To expect the coöperation 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).]
[Footnote 2: Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 27.]
[Footnote 3: Minutes of the Third Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 34.]
[Footnote 4: The Abolitionist (November 1833), p. 191.]
[Footnote 5: The Liberator, October 22, 1831.]
Before these well-laid plans could mature, however, unexpected opposition developed in New Haven. Indignation meetings were held, protests against this project were filed, and the free people of color were notified that the institution was not desired in Connecticut.[1] It was said that these memorialists feared that a colored college so near to Yale might cause friction between the two student bodies, and that the school might attract an unusually large number of undesirable Negroes. At their meeting the citizens of New Haven resolved "That the founding of colleges for educating colored people is an unwarrantable and dangerous undertaking to the internal concerns of other states and ought to be discouraged, and that the mayor, aldermen, common council, and freemen will resist the movement by every lawful means."[2] In view of such drastic action the promoters had to abandon their plan. No such protests were made by the citizens of New Haven, however, when the colonizationists were planning to establish there a mission school to prepare Negroes to leave the country.