[Footnote 1:  Bishop Turner says that when he started to learn there were among his acquaintances three colored men who had learned to read the Bible in Charleston.  See Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 806.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 806.]

Often favorite slaves were taught by white children.  By hiding books in a hayloft and getting the white children to teach him, James W. Sumler of Norfolk, Virginia, obtained an elementary education.[1] While serving as overseer for his Scotch-Irish master, Daniel J. Lockhart of the same commonwealth learned to read under the instruction of his owner’s boys.  They were not interrupted in their benevolent work.[2] In the same manner John Warren, a slave of Tennessee, acquired a knowledge of the common branches.[3] John Baptist Snowden of Maryland was secretly instructed by his owner’s children.[4] Uncle Cephas, a slave of Parson Winslow of Tennessee, reported that the white children taught him on the sly when they came to see Dinah, who was a very good cook.  He was never without books during his stay with his master.[5] One of the Grimke Sisters taught her little maid to read while brushing her young mistress’s locks.[6] Robert Harlan, who was brought up in the family of Honorable J.M.  Harlan, acquired the fundamentals of the common branches from Harlan’s older sons.[7] The young mistress of Mrs. Ann Woodson of Virginia instructed her until she could read in the first reader.[8] Abdy observed in 1834 that slaves of Kentucky had been thus taught to read.  He believed that they were about as well off as they would have been, had they been free.[9] Giving her experiences on a Mississippi plantation, Susan Dabney Smedes stated that the white children delighted in teaching the house servants.  One night she was formally invited with the master, mistress, governess, and guests by a twelve-year-old school mistress to hear her dozen pupils recite poetry.  One of the guests was quite astonished to see his servant recite a piece of poetry which he had learned for this occasion.[10] Confining his operations to the kitchen, another such teacher of this plantation was unusually successful in instructing the adult male slaves.  Five of these Negroes experienced such enlightenment that they became preachers.[11]

[Footnote 1:  Drew, Refugee, p. 97.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 45.]

[Footnote 3:  Ibid., p. 185.]

[Footnote 4:  Snowden, Autobiography, p. 23.]

[Footnote 5:  Albert, The House of Bondage, p. 125.]

[Footnote 6:  Birney, The Grimke Sisters, p. 11.]

[Footnote 7:  Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 613.]

[Footnote 8:  This fact is stated in one of her letters.]

[Footnote 9:  Abdy, Journal of a Residence and Tour in U.S.A., 1833-1834.  P. 346.]

[Footnote 10:  Smedes, A Southern Planter, pp. 79-80.]

[Footnote 11:  Ibid., p. 80.]