{{short description|none}} [[File:Black students excluded 1839.gif|thumb| 1839 Illustration in the ''[[American Anti-Slavery Almanac|Anti-Slavery Almanac]]'' of Black students excluded from school, with quote from Reverend Mr. Converse: "If the free colored people were taught to read, it would be an inducement for them to stay in the country. We would offer them no such inducement." ]] '''Anti-literacy laws''' in many [[Slavery in the United States|slave states]] before and during the [[American Civil War]] affected slaves, [[Freedman|freedmen]], and in some cases all people of color.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=Heather Andrea|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TiWSrlpTTTIC|title=Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom|date=2009-11-20|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-0-8078-8897-1|pages=13|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/june/slaves-read-write.htm |title=Illegal to Teach Slaves to Read and Write |work=Harper's Weekly |date=June 21, 1862}}</ref> Some laws arose from concerns that [[Literacy|literate]] slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write."<ref name="banks">{{cite book|last1=Banks|first1=William M.|title=Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life|date=1996|publisher=W. W. Norton|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/blackintellectuals.htm}}</ref> Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist [[David Walker (abolitionist)|David Walker]]'s 1829 publication of ''Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World'', which openly advocated rebellion,<ref>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Finkelman |title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |date=April 6, 2006 |page=445}}</ref> and [[Nat Turner's Rebellion]] of 1831.
The first anti-literacy law was passed by the legislature of the colony of South Carolina in 1740. Enacted in response to the 1739 [[Stono Rebellion]], it prohibited enslaved people from learning to write and restricted their ability to read to prevent an organized [[slave rebellion]]. Southern slave states enacted anti-literacy laws between 1740 and 1834, and the United States is the only country known to have had anti-literacy laws.<ref>{{cite book |author1= Christopher M. Span |author2= Brenda N. Sanya |editor1-last=Rury |editor1-first=John L. |editor2-last=Tamura |editor2-first=Eileen H. |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=402 |chapter=Education and the African Diaspora}}</ref>
==State anti-literacy laws== {{See also|Education during the slave period in the United States}} Between 1740 and 1834, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and Virginia all passed anti-literacy laws.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cornelius |first1=Janet Duitsman |title=When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South |date=1991 |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |location=Columbia, South Carolina}}</ref> South Carolina passed the first law which prohibited teaching slaves to read and write, punishable by a fine of [[Pound sterling|£]]100 and six months in prison, via an amendment to its [[Negro Act of 1740|1740 Negro Act.]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Slave Codes |date=November 20, 2016 |url=https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/slavery-in-the-antebellum-u-s-1820-1840-16/slavery-in-the-u-s-122/slave-codes-653-10159/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170205013548/https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/slavery-in-the-antebellum-u-s-1820-1840-16/slavery-in-the-u-s-122/slave-codes-653-10159/|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 5, 2017|website=Boundless U.S. History|accessdate=February 4, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Span">{{cite journal |last1=Span |first1=Christopher |title=Learning in Spite of Opposition |journal=Counterpoints |date=2005 |volume=31 |pages=26–53 |jstor=42977282 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42977282 |access-date=June 22, 2022}}</ref>
Some slaveowners blamed abolitionists for the supposed need for anti-literacy laws. For example, [[South Carolina]]'s [[James H. Hammond]], an ardent [[pro-slavery]] ideologue, wrote in a letter written in 1845 to the British [[abolitionist]] [[Thomas Clarkson]]: "I can tell you. It was the abolition agitation. If the slave is not allowed to read his bible, the sin rests upon the abolitionists; for they stand prepared to furnish him with a key to it, which would make it, not a book of hope, and love, and peace, but of despair, hatred and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Christian, but a demon. [...] Allow our slaves to read your writings, stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such unspeakable fools?"<ref>{{cite book|author=James Perrin Warren|title=Culture of Eloquence: Oratory and Reform in Antebellum America|publisher=[[Penn State University Press]]|date=1999|pages=118–193}}</ref>
Significant anti-black laws include: * 1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching blacks to read, punished by fine and imprisonment<ref>{{cite book |author1=Kim Tolley |editor1-last=Angulo |editor1-first=A. J. |title=Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-Making in America and Abroad |date=2016 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, Maryland |isbn=978-1-4214-1932-9 |pages=13–33 |chapter=Slavery}}</ref> * 1830, Louisiana, North Carolina: passed laws punishing anyone teaching blacks to read with fines, imprisonment or floggings<ref name="Span"/> * 1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited whites from teaching blacks to read or write, punished by fines and floggings * 1833, Georgia: Prohibited blacks from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching blacks, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law) * 1847, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write<ref name="General Assembly of the State of MO">{{cite web |title=Negroes and Mullattoes |url=https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/MDH/AnActRespectingSlaves,1847.pdf |publisher=Missouri Secretary of State |accessdate=September 13, 2020}}</ref>
Mississippi state law required a white person to serve up to a year in prison as "penalty for teaching a slave to read".<ref name="literacy">{{cite web |title=Literacy and Anti-Literacy Laws |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/literacy-and-anti-literacy-laws |website=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=June 22, 2022}}</ref>
A 19th-century Virginia law specified: "[E]very assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with [[whipping|stripes]]."<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Offences against public policy, Title 54, Chapter 198; Assembling of negroes. Trading by free negroes Section 31 |title=The Code of Virginia|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p1BRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA747|date=1849|publisher=William F. Ritchie|location=Richmond|page=747|accessdate=February 10, 2017}}</ref>
In North Carolina, black people who disobeyed the law were sentenced to whipping while whites received a fine, jail time, or both.<ref>{{cite book |via=North Carolina Digital History |url=http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4384 |chapter=5.9. A Bill to Prevent All Persons from Teaching Slaves to Read or Write, the Use of Figures Excepted (1830) |title=North Carolina in the New Nation |volume=4 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160301194149/http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4384 |archive-date=2016-03-01 }}</ref>
[[African Methodist Episcopal Church|AME]] Bishop [[William Henry Heard]] remembered from his enslaved childhood in Georgia that any slave caught writing "suffered the penalty of having his forefinger cut from his right hand". Other formerly enslaved people had similar memories of disfigurement and severe punishments for reading and writing.<ref name="Span"/>
Arkansas,<ref name="SpanSanya">{{cite book |first1=Christopher M. |last1=Span |first2=Brenda N. |last2=Sanya |chapter=Education and the African Diaspora |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education |editor1-first=John L. |editor1-last=Rury |editor2-first=Eileen H. |editor2-last=Tamura |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/slave-literacy-12577/ |title=Slave Literacy |publisher=[[Encyclopedia of Arkansas]] |accessdate=October 18, 2025}}</ref>{{Contradictory inline |reason=The Smithsonian Art Museum article Literacy as Freedom states, "After the slave revolt led by Nat Turner in 1831, all slave states except Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee passed laws against teaching slaves to read and write.|date=October 2025}} Kentucky,<ref name="SpanSanya"/><ref name="SAAM">{{cite web |url=https://americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Literacy-as-Freedom.pdf |title=Literacy as Freedom |publisher=[[Smithsonian American Art Museum]] |accessdate=October 18, 2025}}</ref> Maryland<ref name="SAAM"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44525153.pdf |title=Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy |first=E. Jennifer |last=Monaghan |author-link=E. Jennifer Monaghan |year=2000 |publisher=[[American Antiquarian Society]] |page=340 |accessdate=October 18, 2025}}</ref> and Tennessee<ref name="SpanSanya"/><ref name="SAAM"/> were the only [[slave state]]s that did not enact a legal prohibition on educating slaves.
It is estimated that only 5% to 10% of enslaved African Americans became literate, to some degree, before the [[American Civil War]].<ref name=SpanSanya/>
Restrictions on the education of black students were not limited to the South.<ref name=SpanSanya/> While teaching blacks in the North was not illegal, many Northern states, counties, and cities barred black students from public schools.<ref name=Anderson>{{cite book |contributor-first=James D. |contributor-last=Anderson |contribution=Commentary | first = Gary | last = Orfield | author-link=Gary Orfield| title =The Walls Around Opportunity| publisher= Princeton University Press| year = 2022| pages = 270–272| url = https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691227412/the-walls-around-opportunity}}</ref> Until 1869, only whites could attend public schools in Indiana and Illinois.<ref name=Anderson/> Ohio excluded black children from public schools until 1849, when it allowed [[Black school|separate schools for black students]].<ref name=Anderson/> Public schools were also almost entirely segregated in Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York.<ref name=Anderson/> Only [[Massachusetts]] had de-segregated public schools before the Civil War (it barred segregation in public schools in 1855).<ref name=SpanSanya/><ref name=Anderson/> An attempt in 1831 to open a college for black students in [[New Haven, Connecticut]] was met with such overwhelming local resistance that the project was almost immediately abandoned (see [[Simeon Jocelyn]]).<ref name=Sayers>{{cite book |first=Edna Edith |last=Sayers |title=The Life and Times of T. H. Gallaudet |publisher=University Press of New England |year=2017 |pages=210–212}}</ref> Private schools that attempted to educate black and white students together, often opened by abolitionists, were destroyed by mobs, as in the case of [[Noyes Academy]] in [[Canaan, New Hampshire]]<ref>{{cite book |title=Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies |editor1-first=James |editor1-last=Campbell |editor2-first=Leslie M. |editor2-last=Harris |editor3-first=Alfred L. |editor3-last=Brophy |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=2019 |pages=189–191}}</ref> and the [[Quaker]] [[Prudence Crandall]]'s [[Canterbury Female Boarding School|Female Boarding School]] in [[Canterbury, Connecticut]].<ref name=Sayers/> After the Civil War, most Northern states legally prohibited segregation in public schools, although it often continued in practice, including through racially gerrymandered boundaries of [[school district]]s, until the Supreme Court in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' found this unconstitutional.<ref name=Anderson/>
{{blockquote|text=Once, finding us all three busily writing, Violet stood for some moments silently watching the mysterious motion of our pens, and then, in a tone of deepest sadness, said: "O! dat be great comfort, Missis. You can write to your friends all 'bout ebery ting, and so hab dem write to you. Our people can't do so. Wheder dey be 'live or dead, we can't neber know{{mdash}}only sometimes we hears dey be dead."<ref name="Beecher Stowe 1853">{{Cite book |first=Harriet |last=Beecher Stowe |title=A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin |location=London |publisher=Sampson Low, Son & Co. |year=1853 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112003184378?urlappend=%3Bseq=389 |access-date=August 25, 2023 |via=HathiTrust | hdl=2027/uiug.30112003184378?urlappend=%3Bseq=389 |language=en}}</ref>|source=''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'', p. 375}}
==Resistance==
[[File:Stephens-reading-proclamation-1863.jpeg|thumb|1863 painting of a man reading the [[Emancipation Proclamation]].]]
Educators and slaves in [[Southern United States|the South]] found ways to both circumvent and challenge the law. [[John Berry Meachum]], for example, moved his school out of [[St. Louis, Missouri]] when that state passed an anti-literacy law in 1847, and re-established it as the [[Floating Freedom School]] on a [[steamship]] on the [[Mississippi River]], which was beyond the reach of Missouri state law.<ref>{{cite news|first=Robert W.|last=Tabscott |title=John Berry Meachum Defied The Law to Educate Blacks |newspaper=St. Louis Beacon |date=August 25, 2009}}</ref> After she was arrested, tried, and served a month in prison for educating free black children in Norfolk, Virginia, [[Margaret Crittendon Douglass|Margaret Crittendon Douglas]] wrote a book on her experiences, which helped draw national attention to the anti-literacy laws.<ref>{{cite book |last=Douglass |first=Margaret |title=Educational Laws of Virginia: The Personal Narrative of Mrs. Margaret Douglass, a Southern Woman Who Was Imprisoned for One Month in the Common Jail of Norfolk |publisher=John P. Jewett and Co. |year=1854}}</ref> [[Frederick Douglass]] taught himself to read while he was enslaved.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Douglass|first=Frederick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ|title=Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Written by himself. [With] Appendix|date=1851|pages=39|language=en}}</ref> A [[Fugitive slave advertisements in the United States|runaway slave ad]] published in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1845 complained, "[Fanny] can read and write, and so forge passes for herself."<ref name="Beecher Stowe 1853"/>{{rp|444}} In Tennessee, "Any slave who forged a pass or certificate was to be whipped with not exceeding thirty-nine lashes; any person giving, or causing to be given ... any other instrument of writing intended to aid the slave in escape from his master was to suffer imprisonment for not less than three nor more than ten years."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Slavery in Tennessee |first=Chase C. |last=Mooney |url=https://archive.org/details/slaveryintenness0000moon |access-date=August 26, 2023 |page=13 | hdl=2027/inu.32000002020263?urlappend=%3Bseq=29 |language=en |location=Bloomington, Indiana |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1957}}</ref>
Despite the risks, literacy was seen by the enslaved as a means of advancement and liberation, and they secretly learned from and taught one another. One historian noted that 20% of the runaway slaves in [[Antebellum South|antebellum]] Kentucky were able to read, and 10% were able to write. Enterprising child slaves would trade items like marbles and oranges to white children in exchange for reading lessons, and adults sometimes learned from other adults, black and white. One enslaved man, [[Lucius Henry Holsey|Lucius Holsey]], acquired a library of five books by selling rags: two spelling books, a dictionary, [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', and the [[Bible]]. With these five books, he painstakingly taught himself to read by memorizing single words.<ref name="Span"/>
[[John Hope Franklin]] says that despite the laws, schools for enslaved Black students existed throughout the South, including in Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. In 1838, Virginia's free black population petitioned the state, as a group, to send their children to school outside of Virginia to bypass its anti-literacy law. They were refused.<ref name="Span"/>
In some cases, slaveholders ignored the laws. They looked the other way when their children played school and taught their slave playmates how to read and write. Some slaveholders saw the economic benefit in having literate slaves who could undertake business transactions and keep accounts. Others believed that slaves should be sufficiently literate to read the Bible.<ref name="banks"/>
In [[Norfolk, Virginia]], the anti-literacy law was not abolished until after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], in 1867, as a result of black residents petitioning the federal government to end it.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/freedom/text5/equalsuffrage.pdf| title=Equal Suffrage. Address from the Colored Citizens of Norfolk, Va., to the People of the United States |year=1865 |via=National Humanities Center}}</ref>
==See also== * ''[[Yumin zhengce]]''
==References== {{reflist}}
[[Category:Literacy in the United States]] [[Category:United States slavery law]] [[Category:Discrimination in the United States]] [[Category:Pre-emancipation African-American history]] [[Category:Anti-black racism in the United States]] [[Category:Culture of the Southern United States]] [[Category:United States education law]] [[Category:History of education in the United States]]