Slavery and the University by Harris Leslie; Campbell James; Brophy Alfred

Author:Harris, Leslie; Campbell, James; Brophy, Alfred
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2019-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Towers of Intellect

The Struggle for African American Higher Education in Antebellum New England

Kabria Baumgartner

James Easton embodied “mechanical genius and mental ability,” recalled abolitionist and historian William Cooper Nell.1 Born to free black parents in eastern Massachusetts in 1754, Easton served in the Revolutionary War and then moved to North Bridgewater, where he operated an iron factory. In conjunction with his factory, he established a manual labor school in the early 1820s to equip African American male youth with a mechanical trade as well as literary skills. Approximately twenty youth attended yearly, including Easton’s own son, Hosea, until the school closed in the late 1820s due to racial threats.2 Recalling this incident years later, Hosea, an abolitionist in his own right, declared that “prejudice is destructive to life,” particularly black life.3 Like his father, the younger Easton espoused black intellectual vitality and improvement through education. In his writings, he affirmed black civil rights and citizenship in the United States and pushed for the emancipation of slaves; for him, education was crucial, a “sign of life” for African Americans in the face of racial animus.4

The story of antislavery leaders who championed black education dates back to at least the eighteenth century, but the radical abolition movement in antebellum New England ushered in a revolutionary platform that called for the immediate, uncompensated emancipation of slaves. African American and white abolitionists articulated a politics of elevation that linked black self-improvement, primarily through education, with racial advancement and equality.5 Given these twin goals, African American abolitionists sought to establish institutions of higher education, from seminaries to colleges, to serve black communities. They believed that higher education charted a path to empowerment. And white abolitionists concurred and joined forces with them. Over a ten-year period, from 1830 to 1840, these radical abolitionists tried three times to establish educational institutions in New England: first, a manual labor college for African American men in New Haven, Connecticut; second, a seminary for young African American women in Canterbury, Connecticut; and third, a coeducational and interracial academy in Canaan, New Hampshire. Though each institution held a different function and served a diverse group of students, together they represented what I call “towers of intellect,” a distinct abolitionist vision of higher education that celebrated the black desire, pursuit, and embodiment of knowledge as well as the fight for a multiracial democracy. These institutions, however, were short-lived. They all shared the same fate: destruction.

Historians have debated why a black college, an all-girls black seminary, and an interracial and coeducational academy became targets of white antagonism and violence: was it the fear of labor competition; racial prejudice; abolitionist agitation; resentment of black elevation; or some combination thereof ?6 This essay reorients the debate to focus on the initiative of and cooperation between African American and white abolitionists who fought for black educational opportunity in the New England region. In doing so, this essay reveals how radical abolitionists turned a local issue, higher education, into a significant regional issue centered on combating racial prejudice and slavery in the United States.

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