A Threat to a Slave-Owner

4/20/2012

 A Threat to a Slave-Owner

In English class we have been reading the book, Kindred, by Octavia Butler, which was published in 1979.  The story is about a black woman, Dana, who is married to a white man, Kevin, in the modern day.  Somehow Dana keeps traveling back and forth through a time when slavery on blacks existed.  Dana become friends with a slave-owner’s son, Rufus, and becomes a threat to the slave-owner, Tom Weylin.   Tom believes that Dana is trouble for many reasons.  Dana told Tom that she is from New York, which is a free state.  He was unhappy to hear this because that meant she was an independent woman.  The way Dana speaks is a problem for him because he sees she is very educated.  When Tom discovered that Dana could read and write he began to fear that she would teach his slaves and one day they would learn to free themselves.  Tom also has a problem with Dana because his son Rufus has taken a liking to her.  Tom is afraid that this will affect his son in the future when he himself owns the slaves.  He believes that Rufus will feel some kind of compassion for blacks because he is friends with a black woman.

04/18/2012       

Slaves and Education

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-civilwar/4439

                Today I read an interesting article about the education of slaves in the 18^th Century.  Or should I say the NON-education of slaves?  In the southern states of America the white people had a great concern about slaves learning and it becoming a problem for the slave system.  They believed if the slaves had become intelligent, then they would be able to somehow free themselves.  In order to keep this from happening, no black children could attend any free schools.  There was a law passed that stated that slaves were forbidden to read or write.

            Another way that the whites prevented slaves from learning was to punish others who would try teaching them.  Teaching the slaves was considered a crime.  Even though this law existed there were still some courageous teachers that took the chance and tried educating the slaves secretly.  One brave teacher, Margaret Douglass, was even convicted and imprisoned when she was caught teaching black children in Norfolk Virginia.  This is how serious it really was.

            In the northern states of America the slavery situation was not as bad.  The first African Free School was opened in NYC in 1787.  It started with 40 students in a single room and continued to expand.  In 1824 this school and 6 others began receiving public funding.  Other schools began opening up for the slaves’ children.  Some schools would get threatened by the white people to be burned down.  They even went as far as to pass laws that stated that the children would receive 10 lashes of the whip if they attended the schools. 

            There were many strong advocates for black education who fought for these laws to be put to rest.  They believed that everyone had an equal right to be educated.  Without knowledge there is no future!