Volume II Part 21 (1/2)

FLORIDA.

On the 28th of December, 1848, an act was pa.s.sed providing ”for the establishment of common schools.” The right to vote at district meetings was conferred upon every person whose property was liable to taxation for school purposes; but only white children were allowed school privileges.

In the same year an act was pa.s.sed providing that the school funds should consist of ”the proceeds of the school lands,” and of all estates, real or personal, escheating to the State, and ”the proceeds of all property found on the coast or sh.o.r.es of the State.” In 1850 the counties were authorized to provide, by taxation, not more than four dollars for each child within their limits of the proper school age. In the same year the amount received from the sale of any slave, under the act of 1829, was required to be added to the school fund.

The common school law was revised in 1853, and the county commissioners were authorized to add from the county treasury any sum they thought proper for the support of common schools.[59]

GEORGIA

pa.s.sed a law in 1770 (copied from S. C. Statutes, pa.s.sed in 1740), fixing a fine of 20 for teaching a slave to read or write. In 1829 the Legislature enacted the following law:

”If any slave, negro, or free person of color, or any white person, shall teach any other slave, negro, or free person of color to read or write either written or printed characters, the said free person of color or slave shall be punished by fine and whipping, or fine or whipping, at the discretion of the court; and if a white person so offend, he, she, or they shall be punished with a fine not exceeding $500, and imprisonment in the common jail at the discretion of the court.”

In 1833 the above law was consolidated into a penal code. A penalty of $100 was provided against persons who employed any slave or free person of Color to set type or perform any other labor about a printing-office requiring a knowledge of reading or writing. During the same year an ordinance was pa.s.sed in the city of Savannah, ”that if any person shall teach or cause to be taught any slave or free person of color to read or write within the city, or who shall keep a school for that purpose, he or she shall be fined in a sum not exceeding $100 for each and every such offense; and if the offender be a slave or free person of color, he or she may also be whipped, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes.”

In the summer of 1850 a series of articles by Mr. F. C. Adams appeared in one of the papers of Savannah, advocating the education of the Negroes as a means of increasing their value and of attaching them to their masters. The subject was afterward taken up in the Agricultural Convention which met at Macon in September of the same year. The matter was again brought up in September, 1851, in the Agricultural Convention, and after being debated, a resolution was pa.s.sed that a pet.i.tion be presented to the Legislature for a law granting permission to educate the slaves. The pet.i.tion was presented to the Legislature, and Mr. Harlston introduced a bill in the winter of 1852, which was discussed and pa.s.sed in the lower House, to repeal the old law, and to grant to the masters the privilege of educating their slaves. The bill was lost in the senate by two or three votes.[60]

ILLINOIS'

school laws contain the word ”white” from beginning to end. There is no prohibition against the education of Colored persons; but there being no mention of them, is evidence that they were purposely omitted. Separate schools were established for Colored children before the war, and a few white schools opened their doors to them. The Free Mission Inst.i.tute at Quincy was destroyed by a mob from Missouri in _ante-bellum_ days, because Colored persons were admitted to the cla.s.ses.

INDIANA

denied the right of suffrage to her Negro population in the const.i.tution of 1851. No provision was made for the education of the Negro children. And the cruelty of the laws that drove the Negro from the State, and pursued him while in it, gave the poor people no hope of peaceful habitation, much less of education.

KENTUCKY

never put herself on record against the education of Negroes. By an act pa.s.sed in 1830, all the inhabitants of each school district were taxed to support a common-school system. The property of Colored persons was included, but they could not vote or enjoy the privileges of the schools. And the slave laws were so numerous and cruel that there was no opportunity left the bondmen in this State to acquire any knowledge of books even secretly.

LOUISIANA

pa.s.sed an act in 1830, forbidding free Negroes to enter the State. It provided also, that whoever should ”write, print, publish, or distribute any thing having a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population, or insubordination among the slaves,” should, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned ”_at hard labor for life, or suffer death_, at the discretion of the court.” And whoever used language calculated to produce discontent among the free or slave population, or was ”instrumental in bringing into the State any paper, book, or pamphlet having such tendency,” was to ”suffer imprisonment at hard labor, not less than three years nor more than twenty-one years, or death, at the discretion of the court.” ”All persons,”

continues the act, ”who shall teach, or permit, or cause to be taught, any slave to read or write, shall be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than twelve months.”

In 1847, a system of common schools for ”the education of white youth was established.” It was provided that ”one mill on the dollar, upon the _ad valorem_ amount of the general list of taxable property,”

should be levied for the support of the schools.

MAINE

gave the elective franchise and ample school privileges to all her citizens, without regard to race or color, by her const.i.tution of 1820.

MARYLAND

always restricted the right of suffrage to her ”white male inhabitants,” and, therefore, always refused to make any provisions for the education of her Negro population. There is nothing upon her statute-books prohibiting the instruction of Negroes, but the law that designates her schools for ”white children” is sufficient proof that Negro children were purposely omitted and excluded from the benefits of the schools.

St. Frances Academy for Colored girls was founded in connection with the Oblate Sisters of Providence Convent, in Baltimore, June 5, 1829, under the hearty approbation of the Most Rev. James Whitfield, D.D., the Archbishop of Baltimore at that time, and receiving the sanction of the Holy See, October 2, 1831. The convent originated with the French Fathers, who came to Baltimore from San Domingo as refugees, in the time of the revolution in that island in the latter years of last century. There were many Colored Catholic refugees who came to Baltimore during that period, and the French Fathers soon opened schools there for the benefit of the refugees and other Colored people. The Colored women who formed the original society which founded the convent and seminary, were from San Domingo; though they had, some of them, certainly, been educated in France. The schools which preceded the organization of the convent were greatly favored by. Most Rev. Ambrose Marechal, D.D., who was a French Father, and Archbishop of Baltimore from 1817 to 1828, Archbishop Whitfield being his successor. The Sisters of Providence is the name of a religious society of Colored women who renounced the world to consecrate themselves to the Christian education of Colored girls. The following extract from the announcement which, under the caption of ”Prospectus of a School for Colored Girls under the Direction of the Sisters of Providence,” appeared in the columns of the ”Daily National Intelligencer,” October 25, 1831, shows the spirit in which the school originated, and at the same time shadows forth the predominating ideas pertaining to the province of the race at that period.