LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2005

Research Report

Topic 1: Research Report of Information on Secret Slave Schools

The subject matter to which there was a great interest was in the secret schooling of African slaves.  While reading the African American novels in class the biggest part of the stories which was left out was how they received their education.  Many of the slaves found people outside the plantations, going to church, and even the master’s and their wives would help teach the basics. 

In today’s society while reading about the past there is still the burning question; how did the slaves learn to read and write so well?  The question was never really answered and needed to be further investigated.  There is lots of information dealing with this subject matter.  It was a surprise to see just how much information was available.  Even though the schools were secret, it was wonderful to find as much information as needed on the internet and in books.

We live in a very modern world with everything we need at our fingertips.  It would be very hard to try and imagine life without this luxury, but believe it or not it really did happen.  There was life before technology.  There were schools fighting for the right to allow their students to learn.  They were fighting so hard they had to keep it a secret.  There were many people and places which assisted in this secret and kept it very well and fought for the students to allow them to keep attending school one way or another.

Matilda Taylor was one of the many who decided to teach at a time when teaching to slaves would have cost her dearly.  Matilda remembered all of the kindness given to her by other slaves in her childhood and felt she had owed something back for this great gift.  She started her school in secret around 1850 until 1860, but then her school became known to the rest of Savannah, GA.  Once the school became known to the city the state tried to pass laws forbidding such teaching to the slave children.  It was in 1817 Savannah finally got the best, or at least tried to get the best of Matilda by passing an ordinance forbidding the education of black children by black and white teachers.  Along with this ordinance came a punishment for the teachers.  If a white teacher was caught by the authorities they had to only pay a five hundred dollar fine, but if a black teacher was caught, even of they were free or slave, they had to pay one hundred dollars and could get up to thirty-two lashes with a whip in the middle of the town square. 

This did not stop Matilda Taylor at all. She even had the assistance from others such as Julien Fromatin, James Porter, Mary Woodhouse, Jane Deveaux, and James Sims.  Mr. Porter was educated in a much more structured school and brought theses opportunities to Matilda’s school.  Even though the education was a great benefit to the children they still had to be creative when trying to attend the school.  The students would have to wrap their books up in newspaper, find other routes around the city to get to the school, put their books into baskets and cover them up with chips that the poor of the area used for fuel.  The school was well equipped with hiding places just in case they were raided by the authorities. 

Because there were no real records explaining about the school and what actually occurred, in the 1980’s Sister Charlene Walsh wrote a play to give an idea of just what the life of a student going to the secret school would be like.  Reading this excerpt was sad.  The students had to explain to Matilda how they got to school by making sure no one followed them.  To read how excited each student was to learn and get knowledge so they would understand the world around them without a white person telling them how the world is supposed to be.  There was an advantage to sending the slaves to school even for the owners.  Some of the owners knew and even sent some of the slaves to school.  The benefit was they could take math classes and keep a ledger of all the profits and all the money going in and out of the property.  This was far and few between for the slaves. 

Matilda devoted her life to this service.  There is much more about her work for the church and less for the secret school.  It was the dedication to her students without concern for herself which made her a hallmark of a true heroine (Matilda Taylor).

Another Heroine like Matilda was Lily Ann Granderson.  Lily was born into slavery in Virginia in 1816.  Lilly was of mixed parents.  Her mother became a slave around the age of three after Lily’s grandmother, who was a freeborn woman of Native American descent and died.  Her father was from one of the First Families of Virginia.  This was Lily’s life, very confusing, yet an advantage.

Lily worked the fields growing up and as she grew older she realized there was an opportunity for her to help start a school for the other salves.  Lily took the opportunity to establish a night school for the slaves.  The classes began at about eleven or twelve at night, the slaves would leave the plantation and sneak into a room off the back alley.  Everything was locked up tight so there would be no chance of a raid.  The students used pitch-pine splinters to light up their writing instruments and books to read.  They had to take these precautions because it was the state which deemed it illegal for slaves to receive an education.  The reason why the state decided to make slave education illegal was because the master’s of the plantation had a fear if the slaves could learn how to read and write then they would figure out how to run away and take the other slaves with them.  Lily had done such a great job in teaching the slaves, many of them wrote their own passes and ran to Canada.  Because the school was a secret and the students were running away if Lily did not hear from them she assumed they had made their journey into safety. 

Lily kept her secret school going for about seven years right under the noses of the state and the authorities.  Each of her classes she only took on twelve students at a time to keep it small and not very noticeable.  Once the twelve had learned everything they needed she would graduate them and then take on another twelve.  All in all Lily had taught over hundreds of slaves.  Things were too good to be true and then information about her school was leaked out into the public.  Lily had a fear her prior students were going to be punished for going to school she began trying to protect all of the students who had walked through her door.  Lily was surprised to learn the local authorities could not punish her for teaching the slaves.  The slave code did not allow whites to teach slaves, and free blacks were not allowed to teach slaves, but there was not law prohibiting a slave teaching another slave.  Because of this wonderful turn of events Lily opened a Sabbath school along with her midnight school. 

Lily Ann Granderson was a very impressive woman who left her mark on the rest of the world.  Even after the school she still kept teaching and even became a Deaconess in a Baptist Church.  The last known information about Lily was in 1870 she had opened a bank account at the age of 54 and was still teaching in Natchez and got married and had two children.  It is wonderful to see a struggle turn out with such positive results (Behrend).

A scholar once defined education as “all the ways a culture tried to perpetuate itself from one generation to another” (Engs).  Slave owners often thought slavery was a school which taught in their minds the supposed savage African how to be civilized.  Yes slavery was a school, but not what the slave owners thought it to really be.  It was a school of opportunities to help the slaves learn what was happening to them. 

Thousands of slaves acquired the skills through unintentional or voluntary help from the younger masters and younger children who were attending school.  Literate slaves then passed on their knowledge to the other slaves.  Most of the older slaves just wanted one thing to complete for them before they died, and it was to read the Bible before they died. 

Forms of education were frequently thought to be unorthodox.  One of the ways of education for the slaves was using their African roots.  They were given an education by using folklore or folktales, usually these stories had the involvement of an animal.  One of the best known folktales was Brer Rabbit.  Many have dismissed this book as being a cute and charming tale to keep the children entertained.  Theses stories served a greater purpose than just an amusing tale for children. 

Brer Rabbit was a trickster and a hero.  He is seen as a weaker animal in a forest of stronger and more powerful animals.  If he had ever had a direct confrontation he knew he could not survive.  The larger animals in the forest were not as smart as Brer Rabbit, they were much more clumsy and stupid because they did not know how to work for what they wanted, and they were very greedy too.  Because of these problems with the larger animals the smaller ones could beat them by using their wit and guile by tricking the bigger animals to use their own powerful strength to hurt themselves. 

This story was used by the slaves to teach the younger children the skills of how to deal with a master.  They should never confront whites directly.  It was important not to disabuse the master of the belief whites were stupid for thinking blacks were stupid.  With this knowledge the slave could get away with things usually forbidden by the master and never get caught.  One example was to convince the master you were afraid to work in the dark and you were so scared you did not want to work at night.  Most of the time the master would not make the slave work at night and this allowed the slave to run away at night and attend school to learn more about Brer Rabbit and how to overpower the larger dumber animals with their wit (Engs).

Many times the stories of the schools are told, but there are very rarely the names and what actions they took to help with the struggle and fight to win the right for the education of slaves.  In the 19^th century there were no schools in the south which would allow black children to attend.  There were some people as for an example John Chavis in Raleigh, North Carolina who ran secret night schools.  He was never caught.  Margaret Douglass was caught in Norfolk, VA and was convicted and sent to prison for her actions.

Prudence Crandall, who was a Quaker, opened a school for black girls in Canterbury Connecticut.  There were many attempts by the local whites to burn the building own to the ground.  Because the school began receiving supplies more and more girls began to attend the school.  The authorities decided they could not do anything to the school so they decided to charge the girls with vagrancy.  If the girls were caught they would receive ten lashed with a whip for attending school.  Once word got out to the rest of the community about the treatment of the girls, with the support of the Anti-Slavery Society, the school remained open and Crandall continued to run the school.

Then in 1834, Connecticut passed a law making it illegal to give a free education to black students.  Prudence Crandall refused to obey the law and was immediately arrested and sent to prison.  Crandall was convicted, but she won her appeal.  The white community was so angered by the outcome they attacked the school and threatened the lives of Crandall and her students.  Afraid for the lives of the students Crandall decided she needed to close the school down (Walvin).

These are just two of the many who had suffered the loss of bringing a shining new light to children who had the passion and desire to learn.

This information would be useful with any cultural background.  The idea of an education should not be taken lightly.  Many of our descendants gave their life so we would all have the right to a better life and better knowledge of what is going on in our world and how we can fix the problem if we are not happy.

I had the desire to research an aspect which is never really covered.  We usually hear all of the horrific struggles with just the slave aspect of life, but yet we never really hear about the sacrifices made to provide an education and the cost of the education was paid with the lives of many. 

I learned one thing which was unexpected even the free black teachers would get a fine much deeper and more painful than a white.  They actually still kept the whippings in the public square.  Even when the girls attending school not doing anything but walking in town could be whipped because the white people had nothing else to do.

I enjoyed the explanation of Brer Rabbit.  I had no idea it revolved around the idea of an instructional manual for other slave children to be able to handle their owners.  I always thought it was a children’s story.

Works Cited

Behrend, Justin. "Lily Ann Granderson." Narrative/Biographies. Slavery in America. 02 Dec. 2005 <http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/narratives/bio_lily_ann_granderson.htm>.

Engs, Robert Francis. Slavery in the Civil War. 24 2002. 02 Dec. 2005 <http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm>.

"Matilda Taylor-Educator of Slave Children." Georgia Historical Society. 02 Dec. 2005 <www.georgiahistory.com/matilda1.htm>. 

Walvin, James. The Slave Trade. 3rd ed. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, Ltd., 1998.

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