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: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 11:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Teaching Slaves To Read


A colleague asked me recently when it was that Virginia, either the colony
or
the Commonwealth, made it "a formal policy to prevent teaching slaves to
read." I had thought such a statute was passed in the early 1830s, but I
find no evidence to support my impression. I looked in studies of Virginia
law and slavery, but did not find an answer to my question. Of course, the
statute prescribed punishment for those who taught the slaves; therefore,
it might not have been a part of the slave code at all.

I hope someone can help.  Thanks.

James R. Sweeney
Department of History
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529

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