnest Address to My Country on Slavery_;
Swan, _A Dissuasion to Great Britain and the Colonies_; Hopkins,
_Dialogue Concerning Slavery_.]

[Footnote 4: Boucher, _A View of the Causes and Consequences of the
American Revolution_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 5: Rush, _An Address to the Inhabitants of_, etc., p. 16.]

[Footnote 6: Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol. iv., p. 23; vol. v., p.
431.]

[Footnote 7: Wickersham, _History of Ed. in Pa_., p. 249.]

[Footnote 8: _Ibid_., p. 250; _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of
Ed_., 1869, p. 375; _African Repository_, vol. iv., p. 61; Benezet,
_Observations_; Benezet, _A Serious Address to the Rulers of
America_.]

The aim of these workers was not merely to enable the Negroes to take
over sufficient of Western civilization to become nominal Christians,
not primarily to increase their economic efficiency, but to enlighten
them because they are men. To strengthen their position these
defendants of the education of the blacks cited the customs of the
Greeks and Romans, who enslaved not the minds and wills, but only the
bodies of men. Nor did these benefactors fail to mention the cases of
ancient slaves, who, having the advantages of education, became poets,
teachers, and philosophers, instrumental in the diffusion of knowledge
among the higher classes. There was still the idea of Cotton Mather,
who was willing to treat his servants as part of the family, and to
employ such of them as were competent to teach his children lessons of
piety.[1]

[Footnote 1: Meade, _Sermons of Thomas Bacon_, appendix.]

The chief objection of these reformers to slavery was that its victims
had no opportunity for mental improvement. "Othello," a free person
of color, contributing to the _American Museum_ in 1788, made the
institution responsible for the intellectual rudeness of the Negroes
who, though "naturally possessed of strong sagacity and lively parts,"
were by law and custom prohibited from being instructed in any kind
of learning.[1] He styled this policy an effort to bolster up an
institution that extinguished the "divine spark of the slave, crushed
the bud of his genius, and kept him unacquainted with the world." Dr.
McLeod denounced slavery because it "debases a part of the human race"
and tends "to destroy their intellectual powers."[2] "The slave from
his infancy," continued he, "is obliged implicitly to obey the will of
another. There is no circumstance which can stimulate him to exercise
his intellectual powers." In his arraignment of this system Rev. David
Rice complained that it was in the power of the master to deprive
the slaves of all education, that they had not the opportunity for
instructing conversation, that it was put out of their power to
learn to read, and that their masters kept them from other means of
information.[3] Slavery, therefore, must be abolished because it
infringes upon the natural right of men to be enlightened.

[Footnote 1: _The American Museum_, vol. iv., pp. 415 and 511.]


[Footnote 2: McLeod, _Negro Slavery_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: Rice, Speech in the Constitutional Convention of
Kentucky, p. 5.]

During this period religion as a factor in the educational progress of
the Negroes was not eliminated. In fact, representative churchmen of
the various sects still took the lead in advocating the enlightenment
of the colored people. These protagonists, however, ceased to claim
this boon merely as a divine right and demanded it as a social
privilege. Some of the clergy then interested had not at first
seriously objected to the enslavement of the African race, believing
that the lot of these people would not be worse in this country where
they might have an opportunity for enlightenment. But when this result
failed to follow, and when the slavery of the Africans' bodies turned
out to be the slavery of their minds, the philanthropic and religious
proclaimed also the doctrine of enlightenment as a right of man.
Desiring to see Negroes enjoy this privilege, Jonathan Boucher,[1] one
of the most influential of the colonial clergymen, urged his hearers
at the celebration of the Peace of 1763 to improve and emancipate
their slaves that they might "participate in the general joy."
With the hope of inducing men to discharge the same duty, Bishop
Warburton[2] boldly asserted a few years later that slaves are
"rational creatures endowed with all our qualities except that of
color, and our brethren both by nature and grace." John Woolman,[3] a
Quaker minister, influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, began to
preach that liberty is the right of all men, and that slaves, being
the fellow-creatures of their masters, had a natural right to be
elevated.

[Footnote 1: Jonathan Boucher was a rector of the Established Church
in Maryland. Though not a promoter of the movement for the political
rights of the colonists, Boucher was, however, so moved by the spirit
of uplift of the downtrodden that he takes front rank among those who,
in emphasizing the rights of servants, caused a decided change in the
attitude of white men toward the improvement of Negroes. Boucher was
not an immediate abolitionist. He abhorred slavery, however, to the
extent that he asserted that if ever the colonies would be improved to
their utmost capacity, an essential part of that amelioration had
to be the abolition of slavery. His chief concern then was the
cultivation of the minds in order to make amends for the drudgery to
their bodies. See Boucher, _Causes_, etc., p. 39.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 363.]

[Footnote 3: An influential minister of the Society of Friends and an
extensive traveler through the colonies, Woolman had an opportunity to
do much good in attacking the policy of those who kept their Negroes
in deplorable ignorance, and in commending the good example of those
who instructed their slaves in reading. In his _Considerations on the
Keeping of Slaves_ he took occasion to praise the Friends of North
Carolina for the unusual interest they manifested in the cause at
their meetings during his travels in that colony about the year 1760.
With such workers as Woolman in the field it is little wonder that
Quakers thereafter treated slaves as brethren, alleviated their
burdens, enlightened their minds, emancipated and cared for them until
they could provide for themselves. See _Works of John Woolman_ in two
parts, pp. 58 and 73.]

Thus following the theories of the revolutionary leaders these
liberal-minded men promulgated along with the doctrine of individual
liberty that of the freedom of the mind. The best expression of this
advanced idea came from the Methodist Episcopal Church, which reached
the acme of antislavery sentiment in 1784. This sect then boldly
declared: "We view it as contrary to the golden law of God and the
prophets, and the inalienable rights of mankind as well as every
principle of the Revolution to hold in deepest abasement, in a more
abject slavery than is perhaps to be found in any part of the world,
except America, so many souls that are capable of the image of
God."[1]

[Footnote 1: Matlack, _History of American Slavery and Methodism_, pp.
29 _et seq_.; McTyeire, _History of Methodism_, p. 28.]

Frequently in contact with men who were advocating the right of the
Negroes to be educated, statesmen as well as churchmen could not
easily evade the question. Washington did not have much to say about
it and did little more than to provide for the ultimate liberation of
his slaves and the teaching of their children to read.[1] Less aid to
this movement came from John Adams, although he detested slavery to
the extent that he never owned a bondman, preferring to hire freemen
at extra cost to do his work.[2] Adams made it clear that he favored
gradual emancipation. But he neither delivered any inflammatory
speeches against slaveholders neglectful of the instruction of their
slaves, nor devised any scheme for their enjoyment of freedom. So was
it with Hamilton who, as an advocate of the natural rights of man,
opposed the institution of slavery, but, with the exception of what
assistance he gave the New York African Free Schools[3] said and did
little to promote the actual education of the colored people.

[Footnote 1: Lossing, _Life of George Washington_, vol. iii., p. 537.]

[Footnote 2: Adams, _Works of John Adams_, vol. viii., p. 379; vol.
ix., p. 92; vol. x., p. 380.]

[Footnote 3: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 57.]

Madison in stating his position on this question was a little more
definite than some of his contemporaries. Speaking of the necessary
preparation of the colored people for emancipation he thought it was
possible to determine the proper course of instruction. He believed,
however, that, since the Negroes were to continue in a state
of bondage during the preparatory period and to be within the
jurisdiction of commonwealths recognizing ample authority over them,
"a competent discipline" could not be impracticable. He said further
that the "degree in which this discipline" would "enforce the needed
labor and in which a voluntary industry" would "supply the defect of
compulsory labor, were vital points on which it" might "not be safe
to be very positive without some light from actual experiment."[1]
Evidently he was of the opinion that the training of slaves to
discharge later the duties of freemen was a difficult task but, if
well planned and directed, could be made a success.

[Footnote 1: Madison, _Works of_, vol. iii., p. 496.]

No one of the great statesmen of this time was more interested in the
enlightenment of the Negro than Benjamin Franklin.[1] He was for a
long time associated with the friends of the colored people and turned
out from his press such fiery anti-slavery pamphlets as those of Lay
and Sandiford. Franklin also became one of the "Associates of Dr.
Bray." Always interested in the colored schools of Philadelphia,
the philosopher was, while in London, connected with the English
"gentlemen concerned with the pious design,"[2] serving as chairman of
the organization for the year 1760. He was a firm supporter of Anthony
Benezet,[3] and was made president of the Abolition Society of
Philadelphia which in 1774 founded a successful colored school.[4]
This school was so well planned and maintained that it continued about
a hundred years.

[Footnote 1: Smyth, _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. iv., p. 23.]

[Footnote 3: Smyth, _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., vol. x., p. 127; and Wickersham, _History of
Education in Pennsylvania_, p. 253.]

John Jay kept up his interest in the Negro race.[1] In the Convention
of 1787 he coöperated with Gouverneur Morris, advocating the abolition
of the slave trade and the rejection of the Federal ratio. His efforts
in behalf of the colored people were actuated by his early conviction
that the national character of this country could be retrieved only
by abolishing the iniquitous traffic in human souls and improving
the Negroes.[2] Showing his pity for the downtrodden people of color
around him, Jay helped to promote the cause of the abolitionists of
New York who established and supported several colored schools in
that city. Such care was exercised in providing for the attendance,
maintenance, and supervision of these schools that they soon took rank
among the best in the United States.

[Footnote 1: Jay, _Works of John Jay_, vol. i., p. 136; vol. iii, p.
331.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. iii., p. 343.]

More interesting than the views of any other man of this epoch on the
subject of Negro education were those of Thomas Jefferson. Born of
pioneer parentage in the mountains of Virginia, Jefferson never
lost his frontier democratic ideals which made him an advocate of
simplicity, equality, and universal freedom. Having in mind when he
wrote the Declaration of Independence the rights of the blacks as well
as those of whites, this disciple of John Locke, could not but feel
that the slaves of his day had a natural right to education and
freedom. Jefferson said so much more on these important questions than
his contemporaries that he would have been considered an abolitionist,
had he lived in 1840.

Giving his views on the enlightenment of the Negroes he asserted
that the minds of the masters should be "apprized by reflection and
strengthened by the energies of conscience against the obstacles of
self-interest to an acquiescence in the rights of others." The owners
would then permit their slaves to be "prepared by instruction and
habit" for self-government, the honest pursuit of industry, and social
duty.[1] In his scheme for a modern system of public schools Jefferson
included the training of the slaves in industrial and agricultural
branches to equip them for a higher station in life, else he thought
they should be removed from the country when liberated.[2] Capable of
mental development, as he had found certain men of color to be, the
Sage of Monticello doubted at times that they could be made the
intellectual equals of white men,[3] and did not actually advocate
their incorporation into the body politic.

[Footnote 1: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. vi., p. 456.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. viii., p. 380; and Mayo, _Educational
Movement in the South_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 3: As to what Jefferson thought of the Negro intellect
we are still in doubt. Writing in 1791 to Banneker, the Negro
mathematician and astronomer, he said that nobody wished to see more
than he such proofs as Banneker exhibited that nature has given to our
black brethren talents equal to those of men of other colors, and that
the appearance of a lack of such native ability was owing only to
their degraded condition in Africa and America. Jefferson expressed
himself as being ardently desirous of seeing a good system commenced
for raising the condition both of the body and the mind of the slaves
to what it ought to be as fast as the "imbecility" of their then
existence and other circumstances, which could not be neglected, would
admit. Replying to Grégoire of Paris, who wrote an interesting essay
on the _Literature of Negroes_, showing the power of their intellect,
Jefferson assured him that no person living wished more sincerely
than he to see a complete refutation of the doubts he himself had
entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to
them by nature and to find that in this respect they are on a par
with white men. These doubts, he said, were the result of personal
observations in the limited sphere of his own State where "the
opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable,
and those of exercising it still less so." He said that he had
expressed them with great hesitation; but "whatever be the degree of
their talent, it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac
Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore
lord of the person or property of others." In this respect he believed
they were gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful
advances were being made toward their reëstablishment on an equal
footing with other colors of the human family. He prayed, therefore,
that God might accept his thanks for enabling him to observe the "many
instances of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which could
not fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief." Yet
a few days later when writing to Joel Barlow, Jefferson referred to
Bishop Grégoire's essay and expressed his doubt that this pamphlet was
weighty evidence of the intellect of the Negro. He said that the whole
did not amount in point of evidence to what they themselves knew of
Banneker. He conceded that Banneker had spherical knowledge enough to
make almanacs, but not without the suspicion of aid from Ellicott
who was his neighbor and friend, and never missed an opportunity of
puffing him. Referring to the letter he received from Banneker, he
said it showed the writer to have a mind of very common stature
indeed. See Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. v., pp. 429 and
503.]

So much progress in the improvement of slaves was effected with all of
these workers in the field that conservative southerners in the midst
of the antislavery agitation contented themselves with the thought
that radical action was not necessary, as the institution would
of itself soon pass away. Legislatures passed laws facilitating
manumission,[1] many southerners emancipated their slaves to give them
a better chance to improve their condition, regulations unfavorable to
the assembly of Negroes for the dissemination of information almost
fell into desuetude, a larger number of masters began to instruct
their bondmen, and persons especially interested in these unfortunates
found the objects of their piety more accessible.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Locke, Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 14.]

[Footnote 2: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. i., p. 220;
Johann Schoepf, _Travels in the Confederation_, p. 149.]

Not all slaveholders, however, were thus induced to respect this new
right claimed for the colored people. Georgia and South Carolina
were exceptional in that they were not sufficiently stirred by the
revolutionary movement to have much compassion for this degraded
class. The attitude of the people of Georgia, however, was then more
favorable than that of the South Carolinians.[1] Nevertheless, the
Georgia planters near the frontier were not long in learning that the
general enlightenment of the Negroes would endanger the institution of
slavery. Accordingly, in 1770, at the very time when radical reformers
were clamoring for the rights of man, Georgia, following in the wake
of South Carolina, reënacted its act of 1740 which imposed a penalty
on any one who should teach or cause slaves to be taught or employ
them "in any manner of writing whatever."[2] The penalty, however,
was less than that imposed in South Carolina.[3] The same measure
terminated the helpful mingling of slaves by providing for their
dispersion when assembled for the old-time "love feast" emphasized so
much among the rising Methodists of the South.

[Footnote 1: The laws of Georgia were not so harsh as those of South
Carolina. A larger number of intelligent persons of color were
found in the rural districts of Georgia. Charleston, however, was
exceptional in that its Negroes had unusual educational advantages.]

[Footnote 2: Marbury and Crawford, _Digest of the Laws of the State of
Georgia_, p. 438.]

[Footnote 3: Brevard, _Digest of the Public Statutes of South
Carolina_, vol. ii., p. 243.]

Those advocating the imposition of restraints upon Negroes acquiring
knowledge were not, however, confined to South Carolina and Georgia
where the malevolent happened to be in the majority. The other States
had not seen the last of the generation of those who doubted that
education would fit the slaves for the exalted position of citizens.
The retrogressives made much of the assertion that adult slaves lately
imported, were, on account of their attachment to heathen practices
and idolatrous rites, loath to take over the Teutonic civilization,
and would at best learn to speak the English language imperfectly
only.[1] The reformers, who at times admitted this, maintained that
the alleged difficulties encountered in teaching the crudest element
of the slaves could not be adduced as an argument against the
religious instruction of free Negroes and the education of the
American born colored children.[2] This problem, however, was not a
serious one in most Northern States, for the reason that the small
number of slaves in that section obviated the necessity for much
apprehension as to what kind of education the blacks should have,
and whether they should be enlightened before or after emancipation.
Although the Northern people believed that the education of the race
should be definitely planned, and had much to say about industrial
education, most of them were of the opinion that ordinary training
in the fundamentals of useful knowledge and in the principles of
Christian religion, was sufficient to meet the needs of those
designated for freedom.

[Footnote 1: Meade, _Sermons of Thomas Bacon_, pp. 81-87.]

[Footnote 2: Porteus, _Works of_, vol. vi., p. 177; Warburton, _A
Sermon_, etc., pp. 25 and 27.]

On the other hand, most southerners who conceded the right of the
Negro to be educated did not openly aid the movement except with the
understanding that the enlightened ones should be taken from their
fellows and colonized in some remote part of the United States or
in their native land.[1] The idea of colonization, however, was not
confined to the southern slaveholders, for Thornton, Fothergill, and
Granville Sharp had long looked to Africa as the proper place for
enlightened people of color.[2] Feeling that it would be wrong to
expatriate them, Benezet and Branagan[3] advocated the colonization of
such Negroes on the public lands west of the Alleghanies. There was
some talk of giving slaves training in the elements of agriculture
and then dividing plantations among them to develop a small class of
tenants. Jefferson, a member of a committee appointed in 1779 by the
General Assembly of that commonwealth to revise its laws, reported a
plan providing for the instruction of its slaves in agriculture and
the handicrafts to prepare them for liberation and colonization under
the supervision of the home government until they could take care of
themselves.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Writings of James Monroe_, vol. iii., pp. 261, 266, 292,
295, 321, 322, 336, 338, 349, 351, 352, 353, 378.]

[Footnote 2: Brissot de Warville, _Travels_, vol. i., p. 262.]

[Footnote 3: _Tyrannical Libertymen_, pp. 10-11; Locke,
_Anti-slavery_, etc., pp. 31-32; Branagan, _Serious Remonstrance_, p.
18.]

[Footnote 4: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. iii., p. 296; vol.
iv., p. 291 and vol. viii., p. 380.]

Without resorting to the subterfuge of colonization, not a few
slaveholders were still wise enough to show why the improvement of the
Negroes should be neglected altogether. Vanquished by the logic of
Daniel Davis[1] and Benjamin Rush,[2] those who had theretofore
justified slavery on the ground that it gave the bondmen a chance to
be enlightened, fell back on the theory of African racial inferiority.
This they said was so well exhibited by the Negroes' lack of
wisdom and of goodness that continued heathenism of the race was
justifiable.[3] Answering these inconsistent persons, John Wesley
inquired: "Allowing them to be as stupid as you say, to whom is that
stupidity owing? Without doubt it lies altogether at the door of the
inhuman masters who give them no opportunity for improving their
understanding and indeed leave them no motive, either from hope or
fear to attempt any such thing." Wesley asserted, too, that the
Africans were in no way remarkable for their stupidity while they
remained in their own country, and that where they had equal motives
and equal means of improvement, the Negroes were not only not inferior
to the better inhabitants of Europe, but superior to some of them.[4]

[Footnote 1: Davis was a logical antislavery agitator. He believed
that if the slaves had had the means of education, if they had been
treated with humanity, making slaves of them had been no more than
doing evil that good might come. He thought that Christianity and
humanity would have rather dictated the sending of books and teachers
into Africa and endeavors for their salvation.]

[Footnote 2: Benjamin Rush was a Philadelphia physician of Quaker
parentage. He was educated at the College of New Jersey and at the
Medical School of Edinburgh, where he came into contact with some of
the most enlightened men of his time. Holding to the ideals of his
youth, Dr. Rush was soon associated with the friends of the Negroes on
his return to Philadelphia. He not only worked for the abolition of
the slave trade but fearlessly advocated the right of the Negroes
to be educated. He pointed out that an inquiry into the methods of
converting Negroes to Christianity would show that the means were
ill suited to the end proposed. "In many cases," said he, "Sunday
is appropriated to work for themselves. Reading and writing are
discouraged among them. A belief is inculcated among some that they
have no souls. In a word, every attempt to instruct or convert them
has been constantly opposed by their masters." See Rush, _An Address
to the Inhabitants_, etc., p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: Meade, _Sermons of Rev. Thomas Bacon_, pp. 81-97.]

[Footnote 4: Wesley, _Thoughts upon Slavery_, p. 92.]

William Pinkney, the antislavery leader of Maryland, believed also
that Negroes are no worse than white people under similar conditions,
and that all the colored people needed to disprove their so-called
inferiority was an equal chance with the more favored race.[1] Others
like George Buchanan referred to the Negroes' talent for the fine arts
and to their achievements in literature, mathematics, and philosophy.
Buchanan informed these merciless aristocrats "that the Africans
whom you despise, whom you inhumanly treat as brutes and whom you
unlawfully subject to slavery with tyrannizing hands of despots are
equally capable of improvement with yourselves."[2]

[Footnote 1: Pinkney, _Speech in Maryland House of Delegates_, p. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Buchanan, _An Oration on the Moral and Political Evil of
Slavery_, p. 10.]

Franklin considered the idea of the natural inferiority of the
Negro as a silly excuse. He conceded that most of the blacks were
improvident and poor, but believed that their condition was not due to
deficient understanding but to their lack of education. He was very
much impressed with their achievements in music.[1] So disgusting was
this notion of inferiority to Abbé Grégoire of Paris that he wrote an
interesting essay on "Negro Literature" to prove that people of color
have unusual intellectual power.[2] He sent copies of this pamphlet
to leading men where slavery existed. Another writer discussing
Jefferson's equivocal position on this question said that one would
have thought that "modern philosophy himself" would not have the face
to expect that the wretch, who is driven out to labor at the dawn of
day, and who toils until evening with a whip over his head, ought to
be a poet. Benezet, who had actually taught Negroes, declared "with
truth and sincerity" that he had found among them as great variety of
talents as among a like number of white persons. He boldly asserted
that the notion entertained by some that the blacks were inferior
in their capacities was a vulgar prejudice founded on the pride or
ignorance of their lordly masters who had kept their slaves at such a
distance as to be unable to form a right judgment of them.[3]

[Footnote 1: Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol. vi., p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: Grégoire, _La Littérature des Nègres_.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 375.]




CHAPTER IV

ACTUAL EDUCATION


Would these professions of interest in the mental development of the
blacks be translated into action? What these reformers would do to
raise the standard of Negro education above the plane of rudimentary
training incidental to religious instruction, was yet to be seen.
Would they secure to Negroes the educational privileges guaranteed
other elements of society? The answer, if not affirmative, was
decidedly encouraging. The idea uppermost in the minds of these
workers was that the people of color could and should be educated as
other races of men.

In the lead of this movement were the antislavery agitators.
Recognizing the Negroes' need of preparation for citizenship, the
abolitionists proclaimed as a common purpose of their organizations
the education of the colored people with a view to developing in them
self-respect, self-support, and usefulness in the community.[1]

[Footnote 1: Smyth, _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, vol. x., p. 127;
Torrey, _Portraiture of Slavery_, p. 21. See also constitution of
almost any antislavery society organized during this period.]

The proposition to cultivate the minds of the slaves came as a happy
solution of what had been a perplexing problem. Many Americans who
considered slavery an evil had found no way out of the difficulty when
the alternative was to turn loose upon society so many uncivilized men
without the ability to discharge the duties of citizenship.[1] Assured
then that the efforts at emancipation would be tested by experience,
a larger number of men advocated abolition. These leaders recommended
gradual emancipation for States having a large slave population, that
those designated for freedom might first be instructed in the value
and meaning of liberty to render them comfortable in the use of it.[2]
The number of slaves in the States adopting the policy of immediate
emancipation was not considered a menace to society, for the schools
already open to colored people could exert a restraining influence
on those lately given the boon of freedom. For these reasons the
antislavery societies had in their constitutions a provision for
a committee of education to influence Negroes to attend school,
superintend their instruction, and emphasize the cultivation of the
mind as the necessary preparation for "that state in society upon
which depends our political happiness."[3] Much stress was laid upon
this point by the American Convention of Abolition Societies in 1794
and 1795 when the organization expressed the hope that freedmen might
participate in civil rights as fast as they qualified by education.[4]

[Footnote 1: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. vi., p. 456;
vol. viii., p. 379; Madison, _Works of_, vol. iii., p. 496; Monroe,
_Writings of_, vol. iii., pp. 321, 336, 349, 378; Adams, _Works of
John Adams_, vol. ix., p. 92 and vol. x., p. 380.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1797,
address.]

[Footnote 3: The constitution of almost any antislavery society of
that time provided for this work. See _Proc. of Am. Conv._, etc.,
1795, address.]

[Footnote 4: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1794, p. 21; and 1795, p. 17; and _Rise and Progress of
the Testimony of Friends_, etc., p. 27.]

This work was organized by the abolitionists but was generally
maintained by members of the various sects which did more for
the enlightenment of the people of color through the antislavery
organizations than through their own.[1] The support of the clergy,
however, did not mean that the education of the Negroes would continue
incidental to the teaching of religion. The blacks were to be accepted
as brethren and trained to be useful citizens. For better education
the colored people could then look to the more liberal sects, the
Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, who prior to
the Revolution had been restrained by intolerance from extensive
proselyting. Upon the attainment of religious liberty they were free
to win over the slaveholders who came into the Methodist and Baptist
churches in large numbers, bringing their slaves with them.[2] The
freedom of these "regenerated" churches made possible the rise of
Negro exhorters and preachers, who to exercise their gifts managed in
some way to learn to read and write. Schools for the training of such
leaders were not to be found, but to encourage ambitious blacks to
qualify themselves white ministers often employed such candidates
as attendants, allowing them time to observe, to study, and even to
address their audiences.[3]

[Footnote 1: The antislavery societies were at first the uniting
influence among all persons interested in the uplift of the Negroes.
The agitation had not then become violent, for men considered the
institution not a sin but merely an evil.]

[Footnote 2: Coke, _Journal_, etc., p. 114; Lambert, _Travels_,
p. 175; Baird, _A Collection_, etc., pp. 381, 387 and 816; James,
_Documentary_, etc., p. 35; Foote, _Sketches of Virginia_, p. 31;
Matlack, _History of American Slavery and Methodism_, p. 31; Semple,
_History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia_, p.
222.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, and Coke, _Journal_, etc., pp. 16-18.]

It must be observed, however, that the interest of these benevolent
men was no longer manifested in the mere traditional teaching of
individual slaves. The movement ceased to be the concern of separate
philanthropists. Men really interested in the uplift of the colored
people organized to raise funds, open schools, and supervise their
education.[1] In the course of time their efforts became more
systematic and consequently more successful. These educators adopted
the threefold policy of instructing Negroes in the principles of
the Christian religion, giving them the fundamentals of the common
branches, and teaching them the most useful handicrafts.[2] The
indoctrination of the colored people, to be sure, was still an
important concern to their teachers, but the accession to their ranks
of a militant secular element caused the emphasis to shift to other
phases of education. Seeing the Negroes' need of mental development,
the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Pennsylvania urged the members
of that denomination in 1787 to give their slaves "such good education
as to prepare them for a better enjoyment of freedom."[3] In reply to
the inquiry as to what could be done to teach the poor black and white
children to read, the Methodist Conference of 1790 recommended the
establishment of Sunday schools and the appointment of persons to
teach gratis "all that will attend and have a capacity to learn."[4]
The Conference recommended that the Church publish a special text-book
to teach these children learning as well as piety.[5] Men in the
political world were also active. In 1788 the State of New Jersey
passed an act preliminary to emancipation, making the teaching of
slaves to read compulsory under a penalty of five pounds.[6]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1797.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1797.]

[Footnote 3: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 44.]

[Footnote 4: Washington, _Story of the Negro_, vol. ii, p. 121.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 121.]

[Footnote 6: Laws of New Jersey, 1788.]

With such influence brought to bear on persons in the various walks of
life, the movement for the effective education of the colored people
became more extensive. Voicing the sentiment of the different local
organizations, the American Convention of Abolition Societies of 1794
urged the branches to have the children of free Negroes and slaves
instructed in "common literature."[1] Two years later the Abolition
Society of the State of Maryland proposed to establish an academy to
offer this kind of instruction. To execute this scheme the American
Convention thought that it was expedient to employ regular tutors,
to form private associations of their members or other well-disposed
persons for the purpose of instructing the people of color in the most
simple branches of education.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1796, p. 18.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1797, p. 41.]

The regular tutors referred to above were largely indentured servants
who then constituted probably the majority of the teachers of the
colonies.[1] In 1773 Jonathan Boucher said that two thirds of the
teachers of Maryland belonged to this class.[2] The contact of Negroes
with these servants is significant. In the absence of rigid caste
distinctions they associated with the slaves and the barrier between
them was so inconsiderable that laws had to be passed to prevent the
miscegenation of the races. The blacks acquired much useful knowledge
from servant teachers and sometimes assisted them.

[Footnote 1: See the descriptions of indentured servants in the
advertisements of colonial newspapers referred to on pages 82-84; and
Boucher, _A View of the Causes_, etc., p. 39.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp. 39 and 40.]

Attention was directed also to the fact that neither literary nor
religious education prepared the Negroes for a life of usefulness.
Heeding the advice of Kosciuszko, Madison and Jefferson, the advocates
of the education of the Negroes endeavored to give them such practical
training as their peculiar needs demanded. In the agricultural
sections the first duty of the teacher of the blacks was to show them
how to get their living from the soil. This was the final test of
their preparation for emancipation. Accordingly, on large plantations
where much supervision was necessary, trustworthy Negroes were trained
as managers. Many of those who showed aptitude were liberated and
encouraged to produce for themselves. Slaves designated for freedom
were often given small parcels of land for the cultivation of which
they were allowed some of their time. An important result of this
agricultural training was that many of the slaves thus favored amassed
considerable wealth by using their spare time in cultivating crops of
their own.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 196.]


The advocates of useful education for the degraded race had more to
say about training in the mechanic arts. Such instruction, however,
was not then a new thing to the blacks of the South, for they had from
time immemorial been the trustworthy artisans of that section. The aim
then was to give them such education as would make them intelligent
workmen and develop in them the power to plan for themselves. In the
North, where the Negroes had been largely menial servants, adequate
industrial education was deemed necessary for those who were to be
liberated.[1] Almost every Northern colored school of any consequence
then offered courses in the handicrafts. In 1784 the Quakers of
Philadelphia employed Sarah Dwight to teach the colored girls
sewing.[2] Anthony Benezet provided in his will that in the school
to be established by his benefaction the girls should be taught
needlework.[3] The teachers who took upon themselves the improvement
of the free people of color of New York City regarded industrial
training as one of their important tasks.[4]

[Footnote 1: See the _Address of the Am. Conv. of Abolition
Societies_, 1794; _ibid._, 1795; _ibid._, 1797 _et passim._]

[Footnote 2: Wickersham, _History of Ed. in Pa._, p. 249.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1869, p. 375.]

[Footnote 4: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 20.]

None urged this duty upon the directors of these schools more
persistently than the antislavery organizations. In 1794 the American
Convention of Abolition Societies recommended that Negroes be
instructed in "those mechanic arts which will keep them most
constantly employed and, of course, which will less subject them to
idleness and debauchery, and thus prepare them for becoming good
citizens of the United States."[1] Speaking repeatedly on this wise
the Convention requested the colored people to let it be their special
care to have their children not only to work at useful trades but also
to till the soil.[2] The early abolitionists believed that this was
the only way the freedmen could learn to support themselves.[3]
In connection with their schools the antislavery leaders had an
Indenturing Committee to find positions for colored students who had
the advantages of industrial education.[4] In some communities slaves
were prepared for emancipation by binding them out as apprentices to
machinists and artisans until they learned a trade.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, 1794, p. 14.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1795, p. 29; _ibid._, 1797, pp. 12, 13, and 31.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, 1797, p. 31.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, 1818, p. 9.]

Two early efforts to carry out this policy are worthy of notice here.
These were the endeavors of Anthony Benezet and Thaddeus Kosciuszko.
Benezet was typical of those men, who, having the courage of their
conviction, not only taught colored people, but gladly appropriated
property to their education. Benezet died in 1784, leaving
considerable wealth to be devoted to the purpose of educating Indians
and Negroes. His will provided that as the estate on the death of
his wife would not be sufficient entirely to support a school, the
Overseers of the Public Schools of Philadelphia should join with a
committee appointed by the Society of Friends, and other benevolent
persons, in the care and maintenance of an institution such as he
had planned. Finally in 1787 the efforts of Benezet reached their
culmination in the construction of a schoolhouse, with additional
funds obtained from David Barclay of London and Thomas Sidney, a
colored man of Philadelphia. The pupils of this school were to study
reading, writing, arithmetic, plain accounts, and sewing.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 375.]

With respect to conceding the Negroes' claim to a better education,
Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the Polish general, was not unlike Benezet. None
of the revolutionary leaders were more moved with compassion for the
colored people than this warrior. He saw in education the powerful
leverage which would place them in position to enjoy the newly won
rights of man. While assisting us in gaining our independence,
Kosciuszko acquired here valuable property which he endeavored to
devote to the enlightenment of the slaves. He authorized Thomas
Jefferson, his executor, to employ the whole thereof in purchasing
Negroes and liberating them in the name of Kosciuszko, "in giving them
an education in trades or otherwise, and in having them instructed for
their new condition in the duties of morality." The instructors were
to provide for them such training as would make them "good neighbors,
good mothers or fathers, good husbands or wives, teaching them the
duties of citizenship, teaching them to be defenders of their liberty
and country, and of the good order of society, and whatsoever might
make them useful and happy."[1] Clearly as this was set forth the
executor failed to discharge this duty enjoined upon him. The heirs of
the donor instituted proceedings to obtain possession of the estate,
which, so far as the author knows, was never used for the purpose for
which it was intended.

[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, vol. xi., pp. 294-295.]

In view of these numerous strivings we are compelled to inquire
exactly what these educators accomplished. Although it is impossible
to measure the results of their early efforts, various records of the
eighteenth century prove that there was lessening objection to the
instruction of slaves and practically none to the enlightenment of
freedmen. Negroes in considerable numbers were becoming well grounded
in the rudiments of education. They had reached the point of
constituting the majority of the mechanics in slaveholding
communities; they were qualified to be tradesmen, trustworthy helpers,
and attendants of distinguished men, and a few were serving as clerks,
overseers, and managers.[1] Many who were favorably circumstanced
learned more than mere reading and writing. In exceptional cases, some
were employed not only as teachers and preachers to their people, but
as instructors of the white race.[2]

[Footnote 1: Georgia and South Carolina had to pass laws to prevent
Negroes from following these occupations for fear that they might
thereby become too well informed. See Brevard, _Digest of Public
Statute Laws of S.C._, vol. ii., p. 243; and Marbury and Crawford,
_Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia_, p. 438.]

[Footnote 2: Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p. 74; manuscripts
relating to the condition of the colored people of North Carolina,
Ohio, and Tennessee now in the hands of Dr. J.E. Moorland.]

A more accurate estimate of how far the enlightenment of the Negroes
had progressed before the close of the eighteenth century, is better
obtained from the reports of teachers and missionaries who were
working among them. Appealing to the Negroes of Virginia about 1755,
Benjamin Fawcett addressed them as intelligent people, commanding
them to read and study the Bible for themselves and consider "how
the Papists do all they can to hide it from their fellowmen." "Be
particularly thankful," said he, "for the Ministers of Christ around
you, who are faithfully laboring to teach the truth as it is in
Jesus."[1] Rev. Mr. Davies, then a member of the Society for Promoting
the Gospel among the Poor, reported that there were multitudes of
Negroes in different parts of Virginia who were "willingly, eagerly
desirous to be instructed and embraced every opportunity of
acquainting themselves with the Doctrine of the Gospel," and though
they had generally very little help to learn to read, yet to his
surprise many of them by dint of application had made such progress
that they could "intelligently read a plain author and especially
their Bible." Pity it was, he thought, that any of them should be
without necessary books. Negroes were wont to come to him with such
moving accounts of their needs in this respect that he could not help
supplying them.[2] On Saturday evenings and Sundays his home was
crowded with numbers of those "whose very Countenances still carry the
air of importunate Petitioners" for the same favors with those who
came before them. Complaining that his stock was exhausted, and that
he had to turn away many disappointed, he urged his friends to send
him other suitable books, for nothing else, thought he, could be a
greater inducement to their industry to learn to read.

[Footnote 1: Fawcett, _Compassionate Address_, etc., p. 33.]

[Footnote 2: Fawcett, _Compassionate Address_, etc., p. 33.]

Still more reliable testimony may be obtained, not from persons
particularly interested in the uplift of the blacks, but from
slaveholders. Their advertisements in the colonial newspapers furnish
unconscious evidence of the intellectual progress of the Negroes
during the eighteenth century. "He's an 'artful,'"[1] "plausible,"[2]
"smart,"[3] or "sensible fellow,"[4] "delights much in traffic,"[5]
and "plays on the fife extremely well,"[6] are some of the statements
found in the descriptions of fugitive slaves. Other fugitives were
speaking "plainly,"[7] "talking indifferent English,"[8] "remarkably
good English,"[9] and "exceedingly good English."[10] In some
advertisements we observe such expressions as "he speaks a little
French,"[11] "Creole French,"[12] "a few words of High-Dutch,"[13] and
"tolerable German."[14] Writing about a fugitive a master would often
state that "he can read print,"[15] "can read writing,"[16] "can read
and also write a little,"[17] "can read and write,"[18] "can write
a pretty hand and has probably forged a pass."[19] These conditions
obtained especially in Charleston, South Carolina, where were
advertised various fugitives, one of whom spoke French and English
fluently, and passed for a doctor among his people,[20] another who
spoke Spanish and French intelligibly,[21] and a third who could read,
write, and speak both French and Spanish very well.[22]

[Footnote 1: _Virginia Herald_ (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800; _The
Maryland Gazette_, Feb. 27, 1755; _Dunlop's Maryland Gazette and
Baltimore Advertiser_, July 23, 1776; _The State Gazette of South
Carolina_, May 18, 1786; _The State Gazette of North Carolina_, July
2, 1789.]

[Footnote 2: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_ (Charleston,
S.C.), Sept. 26, 1797, and _The Carolina Gazette_, June 3, 1802.]

[Footnote 3: _The Charleston Courier_, June 1, 1804; _The State
Gazette of South Carolina_, Feb. 20, and 27, 1786; and _The Maryland
Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Feb. 19, 1793.]

[Footnote 4: _South Carolina Weekly Advertiser_, Feb. 19 and April 2,
1783; _State Gazette of South Carolina_, Feb. 20 and May 18, 1786.]

[Footnote 5: _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advocate_, Oct. 17,
1780.]

[Footnote 6: _The Virginia Herald_ (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800;
and _The Norfolk and Portsmouth Chronicle_, April 24, 1790.]

[Footnote 7: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_, Jan. 20 and
March 1, 1800; and _The South Carolina Weekly Gazette_, Oct. 24 to 31,
1759.]

[Footnote 8: _The City Gaz. and Daily Adv._, Jan. 20 and March 1,
1800; and _S.C. Weekly Gaz._, Oct. 24 to 31, 1759.]

[Footnote 9: _The Newbern Gazette_, May 23 and Aug. 15, 1800; _The
Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Feb. 19, 1793; _The City
Gazette and Daily Advertiser_ (Charleston, S.C.), Sept. 26, 1797; Oct.
5, 1798; Aug. 23 and Sept. 9, 1799; Aug. 18 and Oct. 3, 1800; and
March 7, 1801; and _Maryland Gazette_, Dec. 30, 1746; and April 4,
1754; _South Carolina Weekly Advertiser_, Oct. 24 to 31, 1759; and
Feb. 19, 1783; _The Gazette of the State of South Carolina_, Sept. 13
and Nov. 1, 1784; and _The Carolina Gazette_, Aug. 12, 1802.]

[Footnote 10: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 26, 1797;
May 15, 1799; and Oct. 3, 1800; _The State Gazette of South Carolina_,
Aug. 21, 1786; _The Gazette of the State of South Carolina_, Aug. 26,
1784; _The Maryland Gazette_, Aug. 1, 1754; Oct. 28, 1773; and Aug.
19, 1784; and _The Columbian Herald_, April 30, 1789.]

[Footnote 11: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_, Oct. 5, 1798;
Aug. 18 and Sept. 18, 1800; _The Gazette of the State of South
Carolina_, Aug. 16, 1784.]

[Footnote 12: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_, Oct. 5, 1798.]

[Footnote 13: _The Maryland Gazette_, Aug. 19, 1784.]

[Footnote 14: _The State Gazette of South Carolina_, Feb. 20 and 27,
1780.]

[Footnote 15: _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Oct.
17, 1780. _Dunlop's Maryland Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser_, July
23, 1776.]

[Footnote 16: _The Maryland Gazette_, May 21, 1795.]

[Footnote 17: _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Oct.
17, 1780; and Sept. 20, 1785; and _The Maryland Gazette_, May 21,
1795; and January 4, 1798; _The Carolina Gazette_, June 3, 1802; and
_The Charleston Courier_, June 29, 1803. _The Norfolk and Portsmouth
Chronicle_, March 19, 1791.]

[Footnote 18: _The Maryland Gazette_, Feb. 27, 1755; and Oct. 27,
1768; _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Oct. 1, 1793;
_The Virginia Herald_ (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800.]

[Footnote 19: _The Maryland Gazette_, Feb. 1, 1755 and Feb. 1, 1798;
_The State Gazette of North Carolina_, April 30, 1789; _The Norfolk
and Portsmouth Chronicle_, April 24, 1790; _The City Gazette and Daily
Advertiser_ (Charleston, South Carolina), Jan. 5, 1799; and March 7,
1801; _The Carolina Gazette_, Feb. 4, 1802; and _The Virginia Herald_
(Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800.]

[Footnote 20: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_, Jan. 5, 1799;
and March 5, 1800; _The Gazette of the State of South Carolina_, Aug.
16, 1784; and _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Sept.
20, 1793.]

[Footnote 21: _The City Gazette of South Carolina_, Jan. 5, 1799.]

[Footnote 22: The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser (Charleston, South
Carolina), June 22 and Aug. 8, 1797; April 1 and May 15, 1799.]

Equally convincing as to the educational progress of the colored race
were the high attainments of those Negroes who, despite the fact that
they had little opportunity, surpassed in intellect a large number of
white men of their time. Negroes were serving as salesmen, keeping
accounts, managing plantations, teaching and preaching, and had
intellectually advanced to the extent that fifteen or twenty per cent.
of their adults could then at least read. Most of this talented class
became preachers, as this was the only calling even conditionally
open to persons of African blood. Among these clergymen was George
Leile,[1] who won distinction as a preacher in Georgia in 1782, and
then went to Jamaica where he founded the first Baptist church of that
colony. The competent and indefatigable Andrew Bryan[2] proved to be a
worthy successor of George Leile in Georgia. From 1770 to 1790 Negro
preachers were in charge of congregations in Charles City, Petersburg,
and Allen's Creek in Lunenburg County, Virginia.[3] In 1801 Gowan
Pamphlet of that State was the pastor of a progressive Baptist church,
some members of which could read, write, and keep accounts.[4] Lemuel
Haynes was then widely known as a well-educated minister of the
Protestant Episcopal Church. John Gloucester, who had been trained
under Gideon Blackburn of Tennessee, distinguished himself in
Philadelphia where he founded the African Presbyterian Church.[5] One
of the most interesting of these preachers was Josiah Bishop. By 1791
he had made such a record in his profession that he was called to
the pastorate of the First Baptist Church (white) of Portsmouth,
Virginia.[6] After serving his white brethren a number of years he
preached some time in Baltimore and then went to New York to take
charge of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.[7] This favorable condition
of affairs could not long exist after the aristocratic element in the
country began to recover some of the ground it had lost during the
social upheaval of the revolutionary era. It was the objection to
treating Negroes as members on a plane of equality with all, that led
to the establishment of colored Baptist churches and to the secession
of the Negro Methodists under the leadership of Richard Allen in 1794.
The importance of this movement to the student of education lies in
the fact that a larger number of Negroes had to be educated to carry
on the work of the new churches.

[Footnote 1: He was sometimes called George Sharp. See Benedict,
_History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 189.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 189.]

[Footnote 3: Semple, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 112.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 114.]

[Footnote 5: Baird, _A Collection_, etc., p. 817.]

[Footnote 6: Semple, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 355.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid._, p. 356.]

The intellectual progress of the colored people of that day, however,
was not restricted to their clergymen. Other Negroes were learning to
excel in various walks of life. Two such persons were found in North
Carolina. One of these was known as Caesar, the author of a collection
of poems, which, when published in that State, attained a popularity
equal to that of Bloomfield's.[1] Those who had the pleasure of
reading the poems stated that they were characterized by "simplicity,
purity, and natural grace."[2] The other noted Negro of North Carolina
was mentioned in 1799 by Buchan in his _Domestic Medicine_ as the
discoverer of a remedy for the bite of the rattlesnake. Buchan learned
from Dr. Brooks that, in view of the benefits resulting from the
discovery of this slave, the General Assembly of North Carolina
purchased his freedom and settled upon him a hundred pounds per
annum.[3]

[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 20.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 21.]

[Footnote 3: Smyth, _A Tour in the U.S._, p. 109; and Baldwin,
_Observations_, p. 20.]

To this class of bright Negroes belonged Thomas Fuller, a native
African, who resided near Alexandria, Virginia, where he startled
the students of his time by his unusual attainments in mathematics,
despite the fact that he could neither read nor write. Once acquainted
with the power of numbers, he commenced his education by counting the
hairs of the tail of the horse with which he worked the fields. He
soon devised processes for shortening his modes of calculation,
attaining such skill and accuracy as to solve the most difficult
problems. Depending upon his own system of mental arithmetic he
learned to obtain accurate results just as quickly as Mr. Zerah
Colburn, a noted calculator of that day, who tested the Negro
mathematician.[1] The most abstruse questions in relation to time,
distance, and space were no task for his miraculous memory, which,
when the mathematician was interrupted in the midst of a long and
tedious calculation, enabled him to take up some other work and later
resume his calculation where he left off.[2] One of the questions
propounded him, was how many seconds of time had elapsed since the
birth of an individual who had lived seventy years, seven months, and
as many days. Fuller was able to answer the question in a minute and a
half.

[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Needles, _An Historical Memoir_, etc., p. 32.]

Another Negro of this type was James Durham, a native slave of the
city of Philadelphia. Durham was purchased by Dr. Dove, a physician
in New Orleans, who, seeing the divine spark in the slave, gave him
a chance for mental development. It was fortunate that he was thrown
upon his own resources in this environment, where the miscegenation
of the races since the early French settlement, had given rise to a
thrifty and progressive class of mixed breeds, many of whom at that
time had the privileges and immunities of freemen. Durham was not long
in acquiring a rudimentary education, and soon learned several modern
languages, speaking English, French, and Spanish fluently. Beginning
his medical education early in his career, he finished his course,
and by the time he was twenty-one years of age became one of the most
distinguished physicians[1] of New Orleans. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the
noted physician of Philadelphia, who was educated at the Edinburgh
Medical College, once deigned to converse professionally with Dr.
Durham. "I learned more from him than he could expect from me," was
the comment of the Philadelphian upon a conversation in which he had
thought to appear as instructor of the younger physician.[2]

[Footnote 1: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. i., p. 223.]

[Footnote 2: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 17.]

Most prominent among these brainy persons of color were Phyllis
Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. The former was a slave girl brought
from Africa in 1761 and put to service in the household of John
Wheatley of Boston. There, without any training but that which she
obtained from her master's family, she learned in sixteen months to
speak the English language fluently, and to read the most difficult
parts of sacred writings. She had a great inclination for Latin and
made some progress in the study of that language. Led to writing by
curiosity, she was by 1765 possessed of a style which enabled her to
count among her correspondents some of the most influential men of her
time. Phyllis Wheatley's title to fame, however, rested not on her
general attainments as a scholar but rather on her ability to write
poetry. Her poems seemed to have such rare merit that men marveled
that a slave could possess such a productive imagination, enlightened
mind, and poetical genius. The publishers were so much surprised that
they sought reassurance as to the authenticity of the poems from such
persons as James Bowdoin, Harrison Gray, and John Hancock.[1] Glancing
at her works, the modern critic would readily say that she was not a
poetess, just as the student of political economy would dub Adam Smith
a failure as an economist. A bright college freshman who has studied
introductory economics can write a treatise as scientific as the
_Wealth of Nations_. The student of history, however, must not
"despise the day of small things." Judged according to the standards
of her time, Phyllis Wheatley was an exceptionally intellectual
person.

[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 18; Wright, _Poems of
Phyllis Wheatley_, Introduction.]

The other distinguished Negro, Benjamin Banneker, was born in
Baltimore County, Maryland, November 9, 1731, near the village of
Ellicott Mills. Banneker was sent to school in the neighborhood, where
he learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. Determined to acquire
knowledge while toiling, he applied his mind to things intellectual,
cultivated the power of observation, and developed a retentive memory.
These acquirements finally made him tower above all other American
scientists of his time with the possible exception of Benjamin
Franklin. In conformity with his desire to do and create, his tendency
was toward mathematics. Although he had never seen a clock, watches
being the only timepieces in the vicinity, he made in 1770 the first
clock manufactured in the United States,[1] thereby attracting the
attention of the scientific world. Learning these things, the owner of
Ellicott Mills became very much interested in this man of inventive
genius, lent him books, and encouraged him in his chosen field.
Among these volumes were treatises on astronomy, which Banneker soon
mastered without any instruction.[2] Soon he could calculate eclipses
of sun and moon and the rising of each star with an accuracy almost
unknown to Americans. Despite his limited means, he secured through
Goddard and Angell of Baltimore the publication of the first almanac
produced in this country. Jefferson received from Banneker a copy,
for which he wrote the author a letter of thanks. It appears that
Jefferson had some doubts about the man's genius, but the fact that
the philosopher invited Banneker to visit him at Monticello in 1803,
indicates that the increasing reputation of the Negro must have
caused Jefferson to change his opinion as to the extent of Banneker's
attainments and the value of his contributions to mathematics and
science.[3]

[Footnote 1: Washington, _Jefferson's Works_, vol. v., p. 429.]

[Footnote 2: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: Washington, _Jefferson's Works_, vol. v., p. 429.]

So favorable did the aspect of things become as a result of this
movement to elevate the Negroes, that persons observing the conditions
then obtaining in this country thought that the victory for the
despised race had been won. Traveling in 1783 in the colony of
Virginia, where the slave trade had been abolished and schools for
the education of freedmen established, Johann Schoepf felt that the
institution was doomed.[1] After touring Pennsylvania five years
later, Brissot de Warville reported that there existed then a country
where the blacks were allowed to have souls, and to be endowed with an
understanding capable of being formed to virtue and useful knowledge,
and where they were not regarded as beasts of burden in order that
their masters might have the privilege of treating them as such. He
was pleased that the colored people by their virtue and understanding
belied the calumnies which their tyrants elsewhere lavished against
them, and that in that community one perceived no difference between
"the memory of a black head whose hair is craped by nature, and that
of the white one craped by art."[2]

[Footnote 1: Schoepf, _Travels in the Confederation_, p. 149.]

[Footnote 2: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. I., p. 220.]




CHAPTER V

BETTER BEGINNINGS


Sketching the second half of the eighteenth century, we have observed
how the struggle for the rights of man in directing attention to those
of low estate, and sweeping away the impediments to religious
freedom, made the free blacks more accessible to helpful sects and
organizations. We have also learned that this upheaval left the slaves
the objects of piety for the sympathetic, the concern of workers in
behalf of social uplift, a class offered instruction as a prerequisite
to emancipation. The private teaching of Negroes became tolerable,
benevolent persons volunteered to instruct them, and some schools
maintained for the education of white students were thrown open to
those of African blood. It was the day of better beginnings. In fact,
it was the heyday of victory for the ante-bellum Negro. Never had his
position been so advantageous; never was it thus again until the whole
race was emancipated. Now the question which naturally arises here
is, to what extent were such efforts general? Were these beginnings
sufficiently extensive to secure adequate enlightenment to a large
number of colored people? Was interest in the education of this class
so widely manifested thereafter as to cause the movement to endure? A
brief account of these efforts in the various States will answer these
questions.

In the Northern and Middle States an increasing number of educational
advantages for the white race made germane the question as to what
consideration should be shown to the colored people.[1] A general
admission of Negroes to the schools of these progressive communities
was undesirable, not because of the prejudice against the race, but on
account of the feeling that the past of the colored people having been
different from that of the white race, their training should be in
keeping with their situation. To meet their peculiar needs many
communities thought it best to provide for them "special,"
"individual," or "unclassified" schools adapted to their condition.[2]
In most cases, however, the movement for separate schools originated
not with the white race, but with the people of color themselves.

[Footnote 1: _Niles's Register_, vol. xvi., pp. 241-243 and vol.
xxiii., p. 23.]

[Footnote 2: See _The Proceedings of the Am. Conv. of Abolition
Societies_.]

In New England, Negroes had almost from the beginning of their
enslavement some chance for mental, moral, and spiritual improvement,
but the revolutionary movement was followed in that section by a
general effort to elevate the people of color through the influence
of the school and church. In 1770 the Rhode Island Quakers were
endeavoring to give young Negroes such an education as becomes
Christians. In 1773 Newport had a colored school, maintained by a
society of benevolent clergymen of the Church of England, with a
handsome fund for a mistress to teach thirty children reading and
writing. Providence did not exhibit such activity until the nineteenth
century. Having a larger black population than any other city in New
England, Boston was the center of these endeavors. In 1798 a separate
school for colored children, under the charge of Elisha Sylvester, a
white man, was established in that city in the house of Primus Hall, a
Negro of very good standing.[1] Two years later sixty-six free blacks
of that city petitioned the school committee for a separate school,
but the citizens in a special town meeting called to consider the
question refused to grant this request.[2] Undaunted by this refusal,
the patrons of the special school established in the house of Primus
Hall, employed Brown and Hall of Harvard College as instructors, until
1806.[3] The school was then moved to the African Meeting House
in Belknap Street where it remained until 1835 when, with funds
contributed by Abiel Smith, a building was erected. An epoch in the
history of Negro education in New England was marked in 1820, when the
city of Boston opened its first primary school for the education of
colored children.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 357.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 357.]

[Footnote 3: Next to be instructor of this institution was Prince
Saunders, who was brought to Boston by Dr. Channing and Caleb Bingham
in 1809. Brought up in the family of a Vermont lawyer, and experienced
as a diplomatic official of Emperor Christopher of Hayti, Prince
Saunders was able to do much for the advancement of this work. Among
others who taught in this school was John B. Russworm, a graduate of
Bowdoin College, and, later, Governor of the Colony of Cape Palmas in
Southern Liberia. See _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871,
p. 357; and _African Repository_, vol. ii., p. 271.]

[Footnote 4: _Special Rep. of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 357.]

Generally speaking, we can say that while the movement for special
colored schools met with some opposition in certain portions of New
England, in other parts of the Northeastern States the religious
organizations and abolition societies, which were espousing the cause
of the Negro, yielded to this demand. These schools were sometimes
found in churches of the North, as in the cases of the schools in
the African Church of Boston, and the Sunday-school in the African
Improved Church of New Haven. In 1828 there was in that city another
such school supported by public-school money; three in Boston; one in
Salem; and one in Portland, Maine.[1]

[Footnote 1: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, p. 142.]

Outside of the city of New York, not so much interest was shown in
the education of Negroes as in the States which had a larger colored
population.[1] Those who were scattered through the State were allowed
to attend white schools, which did not "meet their special needs."[2]
In the metropolis, where the blacks constituted one-tenth of the
inhabitants in 1800, however, the mental improvement of the dark race
could not be neglected. The liberalism of the revolutionary era led
to the organization in New York of the "Society for Promoting the
Manumission of Slaves and Protecting such of them as have been or may
be liberated." This Society ushered in a new day for the free persons
of color of that city in organizing in 1787 the New York African
Free School.[3] Among those interested in this organization and its
enterprises were Melancthon Smith, John Bleecker, James Cogswell,
Jacob Seaman, White Matlock, Matthew Clarkson, Nathaniel Lawrence, and
John Murray, Jr.[4] The school opened in 1790 with Cornelius Davis as
a teacher of forty pupils. In 1791 a lady was employed to instruct the
girls in needle-work.[5] The expected advantage of this industrial
training was soon realized.

[Footnote 1: La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, _Travels_, etc., p. 233.]

[Footnote 2: _Am. Conv._, 1798, p. 7.]

[Footnote 3: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 14.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, pp. 14 and 15.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 16.]

Despite the support of certain distinguished members of the community,
the larger portion of the population was so prejudiced against the
school that often the means available for its maintenance were
inadequate. The struggle was continued for about fifteen years with an
attendance of from forty to sixty pupils.[1] About 1801 the community
began to take more interest in the institution, and the Negroes
"became more generally impressed with a sense of the advantages and
importance of education, and more disposed to avail themselves of
the privileges offered them."[2] At this time one hundred and thirty
pupils of both sexes attended this school, paying their instructor,
a "discreet man of color," according to their ability and
inclination.[3] Many more colored children were then able to attend
as there had been a considerable increase in the number of colored
freeholders. As a result of the introduction of the Lancastrian and
monitorial systems of instruction the enrollment was further increased
and the general tone of the school was improved. Another impetus was
given the work in 1810.[4] Having in mind the preparation of slaves
for freedom, the legislature of the State of New York, made it
compulsory for masters to teach all minors born of slaves to read the
Scriptures.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 17.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1801, p. 6.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, 1801, Report from New York.]

[Footnote 4: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 20.]

[Footnote 5: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1812, p. 7.]

Decided improvement was noted after 1814. The directors then purchased
a lot on which they constructed a building the following year.[1] The
nucleus then took the name of the New York "African Free Schools."
These schools grew so rapidly that it was soon necessary to rent
additional quarters to accommodate the department of sewing. This work
had been made popular by the efforts of Misses Turpen, Eliza J. Cox,
Ann Cox, and Caroline Roe.[2] The subsequent growth of the classes
was such that in 1820 the Manumission Society had to erect a building
large enough to accommodate five hundred pupils.[3] The instructors
were then not only teaching the elementary branches of reading,
writing, arithmetic, and geography, but also astronomy, navigation,
advanced composition, plain sewing, knitting, and marking.[4] Knowing
the importance of industrial training, the Manumission Society then
had an Indenturing Committee find employment in trades for colored
children, and had recommended for some of them the pursuit of
agriculture.[5] The comptrollers desired no better way of measuring
the success of the system in shaping the character of its students
than to be able to boast that no pupils educated there had ever been
convicted of crime.[6] Lafayette, a promoter of the emancipation
and improvement of the colored people, and a member of the New York
Manumission Society, visited these schools in 1824 on his return to
the United States. He was bidden welcome by an eleven-year-old pupil
in well-chosen and significant words. After spending the afternoon
inspecting the schools the General pronounced them the "best
disciplined and the most interesting schools of children" he had ever
seen.[7]

[Footnote 1: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 18.]

[Footnote 2: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 17.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 18.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 19.]

[Footnote 5: _Proceedings of the Am. Convention of Abolition Soc._,
1818, P. 9; Adams, _Anti-slavery_, p. 142.]

[Footnote 6: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1820.]

[Footnote 7: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_,
p. 20.]

The outlook for the education of Negroes in New Jersey was unusually
bright. Carrying out the recommendations of the Haddonfield Quarterly
Meeting in 1777, the Quakers of Salem raised funds for the education
of the blacks, secured books, and placed the colored children of
the community at school. The delegates sent from that State, to the
Convention of the Abolition Societies in 1801, reported that there had
been schools in Burlington, Salem, and Trenton for the education of
the Negro race, but that they had been closed.[1] It seemed that
not much attention had been given to this work there, but that the
interest was increasing. These delegates stated that they did not then
know of any schools among them exclusively for Negroes. In most parts
of the State, and most commonly in the northern division, however,
they were incorporated with the white children in the various small
schools scattered over the State.[2] There was then in the city of
Burlington a free school for the education of poor children supported
by the profits of an estate left for that particular purpose, and made
equally accessible to the children of both races. Conditions were just
as favorable in Gloucester. An account from its antislavery society
shows that the local friends of the indigent had funds of about one
thousand pounds established for schooling poor children, white and
black, without distinction. Many of the black children, who were
placed by their masters under the care of white instructors, received
as good moral and school education as the lower class of whites.[3]
Later reports from this State show the same tendency toward democratic
education.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1801, p.
12.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 12, and Quaker Pamphlet, p. 40.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the American Conv._, etc., 1801, p. 12.]

The efforts made in this direction in Delaware, were encouraging. The
Abolition Society of Wilmington had not greatly promoted the special
education of "the Blacks and the people of color." In 1801, however, a
school was kept the first day of the week by one of the members of
the Society, who instructed them gratis in reading, writing, and
arithmetic. About twenty pupils generally attended and by their
assiduity and progress showed themselves as "capable as white persons
laboring under similar disadvantages."[1] In 1802 plans for the
extension of this system were laid and bore good fruit the following
year.[2] Seven years later, however, after personal and pecuniary aid
had for some time been extended, the workers had still to lament that
beneficial effects had not been more generally experienced, and
that there was little disposition to aid them in their friendly
endeavors.[3] In 1816 more important results had been obtained.
Through a society formed a few years prior to this date for the
express purpose of educating colored children, a school had been
established under a Negro teacher. He had a fair attendance of bright
children, who "by the facility with which they took in instruction
were silently but certainly undermining the prejudice"[4] against
their education. A library of religious and moral publications had
been secured for this institution. In addition to the school in
Wilmington there was a large academy for young colored women,
gratuitously taught by a society of young ladies. The course of
instruction covered reading, writing, and sewing. The work in sewing
proved to be a great advantage to the colored girls, many of whom
through the instrumentality of that society were provided with good
positions.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 20.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1802, p. 17.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1809, p.
20.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., 1816, p. 20.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid_., 1821, p. 18.]

In Pennsylvania the interest of the large Quaker element caused the
question of educating Negroes to be a matter of more concern to that
colony than it was to the others. Thanks to the arduous labors of
the antislavery movement, emancipation was provided for in 1780.
The Quakers were then especially anxious to see masters give their
"weighty and solid attention" to qualifying slaves for the liberty
intended. By the favorable legislation of the State the poor were
by 1780 allowed the chance to secure the rudiments of education.[1]
Despite this favorable appearance of things, however, friends of the
despised race had to keep up the agitation for such a construction of
the law as would secure to the Negroes of the State the educational
benefits extended to the indigent. The colored youth of Pennsylvania
thereafter had the right to attend the schools provided for white
children, and exercised it when persons interested in the blacks
directed their attention to the importance of mental improvement.[2]
But as neither they nor their defenders were numerous outside of
Philadelphia and Columbia, not many pupils of color in other parts of
the State attended school during this period. Whatever special effort
was made to arouse them to embrace their opportunities came chiefly
from the Quakers.

[Footnote 1: _A.M.E. Church Review_, vol. xv., p. 625.]

[Footnote 2: Wickersham, _History of Education in Pa_., p. 253.]

Not content with the schools which were already opened to Negroes, the
friends of the race continued to agitate and raise funds to extend
their philanthropic operations. With the donation of Anthony Benezet
the Quakers were able to enlarge their building and increase the scope
of the work. They added a female department in which Sarah Dwight[1]
was teaching the girls spelling, reading, and sewing in 1784. The
work done in Philadelphia was so successful that the place became the
rallying center for the Quakers throughout the country,[2] and was of
so much concern to certain members of this sect in London that in
1787 they contributed five hundred pounds toward the support of this
school.[3] In 1789 the Quakers organized "The Society for the Free
Instruction of the Orderly Blacks and People of Color." Taking into
consideration the "many disadvantages which many well-disposed blacks
and people of color labored under from not being able to read, write,
or cast accounts, which would qualify them to act for themselves or
provide for their families," this society in connection with other
organizations established evening schools for the education of adults
of African blood.[4] It is evident then that with the exception of the
school of the Abolition Society organized in 1774, and the efforts
of a few other persons generally coöperating like the anti-slavery
leaders with the Quakers, practically all of the useful education of
the colored people of this State was accomplished in their schools.
Philadelphia had seven colored schools in 1797.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., p. 251.]

[Footnote 2: Quaker Pamphlet, p. 42.]

[Footnote 3: Wickersham, _History of Ed. in Pa_., p. 252.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., p. 251.]

[Footnote 5: Turner, _The Negro in Pa_., p. 128.]

The next decade was of larger undertakings.[1] The report of the
Pennsylvania Abolition Society of 1801 shows that there had been an
increasing interest in Negro education. For this purpose the society
had raised funds to the amount of $530.50 per annum for three
years.[2] In 1803 certain other friends of the cause left for this
purpose two liberal benefactions, one amounting to one thousand
dollars, and the other to one thousand pounds.[3] With these
contributions the Quakers and Abolitionists erected in 1809 a handsome
building valued at four thousand dollars. They named it Clarkson Hall
in honor of the great friend of the Negro race.[4] In 1807 the Quakers
met the needs of the increasing population of the city by founding an
additional institution of learning known as the Adelphi School.[5]

[Footnote 1: Parish, _Remarks on the Slavery_, etc., p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Conv_., 1802, p. 18.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., 1803, p. 13.]

[Footnote 4: _Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the Colored
People of Philadelphia_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid_., p. 20.]

After the first decade of the nineteenth century the movement for the
uplift of the Negroes around Philadelphia was checked a little by the
migration to that city of many freedmen who had been lately liberated.
The majority of them did not "exhibit that industry, economy, and
temperance" which were "expected by many and wished by all."[1] Not
deterred, however, by this seemingly discouraging development, the
friends of the race toiled on as before. In 1810 certain Quaker women
who had attempted to establish a school for colored girls in 1795
apparently succeeded.[2] The institution, however, did not last many
years. But the Clarkson Hall schools maintained by the Abolition
Society were then making such progress that the management was
satisfied that they furnished a decided refutation of the charge that
the "mental endowments of the descendants of the African race are
inferior to those possessed by their white brethren."[3] They asserted
without fear of contradiction that the pupils of that seminary would
sustain a fair comparison with those of any other institution in which
the same elementary branches were taught. In 1815 these schools were
offering free instruction to three hundred boys and girls, and to a
number of adults attending evening schools. These victories had been
achieved despite the fact that in regard to some of the objects of the
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade "a tide of prejudice,
popular and legislative, set strongly against them."[4] After 1818,
however, help was obtained from the State to educate the colored
children of Columbia and Philadelphia.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Conv_., 1809, p. 16, and
1812, p. 16.]

[Footnote 2: Wickersham, _History of Ed. in Pa_., p. 252.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1812,
Report from Philadelphia.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., 1815, Report from Phila.]

The assistance obtained from the State, however, was not taken as a
pretext for the cessation of the labors on the part of those who had
borne the burden for more than a century. The faithful friends of the
colored race remained as active as ever. In 1822 the Quakers in the
Northern Liberties organized the Female Association which maintained
one or more schools.[1] That same year the Union Society founded in
1810 for the support of schools and domestic manufactures for the
benefit of the "African race and people of color" was conducting three
schools for adults.[2] The Infant School Society of Philadelphia was
also doing good work in looking after the education of small colored
children.[3] In the course of time crowded conditions in the colored
schools necessitated the opening of additional evening classes and the
erection of larger buildings.

[Footnote 1: Wickersham, _History of Education in Pa._, p. 252.]

[Footnote 2: One of these was at the Sessions House of the Third
Presbyterian Church; one at Clarkston Schoolhouse, Cherry Street; one
in the Academy on Locust Street. See _Statistical Inquiry into
the Condition of the Colored People of Philadelphia_, p. 19; and
Wickersham, _Education in Pa._, p. 253.]

[Footnote 3: _Statistical Inquiry_, etc., p. 19.]

At this time Maryland was not raising any serious objection to the
instruction of slaves, and public sentiment there did not seem to
interfere with the education of free persons of color. Maryland was
long noted for her favorable attitude toward her Negroes. We have
already observed how Banneker, though living in a small place, was
permitted to attend school, and how Ellicott became interested in this
man of genius and furnished him with books. Other Negroes of that
State were enjoying the same privilege. The abolition delegates from
Maryland reported in 1797 that several children of the Africans and
other people of color were under a course of instruction, and that an
academy and qualified teachers for them would be provided.[1] These
Negroes were then getting light from another source. Having more
freedom in this State than in some others, the Quakers were allowed to
teach colored people.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1797, p.
16.]

Most interest in the cause in Maryland was manifested near the cities
of Georgetown and Baltimore.[1] Long active in the cause of elevating
the colored people, the influence of the revolutionary movement was
hardly necessary to arouse the Catholics to discharge their duty of
enlightening the blacks. Wherever they had the opportunity to give
slaves religious instruction, they generally taught the unfortunates
everything that would broaden their horizon and help them to
understand life. The abolitionists and Protestant churches were also
in the field, but the work of the early fathers in these cities was
more effective. These forces at work in Georgetown made it, by the
time of its incorporation into the District of Columbia, a center
sending out teachers to carry on the instruction of Negroes. So
liberal were the white people of this town that colored children were
sent to school there with white boys and girls who seemed to raise
no objection.[2] Later in the nineteenth century the efforts made to
educate the Negroes of the rural districts of Maryland were eclipsed
by the better work accomplished by the free blacks in Baltimore and
the District of Columbia.

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., pp. 195 _et
seq_., and pp. 352-353.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 353.]

Having a number of antislavery men among the various sects buoyant
with religious freedom, Virginia easily continued to look with favor
upon the uplift of the colored people. The records of the Quakers of
that day show special effort in this direction there about 1764, 1773,
and 1785. In 1797 the abolitionists of Alexandria, some of whom were
Quakers, had been doing effective work among the Negroes of that
section. They had established a school with one Benjamin Davis as a
teacher. He reported an attendance of one hundred and eight pupils,
four of whom "could write a very legible hand," "read the Scriptures
with tolerable facility," and had commenced arithmetic. Eight others
had learned to read, but had made very little progress in writing.
Among his less progressive pupils fifteen could spell words of three
or four syllables and read easy lessons, some had begun to write,
while the others were chiefly engaged in learning the alphabet and
spelling monosyllables.[1] It is significant that colored children
of Alexandria, just as in the case of Georgetown, attended schools
established for the whites.[2] Their coeducation extended not only
to Sabbath schools but to other institutions of learning, which some
Negroes attended during the week.[3] Mrs. Maria Hall, one of the early
teachers of the District of Columbia, obtained her education in a
mixed school of Alexandria.[4] Controlled then by aristocratic people
who did not neglect the people of color, Alexandria also became a sort
of center for the uplift of the blacks in Northern Virginia.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv_., etc., 1797, p. 35.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., 1797, p. 36.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv._, p. 17; _ibid._, 1827, p.
53.]

[Footnote 4: _Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 198.]

Schools for the education of Negroes were established in Richmond,
Petersburg, and Norfolk. An extensive miscegenation of the races in
these cities had given rise to a very intelligent class of slaves and
a considerable number of thrifty free persons of color, in whom the
best people early learned to show much interest.[1] Of the schools
organized for them in the central part of the commonwealth, those
about Richmond seemed to be less prosperous. The abolitionists of
Virginia, reporting for that city in 1798, said that considerable
progress had been made in the education of the blacks, and that they
contemplated the establishment of a school for the instruction of
Negroes and other persons. They were apprehensive, however, that their
funds would be scarcely sufficient for this purpose.[2] In 1801, one
year after Gabriel's Insurrection, the abolitionists of Richmond
reported that the cause had been hindered by the "rapacious
disposition which emboldened many tyrants" among them "to trample upon
the rights of colored people even in the violation of the laws of the
State." For this reason the complainants felt that, although they
could not but unite in the opinion with the American Convention of
Abolition Societies as to the importance of educating the slaves for
living as freedmen, they were compelled on account of a "domineering
spirit of power and usurpation"[3] to direct attention to the Negroes'
bodily comfort.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 393.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv._, etc., 1798, p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv_., 1801, p. 15.]

This situation, however, was not sufficiently alarming to deter all
the promoters of Negro education in Virginia. It is remarkable how
Robert Pleasants, a Quaker of that State who emancipated his slaves
at his death in 1801, had united with other members of his sect to
establish a school for colored people. In 1782 they circulated a
pamphlet entitled "Proposals for Establishing a Free School for the
Instruction of Children of Blacks and People of Color."[1] They
recommended to the humane and benevolent of all denominations
cheerfully to contribute to an institution "calculated to promote
the spiritual and temporal interests of that unfortunate part of our
fellow creatures in forming their minds in the principles of virtue
and religion, and in common or useful literature, writing, ciphering,
and mechanic arts, as the most likely means to render so numerous a
people fit for freedom, and to become useful citizens." Pleasants
proposed to establish a school on a three-hundred-and-fifty-acre
tract of his own land at Gravelly Hills near Four-Mile Creek, Henrico
County. The whole revenue of the land was to go toward the support of
the institution, or, in the event the school should be established
elsewhere, he would give it one hundred pounds. Ebenezer Maule,
another friend, subscribed fifty pounds for the same purpose.[2]
Exactly what the outcome was, no one knows; but the memorial on
the life of Pleasants shows that he appropriated the rent of the
three-hundred-and-fifty-acre tract and ten pounds per annum to the
establishment of a free school for Negroes, and that a few years after
his death such an institution was in operation under a Friend at
Gravelly Run.[3]

[Footnote 1: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 215.]

[Footnote 2: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 216.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 216.]

Such philanthropy, however, did not become general in Virginia. The
progress of Negro education there was decidedly checked by the rapid
development of discontent among Negroes ambitious to emulate the
example of Toussaint L'Ouverture. During the first quarter of the
nineteenth century that commonwealth tolerated much less enlightenment
of the colored people than the benevolent element allowed them in the
other border States. The custom of teaching colored pauper children
apprenticed by church-wardens was prohibited by statute immediately
after Gabriel's Insurrection in 1800.[1] Negroes eager to learn were
thereafter largely restricted to private tutoring and instruction
offered in Sabbath-schools. Furthermore, as Virginia developed few
urban communities there were not sufficient persons of color in any
one place to coöperate in enlightening themselves even as much as
public sentiment allowed. After 1838 Virginia Negroes had practically
no chance to educate themselves.

[Footnote 1: Hening, _Statutes at Large_, vol. xvi., p. 124.]

North Carolina, not unlike the border States in their good treatment
of free persons of color, placed such little restriction on the
improvement of the colored people that they early attained rank among
the most enlightened ante-bellum Negroes. This interest, largely
on account of the zeal of the antislavery leaders and Quakers,[1]
continued unabated from 1780, the time of their greatest activity,
to the period of the intense abolition agitation and the servile
insurrections. In 1815 the Quakers were still exhorting their members
to establish schools for the literary and religious instruction of
Negroes.[2] The following year a school for Negroes was opened for
two days in a week.[3] So successful was the work done by the Quakers
during this period that they could report in 1817 that most colored
minors in the Western Quarter had been "put in a way to get a portion
of school learning."[4] In 1819 some of them could spell and a few
could write. The plan of these workers was to extend the instruction
until males could "read, write, and cipher," and until the females
could "read and write."[5]

[Footnote 1: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 231; Levi Coffin,
_Reminiscences_, pp. 69-71; Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p.
66.]

[Footnote 2: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 232.]

[Footnote 3: Thwaites, _Early Travels_, vol. ii., p. 66.]

[Footnote 4: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 232.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid_., 232.]

In the course of time, however, these philanthropists met with some
discouragement. In 1821 certain masters were sending their slaves to
a Sunday-school opened by Levi Coffin and his son Vestal. Before the
slaves had learned more than to spell words of two or three syllables
other masters became unduly alarmed, thinking that such instruction
would make the slaves discontented.[1] The timorous element threatened
the teachers with the terrors of the law, induced the benevolent
slaveholders to prohibit the attendance of their Negroes, and had the
school closed.[2] Moreover, it became more difficult to obtain aid
for this cause. Between 1815 and 1825 the North Carolina Manumission
Societies were redoubling their efforts to raise funds for this
purpose. By 1819 they had collected $47.00 but had not increased this
amount more than $2.62 two years later.[3]

[Footnote 1: Coffin, _Reminiscences_, p. 69.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 70.]

[Footnote 3: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 241.]

The work done by the various workers in North Carolina did not affect
the general improvement of the slaves, but thanks to the humanitarian
movement, they were not entirely neglected. In 1830 the General
Association of the Manumission Societies of that commonwealth
complained that the laws made no provision for the moral improvement
of the slaves.[1] Though learning was in a very small degree diffused
among the colored people of a few sections, it was almost unknown to
the slaves. They pointed out, too, that the little instruction some of
the slaves had received, and by which a few had been taught to
spell, or perhaps to read in "easy places," was not due to any legal
provision, but solely to the charity "which endureth all things" and
is willing to suffer reproach for the sake of being instrumental in
"delivering the poor that cry" and "directing the wanderer in the
right way."[2] To ameliorate these conditions the association
recommended among other things the enactment of a law providing for
the instruction of slaves in the elementary principles of language at
least so far as to enable them to read the Holy Scriptures.[3] The
reaction culminated, however, before this plan could be properly
presented to the people of that commonwealth.

[Footnote 1: An Address to the People of North Carolina on the Evils
of Slavery by the Friends of Liberty and Equality, _passim_.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._]

During these years an exceptionally bright Negro was serving as a
teacher not of his own race but of the most aristocratic white people
of North Carolina. This educator was a freeman named John Chavis. He
was born probably near Oxford, Granville County, about 1763. Chavis
was a full-blooded Negro of dark brown color. Early attracting the
attention of his white neighbors, he was sent to Princeton "to see
if a Negro would take a collegiate education." His rapid advancement
under Dr. Witherspoon "soon convinced his friends that the experiment
would issue favorable."[1] There he took rank as a good Latin and a
fair Greek scholar.

[Footnote 1: Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p. 73.]

From Princeton he went to Virginia to preach to his own people. In
1801 he served at the Hanover Presbytery as a "riding missionary under
the direction of the General Assembly."[1] He was then reported also
as a regularly commissioned preacher to his people in Lexington. In
1805 he returned to North Carolina where he often preached to various
congregations.[2] His career as a clergyman was brought to a close
in 1831 by the law enacted to prevent Negroes from preaching.[3]
Thereafter he confined himself to teaching, which was by far his
most important work. He opened a classical school for white persons,
"teaching in Granville, Wake, and Chatham Counties."[4] The best
people of the community patronized this school. Chavis counted among
his students W.P. Mangum, afterwards United States Senator, P.H.
Mangum, his brother, Archibald and John Henderson, sons of Chief
Justice Henderson, Charles Manly, afterwards Governor of that
commonwealth, and Dr. James L. Wortham of Oxford, North Carolina.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., p. 74; and Baird, _A Collection_, etc., pp.
816-817.]

[Footnote 2: Paul C. Cameron, a son of Judge Duncan of North Carolina,
said: "In my boyhood life at my father's home I often saw John Chavis,
a venerable old negro man, recognized as a freeman and as a preacher
or clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. As such he was received by my
father and treated with kindness and consideration, and respected as a
man of education, good sense and most estimable character." Mr. George
Wortham, a lawyer of Granville County, said: "I have heard him read
and explain the Scriptures to my father's family repeatedly. His
English was remarkably pure, containing no 'negroisms'; his manner was
impressive, his explanations clear and concise, and his views, as I
then thought and still think, entirely orthodox. He was said to have
been an acceptable preacher, his sermons abounding in strong common
sense views and happy illustrations, without any effort at oratory
or sensational appeals to the passions of his hearers." See Bassett,
_Slavery in N.C_., pp. 74-75.]

[Footnote 3: See Chapter VII.]

[Footnote 4: Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p. 74.]

[Footnote 5: John S. Bassett, Professor of History at Trinity College,
North Carolina, learned from a source of great respectability that
Chavis not only taught the children of these distinguished families,
but "was received as an equal socially and asked to table by the most
respectable people of the neighborhood." See Bassett, _Slavery in
North Carolina_, p. 75.]

We have no evidence of any such favorable conditions in South
Carolina. There was not much public education of the Negroes of that
State even during the revolutionary epoch. Regarding education as a
matter of concern to persons immediately interested South Carolinians
had long since learned to depend on private instruction for the
training of their youth. Colored schools were not thought of outside
of Charleston. Yet although South Carolina prohibited the education of
the slaves in 1740[1] and seemingly that of other Negroes in 1800,[2]
these measures were not considered a direct attack on the instruction
of free persons of color. Furthermore, the law in regard to the
teaching of the blacks was ignored by sympathetic masters. Colored
persons serving in families and attending traveling men shared with
white children the advantage of being taught at home. Free persons of
color remaining accessible to teachers and missionaries interested in
the propagation of the gospel among the poor still had the opportunity
to make intellectual advancement.[3]

[Footnote 1: Brevard, _Digest of the Public Statute Law of South
Carolina_, vol. ii., p. 243.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 243.]

[Footnote 3: Laws of 1740 and 1800, and Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p.
1078.]

Although not as reactionary as South Carolina, little could be
expected of Georgia where slavery had such a firm hold. Unfavorable as
conditions in that State were, however, they were not intolerable. It
was still lawful for a slave to learn to read, and free persons of
color had the privilege of acquiring any knowledge whatsoever.[1] The
chief incentive to the education of Negroes in that State came from
the rising Methodists and Baptists who, bringing a simple message to
plain people, instilled into their minds as never before the idea that
the Bible being the revelation of God, all men should be taught to
read that book.[2]

[Footnote 1: Marbury and Crawford, _Digest of the Laws of the State of
Georgia_, p. 438.]

[Footnote 2: Orr, _Education in the South_.]

In the territory known as Louisiana the good treatment of the mixed
breeds and the slaves by the French assured for years the privilege
to attend school. Rev. James Flint, of Salem, Massachusetts, received
letters from a friend in Louisiana, who, in pointing out conditions
around him, said: "In the regions where I live masters allow entire
liberty to the slaves to attend public worship, and as far as my
knowledge extends, it is generally the case in Louisiana. We have,"
said he, "regular meetings of the blacks in the building where I
attend public worship. I have in the past years devoted myself
assiduously, every Sabbath morning, to the labor of learning them to
read. I found them quick of apprehension, and capable of grasping the
rudiments of learning more rapidly than the whites."[1]

[Footnote 1: Flint, _Recollections of the Last Ten Years_, p. 345.]

Later the problem of educating Negroes in this section became more
difficult. The trouble was that contrary to the stipulation in the
treaty of purchase that the inhabitants of the territory of Louisiana
should be admitted to all the rights and immunities of citizens of the
United States, the State legislation, subsequent to the transfer of
jurisdiction, denied the right of education to a large class of mixed
breeds.[1] Many of these, thanks to the liberality of the French, had
been freed, and constituted an important element of society. Not a few
of them had educated themselves, accumulated wealth, and ranked with
white men of refinement and culture.[2]

[Footnote 1: Laws of Louisiana.]

[Footnote 2: Alliot, _Collections Historiques_, p. 85; and Thwaites,
_Early Western Travels_, vol. iv., pp. 320 and 321; vol. xii., p. 69;
and vol. xix., p. 126.]

Considering the few Negroes found in the West, the interest shown
there in their mental uplift was considerable. Because of the scarcity
of slaves in that section they came into helpful contact with their
masters. Besides, the Kentucky and Tennessee abolitionists, being much
longer active than those in most slave States, continued to emphasize
the education of the blacks as a correlative to emancipation.
Furthermore, the Western Baptists, Methodists, and Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians early took a stand against slavery, and urged the
masters to give their servants all the proper advantages for acquiring
the knowledge of their duty both to man and God. In the large towns
of Tennessee Negroes were permitted to attend private schools, and in
Louisville and Lexington there were several well-regulated colored
schools.

Two institutions for the education of slaves in the West are mentioned
during these years. In October, 1825, there appeared an advertisement
for eight or ten Negro slaves with their families to form a community
of this kind under the direction of an "Emancipating Labor Society"
of the State of Kentucky. In the same year Frances Wright suggested a
school on a similar basis. She advertised in the "Genius of Universal
Emancipation" an establishment to educate freed blacks and mulattoes
in West Tennessee. This was supported by a goodly number of persons,
including George Fowler and, it was said, Lafayette. A letter from a
Presbyterian clergyman in South Carolina says that the first slave
for this institution went from York District of that State. The
enterprise, however, was not well supported, and little was heard of
it in later years. Some asserted it was a money-making scheme for the
proprietor, and that the Negroes taught there were in reality slaves;
others went to the press to defend it as a benevolent effort. Both
sides so muddled the affair that it is difficult to determine exactly
what the intentions of the founders were.[1]

[Footnote 1: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, p. 152.]




CHAPTER VI

EDUCATING THE URBAN NEGRO


Such an impetus was given Negro education during the period of better
beginnings that some of the colored city schools then established have
existed even until to-day. Negroes learned from their white friends to
educate themselves. In the Middle and Southern States, however, much
of the sentiment in favor of developing the intellect of the Negro
passed away during the early part of the nineteenth century. This
reform, like many others of that day, suffered when Americans forgot
the struggle for the rights of man. Recovering from the social
upheaval of the Revolution, caste soon began to claim its own. To
discourage the education of the lowest class was natural to the
aristocrats who on coming to power established governments based on
the representation of interests, restriction of suffrage, and the
ineligibility of the poor to office. After this period the work of
enlightening the blacks in the southern and border States was largely
confined to a few towns and cities where the concentration of the
colored population continued.

The rise of the American city made possible the contact of the colored
people with the world, affording them a chance to observe what the
white man was doing, and to develop the power to care for themselves.
The Negroes who had this opportunity to take over the western
civilization were servants belonging to the families for which they
worked; slaves hired out by their owners to wait upon persons; and
watermen, embracing fishermen, boatmen, and sailors. Not a few slaves
in cities were mechanics, clerks, and overseers. In most of these
employments the rudiments of an education were necessary, and what the
master did not seem disposed to teach the slaves so situated, they
usually learned by contact with their fellowmen who were better
informed. Such persons were the mulattoes resulting from
miscegenation, and therefore protected from the rigors of the slave
code; house servants, rewarded with unusual privileges for fidelity
and for manifesting considerable interest in things contributing to
the economic good of their masters; and slaves who were purchasing
their freedom.[1] Before the close of the first quarter of the
nineteenth century not much was said about what these classes learned
or taught. It was then the difference in circumstances, employment,
and opportunities for improvement that made the urban Negro more
intelligent than those who had to toil in the fields. Yet, the
proportion did not differ very much from that of the previous
period, as the first Negroes were not chiefly field hands but to a
considerable extent house servants, whom masters often taught to read
and write.

[Footnote 1: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, p. 117.]

Urban Negroes had another important advantage in their opportunity to
attend well-regulated Sunday-schools. These were extensively organized
in the towns and cities of this country during the first decades of
the last century. The "Sabbath-school" constituted an important factor
in Negro education. Although cloaked with the purpose of bringing the
blacks to God by giving them religious instruction the institution
permitted its workers to teach them reading and writing when they were
not allowed to study such in other institutions.[1] Even the radical
slaveholder was slow to object to a policy which was intended to
facilitate the conversion of men's souls. All friends especially
interested in the mental and spiritual uplift of the race hailed this
movement as marking an epoch in the elevation of the colored people.

[Footnote 1: See the reports of almost any abolition society of the
first quarter of the nineteenth century. _Special Report of the U.S.
Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 200; and Plumer, _Thoughts on the Religious
Instruction of Negroes_.]

In the course of time racial difficulties caused the development of
the colored "Sabbath-school" to be very much like that of the American
Negro Church. It began as an establishment in the white churches,
then moved to the colored chapels, where white persons assisted as
teachers, and finally became an organization composed entirely of
Negroes. But the separation here, as in the case of the church,
was productive of some good. The "Sabbath-schools," which at first
depended on white teachers to direct their work, were thereafter
carried on by Negroes, who studied and prepared themselves to perform
the task given up by their former friends. This change was easily made
in certain towns and cities where Negroes already had churches of
their own. Before 1815 there was a Methodist church in Charleston,
South Carolina, with a membership of eighteen hundred, more than one
thousand of whom were persons of color. About this time, Williamsburg
and Augusta had one each, and Savannah three colored Baptist churches.
By 1822 the Negroes of Petersburg had in addition to two churches of
this denomination, a flourishing African Missionary Society.[1] In
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston the free
blacks had experienced such a rapid religious development that colored
churches in these cities were no longer considered unusual.

[Footnote 1: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, etc., pp. 73 and 74.]

The increase in the population of cities brought a larger number of
these unfortunates into helpful contact with the urban element of
white people who, having few Negroes, often opposed the institution of
slavery. But thrown among colored people brought in their crude state
into sections of culture, the antislavery men of towns and cities
developed from theorists, discussing a problem of concern to persons
far away, into actual workers striving by means of education to pave
the way for universal freedom.[1] Large as the number of abolitionists
became and bright as the future of their cause seemed, the more the
antislavery men saw of the freedmen in congested districts, the more
inclined the reformers were to think that instant abolition was an
event which they "could not reasonably expect, and perhaps could not
desire." Being in a state of deplorable ignorance, the slaves did not
possess sufficient information "to render their immediate emancipation
a blessing either to themselves or to society."[2]

[Footnote 1: As some masters regarded the ignorance of the slaves as
an argument against their emancipation, the antislavery men's problem
became the education of the master as well as that of the slave.
Believing that intellectual and moral improvement is a "safe and
permanent basis on which the arch of freedom could be erected," Jesse
Torrey, harking back to Jefferson's proposition, recommended that
it begin by instructing the slaveholders, overseers, their sons and
daughters, hitherto deprived of the blessing of education. Then he
thought that such enlightened masters should see to it that every
slave less than thirty years of age should be taught the art of
reading sufficiently for receiving moral and religious instruction
from books in the English language. In presenting this scheme Torrey
had the idea of most of the antislavery men of that day, who advocated
the education of slaves because they believed that, whenever the
slaves should become qualified by intelligence and moral cultivation
for the rational enjoyment of liberty and the performance of the
various social duties, enlightened legislators would listen to the
voice of reason and justice and the spirit of the social organization,
and permit the release of the slave without banishing him as a traitor
from his native land. See Torrey's _Portraiture of Domestic Slavery_,
p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Sidney, _An Oration Commemorative of the Abolition of the
Slave Trade in the United States_, p. 5; and Adams, _Anti-slavery_,
etc., pp. 40, 43, 65, and 66.]

Yet in the same proportion that antislavery men convinced masters of
the wisdom of the policy of gradual emancipation, they increased their
own burden of providing extra facilities of education, for liberated
Negroes generally made their way from the South to urban communities
of the Northern and Middle States. The friends of the colored people,
however, met this exigency by establishing additional schools and
repeatedly entreating these migrating freedmen to avail themselves
of their opportunities. The address of the American Convention of
Abolition Societies in 1819 is typical of these appeals.[1] They
requested free persons of color to endeavor as much as possible to use
economy in their expenses, to save something from their earnings
for the education of their children ... and "let all those who by
attending to this admonition have acquired means, send their children
to school as soon as they are old enough, where their morals will
be an object of attention as well as their improvement in school
learning." Then followed some advice which would now seem strange.
They said, "Encourage, also, those among you who are qualified as
teachers of schools, and when you are able to pay, never send your
children to free schools; for this may be considered as robbing the
poor of their opportunities which are intended for them alone."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1819, p.
21.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1819, p.
22.]

The concentration of the colored population in cities and towns where
they had better educational advantages tended to make colored city
schools self-supporting. There developed a class of self-educating
Negroes who were able to provide for their own enlightenment. This
condition, however, did not obtain throughout the South. Being a
proslavery farming section of few large towns and cities, that part of
the country did not see much development of the self-sufficient class.
What enlightenment most urban blacks of the South experienced resulted
mainly from private teaching and religious instruction. There were
some notable exceptions, however. A colored "Santo Dominican" named
Julian Troumontaine taught openly in Savannah up to 1829 when such
an act was prohibited by law. He taught clandestinely thereafter,
however, until 1844.[1] In New Orleans, where the Creoles and freedmen
counted early in the nineteenth century as a substantial element in
society, persons of color had secured to themselves better facilities
of education. The people of this city did not then regard it as a
crime for Negroes to acquire an education, their white instructors
felt that they were not condescending in teaching them, and children
of Caucasian blood raised no objection to attending special and
parochial schools accessible to both races. The educational privileges
which the colored people there enjoyed, however, were largely paid for
by the progressive freedmen themselves.[2] Some of them educated their
children in France.

[Footnote 1: Wright, _Negro Education in Georgia_, p. 20.]

[Footnote 2: Many of the mixed breeds of New Orleans were leading
business men.]

Charleston, South Carolina, furnished a good example of a center of
unusual activity and rapid strides of self-educating urban Negroes.
Driven to the point of doing for themselves, the free people of color
of this city organized in 1810 the "Minor Society" to secure to their
orphan children the benefits of education.[1] Bishop Payne, who
studied later under Thomas Bonneau, attended the school founded by
this organization. Other colored schools were doing successful work.
Enjoying these unusual advantages the Negroes of Charleston were
early in the nineteenth century ranked by some as economically and
intellectually superior to any other such persons in the United
States. A large portion of the leading mechanics, fashionable tailors,
shoe manufacturers, and mantua-makers were free blacks, who enjoyed "a
consideration in the community far more than that enjoyed by any of
the colored population in the Northern cities."[2] As such positions
required considerable skill and intelligence, these laborers had of
necessity acquired a large share of useful knowledge. The favorable
circumstances of the Negroes in certain liberal southern cities like
Charleston were the cause of their return from the North to the South,
where they often had a better opportunity for mental as well
as economic improvement.[3] The return of certain Negroes from
Philadelphia to Petersburg, Virginia, during the first decade of the
nineteenth century, is a case in evidence.[4]

[Footnote 1: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 1078.]

[Footnote 2: _Niles Register_, vol. xlix., p. 40.]

[Footnote 3: _Notions of the Americans_, p. 26.]

[Footnote 4: Wright, _Views of Society and Manners in America_, p.
73.]

The successful strivings of the race in the District of Columbia
furnish us with striking examples of Negroes making educational
progress. When two white teachers, Henry Potter and Mrs. Haley,
invited black children to study with 

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