I've not ever seen a law specifically prohibiting the teaching of enslaved Virginians. The closest I have found is a law of 1831 prohibiting schools for teaching enslaved people, which is not the same thing as prohibiting individual people from teaching individual people.



Brent Tarter

[log in to unmask]





-----Original Message-----

From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon Kukla

Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2015 12:36 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: [VA-HIST] Teaching slaves to read



Legal restrictions or prohibitions against teaching slaves to read are pretty widely mentioned for the antebellum period -- and yet the reports to the Bishop of London or the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, etc., from 18th-century clergymen show that Virginia's Anglican ministers were regularly teaching the Bible and Catechism (as well as administering

communion) to enslaved Virginians -- and presumably many evangelical encouraged biblical literacy as well.



    I'm curious about precisely when and how laws and practice changed; I would be grateful either for references to the statutes by which teaching slaves to read came to be illegal, or perhaps reliable scholarship about this.  And curious, too, about whether the timing and nature of this change in Virginia law and practice was similar or different from adjacent Southern colonies/states.



   Thank you - and Happy Thanksgiving to all (regardless of where the holiday originated).



Jon Kukla

________________



______________________________________

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html



______________________________________

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at

http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html