of America to endeavor to educate and instruct their heathen slaves in the Christian faith, and mentioned the fact that this work had been “earnestly recommended by his Majesty’s instructions.”  To encourage the movement it was proposed that “every Indian, Negro and Mulatto child that should be baptized and afterward brought into the Church and publicly catechized by the minister, and should before the fourteenth year of his or her age give a distinct account of the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments,” should receive from the minister a certificate which would entitle such children to exemption from paying all levies until the age of eighteen.[4] The neighboring colony of North Carolina also was moved by these efforts despite some difficulties which the missionaries there encountered.[5]

[Footnote 1:  Meade, Old Families and Churches in Virginia, p. 264; Plumer, Thoughts on the Religious Instruction of Negroes, pp. 11-12.]

[Footnote 2:  Monroe, Cyclopaedia of Education, vol. iv., p. 406.]

[Footnote 3:  Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, in J.H.U.  Studies, Series xxxi., No. 3, p. 107.]

[Footnote 4:  Meade, Old Families and Churches in Virginia, pp. 264-65.]

[Footnote 5:  Ashe, History of North Carolina, pp. 389-90.]

This favorable attitude toward the people of color, and the successful work among them, caused the opponents of this policy to speak out boldly against their enlightenment.  Some asserted that the Negroes were such stubborn creatures that there could be no such close dealing with them, and that even when converted they became saucier than pious.  Others maintained that these bondmen were so ignorant and indocile, so far gone in their wickedness, so confirmed in their habit of evil ways, that it was vain to undertake to teach them such knowledge.  Less cruel slaveholders had thought of getting out of the difficulty by the excuse that the instruction of Negroes required more time and labor than masters could well spare from their business.  Then there were others who frankly confessed that, being an ignorant and unlearned people themselves, they could not teach others.[1]

[Footnote 1:  For a summary of this argument see Meade, Four Sermons of Reverend Bacon, pp. 81-97; also, A Letter to an American Planter from his Friend in London, p. 5.]

Seeing that many leading planters had been influenced by those opposed to the enlightenment of Negroes, Bishop Gibson of London issued an appeal in behalf of the bondmen, addressing the clergy and laymen in two letters[1] published in London in 1727.  In one he exhorted masters and mistresses of families to encourage and promote the instruction of their Negroes in the Christian faith.  In the other epistle he directed the missionaries of the colonies to give to this work whatever assistance they could.  Writing to the slaveholders, he took the position that considering the greatness of the profit from the labor of the slaves it might be hoped that all masters, those especially who were possessed of considerable numbers, should be at some expense in providing for the instruction of those poor creatures.  He thought that others who did not own so many should share in the expense of maintaining for them a common teacher.