Part 21 (2/2)

See Seventh Census of the United States, vol 1]

How the proble these people on free soil was solved can be understood only by keeping in roes had unusual capabilities Many of them had in slavery either acquired the rudiments of education or developed sufficient skill to outwit theso much to mental power, no itive in instilling into the minds of his people the value of education Not a few of this type readily added to their attainments to equip themselves for the best service Some of them, like Reverend Josiah Henson, Willialass, beca their tihtenrating to the North were eventhe cause of education[1] A larger nue In fact, the prohibition of the education of the free people of color in the South was one of the reasons they could so readily leave their native ho to the Northwest Territory proved to be decidedly helpful to their benefactors in providing colored churches and schools with educated workers, who otherould have been brought from the East at ee froro in Virginia_ (Johns Hopkins University Studies, series xxxi, No 3, p 107)]

On perusing this sketch the educator naturally wonders exactly what intellectual progress was roups on free soil This question cannot be fully answered for the reason that extant records give no detailed account of many colored settlements which underwent upheaval or failed to endure In some cases we learn simply that a social center flourished and was then destroyed On ”Black Friday,”

January 1, 1830, eighty Negroes were driven out of Portsmouth, Ohio, at the request of one or two hundred white citizens, set forth in an urgent itive Slave Law of 1850 the colored population of Columbia, Pennsylvania, dropped frohty-seven[2] The Negro community in the northwestern part of that State was broken up entirely[3] The African Methodist and Baptist churches of Buffalo lost many communicants Out of a membershi+p of one hundred and fourteen, the colored Baptist church of Rochester lost one hundred and twelve, including its pastor About the sahty-four members of the African Baptist church of Detroit crossed into Canada[4] The break-up of these churches meant the end of the day and Sunday-schools which were roes aroused such bitter feeling against them that their schoolhouses were frequently burned It often seemed that it was just as unpopular to educate the blacks in the North as in the South Ohio, Illinois, and Oregon enacted laws to prevent the into those commonwealths

[Footnote 1: Evans, _A History of Scioto County, Ohio_, p 613]

[Footnote 2: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p 249]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_, p 249]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_, p 250]

We have, however, sufficient evidence of large undertakings to educate the colored people then finding homes in less turbulent parts beyond the Ohio In the first place, almost every settleroes repaired for enlightenroups where there was no such opportunity, they had the cooperation of certain philanthropists in providing facilities for their mental and moral development As a result, the free blacks had access to schools and churches in Hao, Gibson, Rush, Tipton, Grant, and Wayne counties, Indiana,[1] and Madison, Monroe, and St Clair counties, Illinois There were colored schools and churches in Logan, Clark, Coluhland, Brown, Darke, Shelby, Green, Miauustus Wattles said that with the assistance of abolitionists he organized twenty-five such schools in Ohio counties after 1833[3] Brown County alone had six Not ro settle a teacher fifty dollars a quarter[4]

[Footnote 1: Wright, ”Negro Rural Communities in Indiana,” _Southern Workman_, vol xxxvii, p 165; Boone, _The History of Education in Indiana_, p 237; and Simmons, _Men of Mark_, pp 590 and 948]

[Footnote 2: Siro in Ohio_, p 85]

[Footnote 3: Howe, _Historical Collections of Ohio_, p 355]

[Footnote 4: Hickok, _The Negro in Ohio_, p 89]

Still better colored schools were established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in Springfield, Coluhtenh did not require the systematic efforts put forth to elevate the race elsewhere, much was done to provide them educational facilities in that city Children of color first attended the white schools there just as they did throughout the State of Pennsylvania[1] But when larger nuateway to the Northwest, either race feeling or the pressing needs of the ht about the establishment of schools especially adapted to their instruction Such efforts were frequent after 1830[2] John Thomas Johnson, a teacher of the District of Coluh in 1838 and became an instructor in a colored school of that city[3]

Cleveland had an ”African School” as early as 1832 John Malvin, the anized about that time ”The School Fund Society” which established other colored schools in Cincinnati, Colufield[4]

[Footnote 1: Wickersham, _Education in Pennsylvania_, p 248]

[Footnote 2: _Life of Martin R Delaney_, p 33]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the US Coro in Ohio_, p 88]

The concentration of the freeditives at Cincinnati was followed by efforts to train theroes themselves endeavored to provide their own educational facilities in opening in 1820 the first colored school in that city This school did not continue long, but another was established the sa, who kept a private institution, ad classes On account of a lack of roes of Cincinnati did not receive any systematic instruction before 1834 After that year the tide turned in favor of the free blacks of that section, bringing to their assistance a nu abolitionists, who helped theely of the students of Lane Se schools, and provided for them scientific and literary lectures twice a week

There was a perroes of that city contributed 150 of the 1000 expended for their education Four years later, however, they raised 88903 for this purpose, and thanks to their econo than that of 1835[1] In 1844 Rev Hira other students attracted PBS

Pinchback, later Governor of Louisiana Mary E Miles, a graduate of the Normal School at Albany, New York, served as an assistant of Gil her people in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania[2]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_, p 83]

[Footnote 1: Delany, _The Condition of the Colored People_, etc, 132]