The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 Part 13

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

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

[Footnote 2: Brevard, _Digest of the Public Statute Law of S.C._, vol.

ii., p.243.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 352.]

The actual opposition of the masters to the mental improvement of Negroes, however, did not a.s.sume sufficiently large proportions to prevent the intellectual progress of that race, until two forces then at work had had time to become effective in arousing southern planters to the realization of what a danger enlightened colored men would be to the inst.i.tution of slavery. These forces were the industrial revolution and the development of an insurrectionary spirit among slaves, accelerated by the rapid spreading of the abolition agitation.

The industrial revolution was effected by the multiplication of mechanical appliances for spinning and weaving which so influenced the inst.i.tution of slavery as seemingly to doom the Negroes to heathenism.

These inventions were the spinning jenny, the steam engine, the power loom, the wool-combing machine, and the cotton gin. They augmented the output of spinning mills, and in cheapening cloth, increased the demand by bringing it within the reach of the poor. The result was that a revolution was brought about not only in Europe, but also in the United States to which the world looked for this larger supply of cotton fiber.[1] This demand led to the extension of the plantation system on a larger scale. It was unfortunate, however, that many of the planters thus enriched, believed that the slightest amount of education, merely teaching slaves to read, impaired their value because it instantly destroyed their contentedness. Since they did not contemplate changing their condition, it was surely doing them an ill service to destroy their acquiescence in it. This revolution then had brought it to pa.s.s that slaves who were, during the eighteenth century advertised as valuable on account of having been enlightened, were in the nineteenth century considered more dangerous than useful.

[Footnote 1: Turner, _The Rise of the New West_, pp. 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49; and Hammond, _Cotton Industry_, chaps. i. and ii.]

With the rise of this system, and the attendant increased importation of slaves, came the end of the helpful contact of servants with their masters. Slavery was thereby changed from a patriarchal to an economic inst.i.tution. Thereafter most owners of extensive estates abandoned the idea that the mental improvement of slaves made them better servants.

Doomed then to be half-fed, poorly clad, and driven to death in this cotton kingdom, what need had the slaves for education? Some planters. .h.i.t upon the seemingly more profitable scheme of working newly imported slaves to death during seven years and buying another supply rather than attempt to humanize them.[1] Deprived thus of helpful advice and instruction, the slaves became the object of pity not only to abolitionists of the North but also to some southerners. Not a few of these reformers, therefore, favored the extermination of the inst.i.tution. Others advocated the expansion of slavery not to extend the influence of the South, but to disperse the slaves with a view to bringing about a closer contact between them and their masters.[2]

This policy was duly emphasized during the debate on the admission of the State of Missouri.

[Footnote 1: Rhodes, _History of the United States_, vol. i., p. 32; Kemble, Journal, p. 28; Martineau, _Society in America_, vol. i., p.

308; Weld, _Slavery_, etc., p. 41.]

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

Seeking to direct the attention of the world to the slavery of men's bodies and minds the abolitionists spread broadcast through the South newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets which, whether or not they had much effect in inducing masters to improve the condition of their slaves, certainly moved Negroes themselves. It hardly required enlightenment to convince slaves that they would be better off as freemen than as dependents whose very wills were subject to those of their masters.

Accordingly even in the seventeenth century there developed in the minds of bondmen the spirit of resistance. The white settlers of the colonies held out successfully in putting down the early riots of Negroes. When the increasing intelligent Negroes of the South, however, observed in the abolition literature how the condition of the American slaves differed from that of the ancient servants and even from what it once had been in the United States; when they fully realized their intolerable condition compared with that of white men, who were clamoring for liberty and equality, there rankled in the bosom of slaves that insurrectionary pa.s.sion productive of the daring uprisings which made the chances for the enlightenment of colored people poorer than they had ever been in the history of this country.

The more alarming insurrections of the first quarter of the nineteenth century were the immediate cause of the most reactionary measures.

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

[Footnote 1: Was.h.i.+ngton, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. iv., p. 467.]

[Footnote 2: Drewery, _Insurrections in Virginia_, p. 121.]

The insurrection of Gabriel in Virginia and that of South Carolina in the year 1800 are cases in evidence. Unwilling to concede that slaves could have so well planned such a daring attack, the press of the time insisted that two Frenchmen were the promoters of the affair in Virginia.[1] James Monroe said there was no evidence that any white man was connected with it.[2] It was believed that the general tendency of the Negroes toward an uprising had resulted from French ideas which had come to the slaves through intelligent colored men.[3]

Observing that many Negroes were sufficiently enlightened to see things as other men, the editor of the _Aurora_ a.s.serted that in negotiating with the "Black Republic" the United States and Great Britain had set the seal of approval upon servile insurrection.[4]

Others referred to inflammatory handbills which Negroes extensively read.[5] Discussing the Gabriel plot in 1800, Judge St. George Tucker said: "Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this power (doing us mischief) and their means of using it--a security which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as it is, every day diminishes. Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the princ.i.p.al agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear."[6]

[Footnote 1: _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 22, 1800; and _The Richmond Enquirer_, Oct. 21, 1831.]

[Footnote 2: _Writings of James Monroe_, vol. iii., p. 217.]

[Footnote 3: Educated Negroes then const.i.tuted an alarming element in Ma.s.sachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina. See _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 22, 1800.]

[Footnote 4: See _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 22, 1800.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, Oct. 7, 1800.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 3: _The City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser_, August 21, 1822.]

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

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

[Footnote 1: _The Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald_, Aug. 30, 1822.]

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

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

In consequence of this tendency, State after State enacted more stringent laws to control the situation. Missouri pa.s.sed in 1817 an act so to regulate the traveling and a.s.sembly of slaves as to make them ineffective in making headway against the white people by insurrection. Of course, in so doing the reactionaries deprived them of the opportunities of helpful a.s.sociations and of attending schools.[1] By 1819 much dissatisfaction had arisen from the seeming danger of the various colored schools in Virginia. The General a.s.sembly, therefore, pa.s.sed a law providing that there should be no more a.s.semblages of slaves, or free Negroes, or mulattoes, mixing or a.s.sociating with such slaves for teaching them reading and writing.[2]

The opposition here seemed to be for the reasons that Negroes were being generally enlightened in the towns of the State and that white persons as teachers in these inst.i.tutions were largely instrumental in accomplis.h.i.+ng this result. Mississippi even as a Territory had tried to meet the problem of unlawful a.s.semblies. In the year 1823 it was declared unlawful for Negroes above the number of five to meet for educational purposes.[3] Only with the permission of their masters could slaves attend religious wors.h.i.+p conducted by a recognized white minister or attended by "two discreet and reputable persons."[4]

[Footnote 1: _Laws of Missouri Territory_, etc., p. 498.]

[Footnote 2: Tate, _Digest of the Laws of Virginia_, pp. 849-850.]

[Footnote 3: Poindexter, _Revised Code of the Laws of Mississippi_, p.

390.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 2: Coffin, _Slave Insurrections_, p. 22.]

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

See _Walker's Appeal_.]

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

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