Although some of the early State legislatures passed laws providing for
the supervision of meetings of slaves by white men, the more stringent
laws prohibiting the assembling and teaching of Negroes were not passed
until the period between 1830 and 1935. The immediate cause of the
passage of these laws was a series of uprisings of slaves. The laws were
enacted to prevent the slaves from reading the literature of the French
and Haitian Revolutions and the writings of the abolitionists.
While these laws were a natural expression of the highly wrought
emotional excitement that prevailed after the disturbance headed by
Denmark Vesey and the more serious affair of Nat Turner, it is probable
that such laws were not rigidly enforced. It is more likely that the
effect of the law was to make the slaves value the ability to read all
the more, and to incline them in quiet ways to impart the precious gift
to their friends.
It seems likely, too, that the more liberal-minded masters and
mistresses, out in the open country over the vast regions of the South,
thought nothing whatever of such a law and paid no attention to it, in
any instructions they wished to impart to favorite servants in their
houses. As bearing on this point, some weight may be given to words
uttered about 1840, by the Hon. J. B. O’Neil, a distinguished jurist of
South Carolina, at one time Speaker of the House of Representatives, and
in his later years the chief justice of the State:
“It is in vain to say there is danger in it. The best slaves of the
State are those who can and do read the Scriptures. Again, who is it
that teaches your slaves to read? It is generally done by the children
of the owners. Who would tolerate an indictment against his son or
daughter for teaching a slave to read? Such laws look to me rather
cowardly.”
Perhaps it is not a bold conclusion that this kindly and reasonable
usage in a great many homes was one of the things that bound the slaves
so closely to their master’s families as to hold them fast in all the
vicissitudes of the war.
It may safely be concluded, therefore, that a great many more Negroes
were able to read and write in the period just preceding the Civil War
than was generally thought to be the case, either in the South or the
North. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that the intellectual
enlightenment which was beginning to have so many expressions in the
earlier years of the century grew on and steadily became wider in its
quiet pervasiveness, notwithstanding the many adverse conditions with
which it had to contend.
If the estimate is correct that some ten per cent. of the adult Negroes
at the time of the war had the rudiments of education, or if even only
five per cent. of the Freedmen had this knowledge, the task of the hour
for the teachers was quite different from what has usually been
supposed. To bring the chance for an education to a people of whom five
out of every hundred have the habit of learning is another thing from
dealing with those who have none of them taken even the first steps. It
is all the difference between taking them at the lowest stage and
meeting them after they have mastered the earlier lessons. It must have
meant very much to the teachers if there were a few of their pupils who
were above the primary grade. This goes far to explain the demand that
came so soon for secondary schools and those of a more advanced grade.
There were some of the pupils whose education had begun long before
these teachers saw them; had begun in their old slave environment and
with their own parents or some fellow slave, or perhaps their master’s
children, for teachers, and so they were the more ready for new
privileges.
It may well be supposed that these men and women of greater
intelligence, as soon as opportunities began to open, were especially
ambitious for the superior education of their children and that the
pupils of most promise in all the schools were largely drawn from their
ranks. This is the ready explanation of the swift development of these
schools and of the necessity for classes above the primary grade. Here,
too, is the explanation of certain unlooked for manifestations of a
scholarly spirit and intellectual aptitude that early surprised the
teachers. Actually their pupils, many of them, had a good deal more back
of them than they ever imagined. They were of parentage that was by no
means to be despised. They had been tenderly watched over from infancy
and received a careful training in manners and behavior. As servants in
their master’s house they had been daily observers of the life going on
there; breathing its atmosphere of elevation; seeing the able men and
cultivated women that were entertained at its table; listening often to
superior conversation, and catching many a strong impression to stay
with them.
The colored men who escaped into the Union lines were of a different
type. They were hungry, ragged, ignorant, confused by their wretched
plight and begging for protection. The first necessity was food,
shelter, clothing; in some cases immediate medical attendance; and the
pitiable creatures were to be counted by hundreds and thousands. The
appeal that went up to the people of the North, was not altogether
unlike that which has come from the stricken and homeless sufferers in
the European war. And the response at that time was similar to the
generous relief provided for the people of Belgium, Serbia and Poland.
But in one respect the need of the these Negroes was peculiar. They were
escaped slaves, and it was decided that they were not to be returned to
slavery; so it was a question, not merely of present relief; but of how
they could be provided for permanently. Something had to be done that
they might be prepared to take care of themselves eventually and make an
honest living. In the new life of independence they were entering they
had everything to learn; therefore they had to be taught. In a word,
those who were dealing with them had about the same problem to handle
that the old Virginia settlers had when the first cargo of Negroes was
landed there from Africa. These sorry creatures must be taught to
behave; to mind what they were about; to work and do their work well; to
use good English and to play the part of men. It was the teacher’s job
and a hard job for any who were bold enough to try it.
But the teachers were forthcoming; hundreds of them; cultivated, and
high-minded. They could see no way to make these fugitive slaves into
decent, law-abiding, industrious people, but to give them a new
character, a changed life. They must be led into an intelligent religion
that should govern the whole round of their conduct. And for this they
must be brought to the Bible. Therefore they must learn how to read it
at the very start. And so they went to teaching grown up men and women
their letters. Perhaps it looks odd to us; but there was good sense in
it. This was the way of opening the Bible to these groping men; the way
of leading them to an intelligent acquaintance with Jesus Christ, the
hope of lost men always and everywhere.
It was a noble service. There were aspects of sublimity about it; and
any who are disposed to belittle it or to speak lightly of the results
that flowed from it show that they do not understand the tremendous
interests at stake in that critical hour of the Nation’s life; that hour
of destiny, too, for these many thousand Negroes “scattered abroad as
sheep having no shepherd” and faint-hearted for a friendly voice and
some word of encouragement.
While such efforts were made to teach the Negroes to read, those engaged
in this work did not by any means stop here; they set about every sort
of teaching that might be of practical use. They did their best to
improve the habits of the people; influencing them to be cleanly and
orderly; calling them to promptness and regularity in their attendance
on appointed exercises; giving the men work to do of various kinds and
looking out to see that it was done properly; showing the women how to
cook their food so as not to spoil it, how to mend and make garments and
to be good housekeepers. The Boston Educational Commission in 1862 laid
it down as a foremost object to bring about the “industrial improvement”
of the Negroes, and it was in the very make-up of these thrifty New
England men and women, and those from other parts of the North, to be a
vital force in behalf of general efficiency wherever they took up a work
like this.