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The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861
Chapter IX - Learning in Spite of Opposition
by Woodson, Carter Godwin
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Discouraging as these conditions seemed, the situation was not
entirely hopeless. The education of the colored people as a public
effort had been prohibited south of the border States, but there was
still some chance for Negroes of that section to acquire knowledge.
Furthermore, the liberal white people of that section considered these
enactments, as we have stated above, not applicable to southerners
interested in the improvement of their slaves but to mischievous
abolitionists. The truth is that thereafter some citizens disregarded
the laws of their States and taught worthy slaves whom they desired to
reward or use in business requiring an elementary education. As these
prohibitions in slave States were not equally stringent, white and
colored teachers of free blacks were not always disturbed. In fact,
just before the middle of the nineteenth century there was so much
winking at the violation of the reactionary laws that it looked as if
some Southern States might recede from their radical position and let
Negroes be educated as they had been in the eighteenth century.
The ways in which slaves thereafter acquired knowledge are
significant. Many picked it up here and there, some followed
occupations which were in themselves enlightening, and others learned
from slaves whose attainments were unknown to their masters. Often
influential white men taught Negroes not only the rudiments of
education but almost anything they wanted to learn. Not a few slaves
were instructed by the white children whom they accompanied to school.
While attending ministers and officials whose work often lay open to
their servants, many of the race learned by contact and observation.
Shrewd Negroes sometimes slipped stealthily into back streets, where
they studied under a private teacher, or attended a school hidden from
the zealous execution of the law.
The instances of Negroes struggling to obtain an education read like
the beautiful romances of a people in an heroic age. Sometimes Negroes
of the type of Lott Carey[1] educated themselves. James Redpath
discovered in Savannah that in spite of the law great numbers
of slaves had learned to read well. Many of them had acquired a
rudimentary knowledge of arithmetic. "But," said he, "blazon it to the
shame of the South, the knowledge thus acquired has been snatched from
the spare records of leisure in spite of their owners' wishes and
watchfulness."[2] C.G. Parsons was informed that although poor masters
did not venture to teach their slaves, occasionally one with a thirst
for knowledge secretly learned the rudiments of education without any
instruction.[3] While on a tour through parts of Georgia, E.P. Burke
observed that, notwithstanding the great precaution which was taken
to prevent the mental improvement of the slaves, many of them "stole
knowledge enough to enable them to read and write with ease."[4]
Robert Smalls[5] of South Carolina and Alfred T. Jones[6] of Kentucky
began their education in this manner.
[Footnote 1: Mott, "Biographical Sketches", p. 87.]
[Footnote 2: Redpath, "Roving Editor", etc., p. 161.]
[Footnote 3: Parsons, "Inside View", etc., p. 248.]
[Footnote 4: Burke, "Reminiscences of Georgia", p. 85.]
[Footnote 5: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 126.]
[Footnote 6: Drew, "Refugee", p. 152.]
Probably the best example of this class was Harrison Ellis of Alabama.
At the age of thirty-five he had acquired a liberal education by his
own exertions. Upon examination he proved himself a good Latin and
Hebrew scholar and showed still greater proficiency in Greek. His
attainments in theology were highly satisfactory. "The Eufaula
Shield", a newspaper of that State, praised him as a man courteous in
manners, polite in conversation, and manly in demeanor. Knowing how
useful Ellis would be in a free country, the Presbyterian Synod of
Alabama purchased him and his family in 1847 at a cost of $2500 that
he might use his talents in elevating his own people in Liberia.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Niles Register", vol. lxxi., p. 296.]
Intelligent Negroes secretly communicated to their fellow men what
they knew. Henry Banks of Stafford County, Virginia, was taught by
his brother-in-law to read, but not write.[1] The father of Benedict
Duncan, a slave in Maryland, taught his son the alphabet.[2] M.W.
Taylor of Kentucky received his first instruction from his mother.
H.O. Wagoner learned from his parents the first principles of the
common branches.[3] A mulatto of Richmond taught John H. Smythe when
he was between the ages of five and seven.[4] The mother of Dr. C.H.
Payne of West Virginia taught him to read at such an early age that
he does not remember when he first developed that power.[5] Dr. E.C.
Morris, President of the National Baptist Convention, belonged to a
Georgia family, all of whom were well instructed by his father.[6]
[Footnote 1: Drew, "Refugee", etc., p. 72.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 110.]
[Footnote 3: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 679.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 873.]
[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 368.]
[Footnote 6: This is his own statement.]
The white parents of Negroes often secured to them the educational
facilities then afforded the superior race. The indulgent teacher of
J. Morris of North Carolina was his white father, his master.[1]
W.J. White acquired his education from his mother, who was a white
woman.[2] Martha Martin, a daughter of her master, a Scotch-Irishman
of Georgia, was permitted to go to Cincinnati to be educated, while
her sister was sent to a southern town to learn the milliner's
trade.[3] Then there were cases like that of Josiah Settle's white
father. After the passage of the law forbidding free Negroes to remain
in the State of Tennessee, he took his children to Hamilton, Ohio,
to be educated and there married his actual wife, their colored
mother.[4]
[Footnote 1: This is based on an account given by his son.]
[Footnote 2: "The Crisis", vol. v., p. 119.]
[Footnote 3: Drew, "Refugee", p. 143.]
[Footnote 4: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 539.]
The very employment of slaves in business establishments accelerated
their mental development. Negroes working in stores often acquired
a fair education by assisting clerks. Some slaves were clerks
themselves. Under the observation of E.P. Burke came the notable case
of a young man belonging to one of the best families of Savannah. He
could read, write, cipher, and transact business so intelligently
that his master often committed important trusts to his care.[1] B.K.
Bruce, while still a slave, educated himself when he was working at
the printer's trade in Brunswick, Missouri. Even farther south where
slavery assumed its worst form, we find that this condition obtained.
Addressing to the New Orleans "Commercial Bulletin" a letter on
African colonization, John McDonogh stated that the work imposed on
his slaves required some education for which he willingly provided. In
1842 he had had no white man over his slaves for twenty years. He had
assigned this task to his intelligent colored manager who did his work
so well that the master did not go in person once in six months to see
what his slaves were doing. He says, "They were, besides, my men of
business, enjoyed my confidence, were my clerks, transacted all my
affairs, made purchases of materials, collected my rents, leased my
houses, took care of my property and effects of every kind, and
that with an honesty and fidelity which was proof against every
temptation."[2] Traveling in Mississippi in 1852, Olmsted found
another such group of slaves all of whom could read, whereas the
master himself was entirely illiterate. He took much pride, however,
in praising his loyal, capable, and intelligent Negroes.[3]
[Footnote 1: Burke, "Reminiscences of Georgia", p. 86.
Frances Anne Kemble gives in her journal an interesting account of her
observations in Georgia. She says: "I must tell you that I have been
delighted, surprised, and the very least perplexed, by the sudden
petition on the part of our young waiter, Aleck, that I will teach him
to read. He is a very intelligent lad of about sixteen, and preferred
his request with urgent humility that was very touching. I will do it;
and yet, it is simply breaking the laws of the government under which
I am living. Unrighteous laws are made to be broken--perhaps--but
then you see, I am a woman, and Mr.---- stands between me and the
penalty--. I certainly intend to teach Aleck to read; and I'll teach
every other creature that wants to learn." See Kemble, "Journal", p.
34.]
[Footnote 2: McDonogh, "Letter on African Colonization."]
[Footnote 3: Olmsted, "Cotton Kingdom", vol. ii., p. 70.]
White persons deeply interested in Negroes taught them regardless
of public opinion and the law. Dr. Alexander T. Augusta of Virginia
learned to read while serving white men as a barber.[1] A prominent
white man of Memphis taught Mrs. Mary Church Terrell's mother French
and English. The father of Judge R.H. Terrell was well-grounded
in reading by his overseer during the absence of his master from
Virginia.[2] A fugitive slave from Essex County of the same State was
not allowed to go to school publicly, but had an opportunity to learn
from white persons privately.[3] The master of Charles Henry Green, a
slave of Delaware, denied him all instruction, but he was permitted
to study among the people to whom he was hired.[4] M.W. Taylor of
Kentucky studied under attorneys J.B. Kinkaid and John W. Barr, whom
he served as messenger.[5] Ignoring his master's orders against
frequenting a night school, Henry Morehead of Louisville learned to
spell and read sufficiently well to cause his owner to have the school
unceremoniously closed.[6]
[Footnote 1: "Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed.", 1871, p. 258.]
[Footnote 2: This is based on the statements of Judge and Mrs.
Terrell.]
[Footnote 3: Drew, "Refugee", p. 335.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 96.]
[Footnote 5: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 933.]
[Footnote 6: Drew, "Refugee", p. 180.]
The educational experiences of President Scarborough and of Bishop
Turner show that some white persons were willing to make unusual
sacrifices to enlighten Negroes. President Scarborough began to attend
school in his native home in Bibb County, Georgia, at the age of six
years. He went out ostensibly to play, keeping his books concealed
under his arm, but spent six or eight hours each day in school until
he could read well and had mastered the first principles of geography,
grammar, and arithmetic. At the age of ten he took regular lessons in
writing under an old South Carolinian, J.C. Thomas, a rebel of the
bitterest type. Like Frederick Douglass, President Scarborough
received much instruction from his white playmates.[1]
[Footnote 1: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 410.]
Bishop Turner of Newberry Court House, in South Carolina, purchased
a spelling book and secured the services of an old white lady and a
white boy, who in violation of the State law taught him to spell as
far as two syllables.[1] The white boy's brother stopped him from
teaching this lad of color, pointing out that such an instructor was
liable to arrest. For some time he obtained help from an old colored
gentleman, a prodigy in sounds. At the age of thirteen his mother
employed a white lady to teach him on Sundays, but she was soon
stopped by indignant white persons of the community. When he attained
the age of fifteen he was employed by a number of lawyers in whose
favor he ingratiated himself by his unusual power to please people.
Thereafter these men in defiance of the law taught him to read and
write and explained anything he wanted to know about arithmetic,
geography, and astronomy.[2]
[Footnote 1: Bishop Turner says that when he started to learn there
were among his acquaintances three colored men who had learned to read
the Bible in Charleston. See Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 806.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 806.]
Often favorite slaves were taught by white children. By hiding books
in a hayloft and getting the white children to teach him, James W.
Sumler of Norfolk, Virginia, obtained an elementary education.[1]
While serving as overseer for his Scotch-Irish master, Daniel
J. Lockhart of the same commonwealth learned to read under the
instruction of his owner's boys. They were not interrupted in their
benevolent work.[2] In the same manner John Warren, a slave of
Tennessee, acquired a knowledge of the common branches.[3] John
Baptist Snowden of Maryland was secretly instructed by his owner's
children.[4] Uncle Cephas, a slave of Parson Winslow of Tennessee,
reported that the white children taught him on the sly when they came
to see Dinah, who was a very good cook. He was never without books
during his stay with his master.[5] One of the Grimké Sisters taught
her little maid to read while brushing her young mistress's locks.[6]
Robert Harlan, who was brought up in the family of Honorable J.M.
Harlan, acquired the fundamentals of the common branches from Harlan's
older sons.[7] The young mistress of Mrs. Ann Woodson of Virginia
instructed her until she could read in the first reader.[8] Abdy
observed in 1834 that slaves of Kentucky had been thus taught to read.
He believed that they were about as well off as they would have
been, had they been free.[9] Giving her experiences on a Mississippi
plantation, Susan Dabney Smedes stated that the white children
delighted in teaching the house servants. One night she was formally
invited with the master, mistress, governess, and guests by a
twelve-year-old school mistress to hear her dozen pupils recite
poetry. One of the guests was quite astonished to see his servant
recite a piece of poetry which he had learned for this occasion.[10]
Confining his operations to the kitchen, another such teacher of this
plantation was unusually successful in instructing the adult male
slaves. Five of these Negroes experienced such enlightenment that they
became preachers.[11]
[Footnote 1: Drew, "Refugee", p. 97.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 45.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 185.]
[Footnote 4: Snowden, "Autobiography", p. 23.]
[Footnote 5: Albert, "The House of Bondage", p. 125.]
[Footnote 6: Birney, "The Grimké Sisters", p. 11.]
[Footnote 7: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 613.]
[Footnote 8: This fact is stated in one of her letters.]
[Footnote 9: Abdy, "Journal of a Residence and Tour in U.S.A.",
1833-1834. P. 346.]
[Footnote 10: Smedes, "A Southern Planter", pp. 79-80.]
[Footnote 11: Ibid., p. 80.]
Planters themselves sometimes saw to the education of their slaves.
Ephraim Waterford was bound out in Virginia until he was twenty-one on
the condition that the man to whom he was hired should teach him to
read.[1] Mrs. Isaac Riley and Henry Williamson, of Maryland, did not
attend school but were taught by their master to spell and read but
not to write.[2] The master and mistress of Williamson Pease, of
Hardman County, Tennessee, were his teachers.[3] Francis Fredric began
his studies under his master in Virginia. Frederick Douglass was
indebted to his kind mistress for his first instruction.[4] Mrs.
Thomas Payne, a slave in what is now West Virginia, was fortunate
in having a master who was equally benevolent.[5] Honorable I.T.
Montgomery, now the Mayor of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, was, while a
slave of Jefferson Davis's brother, instructed in the common branches
and trained to be the confidential accountant of his master's
plantation.[6] While on a tour among the planters of East Georgia,
C.G. Parsons discovered that about 5000 of the 400,000 slaves there
had been taught to read and write. He remarked, too, that such slaves
were generally owned by the wealthy slaveholders, who had them
schooled when the enlightenment of the bondmen served the purposes of
their masters.[7]
[Footnote 1: Drew, "A North-Side View of Slavery", p. 373.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 133.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 123.]
[Footnote 4: Lee, "Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky", p. x.]
[Footnote 5: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 368.]
[Footnote 6: This is his own statement.]
[Footnote 7: Parsons, "Inside View", etc., p. 248.]
The enlightenment of the Negroes, however, was not limited to what
could be accomplished by individual efforts. In many southern
communities colored schools were maintained in defiance of public
opinion or in violation of the law. Patrick Snead of Savannah was sent
to a private institution until he could spell quite well and then to
a Sunday-school for colored children.[1] Richard M. Hancock wrote of
studying in a private school in Newbern, North Carolina;[2] John S.
Leary went to one in Fayetteville eight years;[3] and W.A. Pettiford
of this State enjoyed similar advantages in Granville County during
the fifties. He then moved with his parents to Preston County where he
again had the opportunity to attend a special school.[4] About 1840,
J.F. Boulder was a student in a mixed school of white and colored
pupils in Delaware.[5] Bishop J.M. Brown, a native of the same
commonwealth, attended a private school taught by a friendly woman of
the Quaker sect.[6] John A. Hunter, of Maryland, was sent to a school
for white children kept by the sister of his mistress, but his second
master said that Hunter should not have been allowed to study and
stopped his attendance.[7] Francis L. Cardozo of Charleston, South
Carolina, entered school there in 1842 and continued his studies until
he was twelve years of age.[8] During the fifties J.W. Morris of the
same city attended a school conducted by the then distinguished Simeon
Beard.[9] In the same way T. McCants Stewart[10] and the Grimké
brothers [11] were able to begin their education there prior to
emancipation.
[Footnote 1: Drew, "Refugee", p. 99.]
[Footnote 2: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 406.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 432.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 469]
[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 708.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid., 930.]
[Footnote 7: Drew, "Refugee", p. 114.]
[Footnote 8: Simmons, "Men of Mark", 428]
[Footnote 9: Ibid., p. 162]
[Footnote 10: Ibid., p. 1052]
[Footnote 11: This is their own statement.]
More schools for slaves existed than white men knew of, for it was
difficult to find them. Fredrika Bremer heard of secret schools for
slaves during her visit to Charleston, but she had extreme difficulty
in finding such an institution. When she finally located one and
gained admission into its quiet chamber, she noticed in a wretched
dark hole a "half-dozen poor children, some of whom had an aspect that
testified great stupidity and mere animal life."[1] She was informed,
too, that there were in Georgia and Florida planters who had
established schools for the education of the children of their slaves
with the intention of preparing them for living as "good free human
beings."[2] Frances Anne Kemble noted such instances in her diary.[3]
The most interesting of these cases was discovered by the Union Army
on its march through Georgia. Unsuspected by the slave power and
undeterred by the terrors of the law, a colored woman by the name of
Deveaux had for thirty years conducted a Negro school in the city of
Savannah.[4]
[Footnote 1: Bremer, "The Homes of the New World", vol. ii., p. 499.]
[Footnote 2: "Ibid.", p. 491; Burke, "Reminiscences of Georgia", p.
85.]
[Footnote 3: Kemble, "Journal", etc., p. 34.]
[Footnote 4: "Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed.", 1871, p. 340.]
The city Negroes of Virginia continued to maintain schools despite
the fact that the fear of servile insurrection caused the State to
exercise due vigilance in the execution of the laws. The father of
Richard De Baptiste of Fredericksburg made his own residence a school
with his children and a few of those of his relatives as pupils.
The work was begun by a Negro and continued by an educated
Scotch-Irishman, who had followed the profession of teaching in his
native land. Becoming suspicious that a school of this kind was
maintained at the home of De Baptiste, the police watched the place
but failed to find sufficient evidence to close the institution before
it had done its work.[1]
[Footnote 1: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 352.]
In 1854 there was found in Norfolk, Virginia, what the radically
proslavery people considered a dangerous white woman. It was
discovered that one Mrs. Douglass and her daughter had for three years
been teaching a school maintained for the education of Negroes.[1] It
was evident that this institution had not been run so clandestinely
but that the opposition to the education of Negroes in that city had
probably been too weak to bring about the close of the school at an
earlier date. Mrs. Douglass and her pupils were arrested and brought
before the court, where she was charged with violating the laws of the
State. The defendant acknowledged her guilt, but, pleading ignorance
of the law, was discharged on the condition that she would not commit
the same "crime" again. Censuring the court for this liberal decision
the "Richmond Examiner" referred to it as offering "a very convenient
way of getting out of the scrape." The editor emphasized the fact
that the law of Virginia imposed on such offenders the penalty of one
hundred dollars fine and imprisonment for six months, and that its
positive terms "allowed no discretion in the community magistrate."[2]
[Footnote 1: Parsons, "Inside View of Slavery", p. 251; and Lyman,
"Leaven for Doughfaces", p. 43.]
[Footnote 2: "13th Annual Report of the American and Foreign
Antislavery Societies", 1853, p. 143.]
All such schools, however, were not secretly kept. Writing from
Charleston in 1851 Fredrika Bremer made mention of two colored
schools. One of these was a school for free Negroes kept with open
doors by a white master. Their books which she examined were the same
as those used in American schools for white children.[1] The Negroes
of Lexington, Kentucky, had in 1830 a school in which thirty colored
children were taught by a white man from Tennessee.[2] This gentleman
had pledged himself to devote the rest of his life to the uplift of
his "black brethren."[3] Travelers noted that colored schools were
found also in Richmond, Maysville, Danville, and Louisville decades
before the Civil War.[4] William H. Gibson, a native of Baltimore, was
after 1847 teaching at Louisville in a day and night school with
an enrollment of one hundred pupils, many of whom were slaves with
written permits from their masters to attend.[5] Some years later W.H.
Stewart of that city attended the schools of Henry Adams, W.H. Gibson,
and R.T.W. James. Robert Taylor began his studies there in Robert
Lane's school and took writing from Henry Adams.[6] Negroes had
schools in Tennessee also. R.L. Perry was during these years attending
a school at Nashville.[7] An uncle of Dr. J.E. Moorland spent some
time studying medicine in that city.
[Footnote 1: Bremer, "The Homes of the New World", vol. ii., p. 499.]
[Footnote 2: Abdy, "Journal of a Residence and Tour in U.S.A".,
1833-34, p. 346.]
[Footnote 3: "Ibid"., pp. 346-348.]
[Footnote 4: Tower, "Slavery Unmasked"; Dabney, "Journal of a Tour
through the U.S. and Canada", p. 185; "Niles Register", vol. lxxii.,
p. 322; and Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 631.]
[Footnote 5: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 603.]
[Footnote 6: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 629.]
[Footnote 7: "Ibid.", p. 620.]
Many of these opportunities were made possible by the desire to
teach slaves religion. In fact the instruction of Negroes after the
enactment of prohibitory laws resembled somewhat the teaching of
religion with letters during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Thousands of Negroes like Edward Patterson and Nat Turner learned
to read and write in Sabbath-schools. White men who diffused such
information ran the gauntlet of mobs, but like a Baptist preacher of
South Carolina who was threatened with expulsion from his church, if
he did not desist, they worked on and overcame the local prejudice.
When preachers themselves dared not undertake this task it was often
done by their children, whose benevolent work was winked at as an
indulgence to the clerical profession. This charity, however, was
not restricted to the narrow circle of the clergy. Believing with
churchmen that the Bible is the revelation of God, many laymen
contended that no man should be restrained from knowing his Maker
directly.[1] Negroes, therefore, almost worshiped the Bible, and
their anxiety to read it was their greatest incentive to learn. Many
southerners braved the terrors of public opinion and taught their
Negroes to read the Scriptures. To this extent General Coxe of
Fluvanna County, Virginia, taught about one hundred of his adult
slaves.[2] While serving as a professor of the Military Institute
at Lexington, Stonewall Jackson taught a class of Negroes in a
Sunday-school.[3]
[Footnote 1: Orr, "An Address on the Need of Education in the South,
1879."]
[Footnote 2: This statement is made by several of General Coxe's
slaves who are still living.]
[Footnote 3: "School Journal", vol. lxxx., p. 332.]
Further interest in the cause was shown by the Evangelical Society
of the Synods of North Carolina and Virginia in 1834.[1] Later
Presbyterians of Alabama and Georgia urged masters to enlighten their
slaves.[2] The attitude of many mountaineers of Kentucky was well set
forth in the address of the Synod of 1836, proposing a plan for the
instruction and emancipation of the slaves.[3] They complained that
throughout the land, so far as they could learn, there was but one
school in which slaves could be taught during the week. The light
of three or four Sabbath-schools was seen "glittering through the
darkness" of the black population of the whole State. Here and there
one found a family where humanity impelled the master, mistress, or
children, to the laborious task of private instruction. In consequence
of these undesirable conditions the Synod recommended that "slaves be
instructed in the common elementary branches of education."[4]
[Footnote 1: "African Repository", vol. x., pp. 174, 205, and 245.]
[Footnote 2: "Ibid.", vol. xi., pp. 140 and 268.]
[Footnote 3: Goodell, "Slave Code", pp. 323-324.]
[Footnote 4: "The Enormity of the Slave Trade, etc"., p. 74.]
Some of the objects of such charity turned out to be interesting
characters. Samuel Lowry of Tennessee worked and studied privately
under Rev. Mr. Talbot of Franklin College, and at the age of sixteen
was sufficiently advanced to teach with success. He united with the
Church of the Disciples and preached in that connection until 1859.[1]
In some cases colored preachers were judged sufficiently informed,
not only to minister to the needs of their own congregations, but to
preach to white churches. There was a Negro thus engaged in the State
of Florida.[2] Another colored man of unusual intelligence and much
prominence worked his way to the front in Giles County, Tennessee. In
1859 he was the pastor of a Hard-shell Baptist Church, the membership
of which was composed of the best white people in the community. He
was so well prepared for his work that out of a four days' argument
on baptism with a white minister he emerged victor. From this
appreciative congregation he received a salary of from six to seven
hundred dollars a year.[3]
[Footnote 1: Simmons, "Men of Mark", p. 144.]
[Footnote 2: Bremer, "Homes of the New World", vol. ii., pp. 488-491.]
[Footnote 3: "The Richmond Enquirer", July, 1859; and "Afr.
Repository", vol. xxxv., p. 255.]
Statistics of this period show that the proportionately largest number
of Negroes who learned in spite of opposition were found among the
Scotch-Irish of Kentucky and Tennessee. Possessing few slaves, and
having no permanent attachment to the institution, those mountaineers
did not yield to the reactionaries who were determined to keep the
Negroes in heathendom. Kentucky and Tennessee did not expressly forbid
the education of the colored people.[1] Conditions were probably
better in Kentucky than in Tennessee. Traveling in Kentucky about this
time, Abdy was favorably impressed with that class of Negroes who
though originally slaves saved sufficient from their earnings to
purchase their freedom and provide for the education of their
children.[2]
[Footnote 1: In 1830 one-twelfth of the population of Lexington
consisted of free persons of color, who since 1822 had had a Baptist
church served by a member of their own race and a school in which
thirty-two of their children were taught by a white man from
Tennessee. He had pledged himself to devote the rest of his life to
the uplift of his colored brethren. One of these free Negroes in
Lexington had accumulated wealth to the amount of $20,000. In
Louisville, also a center of free colored population, efforts were
being made to educate ambitious Negroes. Travelers noted that colored
schools were found there generations before the Civil War and
mentioned the intelligent and properly speaking colored preachers,
who were bought and supported by their congregations. Charles Dabney,
another traveler through this State in 1837, observed that the slaves
of this commonwealth were taught to read and believed that they were
about as well off as they would have been had they been free. See
Dabney, "Journal of a Tour through the U.S. and Canada", p. 185.]
[Footnote 2: Abdy, "Journal of a Tour", etc., 1833-1834, pp. 346-348.]
It was the desire to train up white men to carry on the work of their
liberal fathers that led John G. Fee and his colaborers to establish
Berea College in Kentucky. In the charter of this institution was
incorporated the declaration that "God has made of one blood all
nations that dwell upon the face of the earth." No Negroes were
admitted to this institution before the Civil War, but they came in
soon thereafter, some being accepted while returning home wearing
their uniforms.[1] The State has since prohibited the co-education of
the two races.
[Footnote 1: Catalogue of Berea College, 1896-1897.]
The centers of this interest in the mountains of Tennessee were
Maryville and Knoxville. Around these towns were found a goodly number
of white persons interested in the elevation of the colored people.
There developed such an antislavery sentiment in the former town that
half of the students of the Maryville Theological Seminary became
abolitionists by 1841.[1] They were then advocating the social uplift
of Negroes through the local organ, the "Maryville Intelligencer".
From this nucleus of antislavery men developed a community with ideals
not unlike those of Berea.[2]
[Footnote 1: Some of the liberal-mindedness of the people of Kentucky
and Tennessee was found in the State of Missouri. The question of
slavery there, however, was so ardently discussed and prominently kept
before the people that while little was done to help the Negroes, much
was done to reduce them to the plane of beasts. There was not so much
of the tendency to wink at the violation of the law on the part of
masters in teaching their slaves. But little could be accomplished by
private teachers in the dissemination of information among Negroes
after the free persons of color had been excluded from the State.]
[Footnote 2: "Fourth Annual Report of the American Antislavery
Society", New York, 1837, p. 48; and the "New England Antislavery
Almanac" for 1841, p. 31.]
The Knoxville people who advocated the enlightenment of the Negroes
expressed their sentiment through the "Presbyterian Witness". The
editor felt that there was not a solitary argument that might be urged
in favor of teaching a white man that might not as properly be urged
in favor of enlightening a man of color. "If one has a soul that will
never die," said he, "so has the other. Has one susceptibilities of
improvement, mentally, socially, and morally? So has the other. Is one
bound by the laws of God to improve the talents he has received from
the Creator's hands? So is the other. Is one embraced in the command
'Search the Scriptures'? So is the other."[1] He maintained that
unless masters could lawfully degrade their slaves to the condition of
beasts, they were just as much bound to teach them to read the Bible
as to teach any other class of their population.
[Footnote 1: "African Repository", vol. xxxii., p. 16.]
But great as was the interest of the religious element, the movement
for the education of the Negroes of the South did not again become a
scheme merely for bringing them into the church. Masters had more
than one reason for favoring the enlightenment of the slaves. Georgia
slaveholders of the more liberal class came forward about the middle
of the nineteenth century, advocating the education of Negroes as a
means to increase their economic value, and to attach them to their
masters. This subject was taken up in the Agricultural Convention
at Macon in 1850, and was discussed again in a similar assembly
the following year. After some opposition the Convention passed a
resolution calling on the legislature to enact a law authorizing the
education of slaves. The petition was presented by Mr. Harlston, who
introduced the bill embodying this idea, piloted it through the lower
house, but failed by two or three votes to secure the sanction of the
senate.[1] In 1855 certain influential citizens of North Carolina[2]
memorialized their legislature asking among other things that the
slaves be taught to read. This petition provoked some discussion, but
did not receive as much attention as that of Georgia.
[Footnote 1: "Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed.", p. 339]
[Footnote 2: "African Repository", vol. xxxi., pp. 117-118.]
In view of this renewed interest in the education of the Negroes
of the South we are anxious to know exactly what proportion of
the colored population had risen above the plane of illiteracy.
Unfortunately this cannot be accurately determined. In the first
place, it was difficult to find out whether or not a slave could read
or write when such a disclosure would often cause him to be dreadfully
punished or sold to some cruel master of the lower South. Moreover,
statistics of this kind are scarce and travelers who undertook to
answer this question made conflicting statements. Some persons of that
day left records which indicate that only a few slaves succeeded in
acquiring an imperfect knowledge of the common branches, whereas
others noted a larger number of intelligent servants. Arfwedson
remarked that the slaves seldom learned to read; yet elsewhere
he stated that he sometimes found some who had that ability.[1]
Abolitionists like May, Jay, and Garrison would make it seem that the
conditions in the South were such that it was almost impossible for a
slave to develop intellectual power.[2] Rev. C.C. Jones[3] believed
that only an inconsiderable fraction of the slaves could read.
Witnesses to the contrary, however, are numerous. Abdy, Smedes,
Andrews, Bremer, and Olmsted found during their stay in the South
many slaves who had experienced unusual spiritual and mental
development.[4] Nehemiah Adams, giving the southern view of slavery
in 1854, said that large numbers of the slaves could read and
were furnished with the Scriptures.[5] Amos Dresser, who traveled
extensively in the Southwest, believed that one out of every fifty
could read and write.[6] C.G. Parsons thought that five thousand
out of the four hundred thousand slaves of Georgia had these
attainments.[7] These figures, of course, would run much higher were
the free people of color included in the estimates. Combining the two
it is safe to say that ten per cent. of the adult Negroes had the
rudiments of education in 1860, but the proportion was much less than
it was near the close of the era of better beginnings about 1825.
[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.]
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