I concur with Brent. Back in 2001 I responded to a VA-Hist thread about this issue:
Have you checked Janet Duitsman Cornelius's book "When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South"? I believe that this book outlines the law in various states. As I remember Cornelius's discussion of this matter, Virginia was one of four southern states that legally limited the instruction of slaves from the 1830s to
1865. The state criminalized assemblies for teaching slaves and teaching slaves for pay. The legislature seems to have left the door open for individual masters to educate their own slaves. I think it's also important to realize that in some cases community pressure and other laws could be used against schools. Free black Christopher McPherson's night school in Richmond was quashed due to a public outcry that led to him being hauled into court for operating a public "nuisance."
Gregg Kimball
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tarter, Brent (LVA)
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 9:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Teaching slaves to read
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
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-----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
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