> Does anyone know whether or not slaves were
> forbidden BY LAW to read and
> write in post-Nat Turner Virginia?

Ted,

I believe a law was passed to that effect in the
session following the year of Nat Turner's rebellion.
I don't have the specific statue, but I believe it was
passed in 1831/32.  I think the law also applied to
free blacks as well as slaves.

I know of only one case offhand in which the law was
applied in Norfolk, but that was in the later
antebellum period @1851.  Margaret Douglass, a white
woman, was fined and jailed for a month, for teaching
free blacks to read and write.  She published an
account of her ordeal in 1854 titled, Educational Laws
in Virgina.

You might want to consult Janet Duitsman Cornelius
book, When I Can Read My Title Clear, published by the
Univ. of SC Press in 1991.  Cornelius examined
antebellum anti-literacy laws and included passages on
Virginia.

Hollis Gentry


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