Often, during the last thirty, and more often during the last ten
years, you must have seen in the newspapers, or heard from speakers in
Antislavery and Republican meetings, high commendations of the _County
of Windham_ in Connecticut, as bearing the banner of equal human and
political rights far above all the rest of that State. In the great
election of the year 1866 the people of that county gave a large
majority of votes in favor of _negro suffrage_.
This moral and political elevation of the public sentiment there is
undoubtedly owing to the distinct presentation and thorough discussion,
throughout that region, of the most vital antislavery questions in
1833 and 1834, called out by the shameful, cruel persecution of
Miss Prudence Crandall for attempting to establish in Canterbury a
boarding-school for “colored young ladies and little misses.”
I was then living in Brooklyn, the shire town of the county, six miles
from the immediate scene of the violent conflict, and so was fully
drawn into it. I regret that, in the following account of it, allusions
to myself and my acts must so often appear. But as Æneas said to Queen
Dido, in telling his story of the Trojan War, so may I say, respecting
the contest about the Canterbury school, “All of which I saw, and part
of which I was.”
In the summer or fall of 1832 I heard that Miss Prudence Crandall, an
excellent, well-educated Quaker young lady, who had gained considerable
reputation as a teacher in the neighboring town of Plainfield, had been
induced by a number of ladies and gentlemen of Canterbury to purchase
a commodious, large house in their pretty village, and establish her
boarding and day school there, that their daughters might receive
instruction in several higher branches of education not taught in the
public district schools, without being obliged to live far away from
their homes.
For a while the school answered the expectations of its patrons, and
enjoyed their favor; but early in the following year a trouble arose.
It was in this wise. Not far from the village of Canterbury there lived
a worthy colored man named Harris. He was the owner of a good farm,
and was otherwise in comfortable circumstances. He had a daughter,
Sarah, a bright girl about seventeen years of age. She had passed,
with good repute as a scholar, through the school of the district in
which she lived, and was hungering and thirsting for more education.
This she desired not only for her own sake, but that she might go
forth qualified to be a teacher of the colored people of our country,
to whose wrongs and oppression she had become very sensitive. Her
father encouraged her, and gladly offered to defray the expense of the
advantages she might be able to obtain. Sarah applied for admission
into this new Canterbury school. Miss Crandall confessed to me that at
first she hesitated and almost refused, lest admitting her might offend
the parents of her pupils, several of whom were Colonizationists, and
none of them Abolitionists. But Sarah urged her request with no little
force of argument and depth of feeling. Then she was a young lady of
pleasing appearance and manners, well known to many of Miss Crandall’s
pupils, having been their class-mate in the district school. Moreover,
she was accounted a virtuous, pious girl, and had been for some time
a member of the church of Canterbury. There could not, therefore,
have been a more unexceptionable case. No objection could be made to
her admission into the school, excepting only her dark (and not very
dark) complexion. Miss Crandall soon saw that she was unexpectedly
called to take some part (how important she could not foresee) in the
great contest for impartial liberty that was then beginning to agitate
violently our nation. She was called to act either in accordance with,
or in opposition to, the unreasonable, cruel, wicked prejudice against
the _color_ of their victims, by which the oppressors of millions
in our land were everywhere extenuating, if not justifying, their
tremendous system of iniquity. She bowed to the claim of humanity, and
admitted Sarah Harris to her school.
Her pupils, I believe, made no objection. But in a few days the
parents of some of them called and remonstrated. Miss Crandall pressed
upon their consideration Sarah’s eager desire for more knowledge and
culture, the good use she intended to make of her acquirements, her
excellent character and lady-like deportment, and, more than all, that
she was an accepted member of the same Christian church to which many
of them belonged. Her arguments, her entreaties, however, were of no
avail. Prejudice blinds the eyes, closes the ears, hardens the heart.
“Sarah belonged to the proscribed, despised class, and therefore must
not be admitted into a private school with their daughters.” This was
the gist of all they had to say. Reasons were thrown away, appeals to
their sense of right, to their compassion for injured fellow-beings,
made no impression. “They would not have it said that their daughters
went to school with a nigger girl.” Miss Crandall was assured that, if
she did not dismiss Sarah Harris, her white pupils would be withdrawn
from her.
She could not make up her mind to comply with such a demand, even to
save the institution she had so recently established with such fond
hopes, and in which she had invested all her property, and a debt of
several hundred dollars more. It was, indeed, a severe trial, but she
was strengthened to bear it. She determined to act right, and leave the
event with God. Accordingly, she gave notice to her neighbors, and,
on the 2d day of March, advertised in the _Liberator_, that at the
commencement of her next term, on the first Monday of April, her school
would be opened for “young ladies and little misses of color.”
Only a few days before, on the 27th of February, I was informed of her
generous, disinterested determination, and heard that, in consequence,
the whole town was in a flame of indignation, kindled and fanned by
the influence of the prominent people of the village, her immediate
neighbors and her late patrons. Without delay, therefore, although a
stranger, I addressed a letter to her, assuring her of my sympathy,
and of my readiness to help her all in my power. On the 4th of March
her reply came, begging me to come to her so soon as my engagements
would permit. Accompanied by my friend, Mr. George W. Benson, I went
to Canterbury on the afternoon of that day. On entering the village
we were warned that we should be in personal danger if we appeared
there as Miss Crandall’s friends; and when arrived at her house we
learnt that the excitement against her had become furious. She had
been grossly insulted, and threatened with various kinds of violence,
if she persisted in her purpose, and the most egregious falsehoods had
been put in circulation respecting her intentions, the characters
of her expected pupils, and of the future supporters of her school.
Moreover, we were informed that a town-meeting was to be held on the
9th instant, to devise and adopt such measures as “would effectually
avert the nuisance, or speedily abate it, if it should be brought into
the village.”
Though beat upon by such a storm, we found Miss Crandall resolved and
tranquil. The effect of her Quaker discipline appeared in every word
she spoke, and in every expression of her countenance. But, as she
said, it would not do for her to go into the town-meeting; and there
was not a man in Canterbury who would dare, if he were disposed, to
appear there in her behalf. “Will not you, Friend May, be my attorney?”
“Certainly,” I replied, “come what will.” We then agreed that I should
explain to the people how unexpectedly she had been led to take the
step which had given so much offence, and show them how she could
not have consented to the demand made by her former patrons without
wounding deeply the feelings of an excellent girl, known to most of
them, and adding to the mountain load of injuries and insults already
heaped upon the colored people of our country. With this arrangement,
we left her, to await the coming of the ominous meeting of the town.
On the 9th of March I repaired again to Miss Crandall’s house,
accompanied by my faithful friend, Mr. Benson. There, to our surprise
and joy, we found Friend Arnold Buffum, a most worthy man, an able
speaker, and then the principal lecturing agent of the New England
Antislavery Society. Miss Crandall gave to each of us a respectful
letter of introduction to the Moderator of the meeting, in which she
requested that we might be heard as her attorneys, and promised to be
bound by any agreement we might see fit to make with the citizens of
Canterbury. Miss Crandall concurred with us in the opinion that, as her
house was one of the most conspicuous in the village, and not wholly
paid for, if her opponents would take it off her hands, repaying what
she had given for it, cease from molesting her, and allow her time
to procure another house for her school, it would be better that she
should move to some more retired part of the town or neighborhood.
Thus commissioned and instructed, Friend Buffum and I proceeded to the
town-meeting. It was held in the “Meeting-House,” one of the old New
England pattern,--galleries on three sides, with room below and above
for a thousand persons, sitting and standing. We found it nearly filled
to its utmost capacity; and, not without difficulty, we passed up the
side aisle into the wall-pew next to the deacon’s seat, in which sat
the Moderator. Very soon the business commenced. After the “Warning”
had been read a series of Resolutions were laid before the meeting,
in which were set forth the disgrace and damage that would be brought
upon the town if a school for colored girls should be set up there,
protesting emphatically against the impending evil, and appointing the
civil authority and selectmen a committee to wait upon “the person
contemplating the establishment of said school, ... point out to her
the injurious effects, the incalculable evils, resulting from such
an establishment within this town, and persuade her, if possible, to
abandon the project.” The mover of the resolutions, Rufus Adams, Esq.,
labored to enforce them by a speech, in which he grossly misrepresented
what Miss Crandall had done, her sentiments and purposes, and threw out
several mean and low insinuations against the motives of those who were
encouraging her enterprise.
As soon as he sat down the Hon. Andrew T. Judson rose. This gentleman
was undoubtedly the chief of Miss Crandall’s persecutors. He was
the great man of the town, a leading politician in the State, much
talked of by the Democrats as soon to be governor, and a few years
afterwards was appointed Judge of the United States District Court.
His house on Canterbury Green stood next to Miss Crandall’s. The idea
of having “a school of nigger girls so near him was insupportable.” He
vented himself in a strain of reckless hostility to his neighbor, her
benevolent, self-sacrificing undertaking, and its patrons, and declared
his determination to thwart the enterprise. He twanged every chord
that could stir the coarser passions of the human heart, and with such
sad success that his hearers seemed to be filled with the apprehension
that a dire calamity was impending over them, that Miss Crandall was
the author or instrument of it, that there were powerful conspirators
engaged with her in the plot, and that the people of Canterbury should
be roused, by every consideration of self-preservation, as well as
self-respect, to prevent the accomplishment of the design, defying the
wealth and influence of all who were abetting it.
When he had ended his philippic Mr. Buffum and I silently presented
to the Moderator Miss Crandall’s letters, requesting that we might be
heard on her behalf. He handed them over to Mr. Judson, who instantly
broke forth with greater violence than before; accused us of insulting
the town by coming there to interfere with its local concerns. Other
gentlemen sprang to their feet in hot displeasure; poured out their
tirades upon Miss Crandall and her accomplices, and, with fists doubled
in our faces, roughly admonished us that, if we opened our lips there,
they would inflict upon us the utmost penalty of the law, if not a more
immediate vengeance.
Thus forbidden to speak, we of course sat in silence, and let the
waves of invective and abuse dash over us. But we sat thus only until
we heard from the Moderator the words, “This meeting is adjourned!”
Knowing that now we should violate no law by speaking, I sprang to the
seat on which I had been sitting, and cried out, “Men of Canterbury,
I have a word for you! Hear me!” More than half the crowd turned to
listen. I went rapidly over my replies to the misstatements that
had been made as to the purposes of Miss Crandall and her friends,
the characters of her expected pupils, and the spirit in which the
enterprise had been conceived and would be carried on. As soon as
possible I gave place to Friend Buffum. But he had spoken in his
impressive manner hardly five minutes, before the trustees of the
church to which the house belonged came in and ordered all out, that
the doors might be shut. Here again the hand of the law constrained
us. So we obeyed with the rest, and having lingered awhile upon the
Green to answer questions and explain to those who were willing “to
understand the matter,” we departed to our homes, musing in our own
hearts “what would come of this day’s uproar.”
Before my espousal of Miss Crandall’s cause I had had a pleasant
acquaintance with Hon. Andrew T. Judson, which had led almost to a
personal friendship. Unwilling, perhaps, to break our connection so
abruptly, and conscious, no doubt, that he had treated me rudely, not
to say abusively, at the town-meeting on the 9th, he called to see me
two days afterwards. He assured me that he had not become unfriendly
to me personally, and regretted that he had used some expressions
and applied certain epithets to me, in the warmth of his feelings
and the excitement of the public indignation of his neighbors and
fellow-townsmen, roused as they were to the utmost in opposition to
Miss Crandall’s project, which he thought I was inconsiderately and
unjustly promoting. He went on enlarging upon the disastrous effects
the establishment of “a school for nigger girls” in the centre of their
village would have upon its desirableness as a place of residence, the
value of real estate there, and the general prosperity of the town.
I replied: “If, sir, you had permitted Mr. Buffum and myself to speak
at your town-meeting, you would have found that we had come there, not
in a contentious spirit, but that we were ready, with Miss Crandall’s
consent, to settle the difficulty with you and your neighbors
peaceably. We should have agreed, if you would repay to Miss Crandall
what you had advised her to give for her house, and allow her time
quietly to find and purchase a suitable house for her school in some
more retired part of the town or vicinity, that she should remove to
that place.” The honorable gentleman hardly gave me time to finish my
sentences ere he said, with great emphasis:--
“Mr. May, we are not merely opposed to the establishment of that
school in Canterbury; we mean there shall not be such a school set up
anywhere in our State. The colored people never can rise from their
menial condition in our country; they ought not to be permitted to
rise here. They are an inferior race of beings, and never can or ought
to be recognized as the equals of the whites. Africa is the place for
them. I am in favor of the Colonization scheme. Let the niggers and
their descendants be sent back to their fatherland; and there improve
themselves as much as they may, and civilize and Christianize the
natives, if they can. I am a Colonizationist. You and your friend
Garrison have undertaken what you cannot accomplish. The condition of
the colored population of our country can never be essentially improved
on this continent. You are fanatical about them. You are violating
the Constitution of our Republic, which settled forever the status of
the black men in this land. They belong to Africa. Let them be sent
back there, or kept as they are here. The sooner you Abolitionists
abandon your project the better for our country, for the niggers, and
yourselves.”
I replied: “Mr. Judson, there never will be fewer colored people in
this country than there are now. Of the vast majority of them this is
the native land, as much as it is ours. It will be unjust, inhuman,
in us to drive them out, or to make them willing to go by our cruel
treatment of them. And, if they should all become willing to depart,
it would not be practicable to transport across the Atlantic Ocean
and settle properly on the shores of Africa, from year to year, half
so many of them as would be born here in the same time, according to
the known rate of their natural increase. No, sir, there will never be
fewer colored people in our country than there are this day; and the
only question is, whether we will recognize the rights which God gave
them as men, and encourage and assist them to become all he has made
them capable of being, or whether we will continue wickedly to deny
them the privileges we enjoy, condemn them to degradation, enslave
and imbrute them; and so bring upon ourselves the condemnation of the
Almighty Impartial Father of all men, and the terrible visitation of
the God of the oppressed. I trust, sir, you will erelong come to see
that we must accord to these men their rights, or incur justly the loss
of our own. Education is one of the primal, fundamental rights of all
the children of men. Connecticut is the last place where this should be
denied. But as, in the providence of God, that right has been denied
in a place so near me, I feel that I am summoned to its defence. If
you and your neighbors in Canterbury had quietly consented that Sarah
Harris, whom you knew to be a bright, good girl, should enjoy the
privilege she so eagerly sought, this momentous conflict would not have
arisen in your village. But as it has arisen there, we may as well meet
it there as elsewhere.”
“That nigger school,” he rejoined with great warmth, “shall never be
allowed in Canterbury, nor in any town of this State.”
“How can you prevent it legally?” I inquired; “how but by Lynch law, by
violence, which you surely will not countenance?”
“We can expel her pupils from abroad,” he replied, “under the
provisions of our old pauper and vagrant laws.”
“But we will guard against them,” I said, “by giving your town ample
bonds.”
“Then,” said he, “we will get a law passed by our Legislature, now in
session, forbidding the institution of such a school as Miss Crandall
proposes, in any part of Connecticut.”
“It would be an unconstitutional law, and I will contend against it
as such to the last,” I rejoined. “If you, sir, pursue the course you
have now indicated, I will dispute every step you take, from the lowest
court in Canterbury up to the highest court of the United States.”
“You talk big,” he cried; “it will cost more than you are aware of to
do all that you threaten. Where will you get the means to carry on such
a contest at law?”
This defiant question inspired me to say, “Mr. Judson, I had not
foreseen all that this conversation has opened to my view. True, I do
not possess the pecuniary ability to do what you have made me promise.
I have not consulted any one. But I am sure the lovers of impartial
liberty, the friends of humanity in our land, the enemies of slavery,
will so justly appreciate the importance of sustaining Miss Crandall
in her benevolent, pious undertaking, that I shall receive from one
quarter and another all the funds I may need to withstand your attempt
to crush, by legal means, the Canterbury school.” The sequel of my
story will show that I did not misjudge the significance of my case,
nor put my confidence in those who were not worthy of it. Mr. Judson
left me in high displeasure, and I never met him afterwards but as an
opponent.
Undismayed by the opposition of her neighbors and the violence of
their threats, Miss Crandall received early in April fifteen or
twenty colored young ladies and misses from Philadelphia, New York,
Providence, and Boston. At once her persecutors commenced operations.
All accommodations at the stores in Canterbury were denied her; so
that she was obliged to send to neighboring villages for her needful
supplies. She and her pupils were insulted whenever they appeared in
the streets. The doors and door-steps of her house were besmeared, and
her well was filled with filth. Had it not been for the assistance of
her father and another Quaker friend who lived in the town, she might
have been compelled to abandon “her castle” for the want of water and
food. But she was enabled to “hold out,” and Miss Crandall and her
little band behaved somewhat like the besieged in the immortal Fort
Sumter. The spirit that is in the children of men is usually roused by
persecution. I visited them repeatedly, and always found teacher and
pupils calm and resolute. They evidently felt that it was given them to
maintain one of the fundamental, inalienable rights of man.
Before the close of the month, an attempt was made to frighten and
drive away these innocent girls, by a process under the obsolete
vagrant law, which provided that the selectmen of any town might warn
any person, not an inhabitant of the State, to depart forthwith from
said town; demand of him or her _one dollar and sixty-seven cents_ for
every week he or she remained in said town after having received such
warning, and in case such fine should not be paid, and the person so
warned should not have departed before the expiration of ten days after
being sentenced, then he or she should _be whipped on the naked body
not exceeding ten stripes_.
A warrant to this effect was actually served upon Eliza Ann Hammond,
a fine girl from Providence, aged seventeen years. Although I had
protected Miss Crandall’s pupils against the operation of this old law,
by giving to the treasurer of Canterbury a bond in the sum of $10,000,
signed by responsible gentlemen of Brooklyn, to save the town from the
vagrancy of any of these pupils, I feared they would be intimidated by
the actual appearance of the constable, and the imposition of a writ.
So, on hearing of the above transaction, I went down to Canterbury
to explain the matter if necessary; to assure Miss Hammond that the
persecutors would hardly dare proceed to such an extremity, and
strengthen her to bear meekly the punishment, if they should in their
madness inflict it; knowing that every blow they should strike her
would resound throughout the land, if not over the whole civilized
world, and call out an expression of indignation before which Mr.
Judson and his associates would quail. But I found her ready for the
emergency, animated by the spirit of a martyr.
Of course this process was abandoned. But another was resorted to, most
disgraceful to the State as well as the town. That shall be the subject
of my next.