The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 Part 22

The educational advantages given these people were in no sense despised. Although the Negroes of the Northwest did not always keep pace with their neighbors in things industrial they did not permit the white people to outstrip them much in education. The freedmen so earnestly seized their opportunity to acquire knowledge and accomplished so much in a short period that their educational progress served to disabuse the minds of indifferent whites of the idea that the blacks were not capable of high mental development.[1] The educational work of these centers, too, tended not only to produce men capable of ministering to the needs of their environment, but to serve as a training center for those who would later be leaders of their people. Lewis Woodson owed it to friends in Pittsburgh that he became an influential teacher. Jeremiah H. Brown, T. Morris Chester, James T.

Bradford, M.R. Delany, and Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner obtained much of their elementary education in the early colored schools of that city.[2] J.C. Corbin, a prominent educator before and after the Civil War, acquired sufficient knowledge at Chillicothe, Ohio, to qualify in 1848 as an a.s.sistant in Rev. Henry Adams's school in Louisville.[3]

John M. Langston was for a while one of Corbin's fellow-students at Chillicothe before the former entered Oberlin. United States Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi spent some time in a Quaker seminary in Union County, Indiana.[4] Rev. J.T. White, one of the leading spirits of Arkansas during the Reconstruction, was born and educated in Clark County in that State.[5] Fannie Richards, still a teacher at Detroit, Michigan, is another example of the professional Negro equipped for service in the Northwest before the Rebellion.[6] From other communities of that section came such useful men as Rev. J.W. Malone, an influential minister of Iowa; Rev. D.R. Roberts, a very successful pastor of Chicago; Bishop C.T. Shaffer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Rev. John G. Mitch.e.l.l, for many years the Dean of the Theological Department of Wilberforce University; and President S.T. Mitch.e.l.l, once the head of the same inst.i.tution.[7]

[Footnote 1: This statement is based on the accounts of various western freedmen.]

[Footnote 2: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 113.]

[Footnote 3: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 829.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 948.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 590.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 1023.]

[Footnote 7: Wright, "Negro Rural Communities in Indiana," _Southern Workman_, vol. x.x.xvii., p. 169.]

In the colored settlements of Canada the outlook for Negro education was still brighter. This better opportunity was due to the high character of the colonists, to the mutual aid resulting from the proximity of the communities, and to the cooperation of the Canadians.

The previous experience of most of these adventurers as sojourners in the free States developed in them such n.o.ble traits that they did not have to be induced to ameliorate their condition. They had already come under educative influences which prepared them for a larger task in Canada. Fifteen thousand of sixty thousand Negroes in Canada in 1860 were free born.[1] Many of those, who had always been free, fled to Canada[2] when the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made it possible for even a dark-complexioned Caucasian to be reduced to a state of bondage. Fortunately, too, these people settled in the same section.

The colored settlements at Dawn, Colchester, Elgin, Dresden, Windsor, Sandwich, Queens, Bush, Wilberforce, Hamilton, St. Catherines, Chatham, Riley, Anderton, Maiden, Gonfield, were all in Southern Ontario. In the course of time the growth of these groups produced a population sufficiently dense to facilitate cooperation in matters pertaining to social betterment. The uplift of the refugees was made less difficult also by the self-denying white persons who were their first teachers and missionaries. While the hards.h.i.+ps incident to this pioneer effort all but baffled the ardent apostle to the lowly, he found among the Canadian whites so much more sympathy than among the northerners that his work was more agreeable and more successful than it would have been in the free States. Ignoring the request that the refugees be turned from Canada as undesirables, the white people of that country protected and a.s.sisted them.[3] Canadians later underwent some change in their att.i.tude toward their newcomers, but these British-Americans never exhibited such militant opposition to the Negroes as sometimes developed in the Northern States.[4]

[Footnote 1: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp. 247-250.]

[Footnote 3: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, pp. 201 and 233.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, 233.]

The educational privileges which the refugees hoped to enjoy in Canada, however, were not easily exercised. Under the Canadian law they could send their children to the common schools, or use their proportionate share of the school funds in providing other educational facilities.[1] But conditions there did not at first redound to the education of the colored children.[2] Some were too dest.i.tute to avail themselves of these opportunities; others, unaccustomed to this equality of fortune, were timid about having their children mingle with those of the whites, and not a few clad their youths so poorly that they became too unhealthy to attend regularly[3]. Besides, race prejudice was not long in making itself the most disturbing factor.

In 1852 Benjamin Drew found the minds of the people of Sandwich much exercised over the question of admitting Negroes into the public schools. The same feeling was then almost as strong in Chatham, Hamilton, and London[4]. Consequently, "partly owing to this prejudice, and partly to their own preference, the colored people, acting under the provision of the law that allowed them to have separate schools, set up their own schools in Sandwich and in many other parts of Ontario"[5]. There were separate schools at Colchester, Amherstburg, Sandwich, Dawn, and Buxton[6]. It was doubtless because of the rude behavior of white pupils toward the children of the blacks that their private schools flourished at London, Windsor, and other places[7]. The Negroes, themselves, however, did not object to the coeducation of the races. Where there were a few white children in colored settlements they were admitted to schools maintained especially for pupils of African descent.[8] In Toronto no distinction in educational privileges was made, but in later years there flourished an evening school for adults of color.[9]

[Footnote 1: Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery_, p. 77.]

[Footnote 2: Drew said: "The prejudice against the African race is here [Canada] strongly marked. It had not been customary to levy school taxes on the colored people. Some three or four years since a trustee a.s.sessed a school tax on some of the wealthy citizens of that cla.s.s. They sent their children at once into the public school. As these sat down the white children near them deserted the benches: and in a day or two the white children were wholly withdrawn, leaving the schoolhouse to the teacher and his colored pupils. The matter was at last 'compromised': a notice 'Select School' was put on the schoolhouse: the white children were selected _in_ and the black were selected _out_." See Drew's. _A North-side View of Slavery_, etc., p.

341.]

[Footnote 3: Mitch.e.l.l, _The Underground Railroad_, pp. 140, 164, and 165.]

[Footnote 4: Drew, _A North-side View of Slavery_, pp. 118, 147, 235, and 342.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid_., p. 341.]

[Footnote 6: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 229.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid_., p. 229.]

[Footnote 8: _First Annual Report of the Anti-slavery Society of Canada_, 1852, Appendix, p. 22.]

[Footnote 9: _Ibid_., p. 15.]

The most helpful schools, however, were not those maintained by the state. Travelers in Canada found the colored mission schools with a larger attendance and doing better work than those maintained at public expense.[1] The rise of the mission schools was due to the effort to "furnish the conditions under which whatever appreciation of education there was native in a community of Negroes, or whatever taste for it could be awakened there," might be "free to a.s.sert itself unhindered by real or imagined opposition."[2] There were no such schools in 1830, but by 1838 philanthropists had established the first mission among the Canadian refugees.[3] The English Colonial Church and School Society organized schools at London, Amherstburg, and Colchester. Certain religious organizations of the United States sent ten or more teachers to these settlements.[4] In 1839 these workers were conducting four schools while Rev. Hiram Wilson, their inspector, probably had several other inst.i.tutions under his supervision.[5] In 1844 Levi Coffin found a large school at Isaac Rice's mission at Fort Maiden or Amherstburg.[6] Rice had toiled among these people six years, receiving very little financial aid, and suffering unusual hards.h.i.+ps.[7] Mr. E. Child, a graduate of Oneida Inst.i.tute, was later added to the corps of mission teachers.[8] In 1852 Mrs. Laura S.

Haviland was secured to teach the school of the colony of "Refugees'

Home," where the colored people had built a structure "for school and meeting purposes."[9] On Sundays the schoolhouses and churches were crowded by eager seekers, many of whom lived miles away. Among these earnest students a traveler saw an aged couple more than eighty years old.[10] These elementary schools broke the way for a higher inst.i.tution at Dawn, known as the Manual Labor Inst.i.tute.

[Footnote 1: Drew, _A North-side View of Slavery_, pp. 118, 147, 235, 341, and 342.]

[Footnote 2: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 229.]

[Footnote 3: _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, p. 209.]

[Footnote 4: _First Annual Report of the Anti-slavery Society of Canada_, 1852, p. 22.]

[Footnote 5: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 199.]

[Footnote 6: "While at this place we made our headquarters at Isaac J.

Rice's missionary buildings, where he had a large school for colored children. He had labored here among the colored people, mostly fugitives, for six years. He was a devoted, self-denying worker, had received very little pecuniary help, and had suffered many privations.

He was well situated in Ohio as pastor of a Presbyterian Church, and had fine prospects before him, but believed that the Lord called him to this field of missionary labor among the fugitive slaves, who came here by hundreds and by thousands, poor, dest.i.tute, ignorant, suffering from all the evil influences of slavery. We entered into deep sympathy with him and his labors, realizing the great need there was here for just such an inst.i.tution as he had established. He had sheltered at his missionary home many hundred of fugitives till other homes for them could be found. This was the great landing point, the princ.i.p.al terminus of the Underground Railroad of the West." See Coffin's _Reminiscences_, p. 251.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid_., pp. 249-251.]

[Footnote 8: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 202.]

[Footnote 9: Haviland, _A Woman's Work_, pp. 192, 196, 201.]

[Footnote 10: Haviland, _A Woman's Work_, pp. 192, 193.]

With these immigrants, however, this was not a mere pa.s.sive partic.i.p.ation in the work of their amelioration. From the very beginning the colored people partly supported their schools. Without the cooperation of the refugees the large private schools at London, Chatham, and Windsor could not have succeeded. The school at Chatham was conducted by Alfred Whipper,[1] a colored man, that at Windsor by Mary E. Bibb, the wife of Henry Bibb,[2] the founder of the Refugees'

Home Settlement, and that at Sandwich by Mary Ann Shadd, of Delaware.[3] Moreover, the majority of these colonists showed increasing interest in this work of social uplift.[4] Foregoing their economic opportunities many of the refugees congregated in towns of educational facilities. A large number of them left their first abodes to settle near Dresden and Dawn because of the advantages offered by the Manual Labor Inst.i.tute. Besides, the Negroes organized "True Bands" which effected among other things the improvement of schools and the increase of their attendance[5].

[Footnote 1: Drew, _A North-side View of Slavery_, p. 236.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 322.]

[Footnote 3: Delany, _The Condition of the Colored People_, etc., 131.]

[Footnote 4: Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery_, pp. 70, 71, 108, and 110.]

[Footnote 5: According to Drew a True Band was composed of colored persons of both s.e.xes, a.s.sociated for their own improvement. "Its objects," says he, "are manifold: mainly these:--the members are to take a general interest in each other's welfare; to pursue such plans and objects as may be for their mutual advantage; to improve all schools, and to induce their race to send their children into the schools; to break down all prejudice; to bring all churches as far as possible into one body, and not let minor differences divide them; to prevent litigation by referring all disputes among themselves to a committee; to stop the begging system entirely (that is, going to the United States and thereby representing that the fugitives are starving and suffering, raising large sums of money, of which the fugitives never receive the benefit,--misrepresenting the character of the fugitives for industry and underrating the advance of the country, which supplies abundant work for all at fair wages); to raise such funds among themselves as may be necessary for the poor, the sick, and the dest.i.tute fugitive newly arrived; and prepare themselves ultimately to bear their due weight of political power." See Drew, _A North-side View of Slavery_, p. 236.]

The good results of these schools were apparent. In the same degree that the denial to slaves of mental development tended to brutalize them the teaching of science and religion elevated the fugitives in Canada. In fact, the Negroes of these settlements soon had ideals differing widely from those of their brethren less favorably circ.u.mstanced. They believed in the establishment of homes, respected the sanct.i.ty of marriage, and exhibited in their daily life a moral sense of the highest order. Travelers found the majority of them neat, orderly, and intelligent[1]. Availing themselves of their opportunities, they quickly qualified as workers among their fellows.

An observer reported in 1855 that a few were engaged in shop keeping or were employed as clerks, while a still smaller number devoted themselves to teaching and preaching.[2] Before 1860 the culture of these settlements was attracting the colored graduates of northern inst.i.tutions which had begun to give men of African blood an opportunity to study in their professional schools.

[Footnote 1: According to the report of the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission published by S.G. Howe, an unusually large proportion of the colored population believed in education. He says: "Those from the free States had very little schooling in youth; those from the slave States, none at all. Considering these things it is rather remarkable that so many can now read and write. Moreover, they show their esteem for instruction by their desire to obtain it for their children. They all wish to have their children go to school, and they send them all the time that they can be spared.

"Canada West has adopted a good system of public instruction, which is well administered. The common schools, though inferior to those of several of the States of the United States, are good. Colored children are admitted to them in most places; and where a separate school is open for them, it is as well provided by the government with teachers and apparatus as the other schools are. Notwithstanding the growing prejudice against blacks, the authorities evidently mean to deal justly by them in regard to instruction; and even those who advocate separate schools, promise that they shall be equal to white schools.