[Footnote 1: Arfwedson, The United States and Canada, p. 331.]

[Footnote 2: See their pamphlets, addresses, and books referred to elsewhere.]

[Footnote 3: Jones, Religious Instruction of Negroes, p. 115.]

[Footnote 4: Redpath, The Roving Editor, p. 161.]

[Footnote 5: Adams, South-Side View of Slavery, pp. 52 and 59.]

[Footnote 6: Dresser, The Narrative of Amos Dresser, p. 27; Dabney, Journal of a Tour through the United States and Canada, p. 185.]

[Footnote 7: Parsons, Inside View of Slavery, p. 248.]



CHAPTER X

EDUCATING NEGROES TRANSPLANTED TO FREE SOIL

While the Negroes of the South were struggling against odds to acquire knowledge, the more ambitious ones were for various reasons making their way to centers of light in the North. Many fugitive slaves dreaded being sold to planters of the lower South, the free blacks of some of the commonwealths were forced out by hostile legislation, and not a few others migrated to ameliorate their condition. The transplanting of these people to the Northwest took place largely between 1815 and 1850. They were directed mainly to Columbia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Greenwich, New Jersey; and Boston, Massachusetts, in the East; and to favorable towns and colored communities in the Northwest.[1] The fugitives found ready helpers in Elmira, Rochester, Buffalo, New York; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Gallipolis, Portsmouth, Akron, and Cincinnati, Ohio; and Detroit, Michigan.[2] Colored settlements which proved attractive to these wanderers had been established in Ohio, Indiana, and Canada. That most of the bondmen in quest of freedom and opportunity should seek the Northwest had long been the opinion of those actually interested in their enlightenment. The attention of the colored people had been early directed to this section as a more suitable place for their elevation than the jungles of Africa selected by the American Colonization Society. The advocates of Western colonization believed that a race thus degraded could be elevated only in a salubrious climate under the influences of institutions developed by Western nations.

[Footnote 1: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 32.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., pp. 32 and 37.]

The role played by the Negroes in this migration exhibited the development of sufficient mental ability to appreciate this truth. It was chiefly through their intelligent fellows that prior to the reaction ambitious slaves learned to consider the Northwest Territory the land of opportunity. Furthermore, restless freedmen, denied political privileges and prohibited from teaching their children, did not always choose to go to Africa. Many of them went north of the Ohio River and took up land on the public domain. Observing this longing for opportunity, benevolent southerners, who saw themselves hindered in carrying out their plan for educating the blacks for citizenship, disposed of their holdings and formed free colonies of their slaves in the same section. White men of this type thus made possible a new era of uplift for the colored race by coming north in time to aid the abolitionists, who had for years constituted a small minority advocating a seemingly hopeless cause.

A detailed description of these settlements has no place in this dissertation save as it has a bearing on the development of education among the colored people. These settlements, however, are important here in that they furnish the key to the location of many of the early colored churches and schools of the North and West. Philanthropists established a number of Negroes near Sandy Lake in Northwestern Pennsylvania.[1] There was a colored settlement near Berlin Crossroads, Ohio.[2] Another group of pioneering Negroes emigrating to this State found homes in the Van Buren township of Shelby County. Edward Coles, a Virginian, who in 1818 emigrated to Illinois, of which he later became Governor, made a settlement on a larger scale. He brought his slaves to Edwardsville, where they constituted a community known as "Coles' Negroes."[3] The settlement made by Samuel Gist, an Englishman possessing extensive plantations in Hanover, Amherst, and Henrico Counties, Virginia, was still more significant. He provided in his will that his slaves should be freed and sent to the North. It was further directed "that the revenue from his plantation the last year of his life be applied in building schoolhouses and churches for their accommodation," and "that all money coming to him in Virginia be set aside for the employment of ministers and teachers to instruct them."[4] In 1818, Wickham, the executor of this estate, purchased land and established these Negroes in what was called the Upper and Lower Camps of Brown County, Ohio.

[Footnote 1: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 249.]

[Footnote 2: Langston,From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol, p. 35.]

[Footnote 3: Davidson and Stuve,A Complete History of Illinois, pp. 321-322; and Washburne, Sketch of Edward Cole, Second Governor of Illinois, pp. 44 and 53.]

[Footnote 4: History of Brown County, pp. 313 et seq.; and Lane, Fifty Years and over of Akron and Summit County, Ohio, pp. 579-580.]

Augustus Wattles, a native of Connecticut, made a settlement of Negroes in Mercer County early in the nineteenth century.[1] About the year 1834 many of the freedmen, then concentrating at Cincinnati, were induced to take up 30,000 acres of land in the same vicinity.[2] John Harper of North Carolina manumitted his slaves in 1850 and had them sent to this community.[3] John Randolph of Roanoke freed his slaves at his death, and provided for the purchase of farms for them in Mercer County.[4] The Germans, however, would not allow them to take possession of these lands. Driven later from Shelby County[5] also, these freedmen finally found homes in Miami County.[7] Then there was one Saunders, a slaveholder of Cabell County, now West Virginia, who liberated his slaves and furnished them homes in free territory. They finally made their way to Cass County, Michigan, where philanthropists had established a prosperous colored settlement and supplied it with missionaries and teachers. The slaves of Theodoric H. Gregg of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, were liberated in 1854 and sent to Ohio,[7] where some of them were educated.

[Footnote 1: Howe, Ohio Historical Collections, p. 356.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 356.]

[Footnote 3: Manuscript in the hands of Dr. J.E. Moreland.]

[Footnote 4: The African Repository, vol. xxii., pp. 322-323.]

[Footnote 5: Howe, Ohio Historical Collections, p. 465.]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 466.]

[Footnote 7: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 723.]

Many free persons of color of Virginia and Kentucky went north about the middle of the nineteenth century. The immediate cause in Virginia was the enactment in 1838 of a law prohibiting the return of such colored students as had been accustomed to go north to attend school after they were denied this privilege in that State.[1] Prominent among these seekers of better opportunities were the parents of Richard De Baptiste. His father was a popular mechanic of Fredericksburg, where he for years maintained a secret school.[2] A public opinion proscribing the teaching of Negroes was then rendering the effort to enlighten them as unpopular in Kentucky as it was in Virginia. Thanks to a benevolent Kentuckian, however, an important colored settlement near Xenia, Greene County, Ohio, was then taking shape. The nucleus of this group was furnished about 1856 by Noah Spears, who secured small farms there for sixteen of his former bondmen.[3] The settlement was not only sought by fugitive slaves and free Negroes, but was selected as the site for Wilberforce University.[4]

[Footnote 1: Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series xxxi., No. 3, p. 492; and Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1848, p. 117.]

[Footnote 2: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 352.]

[Footnote 3: Wright, "Negro Rural Communities" (Southern Workman, vol. xxxvii., p. 158).]

[Footnote 4: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., p. 373; and Non-Slaveholder, vol. ii., p. 113.]

During the same period, and especially from 1820 to 1835, a more continuous and effective migration of southern Negroes was being promoted by the Quakers of Virginia and North Carolina.[1] One of their purposes was educational. Convinced that the "buying, selling, and holding of men in slavery" is a sin, these Quakers with a view to future manumission had been "careful of the moral and intellectual training of such as they held in servitude."[2] To elevate their slaves to the plane of men, southern Quakers early hit upon the scheme of establishing in the Northwest such Negroes as they had by education been able to equip for living as citizens. When the reaction in the South made it impossible for the Quakers to continue their policy of enlightening the colored people, these philanthropists promoted the migration of the blacks to the Northwest Territory with still greater zeal. Most of these settlements were made in Hamilton, Howard, Wayne, Randolph, Vigo, Gibson, Grant, Rush, and Tipton Counties, Indiana, and in Darke County, Ohio.[3] Prominent among these promoters was Levi Coffin, the Quaker Abolitionist of North Carolina, and reputed President of the Underground Railroad. He left his State and settled among Negroes at Newport, Indiana.[4] Associated with these leaders also were Benjamin Lundy of Tennessee and James G. Birney, once a slaveholder of Huntsville, Alabama. The latter manumitted his slaves and apprenticed and educated some of them in Ohio.[5]

[Footnote 1: Wright, "Negro Rural Communities" (Southern Workman, vol. xxxvii., p. 158); and Bassett, Slavery in North Carolina, p. 68.]

[Footnote 2: A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony, etc.]

[Footnote 3: Wright, "Rural Negro Communities in Indiana" (Southern Workman, vol. xxxvii., pp. 162-166); and Bassett, Slavery in North Carolina, pp. 67 and 68.]

[Footnote 4: Coffin, Reminiscences, p. 106.]

[Footnote 5: Birney, James G. Birney and His Times, p. 139.]

The importance of this movement to the student of education lies in the fact that it effected an unequal distribution of intelligent Negroes. The most ambitious and enlightened ones were fleeing to free territory. As late as 1840 there were more intelligent blacks in the South than in the North.[1] The number of southern colored people who could read was then decidedly larger than that of such persons found in the free States. The continued migration of Negroes to the North, despite the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, made this distribution more unequal. While the free colored population of the slave States increased only 23,736 from 1850 to 1860, that of the free States increased 29,839. In the South only Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, and North Carolina showed a noticeable increase in the number of free persons of color during the decade immediately preceding the Civil War. This element of the population had only slightly increased in Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. The number of free Negroes of Florida remained practically constant. Those of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas diminished. In the North, of course, the tendency was in the other direction. With the exception of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, which had about the same free colored population in 1860 as they had in 1850, there was a general increase in the number of Negroes in the free States. Ohio led in this respect having had during this period an increase of 11,394.[2]

[Footnote 1: Jones, Religious Instruction of the Negroes, p. 115.]

[Footnote 2: See statistics on pages 237-240.]

On comparing the educational statistics of these sections this truth becomes more apparent. In 1850 there were 4,354 colored children attending school in the South, but by 1860 this number had dropped to 3,651. Slight increases were noted only in Alabama, Missouri, Delaware, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. Georgia and Mississippi had then practically deprived all Negroes of this privilege. The former, which reported one colored child as attending school in 1850, had just seven in 1860; the latter had none in 1850 and only two in 1860. In all other slave States the number of pupils of African blood had materially decreased.[1] In the free States there were 22,107 colored children in school in 1850, and 28,978 in 1860. Most of these were in New Jersey, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, which in 1860 had 2,741; 5,671; 5,694; and 7,573, respectively.[2]

[Footnote 1: STATISTICS OF THE FREE COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1850

ATTENDING ADULTS UNABLE SCHOOL TO READ STATE Population Males Females Total Males Females Total

Alabama 2,265 33 35 68 108 127 235 Arkansas 608 6 5 11 61 55 116 California 962 1 0 1 88 29 117 Connecticut 7,693 689 575 1,264 292 273 567 Delaware 18,073 92 95 187 2,724 2,921 5,645 Florida 932 29 37 66 116 154 270 Georgia 2,931 1 0 1 208 259 467 Illinois 5,436 162 161 323 605 624 1,229 Indiana 11,262 484 443 927 1,024 1,146 2,170 Iowa 333 12 5 17 15 18 33 Kentucky 10,011 128 160 288 1,431 1,588 3,029 Louisiana 17,462 629 590 1,219 1,038 2,351 3,389 Maine 1,356 144 137 281 77 58 135 Maryland 74,723 886 730 1,616 9,422 11,640 21,062 Massachusetts 9,064 726 713 1,439 375 431 806 Michigan 2,583 106 101 207 201 168 369 Mississippi 930 0 0 0 75 48 123 Missouri 2,618 23 17 40 271 226 497 New Hampshire 520 41 32 73 26 26 52 New Jersey 23,810 1,243 1,083 2,326 2,167 2,250 4,417 New York 49,069 2,840 2,607 5,447 3,387 4,042 7,429 North Carolina 27,463 113 104 217 3,099 3,758 6,857 Ohio 25,279 1,321 1,210 2,531 2,366 2,624 4,990 Pennsylvania 53,626 3,385 3,114 6,499 4,115 5,229 9,344** [** was 6,344 in error.**] Rhode Island 3,670 304 247 551 130 137 267 South Carolina 8,960 54 26 80 421 459 880 Tennessee 6,422 40 30 70 506 591 1,097 Texas 397 11 9 20 34 24 58 Vermont 718 58 32 90 32 19 51 Virginia 54,333 37 27 64 5,141 6,374 11,515 Wisconsin 635 32 35 67 55 37 92 District of Columbia 10,059 232 235 467 1,106 2,108 3,214 Minnesota 30 0 2 2 0 0 0 New Mexico 207 0 0 0 0 0 0 Oregon 24 2 0 2 3 2 5 Utah 22 0 0 0 1 0 1

Total 434,495 13,864 12,597 26,461 40,722 49,800 90,522

See Sixth Census of the United States, 1850.]

[Footnote 2: See statistics on pages 237-240.]

The report on illiteracy shows further the differences resulting from the divergent educational policies of the two sections. In 1850 there were in the slave States 58,444 adult free Negroes who could not read, and in 1860 this number had reached 59,832. In all such commonwealths except Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi there was an increase in illiteracy among the free blacks. These States, however, were hardly exceptional, because Arkansas and Mississippi had suffered a decrease in their free colored population, that of Florida had remained the same, and the difference in the case of Louisiana was very slight. The statistics of the Northern States indicate just the opposite trend. Notwithstanding the increase of persons of color resulting from the influx of the migrating element, there was in all free States exclusive of California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania a decrease in the illiteracy of Negroes. But these States hardly constitute exceptions; for California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had very few colored inhabitants in 1850, and the others had during this decade received so many fugitives in the rough that race prejudice and its concomitant drastic legislation impeded the educational progress of their transplanted freedmen.[1] In the Northern States where this condition did not obtain, the benevolent whites had, in cooeperation with the Negroes, done much to reduce illiteracy among them during these years.

[Footnote 1: STATISTICS OF THE FREE COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1860

STATE Population ATTENDING SCHOOL ADULTS UNABLE TO READ + - + - + + + - + Males Males Females Females Total Total + + - + - + - + - + - + Alabama 2,690 48 65 114 192 263 455 Arkansas 144 3 2 5 10 13 23 California 4,086 69 84 153 497 207 704 Connecticut 8,627 737 641 1,378 181 164 345 Delaware 19,829 122 128 250 3,056 3,452 6,508 Florida 932 3 6 9 48 72 120 Georgia 3,500 3 4 7 255 318 573 Illinois 7,628 264 347 611 632 695 1,327 Indiana 11,428 570 552 1,122 869 904 1,773 Iowa 1,069 77 61 138 92 77 169 Kansas 625 8 6 14 25 38 63 Kentucky 10,684 102 107 209 1,113 1,350 2,463 Louisiana 18,647 153 122 275 485 717 1,202 Maine 1,327 148 144 292 25 21 46 Maryland 83,942 687 668 1,355 9,904 11,795 21,699 Massachusetts 9,602 800 815 1,615 291 368 659 Michigan 6,797 555 550 1,105 558 486 1,044 Minnesota 259 8 10 18 6 6 12 Mississippi 773 0 2 2 50 60 110 Missouri 3,572 76 79 155 371 514 885 New Hampshire 494 49 31 80 15 19 34 New Jersey 25,318 1,413 1,328 2,741 1,720 2,085 3,805 New York 49,005 2,955 2,739 5,694 2,653 3,260 5,913 North Carolina 30,463 75 58 133 3,067 3,782 6,849 Ohio 36,673 2,857 2,814 5,671 2,995 3,191 6,186 Oregon 128 0 0 2 7 5 12 Pennsylvania 56,949 3,882 3,691 7,573 3,893 5,466 9,359 Rhode Island 3,952 276 256 532 119 141 260 South Carolina 9,914 158 207 365 633 783 1,416 Tennessee 7,300 28 24 52 743 952 1,695 Texas 355 4 7 11 25 37 62 Vermont 709 65 50 115 27 20 47 Virginia 58,042 21 20 41 5,489 6,008 12,397 Wisconsin 1,171 62 50 112 53 45 98

TERRITORIES

Colorado 46 No returns Dakota 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 District Columbia 11,131 315 363 678 1,131 2,224 3,375 Nebraska 67 1 1 2 6 7 13 Nevada 45 0 0 0 6 1 7 New Mexico 85 0 0 0 12 15 27 Utah 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 Washington 30 0 0 0 1 0 1

Total 488,070 16,594 16,035 32,629 41,275 50,461 91,736

See Seventh Census of the United States, vol. 1.]

How the problem of educating these people on free soil was solved can be understood only by keeping in mind the factors of the migration. Some of these Negroes had unusual capabilities. Many of them had in slavery either acquired the rudiments of education or developed sufficient skill to outwit the most determined pursuers. Owing so much to mental power, no man was more effective than the successful fugitive in instilling into the minds of his people the value of education. Not a few of this type readily added to their attainments to equip themselves for the best service. Some of them, like Reverend Josiah Henson, William Wells Brown, and Frederick Douglass, became leaders, devoting their time not only to the cause of abolition, but also to the enlightenment of the colored people. Moreover, the free Negroes migrating to the North were even more effective than the fugitive slaves in advancing the cause of education.[1] A larger number of the former had picked up useful knowledge. In fact, the prohibition of the education of the free people of color in the South was one of the reasons they could so readily leave their native homes.[2] The free blacks then going to the Northwest Territory proved to be decidedly helpful to their benefactors in providing colored churches and schools with educated workers, who otherwise would have been brought from the East at much expense.

[Footnote 1: Howe, The Refugee from Slavery, p. 77.]

[Footnote 2: Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia (Johns Hopkins University Studies, series xxxi., No. 3, p. 107).]

On perusing this sketch the educator naturally wonders exactly what intellectual progress was made by these groups on free soil. This question cannot be fully answered for the reason that extant records give no detailed account of many colored settlements which underwent upheaval or failed to endure. In some cases we learn simply that a social center flourished and was then destroyed. On "Black Friday," January 1, 1830, eighty Negroes were driven out of Portsmouth, Ohio, at the request of one or two hundred white citizens, set forth in an urgent memorial.[1] After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 the colored population of Columbia, Pennsylvania, dropped from nine hundred and forty-three to four hundred and eighty-seven.[2] The Negro community in the northwestern part of that State was broken up entirely.[3] The African Methodist and Baptist churches of Buffalo lost many communicants. Out of a membership of one hundred and fourteen, the colored Baptist church of Rochester lost one hundred and twelve, including its pastor. About the same time eighty-four members of the African Baptist church of Detroit crossed into Canada.[4] The break-up of these churches meant the end of the day and Sunday-schools which were maintained in them. Moreover, the migration of these Negroes aroused such bitter feeling against them that their schoolhouses were frequently burned. It often seemed that it was just as unpopular to educate the blacks in the North as in the South. Ohio, Illinois, and Oregon enacted laws to prevent them from coming into those commonwealths.

[Footnote 1: Evans, A History of Scioto County, Ohio, p. 613.]

[Footnote 2: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 249.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 249.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 250.]

We have, however, sufficient evidence of large undertakings to educate the colored people then finding homes in less turbulent parts beyond the Ohio. In the first place, almost every settlement made by the Quakers was a center to which Negroes repaired for enlightenment. In other groups where there was no such opportunity, they had the cooeperation of certain philanthropists in providing facilities for their mental and moral development. As a result, the free blacks had access to schools and churches in Hamilton, Howard, Randolph, Vigo, Gibson, Rush, Tipton, Grant, and Wayne counties, Indiana,[1] and Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair counties, Illinois. There were colored schools and churches in Logan, Clark, Columbiana, Guernsey, Jefferson, Highland, Brown, Darke, Shelby, Green, Miami, Warren, Scioto, Gallia, Ross, and Muskingum counties, Ohio.[2] Augustus Wattles said that with the assistance of abolitionists he organized twenty-five such schools in Ohio counties after 1833.[3] Brown County alone had six. Not many years later a Negro settlement in Gallia County, Ohio, was paying a teacher fifty dollars a quarter.[4]

[Footnote 1: Wright, "Negro Rural Communities in Indiana," Southern Workman, vol. xxxvii., p. 165; Boone, The History of Education in Indiana, p. 237; and Simmons, Men of Mark, pp. 590 and 948.]

[Footnote 2: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 948; and Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, p. 85.]

[Footnote 3: Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, p. 355.]

[Footnote 4: Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, p. 89.]

Still better colored schools were established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in Springfield, Columbus, and Cincinnati, Ohio. While the enlightenment of the few Negroes in Pittsburgh did not require the systematic efforts put forth to elevate the race elsewhere, much was done to provide them educational facilities in that city. Children of color first attended the white schools there just as they did throughout the State of Pennsylvania.[1] But when larger numbers of them collected in this gateway to the Northwest, either race feeling or the pressing needs of the migrating freedmen brought about the establishment of schools especially adapted to their instruction. Such efforts were frequent after 1830.[2] John Thomas Johnson, a teacher of the District of Columbia, moved to Pittsburgh in 1838 and became an instructor in a colored school of that city.[3] Cleveland had an "African School" as early as 1832. John Malvin, the moving spirit of the enterprise in that city, organized about that time "The School Fund Society" which established other colored schools in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Springfield.[4]

[Footnote 1: Wickersham, Education in Pennsylvania, p. 248.]

[Footnote 2: Life of Martin R. Delaney, p. 33.]

[Footnote 3: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 214.]

[Footnote 4: Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, p. 88.]

The concentration of the freedmen and fugitives at Cincinnati was followed by efforts to train them for higher service. The Negroes themselves endeavored to provide their own educational facilities in opening in 1820 the first colored school in that city. This school did not continue long, but another was established the same year. Thereafter one Mr. Wing, who kept a private institution, admitted persons of color to his evening classes. On account of a lack of means, however, the Negroes of Cincinnati did not receive any systematic instruction before 1834. After that year the tide turned in favor of the free blacks of that section, bringing to their assistance a number of daring abolitionists, who helped them to educate themselves. Friends of the race, consisting largely of the students of Lane Seminary, had then organized colored Sunday and evening schools, and provided for them scientific and literary lectures twice a week. There was a permanent colored school in Cincinnati in 1834. In 1835 the Negroes of that city contributed $150 of the $1000 expended for their education. Four years later, however, they raised $889.03 for this purpose, and thanks to their economic progress, this sacrifice was less taxing than that of 1835.[1] In 1844 Rev. Hiram Gilmore opened there a high school which among other students attracted P.B.S. Pinchback, later Governor of Louisiana. Mary E. Miles, a graduate of the Normal School at Albany, New York, served as an assistant of Gilmore after having worked among her people in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 83.]

[Footnote 1: Delany, The Condition of the Colored People, etc., 132.]

The educational advantages given these people were in no sense despised. Although the Negroes of the Northwest did not always keep pace with their neighbors in things industrial they did not permit the white people to outstrip them much in education. The freedmen so earnestly seized their opportunity to acquire knowledge and accomplished so much in a short period that their educational progress served to disabuse the minds of indifferent whites of the idea that the blacks were not capable of high mental development.[1] The educational work of these centers, too, tended not only to produce men capable of ministering to the needs of their environment, but to serve as a training center for those who would later be leaders of their people. Lewis Woodson owed it to friends in Pittsburgh that he became an influential teacher. Jeremiah H. Brown, T. Morris Chester, James T. Bradford, M.R. Delany, and Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner obtained much of their elementary education in the early colored schools of that city.[2] J.C. Corbin, a prominent educator before and after the Civil War, acquired sufficient knowledge at Chillicothe, Ohio, to qualify in 1848 as an assistant in Rev. Henry Adams's school in Louisville.[3] John M. Langston was for a while one of Corbin's fellow-students at Chillicothe before the former entered Oberlin. United States Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi spent some time in a Quaker seminary in Union County, Indiana.[4] Rev. J.T. White, one of the leading spirits of Arkansas during the Reconstruction, was born and educated in Clark County in that State.[5] Fannie Richards, still a teacher at Detroit, Michigan, is another example of the professional Negro equipped for service in the Northwest before the Rebellion.[6] From other communities of that section came such useful men as Rev. J.W. Malone, an influential minister of Iowa; Rev. D.R. Roberts, a very successful pastor of Chicago; Bishop C.T. Shaffer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Rev. John G. Mitchell, for many years the Dean of the Theological Department of Wilberforce University; and President S.T. Mitchell, once the head of the same institution.[7]

[Footnote 1: This statement is based on the accounts of various western freedmen.]

[Footnote 2: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 113.]

[Footnote 3: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 829.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 948.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 590.]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 1023.]

[Footnote 7: Wright, "Negro Rural Communities in Indiana," Southern Workman, vol. xxxvii., p. 169.]

In the colored settlements of Canada the outlook for Negro education was still brighter. This better opportunity was due to the high character of the colonists, to the mutual aid resulting from the proximity of the communities, and to the cooeperation of the Canadians. The previous experience of most of these adventurers as sojourners in the free States developed in them such noble traits that they did not have to be induced to ameliorate their condition. They had already come under educative influences which prepared them for a larger task in Canada. Fifteen thousand of sixty thousand Negroes in Canada in 1860 were free born.[1] Many of those, who had always been free, fled to Canada[2] when the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made it possible for even a dark-complexioned Caucasian to be reduced to a state of bondage. Fortunately, too, these people settled in the same section. The colored settlements at Dawn, Colchester, Elgin, Dresden, Windsor, Sandwich, Queens, Bush, Wilberforce, Hamilton, St. Catherines, Chatham, Riley, Anderton, Maiden, Gonfield, were all in Southern Ontario. In the course of time the growth of these groups produced a population sufficiently dense to facilitate cooeperation in matters pertaining to social betterment. The uplift of the refugees was made less difficult also by the self-denying white persons who were their first teachers and missionaries. While the hardships incident to this pioneer effort all but baffled the ardent apostle to the lowly, he found among the Canadian whites so much more sympathy than among the northerners that his work was more agreeable and more successful than it would have been in the free States. Ignoring the request that the refugees be turned from Canada as undesirables, the white people of that country protected and assisted them.[3] Canadians later underwent some change in their attitude toward their newcomers, but these British-Americans never exhibited such militant opposition to the Negroes as sometimes developed in the Northern States.[4]

[Footnote 1: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., pp. 247-250.]

[Footnote 3: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, pp. 201 and 233.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., 233.]

The educational privileges which the refugees hoped to enjoy in Canada, however, were not easily exercised. Under the Canadian law they could send their children to the common schools, or use their proportionate share of the school funds in providing other educational facilities.[1] But conditions there did not at first redound to the education of the colored children.[2] Some were too destitute to avail themselves of these opportunities; others, unaccustomed to this equality of fortune, were timid about having their children mingle with those of the whites, and not a few clad their youths so poorly that they became too unhealthy to attend regularly[3]. Besides, race prejudice was not long in making itself the most disturbing factor. In 1852 Benjamin Drew found the minds of the people of Sandwich much exercised over the question of admitting Negroes into the public schools. The same feeling was then almost as strong in Chatham, Hamilton, and London[4]. Consequently, "partly owing to this prejudice, and partly to their own preference, the colored people, acting under the provision of the law that allowed them to have separate schools, set up their own schools in Sandwich and in many other parts of Ontario"[5]. There were separate schools at Colchester, Amherstburg, Sandwich, Dawn, and Buxton[6]. It was doubtless because of the rude behavior of white pupils toward the children of the blacks that their private schools flourished at London, Windsor, and other places[7]. The Negroes, themselves, however, did not object to the coeducation of the races. Where there were a few white children in colored settlements they were admitted to schools maintained especially for pupils of African descent.[8] In Toronto no distinction in educational privileges was made, but in later years there flourished an evening school for adults of color.[9]

[Footnote 1: Howe, The Refugees from Slavery, p. 77.]

[Footnote 2: Drew said: "The prejudice against the African race is here [Canada] strongly marked. It had not been customary to levy school taxes on the colored people. Some three or four years since a trustee assessed a school tax on some of the wealthy citizens of that class. They sent their children at once into the public school. As these sat down the white children near them deserted the benches: and in a day or two the white children were wholly withdrawn, leaving the schoolhouse to the teacher and his colored pupils. The matter was at last 'compromised': a notice 'Select School' was put on the schoolhouse: the white children were selected in and the black were selected out." See Drew's. A North-side View of Slavery, etc., p. 341.]

[Footnote 3: Mitchell, The Underground Railroad, pp. 140, 164, and 165.]

[Footnote 4: Drew, A North-side View of Slavery, pp. 118, 147, 235, and 342.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 341.]

[Footnote 6: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 229.]

[Footnote 7: Ibid., p. 229.]

[Footnote 8: First Annual Report of the Anti-slavery Society of Canada, 1852, Appendix, p. 22.]

[Footnote 9: Ibid., p. 15.]

The most helpful schools, however, were not those maintained by the state. Travelers in Canada found the colored mission schools with a larger attendance and doing better work than those maintained at public expense.[1] The rise of the mission schools was due to the effort to "furnish the conditions under which whatever appreciation of education there was native in a community of Negroes, or whatever taste for it could be awakened there," might be "free to assert itself unhindered by real or imagined opposition."[2] There were no such schools in 1830, but by 1838 philanthropists had established the first mission among the Canadian refugees.[3] The English Colonial Church and School Society organized schools at London, Amherstburg, and Colchester. Certain religious organizations of the United States sent ten or more teachers to these settlements.[4] In 1839 these workers were conducting four schools while Rev. Hiram Wilson, their inspector, probably had several other institutions under his supervision.[5] In 1844 Levi Coffin found a large school at Isaac Rice's mission at Fort Maiden or Amherstburg.[6] Rice had toiled among these people six years, receiving very little financial aid, and suffering unusual hardships.[7] Mr. E. Child, a graduate of Oneida Institute, was later added to the corps of mission teachers.[8] In 1852 Mrs. Laura S. Haviland was secured to teach the school of the colony of "Refugees' Home," where the colored people had built a structure "for school and meeting purposes."[9] On Sundays the schoolhouses and churches were crowded by eager seekers, many of whom lived miles away. Among these earnest students a traveler saw an aged couple more than eighty years old.[10] These elementary schools broke the way for a higher institution at Dawn, known as the Manual Labor Institute.

[Footnote 1: Drew, A North-side View of Slavery, pp. 118, 147, 235, 341, and 342.]

[Footnote 2: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 229.]

[Footnote 3: Father Henson's Story of His Own Life, p. 209.]

[Footnote 4: First Annual Report of the Anti-slavery Society of Canada, 1852, p. 22.]

[Footnote 5: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 199.]

[Footnote 6: "While at this place we made our headquarters at Isaac J. Rice's missionary buildings, where he had a large school for colored children. He had labored here among the colored people, mostly fugitives, for six years. He was a devoted, self-denying worker, had received very little pecuniary help, and had suffered many privations. He was well situated in Ohio as pastor of a Presbyterian Church, and had fine prospects before him, but believed that the Lord called him to this field of missionary labor among the fugitive slaves, who came here by hundreds and by thousands, poor, destitute, ignorant, suffering from all the evil influences of slavery. We entered into deep sympathy with him and his labors, realizing the great need there was here for just such an institution as he had established. He had sheltered at his missionary home many hundred of fugitives till other homes for them could be found. This was the great landing point, the principal terminus of the Underground Railroad of the West." See Coffin's Reminiscences, p. 251.]

[Footnote 7: Ibid., pp. 249-251.]

[Footnote 8: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 202.]

[Footnote 9: Haviland, A Woman's Work, pp. 192, 196, 201.]

[Footnote 10: Haviland, A Woman's Work, pp. 192, 193.]

With these immigrants, however, this was not a mere passive participation in the work of their amelioration. From the very beginning the colored people partly supported their schools. Without the cooeperation of the refugees the large private schools at London, Chatham, and Windsor could not have succeeded. The school at Chatham was conducted by Alfred Whipper,[1] a colored man, that at Windsor by Mary E. Bibb, the wife of Henry Bibb,[2] the founder of the Refugees' Home Settlement, and that at Sandwich by Mary Ann Shadd, of Delaware.[3] Moreover, the majority of these colonists showed increasing interest in this work of social uplift.[4] Foregoing their economic opportunities many of the refugees congregated in towns of educational facilities. A large number of them left their first abodes to settle near Dresden and Dawn because of the advantages offered by the Manual Labor Institute. Besides, the Negroes organized "True Bands" which effected among other things the improvement of schools and the increase of their attendance[5].

[Footnote 1: Drew, A North-side View of Slavery, p. 236.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 322.]

[Footnote 3: Delany, The Condition of the Colored People, etc., 131.]

[Footnote 4: Howe, The Refugees from Slavery, pp. 70, 71, 108, and 110.]

[Footnote 5: According to Drew a True Band was composed of colored persons of both sexes, associated for their own improvement. "Its objects," says he, "are manifold: mainly these:—the members are to take a general interest in each other's welfare; to pursue such plans and objects as may be for their mutual advantage; to improve all schools, and to induce their race to send their children into the schools; to break down all prejudice; to bring all churches as far as possible into one body, and not let minor differences divide them; to prevent litigation by referring all disputes among themselves to a committee; to stop the begging system entirely (that is, going to the United States and thereby representing that the fugitives are starving and suffering, raising large sums of money, of which the fugitives never receive the benefit,—misrepresenting the character of the fugitives for industry and underrating the advance of the country, which supplies abundant work for all at fair wages); to raise such funds among themselves as may be necessary for the poor, the sick, and the destitute fugitive newly arrived; and prepare themselves ultimately to bear their due weight of political power." See Drew, A North-side View of Slavery, p. 236.]

The good results of these schools were apparent. In the same degree that the denial to slaves of mental development tended to brutalize them the teaching of science and religion elevated the fugitives in Canada. In fact, the Negroes of these settlements soon had ideals differing widely from those of their brethren less favorably circumstanced. They believed in the establishment of homes, respected the sanctity of marriage, and exhibited in their daily life a moral sense of the highest order. Travelers found the majority of them neat, orderly, and intelligent[1]. Availing themselves of their opportunities, they quickly qualified as workers among their fellows. An observer reported in 1855 that a few were engaged in shop keeping or were employed as clerks, while a still smaller number devoted themselves to teaching and preaching.[2] Before 1860 the culture of these settlements was attracting the colored graduates of northern institutions which had begun to give men of African blood an opportunity to study in their professional schools.

[Footnote 1: According to the report of the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission published by S.G. Howe, an unusually large proportion of the colored population believed in education. He says: "Those from the free States had very little schooling in youth; those from the slave States, none at all. Considering these things it is rather remarkable that so many can now read and write. Moreover, they show their esteem for instruction by their desire to obtain it for their children. They all wish to have their children go to school, and they send them all the time that they can be spared.

"Canada West has adopted a good system of public instruction, which is well administered. The common schools, though inferior to those of several of the States of the United States, are good. Colored children are admitted to them in most places; and where a separate school is open for them, it is as well provided by the government with teachers and apparatus as the other schools are. Notwithstanding the growing prejudice against blacks, the authorities evidently mean to deal justly by them in regard to instruction; and even those who advocate separate schools, promise that they shall be equal to white schools.

"The colored children in the mixed schools do not differ in their general appearance and behavior from their white comrades. They are usually clean and decently clad. They look quite as the whites; and are perhaps a little more mirthful and roguish. The association is manifestly beneficial to the colored children." See Howe, The Refugees, etc., p. 77.]

[Footnote 2: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p. 226.]



CHAPTER XI

HIGHER EDUCATION

The development of the schools and churches established for these transplanted freedmen made more necessary than ever a higher education to develop in them the power to work out their own salvation. It was again the day of thorough training for the Negroes. Their opportunities for better instruction were offered mainly by the colonizationists and abolitionists.[1] Although these workers had radically different views as to the manner of elevating the colored people, they contributed much to their mental development. The more liberal colonizationists endeavored to furnish free persons of color the facilities for higher education with the hope that their enlightenment would make them so discontented with this country that they would emigrate to Liberia. Most southern colonizationists accepted this plan but felt that those permanently attached to this country should be kept in ignorance; for if they were enlightened, they would either be freed or exterminated. During the period of reaction, when the elevation of the race was discouraged in the North and prohibited in most parts of the South, the colonizationists continued to secure to Negroes, desiring to expatriate themselves, opportunities for education which never would have been given those expecting to remain in the United States.[2]

[Footnote 1: The views of the abolitionists at that time were well expressed by Garrison in his address to the people of color in the convention assembled in Philadelphia in 1830. He encouraged them to get as much education as possible for themselves and their offspring, to toil long and hard for it as for a pearl of great price. "An ignorant people," said he, "can never occupy any other than a degraded place in society; they can never be truly free until they are intelligent. It is an old maxim that knowledge is power; and not only is it power but rank, wealth, dignity, and protection. That capital brings highest return to a city, state, or nation (as the case may be) which is invested in schools, academies, and colleges. If I had children, rather than that they should grow up in ignorance, I would feed upon bread and water: I would sell my teeth, or extract the blood from my veins." See Minutes of the Proceedings of the Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, 1830, pages 10, 11.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 213-214; and The African Repository, under the captions of "Education in Liberia," and "African Education Societies," passim.]

The policy of promoters of African colonization, however, did not immediately become unprogressive. Their plan of education differed from previous efforts in that the objects of their philanthropy were to be given every opportunity for mental growth. The colonizationists had learned from experience in educating Negroes that it was necessary to begin with the youth.[1] These workers observed, too, that the exigencies of the time demanded more advanced and better endowed institutions to prepare colored men to instruct others in science and religion, and to fit them for "civil offices in Liberia and Hayti."[2] To execute this scheme the leaders of the colonization movement endeavored to educate Negroes in "mechanic arts, agriculture, science, and Biblical literature."[3] Exceptionally bright youths were to be given special training as catechists, teachers, preachers, and physicians.[4] A southern planter offered a plantation for the establishment of a suitable institution of learning,[5] a few masters sent their slaves to eastern schools to be educated, and men organized "education societies" in various parts to carry out this work at shorter range. In 1817 colonizationists opened at Pasippany, New Jersey, a school to give a four-year course to "African youth" who showed "talent, discretion, and piety" and were able to read and write.[6] Twelve years later another effort was made to establish a school of this kind at Newark in that State,[7] while other promoters of that faith were endeavoring to establish a similar institution at Hartford, Connecticut,[8] all hoping to make use of the Kosciuszko fund.[9]

[Footnote 1: African Repository, vol. i., p. 277.]

[Footnote 2: African Repository, vol. ii., p. 223.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., vol. xxviii., pp. 271, 347; Child, An Appeal, p. 144.]

[Footnote 4: African Repository, vol. i., p. 277.]

[Footnote 5: Report of the Proceedings at the Organization of the African Education Society, p. 9.]

[Footnote 6: African Repository, vol. i., p. 276, and Griffin, A Plea for Africa, p. 65.]

[Footnote 7: African Repository, vol. iv., pp. 186, 193, and 375; and vol. vi., pp. 47, 48, 49, and Report of the Proceedings of the African Education Society, p. 7.]

[Footnote 8: Ibid., pp. 7 and 8 and African Repository, vol. iv., p. 375.]

[Footnote 9: What would become of this plan depended upon the changing fortunes of the men concerned. Kosciuszko died in 1817; and as Thomas Jefferson refused to take out letters testamentary under this will, Benjamin Lincoln Lear, a trustee of the African Education Society, who intended to apply for the whole fund, was appointed administrator of it. The fund amounted to about $16,000. Later Kosciuszko Armstrong demanded of the administrator $3704 bequeathed to him by T. Kosciuszko in a will alleged to have been executed in Paris in 1806. The bill was dismissed by the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and the decision of the lower Court was confirmed by the United States Supreme Court in 1827 on the grounds that the said will had not been admitted to probate anywhere. To make things still darker just about the time the trustees of the African Education Society were planning to purchase a farm and select teachers and mechanics to instruct the youth, the heirs of General Kosciuszko filed a bill against Mr. Lear in the Supreme Court of the United States on the ground of the invalidity of the will executed by Kosciuszko in 1798. The death of Mr. Lear in 1832 and that of William Wirt, the Attorney-General of the United States, soon thereafter, caused a delay in having the case decided. The author does not know exactly what use was finally made of this fund. See African Repository, vol. it., pp. 163, 233; also 7 Peters, 130, and 8 Peters, 52.]

The schemes failed, however, on account of the unyielding opposition of the free Negroes and abolitionists. They could see no philanthropy in educating persons to prepare for doom in a deadly climate. The convention of the free people of color assembled in Philadelphia in 1830, denounced the colonization movement as an evil, and urged their fellows not to support it. Pointing out the impracticability of such schemes, the convention encouraged the race to take steps toward its elevation in this country.[1] Should the colored people be properly educated, the prejudice against them would not continue such as to necessitate their expatriation. The delegates hoped to establish a Manual Labor College at New Haven that Negroes might there acquire that "classical knowledge which promotes genius and causes man to soar up to those high intellectual enjoyments and acquirements which place him in a situation to shed upon a country and people that scientific grandeur which is imperishable by time, and drowns in oblivion's cup their moral degradation."[2]

[Footnote 1: Williams, History of the Negro Race, p. 67.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 68; and Minutes of the Proceedings of the Third Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, pp. 9, 10, and 11.]

Influential abolitionists were also attacking this policy of the colonizationists. William Jay, however, delivered against them such diatribes and so wisely exposed their follies that the advocates of colonization learned to consider him as the arch enemy of their cause.[1] Jay advocated the education of the Negroes for living where they were. He could not see how a Christian could prohibit or condition the education of any individual. To do such a thing was tantamount to preventing him from having a direct revelation of God. How these "educators" could argue that on account of the hopelessness of the endeavors to civilize the blacks they should be removed to a foreign country, and at the same time undertake to provide for them there the same facilities for higher education that white men enjoyed, seemed to Jay to be facetiously inconsistent.[2] If the Africans could be elevated in their native land and not in America, it was due to the Caucasians' sinful condition, for which the colored people should not be required to suffer the penalty of expatriation.[3] The desirable thing to do was to influence churches and schools to admit students of color on terms of equality with all other races.

[Footnote 1: Reese, Letters to Honorable William Jay.]

[Footnote 2: Jay, Inquiry, p. 26; and Letters, p. 21.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 22.]

Encountering this opposition, the institutions projected by the colonization society existed in name only. Exactly how and why the organization failed to make good with its educational policy is well brought out by the wailing cry of one of its promoters. He asserted that "every endeavor to divert the attention of the community or even a portion of the means which the present so imperatively calls for, from the colonization society to measures calculated to bind the colored population to this country and seeking to raise them to a level with the whites, whether by founding colleges or in any other way, tends directly in the proportion that it succeeds, to counteract and thwart the whole plan of colonization."[1] The colonizationists, therefore, desisted from their attempt to provide higher education for any considerable number of the belated race. Seeing that they could not count on the support of the free persons of color, they feared that those thus educated would be induced by the abolitionists to remain in the United States. This would put the colonizationists in the position of increasing the intelligent element of the colored population, which was then regarded as a menace to slavery. Consequently these timorous "educators" did practically nothing during the reactionary period to carry out their plan of establishing colleges.

[Footnote 1: Hodgkin, Inquiry into the Merits of the Am. Col. Soc., p. 31.]

Thereafter the colonizationists found it advisable to restrict their efforts to individual cases. Not much was said about what they were doing, but now and then appeared notices of Negroes who had been privately prepared in the South or publicly in the North for professional work in Liberia. Dr. William Taylor and Dr. Fleet were thus educated in medicine in the District of Columbia.[1] In the same way John V. DeGrasse, of New York, and Thomas J. White,[2] of Brooklyn, were allowed to complete the Medical Course at Bowdoin in 1849. Garrison Draper, who had acquired his literary education at Dartmouth, studied law in Baltimore under friends of the colonization cause, and with a view to going to Liberia passed the examination of the Maryland Bar in 1857.[3] In 1858 the Berkshire Medical School graduated two colored doctors, who were gratuitously educated by the American Colonization Society. The graduating class thinned out, however, and one of the professors resigned because of their attendance.[4]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, and African Repository, vol. x., p. 10.]

[Footnote 2: Niles Register, vol. lxxv., p. 384.]

[Footnote 3: African Repository, vol. xxxiv., pp. 26 and 27.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 30.]

Not all colonizationists, however, had submitted to this policy of mere individual preparation of those emigrating to Liberia. Certain of their organizations still believed that it was only through educating the free people of color sufficiently to see their humiliation that a large number of them could be induced to leave this country. As long as they were unable to enjoy the finer things of life, they could not be expected to appreciate the value and use of liberty. It was argued that instead of remaining in this country to wage war on its institutions, the highly enlightened Negroes would be glad to go to a foreign land.[1] By this argument some colonizationists were induced to do more for the general education of the free blacks than they had considered it wise to do during the time of the bold attempts at servile insurrection.[2] In fact, many of the colored schools of the free States were supported by ardent colonizationists.

[Footnote 1: Boone, The History of Education in Indiana, p. 237; and African Repository, vol. xxx., p. 195.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 195.]

The later plan of most colonizationists, however, was to educate the emigrating Negroes after they settled in Liberia. Handsome sums were given for the establishment of schools and colleges in which professorships were endowed for men educated at the expense of churches and colonization societies.[1] The first institution of consequence in this field was the Alexander High School. To this school many of the prominent men of Liberia owed the beginning of their liberal education. The English High School at Monrovia, the Baptist Boarding School at Bexley, and the Protestant Episcopal High School at Cape Palmas also offered courses in higher branches.[2] Still better opportunities were given by the College of West Africa and Liberia College. The former was founded in 1839 as the head of a system of schools established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in every county of the Republic.[3] Liberia College was at the request of its founders, the directors of the American Colonization Society, incorporated by the legislature of the country in 1851. As it took some time to secure adequate funds, the main building was not completed, and students were not admitted before 1862.

[Footnote 1: African Repository, under the caption of "Education in Liberia" in various volumes; and Alexander, A History of Col., pp. 348, 391.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 348.]

[Footnote 3: Monroe, Cyclopaedia of Education, vol. iv., p. 6.]

Though the majority of the colored students scoffed at the idea of preparing for work in Liberia their education for service in the United States was not encouraged. No Negro had graduated from a college before 1828, when John B. Russworm, a classmate of Hon. John P. Hale, received his degree from Bowdoin.[1] During the thirties and forties, colored persons, however well prepared, were generally debarred from colleges despite the protests of prominent men. We have no record that as many as fifteen Negroes were admitted to higher institutions in this country before 1840. It was only after much debate that Union College agreed to accept a colored student on condition that he should swear that he had no Negro blood in his veins.[2]

[Footnote 1: Dyer, Speech in Congress on the Progress of the Negro, 1914.]

[Footnote 2: Clarke, The Condition of the Free People of Color, 1859, p. 3, and the Sixth Annual Report of the American Antislavery Society, p. 11.]

Having had such a little to encourage them to expect a general admission into northern institutions, free blacks and abolitionists concluded that separate colleges for colored people were necessary. The institution demanded for them was thought to have an advantage over the aristocratic college in that labor would be combined with study, making the stay at school pleasant and enabling the poorest youth to secure an education.[1] It was the kind of higher institution which had already been established in several States to meet the needs of the illiterate whites. Such higher training for the Negroes was considered necessary, also, because their intermediate schools were after the reaction in a languishing state. The children of color were able to advance but little on account of having nothing to stimulate them. The desired college was, therefore, boomed as an institution to give the common schools vigor, "to kindle the flame of emulation," "to open to beginners discerning the mysteries of arithmetic other mysteries beyond," and above all to serve them as Yale or Harvard did as the capstone of the educational system of the other race.[2]

[Footnote 1: Proceedings of the Third Convention of Free People of Color held in Philadelphia in 1836, pp. 7 and 8; Ibid., Fourth Annual Convention, p. 26; Proceedings of the New England Antislavery Society, 1836, p. 40.]

[Footnote 2: Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of the Free People of Color, 1836; Garrison's Address.]

In the course of time these workers succeeded in various communities. The movement for the higher education of the Negroes of the District of Columbia centered largely around the academy established by Miss Myrtilla Miner, a worthy young woman of New York. After various discouragements in seeking a special preparation for life's work, she finally concluded that she should devote her time to the moral and intellectual improvement of Negroes.[1] She entered upon her career in Washington in 1851 assisted by Miss Anna Inman, a native of New York, and a member of the Society of Friends. After teaching the girls French one year Miss Inman returned to her home in Southfield, Rhode Island.[2] Finding it difficult to get a permanent location, Miss Miner had to move from place to place among colored people who were generally persecuted and threatened with conflagration for having a white woman working among them. Driven to the extremity of building a schoolhouse for her purpose, she purchased a lot with money raised largely by Quakers of New York, Philadelphia, and New England, and by Harriet Beecher Stowe.[3] Miss Miner had also the support of Mrs. Means, an aunt of the wife of President Franklin Pierce, and of United States Senator W.H. Seward.[4] Effective opposition, however, was not long in developing. Articles appeared in the newspapers protesting against this policy of affording Negroes "a degree of instruction so far above their social and political condition which must continue in this and every other slaveholding community."[5] Girls were insulted, teachers were abused along the streets, and for lack of police surveillance the house was set afire in 1860. It was sighted, however, in time to be saved.[6]

[Footnote 1: O'Connor, Myrtilla Miner, pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 207.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., 1871, p. 208.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., pp. 208, 209, and 210.]

[Footnote 5: The National Intelligencer.]

[Footnote 6: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 209.]

Undisturbed by these efforts to destroy the institution, Miss Miner persisted in carrying out her plan for the higher education of colored girls of the District of Columbia. She worked during the winter, and traveled during the summer to solicit friends and contributions to keep the institution on that higher plane where she planned it should be. She had the building well equipped with all kinds of apparatus, utilized the ample ground for the teaching of horticulture, collected a large library, and secured a number of paintings and engravings with which she enlightened her pupils on the finer arts. In addition to the conventional teaching of seminaries of that day, Miss Miner provided lectures on scientific and literary subjects by the leading men of that time, and trained her students to teach.[1] She hoped some day to make the seminary a first-class teachers' college. During the Civil War, however, it was difficult for her to find funds, and health having failed her in 1858 she died in 1866 without realizing this dream.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 210.]

[Footnote 2: Those who assisted her were Helen Moore, Margaret Clapp, Anna H. Searing, Amanda Weaver, Anna Jones, Matilda Jones, and Lydia Mann, the sister of Horace Mann, who helped Miss Miner considerably in 1856 at the time of her failing health. Emily Holland was her firm supporter when the institution was passing through the crisis, and stood by her until she breathed her last. See Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 210.]

Earlier in the nineteenth century the philanthropists of Pennsylvania had planned to establish for Negroes several higher institutions. Chief among these was the Institute for Colored Youth. The founding of an institution of this kind had been made possible by Richard Humphreys, a Quaker, who, on his death in 1832, devised to a Board of Trustees the sum of $10,000 to be used for the education of the descendants of the African race.[1] As the instruction of Negroes was then unpopular, no steps were taken to carry out this plan until 1839. The Quakers then appointed a Board and undertook to execute this provision of Humphreys's will. In conformity with the directions of the donor, the Board of Trustees endeavored to give the colored youth the opportunity to obtain a good education and acquire useful knowledge of trades and commercial occupations. Humphreys desired that "they might be enabled to obtain a comfortable livelihood by their own industry, and fulfill the duties of domestic and social life with reputation and fidelity as good citizens and pious men."[2] Accordingly they purchased a tract of land in Philadelphia County and taught a number of boys the principles of farming, shoemaking, and other useful occupations.

[Footnote 1: Wickersham, History of Education in Pa., p. 249.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 379.]

Another stage in the development of this institution was reached in 1842, the year of its incorporation. It then received several small contributions and the handsome sum of $18,000 from another Quaker, Jonathan Zane. As it seemed by 1846 that the attempt to combine the literary with the industrial work had not been successful, it was decided to dispose of the industrial equipment and devote the funds of the institution to the maintenance of an evening school. An effort at the establishment of a day school was made in 1850, but it was not effected before 1852. A building was then erected in Lombard Street and the school known thereafter as the Institute for Colored Youth was opened with Charles L. Reason of New York in charge. Under him the institution was at once a success in preparing advanced pupils of both sexes for the higher vocations of teaching and preaching. The attendance soon necessitated increased accommodations for which Joseph Dawson and other Quakers liberally provided in later years.[1]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the United States Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 380.]

This favorable tendency in Pennsylvania led to the establishment of Avery College at Alleghany City. The necessary fund was bequeathed by Rev. Charles Avery, a rich man of that section, who left an estate of about $300,000 to be applied to the education and Christianization of the African race.[1] Some of this fund was devoted to missionary work in Africa, large donations were made to colored institutions of learning, and another portion was appropriated to the establishment of Avery College. This institution was incorporated in 1849. Soon thereafter it advertised for students, expressing willingness to make every provision without regard to religious proclivities. The school had a three-story brick building, up-to-date apparatus for teaching various branches of natural science, a library of all kinds of literature, and an endowment of $25,000 to provide for its maintenance. Rev. Philotas Dean, the only white teacher connected with this institution, was its first principal. He served until 1856 when he was succeeded by his assistant, M.H. Freeman, who in 1863 was succeeded by George B. Vashon. Miss Emma J. Woodson was an assistant in the institution from 1856 to 1867. After the din of the Civil War had ceased the institution took on new life, electing a new corps of teachers, who placed the work on a higher plane. Among these were Rev. H.H. Garnett, president, B.K. Sampson, Harriet C. Johnson, and Clara G. Toop.[2]

[Footnote 1: African Repository, vol. xxxiv., p. 156.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 381.]

It was due also to the successful forces at work in Pennsylvania that the Ashmun Institute, now Lincoln University, was established in that State. The need of higher education having come to the attention of the Presbytery of New Castle, that body decided to establish within its limits an institution for the "scientific, classical, and theological education of the colored youth of the male sex." In 1853 the Synod approved the plans of the founders and provided that the institution should be under the supervision and control of the Presbytery or Synod within whose bounds it might be located. A committee to solicit funds, find a site, and secure a charter for the school was appointed. They selected for the location Hensonville, Chester County, Pennsylvania.[1] The legislature incorporated the institution in 1854 with John M. Dickey, Alfred Hamilton, Robert P. DuBois, James Latta, John B. Spottswood, James Crowell, Samuel J. Dickey, Alfred Hamilton, John M. Kelton, and William Wilson as trustees. Sufficient buildings and equipment having been provided by 1856, the doors of this institution were opened to young colored men seeking preparation for work in this country and Liberia.[2]

[Footnote 1: Baird, A Collection, etc., p. 819.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the United States Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 382.]

An equally successful plan of workers in the West resulted in the founding of the first higher institution to be controlled by Negroes. Having for some years believed that the colored people needed a college for the preparation of teachers and preachers, the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in session in 1855 appointed Rev. John F. Wright as general agent to execute this design. Addressing themselves immediately to this task Rev. Mr. Wright and his associates solicited from philanthropic persons by 1856 the amount of $13,000. The agents then made the purchase payment on the beautiful site of Tawawa Springs, long known as the healthy summer resort near Xenia, Ohio.[1] That same year the institution was incorporated as Wilberforce University. From 1856 to 1862 the school had a fair student body, consisting of the mulatto children of southern slaveholders.[2] When these were kept away, however, by the operations of the Civil War, the institution declined so rapidly that it had to be closed for a season. Thereafter the trustees appealed again to the African Methodist Episcopal Church which in 1856 had declined the invitation to cooeperate with the founders. The colored Methodists had adhered to their decision to operate Union Seminary, a manual labor school, which they had started near Columbus, Ohio.[3] The proposition was accepted, however, in 1862. For the amount of the debt of $10,000 which the institution had incurred while passing through the crisis, Rev. Daniel A. Payne and his associates secured the transfer of the property to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. These new directors hoped to develop a first-class university, offering courses in law, medicine, literature, and theology. The debt being speedily removed the school showed evidences of new vigor, but was checked in its progress by an incendiary, who burned the main building while the teachers and pupils were attending an emancipation celebration at Xenia, April 14, 1865. With the amount of insurance received and donations from friends, the trustees were able to construct a more commodious building which still marks the site of these early labors.[4]

[Footnote 1: The Non-Slaveholder, vol. ii., p. 113.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 372-373.]

[Footnote 3: History of Greene County, Ohio, chapter on Wilberforce; and Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 373.]

[Footnote 4: The Non-Slaveholder, vol. ii., p. 113.]

A brighter day for the higher education of the colored people at home, however, had begun to dawn during the forties. The abolitionists were then aggressively demanding consideration for the Negroes. Men "condescended" to reason together about slavery and the treatment of the colored people. The northern people ceased to think that they had nothing to do with these problems. When these questions were openly discussed in the schools of the North, students and teachers gradually became converted to the doctrine of equality in education. This revolution was instituted by President C.B. Storrs, of Western Reserve College, then at Hudson, Ohio. His doctrine in regard to the training of the mind "was that men are able to be made only by putting youth under the responsibilities of men." He, therefore, encouraged the free discussion of all important subjects, among which was the appeal of the Negroes for enlightenment. This policy gave rise to a spirit of inquiry which permeated the whole school. The victory, however, was not easy. After a long struggle the mind of the college was carried by irresistible argument in favor of fair play for colored youth. This institution had two colored students as early as 1834.[1]

[Footnote 1: First Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society, p. 42.]

Northern institutions of learning were then reaching the third stage in their participation in the solution of the Negro problem. At first they had to be converted even to allow a free discussion of the question; next the students on being convinced that slavery was a sin, sought to elevate the blacks thus degraded; and finally these workers, who had been accustomed to instructing the neighboring colored people, reached the conclusion that they should be admitted to their schools on equal footing with the whites. Geneva College, then at Northfield, Ohio, now at Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, was being moved in this manner.[1]

[Footnote 1: First Annual Report of the American Anti-slavery Society, 1834. p. 43.]

Lane Seminary, however, is the best example of a school which passed through the three stages of this revolution. This institution was peculiar in that the idea of establishing it originated with a southerner, a merchant of New Orleans. It was founded largely by funds of southern Presbyterians, was located in Cincinnati about a mile from slave territory, and was attended by students from that section.[1] When the right of free discussion swept the country many of the proslavery students were converted to abolition. To southerners it seemed that the seminary had resolved itself into a society for the elevation of the free blacks. Students established Sabbath-schools, organized Bible classes, and provided lectures for Negroes ambitious to do advanced work. Measures were taken to establish an academy for colored girls, and a teacher was engaged. But these noble efforts put forth so near the border States soon provoked firm opposition from the proslavery element. Some of the students had gone so far in the manifestation of their zeal that the institution was embarrassed by the charge of promoting the social equality of the races.[2] Rather than remain in Cincinnati under restrictions, the reform element of the institution moved to the more congenial Western Reserve where a nucleus of youth and their instructors had assumed the name of Oberlin College. This school did so much for the education of Negroes before the Civil War that it was often spoken of as an institution for the education of the people of color.

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: First Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society, p. 43.]

Interest in the higher education of the neglected race, however, was not confined to a particular commonwealth. Institutions of other States were directing their attention to this task. Among others were a school in New York City founded by a clergyman to offer Negroes an opportunity to study the classics,[1] New York Central College at McGrawville, Oneida Institute conducted by Beriah Green at Whitesboro, Thetford Academy of Vermont, and Union Literary Institute in the center of the communities of freedmen transplanted to Indiana. Many other of our best institutions were opening their doors to students of African descent. By 1852 colored students had attended the Institute at Easton, Pennsylvania; the Normal School of Albany, New York; Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; Rutland College, Vermont; Jefferson College, Pennsylvania; Athens College, Athens, Ohio; Franklin College, New Athens, Ohio; and Hanover College near Madison, Indiana. Negroes had taken courses at the Medical School of the University of New York; the Castleton Medical School in Vermont; the Berkshire Medical School, Pittsfield, Massachusetts; the Rush Medical School in Chicago; the Eclectic Medical School of Philadelphia; the Homeopathic College of Cleveland; and the Medical School of Harvard University. Colored preachers had been educated in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the Dartmouth Theological School; and the Theological Seminary of Charleston, South Carolina.[2]

[Footnote 1: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 530.]

[Footnote 2: These facts are taken from M.R. Delany's The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States Practically Considered, published in 1852; the Reports of the Antislavery and Colonization Societies, and The African Repository.]

Prominent among those who brought about this change in the attitude toward the education of the free blacks was Gerrit Smith, one of the greatest philanthropists of his time. He secured privileges for Negroes in higher institutions by extending aid to such as would open their doors to persons of color. In this way he became a patron of Oneida Institute, giving it from $3,000 to $4,000 in cash and 3,000 acres of land in Vermont. Because of the hospitality of Oberlin to colored students he gave the institution large sums of money and 20,000 acres of land in Virginia valued at $50,000. New York Central College which opened its doors alike to both races obtained from him several donations.[1] This gentleman proceeded on the presumption that it is the duty of the white people to elevate the colored and that the education of large numbers of them is indispensable to the uplift of the degraded classes.[2] He wanted them to have the opportunity for obtaining either a common or classical education; and hoped that they would go out from our institutions well educated for any work to which they might be called in this country or abroad.[3] He himself established a colored school at Peterboro, New York. As this institution offered both industrial and literary courses we shall have occasion to mention it again. Both a cause and result of the increasing interest in the higher education of Negroes was that these unfortunates had made good with what little training they had. Many had by their creative power shown what they could do in business,[4] some had convinced the world of the inventive genius of the man of color,[5] others had begun to rank as successful lawyers,[6] not a few had become distinguished physicians,[7] and scores of intelligent Negro preachers were ministering to the spiritual needs of their people.[8] S.R. Ward, a scholar of some note, was for a few years the pastor of a white church at Courtlandville, New York. Robert Morris had been honored by the appointment as Magistrate by the Governor of Massachusetts, and in New Hampshire another man of African blood had been elected to the legislature.[9]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 367.]

[Footnote 2: African Repository, vol. x., p. 312.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 312.]

[Footnote 4: Among these were John B. Smith, Coffin Pitts, Robert Douglas, John P. Bell, Augustus Washington, Alexander S. Thomas, Henry Boyd, P.H. Ray, and L.T. Wilcox.]

[Footnote 5: A North Carolina Negro had discovered a cure for snakebite; Henry Blair, a slave of Maryland, had invented a corn-planter; and Roberts of Philadelphia had made a machine for lifting railway cars from the tracks.]

[Footnote 6: The most noted of these lawyers were Robert Morris, Malcolm B. Allen, G.B. Vashon, and E.G. Walker.]

[Footnote 7: The leading Negroes of this class were T. Joiner White, Peter Ray, John DeGrasse, David P. Jones, J. Gould Bias, James Ulett, Martin Delany, and John R. Peck. James McCrummill, Joseph Wilson, Thos. Kennard, and Wm. Nickless were noted colored dentists of Philadelphia.]

[Footnote 8: The prominent colored preachers of that day were Titus Basfield, B.F. Templeton, W.T. Catto, Benjamin Coker, John B. Vashon, Robert Purvis, David Ruggles, Philip A. Bell, Charles L. Reason, William Wells Brown, Samuel L. Ward, James McCune Smith, Highland Garnett, Daniel A. Payne, James C. Pennington, M. Haines, and John F. Cook.]

[Footnote 9: Baldwin, Observations, etc., p. 44.]

Thanks to the open doors of liberal schools, the race could boast of a number of efficient educators.[1] There were Martin H. Freeman, John Newton Templeton, Mary E. Miles, Lucy Stratton, Lewis Woodson, John F. Cook, Mary Ann Shadd, W.H. Allen, and B.W. Arnett. Professor C.L. Reason, a veteran teacher of New York City, was then so well educated that in 1844 he was called to the professorship of Belles-Lettres and the French Language in New York Central College. Many intelligent Negroes who followed other occupations had teaching for their avocation. In fact almost every colored person who could read and write was a missionary teacher among his people.

[Footnote 1: James B. Russworm, an alumnus of Bowdoin, was the first Negro to receive a degree from a college in this country.]

In music, literature, and journalism the Negroes were also doing well. Eliza Greenfield, William Jackson, John G. Anderson, and William Appo made their way in the musical world. Lemuel Haynes, a successful preacher to a white congregation, took up theology about 1815. Paul Cuffee wrote an interesting account of Sierra Leone. Rev. Daniel Coker published a book on slavery in 1810. Seven years later came the publication of the Law and Doctrine of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Standard Hymnal written by Richard Allen. In 1836 Rev. George Hogarth published an addition to this volume and in 1841 brought forward the first magazine of the sect. Edward W. Moore, a colored teacher of white children in Tennessee, wrote an arithmetic. C.L. Remond of Massachusetts was then a successful lecturer and controversialist. James M. Whitefield, George Horton, and Frances E.W. Harper were publishing poems. H.H. Garnett and J.C. Pennington, known to fame as preachers, attained success also as pamphleteers. R.B. Lewis, M.R. Delany, William Nell, and Catto embellished Negro history; William Wells Brown wrote his Three Years in Europe; and Frederick Douglass, the orator, gave the world his creditable autobiography. More effective still were the journalistic efforts of the Negro intellect pleading its own cause. [1] Colored newspapers varying from the type of weeklies like The North Star to that of the modern magazine like The Anglo-African were published in most large towns and cities of the North.

[Footnote 1: In 1827 John B. Russworm and Samuel B. Cornish began the publication of The Freedom's Journal, appearing afterward as Rights to All. Ten years later P.A. Bell was publishing The Weekly Advocate. From 1837 to 1842 Bell and Cornish edited The Colored Man's Journal, while Samuel Ruggles sent from his press The Mirror of Liberty. In 1847, one year after the appearance of Thomas Van Rensselaer's Ram's Horn, Frederick Douglass started The North Star at Rochester, while G. Allen and Highland Garnett were appealing to the country through The National Watchman of Troy, New York. That same year Martin R. Delany brought out The Pittsburg Mystery, and others The Elevator at Albany, New York. At Syracuse appeared The Impartial Citizen established by Samuel R. Ward in 1848, three years after which L.H. Putnam came before the public in New York City with The Colored Man's Journal. Then came The Philadelphia Freeman, The Philadelphia Citizen, The New York Phalanx, The Baltimore Elevator, and The Cincinnati Central Star. Of a higher order was he Anglo-African, a magazine published in New York in 1859 by Thomas Hamilton, who was succeeded in editorship by Robert Hamilton and Highland Garnett. In 1852 there were in existence The Colored American, The Struggler, The Watchman, The Ram's Horn, The Demosthenian Shield, The National Reformer, The Pittsburg Mystery, The Palladium of Liberty, The Disfranchised American, The Colored Citizen, The National Watchman, The Excelsior, The Christian Herald, The Farmer, The Impartial Citizen, The Northern Star of Albany, and The North Star of Rochester.]



CHAPTER XII

VOCATIONAL TRAINING

Having before them striking examples of highly educated colored men who could find no employment in the United States, the free Negroes began to realize that their preparation was not going hand in hand with their opportunities. Industrial education was then emphasized as the proper method of equipping the race for usefulness. The advocacy of such training, however, was in no sense new. The early anti-slavery men regarded it as the prerequisite to emancipation, and the abolitionists urged it as the only safe means of elevating the freedmen. But when the blacks, converted to this doctrine, began to enter the higher pursuits of labor during the forties and fifties, there started a struggle which has been prolonged even into our day. Most northern white men had ceased to oppose the enlightenment of the free people of color but still objected to granting them economic equality. The same investigators that discovered increased facilities of conventional education for Negroes in 1834 reported also that there existed among the white mechanics a formidable prejudice against colored artisans.[1]

[Footnote 1: Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 26.]

In opposing the encroachment of Negroes on their field of labor the northerners took their cue from the white mechanics in the South. At first laborers of both races worked together in the same room and at the same machine.[1] But in the nineteenth century, when more white men in the South were condescending to do skilled labor and trying to develop manufactures, they found themselves handicapped by competition with the slave mechanics. Before 1860 most southern mechanics, machinists, local manufacturers, contractors, and railroad men with the exception of conductors were Negroes.[2] Against this custom of making colored men such an economic factor the white mechanics frequently protested.[3] The riots against Negroes occurring in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington during the thirties and forties owed their origin mainly to an ill feeling between the white and colored skilled laborers.[4] The white artisans prevailed upon the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia to enact measures hostile to their rivals.[5] In 1845 the State of Georgia made it a misdemeanor for a colored mechanic to make a contract for the repair or the erection of buildings.[6] The people of Georgia, however, were not unanimously in favor of keeping the Negro artisan down. We have already observed that at the request of the Agricultural Convention of that State in 1852 the legislature all but passed a bill providing for the education of slaves to increase their efficiency and attach them to their masters.[7]

[Footnote 1: Buckingham, Slave States of America, vol. ii., p. 112.]

[Footnote 2: Du Bois and Dill, The Negro American Artisan, p. 36.]

[Footnote 3: Du Bois and Dill, The Negro American Artisan, pp. 31, 32, 33.]

[Footnote 4: Du Bois and Dill, The Negro American Artisan, p. 34, and Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 365.]

[Footnote 5: Du Bois and Dill, The Negro American Artisan, pp. 31, 32.]

[Footnote 6: Du Bois and Dill, The Negro American Artisan, p. 32.]

[Footnote 7: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 339.]

It was unfortunate that the free people of color in the North had not taken up vocational training earlier in the century before the laboring classes realized fraternal consciousness. Once pitted against the capitalists during the Administration of Andrew Jackson the working classes learned to think that their interests differed materially from those of the rich, whose privileges had multiplied at the expense of the poor. Efforts toward effecting organizations to secure to labor adequate protection began to be successful during Van Buren's Administration. At this time some reformers were boldly demanding the recognition of Negroes by all helpful groups. One of the tests of the strength of these protagonists was whether or not they could induce the mechanics of the North to take colored workmen to supply the skilled laborers required by the then rapid economic development of our free States. Would the whites permit the blacks to continue as their competitors after labor had been elevated above drudgery? To do this meant the continuation of the custom of taking youths of African blood as apprentices. This the white mechanics of the North generally refused to do.[1]

[Footnote 1: Minutes of the Third Annual Convention of the Free People of Color, p. 18.]

The friends of the colored race, however, were not easily discouraged by that "vulgar race prejudice which reigns in the breasts of working classes."[1] Arthur Tappan, Gerrit Smith, and William Lloyd Garrison made the appeal in behalf of the untrained laborers.[2] Although they knew the difficulties encountered by Negroes seeking to learn trades, and could daily observe how unwilling master mechanics were to receive colored boys as apprentices, the abolitionists persisted in saying that by perseverance these youths could succeed in procuring profitable situations.[3] Garrison believed that their failure to find employment at trades was not due so much to racial differences as to their lack of training. Speaking to the free people of color in their convention in Philadelphia in 1831, he could give them no better advice than that "wherever you can, put your children to trades. A good trade is better than a fortune, because when once obtained it cannot be taken away." Discussing the matter further, he said: "Now, there can be no reason why your sons should fail to make as ingenious and industrious mechanics, as any white apprentices; and when they once get trades, they will be able to accumulate money; money begets influence, and influence respectability. Influence, wealth, and character will certainly destroy those prejudices which now separate you from society."[4]

[Footnote 1: Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 26.]

[Footnote 2: This statement is based on articles appearing in The Liberator from time to time.]

[Footnote 3: Minutes of the Second Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, 1831, p. 10.]

[Footnote 4: Minutes of the Second Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, 1831, p. II.]

To expect the cooeperation of the white working classes in thus elevating the colored race turned out to be a delusion. They reached the conclusion that in making their headway against capital they had a better chance without Negroes than with them. White mechanics of the North not only refused to accept colored boys as apprentices, but would not even work for employers who persisted in hiring Negroes. Generally refused by the master mechanics of Cincinnati, a colored cabinet-maker finally found an Englishman who was willing to hire him, but the employees of the shop objected, refusing to allow the newcomer even to work in a room by himself.[1] A Negro who could preach in a white church of the North would have had difficulty in securing the contract to build a new edifice for that congregation. A colored man could then more easily get his son into a lawyer's office to learn law than he could "into a blacksmith shop to blow the bellows and wield the sledge hammer."[2]

[Footnote 1: The Liberator, June 13, 1835.]

[Footnote 2: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, p. 248.]

Left then in a quandary as to what they should do, northern Negroes hoped to use the then popular "manual labor schools" to furnish the facilities for both practical and classical education. These schools as operated for the whites, however, were not primarily trade schools. Those which admitted persons of African descent paid more attention to actual industrial training for the reason that colored students could not then hope to acquire such knowledge as apprentices. This tendency was well shown by the action of the free Negroes through their delegates in the convention assembled in Philadelphia in 1830. Conversant with the policy of so reshaping the educational system of the country as to carry knowledge even to the hovels, these leaders were easily won to the scheme of reconstructing their schools "on the manual labor system." In this they saw the redemption of the free Negroes of the North. These gentlemen were afraid that the colored people were not paying sufficient attention to the development of the power to use their hands skillfully.[1] One of the first acts of the convention was to inquire as to how fast colored men were becoming attached to mechanical pursuits,[2] and whether or not there was any prospect that a manual labor school for the instruction of the youth would shortly be established. The report of the committee, to which the question was referred, was so encouraging that the convention itself decided to establish an institution of the kind at New Haven, Connecticut. They appealed to their fellows for help, called the attention of philanthropists to this need of the race, and commissioned William Lloyd Garrison to solicit funds in Great Britain.[3] Garrison found hearty supporters among the friends of freedom in that country. Some, who had been induced to contribute to the Colonization Society, found it more advisable to aid the new movement. Charles Stewart of Liverpool wrote Garrison that he could count on his British co-workers to raise $1000 for this purpose.[4] At the same time Americans were equally active. Arthur Tappan subscribed $1000 on the condition that each of nineteen other persons should contribute the same amount.[5]

[Footnote 1: Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 26; and The Liberator, October 22, 1831; and The Abolitionist, November, 1833 (p. 191).]