In view of these numerous strivings we are compelled to inquire exactly what these educators accomplished.  Although it is impossible to measure the results of their early efforts, various records of the eighteenth century prove that there was lessening objection to the instruction of slaves and practically none to the enlightenment of freedmen.  Negroes in considerable numbers were becoming well grounded in the rudiments of education.  They had reached the point of constituting the majority of the mechanics in slaveholding communities; they were qualified to be tradesmen, trustworthy helpers, and attendants of distinguished men, and a few were serving as clerks, overseers, and managers.[1] Many who were favorably circumstanced learned more than mere reading and writing.  In exceptional cases, some were employed not only as teachers and preachers to their people, but as instructors of the white race.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Georgia and South Carolina had to pass laws to prevent Negroes from following these occupations for fear that they might thereby become too well informed.  See Brevard, Digest of Public Statute Laws of S.C., vol. ii., p. 243; and Marbury and Crawford, Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia, p. 438.]

[Footnote 2:  Bassett, Slavery in North Carolina, p. 74; manuscripts relating to the condition of the colored people of North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee now in the hands of Dr. J.E.  Moorland.]

A more accurate estimate of how far the enlightenment of the Negroes had progressed before the close of the eighteenth century, is better obtained from the reports of teachers and missionaries who were working among them.  Appealing to the Negroes of Virginia about 1755, Benjamin Fawcett addressed them as intelligent people, commanding them to read and study the Bible for themselves and consider “how the Papists do all they can to hide it from their fellowmen.”  “Be particularly thankful,” said he, “for the Ministers of Christ around you, who are faithfully laboring to teach the truth as it is in Jesus."[1] Rev. Mr. Davies, then a member of the Society for Promoting the Gospel among the Poor, reported that there were multitudes of Negroes in different parts of Virginia who were “willingly, eagerly desirous to be instructed and embraced every opportunity of acquainting themselves with the Doctrine of the Gospel,” and though they had generally very little help to learn to read, yet to his surprise many of them by dint of application had made such progress that they could “intelligently read a plain author and especially their Bible.”  Pity it was, he thought, that any of them should be without necessary books.  Negroes were wont to come to him with such moving accounts of their needs in this respect that he could not help supplying them.[2] On Saturday evenings and Sundays his home was crowded with numbers of those “whose very Countenances still carry the air of importunate Petitioners” for the same favors with those who came before them.  Complaining that his stock was exhausted, and that he had to turn away many disappointed, he urged his friends to send him other suitable books, for nothing else, thought he, could be a greater inducement to their industry to learn to read.