The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
In the evening, Mr. Morrish's adult school for women was held. About
thirty women assembled from different estates--some walking several
miles. Most of them were just beginning to read. They had just begun to
learn something about figures, and it was no small effort to add 4 and 2
together. They were incredibly ignorant about the simplest matters. When
they first came to the school, they could not tell which was their right
arm or their right side, and they had scarcely mastered that secret,
after repeated showing. We were astonished to observe that when Mr. M.
asked them to point to their cheeks, they laid their finger upon their
chins. They were much pleased with the evolutions of a dumb clock, which
Mr. M. exhibited, but none of them could tell the time of day by it.
Such is a specimen of the intelligence of the Antigua negroes. Mr. M.
told us that they were a pretty fair sample of the country negroes
generally. It surely cannot be said that they were uncommonly well
prepared for freedom; yet with all their ignorance, and with the merest
infantile state of intellect, they prove the peaceable subjects of law.
That they have a great desire to learn, is manifest from their coming
such distances, after working in the field all day. The school which
they attend has been established since the abolition of slavery.
The next morning, we visited the day school. It was opened with singing
and prayer. The children knelt and repeated the Lord's Prayer after Mr.
M. They then formed into a line and marched around the room, singing and
keeping the step. A tiny little one, just beginning to walk,
occasionally straggled out of the line. The next child, not a little
displeased with such disorderly movements, repeatedly seized the
straggler by the frock, and pulled her into the ranks; but finally
despaired of reducing her to subordination. When the children had taken
their seats, Mr. M., at our request, asked all those who were free
before August, 1834, to rise. Only one girl arose, and she was in no way
distinguishable from a white child. The first exercise, was an
examination of a passage of scripture. The children were then questioned
on the simple rules of addition and subtraction, and their answers were
prompt and accurate.
DR. NUGENT.
The hour having arrived when we were to visit a neighboring estate, Mr.
M. kindly accompanied us to Lyon's, the estate upon which Dr. Nugent
resides. In respect to general intelligence, scientific acquirements,
and agricultural knowledge, no man in Antigua stands higher than Dr.
Nugent. He has long been speaker of the house of assembly, and is
favorably known in Europe as a geologist and man of science. He is
manager of the estate on which he resides, and proprietor of another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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