History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 Volume II Part 20

never legislated against educating Colored persons, but the prejudice was so strong that it amounted to the same thing. The intolerant spirit of the whites drove the Colored people of Hartford to request a separate school in 1830. Prejudice was so great against the presence of a Colored school in a community of white people, that a school, established by a very worthy white lady, was mobbed and then legislated out of existence.

"In the summer of 1832, Miss Prudence Crandall, an excellent, well-educated Quaker young lady, who had gained considerable reputation as a teacher in the neighboring town of Plainfield, purchased, at the solicitation of a number of families in the village of Canterbury, Connecticut, a commodious house in that village, for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng a boarding and day school for young ladies, in order that they might receive instruction in higher branches than were taught in the public district school. Her school was well conducted, but was interrupted early in 1833 in this wise: Not far from the village a worthy colored man was living, by the name of Harris, the owner of a good farm, and in comfortable circ.u.mstances. His daughter Sarah, a bright girl, seventeen years of age, had pa.s.sed with credit through the public school of the district in which she lived, and was anxious to acquire a better education, to qualify herself to become a teacher of the colored people. She applied to Miss Crandall for admission to her school. Miss Crandall hesitated, for prudential reasons, to admit a colored person among her pupils; but Sarah was a young lady of pleasing appearance and manners, well known to many of Miss Crandall's present pupils, having been their cla.s.smate in the district school, and was, moreover, a virtuous, pious girl, and a member of the church in Canterbury. No objection could be made to her admission, except on acount of her complexion, and Miss Crandall decided to receive her as a pupil. No objection was made by the other pupils, but in a few days the parents of some of them called on Miss Crandall and remonstrated; and although Miss Crandall pressed upon their consideration the eager desire of Sarah for knowledge and culture, and the good use she wished to make of her education, her excellent character, and her being an accepted member of the same Christian church to which they belonged, they were too much prejudiced to listen to any arguments--'they would not have it said that their daughters went to school with a n.i.g.g.e.r girl.' It was urged that if Sarah was not dismissed, the white pupils would be withdrawn; but although the fond hopes of success for an inst.i.tution which she had established at the risk of all her property, and by incurring a debt of several hundred dollars, seemed to be doomed to disappointment, she decided not to yield to the demand for the dismissal of Sarah; and on the 2d day of March, 1833, she advertised in the 'Liberator' that on the first Monday in April her school would be open for 'young ladies and little misses of color.' Her determination having become known, a fierce indignation was kindled and fanned by prominent people of the village and pervaded the town. In this juncture, the Rev. Samuel J. May, of the neighboring town of Brooklyn, addressed her a letter of sympathy, expressing his readiness to a.s.sist her to the extent of his power, and was present at the town meeting held on the 9th of March, called for the express purpose of devising and adopting such measures as 'would effectually avert the nuisance or speedily abate it if it should be brought into the village.'

"The friends of Miss Crandall were authorized by her to state to the moderator of the town meeting that she would give up her house, which was one of the most conspicuous in the village, and not wholly paid for, if those who were opposed to her school being there would take the property off her hands at the price for which she had purchased it, and which was deemed a reasonable one, and allow her time to procure another house in a more retired part of the town.

"The town meeting was held in the meeting-house, which, though capable of holding a thousand people, was crowded throughout to its utmost capacity. After the warning for the meeting had been read, resolutions were introduced 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 select-men a committee to wait upon 'the person contemplating the establishment of said school, and persuade her, if possible, to abandon the project.'

"The resolutions were advocated by Rufus Adams, Esq., and Hon.

Andrew T. Judson, who was then the most prominent man of the town, and a leading politician in the State, and much talked of as the Democratic candidate for governor, and was a representative in Congress from 1835 to 1839, when he was elected judge of the United States District Court, which position he held until his death in 1853, adjudicating, among other causes, the libel of the 'Amistad' and the fifty-four Africans on board.

After his address on this occasion, Mr. May, in company with Mr.

Arnold Buffum, a lecturing agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, applied for permission to speak in behalf of Miss Crandall, but their application was violently opposed, and the resolutions being adopted, the meeting was declared, by the moderator, adjourned.

"Mr. May at once stepped upon the seat where he had been sitting, and rapidly vindicated Miss Crandall, replying to some of the misstatements as to her purposes and the character of her expected pupils, when he gave way to Mr. Buffum, who had spoken scarcely five minutes before the trustees of the church ordered the house to be vacated and the doors to be shut. There was then no alternative but to yield.

"Two days afterward Mr. Judson called on Mr. May, with whom he had been on terms of a pleasant acquaintance, not to say of friends.h.i.+p, and expressed regret that he had applied certain epithets to him; and went on to speak of the disastrous effect on the village from the establishment of 'a school for n.i.g.g.e.r girls.' Mr. May replied that his purpose was, if he had been allowed to do so, to state at the town meeting Miss Crandall's proposition to sell her house in the village at its fair valuation, and retire to some other part of the town. To this Mr.

Judson replied: '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 the State.'

"Mr. Judson continued, declaring that the colored people could never rise from their menial condition in our country, and ought not to be permitted to rise here; that they were an inferior race and should not be recognized as the equals of the whites; that they should be sent back to Africa, and improve themselves there, and civilize and Christianize the natives. To this Mr. May replied that there never would be fewer colored people in this country than there were then; that it was unjust to drive them out of the country; that we must accord to them their rights or incur the loss of our own; that education was the primal, fundamental right of all the children of men; and that Connecticut was the last place where this should be denied.

"The conversation was continued in a similar strain, in the course of which Mr. Judson declared with warmth: 'That n.i.g.g.e.r school shall never be allowed in Canterbury, nor in any town of this State'; and he avowed his determination to secure the pa.s.sage of a law by the Legislature then in session, forbidding the inst.i.tution of such a school in any part of the State.

"Undismayed by the opposition and the threatened violence of her neighbors, Miss Crandall received, early in April, fifteen or twenty colored young ladies and misses from Philadelphia, New York, Providence, and Boston, and the annoyances of her persecutors at once commenced: all accommodations at the stores in Canterbury being denied her, her pupils being insulted whenever they appeared on the streets, the doors and door-steps of her house being besmeared, and her well filled with filth; under all of which, both she and her pupils remained firm. Among other means used to intimidate, an attempt was made to drive away those innocent girls by a process under the obsolete vagrant law, which provided that the select-men of any town might warn any person, not an inhabitant of the State, to depart forthwith, demanding $1.67 for every week he or she remained after receiving such warning; and in case the fine was not paid and the person did not depart 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 that effect was actually served upon Eliza Ann Hammond, a fine girl from Providence, aged seventeen years; but it was finally abandoned, and another method was resorted to, most disgraceful to the State as well as the town. Foiled in their attempts to frighten away Miss Crandall's pupils by their proceedings under the obsolete 'pauper and vagrant law,' Mr.

Judson and those who acted with him pressed upon the Legislature, then in session, a demand for the enactment of a law which should enable them to accomplish their purpose; and in that bad purpose they succeeded, by securing the following enactment, on the 24th of May, 1833, known as the '_black law_.'

"'Whereas, attempts have been made to establish literary inst.i.tutions in this State for the instruction of colored persons belonging to other States and countries, which would tend to the great increase of the colored population of the State, and thereby to the injury of the people: therefore,

"'_Be it enacted, etc._, That no person shall set up or establish in this State any school, academy, or other literary inst.i.tution for the instruction or education of colored persons, who are not inhabitants of this State, or harbor or board, for the purpose of attending or being taught or instructed in any such school, academy, or literary inst.i.tution, any colored person who is not an inhabitant of any town in this State, without the consent in writing, first obtained, of a majority of the civil authority, and also of the select-men of the town in which such school, academy, or literary inst.i.tution is situated,' etc.

"'And each and every person who shall knowingly do any act forbidden as aforesaid, or shall be aiding or a.s.sisting therein, shall for the first offense forfeit and pay to the treasurer of this State a fine of $100, and for the second offense $200, and so double for every offense of which he or she shall be convicted; and all informing officers are required to make due presentment of all breaches of this act.'

"On the receipt of the tidings of the pa.s.sage of this law, the people of Canterbury were wild with exultation; the bells were rung and a cannon was fired to manifest the joy. On the 27th of June, Miss Crandall was arrested and arraigned before Justices Adams and Bacon, two of those who had been the earnest opponents of her enterprise; and the result being predetermined, the trial was of course brief, and Miss Crandall was 'committed' to take her trial at the next session of the Supreme Court at Brooklyn, in August. A messenger was at once dispatched by the party opposed to Miss Crandall to Brooklyn, to inform Mr. May, as her friend, of the result of the trial, stating that she was in the hands of the sheriff, and would be put in jail unless he or some of her friends would 'give bonds' for her in a certain sum."

The denouement may be related most appropriately in the language of Mr. May:

"I calmly told the messenger that there were gentlemen enough in Canterbury whose bond for that amount would be as good or better than mine, and I should leave it for them to do Miss Crandall that favor. 'But,' said the young man, 'are you not her friend?'

'Certainly,' I replied, 'too sincerely her friend to give relief to her enemies in their present embarra.s.sment, and I trust you will not find any one of her friends, or the patrons of her school, who will step forward to help them any more than myself.'

'But, sir,' he cried, 'do you mean to allow her to be put in jail?' 'Most certainly,' was my answer, 'if her persecutors are unwise enough to let such an outrage be committed.' He turned from me in blank surprise, and hurried back to tell Mr. Judson and the justices of his ill success.

"A few days before, when I first heard of the pa.s.sage of the law, I had visited Miss Crandall with my friend, Mr. George W. Benson, and advised with her as to the course she and her friends ought to pursue when she should be brought to trial. She appreciated at once and fully the importance of leaving her persecutors to show to the world how base they were, and how atrocious was the law they had induced the Legislature to enact--a law, by the force of which a woman might be fined and imprisoned as a felon in the State of Connecticut for giving instruction to colored girls. She agreed that it would be best for us to leave her in the hands of those with whom the law originated, hoping that, in their madness, they would show forth all their hideous features.

"Mr. Benson and I, therefore, went diligently around to all who he knew were friendly to Miss Crandall and her school, and counselled them by no means to give bonds to keep her from imprisonment, because nothing would expose so fully to the public the egregious wickedness of the law and the virulence of her persecutors as the fact that they had thrust her into jail.

"When I found that her resolution was equal to the trial which seemed to be impending, that she was ready to brave and to bear meekly the worst treatment that her enemies would venture to subject her to, I made all the arrangements for her comfort that were practicable in our prison. It fortunately happened that the most suitable room, unoccupied, was the one in which a man named Watkins had recently been confined for the murder of his wife, and out of which he had been taken and executed. This circ.u.mstance we foresaw would add not a little to the public detestation of the _black law_. The jailer, at my request, readily put the room in as nice order as was possible, and permitted me to subst.i.tute for the bedstead and mattra.s.s on which the murderer had slept, fresh and clean ones from my own house and Mr. Benson's.

"About 2 o'clock, P.M., another messenger came to inform me that the sheriff was on the way from Canterbury to the jail with Miss Crandall, and would imprison her unless her friends would give the required bail. Although in sympathy with Miss Crandall's persecutors, he saw clearly the disgrace that was about to be brought upon the State, and begged me and Mr. Benson to avert it.

Of course we refused. I went to the jailer's house and met Miss Crandall on her arrival. We stepped aside. I said: 'If now you hesitate--if you dread the gloomy place so much as to wish to be saved from it, I will give bonds for you even now.' 'Oh, no,' she promptly replied, 'I am only afraid they will not put me in jail.

Their evident hesitation and embarra.s.sment show plainly how much they deprecated the effect of this part of their folly, and therefore I am the more anxious that they should be exposed, if not caught in their own wicked devices.

"We therefore returned with her to the sheriff and the company that surrounded him, to await his final act. He was ashamed to do it. He knew it would cover the persecutors of Miss Crandall and the State of Connecticut with disgrace. He conferred with several about him, and delayed yet longer. Two gentlemen came and remonstrated with me in not very seemly terms: 'It would be a ---- shame, an eternal disgrace to the State, to have her put into jail--into the very room that Watkins had last occupied.'

"'Certainly, gentlemen,' I replied, 'and this you may prevent if you please.'

"'Oh!' they cried, 'we are not her friends; we are not in favor of her school; we don't want any more ---- n.i.g.g.e.rs coming among us. It is your place to stand by Miss Crandall and help her now.

You and your ---- abolition brethren have encouraged her to bring this nuisance into Canterbury, and it is ---- mean in you to desert her now.'

"I rejoined: 'She knows we have not deserted her, and do not intend to desert her. The law which her persecutors have persuaded our legislators to enact is an infamous one, worthy of the dark ages. It would be just as bad as it is whether we would give bonds for her or not. But the people generally will not so soon realize how bad, how wicked, how cruel a law it is unless we suffer her persecutors to inflict upon her all the penalties it prescribes. She is willing to bear them for the sake of the cause she has so n.o.bly espoused. If you see fit to keep her from imprisonment in the cell of a murderer for having proffered the blessings of a good education to those who in our country need it most, you may do so; _we shall not_.'

"They turned from us in great wrath, words falling from their lips which I shall not repeat.

"The sun had descended nearly to the horizon; the shadows of night were beginning to fall around us. The sheriff could defer the dark deed no longer. With no little emotion, and with words of earnest deprecation, he gave that excellent, heroic, Christian young lady into the hands of the jailer, and she was led into the cell of Watkins. So soon as I had heard the bolts of her prison door turned in the lock, and saw the key taken out, I bowed and said: 'The deed is done, completely done. It cannot be recalled.

It has pa.s.sed into the history of our nation and our age.' I went away with my steadfast friend, George W. Benson, a.s.sured that the legislators of the State had been guilty of a most unrighteous act, and that Miss Crandall's persecutors had also committed a great blunder; that they all would have much more reason to be ashamed of her imprisonment than she or her friends could ever have.

"The next day we gave the required bonds. Miss Crandall was released from the cell of the murderer, returned home, and quietly resumed the duties of her school until she should be summoned as a culprit into court, there to be tried by the infamous '_Black Law of Connecticut_.' And, as we expected, so soon as the evil tidings could be carried in that day, before Professor Morse had given to Rumor her telegraphic wings, it was known all over the country and the civilized world, that an excellent young lady had been imprisoned as a criminal--yes, put into a murderer's cell--in the State of Connecticut, for opening a school for the instruction of colored girls. The comments that were made upon the deed in almost all the newspapers were far from grateful to the feelings of her persecutors. Even many who, under the same circ.u.mstances, would probably have acted as badly as Messrs. A. T. Judson & Co., denounced their procedure as 'un-Christian, inhuman, anti-Democratic, base, mean.'

"On the 23d of August, 1833, the first trial of Miss Crandall was had in Brooklyn, the seat of the county of Windham, Hon.

Joseph Eaton presiding at the county court.

"The prosecution was conducted by Hon. A. T. Judson, Jonathan A.

Welch, Esq., and I. Bulkley, Esq. Miss Crandall's counsel was Hon. Calvin G.o.ddard, Hon. W. W. Elsworth, and Henry Strong, Esq.

"The judge, somewhat timidly, gave it as his opinion 'that the law was const.i.tutional and obligatory on the people of the State.'

"The jury, after an absence of several hours, returned into court, not having agreed upon a verdict. They were instructed and sent out again, and again a third time, in vain; they stated to the judge that there was no probability that they could ever agree. Seven were for conviction and five for acquittal, so they were discharged.

"The second trial was on the 3d of October, before Judge Daggett of the Supreme Court, who was a strenuous advocate of the black law. His influence with the jury was overpowering, insisting in an elaborate and able charge that the law was const.i.tutional, and, without much hesitation, the verdict was given against Miss Crandall. Her counsel at once filed a bill of exceptions, and took an appeal to the Court of Errors, which was granted. Before that, the highest legal tribunal in the State, the cause was argued on the 22d of July, 1834. Both the Hon. W. W. Elsworth and the Hon. Calvin G.o.ddard argued with great ability and eloquence against the const.i.tutionality of the black law. The Hon. A. T.

Judson and Hon. C. F. Cleaveland said all they could to prove such a law consistent with the _Magna Charta_ of our republic.

The court reserved a decision for some future time; and that decision was never given, it being evaded by the court finding such defects in the information prepared by the State's attorney that it ought to be quashed.

"Soon after this, an attempt was made to set the house of Miss Crandall on fire, but without effect. The question of her duty to risk the lives of her pupils against this mode of attack was then considered, and upon consultation with friends it was concluded to hold on and bear a little longer, with the hope that this atrocity of attempting to fire the house, and thus expose the lives and property of her neighbors, would frighten the instigators of the persecution, and cause some restraint on the 'baser sort.' But a few nights afterward, about 12 o'clock, being the night of the 9th of September, her house was a.s.saulted by a number of persons with heavy clubs and iron bars, and windows were dashed to pieces. Mr. May was summoned the next morning, and after consultation it was determined that the school should be abandoned."

Mr. May thus concluded his account of this event, and of the enterprise:

"The pupils were called together and I was requested to announce to them our decision. Never before had I felt so deeply sensible of the cruelty of the persecution which had been carried on for eighteen months in that New England village, against a family of defenseless females. Twenty harmless, well-behaved girls, whose only offense against the peace of the community was that they had come together there to obtain useful knowledge and moral culture, were to be told that they had better go away, because, forsooth, the house in which they dwelt would not be protected by the guardians of the town, the conservators of the peace, the officers of justice, the men of influence in the village where it was situated. The words almost blistered my lips. My bosom glowed with indignation. I felt ashamed of Canterbury, ashamed of Connecticut, ashamed of my country, ashamed of my color."[58]

Thus ended the generous, disinterested, philanthropic Christian enterprise of Prudence Crandall, but the law under which her enterprise was defeated was repealed in 1838.

It is to be regretted that Connecticut earned such an unenviable place in history as this. It seems strange, indeed, that such an occurrence could take place in the nineteenth century in a free State in a republic in North America! But such is "the truth of history."

DELAWARE

never pa.s.sed any law against the instruction of Negroes, but in 1833 pa.s.sed an act taxing every person who sold a slave out of the State, or brought one into the State, five dollars, which went into a school fund for the education of _white children alone_. In 1852, the Revised Statutes provided for the taxation of all the property of the State for the support of the schools for _white children_ alone. So, by implication, Delaware prohibited the education of Colored children.

In 1840, the Friends formed the African School a.s.sociation in Wilmington; and under its management two excellent schools, for boys and girls, were established.