African Free School
African Free School | |
---|---|
Location | |
Coordinates | 40°43′07″N 73°59′52″W / 40.71861°N 73.99778°W |
Information | |
Type | Charity, segregated |
Patron saint(s) | New York Manumission Society |
Established | 1794 |
Founder | John Jay Alexander Hamilton |
Closed | 1835 |
Head teacher | Charles Andrews (1809-1832) |
Last updated: 30 December 2017 |
The African Free School was a school for children of
History
The school was founded by the New York Manumission Society, an organization that advocated the full abolition of African slavery. In 1785 the group gained passage of a New York state law prohibiting the sale of slaves who were imported into the state. This preceded the national law prohibiting the slave trade, which went into effect in 1808. The New York law also eased restrictions on the manumission of enslaved Africans. The society's members were all white, male, wealthy, and influential.[1] The society was founded by John Jay, a statesman and abolitionist, and included Alexander Hamilton among its members.
Established in 1794, the first school was a
After opening yet another school, with enrollment surpassing a thousand children, a crisis unfolded in the early 1830s. Andrews publicly advocated the idea that American blacks should set up a colony in Africa, as was being done in Liberia by the American Colonization Society. This was one of the period's most controversial racial issues, as by this time most American blacks were native born and their goal was to achieve equal political rights in the United States. Black students boycotted the schools, leading to Andrews' dismissal in 1832. The administration hired black teachers to replace whites in each of the city's African Free Schools. By 1835, when the schools ended their run as privately supported institutions, the African Free School had seven buildings in different neighborhoods, and it had educated thousands of girls and boys. At that time the African Free Schools and their facilities were integrated into the public school system. This was several years after New York freed the last adult slaves under its gradual abolition law.
The state had passed a gradual emancipation law in 1799: it provided that children of enslaved mothers would be born free, but were required to have lengthy periods as indentured servants, to 28 years of age for men and 25 for women, before being legally and socially free. Gradually, existing adult slaves were freed, until the last were freed in 1827.
Notable alumni
- Ira Aldridge (1807–1867), actor and abolitionist activist
- Alexander Crummell (1819–1898), minister and early black nationalist[2]
- Isaiah DeGrasse (1813–1841), minister and first African American alumnus of the University of Delaware
- George T. Downing (1819–1903), caterer and abolitionist
- Henry Highland Garnet (1815–1882), minister and abolitionist
- Jerome B. Peterson (1859–1943), newspaper owner and editor, civil servant, and diplomat[3][4]
- Patrick H. Reason (1816–1898), printmaker, engraver[2]
- Charles Lewis Reason(1818–1893), first African-American college professor, abolitionist
- James McCune Smith (1813–1870), the first African American to earn a medical degree; a physician, writer, and abolitionist.[2]
- Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817–c. 1866), journalist, abolitionist, minister; a cousin of Garnet[5]
- Theodore S. Wright, minister and abolitionist
See also
- New York Manumission Society
- African Free School alumni
- James McCune Smith
- Peter Williams Jr.
- Patrick H. Reason
- Abiel Smith School
- John Teasman
References
- ^ a b "African Free School" Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, New-York Historical Society
- ^ a b c "Read AFS Bios". Examination Days The New York African Free School Collection. New-York Historical Society. Archived from the original on 26 October 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
- FamilySearch.org. January 17, 1871.
- ISSN 0362-4331– via The Times Machine.
- ISBN 978-0028660233.
Further reading
- John L. Rury, "The New York African Free School, 1827-1836: Community Conflict over Community Control of Black Education," Phylon, Vol. 44, No. 3 (1983) pp. 187–197. online
- Rury, John L. (2010). "African Free School". In Hunt, Thomas C.; Carper, James C.; II, Thomas J. Lasley; Raisch, C. Daniel (eds.). Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent. SAGE Publications. pp. 31–33. ISBN 978-1-4522-6573-5.
Sources
- "Examination Days". New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
- "Excerpt from the New York Commercial Advertiser, 1824". Skillman & Kirby Libraries, Lafayette College. Archived from the original on 2007-02-23. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
- "Read AFS Bios". Examination Days The New York African Free School Collection. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
External links
- African Free School at New-York Historical Society
- Finding Aid for African Free School Records, New-York Historical Society
- "New-York African Free School records, 1817-1832". New York Heritage Digital Collections. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 3 March 2018.