Part 16 (2/2)

Jones, a minister of the Presbyterian Church Educated at Princeton with roes, and located in Georgia where he could study the situation as it was, Jones became not a theorist but a worker He did not share the discussion of the question as to how to get rid of slavery Accepting the institution as a fact, he endeavored to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunates by the spiritual cultivation of their minds He aimed, too, not to take into his scheme the solution of the whole problem but to appeal to a special class of slaves, those of the plantations ere left in the depths of ignorance as to the benefits of right living In this respect he was like two of his conteia and Bishop Polk of Louisiana[2] Denouncing the policy of getting all one could out of the slaves and of giving back as little as possible, Jones undertook to sho their spiritual iarity, idleness, iht that if the circued, they would equal, if not excel, the rest of the huance of manners, purity of ht cherish a conteroes that would cause theence,the fact that as one class of society rises so will the other, Jones advocated the ether in churches, to create kindlier feelings a them, increase the tendency of the blacks to subordination, and proious improvement He was sure that these benefits could never result froanization[4]

[Footnote 1: Rev Josiah Laas allected Negroes His life is a large chapter in the history of Christianity aro Education in Georgia_, p 19]

[Footnote 2: Rhodes, _History of the US_, vol i, p 331]

[Footnote 3: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, p 103]

[Footnote 4: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, pp 106, 217]

Meeting the arguroes, Jones thought that the gospel would do more for the obedience of slaves and the peace of the community than weapons of war He asserted that the very effort of thebond of union between them and their masters[1]

History, he believed, showed that the direct way of exposing the slaves to acts of insubordination was to leave thenorance and superstition to the care of their own religion[2] To disprove the falsity of the charge that literary instruction given in Neau's school in New York was the cause of a rising of slaves in 1709, he produced evidence that it was due to their opposition to beco Christians

The rebellions in South Carolina from 1730 to 1739, he ustine The upheaval in New York in 1741 was not due to any plot resulting froion, but rather to a delusion on the part of the whites The rebellions in Camden in 1816 and in Charleston in 1822 were not exceptions to the rule He conceded that the Southainated under the color of religion It was pointed out, however, that this very act itself was a proof that Negroes left to work out their own salvation, had fallen victiuided teachers” like Nat Turner Such undesirable leaders, thought he, would never have had the opportunity to do mischief, if the masters had taken it upon themselves to instruct their slaves[3] He asserted that no large nuion and taken into the churches directed by whitepart in servile insurrections[4]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_, pp 212, 274]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_, p 215]

[Footnote 3: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, etc, p 212]

[Footnote 4: Pluu laymen and preachers able champions to defend the reactionary policy

Southerners who had not gone to the extreroes felt hbors One of these defenders thought that the slaves should have sohtenment but believed that the domestic element of the system of slavery in the Southern States afforded ”adequate means” for the improvement, adapted to their condition and the circumstances of the country; and furnished ”the natural, safe, and effectual ro race Another speaking ro is such per se carried with it the ”inference or the necessity that his education--the cultivation of his faculties, or the developence, must be in harmony with itself” In other words, ”his instructionof the Caucasian,” in regard to whonifications” For this reason these defenders believed that instead of giving the Negro systematic instruction he should be placed in the best position possible for the development of his imitative powers--”to call into action that peculiar capacity for copying the habits, mental and moral, of the superior race”[2] They referred to the facts that slaves still had plantation prayers and preaching by numerous members of their own race, some of whom could read and write, that they were frequently favored by their masters with services expressly for their instruction, that Sabbath-schools had been established for the benefit of the young, and finally that slaves were received into the churches which perospel and praise the same God[3]

[Footnote 1: Smith, _Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery_, pp 228 _et seq_]

[Footnote 2: Van Evrie, _Negroes and Negro Slavery_, p 215]

[Footnote 3: Smith, _Lectures on the Philosophy of Slavery_, p 228]

Seeing even in the policy of religious instruction nothing but danger to the position of the slave States, certain southerners opposed it under all circumstances Some masters feared that verbal instruction would increase the desire of slaves to learn Such teaching ressive system of improvement, which, without any special effort in that direction, would follow in the natural order of things[1] Tilect their duties and e and executing plans for insubordination and villainy They thought, too, that missionaries from the free States would thereby be afforded an opportunity to come South and inculcate doctrines subversive of the interests and safety of that section[2] It would then be only a matter of time before the movement would receive such an impetus that it would dissolve the relations of society as then constituted and revolutionize the civil institutions of the South

[Footnote 1: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, p 192; Olmsted, _Back Country_, pp 106-108]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_, p 106]

The black population of certain sections, however, was not reduced to heathenis to execute the reactionary laws, idly enforced, the southerners did not at once eliious instructor[1] It was fortunate that a few Negroes who had learned the i themselves local associations These often appointed an old wo to work in the fields, to say prayers, repeat a little catechism, and memorize a few hymns[2] But this looked too arded as productive of evils destructive to southern society and was, therefore, discouraged or prohibited[3] To local associations organized by kindly slaveholders there was less opposition because the chief aiers and undesirable persons froroes to servile insurrection Two good exaanizations were the ones found in Liberty and McIntosh counties, Georgia The constitutions of these bodies provided that the instruction should be altogether oral, eion as understood by orthodox Christians[4]

[Footnote 1: This statement is based on the testiious Instruction_, pp 114, 117]

[Footnote 3: While the laws in certain places were not so drastic as to prohibit religious assemblies, the same was effected by patrols and mobs]