Martha Schofield
Pioneer Negro Educator
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Historical and Philosophical Review
of Reconstruction Period of
South Carolina
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By MATILDA A. EVANS, M. D.
Graduate Schofield School
Copyright, 1916.
BY MATILDA A. EVANS, M. D.
DuPre Printing Company, Columbia, S.C.
Dedicatory
To the men and women who braved the dangers and suffered the hardships
of frontier life and bore with fortitude the pain of social ostracism
and the sting of poison slander that through their work a lowly race
might be educated, this work is respectfully dedicated by
THE AUTHOR.
FOREWORD
One of the benefits conferred by education is that of enlightening the
mind on the subject of one’s duty. Finding what is duty the manner
of discharging it will suggest itself to the alert, the active, and
those of industrious and intelligent discernment. Perhaps forever
hidden would remain the necessity for certain tasks were it not for the
inspiration idealists receive from education. This education, if proper
and well rounded, also forces all who embrace it into the line of work
promising the accomplishment of the greatest achievements--achievements
such as in leaving foot-prints on the sands of time leave no mark of
dishonor but such as really and truly do give new heart and new hope
and new courage to the weaker brother.
That Martha Schofield was inspired by the highest motives that
possibly could influence any one in choosing an occupation to be made
a life-work is evidenced by the personal sacrifices she made in order
to engage in it. The fortitude with which she bore the poison sting
of slander, the cruel whip of character assassination and braved the
threats of personal violence forcibly attests the sincerity actuating
her in pursuing her chosen work. The results accomplished by the fifty
years of earnest endeavor by her form a tribute to efficiency of
women in administrative affairs that is seldom ever equaled by other
human beings claiming greater strength by reason of sex. When the
final history of the war between ignorance and enlightenment, between
superstition and science, between vice and virtue shall have been
written of the colored race the foremost name among all will be--Martha
Schofield--Pioneer Negro Educator.
MATILDA A. EVANS, M. D.,
Columbia, S. C.
Martha Schofield
CHAPTER I.
THE HUNTED BEAST.
A woman apparently thirty years of age, of mulatto skin, fell limp into
a chair in the kitchen of Mrs. Oliver Schofield of Darby, Bucks County,
Pennsylvania about the year 1857, with blood hounds and the voices of
angry men following close upon her heels through the tangled swamps
from which she had just emerged.
“Who can thee be? Who can thee be?--and what does thee want here?”
inquired excited Mrs. Schofield as she dropped the dish rag and rushed
to the prostrate form in the chair, eager to render aid and comfort to
the suffering and afflicted woman as well as to ascertain the cause of
her abrupt, unannounced entrance into her home.
Out of breath from the long run made necessary to escape the dogs
and the traps laid by experienced officers of the law who had been
so diligently upon her trail for more than a week, that she had had
time to stop and rest and take nourishment for only a few minutes at
a time, Laura Duncan was unable at first to give any coherent account
of herself. She managed, however, to make it known to the kind Quaker
lady that she was an escaped slave and was endeavoring with all speed
possible to reach the Canadian border and enter the world of freedom,
which she had been informed existed under the British flag in the
Dominion of Canada for all who might enter that country.
As causes moving her to take this drastic step in defiance of the
law of her own land and the possibility of involving the liberty
and happiness of all who might be kind enough to assist her in the
accomplishment of the task, she recited such evils as brought tears
to the eyes of her enforced host. She exhibited a lash-scared back,
a broken bone or two and a deep cut on the head that had since been
healed without serious results only by the aid of a skillful surgeon.
But the physical suffering attested by these outward signs of the
practice of brutality on the woman were but a fraction of the pain and
torture which Miss Schofield knew was gnashing at her heart over the
parting of herself and husband and children more than a month before,
when at a public sale little Gabe, her ten year old son, and Jennie,
the only daughter, and her husband, “Jim,” were each sold to different
masters in as many different States and carried away where she would
never see or hear of any of them again.
“Martha” said Mrs. Schofield addressing her daughter, whose face was
covered in an immaculate white apron that adorned her whole front, to
hide the freely flowing tears that rushed from her eyes like water from
the fountains, “do thee find thy father at once and tell him to come to
the house as quickly as possible.”
Then laying her arms around the body of the inconsolable wife and
mother she spoke words of consolation and cheer, assuring her that God
in his own way and wisdom would destroy the power of the government of
human beings by the lash, would break the chains that bind the hand and
foot and visit a just retribution on all those responsible for the sale
of babies from the breasts of mothers. She begged and pleaded earnestly
that Laura abandon the attempt to escape and entreated her to surrender
to the officers and return to her master, but the slave, chafing under
the influence of a life of injustice and brutality, expressed a firmer
determination than ever before, to continue on in her course and begged
pitiably of her host that her presence in the home be not divulged. She
threatened suicide if captured.
Mr. Schofield, himself, by this time had reached the house and
instantly grasping the situation, requested of Mrs. Schofield a
familiar old shawl and bonnet of hers. Dressed in these Laura, in
company with Mr. Schofield, passed readily as Mary, his wife, among
acquaintances of the latter, and successfully eluded all pursuit by
the officers, who a half hour after her departure had ransacked the
Schofield home from turret to foundation stone in search of the fleeing
fugitive.
Reaching a zone safely out of reach of harm’s way, the leader of the
church of the Society Friends, deposited his burden, wishing her
God-speed in her undertaking and placing in her hand one dollar in gold
to assist her on her journey, turned his horse, after many days on the
road, and made his way slowly back home, with a painful heart.
During the interval of her husband’s departure and return, Mrs.
Schofield was kept busy in the attempt to control the indignant and
outraged feelings of Martha, who had gone to her mother dozens of times
with the question of the justice and mercy of God and the wisdom and
power of the government in permitting the fettering of four million
bodies in chains and the trampling under foot by brutal might of all
the sacred relations of wife, father and child.
“Ah, my daughter, ’tis not for thee to question the mysterious workings
of God,” she would reply, “in the Master’s own time and way He will
touch the auction block, the slave pen and the whipping post, and in
their place thee shall see what thy dear heart desires so much to
see--happy homes and firesides, and school houses and books, where
today thee only sees crime and cruelty and fear.”
“But mother,” Martha would protest, “for how much longer must the poor
ignorant slaves endure the infinite outrages heaped upon them by reason
of the barbarism of the slave-holding oligarchy? Have they not suffered
enough already? Is it not time to close the door on the slave-holding
class and render judgment as swift and implacable as death? Their
cause was brought forth in iniquity and consummated in crime, and I
for one believe God would only be served by our societies (the Society
of Friends and the Abolitionist Society) hastening on the inevitable
civil conflict, believed by most people as absolutely necessary in the
settlement of the whole question of slavery.”
“My daughter, oh, my daughter, pray thee do not talk that way” said her
mother in tones of profound anxiety; “does not the good book command
thee not to kill? Eternal torment for thy portion if thou should
commit murder, and to wish it to be done is father to the deed. Oh, my
daughter! my daughter! thee frightens me!”
“Oh, no my mother, there’s no murder in my heart, I assure thee,” said
Martha; “I only desire the government’s protection for every human
being subject to its authority and I want that same authority to turn
every auction block and slave pen into a school house even if its
necessary to exact by bullet every drop of blood that has been spilled
by the lash, in accomplishing this result. Thee must concede that the
Bible also teaches us to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth. But I wish this to be done, Mother, only to make possible a
happier and blesseder existence here on this earth for a lowly race,
when all other means of accomplishing so desirable an end have been
tried and proven in vain.”
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