Inside a 1760 school for black children lies a complicated history of slavery and resilience

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) – The Virginia Museum is nearly finished with renovations the oldest surviving school within the country for black childrenwhere a whole lot of students, most of them enslaved, learned to read a curriculum justifying slavery.

The Colonial Williamsburg Museum also identified greater than 80 children who lined the pine benches within the 1760s.

These include 5-year-old Aberdeen, who was enslaved by a saddle and harness maker. Bristol and George, ages 7 and 8, were owned by a doctor. Phoebe, age 3, was owned by local taverns.

Another student, Isaac Bee, later emancipated himself. In newspaper advertisements calling for his capture, his slave warned that Bee “can read.”

The museum is scheduled to dedicate the Williamsburg Bray School on Friday and plans to open it to the general public within the spring. Colonial Williamsburg tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through translators and a whole lot of restored buildings.

The Cape Cod-style house was in-built 1760 and still includes much of the unique wood and brick. It will anchor a complicated story about race and education, but additionally resistance to the American Revolution.

The school rationalized slavery through religion and encouraged children to simply accept their fate as God’s plan. Yet literacy also gave them greater freedom of motion. Students then shared what they learned with relations and other enslaved people.

“We are not shy about the fact that this was a pro-slavery school,” said Maureen Elgersman Lee, director of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab, a partnership between the university and museum.

However, she said that within the twenty first century, school takes on a different meaning.

“It’s a story of resilience and resistance,” Lee said. “And I put the resilience of Bray School on a continuum that takes us to today.”

To emphasize this point, the lab has searched for descendants of students with some success.

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They include Janice Canaday, 67, who can also be the museum’s African-American community engagement manager. Her lineage goes back to the disciples of Elisha and Mary Jones.

“It grounds you,” said Canaday, who grew up feeling little connection to history. “That is where your power lies. And that’s what gives you strength, knowing what your family has been through.”

The Bray School was established in Williamsburg and other colonial towns by suggestion founding father Benjamin Franklin. He was a member of a London-based Anglican charity named after Thomas Bray, an English clergyman and philanthropist.

Bray School was unique for its time. Although Virginia waited until the nineteenth century to enact anti-literacy laws, white leaders in much of colonial America prohibited the education of enslaved people for fear that literacy would encourage them to hunt freedom.

White school teacher in Williamsburg, a widow named Ann Wagertaught roughly 300 to 400 students aged 3 to 10. The school closed together with her death in 1774.

The school constructing became a private home before being incorporated into the growing William & Mary campus. The constructing was relocated and expanded for various purposes, including student housing.

Historians identified this structure in 2020 using the scientific method of examining tree rings within the wood. Last yr it was transported to Colonial Williamsburg, which incorporates parts of the unique city.

The museum and university focused on restoring the school constructing, examining the curriculum and finding descendants of former students.

The lab was capable of link some people to the Jones and Ashby families, two free black households where students on the school lived, said Elizabeth Drembus, the lab’s genealogist.

However, these efforts faced significant challenges: most enslaved people were stripped of their identities and separated from their families, so limited records exist. And only three-year school plans survived.

Drembus talks to the region’s inhabitants about their family histories and backward work. He also examines 18th-century property records, tax documents and slave diaries.

“When you’re talking about studying people who were formerly enslaved, the records were kept very differently because they weren’t considered people,” Drembus said.

Reviewing the curriculum just got easier. The English charity cataloged the books it sent to colleges, said Katie McKinney, assistant curator of maps and prints on the museum.

The materials include a small spelling primer, a copy of which was in Germany, starting with the alphabet and progressing to syllables, e.g. “Beg leg meg peg.”

The students also received a more refined spelling book, certain in sheepskin, in addition to the Book of Common Prayer and other Christian texts.

In the meantime, the school constructing was mostly restored. About 75% of the unique floor has been preserved, allowing visitors to walk where the children and teacher once set foot.

Canaday, whose family roots return to 2 Bray school students, wondered during a recent visit whether any of the children “felt safe here, felt loved.”

Canaday noted that Teacher Wager was the mother of not less than two children.

“Did some of her motherhood translate into what she showed these children?” Canaday said. “There are times once we forget to follow the principles and humanity takes over. I’m wondering how persistently this has happened in these spaces.