DIRECT MENTAL INSTRUCTION OF SLAVES.
"It is universally the fact throughout the Slaveholding States, that
either custom or law prohibits them [_i.e._ the slaves] the
acquisition of letters."--_Report made to Synod of South Carolina
and Georgia in 1833._
At a recent annual meeting of the American Colonization Society, the
Rev. Joel Parker, D.D. of Philadelphia, a member of the Presbyterian
Church, speaking of the instruction of the colored race, is reported to
have used the following language:--"There seems to me, in connection
with this subject, a beautiful illustration of what Hall calls 'a fetch
in Divine Providence.' God had a design in bringing these people to this
country in the way he did. We cannot probably comprehend the whole of
it; but this we can see, he has secured the education of those who, to
all human appearance, would not and could not have been educated in any
other way. There are now in this country more than three hundred
thousand Africans who can read and write, who could not have done it if
it had not been for the slave-trade. There are many in this country and
in Liberia who are capable of preaching the gospel, editing papers, and
performing all the duties of civil life, who must have remained in total
darkness but for this trade. How came this people by all this knowledge?
Did anybody go to Africa and teach them? No! It has been done by
slavery.... And now we send them back to Africa, with a preparation for
doing a great work there, which we never could have imparted to them in
any other way.... In this view of the subject, we may perceive at least
one good which slavery has done to Africa; and the question may with
propriety be asked, whether it has not done for Africa more good than
harm."
If we may believe this spiritual teacher, the Being who made of one
blood all the nations of men, the common Father of us all, himself
designed the scheme by which millions of men, women, and children were
torn from their homes and friends, and all they held dear, and brought
to this country, through all the horrors of the middle passage, where a
terrible death relieved on an average at least one fifth of the victims
from a scarcely less terrible life,--for this end in part, that, after
two centuries of wrongs, not even a tithe of their descendants might be
returned to the land of their fathers, to teach the Africans the
religion of their oppressors! A truly touching example of God's
loving-kindness and tender mercy to all his children!
That many slaves have been instructed to the extent stated by Dr. Parker
is true; but they have been educated, not in consequence, but in spite,
of slavery. So hostile to mental culture is slavery, that but a slight
examination is needed to satisfy us that it is neither profitable nor
safe to educate a slave beyond a certain point. Without _some_
education, a slave would be worse than valueless. Far the larger number
of them, as field slaves, are simply taught to use the hoe, and other
instruments of agriculture. Others are brought up as carpenters, masons,
blacksmiths, house-servants, &c. Frederick Douglass earned a dollar and
a half a day at caulking; whilst William Craft, as a cabinet-maker and
occasional waiter at an hotel, supported himself, and paid his owner
twenty dollars a month for the right to use his own muscles. We
occasionally meet with such advertisements as the following, cut from
the "New Orleans Picayune," of Oct. 18, 1846:--
"CREDIT SALE OF VALUABLE NEGRO MECHANICS, &c.--By Beard, Calhoun,
and Co. auctioneers, will be sold at auction, on Tuesday the 20th
October, at twelve o'clock, at Banks's Arcade, the following
valuable slaves:--Ezekiel, 25 years, _a superior carpenter_,
fully guarantied; Jacob, 25 years, _a superior carpenter and
wheelwright_, fully guarantied; Dick, 35 years, _a superior
carpenter and wheelwright_, fully guarantied; Charles, 28 years,
_engineer and rough carpenter_; Charles, 22 years, _field hand_,
fully guarantied, excepting slightly ruptured; Sancho, 26 years,
_good house carpenter_, fully guarantied; Maria, mulattress, 28
years, _first-rate washer and ironer_, fully guarantied; Maria,
negress, 13, child's nurse, fully guarantied.
"Terms: Twelve months' credit for notes drawn and endorsed to the
satisfaction of the vendor, with mortgage on the property, bearing
interest eight per cent per annum, from date of sale until paid.
Slaves not to be delivered until the notes are approved of. The
servants can be seen on the morning of sale. Act of sale before D.
I. Ricardo, notary public, at the expense of the purchaser."
In the same paper, Alexander Daggett advertises "for sale a negro man,
_a first-rate blacksmith_." In the "Richmond Whig" of Jan. 25, 1848,
Benjamin Davis advertises for sale a negro man "who is a first-rate
carpenter by trade; also a rough blacksmith." In the "Charleston (S.C.)
Mercury," Thomas W. Mordecai, broker and auctioneer, under date Sept. 1,
1847, advertises at private sale--
"An uncommonly prime and likely black man, about 22.
A _prime woman_, a superior washer, and good cook and farm hand.
A very prime axeman and field hand.
A superior man-cook."
It is not, however, necessary to teach a slave-mechanic or field hand,
or even "a prime woman," to read or write, in order to make him or her a
profitable investment. If we suppose William Craft's value as a slave to
have been two thousand dollars, his master received from his investment
_only_ twelve per cent _clear profit_! Yet William could neither read
nor write. He was a valuable working machine. To have him educated
farther, to have taught him to read or write, would have lessened his
market value. To teach a slave these things is to teach him his rights,
and to make him keenly feel his wrongs. Mrs. Hugh Auld taught Frederick
Douglass his letters before slavery had hardened her naturally kind
heart. She gave him the inch, as he says, and no precaution could
prevent his taking the ell. He taught himself to read and write, and
thus describes the effect produced by reading a book called "The
Columbian Orator." This book contains one or more of Sheridan's
speeches, and a dialogue between a master and his slave, wherein the
slave is made to refute all the arguments usually brought forward in
support of slavery.
"The more I read," he says ("Narrative," p. 40), "the more I was led
to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other
light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes,
and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange
land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as
well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the
subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had
predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to
torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under
it, I could at times feel that learning to read had been a curse,
rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched
condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible
pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I
envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished
myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to
my own,--any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was
this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There
was no getting rid of it."
As a necessary result of his learning to read, Douglass loathed slavery,
and detested his enslavers. If he had never read, his eyes would never
have been fully opened to the extent of his wrongs; and what is true of
him is true of all other slaves. _Any_ slave who can read Sheridan's
denunciations of slavery must, like Douglass, loathe his condition, and
detest his oppressors.
But a slave who loathes his condition, and detests his oppressors, will
be refractory and disobedient. A late writer in the "Charleston Mercury"
admits this when he remarks ("William Jay's Letter to Bishop Ives,"
1848, p. 12):--
"It has been the policy of this State not to admit the teaching to
the slaves, either of reading or writing. We all know why this is
so. It needed no great scope of argument to satisfy those who framed
our laws, that the expansion of intellect, the hundred influences
which education generates, would be very inconsistent with habits of
obedience, which was the corner-stone of the institution."
Such a slave will also try to escape at every fair opportunity; and,
being able to write passes or forge free papers, the chances for
successful escape are very much increased. The owner's hold upon him
becomes daily more and more precarious, and consequently the slave's
value as property daily diminishes. So true is this, that in Louisiana a
buyer may legally refuse to take a slave, if he has only "absented
himself from his master's house twice for several days, or once for more
than a month." The "Civil Code" (Art. 2496, 2505) declares that the
"vice of character," as it is called, which is proved by either of these
Acts, renders the slave absolutely useless, or renders his use so
inconvenient or imperfect that it must be supposed no one would buy a
slave who was known to have this vice.
Every particle of instruction given to a slave beyond what is consistent
with his remaining a passive and obedient, working machine, is so much
money taken from the master's pocket. Nobody wants to invest his money
in a slave who is refractory or disobedient, or who runs away at every
opportunity,--unless, indeed, he buys the stock, in consequence, at very
much under par! The value of Douglass as a slave decreased just as fast
as his manhood increased; and Capt. Price now candidly avows, that he
hesitated some time before he invested seven hundred dollars in William
W. Brown; for William was a noted runaway! The love of money impels the
slaveholders to keep their slaves in ignorance.
Not only this, but an educated slave, who loathes his condition and
hates his oppressors, is an unsafe member of a household or a community.
His means for taking a fearful vengeance are ample, and what
consideration shall stay his hands? None but an educated slave can plan
or head an insurrection. Such are the ones who always do take active
part in rebellions. The house-servants constitute everywhere the most
educated class. None are more dreaded than they, for this reason in
part, and partly because of their living under the same roof with their
masters. In a pamphlet published in Charleston, S. C. in 1822, p. 14, by
Gen. Thomas Pinckney, speaking of house-servants, he remarks:--
"They are the most dangerous. Their intimate acquaintance with all
the circumstances relating to the interior of the dwellings, the
confidence reposed in them, _and the information they unavoidably
obtain from hearing the conversation and observing the habitual
transactions of their owners, afford them the most ample means for
treacherous bloodshed and devastation_. The success, therefore, of
servile conspiracies mainly depends on this class for taking off, by
midnight murder, their unsuspecting owners; and the late trials, by
exhibiting so large a portion of this description among the
ringleaders of the conspiracy, afford a melancholy proof of their
promptitude to become actors in such scenes."--_William Jay's
Letter, &c._ p. 9.
The love of life itself, the desire for the safety of their wives and
children, impels the slaveholders to keep their slaves in ignorance.
Two of the strongest motives which can be brought to bear upon man, the
love of money and the love of life, are therefore constantly urging the
slaveholder to darken the minds of his slaves. If the former of these
motives leads to the commission of so much wrong everywhere, what will
not both motives together accomplish to the injury of the slave? But the
slaveholders have not been willing to trust wholly to these motives,
strong though they are. In many of the States, it is a penal offence to
teach a slave to read or write; and, where laws of this kind do not
exist, custom, as universal, powerful, and remorseless as the law,
accomplishes the same wrong. The following are some of these laws:--
The "Revised Statutes" of NORTH CAROLINA, chap. 34, sec. 74 ("Revision
of Stat." 1830, chap. 6, Sec.1), provide that
"Any free person who shall hereafter teach, or attempt to teach, any
slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures
excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any books or
pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in
this State having jurisdiction thereof; and, upon conviction, shall,
at the discretion of the court, if a white man or woman, be fined
not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than two hundred
dollars, or imprisoned; and, if a free person of color, shall be
fined, imprisoned, or whipped, at the discretion of the court, not
exceeding thirty-nine lashes, nor less than twenty lashes."
Chap. 111, sec. 27 (Statute, 1830, chap. 6, Sec. 2), provides that,--
"If any slave shall teach, or attempt to teach, any other slave to
read or write, the use of figures excepted, he or she may be carried
before any justice of the peace, and, on conviction thereof, shall
be sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare back."
In SOUTH CAROLINA, the "Negro Act" (1740, Sec. 45; "2 Brev. Dig." 243),
provides that--
"All and every person and persons whatsoever who shall hereafter
teach, or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall
use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing
whatsoever, hereafter taught to write; every such person and persons
shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds
current money."
In ALABAMA (Statute, 1832, chap. 8, Sec. 10; "Clay's Digest," p. 543, Sec.
24),--
"Any person or persons who shall attempt to teach any free person of
color, or slave, to spell, read, or write, shall, upon conviction
thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred
and fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars."
In GEORGIA ("Penal Code approved Dec. 23, 1833," 13th div., sec. 18;
"Prince's Digest," p. 658; "William A. Hotchkiss's Codification," 1845,
p. 772),--
"If any person shall teach any slave, negro, or free person of
color, to read or write either written or printed characters, or
shall procure, suffer, or permit a slave, negro, or person of color,
to transact business for him in writing, such person so offending
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be
punished by fine, or imprisonment in the common jail of the county,
or both, at the discretion of the court."
In MISSISSIPPI ("Howard & Hutchinson's Laws," p. 673),
"No slave or free person of color can be employed in the setting of
types in any printing office."
In MISSOURI, the "Revised Statutes" (chap. 8, sec. 10, p. 117) provide
that,--
"When an apprentice is a negro or mulatto, it shall _not_ be the
duty of the master to cause such colored apprentice to be taught to
read or write, or a knowledge of arithmetic; but he shall be
allowed, at the expiration of his term of service, a sum of money in
lieu of education, to be assessed by the county court."
The Act of 1847 (approved Feb. 16, Sec. 1) reads,--
"No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of
negroes or mulattoes in reading or writing in this State."
Other similar laws might be produced; but these suffice to exhibit, in a
clear light, the opportunities presented for the mental instruction of
slaves! In some States, it is unlawful to teach even a FREE colored
person to read or write!
That these laws have been almost universally respected and obeyed, there
is no room to doubt. No one has given more attention to this subject
than the Rev. Chas. C. Jones, of Savannah, Ga. In 1842 he published, at
Savannah, a work, containing the result of his researches, entitled "The
Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States." In this
work, p. 115, he says, "The statutes of our respective Slave States
forbid all knowledge of letters to the negroes; and, where the statutes
do not, custom does. It is impossible to form an estimate of the number
of negroes that _read_. My belief is, that the proportion would be
expressed by AN ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE FRACTION. The greatest number of
readers is found in and about towns and cities, and among the FREE negro
population some two or three generations removed from servitude."--As a
confirmation of this testimony of Mr. Jones, we know no greater proof
that the degraded class in any community is almost wholly uneducated,
than that a large portion of the privileged class is so. The law of
compensation is divine. We cannot degrade or brutalize our fellow-men,
without degrading or brutalizing ourselves. Now, we find that, in the
Slave States, almost one tenth of the free _white_ population over
twenty years of age are unable to read and write! To some persons this
may seem a small proportion; but, in the Free States, with all our
ignorance, there are less than one in one hundred and fifty! and Horace
Mann, the best authority on this subject, says that "at least four
fifths of these are foreigners, who ought not to be included in the
computation." In Connecticut, out of 163,843 free persons over twenty
years of age, there are only 526 who are unable to read and write;
while, in the model Slave State of South Carolina, out of only 111,663
free white persons over twenty years of age, there are 20,615 who cannot
read and write! "In South Carolina," says Theodore Parker, "out of each
626 free whites more than twenty years of age, there are more than 58
wholly unable to read or write; out of that number of such persons in
Connecticut, not quite two"! More than the sixth part of the adult
freemen of South Carolina are unable to read the vote they deposit in
the ballot-box! And Gov. Clarke, of Kentucky, declared in his message to
the legislature in 1837, that one third of the adult population of that
State were unable to write their names! While such is the state of the
freemen, it is impossible that any considerable number of the slaves
should become educated. With these facts before us, it is impossible not
to admit the correctness of Mr. Jones's conclusion. Only an "almost
inconceivable fraction" of three millions of slaves can read or write!
These are taught by their owners, or with their connivance; and of them
we shall speak hereafter. But, taken as a mass, the slaves are truly
described by a writer in the "Marysville (Tennessee) Intelligencer" as
being "degraded, stupid savages." We may add, not naturally degraded and
stupid, but made and kept so in open violation of their rights as human
beings, for the sake of gain!