Abstract
Even though many white southerners believed that education was essential for the spiritual transformation of enslaved people, they were concerned about the outcomes of programs that provided such education. One of the ideological foundations of slavery was the belief that Africans and African Americans were intellectually and morally inferior and thus required the guidance of white men. An enslaved person’s ability to read and write contradicted this idea, which was one of slavery’s ideological foundations.
A second reason is that if slaves were educated, they would be exposed to concepts of human equality that were prevalent during the American Revolution. Slaveholders in the South were concerned that enslaved people with such ideas would rebel against them. Fearing that their slaves could one day become powerful enough to topple them from power, the white southerners in power decided to pass laws that made it illegal for the enslaved people to receive an education.
Introduction
The antebellum period in the United States saw the emergence of anti-literacy legislation. When new slave codes were developed in the 1830s, education for enslaved people was made illegal to ensure white supremacy and power. This was the start of the tightening of literacy laws.
Anti-literacy laws enacted in many slave states before and during the American Civil War impacted enslaved people, freedmen, and, in some cases, people of color of all backgrounds. Specific laws were enacted in response to concerns that literate enslaved people could forge the necessary documents to free themselves and move to a free state. Many enslaved people who learned to read and write eventually gained freedom through this method. This study’s overarching goal is to comprehensively examine the conditions that contributed to the passage of anti-literacy laws in the southern states. In addition, the study will investigate enslaved people’s ability to learn to read and write despite the legal restrictions.
Summary and Context
Southern plantation owners used anti-literacy laws as an effective strategy to dehumanize and control the enslaved black population during the antebellum period in the United States. These laws have been enacted in states such as Mississippi and Alabama. Anti-literacy legislation grew out of the notorious slave codes, which governed a wide range of activities, including slave interactions with citizens who did not enslave people (Black, 2022). These laws made it illegal for enslaved people to read or write. For example, under Louisiana law, it was illegal for an enslaved person to be a party to a civil suit against a white person or to testify against a white person in a civil or criminal proceeding.
Furthermore, the powerful whites prohibited the enslaved black population from owning property or traveling independently without their masters’ prior written permission. They also made it legal for any freeholder to punish an enslaved person without their master’s permission. This amounted to collective punishment (Black, 2022).
Mississippi’s slave codes allowed for the sale of any black or mixed-race person living in the state who could not prove their legal right to freedom (Black, 2022). Under Alabama’s slave codes, it was punishable by fifteen lashings for the first offense and thirty-nine lashings for each subsequent offense (Smith, 2020). It was illegal for free people of color to interact with negro enslaved people without the master’s written permission.
Anti-literacy legislation was a natural extension of the slave code system, which prohibited enslaved black people from learning to read in any form. These laws were enacted in the early nineteenth century. The widespread belief that Africans lacked intellectual capacity compared to whites aided in criminalizing black people’s pursuit of literacy (Smith, 2020).
Literacy was an indicator of intellectual advancement and, possibly, social mobility in the antebellum South (Smith, 2020). Many white southerners were ignorant and uneducated, so preventing blacks from learning to read was critical to maintaining the myth of white supremacy. Literacy was a sign of intellectual development and, potentially, social mobility in the antebellum South (Smith, 2020). Reading gave enslaved people access to information that could change their lives; plantation owners were concerned about the abolitionist literature flooding the South at the time (Hyres, 2019). Reports of recent slave uprisings and arguments against slavery were particularly concerning.
A driving force behind the proliferation of anti-literacy laws in the South during this period was the desire to prevent low-income whites in the South from learning to read and write. The wealthy white population was terrified that illiterate whites would be able to read and write about the deplorable conditions in which illiterate whites were forced to live if they became literate (Smith, 2020). This fear was fueled by the fact that illiterate whites were forced to live in deplorable conditions (Moreland-Capuia, 2021). Furthermore, oppressed white people could communicate with one another and plot ways to escape or rebel against the oppressors. The wealthy whites were concerned that if illiterate whites improved their literacy levels, they would no longer need the wealthy whites’ guidance because they could make decisions on their own.
Critical Analysis
Despite plantation owners’ efforts to keep black people from learning to read and write, the black community devised several counter-strategies. Enslaved people employed as house servants on the plantation took advantage of their proximity to the plantation owner’s family by participating covertly or indirectly in reading and writing lessons provided by private tutors to the master’s children. These enslaved people took advantage of the fact that they were related to the plantation owner’s family (Black, 2022).
Furthermore, because house servants frequently served as surrogate parents to the master’s children, the master’s children occasionally taught the servants how to read and write in secret. Enslavers sometimes allowed their slaves to learn to read the Bible as part of a more significant effort to civilize a more barbaric species (Black, 2022). This was done with the intention of making black people more like white people.
White plantation owners and pastors wrote slave catechisms to teach a version of Christianity that justified slavery, obedience to one’s master as a sign of righteousness, and the inherent inferiority of black people as descendants of the infamously cursed Ham. This frequently included the recitation of slave catechisms. White plantation owners and pastors wrote slave catechisms.
Less frequently, enslavers and overseers taught reading and writing to specific house servants on more extensive plantations (Black, 2022). This was done so that the enslaved people could help with record-keeping. The majority of the time, enslaved people were forced to learn behind closed doors, away from the watchful eyes of the plantation owner and overseer (Shahid & Brooks-Yip, 2022). It was common practice at the time for house servants to instruct field hands, young adults to instruct elders, and parents to instruct their children.
Free African Americans in the North, where the practice of chattel slavery had been outlawed by the first quarter of the nineteenth century, established educational institutions to eradicate illiteracy among members of the black community. The establishment of literary societies, such as the Theban Literary Society in Pittsburgh, the African American Female Intelligence Society in Boston, and the African Clarkson Society in New York, was one of the tactics that proved to be the most successful (Black, 2022). Near the end of the antebellum period, literary societies played an essential role as forums for debate, strategic planning, and the development of propaganda that advocated for the abolition of southern slavery. Quite frequently, local communities and organizations like the Quakers and the American Anti-Slavery Society provided both political and financial support to these efforts.
Conclusion
Due to laws discouraging literacy, people of African descent were not permitted to read, write, or even own a book. Before these laws were passed, blacks could receive an education from whites. After the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831, however, these literacy efforts were viewed with increased suspicion because of the fear that literate Blacks could encourage enslaved people to rebel against their enslavers.
Between 1740 and 1834, the southern slave states were primarily responsible for enacting anti-literacy laws. These laws made it illegal for anyone to instruct people of color on how to read or write, whether they were enslaved or free. The enslavers were terrified that if their slaves learned to read and write, they might be able to deceive the authorities and trick their way out of servitude. Every region of the country saw flourishing educational development except for the South.
Even though laws in the books prevented black people from reading, they still managed to get an education. The black community continued to receive education from churches in the form of written materials; this gave them a way to comprehend the ethical and spiritual teachings in the Bible. Even the black children for whom they were responsible could provide the majority of their own education.
References
Black, D. W. (2022). Democracy, freedom, and the right to education. Northwestern University Law Review, 116(4), 1031-1098.
Hyres, A. (2019). Racial taxation: Schools, segregation, and taxpayer citizenship, 1869-1973. History of Education, 49(5), 733–735.
Moreland-Capuia, A. (2021). Education, fear, and trauma. The Trauma of Racism, 79–89.
Shahid, R., & Brooks-Yip, M. A. (2022). Literacy as a civil right in the past, present and future: Disciplinary Literacies as an act of advocacy, liberation, and community-building. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 37(2).
Smith, S. (2020) Windows into the history & philosophy of education. Kendall Hunt.