The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 Part 7

[Footnote 18: _The Maryland Gazette_, Feb. 27, 1755; and Oct. 27, 1768; _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Oct. 1, 1793; _The Virginia Herald_ (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800.]

[Footnote 19: _The Maryland Gazette_, Feb. 1, 1755 and Feb. 1, 1798; _The State Gazette of North Carolina_, April 30, 1789; _The Norfolk and Portsmouth Chronicle_, April 24, 1790; _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_ (Charleston, South Carolina), Jan. 5, 1799; and March 7, 1801; _The Carolina Gazette_, Feb. 4, 1802; and _The Virginia Herald_ (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800.]

[Footnote 20: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_, Jan. 5, 1799; and March 5, 1800; _The Gazette of the State of South Carolina_, Aug.

16, 1784; and _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Sept.

20, 1793.]

[Footnote 21: _The City Gazette of South Carolina_, Jan. 5, 1799.]

[Footnote 22: The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser (Charleston, South Carolina), June 22 and Aug. 8, 1797; April 1 and May 15, 1799.]

Equally convincing as to the educational progress of the colored race were the high attainments of those Negroes who, despite the fact that they had little opportunity, surpa.s.sed in intellect a large number of white men of their time. Negroes were serving as salesmen, keeping accounts, managing plantations, teaching and preaching, and had intellectually advanced to the extent that fifteen or twenty per cent.

of their adults could then at least read. Most of this talented cla.s.s became preachers, as this was the only calling even conditionally open to persons of African blood. Among these clergymen was George Leile,[1] who won distinction as a preacher in Georgia in 1782, and then went to Jamaica where he founded the first Baptist church of that colony. The competent and indefatigable Andrew Bryan[2] proved to be a worthy successor of George Leile in Georgia. From 1770 to 1790 Negro preachers were in charge of congregations in Charles City, Petersburg, and Allen's Creek in Lunenburg County, Virginia.[3] In 1801 Gowan Pamphlet of that State was the pastor of a progressive Baptist church, some members of which could read, write, and keep accounts.[4] Lemuel Haynes was then widely known as a well-educated minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. John Gloucester, who had been trained under Gideon Blackburn of Tennessee, distinguished himself in Philadelphia where he founded the African Presbyterian Church.[5] One of the most interesting of these preachers was Josiah Bishop. By 1791 he had made such a record in his profession that he was called to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church (white) of Portsmouth, Virginia.[6] After serving his white brethren a number of years he preached some time in Baltimore and then went to New York to take charge of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.[7] This favorable condition of affairs could not long exist after the aristocratic element in the country began to recover some of the ground it had lost during the social upheaval of the revolutionary era. It was the objection to treating Negroes as members on a plane of equality with all, that led to the establishment of colored Baptist churches and to the secession of the Negro Methodists under the leadership of Richard Allen in 1794.

The importance of this movement to the student of education lies in the fact that a larger number of Negroes had to be educated to carry on the work of the new churches.

[Footnote 1: He was sometimes called George Sharp. See Benedict, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 189.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 189.]

[Footnote 3: Semple, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 112.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 114.]

[Footnote 5: Baird, _A Collection_, etc., p. 817.]

[Footnote 6: Semple, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 355.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid._, p. 356.]

The intellectual progress of the colored people of that day, however, was not restricted to their clergymen. Other Negroes were learning to excel in various walks of life. Two such persons were found in North Carolina. One of these was known as Caesar, the author of a collection of poems, which, when published in that State, attained a popularity equal to that of Bloomfield's.[1] Those who had the pleasure of reading the poems stated that they were characterized by "simplicity, purity, and natural grace."[2] The other noted Negro of North Carolina was mentioned in 1799 by Buchan in his _Domestic Medicine_ as the discoverer of a remedy for the bite of the rattlesnake. Buchan learned from Dr. Brooks that, in view of the benefits resulting from the discovery of this slave, the General a.s.sembly of North Carolina purchased his freedom and settled upon him a hundred pounds per annum.[3]

[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 20.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 21.]

[Footnote 3: Smyth, _A Tour in the U.S._, p. 109; and Baldwin, _Observations_, p. 20.]

To this cla.s.s of bright Negroes belonged Thomas Fuller, a native African, who resided near Alexandria, Virginia, where he startled the students of his time by his unusual attainments in mathematics, despite the fact that he could neither read nor write. Once acquainted with the power of numbers, he commenced his education by counting the hairs of the tail of the horse with which he worked the fields. He soon devised processes for shortening his modes of calculation, attaining such skill and accuracy as to solve the most difficult problems. Depending upon his own system of mental arithmetic he learned to obtain accurate results just as quickly as Mr. Zerah Colburn, a noted calculator of that day, who tested the Negro mathematician.[1] The most abstruse questions in relation to time, distance, and s.p.a.ce were no task for his miraculous memory, which, when the mathematician was interrupted in the midst of a long and tedious calculation, enabled him to take up some other work and later resume his calculation where he left off.[2] One of the questions propounded him, was how many seconds of time had elapsed since the birth of an individual who had lived seventy years, seven months, and as many days. Fuller was able to answer the question in a minute and a half.

[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Needles, _An Historical Memoir_, etc., p. 32.]

Another Negro of this type was James Durham, a native slave of the city of Philadelphia. Durham was purchased by Dr. Dove, a physician in New Orleans, who, seeing the divine spark in the slave, gave him a chance for mental development. It was fortunate that he was thrown upon his own resources in this environment, where the miscegenation of the races since the early French settlement, had given rise to a thrifty and progressive cla.s.s of mixed breeds, many of whom at that time had the privileges and immunities of freemen. Durham was not long in acquiring a rudimentary education, and soon learned several modern languages, speaking English, French, and Spanish fluently. Beginning his medical education early in his career, he finished his course, and by the time he was twenty-one years of age became one of the most distinguished physicians[1] of New Orleans. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the noted physician of Philadelphia, who was educated at the Edinburgh Medical College, once deigned to converse professionally with Dr.

Durham. "I learned more from him than he could expect from me," was the comment of the Philadelphian upon a conversation in which he had thought to appear as instructor of the younger physician.[2]

[Footnote 1: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. i., p. 223.]

[Footnote 2: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 17.]

Most prominent among these brainy persons of color were Phyllis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. The former was a slave girl brought from Africa in 1761 and put to service in the household of John Wheatley of Boston. There, without any training but that which she obtained from her master's family, she learned in sixteen months to speak the English language fluently, and to read the most difficult parts of sacred writings. She had a great inclination for Latin and made some progress in the study of that language. Led to writing by curiosity, she was by 1765 possessed of a style which enabled her to count among her correspondents some of the most influential men of her time. Phyllis Wheatley's t.i.tle to fame, however, rested not on her general attainments as a scholar but rather on her ability to write poetry. Her poems seemed to have such rare merit that men marveled that a slave could possess such a productive imagination, enlightened mind, and poetical genius. The publishers were so much surprised that they sought rea.s.surance as to the authenticity of the poems from such persons as James Bowdoin, Harrison Gray, and John Hanc.o.c.k.[1] Glancing at her works, the modern critic would readily say that she was not a poetess, just as the student of political economy would dub Adam Smith a failure as an economist. A bright college freshman who has studied introductory economics can write a treatise as scientific as the _Wealth of Nations_. The student of history, however, must not "despise the day of small things." Judged according to the standards of her time, Phyllis Wheatley was an exceptionally intellectual person.

[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 18; Wright, _Poems of Phyllis Wheatley_, Introduction.]

The other distinguished Negro, Benjamin Banneker, was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, November 9, 1731, near the village of Ellicott Mills. Banneker was sent to school in the neighborhood, where he learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. Determined to acquire knowledge while toiling, he applied his mind to things intellectual, cultivated the power of observation, and developed a retentive memory.

These acquirements finally made him tower above all other American scientists of his time with the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin. In conformity with his desire to do and create, his tendency was toward mathematics. Although he had never seen a clock, watches being the only timepieces in the vicinity, he made in 1770 the first clock manufactured in the United States,[1] thereby attracting the attention of the scientific world. Learning these things, the owner of Ellicott Mills became very much interested in this man of inventive genius, lent him books, and encouraged him in his chosen field.

Among these volumes were treatises on astronomy, which Banneker soon mastered without any instruction.[2] Soon he could calculate eclipses of sun and moon and the rising of each star with an accuracy almost unknown to Americans. Despite his limited means, he secured through G.o.ddard and Angell of Baltimore the publication of the first almanac produced in this country. Jefferson received from Banneker a copy, for which he wrote the author a letter of thanks. It appears that Jefferson had some doubts about the man's genius, but the fact that the philosopher invited Banneker to visit him at Monticello in 1803, indicates that the increasing reputation of the Negro must have caused Jefferson to change his opinion as to the extent of Banneker's attainments and the value of his contributions to mathematics and science.[3]

[Footnote 1: Washington, _Jefferson's Works_, vol. v., p. 429.]

[Footnote 2: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: Washington, _Jefferson's Works_, vol. v., p. 429.]

So favorable did the aspect of things become as a result of this movement to elevate the Negroes, that persons observing the conditions then obtaining in this country thought that the victory for the despised race had been won. Traveling in 1783 in the colony of Virginia, where the slave trade had been abolished and schools for the education of freedmen established, Johann Schoepf felt that the inst.i.tution was doomed.[1] After touring Pennsylvania five years later, Brissot de Warville reported that there existed then a country where the blacks were allowed to have souls, and to be endowed with an understanding capable of being formed to virtue and useful knowledge, and where they were not regarded as beasts of burden in order that their masters might have the privilege of treating them as such. He was pleased that the colored people by their virtue and understanding belied the calumnies which their tyrants elsewhere lavished against them, and that in that community one perceived no difference between "the memory of a black head whose hair is c.r.a.ped by nature, and that of the white one c.r.a.ped by art."[2]

[Footnote 1: Schoepf, _Travels in the Confederation_, p. 149.]

[Footnote 2: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. I., p. 220.]

CHAPTER V

BETTER BEGINNINGS

Sketching the second half of the eighteenth century, we have observed how the struggle for the rights of man in directing attention to those of low estate, and sweeping away the impediments to religious freedom, made the free blacks more accessible to helpful sects and organizations. We have also learned that this upheaval left the slaves the objects of piety for the sympathetic, the concern of workers in behalf of social uplift, a cla.s.s offered instruction as a prerequisite to emanc.i.p.ation. The private teaching of Negroes became tolerable, benevolent persons volunteered to instruct them, and some schools maintained for the education of white students were thrown open to those of African blood. It was the day of better beginnings. In fact, it was the heyday of victory for the ante-bellum Negro. Never had his position been so advantageous; never was it thus again until the whole race was emanc.i.p.ated. Now the question which naturally arises here is, to what extent were such efforts general? Were these beginnings sufficiently extensive to secure adequate enlightenment to a large number of colored people? Was interest in the education of this cla.s.s so widely manifested thereafter as to cause the movement to endure? A brief account of these efforts in the various States will answer these questions.

In the Northern and Middle States an increasing number of educational advantages for the white race made germane the question as to what consideration should be shown to the colored people.[1] A general admission of Negroes to the schools of these progressive communities was undesirable, not because of the prejudice against the race, but on account of the feeling that the past of the colored people having been different from that of the white race, their training should be in keeping with their situation. To meet their peculiar needs many communities thought it best to provide for them "special,"

"individual," or "uncla.s.sified" schools adapted to their condition.[2]

In most cases, however, the movement for separate schools originated not with the white race, but with the people of color themselves.

[Footnote 1: _Niles's Register_, vol. xvi., pp. 241-243 and vol.

xxiii., p. 23.]

[Footnote 2: See _The Proceedings of the Am. Conv. of Abolition Societies_.]

In New England, Negroes had almost from the beginning of their enslavement some chance for mental, moral, and spiritual improvement, but the revolutionary movement was followed in that section by a general effort to elevate the people of color through the influence of the school and church. In 1770 the Rhode Island Quakers were endeavoring to give young Negroes such an education as becomes Christians. In 1773 Newport had a colored school, maintained by a society of benevolent clergymen of the Church of England, with a handsome fund for a mistress to teach thirty children reading and writing. Providence did not exhibit such activity until the nineteenth century. Having a larger black population than any other city in New England, Boston was the center of these endeavors. In 1798 a separate school for colored children, under the charge of Elisha Sylvester, a white man, was established in that city in the house of Primus Hall, a Negro of very good standing.[1] Two years later sixty-six free blacks of that city pet.i.tioned the school committee for a separate school, but the citizens in a special town meeting called to consider the question refused to grant this request.[2] Undaunted by this refusal, the patrons of the special school established in the house of Primus Hall, employed Brown and Hall of Harvard College as instructors, until 1806.[3] The school was then moved to the African Meeting House in Belknap Street where it remained until 1835 when, with funds contributed by Abiel Smith, a building was erected. An epoch in the history of Negro education in New England was marked in 1820, when the city of Boston opened its first primary school for the education of colored children.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 357.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 357.]

[Footnote 3: Next to be instructor of this inst.i.tution was Prince Saunders, who was brought to Boston by Dr. Channing and Caleb Bingham in 1809. Brought up in the family of a Vermont lawyer, and experienced as a diplomatic official of Emperor Christopher of Hayti, Prince Saunders was able to do much for the advancement of this work. Among others who taught in this school was John B. Russworm, a graduate of Bowdoin College, and, later, Governor of the Colony of Cape Palmas in Southern Liberia. See _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 357; and _African Repository_, vol. ii., p. 271.]

[Footnote 4: _Special Rep. of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 357.]