[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 cooeperate 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 their white pupils, the colored people gladly availed themselves of this opportunity.[1] Mrs. Maria Billings, the first to establish a real school for Negroes in Georgetown, soon discovered that she had their hearty support. She had pupils from all parts of the District of Columbia, and from as far as Bladensburg, Maryland. The tuition fee in some of these schools was a little high, but many free blacks of the District of Columbia were sufficiently well established to meet these demands. The rapid progress made by the Bell and Browning families during this period was of much encouragement to the ambitious colored people, who were laboring to educate their children.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 195 et seq.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 195.]

The city Negroes, however, were learning to do more than merely attend accessible elementary schools. In 1807 George Bell, Nicholas Franklin, and Moses Liverpool, former slaves, built the first colored schoolhouse in the District of Columbia. Just emerging from bondage, these men could not teach themselves, but employed a white man to take charge of the school.[1] It was not a success. Pupils of color thereafter attended the school of Anne Maria Hall, a teacher from Prince George County, Maryland, and those of teachers who instructed white children.[2] The ambitious Negroes of the District of Columbia, however, were not discouraged by the first failure to provide their own educational facilities. The Bell School which had been closed and used as a dwelling, opened again in 1818 under the auspices of an association of free people of color of the city of Washington called the "Resolute Beneficial Society." The school was declared open then "for the reception of free people of color and others that ladies and gentlemen may think proper to send to be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, or other branches of education apposite to their capacities, by steady, active and experienced teachers, whose attention is wholly devoted to the purpose described." The founders presumed that free colored families would embrace the advantages thus presented to them either by subscription to the funds of the Society or by sending their children to the school. Since the improvement of the intellect and the morals of the colored youth were the objects of the institution, the patronage of benevolent ladies and gentlemen was solicited. They declared, too, that "to avoid disagreeable occurrences no writing was to be done by the teacher for a slave, neither directly nor indirectly to serve the purpose of a slave on any account whatever."[3] This school was continued until 1822 under Mr. Pierpont, of Massachusetts, a relative of the poet. He was succeeded two years later by John Adams, a shoemaker, who was known as the first Negro to teach in the District of Columbia.[4]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., 196.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., 197.]

[Footnote 3: Daily National Intelligencer, August 29, 1818.]

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

Of equal importance was the colored seminary established by Henry Smothers, a pupil of Mrs. Billings. Like her, he taught first in Georgetown. He began his advanced work near the Treasury building, having an attendance of probably one hundred and fifty pupils, generally paying tuition. The fee, however, was not compulsory. Smothers taught for about two years, and then was succeeded by John Prout, a colored man of rare talents, who later did much in opposition to the scheme of transporting Negroes to Africa before they had the benefits of education.[1] The school was then called the "Columbian Institute." Prout was later assisted by Mrs. Anne Maria Hall.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., 1871, p. 199.]

[Footnote 2: Other schools of importance were springing up from year to year. As early as 1824 Mrs. Mary Wall, a member of the Society of Friends, had opened a school for Negroes and received so many applications that many had to be refused. From this school came many well-prepared colored men, among whom were James Wormley and John Thomas Johnson. Another school was established by Thomas Tabbs, who received "a polished education from the distinguished Maryland family to which he belonged." Mr. Tabbs came to Washington before the War of 1812 and began teaching those who came to him when he had a schoolhouse, and when he had none he went from house to house, stopping even under the trees to teach wherever he found pupils who were interested. See Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 212, 213, and 214.]

Of this self-educative work of Negroes some of the best was accomplished by colored women. With the assistance of Father Vanlomen, the benevolent priest then in charge of the Holy Trinity Church, Maria Becraft, the most capable colored woman in the District of Columbia at that time, established there the first seminary for the education of colored girls. She had begun to teach in a less desirable section, but impressed with the unusual beauty and strong character of this girl, Father Vanlomen had her school transferred to a larger building on Fayette Street where she taught until 1831. She then turned over her seminary to girls she had trained, and became a teacher in a convent at Baltimore as a Sister of Providence.[1] Other good results were obtained by Louisa Parke Costin, a member of one of the oldest colored families in the District of Columbia. Desiring to diffuse the knowledge she acquired from white teachers in the early mixed schools of the District, she decided to teach. She opened her school just about the time that Henry Smothers was making his reputation as an educator. She died in 1831, after years of successful work had crowned her efforts. Her task was then taken up by her sister, Martha, who had been trained in the Convent Seminary of Baltimore.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 204.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 203.]

Equally helpful was the work of Arabella Jones. Educated at the St. Frances Academy at Baltimore, she was well grounded in the English branches and fluent in French. She taught on the "Island," calling her school "The St. Agnes Academy."[1] Another worker of this class was Mary Wormley, once a student in the Colored Female Seminary of Philadelphia under Sarah Douglass. This lady began teaching about 1830, getting some assistance from Mr. Calvert, an Englishman.[2] The institution passed later into the hands of Thomas Lee, during the incumbency of whom the school was closed by the "Snow Riot." This was an attempt on the part of the white people to get rid of the progressive Negroes of the District of Columbia. Their excuse for such drastic action was that Benjamin Snow, a colored man running a restaurant in the city, had made unbecoming remarks about the wives of the white mechanics.[3] John F. Cook, one of the most influential educators produced in the District of Columbia, was driven out of the city by this mob. He then taught at Lancaster, Pa.

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 211.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 211.]

[Footnote 3: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., p. 201.]

While the colored schools of the District of Columbia suffered as a result of this disturbance, the Negroes then in charge of them were too ambitious, too well-educated to discontinue their work. The situation, however, was in no sense encouraging. With the exception of the churches of the Catholics and Quakers who vied with each other in maintaining a benevolent attitude toward the education of the colored people,[1] the churches of the District of Columbia, in the Sabbath schools of which Negroes once sat in the same seats with white persons, were on account of this riot closed to the darker race.[2] This expulsion however, was not an unmixed evil, for the colored people themselves thereafter established and directed a larger number of institutions of learning.[3]

[Footnote 1: The Catholics admitted the colored people to their churches on equal footing with others when they were driven to the galleries of the Protestant churches. Furthermore, they continued to admit them to their parochial schools. The Sisters of Georgetown trained colored girls, and the parochial school of the Aloysius Church at one time had as many as two hundred and fifty pupils of color. Many of the first colored teachers of the District of Columbia obtained their education in these schools. See Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 218 et. seq.]

[Footnote 2: Sp. Report, etc. 187, pp. 217, 218, 219, 220, 221.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., pp. 220-222.]

The colored schools of the District of Columbia soon resumed their growth recovering most of the ground they had lost and exhibiting evidences of more systematic work. These schools ceased to be elementary classes, offering merely courses in reading and writing, but developed into institutions of higher grade supplied with competent teachers. Among other useful schools then flourishing in this vicinity were those of Alfred H. Parry, Nancy Grant, Benjamin McCoy, John Thomas Johnson, James Enoch Ambush, and Dr. John H. Fleet.[1] John F. Cook returned from Pennsylvania and reopened his seminary.[2] About this time there flourished a school established by Fannie Hampton. After her death the work was carried on by Margaret Thompson until 1846. She then married Charles Middleton and became his assistant teacher. He was a free Negro who had been educated in Savannah, Georgia, while attending school with white and colored children. He founded a successful school about the time that Fleet and Johnson[3] retired. Middleton's school, however, owes its importance to the fact that it was connected with the movement for free colored public schools started by Jesse E. Dow, an official of the city, and supported by Rev. Doctor Wayman, then pastor of the Bethel Church.[4] Other colaborers with these teachers were Alexander Cornish, Richard Stokes, and Margaret Hill.[5]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 212, 213, and 283.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 200.]

[Footnote 3: Compelled to leave Washington in 1838 because of the persecution of free persons of color, Johnson stopped in Pittsburg where he entered a competitive teacher examination with two white aspirants and won the coveted position. He taught in Pittsburg several years, worked on the Mississippi a while, returned later to Washington, and in 1843 constructed a building in which he opened another school. It was attended by from 150 to 200 students, most of whom belonged to the most prominent colored families of the District of Columbia. See Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 214.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 215.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., pp. 214-215.]

Then came another effort on a large scale. This was the school of Alexander Hays, an emancipated slave of the Fowler family of Maryland. Hays succeeded his wife as a teacher. He soon had the support of such prominent men as Rev. Doctor Sampson, William Winston Seaton and R.S. Coxe. Joseph T. and Thomas H. Mason and Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher were Hays's contemporaries. The last two were teachers from England. On account of the feeling then developing against white persons instructing Negroes, these philanthropists saw their schoolhouses burned, themselves expelled from the white churches, and finally driven from the city in 1858.[1] Other white men and women were teaching colored children during these years. The most prominent of these were Thomas Tabbs, an erratic philanthropist, Mr. Nutall, an Englishman; Mr. Talbot, a successful tutor stationed near the present site of the Franklin School; and Mrs. George Ford, a Virginian, conducting a school on New Jersey Avenue between K and L Streets.[2] The efforts of Miss Myrtilla Miner, their contemporary, will be mentioned elsewhere.[3]

[Footnote 1: Besides the classes taught by these workers there was the Eliza Ann Cook private school; Miss Washington's school; a select primary school; a free Catholic school maintained by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, an association of colored Catholics in connection with St. Matthew's Church. This institution was organized by the benevolent Father Walter at the Smothers School. Then there were teachers like Elizabeth Smith, Isabella Briscoe, Charlotte Beams, James Shorter, Charlotte Gordon, and David Brown. Furthermore, various churches, parochial, and Sunday-schools were then sharing the burden of educating the Negro population of the District of Columbia. See Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 214, 215, 216, 217, 218 et seq.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 214.]

[Footnote 3: O'Connor, Myrtilla Miner, p. 80.]

The Negroes of Baltimore were almost as self-educating as those of the District of Columbia. The coming of the refugees and French Fathers from Santo Domingo to Baltimore to escape the revolution[1] marked an epoch in the intellectual progress of the colored people of that city. Thereafter their intellectual class had access to an increasing black population, anxious to be enlightened. Given this better working basis, they secured from the ranks of the Catholics additional catechists and teachers to give a larger number of illiterates the fundamentals of education. Their untiring co-worker in furnishing these facilities, was the Most Reverend Ambrose Marechal, Archbishop of Baltimore from 1817 to 1828.[2] These schools were such an improvement over those formerly opened to Negroes that colored youths of other towns and cities thereafter came to Baltimore for higher training.[3]

[Footnote 1: Drewery, Slave Insurrections in Virginia, p. 121.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 205.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 205.]

The coming of these refugees to Baltimore had a direct bearing on the education of colored girls. Their condition excited the sympathy of the immigrating colored women. These ladies had been educated both in the Island of Santo Domingo and in Paris. At once interested in the uplift of this sex, they soon constituted the nucleus of the society that finally formed the St. Frances Academy for girls in connection with the Oblate Sisters of Providence Convent in Baltimore, June 5, 1829.[1] This step was sanctioned by the Reverend James Whitefield, the successor of Archbishop Marechal, and was later approved by the Holy See. The institution was located on Richmond Street in a building which on account of the rapid growth of the school soon gave way to larger quarters. The aim of the institution was to train girls, all of whom "would become mothers or household servants, in such solid virtues and religious and moral principles as modesty, honesty, and integrity."[2] To reach this end they endeavored to supply the school with cultivated and capable teachers. Students were offered courses in all the branches of "refined and useful education, including all that is regularly taught in well regulated female seminaries."[3] This school was so well maintained that it survived all reactionary attacks and became a center of enlightenment for colored women.

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 205.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 206.]

[Footnote 3: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., p. 206.]

At the same time there were other persons and organizations in the field. Prominent among the first of these workers was Daniel Coker, known to fame as a colored Methodist missionary, who was sent to Liberia. Prior to 1812 he had in Baltimore an academy which certain students from Washington attended when they had no good schools of their own, and when white persons began to object to the co-education of the races. Because of these conditions two daughters of George Bell, the builder of the first colored schoolhouse in the District of Columbia, went to Baltimore to study under Coker.[1] An adult Negro school in this city had 180 pupils in 1820. There were then in the Baltimore Sunday-schools about 600 Negroes. They had formed themselves into a Bible association which had been received into the connection of the Baltimore Bible Society.[2] In 1825 the Negroes there had a day and a night school, giving courses in Latin and French. Four years later there appeared an "African Free School" with an attendance of from 150 to 175 every Sunday.[3]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 196.]

[Footnote 2: Adams, Anti-slavery, etc., p. 14.]

[Footnote 3: Adams, Anti-Slavery, etc., pp. 14 and 15.]

By 1830 the Negroes of Baltimore had several special schools of their own.[1] In 1835 there was behind the African Methodist Church in Sharp Street a school of seventy pupils in charge of William Watkins.[2] W. Livingston, an ordained clergyman of the Episcopal Church, had then a colored school of eighty pupils in the African Church at the corner of Saratoga and Ninth Streets.[3] A third school of this kind was kept by John Fortie at the Methodist Bethel Church in Fish Street. Five or six other schools of some consequence were maintained by free women of color, who owed their education to the Convent of the Oblate Sisters of Providence.[4] Observing these conditions, an interested person thought that much more would have been accomplished in that community, if the friends of the colored people had been able to find workers acceptable to the masters and at the same time competent to teach the slaves.[5] Yet another observer felt that the Negroes of Baltimore had more opportunities than they embraced.[6]

[Footnote 1: Buckingham, America, Historical, etc., vol. i., p. 438.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 438; Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, pp. 54, 55, and 56; and Varle, A Complete View of Baltimore, p. 33.]

[Footnote 3: Varle, A Complete View of Baltimore, p. 33; and Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, pp. 85 and 92.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 33.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 54.]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 37.]

These conditions, however, were so favorable in 1835 that when Professor E.A. Andrews came to Baltimore to introduce the work of the American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored People,[1] he was informed that the education of the Negroes of that city was fairly well provided for. Evidently the need was that the "systematic and sustained exertions" of the workers should spring from a more nearly perfect organization "to give efficiency to their philanthropic labors."[2] He was informed that as his society was of New England, it would on account of its origin in the wrong quarter, be productive of mischief.[3] The leading people of Baltimore thought that it would be better to accomplish this task through the Colonization Society, a southern organization carrying out the very policy which the American Union proposed to pursue.[4]

[Footnote 1: On January 14, 1835, a convention of more than one hundred gentlemen from ten different States assembled in Boston and organized the "American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race." Among these workers were William Reed, Daniel Noyes, J.W. Chickering, J.W. Putnam, Baron Stow, B.B. Edwards, E.A. Andrews, Charles Scudder, Joseph Tracy, Samuel Worcester, and Charles Tappan. The gentlemen were neither antagonistic to the antislavery nor to the colonization societies. They aimed to do that which had been neglected in giving the Negroes proper preparation for freedom. Knowing that the actual emancipation of an oppressed race cannot be effected by legislation, they hoped to provide religious and literary instruction for all colored children that they might "ameliorate their economic condition" and prepare themselves for higher usefulness. See the Exposition of the Object and Plans of the American Union, pp. 11-14.]

[Footnote 2: Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, p. 57.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 188.]

[Footnote 4: Andrews, Slavery, etc., p. 56.]

The instruction of ambitious blacks in this city was not confined to mere rudimentary training. The opportunity for advanced study was offered colored girls in the Convent of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. These Negroes, however, early learned to help themselves. In 1835 considerable assistance came from Nelson Wells, one of their own color. He left to properly appointed trustees the sum of $10,000, the income of which was to be appropriated to the education of free colored children.[1] With this benefaction the trustees concerned established in 1835 what they called the Wells School. It offered Negroes free instruction long after the Civil War.

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 353.]

In seeking to show how these good results were obtained by the Negroes' cooeperative power and ability to supply their own needs, we are not unmindful of the assistance which they received. To say that the colored people of Baltimore, themselves, provided all these facilities of education would do injustice to the benevolent element of that city. Among its white people were found so much toleration of opinion on slavery and so much sympathy with the efforts for its removal, that they not only permitted the establishment of Negro churches, but opened successful colored schools in which white men and women assisted personally in teaching. Great praise is due philanthropists of the type of John Breckenridge and Daniel Raymond, who contributed their time and means to the cause and enlisted the efforts of others. Still greater credit should be given to William Crane, who for forty years was known as an "ardent, liberal, and wise friend of the black man." At the cost of $20,000 he erected in the central part of the city an edifice exclusively for the benefit of the colored people. In this building was an auditorium, several large schoolrooms, and a hall for entertainments and lectures. The institution employed a pastor and two teachers[1] and it was often mentioned as a high school.

[Footnote 1: A contributor to the Christian Chronicle found in this institution a pastor, a principal of the school, and an assistant, all of superior qualifications. The classes which this reporter heard recite grammar and geography convinced him of the thoroughness of the work and the unusual readiness of the colored people to learn. See The African Repository, vol. xxxii., p. 91.]

In northern cities like Philadelphia and New York, where benevolent organizations provided an adequate number of colored schools, the free blacks did not develop so much of the power to educate themselves. The Negroes of these cities, however, cannot be considered exceptions to the rule. Many of those of Philadelphia were of the most ambitious kind, men who had purchased their freedom or had developed sufficient intelligence to delude their would-be captors and conquer the institution of slavery. Settled in this community, the thrifty class accumulated wealth which they often used, not only to defray the expenses of educating their own children, but to provide educational facilities for the poor children of color.

Gradually developing the power to help themselves, the free people of color organized a society which in 1804 opened a school with John Trumbull as teacher.[1] About the same time the African Episcopalians founded a colored school at their church.[2] A colored man gave three hundred pounds of the required funds to build the first colored schoolhouse in Philadelphia.[3] In 1830 one fourth of the twelve hundred colored children in the schools of that city paid for their instruction, whereas only two hundred and fifty were attending the public schools in 1825.[4] The fact that some of the Negroes were able and willing to share the responsibility of enlightening their people caused a larger number of philanthropists to come to the rescue of those who had to depend on charity. Furthermore, of the many achievements claimed for the colored schools of Philadelphia none were considered more significant than that they produced teachers qualified to carry on this work. Eleven of the sixteen colored schools in Philadelphia in 1822 were taught by teachers of African descent. In 1830 the system was practically in the hands of Negroes.[5]

[Footnote 1: Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 129.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 130.]

[Footnote 3: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 377.]

[Footnote 4: Proceedings of the American Convention, etc., 1825, p. 13.]

[Footnote 5: Proceedings of the Am. Convention, etc., 1830, p.8; and Wickersham, History of Education in Pennsylvania, p. 253.]

The statistics of later years show how successful these early efforts had been. By 1849 the colored schools of Philadelphia had developed to the extent that they seemed like a system. According to the Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of Colored People in and about Philadelphia, published that year, there were 1643 children of color attending well-regulated schools. The larger institutions were mainly supported by State and charitable organizations of which the Society of Friends and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society were the most important. Besides supporting these institutions, however, the intelligent colored men of Philadelphia had maintained smaller schools and organized a system of lyceums and debating clubs, one of which had a library of 1400 volumes. Moreover, there were then teaching in the colored families and industrial schools of Philadelphia many men and women of both races.[1] Although these instructors restricted their work to the teaching of the rudiments of education, they did much to help the more advanced schools to enlighten the Negroes who came to that city in large numbers when conditions became intolerable for the free people of color in the slave States. The statistics of the following decade show unusual progress. In the year 1859 there were in the colored public schools of Philadelphia, 1031 pupils; in the charity schools, 748; in the benevolent schools, 211; in private schools, 331; in all, 2321, whereas in 1849 there were only 1643.[2]

[Footnote 1: About the middle of the nineteenth century colored schools of various kinds arose in Philadelphia. With a view to giving Negroes industrial training their friends opened "The School for the Destitute" at the House of Industry in 1848. Three years later Sarah Luciana was teaching a school of seventy youths at this House of Industry, and the Sheppard School, another industrial institution, was in operation in 1850 in a building bearing the same name. In 1849 arose the "Corn Street Unclassified School" of forty-seven children in charge of Sarah L. Peltz. "The Holmesburg Unclassified School" was organized in 1854. Other institutions of various purposes were "The House of Refuge," "The Orphans' Shelter," and "The Home for Colored Children." See Bacon, Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia, 1859.

Among those then teaching in private schools of Philadelphia were Solomon Clarkson, Robert George, John Marshall, John Ross, Jonathan Tudas, and David Ware. Ann Bishop, Virginia Blake, Amelia Bogle, Anne E. Carey, Sarah Ann Douglass, Rebecca Hailstock, Emma Hall, Emmeline Higgins, Margaret Johnson, Martha Richards, Dinah Smith, Mary Still, and one Peterson were teaching in families. See Statistical Inquiry, etc., 1849, p. 19; and Bacon, Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia, 1859.]

[Footnote 2: Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the Colored People of Philadelphia, in 1859.]

Situated like those of Philadelphia, the free blacks of New York City did not have to maintain their own schools. This was especially true after 1832 when the colored people had qualified themselves to take over the schools of the New York Manumission Society. They then got rid of all the white teachers, even Andrews, the principal, who had for years directed this system. Besides, the economic progress of certain Negroes there made possible the employment of the increasing number of colored teachers, who had availed themselves of the opportunities afforded by the benevolent schools. The stigma then attached to one receiving seeming charity through free schools stimulated thrifty Negroes to have their children instructed either in private institutions kept by friendly white teachers or by teachers of their own color.[1] In 1812 a society of the free people of color was organized to raise a fund, the interest of which was to sustain a free school for orphan children.[2] This society succeeded later in establishing and maintaining two schools. At this time there were in New York City three other colored schools, the teachers of which received their compensation from those who patronized them.[3]

[Footnote 1: See the Address of the American Convention, 1819.]

[Footnote 2: Proceedings of the Am. Convention, etc., 1812, p. 7.

Certain colored women were then organized to procure and make for destitute persons of color. See Andrews, History of the New York African Free Schools, p. 58.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 58.]

Whether from lack of interest in their welfare on the part of the public, or from the desire of the Negroes to share their own burdens, the colored people of Rhode Island were endeavoring to provide for the education of their children during the first decades of the last century. The Newport Mercury of March 26, 1808, announced that the African Benevolent Society had opened there a school kept by Newport Gardner, who was to instruct all colored people "inclined to attend." The records of the place show that this school was in operation eight years later.[1]

[Footnote 1: Stockwell, History of Ed. in R.I., p. 30.]

In Boston, where were found more Negroes than in most New England communities, the colored people themselves maintained a separate school after the revolutionary era. In the towns of Salem, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Lowell the colored schools failed to make much progress after the first quarter of the nineteenth century on account of the more liberal construction of the laws which provided for democratic education. This the free blacks were forced to advocate for the reason that the seeming onerous task of supporting a dual system often caused the neglect, and sometimes the extinction of the separate schools. Furthermore, either the Negroes of some of these towns were too scarce or the movement to furnish them special facilities of education started too late to escape the attacks of the abolitionists. Seeing their mistake of first establishing separate schools, they began to attack caste in public education.

In the eastern cities where colored school systems thereafter continued, the work was not always successful. The influx of fugitives in the rough sometimes jeopardized their chances for education by menacing liberal communities with the trouble of caring for an undesirable class. The friends of the Negroes, however, received more encouragement during the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War. There was a change in the attitude of northern cities toward the uplift of the colored refugees. Catholics, Protestants, and abolitionists often united their means to make provision for the education of accessible Negroes, although these friends of the oppressed could not always agree on other important schemes. Even the colonizationists, the object of attack from the ardent antislavery element, considerably aided the cause. They educated for work in Liberia a number of youths, who, given the opportunity to attend good schools, demonstrated the capacity of the colored people. More important factors than the colonizationists were the free people of color. Brought into the rapidly growing urban communities, these Negroes began to accumulate sufficient wealth to provide permanent schools of their own. Many of these were later assimilated by the systems of northern cities when their separate schools were disestablished.



CHAPTER VII

THE REACTION

Encouraging as had been the movement to enlighten the Negroes, there had always been at work certain reactionary forces which impeded the intellectual progress of the colored people. The effort to enlighten them that they might be emancipated to enjoy the political rights given white men, failed to meet with success in those sections where slaves were found in large numbers. Feeling that the body politic, as conceived by Locke and Montesquieu, did not include the slaves, many citizens opposed their education on the ground that their mental improvement was inconsistent with their position as persons held to service. For this reason there was never put forward any systematic effort to elevate the slaves. Every master believed that he had a divine right to deal with the situation as he chose. Moreover, even before the policy of mental and moral improvement of the slaves could be given a trial, some colonists, anticipating the "evils of the scheme," sought to obviate them by legislation. Such we have observed was the case in Virginia,[1] South Carolina,[2] and Georgia.[3] To control the assemblies of slaves, North Carolina,[4] Delaware,[5] and Maryland[6] early passed strict regulations for their inspection.

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 391.]

[Footnote 2: Brevard, Digest of the Public Statute Law of S.C., vol. ii., p.243.]

[Footnote 3: Marbury and Crawford, Digest of Laws of the State of Georgia, p. 438.]

[Footnote 4: Laws of North Carolina, vol. i., pp. 126, 563, and 741.]

[Footnote 5: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 335.]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 352.]

The actual opposition of the masters to the mental improvement of Negroes, however, did not assume sufficiently large proportions to prevent the intellectual progress of that race, until two forces then at work had had time to become effective in arousing southern planters to the realization of what a danger enlightened colored men would be to the institution of slavery. These forces were the industrial revolution and the development of an insurrectionary spirit among slaves, accelerated by the rapid spreading of the abolition agitation. The industrial revolution was effected by the multiplication of mechanical appliances for spinning and weaving which so influenced the institution of slavery as seemingly to doom the Negroes to heathenism. These inventions were the spinning jenny, the steam engine, the power loom, the wool-combing machine, and the cotton gin. They augmented the output of spinning mills, and in cheapening cloth, increased the demand by bringing it within the reach of the poor. The result was that a revolution was brought about not only in Europe, but also in the United States to which the world looked for this larger supply of cotton fiber.[1] This demand led to the extension of the plantation system on a larger scale. It was unfortunate, however, that many of the planters thus enriched, believed that the slightest amount of education, merely teaching slaves to read, impaired their value because it instantly destroyed their contentedness. Since they did not contemplate changing their condition, it was surely doing them an ill service to destroy their acquiescence in it. This revolution then had brought it to pass that slaves who were, during the eighteenth century advertised as valuable on account of having been enlightened, were in the nineteenth century considered more dangerous than useful.

[Footnote 1: Turner, The Rise of the New West, pp. 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49; and Hammond, Cotton Industry, chaps. i. and ii.]

With the rise of this system, and the attendant increased importation of slaves, came the end of the helpful contact of servants with their masters. Slavery was thereby changed from a patriarchal to an economic institution. Thereafter most owners of extensive estates abandoned the idea that the mental improvement of slaves made them better servants. Doomed then to be half-fed, poorly clad, and driven to death in this cotton kingdom, what need had the slaves for education? Some planters hit upon the seemingly more profitable scheme of working newly imported slaves to death during seven years and buying another supply rather than attempt to humanize them.[1] Deprived thus of helpful advice and instruction, the slaves became the object of pity not only to abolitionists of the North but also to some southerners. Not a few of these reformers, therefore, favored the extermination of the institution. Others advocated the expansion of slavery not to extend the influence of the South, but to disperse the slaves with a view to bringing about a closer contact between them and their masters.[2] This policy was duly emphasized during the debate on the admission of the State of Missouri.

[Footnote 1: Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. i., p. 32; Kemble, Journal, p. 28; Martineau, Society in America, vol. i., p. 308; Weld, Slavery, etc., p. 41.]

[Footnote 2: Annals of Congress, First Session, vol. i., pp. 996 et seq. and 1296 et seq.]

Seeking to direct the attention of the world to the slavery of men's bodies and minds the abolitionists spread broadcast through the South newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets which, whether or not they had much effect in inducing masters to improve the condition of their slaves, certainly moved Negroes themselves. It hardly required enlightenment to convince slaves that they would be better off as freemen than as dependents whose very wills were subject to those of their masters. Accordingly even in the seventeenth century there developed in the minds of bondmen the spirit of resistance. The white settlers of the colonies held out successfully in putting down the early riots of Negroes. When the increasing intelligent Negroes of the South, however, observed in the abolition literature how the condition of the American slaves differed from that of the ancient servants and even from what it once had been in the United States; when they fully realized their intolerable condition compared with that of white men, who were clamoring for liberty and equality, there rankled in the bosom of slaves that insurrectionary passion productive of the daring uprisings which made the chances for the enlightenment of colored people poorer than they had ever been in the history of this country.

The more alarming insurrections of the first quarter of the nineteenth century were the immediate cause of the most reactionary measures. It was easily observed that these movements were due to the mental improvement of the colored people during the struggle for the rights of man. Not only had Negroes heard from the lips of their masters warm words of praise for the leaders of the French Revolution but had developed sufficient intelligence themselves to read the story of the heroes of the world, who were then emboldened to refresh the tree of liberty "with the blood of patriots and tyrants."[1] The insurrectionary passion among the colored people was kindled, too, around Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans by certain Negroes who to escape the horrors of the political upheaval in Santo Domingo,[2] immigrated into this country in 1793. The education of the colored race had paved the way for the dissemination of their ideas of liberty and equality. Enlightened bondmen persistently made trouble for the white people in these vicinities. Negroes who could not read, learned from others the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose example colored men were then ambitious to emulate.

[Footnote 1: Washington, Works of Jefferson, vol. iv., p. 467.]

[Footnote 2: Drewery, Insurrections in Virginia, p. 121.]

The insurrection of Gabriel in Virginia and that of South Carolina in the year 1800 are cases in evidence. Unwilling to concede that slaves could have so well planned such a daring attack, the press of the time insisted that two Frenchmen were the promoters of the affair in Virginia.[1] James Monroe said there was no evidence that any white man was connected with it.[2] It was believed that the general tendency of the Negroes toward an uprising had resulted from French ideas which had come to the slaves through intelligent colored men.[3] Observing that many Negroes were sufficiently enlightened to see things as other men, the editor of the Aurora asserted that in negotiating with the "Black Republic" the United States and Great Britain had set the seal of approval upon servile insurrection.[4] Others referred to inflammatory handbills which Negroes extensively read.[5] Discussing the Gabriel plot in 1800, Judge St. George Tucker said: "Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this power (doing us mischief) and their means of using it—a security which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as it is, every day diminishes. Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the principal agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear."[6]

[Footnote 1: The New York Daily Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1800; and The Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 21, 1831.]

[Footnote 2: Writings of James Monroe, vol. iii., p. 217.]

[Footnote 3: Educated Negroes then constituted an alarming element in Massachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina. See The New York Daily Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1800.]

[Footnote 4: See The New York Daily Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1800.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., Oct. 7, 1800.]

[Footnote 6: Letter of St. George Tucker in Joshua Coffin's Slave Insurrections.]

Camden was disturbed by an insurrection in 1816 and Charleston in 1822 by a formidable plot which the officials believed was due to the "sinister" influences of enlightened Negroes.[1] The moving spirit of this organization was Denmark Vesey. He had learned to read and write, had accumulated an estate worth $8000, and had purchased his freedom in 1800[2] Jack Purcell, an accomplice of Vesey, weakened in the crisis and confessed. He said that Vesey was in the habit of reading to him all the passages in the newspapers, that related to Santo Domingo and apparently every accessible pamphlet that had any connection with slavery.[3] One day he read to Purcell the speeches of Mr. King on the subject of slavery and told Purcell how this friend of the Negro race declared he would continue to speak, write, and publish pamphlets against slavery "the longest day he lived," until the Southern States consented to emancipate their slaves.[4]

[Footnote 1: The City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser (Charleston, South Carolina), August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 3: The City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., August 21, 1822.]

The statement of the Governor of South Carolina also shows the influence of the educated Negro. This official felt that Monday, the slave of Mr. Gill, was the most daring conspirator. Being able to read and write he "attained an extraordinary and dangerous influence over his fellows." "Permitted by his owner to occupy a house in the central part of this city, he was afforded hourly opportunities for the exercise of his skill on those who were attracted to his shop by business or favor." "Materials were abundantly furnished in the seditious pamphlets brought into the State by equally culpable incendiaries, while the speeches of the oppositionists in Congress to the admission of Missouri gave a serious and imposing effect to his machinations."[1] It was thus brought home to the South that the enlightened Negro was having his heart fired with the spirit of liberty by his perusal of the accounts of servile insurrections and the congressional debate on slavery.

[Footnote 1: The Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald, Aug. 30, 1822.]

Southerners of all types thereafter attacked the policy of educating Negroes.[1] Men who had expressed themselves neither one way nor the other changed their attitude when it became evident that abolition literature in the hands of slaves would not only make them dissatisfied, but cause them to take drastic measures to secure liberty. Those who had emphasized the education of the Negroes to increase their economic efficiency were largely converted. The clergy who had insisted that the bondmen were entitled to, at least, sufficient training to enable them to understand the principles of the Christian religion, were thereafter willing to forego the benefits of their salvation rather than see them destroy the institution of slavery.

[Footnote 1: Hodgson, Whitney's Remarks during a Journey through North America, p. 184.]

In consequence of this tendency, State after State enacted more stringent laws to control the situation. Missouri passed in 1817 an act so to regulate the traveling and assembly of slaves as to make them ineffective in making headway against the white people by insurrection. Of course, in so doing the reactionaries deprived them of the opportunities of helpful associations and of attending schools.[1] By 1819 much dissatisfaction had arisen from the seeming danger of the various colored schools in Virginia. The General Assembly, therefore, passed a law providing that there should be no more assemblages of slaves, or free Negroes, or mulattoes, mixing or associating with such slaves for teaching them reading and writing.[2] The opposition here seemed to be for the reasons that Negroes were being generally enlightened in the towns of the State and that white persons as teachers in these institutions were largely instrumental in accomplishing this result. Mississippi even as a Territory had tried to meet the problem of unlawful assemblies. In the year 1823 it was declared unlawful for Negroes above the number of five to meet for educational purposes.[3] Only with the permission of their masters could slaves attend religious worship conducted by a recognized white minister or attended by "two discreet and reputable persons."[4]

[Footnote 1: Laws of Missouri Territory, etc., p. 498.]

[Footnote 2: Tate, Digest of the Laws of Virginia, pp. 849-850.]

[Footnote 3: Poindexter, Revised Code of the Laws of Mississippi, p. 390.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 390.]

The problem in Louisiana was first to keep out intelligent persons who might so inform the slaves as to cause them to rise. Accordingly in 1814[1] the State passed a law prohibiting the immigration of free persons of color into that commonwealth. This precaution, however, was not deemed sufficient after the insurrectionary Negroes of New Berne, Tarborough, and Hillsborough, North Carolina,[2] had risen, and David Walker of Massachusetts had published to the slaves his fiery appeal to arms.[3] In 1830, therefore, Louisiana enacted another measure, providing that whoever should write, print, publish, or distribute anything having the tendency to produce discontent among the slaves, should on conviction thereof be imprisoned at hard labor for life or suffer death at the discretion of the court. It was provided, too, that whoever used any language or became instrumental in bringing into the State any paper, book, or pamphlet inducing this discontent should suffer practically the same penalty. All persons who should teach, or permit or cause to be taught, any slave to read or write, should be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than twelve.[4]

[Footnote 1: Bullard and Curry, A New Digest of the Statute Laws of the State of Louisiana, p. 161.]

[Footnote 2: Coffin, Slave Insurrections, p. 22.]

[Footnote 3: Walker mentioned "our wretchedness in consequence of slavery, our wretchedness in consequence of ignorance, our wretchedness in consequence of the preachers of the religion of Jesus Christ, and our wretchedness in consequence of the colonization plan." See Walker's Appeal.]

[Footnote 4: Acts passed at the Ninth Session of the Legislature of Louisiana, p. 96.]

Yielding to the demand of slaveholders, Georgia passed a year later a law providing that any Negro who should teach another to read or write should be punished by fine and whipping. If a white person should so offend, he should be punished with a fine not exceeding $500 and with imprisonment in the common jail at the discretion of the committing magistrate.[1]

[Footnote 1] Dawson, A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia, etc., p. 413.

In Virginia where the prohibition did not then extend to freedmen, there was enacted in 1831 a law providing that any meeting of free Negroes or mulattoes for teaching them reading or writing should be considered an unlawful assembly. To break up assemblies for this purpose any judge or justice of the peace could issue a warrant to apprehend such persons and inflict corporal punishment not exceeding twenty lashes. White persons convicted of teaching Negroes to read or write were to be fined fifty dollars and might be imprisoned two months. For imparting such information to a slave the offender was subject to a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars.[1]

[Footnote 1]Laws of Virginia, 1830-1831, p. 108, Sections 5 and 6.

The whole country was again disturbed by the insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. The slave States then had a striking example of what the intelligent Negroes of the South might eventually do. The leader of this uprising was Nat Turner. Precocious as a youth he had learned to read so easily that he did not remember when he first had that attainment.[1] Given unusual social and intellectual advantages, he developed into a man of considerable "mental ability and wide information." His education was chiefly acquired in the Sunday-schools in which "the text-books for the small children were the ordinary speller and reader, and that for the older Negroes the Bible."[2] He had received instruction also from his parents and his indulgent young master, J.C. Turner.

[Footnote 1] Drewery, Insurrections in Virginia, p. 27.

[Footnote 2: Drewery, Insurrections in Virginia, p. 28.]

When Nat Turner appeared, the education of the Negro had made the way somewhat easier for him than it was for his predecessors. Negroes who could read and write had before them the revolutionary ideas of the French, the daring deeds of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the bold attempt of General Gabriel, and the far-reaching plans of Denmark Vesey. These were sometimes written up in the abolition literature, the circulation of which was so extensive among the slaves that it became a national question.[1]

[Footnote 1: These organs were The Albany Evening Journal, The New York Free Press, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, and The Boston Liberator. See The Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 21, 1831.]

Trying to account for this insurrection the Governor of the State lays it to the charge of the Negro preachers who were in position to foment much disorder on account of having acquired "great ascendancy over the minds" of discontented slaves. He believed that these ministers were in direct contact with the agents of abolition, who were using colored leaders as a means to destroy the institutions of the South. The Governor was cognizant of the fact that not only was the sentiment of the incendiary pamphlets read but often the words.[1] To prevent the "enemies" in other States from communicating with the slaves of that section he requested that the laws regulating the assembly of Negroes be more rigidly enforced and that colored preachers be silenced. The General Assembly complied with this request.[2]

[Footnote 1: The Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 21, 1831.]

[Footnote 2: The Laws of Virginia, 1831-1832, p. 20.]

The aim of the subsequent reactionary legislation of the South was to complete the work of preventing the dissemination of information among Negroes and their reading of abolition literature. This they endeavored to do by prohibiting the communication of the slaves with one another, with the better informed free persons of color, and with the liberal white people; and by closing all the schools theretofore opened to Negroes. The States passed laws providing for a more stringent regulation of passes, defining unlawful assemblies, and fixing penalties for the same. Other statutes prohibited religious worship, or brought it under direct supervision of the owners of the slaves concerned, and proscribed the private teaching of slaves in any manner whatever.

Mississippi, which already had a law to prevent the mental improvement of the slaves, enacted in 1831 another measure to remove from them the more enlightened members of their race. All free colored persons were to leave the State in ninety days. The same law provided, too, that no Negro should preach in that State unless to the slaves of his plantation and with the permission of the owner.[1] Delaware saw fit to take a bold step in this direction. The act of 1831 provided that no congregation or meeting of free Negroes or mulattoes of more than twelve persons should be held later than twelve o'clock at night, except under the direction of three respectable white persons who were to attend the meeting. It further provided that no free Negro should attempt to call a meeting for religious worship, to exhort or preach, unless he was authorized to do so by a judge or justice of the peace, upon the recommendation of five "respectable and judicious citizens." [2] This measure tended only to prevent the dissemination of information among Negroes by making it impossible for them to assemble. It was not until 1863 that the State of Delaware finally passed a positive measure to prevent the assemblages of colored persons for instruction and all other meetings except for religious worship and the burial of the dead.[3] Following the example of Delaware in 1832, Florida passed a law prohibiting all meetings of Negroes except those for divine worship at a church or place attended by white persons.[4] Florida made the same regulations more stringent in 1846 when she enjoyed the freedom of a State.[5]

[Footnote 1] Hutchinson, Code of Mississippi, p. 533.

[Footnote 2] Laws of Delaware, 1832, pp. 181-182.

[Footnote 3] Ibid., 1863, p. 330 et seq.

[Footnote 4: Acts of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, 1832, p. 145.]

[Footnote 5: Acts of Florida, 1846, ch. 87, sec. 9.]

Alabama had some difficulty in getting a satisfactory law. In 1832 this commonwealth enacted a law imposing a fine of from $250 to $500 on persons who should attempt to educate any Negro whatsoever. The act also prohibited the usual unlawful assemblies and the preaching or exhorting of Negroes except in the presence of five "respectable slaveholders" or unless the officiating minister was licensed by some regular church of which the persons thus exhorted were members.[1] It soon developed that the State had gone too far. It had infringed upon the rights and privileges of certain creoles, who, being residents of the Louisiana Territory when it was purchased in 1803, had been guaranteed the rights of citizens of the United States. Accordingly in 1833 the Mayor and the Aldermen of Mobile were authorized by law to grant licenses to such persons as they might deem suitable to instruct for limited periods, in that city and the counties of Mobile and Baldwin, the free colored children, who were descendants of colored creoles residing in the district in 1803.[2]

[Footnote 1: Clay, Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama, p. 543.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 323.]

Another difficulty of certain commonwealths had to be overcome. Apparently Georgia had already incorporated into its laws provisions adequate to the prevention of the mental improvement of Negroes. But it was discovered that employed as they had been in various positions either requiring knowledge, or affording its acquirement, Negroes would pick up the rudiments of education, despite the fact that they had no access to schools. The State then passed a law imposing a penalty not exceeding one hundred dollars for the employment of any slave or free person of color "in setting up type or other labor about a printing office requiring a knowledge of reading and writing."[1] In 1834 South Carolina saw the same danger. In addition to enacting a more stringent law for the prevention of the teaching of Negroes by white or colored friends, and for the destruction of their schools, it provided that persons of African blood should not be employed as clerks or salesmen in or about any shop or store or house used for trading.[2]

[Footnote 1: Cobb, Digest of the Laws of Georgia, p. 555; and Prince, Digest of the Laws of Georgia, p. 658.]

[Footnote 2: Laws of South Carolina, 1834.]

North Carolina was among the last States to take such drastic measures for the protection of the white race. In this commonwealth the whites and blacks had lived on liberal terms. Negroes had up to this time enjoyed the right of suffrage there. Some attended schools open to both races. A few even taught white children.[1]

[Footnote 1: Bassett, Slavery in North Carolina, p. 74; and testimonies of various ex-slaves.]

The intense feeling against Negroes engendered by the frequency of insurrections, however, sufficed to swing the State into the reactionary column by 1835. An act passed by the Legislature that year prohibited the public instruction of Negroes, making it impossible for youth of African descent to get any more education than what they could in their own family circle.[1] The public school system established thereafter specifically provided that its benefits should not extend to any descendant from Negro ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive.[2] Bearing so grievously this loss of their social status after they had toiled up from poverty, many ambitious free persons of color, left the State for more congenial communities.

[Footnote 1: Revised Statutes of North Carolina, 578.]

[Footnote 2: Laws of North Carolina, 1835, C.6, S.2.]

The States of the West did not have to deal so severely with their slaves as was deemed necessary in Southern States. Missouri found it advisable in 1833 to amend the law of 1817[1] so as to regulate more rigorously the traveling and the assembling of slaves. It was not until 1847, however, that this commonwealth specifically provided that no one should keep or teach any school for the education of Negroes.[2] Tennessee had as early as 1803 a law governing the movement of slaves but exhibited a little more reactionary spirit in 1836 in providing that there should be no circulation of seditious books or pamphlets which might lead to insurrection or rebellion among Negroes.[3] Tennessee, however, did not positively forbid the education of colored people. Kentucky had a system of regulating the egress and regress of slaves but never passed any law prohibiting their instruction. Yet statistics show that although the education of Negroes was not penalized, it was in many places made impossible by public sentiment. So was it in the State of Maryland, which did not expressly forbid the instruction of anyone.

[Footnote 1: Laws of the Territory of Missouri, p. 498.]

[Footnote 2: Laws of the State of Missouri, 1847, pp. 103 and 104.]

[Footnote 3: Public Acts passed at the First Session of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, p. 145, chap. 44.]

These reactionary results were not obtained without some opposition. The governing element of some States divided on the question. The opinions of this class were well expressed in the discussion between Chancellor Harper and J.B. O'Neal of the South Carolina bar. The former said that of the many Negroes whom he had known to be capable of reading, he had never seen one read anything but the Bible. He thought that they imposed this task upon themselves as a matter of duty. Because of the Negroes' "defective comprehension and the laborious nature of this employment to them"[1] he considered such reading an inefficient method of religious instruction. He, therefore, supported the oppressive measures of the South. The other member of the bar maintained that men could not reflect as Christians and justify the position that slaves should not be permitted to read the Bible. "It is in vain," added he, "to say there is danger in it. The best slaves of the State are those who can and do read the Scriptures. Again, who is it that teaches your slaves to read? It is generally done by the children of the owners. Who would tolerate an indictment against his son or daughter for teaching a slave to read? Such laws look to me as rather cowardly."[2] This attorney was almost of the opinion of many others who believed that the argument that to Christianize and educate the colored people of a slave commonwealth had a tendency to elevate them above their masters and to destroy the "legitimate distinctions" of the community, could be admitted only where the people themselves were degraded.

[Footnote 1: DeBow, The Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States, vol. ii., p. 269.]

[Footnote 2: DeBow, The Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States, vol. ii., p. 279.]

After these laws had been passed, American slavery extended not as that of the ancients, only to the body, but also to the mind. Education was thereafter regarded as positively inconsistent with the institution. The precaution taken to prevent the dissemination of information was declared indispensable to the system. The situation in many parts of the South was just as Berry portrayed it in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832. He said: "We have as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their [the slaves'] minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field and we should be safe! I am not certain that we would not do it, if we could find out the process, and that on the plea of necessity."[1]

[Footnote 1: Coffin, Slave Insurrections, p. 23; and Goodell, Slave Code, p. 323.]

It had then come to pass that in the South, where once were found a considerable number of intelligent Negroes, they had become exceedingly scarce or disappeared from certain sections altogether. On plantations of hundreds of slaves it was common to discover that not one of them had the mere rudiments of education. In some large districts it was considered almost a phenomenon to find a Negro who could read the Bible or sign his name.[1]