The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 Part 18

[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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sisting 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.signed 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 pet.i.tion 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 Ess.e.x 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 Dougla.s.s, 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 Grimke Sisters taught her little maid to read while brus.h.i.+ng 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 Grimke 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 Dougla.s.s 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.]