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In Pursuit of Letters: A History of the Bray Schools for Enslaved Children in Colonial Virginia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Antonio T. Bly
Antonio T. Bly*
Affiliation:
Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina
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Extract

The pursuit of literacy is a central theme in the history of African Americans in the United States. In the Western tradition, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and others have observed, people of African descent have been written out of “culture” because they have been identified with oral traditions. In that setting, literacy signifies both reason and civilization. Performance in print earned the laurel of humanity. Consequently, for well over 200 years, the African-American literary tradition has been defined as one in which books talked and a few slave authors achieved, at once, voice and significance by making a book talk back by writing.

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Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 429 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 History of Education Society 

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References

1 Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Preface: Talking Book,” in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, ed., Gates, , Jr. and McKay, Nellie Y. (New York: Norton, W.W. and Company, 1998), xxviii. For a fuller account of the talking book, see Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 127–69 and Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial” Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 3–79. For a wider discussion of the early African-American belletristic tradition, see Robert, B. Stepto's From Behind the Veil. A Study of Afro-American Narrative (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979); and Andrews, William L.’ To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760–1865 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986).Google Scholar

2 Bly, Antonio T., “Literacy and Orality” in World of a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States, Volume 1, ed. Katz-Hyman, Martha B. and Rice, Kym S. (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011), 11–15.Google Scholar

3 The historiography on slave education in colonial America is limited. Carter, G. Woodson's The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 is perhaps the earliest known comprehensive account. Originally published in 1919, Woodson examined how slaves achieved literacy, and how those efforts changed over time and space. Following in Woodson's footsteps, subsequent historians have revealed more about slave efforts to gain knowledge of letters in early America: Thad Tate, for example, the Bray school in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Oast, Jennifer, the Bray school in Williamsburg and Fredericksburg, Virginia, as well as two failed schemes to start similar schools in York Town and Norfolk, Virginia. Arguably, the most extensive account of the work of the Associates of the Late Bray, Dr. Thomas is Van, John C. Horne's Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery. In that edited collection of letters between the Bible society and its associates overseas, Van Horne offers an exhaustive picture of the Bray schools not only in Virginia, but also throughout British North America. Specifically, he focused on the success of the school in Philadelphia. Jeffrey, H. Richards's recent study of Samuel Davies and his work among the enslaved in Piedmont, Virginia demonstrated yet another aspect to Woodson's narrative. Significantly, Richards expands upon George Pilcher's, W. earlier work on Samuel Davies. In a similar fashion, E. Jennifer Monaghan's Reading and Writing in Colonial America contributes to the scholarship in this field. In that extensive study of education in British North America, Monaghan has added to the historical discourse concerning slave literacy by revealing that enslaved African Americans (very similar to white slaveholders) learned how to read and write separately and that in turn may explain why some slaveholders were open to instructing their slaves in reading. The same could not be substantiated when it came to slaves learning how to write. In contrast, this essay builds on this body of scholarship in several ways. First, it reveals the stories of several unofficial Bray schools in colonial Virginia. Second, it offers a more extensive profile of the African-American children who attended those Bray schools and a biography of Isaac Bee, himself a Bray school scholar. Third, it establishes the African-American literacy tradition as a useful framework to acknowledge the uncelebrated lives of African Americans who were literate but unlettered, thus, complicating the current emphasis on African-American belle letters. Finally, in establishing the African-American literacy tradition, it contributes to current scholarship about slave religious culture, more specifically the rich symbolism of slave spirituals, such as Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Albert Raboteau's Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) and others who have written thoughtfully about slave music and culture. Surely, through unlettered slaves’ readings of the Bible, many more enslaved African Americans discovered Moses, , Jacob, , and Daniel, . For references within this note see, Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior 1861 (Washington, DC, 1919; reprint, New York: A & B Publishers Group, 1998); Tate, Thad W., The Negro in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg (Williamsburg, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1965; reprint 1985); John, C. Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and the Colonial Slavery: The American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray, 1717–1777 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Jennifer Bridges Oast, “Education Eighteenth-Century Black Children: The Bray Schools” (master thesis, College of William and Mary, 2000); Monhagan, E. 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E., “The Work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Part among Negroes in the Colonies,” Journal of Negro History 1 (1916): 349–60; Lawrence, James B, “Religious Education of the Negro in the Colony of Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 14 (1930): 41–57; Jackson, Luther P., “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia 1760 to 1860,” Journal of Negro History 16 (1931): 168–239; Goodwin, Mary F., “Christianizing and Educating the Negro in Colonial Virginia,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 1 (September 1932): 171–212; Pennington, Edgar L, “Thomas Brays Associates and Their Work Among Negroes,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Association 48 (1938): 311–403; Jones, Jerome W., “The Established Virginia Church and the Conversions of Negroes and Indians,” Journal of Negro History 46 (1961): 12–23; and Carlos Antonio Brossard, “Indians, Economic Development and African Literacy in Colonial Virginia before 1660: A Study in Afro-American Literacy before Absolute Bondage” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1976). For the more contemporary interpretations on slavery literacy in the field see, Janet Duitsman Cornelius, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1992); Williams, Heather Andrea, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); Span, Christopher M. and Anderson, James D., “The Quest for ‘Book Learning': African American Education in Slavery and Freedom,” in A Companion to African American History, ed. HornsbyJr, Alton., Delores P. Aldridge and Angela Hornsby (Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 295–311; and, Sobel, Mechal, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979; reprint, 1988).Google Scholar

4 Isaiah 34:16 (King James version).Google Scholar

5 Rev. Waring, John to Franklin, Benjamin, 24 January 1757 in John, C. Van Horne, ed., Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery, 122–23. For a fuller account of Morgan Godwyn and Edmund Gibson's efforts to instruct African Americans in Virginia, see Bly, Antonio T., “Breaking with Tradition: Slave Literacy in Early Virginia, 1680–1780,” (PhD dissertation, College of William and Mary, 2006), 82–147.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 122.Google Scholar

7 [Enclosure: Rev. William Sturgeon to Benjamin Franklin], 22 August 1757, in Horne, Van, ed., Religious Philanthropy, 125.Google Scholar

8 Franklin, Benjamin to Rev. Sturgeon, William, 3 January 1758, in Van Horne, ed., Religious Philanthropy, 124.Google Scholar

9 Waldstreicher, David, Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 27–54. For a more comprehensive account about servitude in British North America, see Aaron S. Fogelman, “From Slaves, Convicts, and Servants to Free Passengers: The Transformation of Immigration in the Era of the American Revolution,” Journal of American History 85, no. 1 (June 1998): 43–76.Google Scholar

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11 Nash, Gary B., “Slaves and Slave Owners in Colonial Pennsylvania,” William and Mary Quarterly 30 (1973): 223–56, esp. 237.Google Scholar

12 Franklin, Benjamin to Rev. John Waring, 3 January 1758, in Van Horne, ed., Religious Philanthropy, 124.Google Scholar

13 Franklin, Benjamin to Rev. Waring, John, 17 February 1758, in Horne, Van, ed., Religious Philanthropy, 125–26. This is significant considering that most embroidery lessons may have included the use of samplers, it stands to reason that some slave girls who attended the Bray schools probably acquired rudimentary skills in forming letters in addition to learning how to read. According to E. Jennifer Monaghan's account, “embroidering a sampler was clearly the apex of the sewing curriculum.” See Monaghan, Reading and Writing in Colonial America, 260.Google Scholar

14 Monaghan, , Reading and Writing, 124.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 135–36. Once again, as embroidering represented a form of penmanship, it seems likely that some of the female scholars learned how to write and read.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 137 and 143.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 144. By Wetherell's account, most, if not all, of the early printers in British North America were either connected to Franklin by marriage or patronage or were once trained by the master printer. For a fuller account of Franklin and his interconnected circle of family, friends, and business partners in the printing business, see Charles Wetherell, “Brokers of the Word: An Essay in the Social History of the Early American Press, 1639–1783” (PhD dissertation, University of New Hampshire, 1982).Google Scholar

18 Wetherell, , 146; Monaghan, Reading and Writing, 259.Google Scholar

19 Monaghan, , Reading and Writing, 144–45. According to Fithian, Philip, Virginians used Sundays as an occasion to preach and inform the public of current events. Philip Fithian, The Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Plantation, 1773–1774, ed. Hunter Dickinson Farish (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1999), 167. For a fuller account of the colony's oral culture and the significance of public places such as churches and courthouse and the circulation of information see Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 1999), chaps. 5 and 6.Google Scholar

20 Monaghan, , Reading and Writing, 144 and 148.Google Scholar

21 “Anne Wager: Biography,” in Freeing Religion: Resource Book, comp. and ed. Ritcher, Julie, Willis, Anne, Katz-Hyman, Martha, Lord, Michael, Matthews, Christy S., Parker, Ann, Ray, Kelly, Walsh, Lorena S. and Wyckoff, Christopher (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1998), 402–3; Monaghan, Reading and Writing, 153.Google Scholar

22 [Enclosure: The Associates of the late Revd. Doctor Bray in Acct. with Nicholas, Ro. C. for the Negro School in Williamsburg], 27 December 1766, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 253–54; [Enclosure: Account of The Associates of Bray, Dr.], 17 November 1774, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 325; Stephenson, Mary A., Notes on the Negro School in Williamsburg (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1963), 4. To judge from an earlier, yet unsuccessful, scheme to convert Native Americans in the Chesapeake to Christianity, religious instruction included literacy lessons as early as 1619. For a fuller account of efforts to instruct Native Americans in Colonial Virginia, see Philip Alexander Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia, Volume 1 (New York: Putnam's, G.P. Sons, 1910), 344–45, 362–73; Stuart, Karen A, “‘So Good a Work': The Brafferton School, 1690–1777,” (PhD dissertation, College of William and Mary, 1984), 2–11; Terri Keffert, “The Education of the Native American in Colonial, with Particular Regard to the Brafferton School,” Colonial Williamsburg Interpreter 21 (Fall 2000): 20–21. For an account outside Virginia, see E. Jennifer Monaghan, Learning to Read and Write, chaps. 2 and 6. Also see Monaghan, E. Jennifer, “‘She loved to read in good Books': Literacy and the Indians of Martha's Vineyard, 1643–1725,” History of Education Quarterly 30 (1990): 493–521.Google Scholar

23 Tyler, Lyon G., “Education in Colonial Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly 5, no. 4 (April 1897): 219–23; Wells, Guy Fred, Parish Education in Colonial Virginia (New York: Columbia University, 1923), 70–89; Nelson, , A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690–1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 70–84; and, Barbara Lynn Doggett, “Parish Apprenticeship in Colonial: A Study of Northumberland County, 1680–1695 and 1750–1765” (master thesis, College of William and Mary, 1981).Google Scholar

24 Hunter, William to Rev. John Waring, 16 February 1761, in Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy, 153; Richter, et al., Freeing Religion, 402–3. To judge from Franklin's initial correspondence with the Associates, a schoolmaster would generally receive £10 more than a mistress. In this context, Wager's demand for an increase in pay represents an instance of a woman insisting on equal pay for equal work and achieving it. In effect, she received a salary that was equal to that of her male counterparts in New York and Philadelphia.Google Scholar

25 Hunter, William to Rev. John Waring, 16 February 1761 in Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy, 153.Google Scholar

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27 Rev. Waring, John to Hunter, William, 1 June 1761, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 157; Rev. John Waring to Nicholas, Robert Carter, 1 June 1761, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 159. Besides recommending Nicholas as a trustee, Hunter also named Reverend William Yates as a prospective trustee for the school. Yates succeeded Dawson as both rector of the Bruton Parish and the President of the College of William and Mary.Google Scholar

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29 Robert Carter Nicholas to Rev. John Waring, 17 September 1761, in Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy, 164.Google Scholar

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33 Franklin, Benjamin to Rev. Waring, John, June 27, 1763, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 198–99.Google Scholar

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36 Ibid., 190–91.Google Scholar

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40 [Enclosure,] 27 December 1765, in Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy, 241–42.Google Scholar

41 Nicholas, Robert Carter to Rev. Waring, John, 27 December 1766, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 252.Google Scholar

42 Ibid.Google Scholar

43 Nicholas, Robert Carter to Rev. Waring, John, 1 December 1767, in Horne, Van, Religions Philanthropy, 263; Holton, Woody, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 39–74.Google Scholar

44 Rev. Waring, John to Nicholas, Robert Carter, 20 April 1768, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 266–67. The hard line the Associates took with the Williamsburg trustees in private was not reflected in their public accounts. In Williamsburg, Waring, like any good public relations person, projected a positive image of cooperation between the Associates and the slaveholders in the in Virginia. See Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy, 35.Google Scholar

45 Following the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend duties of 1767 on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea deepen the conflict between Great Britain and her North American subjects. Intend to generate revenue of the Crown; it united the colonists further in their push toward independence. As Pauline Maier pointed out in her study of the American Revolution, the Townshend Acts marked a pivotal moment in the burgeoning crisis and set the stage in Massachusetts for violence and bloodshed. Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776 (New York: Norton, W.W., 1991), 113–57.Google Scholar

46 Nicholas, Robert Carter to Rev. Waring, John, 16 February 1769, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 275–76. Considering the unfolding political crisis of the day as Virginians became more defiant and less differential, Nicholas's efforts to enforce his set of rules made have rubbed some slaveholders the wrong way who, in turn, projected their feeling toward Parliament onto him. For a useful account of these concerns, see Rhys Isaac, “Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the Baptists’ Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765 to 1775,” William and Mary Quarterly 31, no. 3 (July 1974): 345–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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53 [Enclosure: Regulations,] 30 September 1762, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 190.Google Scholar

54 Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), 8 September 1774.Google Scholar

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59 Bryd, William to Earl of Orrery, 5 July 1726 in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 32 (December 1924): 27.Google Scholar

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61 Vogt, Register, 50, 54, 56, 58. To judge from the extant church registers, only few slaveholders noted the names of slave parents. In most cases, the owner's name is only mentioned.Google Scholar

62 Rev. Yates, William and Nicholas, Robert Carter to Rev. John Waring, 30 September 1762, in Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy, 184.Google Scholar

63 [Enclosure: List of Negro Children], 30 September 1762, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 188; [Enclosure: List of Negro Children], November 1765, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 241; and [Enclosure: List of Negro Children], 16 February 1769, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 275; Vogt, 36. For a useful account of Christiana Campbell, see Richter, et al. Enslaving Virginia: Resource Book (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999), 610.Google Scholar

64 [Enclosure: List of Children, Negro], 30 September 1762, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 188; [Enclosure: List of Negro Children], November 1765, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 241; and [Enclosure: List of Negro Children], 16 February 1769, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 275; Vogt, 39, 41, 50. It is important to note that if Gowan (whom by all accounts was literate) did not attend the school, he more than likely learned to read from one of the scholars sent by Vobe.Google Scholar

65 Oast, “Educating Eighteenth-Century Black Student,” 38–47.Google Scholar

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72 Ibid.Google Scholar

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79 Windley, Lathan A., A Profile of Runaway Slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730 through 1787 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), xviii; Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), 240; and, Morgan, Slave Counterpoint. Google Scholar

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82 Rev. Marye, James, Jr. to Rev. Waring, John, 25 September 1764, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 218. To judge from Philip, D. Morgan's study of slavery in the Chesapeake, the rector of the St. Thomas Parish made an accurate report of the number of Africans in his parish. Although the number of Africans imported decreased, most of those who were brought into the colony went to counties in the Piedmont region. See Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, 60–61. For a fuller account, see Morgan, Philip D. and Nicholls, Michael L., “Slaves in Piedmont Virginia, 1720–1790,” William and Mary Quarterly 46 (April 1989): 217–23.Google Scholar

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85 Ibid., 196.Google Scholar

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87 Rev. Boucher, Jonathan to Rev. Waring, John, 9 March 1767, in Horne, Van, Religious Philanthropy, 255.Google Scholar

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89 Hening, William W., ed., The Statutes at Large Being a Collection of all the Law of Virginia, Volume 3 (Richmond, VA: Pleasants, Samuel, Jr., 1819–1823), 453.Google Scholar

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