Progress and Achievements of the Colored People / Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success

by Kelly Miller; Joseph R. Gay

THE EARLY TEACHING OF SLAVES.

There is striking proof of the high estimate which the more enlightened people of the country put upon the Negro’s character and capabilities in the enterprises for African colonization which were made so much of in the first half of the last century. An interesting feature of this movement was the union of benevolent people in the South with those of like mind in the North, and the harmony of spirit which long prevailed. With the teachings of the Declaration of Independence dominant everywhere, thinking people felt that slavery could not be countenanced forever in a free country; and the practical way to deal with the Negroes seemed to be to set them off in colonies by themselves. Jefferson suggested that there might be such a colony in some part of the region northwest of the Ohio or that a retreat be found for them in the West Indies; and, later, in 1811, after the colony of Sierra Leone had been planted by the British Government, he wrote that nothing was more to be wished than that the United States should undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa. In 1816, the Legislature of Virginia took action to the same end, and a year later, the American Colonization Society was organized at the Capital of the Nation, with Justice Bushrod Washington as president and distinguished men from all parts of the land in the list of vice presidents. During the following 15 years, until 1832, vigorous efforts were made for the support of this society in all the different States. State societies, county societies, church societies and local bands, auxiliary to the national organization, were started; in 1832, a list was printed of 231 such auxiliaries, of which 127 were in the slave States and 104 elsewhere. In the lists of their presidents, secretaries, and treasurers are found the names of John Marshall and James Madison, of Virginia; Charles Carroll, of Maryland; Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina; Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Edward Everett, of Massachusetts; Gerrit Smith and Arthur Tappan, of New York; Jeremiah Day and Leonard Bacon, of Connecticut, with others of similar standing in the North and South alike, governors, judges, ministers of the gospel, and prominent business men. The purpose on which the country was thus united was the building up of Liberia, the establishment in Africa of a Republic upon the pattern of the United States, to be made up of freed slaves from America. That shows what was thought of the Negroes at that time; how the ablest men believed in them as equal to grave civil responsibilities. However wild the project looks today, the very launching of it was a significant tribute to these people.

Prior to 1830 the thoughtful people of the South were not opposed to the education of their slaves. There was a special recognition of the need of teaching reading as a means of becoming familiar with the Bible and the doctrines of Christianity. It was necessary for practical reasons that some of the slaves on a large estate should know how to read. Some of the house servants who were depended on for the care of the masters children, aided them in their lessons, and for this reason needed to have some knowledge of reading, writing, and simple arithmetic. The history of the South in early times tells of men and women, here and there, who interested themselves particularly in the welfare of the slaves and in teaching them to read as a prerequisite for religious training and membership in the church. In 1695 the minister of Goose Creek Parish, near Charleston, gathered a class of Negroes and gave them a course of systematic instruction in Christian truth. Before 1700 the Friends of North Carolina were especially active in similar efforts. In 1744 two young colored men, who had received a special education for the purpose, were set over a school in Charleston which opened with some sixty pupils and was continued for a number of years. Later the free colored people of Charleston, who were prosperous and had ample means, maintained their own schools; and in the early part of the nineteenth century, when the law forbade Negroes to teach, white teachers were employed in their schools. Particularly interesting is the story of the Mood brothers, the eldest of whom began to teach Negro children in 1638, and was followed by his three brothers and a brother-in-law, one after another, till they had together given instruction to some 1,200 pupils.

Carter Goodwin Woodson’s book, The Education of the Negro, gives an impressive array of historical illustrations. Dr. Woodson relates briefly how more than fifty Negroes of some distinction severally received in slavery days the beginnings of their education, usually by the favor of some one who was personally interested in their improvement. He estimates that in 1863 some ten per cent. of the adult Negroes in the United States had the rudiments of education, to which he adds the opinion that the number was much less than it had been about 1825.

It seems open to question whether there were more educated Negroes in 1825 than in 1863. Undoubtedly there were more in some cities where the harsh measures used against them led to a flight to more favorable abodes. But the removal, for example, of Frederick Douglass, from Baltimore to New York, or of Daniel A. Payne from Charleston to Gettysburg, or of the Quakers in North Carolina to a freer air in Ohio, did not by any means eliminate them from the Negro ranks; but rather set them in positions where their own education could go on by leaps and bounds, and their inspiring personality become a ten-fold greater force in promoting the educational ambition of their comrades. In 1825 education for the Negro was undoubtedly more in honor among the white people than afterwards. The advertisements of the time show that it was sometimes regarded as adding to the market value of a slave, so as to be put forward to help the sale. By the middle of the century all this was changed; the schools of free Negroes were frowned upon and teaching slaves was under the ban; an intelligent Negro became an object of suspicion, and it was not politic for one to be known as able to read and write. On this account the estimate of their number was likely to be much below what is actually was.