Part 8 (1/2)
Generally speaking, we can say that while the movement for special colored schools land, in other parts of the Northeastern States the religious organizations and abolition societies, which were espousing the cause of the Negro, yielded to this demand These schools were sometimes found in churches of the North, as in the cases of the schools in the African Church of Boston, and the Sunday-school in the African Improved Church of New Haven In 1828 there was in that city another such school supported by public-school money; three in Boston; one in Salem; and one in Portland, Maine[1]
[Footnote 1: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, p 142]
Outside of the city of New York, not so roes as in the States which had a larger colored population[1] Those ere scattered through the State were allowed to attend white schools, which did not ”meet their special needs”[2]
In the metropolis, where the blacks constituted one-tenth of the inhabitants in 1800, however, the lected The liberalisanization in New York of the ”Society for Pro such of them as have been or may be liberated” This Society ushered in a new day for the free persons of color of that city in organizing in 1787 the New York African Free School[3] Aanization and its enterprises were Melancthon Sswell, Jacob Seaman, White Matlock, Matthew Clarkson, Nathaniel Lawrence, and John Murray, Jr[4] The school opened in 1790 with Cornelius Davis as a teacher of forty pupils In 1791 a lady was eirls in needle-work[5] The expected advantage of this industrial training was soon realized
[Footnote 1: La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, _Travels_, etc, p 233]
[Footnote 2: _Am Conv_, 1798, p 7]
[Footnote 3: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p 14]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid_, pp 14 and 15]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid_, p 16]
Despite the support of certain distinguished er portion of the population was so prejudiced against the school that often the gle was continued for about fifteen years with an attendance of froan to take roes ”becaes and importance of education, and es offered them”[2] At this time one hundred and thirty pupils of both sexes attended this school, paying their instructor, a ”discreetto their ability and inclination[3] Many more colored children were then able to attend as there had been a considerable increase in the number of colored freeholders As a result of the introduction of the Lancastrian and monitorial systems of instruction the enrolleneral tone of the school was i in islature of the State of New York, made it compulsory for masters to teach all minors born of slaves to read the Scriptures[5]
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_, p 17]
[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies_, 1801, p 6]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid_, 1801, Report from New York]
[Footnote 4: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p 20]
[Footnote 5: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies_, 1812, p 7]
Decided improvement was noted after 1814 The directors then purchased a lot on which they constructed a building the following year[1] The nucleus then took the name of the New York ”African Free Schools”
These schools grew so rapidly that it was soon necessary to rent additional quarters to acco This work had been made popular by the efforts of Misses Turpen, Eliza J cox, Ann cox, and Caroline Roe[2] The subsequent growth of the classes was such that in 1820 the Manuh to accommodate five hundred pupils[3] The instructors were then not only teaching the eleraphy, but also astrono, and , the Manu Committee find employment in trades for colored children, and had recoriculture[5] The co the success of the syste the character of its students than to be able to boast that no pupils educated there had ever been convicted of crime[6] Lafayette, a promoter of the emancipation and improvement of the colored people, and a member of the New York Manumission Society, visited these schools in 1824 on his return to the United States He was bidden welconificant words After spending the afternoon inspecting the schools the General pronounced the schools of children” he had ever seen[7]
[Footnote 1: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p 18]
[Footnote 2: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p 17]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid_, p 18]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid_, p 19]
[Footnote 5: _Proceedings of the Am Convention of Abolition Soc_, 1818, P 9; Adas of the American Convention_, etc, 1820]
[Footnote 7: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p 20]
The outlook for the education of Negroes in New Jersey was unusually bright Carrying out the reco in 1777, the Quakers of Salem raised funds for the education of the blacks, secured books, and placed the colored children of the coates sent from that State, to the Convention of the Abolition Societies in 1801, reported that there had been schools in Burlington, Salero race, but that they had been closed[1] It seeiven to this work there, but that the interest was increasing These delegates stated that they did not then know of any schools aroes In most parts of the State, and most commonly in the northern division, however, they were incorporated with the white children in the various small schools scattered over the State[2] There was then in the city of Burlington a free school for the education of poor children supported by the profits of an estate left for that particular purpose, and made equally accessible to the children of both races Conditions were just as favorable in Gloucester An account from its antislavery society shows that the local friends of the indigent had funds of about one thousand pounds established for schooling poor children, white and black, without distinction Many of the black children, ere placed by their ood moral and school education as the lower class of whites[3]
Later reports from this State show the same tendency toward des of the American Convention_, etc, 1801, p
12]