Part 31 (1/2)
”If ever these colonies, now filled with slaves, be improved to their utmost capacity, an essential part of the ie would be hardly e of the slaves than it would be to their owners
”I do you nowitness, that in no part of the world were slaves better treated than, in general, they are in the colonies In one essential point, I fear, we are all deficient; they are nowhere sufficiently instructed I a it to you, at once to set them free; because to do so would be an heavy loss to you, and probably no gain to theery of their bodies by cultivating their minds By such means only can we hope to fulfil the ends, which we may be per the us You norance; you e of sin, the worst slavery to which they can be subjected; and by thus setting at liberty those that are bruised, though they still continue to be your slaves, they shall be delivered frolorious liberty of the Children of God”--Jonathan Boucher's _A View of the Causes and Consequences_, etc, pp 41, 42, 43
BOUCHER ON AMERICAN EDUCATION IN 1773
”You pay far too little regard to parental education
”What is still less credible is that at least two-thirds of the little education we receive is derived from instructors who are either indented servants or transported felons Not a shi+p arrives either with redeularly advertised for sale as weavers, tailors, or any other trade; with little other difference, that I can hear of, excepting perhaps that the forood a price as the latter
”I own, however, that I dislike slavery and a other reasons because as it is here conducted it has pernicious effects on the social state, by being unfavorable to education It certainly is no necessary circumstance, essential to the condition of a slave, that he be uneducated; yet this is the general and almost universal lot of the slaves Such extreme, deliberate, and systee portion of our species, gives far too ement to those abject persons who are contented to be rude and ignorant”--Jonathan Boucher's _A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution_, pp 183, 188, 189
A PORTION OF AN ESSAY OF BISHOP PORTEUS TOWARD A PLAN FOR THE MORE EFFECTUAL CIVILIZATION AND CONVERSION OF THE NEGRO SLAVES ON THE TRENT ESTATE IN BARBADOES BELONGING TO THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS (WRITTEN IN 1784)
”We are expressly coospel to every creature; and therefore every hu it It ro slaves are extre; but it may be doubted whether they are more so than some of the lowest classes of our own people; at least they are certainly not inferior in capacity to the Greenlanders, many of whoood credit speak in very favorable ters and dispositions of the native Africans on the coast of Guinea; and it is a well-known fact, that h laboring under disadvantages and discourageht well depress and stupefy even the best understandings, yet give sufficient proofs of the great quickness of parts and facility in learning They have, in particular, a natural turn to the enuity, and arrive at no senius for music, poetry, and other liberal acco thenity, and heroism of mind, which would have done honour to the most cultivated European It is not, therefore, to any natural or unconquerable disability in the subject we had to work upon, that the little success of our efforts is to be ascribed This would indeed be an insuperable obstacle, and must put an effectual stop to all future atte the case, we must look for other causes of our disappointh of a serious, yet less formidable nature, and such as it is in the power of hu of Providence, to remove The principal of them, it is conceived, are these which here follow:
1 ”Although several of our e of Barbadoes have been eneral they do not appear (if we e from their letters to the Board) to have possessed that peculiar sort of talents and qualifications, that facility and address in conveying religious truths, that unconquerable activity, patience, and perseverance, which the instruction of dull and uncultivated minds requires, and which we sometimes see so eminently and successfully displayed in the missionaries of other churches
”And indeed the task of instructing and converting near three hundred Negro slaves, and of educating their children in the principles of ion, is too laborious for any one person to execute well; especially when the stipend is too small to animate his industry, and excite his zeal
2 ”There seems also to have been a want of other modes of instruction, and of other books and tracts for that purpose, besides those made use of hitherto by our catechists And there is reason moreover to believe, that the tiroes has not been sufficient
3 ”Another ie has been their too frequent intercourse with the Negroes of the neighboring plantations, and the accession of fresh slaves to our own, either hired from other estates, or imported from Africa These are so many constant temptations in their way to revert to their forenatural propensity; and when this propensity is continually inflamed by the solicitations of their unconverted brethren, or the arrival of new companions from the coast of Guinea, it frequently becoreat degree, all the influence and exhortations of their religious teachers
4 ”Although this society has been always entleness hich the negroes belonging to its trust estates have been generally treated, yet even these (by the confession of our missionaries) are in too abject, and depressed, and uncivilized a state to be proper subjects for the reception of the divine truths of revelation They stand in need of soard and tenderness for theorate their e their hopes, and to rouse theuor and indolence and insensibility, which renders them indifferent and careless both about this world and the next
5 ”A still further obstacle to the effectual conversion of the Negroes has been the almost unrestrained licentiousness of their manner, the habits of vice and dissoluteness in which they are permitted to live, and the sad exaers and overseers It can never be expected that people given up to such practices as these, can be ion: or that, if after their conversion they are allowed, as they generally are, to retain their for more than a mere name
”These probably the society will, on inquiry, find to have been the principal causes of the little success they have hitherto had in their pious endeavors to render their own slaves real christians And it is with a view principally to the reulations are, with all due deference to better judgments, submitted to their consideration
”The first and most essential step towards a real and effectual conversion of our Negroes would be the appointment of a missionary (in addition to the present catechist) properly qualified for that iyht out for in this country, of approved ability, piety, humanity, industry, and a fervent, yet prudent zeal for the interests of religion, and the salvation of those committed to his care; and should have a stipend not less than 200 f sterling a year if he has an aparte, or 300 f a year if he is not
”This clergyned) 'The Guardian of the Negroes'; and his province should be to superintend the moral and spiritual concern of the slaves, to take upon hiroes, and to take particular care that all the Negro children are taught to read by the catechist and the two assistant woently instructed by the catechist in the principles of the Christian religion, till they are fifteen years of age, when they shall be instructed by hiroes
”This instruction of the Negro children from their earliest years is one of the most important and essential parts of the whole plan; for it is to the education of the young Negroes that we are principally to look for the success of our spiritual labours These lish language with fluency; these ht up from their earliest youth in habits of virtue, and restrained froences: these ion impressed so early upon their tenderforth the fruits of a truly Christian life To this great object, therefore,rity, the assiduity, the perseverance of the person to e coe, it is impossible for us to be too careful and too circumspect in our choice of a CATECHIST He roes the use of letters, but the eles, but to form their hearts For this purpose they must be put into his hands thetheir words, and their instructionas they continue too young to work, they row fit to labour, their attendance on the CATECHIST th they take their full share of ith the grown Negroes
”A school of this nature was formerly established by the society of Charlestown in South Carolina, about the year 1745, under the direction of Mr Garden, the Bishop of London's coreatly, and seemed to answer their utmost wishes There were at one tiroes were annually sent out froe, and the Christian faith Mr Garden, in his letters to the society, speaks in the highest terress roes thehly pleased with their own acquirements But it is supposed that on a parochial establishovernment, this excellent institution was dropt; for after the year 1751, no further mention is made of it in the minutes of the society From what little we know of it, however, wehopes from a similar foundation at Barbadoes”--_The Works of Bishop Porteus_, vi, pp, 171-179
EXTRACT FROM ”THE ACTS OF DR BRAY'S VISITATION HELD AT ANNAPOLIS IN MARYLAND, MAY 23, 24, 25, ANNO 1700”
_Words of Dr Bray_
”I think, h such measures as may be necessary to be considered for the , and Instruction of Youth And I heartily thank you for your so ready Concurrence in every thing that I have offered to you: And which, I hope, will appear no less in the Execution, than it has been to the Proposals