Enslaved Africans and their descendants were often excluded from colonial schools. In New England, just 5% of the population was enslaved (though that number grew closer to urban centers). That figure grew dramatically the farther south one went, with an estimated 50% of Virginia’s population being enslaved by the 1750s and up to 60% in South Carolina.
By the 18th century, some colonists had already begun to agitate against the practice of slavery. The matter of educating enslaved people was especially contentious, as some colonists were anxious about organized uprisings of literate slaves, especially in the South. However, some slave owners maintained that their Christian faith urged them to teach slaves (though, conveniently enough, did not often push for freeing them). Yet in Virginia, just 5% of enslaved people are estimated to have been literate by the 1770s. Other places went so far as to ban slave education, as when South Carolina passed a 1740 law banning literacy instruction for enslaved people. Few such laws existed in the northern colonies, where religious and social progressives like Quakers sometimes established schools and tutoring programs for free and enslaved Black Americans.
Read Related Also: ‘White boy f— up a n—–‘: Man armed with knife with knuckles kills Black man outside gas station in unprovoked hate crime: Feds
Some schools specifically established for Black children openly supported the notion of slavery, like the Bray School in Williamsburg, Virginia. Established in 1760, it was unique in that it offered structured education for Black Americans, but its Anglican-infused curriculum still attempted to justify the system of slavery that kept so many down.
