C
CentralFLJames
Guest
[continued from prior]
I also want to point out in my comments that “education” is more than mere reading and writing skills and also includes learning social mores and the laws etc. I have many nephews and nieces who are young students who know how to read and write fluently but who possess absolute NO labor skills or wherewithal to get them employed.
Except by by what some slaves “learned through their labor” few of the slaves had a knowledge of how to farm, or had any skilled-labor training (e.g lumber yard, shoeing horses, raising livestock, metal working, carpentry etc.) in the marketable things in demand in the Southern economy. While there was substantial need for raw muscle-labor to haul material and harvest crops etc. it was not a well paying job sufficient alone to sustain a family. Note too that not all Southerners could read or write either - but most had some rudimentary skilled-labor that they learned from someone else by tutelage, observation, apprenticeship or by formal schooling. And the sad reality is that both slave and freemen who Labored in the fields had no immediate need to be schooled for that job nor was it the moral responsibility of the employeer (nor the “master”) to train his labor in skills that were not necessary for the job to which he was employed. That said, it was immoral for them to be held as slaves in the first place but would have been a worse moral offense to put them out to fend for themselves with no means for livelihood. It was truly a catch-22 moral delimma for everyone.
Outside of the confines of the slave camps it is true that Southern Society at large had mixed feeling about its moral societal obligation to educate slaves and freemen blacks. Not that it was justified, but there were real fears that if “the Negros” were educated they would only become more agitated as they were exposed to more passionate ideals and ideas in much of the romanticized literature. You need to understand the moral delimma the South was in - they were very afraid of insurrection and leadership rising up (like a new Sparticas – a leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War in the 70 BC time frame) and leading revolts against all Southern citizens. Again, let me make it perfectly clear - I personally do not approve of what happened. But to talk about these matters one must understand the fears and the motives of people who DID have a moral conscience but simply lacked the facilities for knowing how to “make right” of the matter without getting both sides killed. Whites where scared out of their goards at the same time they agonized about how to deal with the problem that a few bad men created for everyone. Most of the South was as much a victim of slavery as the blacks were.
North Carolina we generally known to be humane to slaves during the ante-bellum period. There were at least 2,331 freedmen who could read and write. So they had schools for the freedmen - that means it was not at all a race issue. It was a “slave” issue since the state did have some schools for the black freedmen. But you are correct it was an offense ($100-$200 fine) to educate a slave for a time period but not generally enforced. But admittedly even freedmen were “discouraged” from being educated before the war due to Southern fears that reading certain literature works (e.g. the abolitionists rabid propaganda that wanted an immediate and impractical cessation to slavery) would “excite passionate dissatisfaction” and elevate the risk of general insurrection. Yet there were public schools that certainly taught freedman and there were lessor number of slaves educated irrespective of civil penalties that were on the books (but often overlooked and not enforced). So we see that certain southern states had indeed taken early fledgling steps at addressing the moral obligation of the society to educate the blacks. In fact the moralist pointed out the obvious need to teach them to read so that they could read the bible and become good Christians.
Here is an e-paper on it if you would like to read it. The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 − A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War
Here is a snipet:
The early advocates of the education of Negroes were of three classes: first, masters who desired to increase the economic efficiency of their labor supply; second, sympathetic persons who wished to help the oppressed; and third, zealous missionaries who, believing that the message of divine love came equally to all, taught slaves the English language that they might learn the principles of the Christian religion. Through the
kindness of the first class, slaves had their best chance for mental improvement. Each slaveholder dealt with the situation to suit himself, regardless of public opinion. Later, when measures were passed to prohibit the education of slaves, some masters, always a law unto themselves, continued to teach their Negroes in defiance of the hostile legislation. Sympathetic persons were not able to accomplish much because they were usually reformers, who not only did not own slaves, but dwelt in practically free settlements far from the plantations on which the bondmen lived.
[continued]
James
This is not entirely true through the entire South. Besides, this is not a matter of “allowed” at all. The fact is that there were a fair number of blacks (both freemen and slaves) who were in fact educated.
I also want to point out in my comments that “education” is more than mere reading and writing skills and also includes learning social mores and the laws etc. I have many nephews and nieces who are young students who know how to read and write fluently but who possess absolute NO labor skills or wherewithal to get them employed.
Except by by what some slaves “learned through their labor” few of the slaves had a knowledge of how to farm, or had any skilled-labor training (e.g lumber yard, shoeing horses, raising livestock, metal working, carpentry etc.) in the marketable things in demand in the Southern economy. While there was substantial need for raw muscle-labor to haul material and harvest crops etc. it was not a well paying job sufficient alone to sustain a family. Note too that not all Southerners could read or write either - but most had some rudimentary skilled-labor that they learned from someone else by tutelage, observation, apprenticeship or by formal schooling. And the sad reality is that both slave and freemen who Labored in the fields had no immediate need to be schooled for that job nor was it the moral responsibility of the employeer (nor the “master”) to train his labor in skills that were not necessary for the job to which he was employed. That said, it was immoral for them to be held as slaves in the first place but would have been a worse moral offense to put them out to fend for themselves with no means for livelihood. It was truly a catch-22 moral delimma for everyone.
Outside of the confines of the slave camps it is true that Southern Society at large had mixed feeling about its moral societal obligation to educate slaves and freemen blacks. Not that it was justified, but there were real fears that if “the Negros” were educated they would only become more agitated as they were exposed to more passionate ideals and ideas in much of the romanticized literature. You need to understand the moral delimma the South was in - they were very afraid of insurrection and leadership rising up (like a new Sparticas – a leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War in the 70 BC time frame) and leading revolts against all Southern citizens. Again, let me make it perfectly clear - I personally do not approve of what happened. But to talk about these matters one must understand the fears and the motives of people who DID have a moral conscience but simply lacked the facilities for knowing how to “make right” of the matter without getting both sides killed. Whites where scared out of their goards at the same time they agonized about how to deal with the problem that a few bad men created for everyone. Most of the South was as much a victim of slavery as the blacks were.
North Carolina we generally known to be humane to slaves during the ante-bellum period. There were at least 2,331 freedmen who could read and write. So they had schools for the freedmen - that means it was not at all a race issue. It was a “slave” issue since the state did have some schools for the black freedmen. But you are correct it was an offense ($100-$200 fine) to educate a slave for a time period but not generally enforced. But admittedly even freedmen were “discouraged” from being educated before the war due to Southern fears that reading certain literature works (e.g. the abolitionists rabid propaganda that wanted an immediate and impractical cessation to slavery) would “excite passionate dissatisfaction” and elevate the risk of general insurrection. Yet there were public schools that certainly taught freedman and there were lessor number of slaves educated irrespective of civil penalties that were on the books (but often overlooked and not enforced). So we see that certain southern states had indeed taken early fledgling steps at addressing the moral obligation of the society to educate the blacks. In fact the moralist pointed out the obvious need to teach them to read so that they could read the bible and become good Christians.
Here is an e-paper on it if you would like to read it. The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 − A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War
Here is a snipet:
The early advocates of the education of Negroes were of three classes: first, masters who desired to increase the economic efficiency of their labor supply; second, sympathetic persons who wished to help the oppressed; and third, zealous missionaries who, believing that the message of divine love came equally to all, taught slaves the English language that they might learn the principles of the Christian religion. Through the
kindness of the first class, slaves had their best chance for mental improvement. Each slaveholder dealt with the situation to suit himself, regardless of public opinion. Later, when measures were passed to prohibit the education of slaves, some masters, always a law unto themselves, continued to teach their Negroes in defiance of the hostile legislation. Sympathetic persons were not able to accomplish much because they were usually reformers, who not only did not own slaves, but dwelt in practically free settlements far from the plantations on which the bondmen lived.
[continued]
James
“free of persons of colour”.