Content uploaded by Kim Tolley
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Kim Tolley on Oct 05, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
!
Slavery and the Origin of Georgia's 1829 Anti-Literacy Act
Kim Tolley
Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That if any slave, negro, or free person of
colour, or any white person, shall teach any other slave, negro, or free person of
colour, to read or write either written or printed characters, the said free person of
colour or slave shall be punished by fine and whipping, or fine or whipping at the
discretion of the court; and if a white person so offending, he, she, or they shall be
punished with fine, not exceeding five hundred dollars, and imprisonment in the
common jail at the discretion of the court before whom said offender is tried.
Assented to, December 22, 1829
George R. Gilmer, Governor1
In the twenty-first century, Americans often equate literacy with personal
empowerment, economic opportunity, and political freedom. Nevertheless, governments
have not always promoted literacy with these outcomes in mind. As Robert Arnove and
Harvey Graff have suggested, governments have often sought to promote literacy as a
means of advancing their own political agendas and ideologies. In the past, particular
triggering events—such as the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, the 1861
abolition of serfdom in Russia, or the Cuban Revolution of 1959—have motivated
political literacy campaigns. Moreover, as E. Jennifer Monaghan has noted, some
triggering events in the past have instigated campaigns against literacy.2
Nowhere is the role of state governments in suppressing knowledge more evident
than in the enactment of anti-literacy laws in the antebellum South. Historian Robert
Proctor has identified three types of ignorance: 1) as native state (a knowledge vacuum or
primitive state to be overcome); 2) as lost realm (knowledge forgotten, overlooked, or
relinquished through selective choice); and 3) as active construct (ignorance as a
deliberately engineered and strategic ploy.) The antebellum anti-literacy laws fall into the
third category. Through these laws, which prohibited the teaching of slaves to read and
write, governments deliberately fostered the structural production of ignorance.3
Of the 11 states that eventually joined the Confederacy, 7 passed such legislation
before the Civil War, as shown below in Table 1. Historians agree that the legal
prohibitions against writing aimed to prevent slaves from forging passes, running away,
and communicating with each other. The laws against reading reinforced the suppression
of communication among slaves and between slaves and freemen and also prevented
slaves from access to anti-slavery literature.4 Nevertheless, there has been virtually no
discussion among scholars about why some southern states passed anti-literacy laws and
others did not. For more than half a century, historians have simply followed in the
footsteps of twentieth-century historian Henry W. Farnam, who reported, "a good many
States thought to protect themselves against rebellion and conspiracy by keeping the
Negroes in ignorance, and laws intended to prevent their instruction are found in about
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
half of the southern states." In fact, as Peter Kolchin has pointed out, only four states
maintained laws from the 1830s to the Civil War totally prohibiting teaching slaves to
read and write. Apart from Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, other states enforced
such laws for shorter periods or banned the teaching of assembled slaves rather than
individuals.5
Table 1: Anti-Literacy Legislation, 1740-1834
States of the
Confederacy
Year Anti-Literacy
Law Enacted
Year(s) Anti-Literacy
Law Revised
South Carolina
1740
1800; 1834
Georgia
1770
1829
North Carolina
1830
1835
Louisiana
1830
–
Virginia
1819
1830
Alabama
1831
1833
Arkansas
–
–
Tennessee
–
–
Mississippi
1823
1831
Texas
–
–
Florida
–
–
Sources: David J. McCord, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina; Edited under Authority
of the Legislature (Columbia, S.C.: A. S. Johnston, 1840), 364-65; 460; South Carolina, Acts and
Regulations of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina … December, 1834
(Columbia, S. C.: E. F. Branthwaite, 1831 [sic]), 13-14; John D. Cushing, ed., The Earliest
Printed Laws of the Province of Georgia, 1755-1770, vol. 2 (Wilmington, Del: Michael Glazier,
1978), 31; Georgia, Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia … in November and
December, 1829 (Milledgeville: Camak & Ragland, 1830), 168; Alabama, Acts Passed at the
State of Alabama … One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-One (Tuscaloosa: Wiley, M'Guire
& Henry, 1832), 16; Louisiana, Acts Passed at the Second Session of the Ninth Legislature of the
State of Louisiana (Donaldsonville: U. W. Huby, 1830), 96. Mississippi, Laws of the State of
Mississippi, Passed at the Fourteenth Session of the General Assembly (Jackson: Peter Isler,
1830), 86-7; North Carolina, Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina,
at the Session of 1830-31 (Raleigh: Lawrence & Lemay, 1831), 11; Virginia, Acts Passed at a
General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia … in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand
Eight Hundred and Thirty (Richmond: Thomas Ritchie, 1831), 107-8; Cornelius, Janet Duitsman,
When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991).
These statistics raise a number of questions. If Southerners believed anti-literacy
laws prevented insurrection and conspiracy, why did not every slave slate pass such
laws? What prompted some states to pass such laws, while others did not? What can we
learn by investigating the triggering events that prompted the passage of anti-literacy
laws in a state like Georgia?
The timing of the 1829 anti-literacy laws in Georgia presents an interesting
puzzle. Given the public-safety benefits a slave-holding society could reap from
suppressing literacy among its slave population, it is surprising that although Georgia
passed legislation during the late colonial period penalizing anyone teaching a slave to
write, the state did not prohibit the teaching of reading until 1829. Some scholars have
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
concluded that southern state legislatures strengthened existing anti-literacy laws in
response to Nat Turner's rebellion, an insurrection that took place in Southampton
County, Virginia. As one historian put it, "after Nat Turner's insurrection, in all slave
states except Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas, it was against the law to
teach a slave to read or write."6 However, Turner's rebellion, which took place in August
of 1831, could not have been the triggering event for Georgia's anti-literacy legislation,
which went into effect more than a year and a half earlier. Other scholars have identified
the circulation of David Walker’s abolitionist Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the
World, published in the fall of 1829, as an important triggering event. For example,
Monaghan has argued that although writing had always been feared by slaveowners as a
dangerous skill slaves could use to forge passes and communicate with each other,
Protestant Christians generally had sanctioned reading because they believed that every
converted soul should be able to read the Bible. Monaghan claims this changed with the
rise of the abolition movement in the North and the appearance of Walker's Appeal in the
South, an 88-page booklet that condemned slavery and urged slaves to rise up against
oppression. In response, slaveholders came to characterize reading as potentially
seditious. This is a compelling argument, but as this chapter shows, Georgia’s State
Assembly passed its anti-literacy legislation several weeks before Walker’s tract
appeared in the state.7
This chapter investigates the triggering event that led the Georgia legislature to
pass new anti-literacy legislation in the fall of 1829. Using state records, newspaper
accounts, and the journals of Susan Nye Hutchison and James Stuart, this study explores
the social context for that legislation and analyzes some of the contradictory perspectives
that preceded its passage. It all began with a series of fires in Augusta.
The 1829 Fires in Augusta
Every community experienced one or more fires a year during the early national
period. The practice of lighting candles and cooking fires in wooden structures made the
outbreak of fire inevitable. Southerners were well aware of the ongoing danger;
newspapers commonly advertised the sale of fire insurance.8
Fire was a fairly common occurrence for the residents of Augusta, Georgia in the
1820s. At the time, Augusta was an important financial and trade center located on the
Savannah River, and the state's cotton exchange, banks, and merchant houses lined its
broad streets. In 1827 Susan Nye Hutchison, a married northern woman who lived in the
town, recorded three outbreaks of fire in her journal. In May, the house of a neighbor
burned down and on a separate occasion, town citizens extinguished a fire near the
counting room where her husband worked. In July, a fire consumed a well-known local
tavern. Local newspapers concluded that the tavern fire was probably caused by
negligence. In 1828, Hutchison reported another outbreak of fire. In none of these
instances did the authorities suspect arson.9
But in 1829, the number of fires in Augusta increased exponentially. Hutchison
described 13 separate incidents that year. In February, fires broke out two days in a row.
On the 22nd, she wrote, “I heard the cry of fire and soon afterward a whole square was in
flames … for a while flashes of fire passed over our roof but at length the wind turned.”
According to the Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser, more than 30 buildings
went up in flames.10
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
Chart 1: Thirteen Fires Reported in Augusta, Georgia, 1829
Source: Journals of Susan Davis Nye Hutchison, January 3, 1829 to January 2, 1830. Southern
Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Augusta residents probably would have interpreted the February fires as the result
of commonplace carelessness, but for the fact that the authorities discovered evidence of
arson. According to the Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser, some individuals
found "some fodder, paper, cotton, &c. … placed against a pile of small pieces of
lightwood, under a shed" and concluded this was an aborted attempt to burn down some
buildings on the corner of Reynolds and Macintosh Streets.11 The authorities urged
citizens to take “such measures as circumstances may suggest, for the protection of their
lives and property and the discovery of the inhuman wretches who are prowling about
them.” By early March, the newspaper reported that a Volunteer City Guard had been
created to patrol the town, numbering “nearly three hundred of our most respectable
citizens.”12
Fear escalated to panic in April, when 6 separate fires erupted across the town. On
April 3, Hutchison reported, “Today a most awful conflagration occurred … at first a
dark smoke arose but soon the blaze burst out and rising toward heaven swelled and
spread till all the southeastern part of the city was one wide conflagration—It continued
till near sunset destroying all in its reach except two or three lonely habitations, from 400
to 600 habitations are supposed to have been consumed besides a vast amount of other
property.” According to the newspaper, this fire raged for about five hours, destroying
"half a million dollars" worth of property, an enormous sum at the time. Fortunately, no
lives were lost. Three days later, Hutchison wrote, “Another alarm of fire—It seems that
some incendiary is determined to effect our destruction—the whole town is a scene of
alarm.” The newspaper proclaimed the fires were the premeditated work of a group of
arsonists: "[There] can be no doubt, that we have among us…desperate incendiaries, who
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
January
February
March
Apri l
May
June
July
Augu st
September
October
November
December
Months
Recorded Fires
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
contemplate the entire destruction of the City.” On April 7, Hutchison noted “Great fear
begins to be prevalent that the negroes are about to rise." The Augusta Chronicle and
Georgia Advertiser exhorted residents to be vigilant: “Let the most rigid police be
instituted – let the guards be doubled – let every citizen be on the alert, and watch with a
wary eye the movements of strange and suspected individuals.” Hutchison's journal
entries for the month of April reflected the level of panic in town, as illustrated in the tag
cloud below.13
Figure 1. Tag Cloud Displaying 41 Words Most Often Appearing in Susan Nye
Hutchison Journal Entries, 3—23 April, 1829, with Frequencies
alarm (6)
arms (2) arsenal (1) Augusta (2) awful (1) brand (1)
breach (19) conflagration (2) consumed (2) continued (2) deep (2)
evening (2) except (1) family (1)fire (8) full (1) given (1) god (1) gun (1)
habitations (2) happen (1) holy (2) house (4) incendiary (2) jour (1)
learned (1) morning (1) mow (1) negroes (1) nerves (1) occur (2) packed (1)
rise (2) Sabbath (2) southeastern (1) spread (1) street (2)
today (3) town (2) unstrung (1) wide (1)
Source: Susan Nye Hutchison Journal, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North
Carolina Press. The Tag cloud was constructed using freeware available at http://tagcrowd.com, accessed 2
August, 2010. Note: Common English words, names, and titles such as “Mr.” or “Miss” are not included.
In response to the cluster of fires in April, 1829, Hutchison's husband and other
white males in Augusta began to arm themselves. On April 9, town residents found “a
brand of fire thrown in a hay mow,” confirming suspicions of arson. On the 19th,
Hutchison reported another fire alarm and reported, “Mr. H busy in loading his gun and
pistols in expectation of an alarm of insurrection." By late April, the military occupied
the town. “Today the street[s] are full of armed men,” she wrote. “500 stands of arms
came from the arsenal and all capable of doing military duty are to be prepared for the
evil which I trust in God may never happen—Col. Cumming is Commandant.”14
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
The authorities imposed martial law in the city because of a deep-seated fear of
insurrection and massacre. Fears of a slave uprising were often associated with arson in
the South. News of the bloody Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), which had erupted in
1791 when slaves, armed with machetes and pruning hooks, torched plantation buildings
in and around the French colony of St. Domingue and hacked slave owners to death in
their beds, haunted southerners for decades afterward. Thwarted slave revolts in Virginia
in 1800 and 1805 raised fears that a slave revolution on the same scale could occur in the
United States. Reports of a slave uprising in New Orleans Territory in 1811, in which
scores of slaves marched from the German Coast to the city of New Orleans, burning
several plantation houses, sugarhouses, and crop fields, reinforced these fears.15
When the Englishman Adam Hodgson traveled through Charleston, South
Carolina in 1820, he reported that the town's residents were so fearful of a slave uprising
that "a person is stationed every night on the steeple of one of the churches to watch and
give the alarm in case of fire, as the inhabitants are never free from the apprehension of
an insurrection of the slaves in the confusion of a premeditated or accidental
conflagration.” Anxiety in Charleston flared to panic with the arrest of Denmark Vesey in
1822. Vesey, a freed man, purportedly developed an elaborate plan for a massive slave
revolt involving thousands of slaves on plantations around Charleston. According to
some sources, the plan involved starting a major fire at night and then killing the slave
owners and their families under cover of the ensuing confusion. Vesey and 34 of his
presumed co-conspirators were hanged, and others involved were deported, but officials
never identified many of the additional leaders believed to have plotted with him.16
Over the years, Augusta had experienced several thwarted slave uprisings of its
own. In 1809, authorities learned that a slave in town had written to a slave in North
Carolina planning an armed insurrection to occur on April 22, 1810. Nine years later a
slave named Mills, in retaliation for having been whipped, burned down his owner's
stable, killing twelve horses in the process. Shortly afterward, a slave named Coco or
Coot reportedly developed a plan to break into local stores for guns and ammunition, set
fire to the town perimeter, and slaughter the white residents as they mobilized to put out
the fire. The authorities learned of this plan before it was put into action and arrested
Coot and several of his co-conspirators. The men were tried, found guilty, and publicly
executed in 1819.17
Given this history, it is not surprising that the fires in 1829 led the authorities to
suspect another conspiracy like the one they had narrowly averted ten years earlier. No
one was sure who was starting the fires, but suspicion fell squarely on the slaves. From
April onward, the Augusta authorities rounded up slave and free black suspects on the
basis of their proximity to the fires. For instance, in early April when a second fire broke
out in the buildings above some stables in town, suspicion fell on the black residents that
lived next door. According to the newspaper, “…The fire was soon discovered in a
building on Ellis Street, above [the] street’s stables, immediately contiguous [to that]
occupied by a negro blacksmith named Joe Rockburn, and other persons of color. They
have all been taken into custody for examination. It was evidently, as in the former
instance, an incendiary attempt."18
Susan Nye Hutchison’s journal indicates that the authorities arrested only black
individuals who resided in buildings where fires originated, not whites. For example,
although she reported that combustible materials had been found behind her own house,
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
unlike the black residents on Ellis Street, neither Susan nor her husband Adam faced any
scrutiny from authorities. The sort of racial profiling that Hutchison described was never
questioned in the antebellum era, not only because free blacks did not have citizenship in
most of the South, but also because Americans generally approved the right of authorities
to question, arrest, and imprison individuals on the basis of race. In the atmosphere of
heightened fear that existed in Augusta, Savannah, and other Southern cities that year, the
color of one’s skin was a mark of innocence or guilt.19
A climate of fear and hysteria could give rise to a witch-hunt. Documentary
sources indicate that the authorities sometimes arrested innocent individuals. For
example, after arsonists tried to set fire to Savannah in 1818, authorities rounded up nine
suspects, but none was convicted at trial. Two years later, a fire that began in a livery
stable swept through the town and quickly reduced it to ashes, destroying 463 buildings
worth four million dollars in property. Although the exact cause of the fire was unknown,
the mayor of Savannah ordered the city watch to round up and confine all vagrants and
“especially black boys and those of colour.” However, once again, there was insufficient
evidence for a conviction. A year later, a slave named Susan was brought to trial for
allegedly setting a house on fire in Savannah, but the evidence was so flimsy that she was
also exonerated. In fact, after all the arrests in Savannah, only one slave was convicted
and executed during this period, a female slave named Molly who was found guilty for
burning down her owner’s house.20
Whether justified in all cases or not, in some areas of the South, fears of slave
conspiracy and insurrection led politicians to pass new restrictions on slaves and free
blacks. For instance, on the heels of the Vesey conspiracy, a group of Charleston
residents sent a memorial to the state legislature in 1822 recommending the ‘principle of
fear’ as the only means of safely maintaining slavery. “We should always act as if we had
an enemy in the very bosom of the state, prepared to rise upon and surprise the whites,
whenever an opportunity afforded.” They asked the legislature to expel every free person
of color from the state so that “we may extinguish at once every gleam of hope which the
slaves may indulge of ever being free—and … govern them on the only principle that can
maintain slavery, the ‘principle of fear.’”21
In Augusta the excitement and panic subsided over the summer of 1829, but
anxiety resurfaced when fires started up again in August and September. On August 13, a
fire destroyed Augusta's Eagle tavern, a famous local landmark. The Georgia
Constitutionalist described Augusta as besieged by enemies of another race: “Fellow
citizens, be watchful!—We are in the midst of a race of beings who are determined upon
the destruction of our city … Let the number of our Marshals be increased—let us be
more vigilant—let us not give sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eye lids, until we
have defeated their machinations, and averted the evil they have plotted.” The increased
vigilance did not appear to help matters, because in late September flames again swept
the town, burning a number of homes to the ground.22
After a second fire in late September, authorities came on September 29 to
interrogate a hired slave who worked in the Hutchison’s household. Susan wrote, “At ten
or after, two gentlemen called to examine Harriet, a servant of ours who with some others
alleged that a black man carried smoking cotton into an alley yesterday where a little
after a barn was found on fire.” However, despite the rumors of slave insurrection
circulating through the community from February to November of 1829, authorities had
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
insufficient evidence to convict any of the individuals that had been arrested. None could
identify the alleged arsonists.23
Fire broke out again in early November. On November 6, Hutchison wrote,
“About two o’clock an alarm of fire aroused us—we got up [and] found the fire—was
only distant two squares being just above Col. Cumming’s new stores. Amanda and I
packed up and waited to remove as the danger became more imminent—the fire fell thick
around us sometimes landing upon our roof—In a little time a gentleman passing under
the window informed me that the danger was arrested.” Four days later she reported, “A
fire was discovered under Mrs. Walker’s stable just as it had got under way.” Among
those arrested was Jenny, a slave belonging to the widow Elizabeth Jones.24
Conviction, Execution, and Unresolved Questions in Augusta
Susan Nye Hutchison knew Jenny through her friendship with Elizabeth Jones. A
wealthy woman who owned slaves and property in town, Jones was a devout Presbyterian
and the widow of Seabold Jones, former mayor and member of the Augusta city council.
She had hired out Jenny to a woman named Mrs. Dunn.25
Hiring out, or “jobbing” slaves, was a common practice in the antebellum South.
Studies have shown that a wide range of employers hired jobbing slaves, from middle-
class business owners who provided some training and hired individuals for several
years, to working-class individuals who hired slaves for short-term jobs lasting several
days, weeks, or months only. In Susan and Adam Hutchison’s household, two or more
hired slaves worked as cooks, housekeepers, nurses, and handymen when the family
could afford it. The practice of hiring out slaves made many members of the community
beneficiaries of slavery, whether or not they owned slaves themselves. Critics viewed
jobbing slavery as particularly inhumane, because the frequent turnover in their
assignments left slaves little contact with their own family members and friends. Under
this system, slaves often worked for relatively short periods of time in different homes
and businesses. Masters began hiring out slaves to work for wages as young as eight or
nine years. Infants accompanied their mothers, who were hired out more cheaply than
single women. Very young children could be hired out to work for room and board only,
saving the master the cost of supporting them as they grew older. The economic self-
interest of the slave owner often conflicted with humanitarian concerns, but most owners
had at least some vested interest in maintaining the longterm health and earning potential
of their slaves. In contrast, those who employed jobbing slaves on a temporary basis had
no longstanding personal connection to the slaves they hired and little financial incentive
to treat them particularly well.26
After the outbreak of fire at Walker’s stable, rumor circulated through Augusta
that a slave named Cinda had confessed to the crime of arson and implicated Jenny. On
November 12, Hutchison wrote, “Jenny Mrs. Jones[‘s] servant living with Mrs. Dunn has
confessed she set fire to Mrs. Walker’s stable—she was under punishment for her faults
and was excited to take this dreadful revenge by Cinda living with Mrs. Arnold who has
by her confession established the fact—both are in confinement.” The Georgia
Constitutionalist described the convicted women as “the misguided and foolish blacks
engaged in a recent attempt to set fire to the city.” The papers described Cinda as a
woman and Jenny as “a young negro girl.” Given this description, it is likely that Jenny
was 12-16 years old.27
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
Jenny and Cinda were quickly brought to trial, found guilty, and convicted. Nine
days after their arrest, the Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser reported: “In the
Inferior Court of this County convened in the City Hall yesterday, for the trial of several
negroes, for Arson present their Honors, V. Walker, A. Rhodes, and H. McTurk. Verdicts
of Guilty were found against a negro woman, Cinda, belonging to Mrs. Lubbeck, and a
young negro girl Jinney [sic], belonging to Mrs. Jones, and a verdict of Not Guilty in
favor of Mr. L. Roll’s negro man Reuben. The Court adjourned to to-day, when it will
again convene to hear the trial of Mr. Parson’s negro Lewis, and pass sentence on Cinda
and Jinney.” Four days later, “a verdict of Not Guilty was returned in favor of Mr.
Parson’s negro Lewis, indicted for Arson; and a sentence of death was passed on the two
negroes Jinney and Cinda.” The court found Cinda “the instigator, and Jinney, the
immediate actor, in the attempt to fire the city on R[ey]nold Street, on the 10th instant.”
The judge set the date of June 4 for Cinda’s execution, a delay of six months because she
was pregnant. Jenny’s execution was scheduled to take place on December 4.28
Hutchison wrote two entries in her journal on the day of Jenny's hanging. The first
is in present tense: “Jenny is as calm as it is possible for a living thing to be. She desires
death.” She must have written this after another visit with Jenny that morning. Later, she
and her husband walked together to the Augusta jail to witness Jenny’s execution. A local
minister preached a sermon. Jenny herself prayed aloud and then addressed the crowd
with her “last dying words.” When she returned home, Hutchison added the following
entry: “Poor Jenny was today launched into eternity—on the gallows she prayed after the
Reverend Mr. Sinclair and spoke in a collected and impressive manner to the
spectators.”29
Was Jenny actually guilty of arson, or was she the victim of a witch-hunt? Susan
Nye Hutchison's journal offers no clues. Certainly Hutchison was sympathetic to Jenny’s
plight; she referred to her as “poor Jenny” more than once in her journal, but she never
wrote about the possibility that Jenny may have been innocent. Nevertheless, the question
of Jenny's guilt persisted in Augusta long after her hanging. According to the Scotsman
James Stuart, who visited Augusta four months after her death, both Jenny and Cinda
denied any guilt, and both were convicted on insufficient evidence. Stuart reported, “The
fire was believed to be the work of incendiaries among the people of colour. One slave, a
female, was convicted, executed, dissected, and exposed, but she died denying the crime.
Another, now with child, is sentenced to be executed in June, but she still denies her
guilt. I fear these unhappy creatures are convicted on what we should consider very
insufficient evidence.”30
Like Stuart, some Augusta residents were convinced the women had not received
justice. When Cinda was executed on June 6, three months after Stuart’s visit, rumors
apparently circulated through Augusta that she had died proclaiming her innocence. To
counter these reports, the Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser printed the
following notice: “The negro woman, Cinda, convicted in November last of Arson, was
executed on Friday the 6th instant, agreeably to the sentence passed on her. The execution
was deferred thus long on account of her pregnancy. As it has been publicly stated that
she persisted to the last in asserting her innocence of the crime for which she suffered, it
may be proper to state, for the purpose of preventing misapprehension on the subject, that
her guilt had been fully developed.”31
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
Regardless of their innocence or guilt, Jenny and Cinda’s incarceration did not put
an end to the fires in Augusta. Two weeks after their arrest, a fire broke out in Macon
Academy, and the entire school burned to the ground. Perhaps because the authorities
believed they had captured the town’s two arsonists, the newspaper attributed the fire to a
stove accident. In February of 1830, two months after Jenny’s execution, a small fire
broke out below the wooden floor of the dining room in Susan Nye Hutchison’s house.
Fortunately, her husband smelled the smoke and woke up in time to extinguish the fire.
The Hutchisons concluded that a burning coal that had fallen through a crevice in their
fireplace and rolled beneath the floorboards started this fire.32
By and large, throughout the antebellum era Southern whites believed that slaves
deliberately set most of the fires that destroyed major portions of some towns and cities,
though not everyone agreed. Some Northerners suspected that the greater number of fires
in the South than in the North had more to do with poor fire prevention than with slave
insurrection. Cadwallader David Colden, mayor of New York City, stated as much in a
letter to the mayor of Savannah in 1820. Colden offered a theory about the greater
prevalence of fires in the South: “Certainly, [Southerners] have comparatively suffered
much more by conflagration than the other states—in part, perhaps, from the general
construction of their buildings, but more from the want of proper apparatus and free labor
to extinguish fires.” Colden's letter—rife with references to the superior equipment and
social institutions of the North—probably did nothing to sway Southern readers. Yet
perhaps he was right. 33
It must be admitted that the 13 outbreaks of fire in Augusta in 1829 may simply
have been a random cluster of events. As cognitive psychologists have pointed out,
humans often believe statistical significance exists in cases where clusters of random
episodes occur. Of course, in the case of the Augusta fires, it is impossible to know with
certainty whether all 13 outbreaks were random, or whether they were a mix of random
events and instances of arson, or whether they were the result of acts by individual
arsonists or a group of slaves bent on insurrection.34
In Jenny's case, there was never any evidence of an orchestrated conspiracy to
promote a slave uprising. Not only the newspaper accounts, but also Susan Nye
Hutchison's journal identified retaliation for punishment as the women's motivation for
burning down Walker's stable. Nevertheless, as historians have pointed out, arson as a
form of retaliation against oppression is a form of slave resistance. Based on an analysis
of executions of female slaves, David V. Baker has identified poisoning and arson as the
most common methods slave women used to strike back at their masters.35
Women commonly turned to arson as a means of retaliation. According to Philip
J. Schwartz, during the years from 1785 to 1831, the rise in the number of convictions for
arson in Virginia outstripped population growth, and 23.1 percent of all executed as well
as banished slave arsonists during those years were women. Arson clearly appealed to
women as a weapon against Southern whites, and by the end of 1829, the Georgia state
legislature had come to view individual acts of arson committed by slaves as dangerous
forms of resistance virtually indistinguishable from instances of organized insurrection.36
The Timing and Context of Georgia's 1829 Anti-Literacy Act
Young Jenny was the first slave convicted of arson to receive a mandatory death sentence
in the city of Augusta. Before this, a convicted arsonist might receive a whipping and
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
some jail time. For example, in 1819 when the slave known as Mills was convicted for
burning down his owner's stable, his punishment consisted of a flogging and banishment.
However, during the weeks leading up to Jenny's trial, the Georgia legislature proposed
and passed new laws to prevent future episodes of slave insurrection. In particular, the
legislature amended "several laws of this State for the trial and punishment of slaves and
free persons of color." Henceforth, "… the willful and malicious burning, or setting fire
to, or attempting to burn a house in a city, town or village, when committed by a slave or
free person of colour, shall be punished with death." The revision to the punishment for
arson accompanied a number of acts designed to strengthen the state's control over its
slave and free black population, including an act prohibiting the teaching of slaves to read
and write.37
Some historians have concluded that such legislative changes arose in response to
Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831; others have depicted such legislation as having arisen in
response to David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. The timing of
the anti-literacy laws in Georgia prohibits consideration of Turner's insurrection as a
triggering event, but it is possible that advance knowledge of Walker's Appeal played a
role in galvanizing Georgia politicians to suppress slave literacy.
Walker's booklet, published in Boston on September 28, 1829, appeared in some
areas of the South at around the same time of Jenny's arrest and execution. Walker, a free
black man from North Carolina who moved north to Boston and became active in the
antislavery movement, published his document to persuade readers of the injustice and
evil of slavery. He urged slaves to deliver themselves from the "abject ignorance and
wretchedness" in which slaveholders aimed to keep them, seek education, and resist
oppression. White southerners characterized Walker's Appeal as a brazen effort to
promote insurrection, pointing to passages like the one in which he urged slaves to "fight
under our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in the glorious and heavenly cause of freedom
and of God—to be delivered from the most wretched, abject and servile slavery."38
Although whites across the South reacted to Walker's booklet with horror and
outrage, the timeline of events raises some doubt about the direct influence of Walker's
document on the passage of Georgia's anti-literacy law. It is likely that no politician
living in Georgia had read the Appeal when the legislation was passed. Jenny was
executed on December 4, three weeks before Walker's Appeal first surfaced in the state.
On December 26, William T. Williams, mayor of Savannah, wrote to George Gilmer,
governor of Georgia, to inform him that sixty copies of the Appeal had been found and
turned over to the local police. The new anti-literacy law thus preceded its appearance in
Georgia.39
Nevertheless, Georgia legislators may well have been aware of Walker's Appeal
weeks—if not months—before it reached their borders. Recent work by historians has
documented the active social, religious, and business networks that bound Northerners
and Southerners together. News traveled relatively quickly from North to South and back
again through personal letters, business dealings, religious conference meetings,
newspapers, and other outlets. Moreover, Georgia's anti-literacy law was part and parcel
of an act that clearly aimed to keep slaves in a state of ignorance, especially when it came
to ideas then circulating among the abolitionists in the North. The act was designed to
"prevent the circulation of written or printed papers … calculated to excite disaffection
among the coloured people of this state, and to prevent said people from being taught to
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
read or write." The act also mandated quarantine on ships with free black sailors in order
"to prevent such persons of colour from coming into this State or from communicating
with the coloured people of this State." Even though the act was signed into law on
December 22, four days before Savannah's mayor wrote to the governor to alert him to
the dangers of Walker's Appeal, the overall intent of the legislation makes it clear that the
authorities suppressed literacy not only to extinguish the communication of insurrection
plans among southern slaves, but also to prevent the communication of abolitionist ideas
between southern slaves and free black outsiders.40
But although Walker's Appeal may have played a part in Georgia's anti-literacy
law, the fires in Augusta that year also played a significant role. It is important to
remember that the timing of anti-literacy laws in the South varied state by state. Virginia
passed its first legislation in 1819 in response to insurrection fears and strengthened those
laws in 1830, whereas Alabama passed its first legislation in 1831 and strengthened its
laws two years later. In other words, the passage of anti-literacy legislation depended on
the social and political context within each state.
The most important trigger for Georgia's law against teaching slaves to read was a
growing fear that just one slave bent on retaliation—even a young female—could wreak
havoc in the urban centers. The anti-literacy law was not solely the result of abolitionist
literature arriving in the state's ports. After all, contemporary accounts suggest that copies
of Walker's Appeal were easily rounded up at the point of entry in Savannah and
suppressed. Nor did the law result from the initial outbreak of fires in Augusta. As
discussed in this chapter, some newspaper editors and some Georgia residents initially
believed that many of the fires besetting their cities and towns—if not most—were
caused by negligence. The most important trigger for Georgia's anti-literacy laws was
growing fear in the urban areas—fear not only of planned insurrection, but also of the
substantial damage that could be inflicted by individual jobbing slaves seeking
retaliation, not only against their owners but also against the middling and working-class
whites that hired their labor. That fear was widespread, and it transcended class lines.
The fires in Augusta revealed a glaring security weakness in the slave system.
Southerners realized they had a great deal to fear from a 12 or 14-year old girl like Jenny.
Such a female could move without suspicion throughout the town, communicate with
other jobbing slaves like Cinda, and perhaps read and write notes back and forth,
encouraging others to start a fire. Even if she acted on her own, a young girl could
potentially burn down half the town, destroying banks, markets, and important trade
centers. She could easily create as much destruction as an armed, organized group of
adult male slaves.
Up until 1829, Georgia had refrained from following South Carolina's example in
prohibiting the teaching of slaves to read, but the thirteen fires in Augusta—coupled with
several small fires in Savannah and elsewhere—changed everything. The Georgia
General Assembly did not publish legislative debates, so what remains in the archive is
the record of the law itself along with the comments of the governor. In his legislative
report at the end of the year, governor George Gilmer stated, "The plots devised some
years ago in Charleston, and very lately in Georgetown, South Carolina, the late fires in
Augusta and Savannah, have shewn us the danger to be apprehended in the cities from
the negroes." This rhetoric supported the legislature's effort to pass anti-literacy
legislation in December of 1829.41
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
This legislation, which revised and expanded the state's anti-literacy law to
include the prohibition against teaching slaves to read, represented but one part of the
slave codes—the overarching set of laws restricting and controlling the interactions of
slaves and free blacks. The state's justification for suppressing knowledge among its slave
population rested on rhetoric about the importance of enhanced safety and security. As
governor Gilmer explained, the slave codes passed in 1829 had "become highly necessary
and essential to the welfare and safety of the good people of this state." Although some
Augusta residents were shocked at the execution of Jenny and Cinda, and a few
continued to raise questions about their innocence for months afterward, within a
relatively short time those voices fell silent as white residents accommodated to the new
state of affairs.42
In later years, advocates of slavery frequently pointed to the illiteracy and
ignorance of the enslaved population as evidence of the African's "natural" inferiority.
For example, in a journal entry written in 1837, a former student of Susan Nye
Hutchison's named Sarah Frew Davidson described a conversation with a wealthy mine
owner from Charlotte, North Carolina, in which he convinced her of the inherent
inferiority of Africans. She wrote, "He spoke of the intellectual capacity of the human
race—as evinced in national character & convinced me that the Africans are inferior
whether it is their ignorant degraded condition—climate—or the curse entailed on the
progeny of Canaan or Ham it is not easy to determine." Davidson had never heard this
argument before, but it was hardly new. Messages about the intellectual inferiority of
Africans had supported the slave trade from the very beginning, and southerners
continued to advance them to justify slavery.43
It is important to understand that despite the rhetoric about the intellectual
inferiority of slaves, the South's anti-literacy laws presupposed the intellectual equality of
blacks and whites. As Brown University president Francis Wayland pointed out in
Elements of Moral Science, a text that was highly popular in northern schools by 1835,
"Such laws suppose the capacity of negroes for intellectual culture, and are an implicit
confession that it is necessary to degrade their minds in order to keep their bodies in
slavery." Nevertheless, by midcentury proslavery Americans increasingly emphasized the
inherent intellectual inferiority of slaves. The old awareness and fear of slaves' and free
blacks' potential to achieve literacy on a par with whites became knowledge forgotten,
overlooked, or relinquished—in this case, a willful ignorance of political actions in the
past that served to maintain a large portion of the South's population in a state of
ignorance.44
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kim Tolley is a historian of education and Professor in the School of Education &
Psychology at Notre Dame de Namur University.
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 Georgia, Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, Passed in Milledgeville
at an Annual Session in November and December, 1829 (Milledgeville: Camak &
Ragland, 1830), 170-71.
2 Robert A. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, eds., National Literacy Campaigns and
Comparative Perspectives (New York: Plenum Press, 1987); Harvey J. Graff, The
Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City (New York:
Academic Press, 1979); E. Jennifer Monaghan, “Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for
the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian
Society, 108 (1998): 309-41.
3 Robert N. Proctor. "Agnotology: A Missing Term to Describe the Cultural Production
of Ignorance (and Its Study)," in Agnotology: The Making & Unmaking of Ignorance,
eds. Robert N Proctor & Londa Schiebinger, 1-36. (California: Stanford University Press,
2008).
4 See Cornelius, Janet Duitsman, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and
Religion in the Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991);
Monaghan, "Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and
Literacy"; Heather Andrea Williams, Self-Taught: African American Education in
Slavery and Freedom (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 7-29. For
the passage of anti-literacy laws in the South, see David J. McCord, ed., The Statutes at
Large of South Carolina; Edited under Authority of the Legislature (Columbia, South
Carolina: A. S. Johnston, 1840), 364-65; 460; South Carolina, Acts and Regulations of
the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina … December, 1834 (Columbia,
South Carolina: E. F. Branthwaite, 1831 [sic]), 13-14; John D. Cushing, ed., The Earliest
Printed Laws of the Province of Georgia, 1755-1770, Vol. 2 (Wilmington, Del: Michael
Glazier, 1978), 31; Georgia, Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia … in
November and December, 1829 (Milledgeville: Camak & Ragland, 1830), 168;
Alabama, Acts Passed at the State of Alabama … One Thousand Eight Hundred and
Thirty-One (Tuscaloosa: Wiley, M'Guire & Henry, 1832), 16; Louisiana, Acts Passed at
the Second Session of the Ninth Legislature of the State of Louisiana (Donaldsonville: U.
W. Huby, 1830), 96. Mississippi, Laws of the State of Mississippi, Passed at the
Fourteenth Session of the General Assembly (Jackson: Peter Isler, 1830), 86-7; North
Carolina, Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, at the
Session of 1830-31 (Raleigh: Lawrence & Lemay, 1831), 11; Virginia, Acts Passed at a
General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia … in the Year of Our Lord, One
Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty (Richmond: Thomas Ritchie, 1831), 107-8;
Cornelius, Janet Duitsman, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and
Religion in the Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991).
5 Henry Walcott Farnam, Chapters in the History of Social Legislation in the United
States to 1860, ed. Clive Day (Union, New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, 2000
[1938]), 193; Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877 (New York: Macmillan,
2003), 129.
6 Amy Reynolds, "The Impact of Walker's Appeal on Northern and Couthern
Conceptions of Free Speech in the Nineteenth Century," 319, in Amy Reynolds and
Brooke Barnett, eds., Communication and Law: Multidisciplinary Approaches to
Research (New York: Routledge, 2006). For other studies that depict Turner's
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
insurrection as the triggering event for anti-literacy legislation, see Stephanie Foote,
"Education and Polemic," 105, in Shirley Samuels, ed., A Companion to American
Fiction, 1780-1865 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2008); Scott E. Casper,
"Antebellum Reading Described and Prescribed," 158, in Scott E. Casper, Joanne D.
Chaison, and Jeffrey D. Groves, Perspectives on American Book History: Artifacts and
Commentary (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002); Clement Eaton, The Growth of
Southern Civilization, 1790-1860 (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 77.
7 Monaghan, "Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free"; Cornelius, When I Can
Read My Title Clear.
8 For example: “Insurance Against Fire,” in Georgia Courier (June 11, 1827).
9 “Augusta – FIRE!” in Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser (July 4, 1827). Susan
Nye Hutchison Journal, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill [hereafter SNHJ], May 4; July 2; December 27, 1827;
February 18, 1828.
10 SNHJ, February 22, 23, 24, 1829; “Augusta – Incendiaries,” in Augusta Chronicle and
Georgia Advertiser (February 25, 1829).
11 “Augusta – Incendiaries,” in ibid.
12 Ibid.; “Augusta – Volunteer City Guard,” in ibid. (March 4, 1829).
13 SNHJ, April 7, 1829; “The Fire,” Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser (8 April,
1829); "On Tuesday Last," in ibid. (April 11, 1829.
14 SNH Journal, April 8-11, 13, 22, 1829.
15 David Patrick Geggus, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001); Adam Rothman, Slave Country:
American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2005), 100-16.
16 Adam Hodgson, Remarks During a Journey through North America in the Years 1819,
1820, and 1821 (New York: Samuel Whiting, 1823), 134; Walter J. Fraser, Savannah in
the Old South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003), 197-200. Some historians
have questioned whether the so-called Vesey conspiracy was an orchestrated plot.
Michael Johnson argues that although white Carolinians believed in the existence of a
slave conspiracy, there is little documentary evidence to support this belief. This is not
the first time a scholar has questioned the existence of a planned slave revolt; in 1964,
Richard Wade claimed that the Vesey Conspiracy amounted to little more than “angry
talk.” However, other scholars disagree, citing evidence of contemporaries who spoke or
wrote about Vesey’s plans to lead a revolt. See Johnson, Michael P. “Denmark Vesey and
his Co-Conspirators,” William and Mary Quarterly, 58 (4) (October 2001), 915-976;
Johnson, Michael P., et al., Responses in “Forum”, William and Mary Quarterly, 59 (1)
(January 2002); Paquette, Robert L. "From Rebellion to Revisionism: The Continuing
Debate About the Denmark Vesey Affair," Journal of the Historical Society, 4 (Fall
2004), 291-334.
17 Edward J. Cashin, Old Springfield: Race and Religion in Augusta, Georgia (Augusta,
Georgia: The Springfield Village Park Foundation, 1995), 28-9.
18 "On Tuesday Last," in Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser (April 11, 1829).
19 SNHJ, April 8-11, 13, 22, 1829; “Destructive Fire,” in Augusta Chronicle and Georgia
Advertiser (April 14, 1829).
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20 Walter J. Fraser, Savannah in the Old South (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
2003), 197-200. The quote is on page 198. For white hysteria in the face of potential
insurrection, see Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 402-434.
21 Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, ed., Plantation and Frontier Documents, 1649-1863
Illustrative of Industrial History in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Cleveland, OH:
Arthur H. Clark, 1909). The quotes are on pages 111; 114, respectively.
22 SNH Journal, August 13, September 24, 1829. “FIRE!” in Georgia Constitutionalist
(August 18, 1829).
23 SNHJ, September 24, 26, 27, 29, 1829; “FIRE!” in Georgia Constitutionalist (August
18, 1829).
24 SNHJ, November 6, 10, 1829.
25 SNHJ, November 16, 1827. Seabold Jones is mentioned in Edward J. Cashin, The
Story of Augusta, Georgia (Augusta, Georgia: The Springfield Village Park Foundation,
1995), 58. Georgia State DAR, “Richmond County, Georgia Wills,” in Historical
Collections of the Georgia Chapters Daughters of the American Revolution: Records of
Richmond County, Georgia, Formerly Saint Paul's Parish (Baltimore MD: Clearfield
Company, 1929), 45. According to the will of Seaborn Jones, “Estate to be divided
equally between my wife Elizabeth and children, she to have slaves, etc., which I got by
her.”
26 See Jennifer Oast, "'The Worst Kind of Slavery': Slave-Owning Presbyterian Churches
in Prince Edward County, Virginia," Journal of Southern History 76 (November 2010):
867-92.
27 SNHJ, November 12, 1829; “Augusta,” in Georgia Constitutionalist (November 24,
1829).
28 Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser (November 21, 25, 1829).
29 SNHJ, December 4, 1829.
30 Acts Passed by the General Assembly of Georgia, 1829, 119; James Stuart, Three
Years in North America, Vol. 2, (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1833), 123.
31 “Augusta,” in Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser (June 9, 1830).
32 “Fire!” in Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser (November 27, 1829); SNHJ,
February 8, 9, 1830.
33 Niles’ Weekly Register 18, ed. H. Niles (March-September, 1820), 89.
34 For human perceptions of clusters of random events, see Thomas Gilovich, How We
Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life (New York: The
Free Press, 1991).
35 Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York:
Vintage Books, 1976), 587-97. The quote is on page 588; Herbert Aptheker, "American
Negro Slave Revolts," Science & Society 1 (Summer 1937): 512-38; David V. Baker,
“Black Female Executions in Historical Context,” Criminal Justice Review 33 (March
2008): 64-88; For slave resistance during this era, see Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our
Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Susan Eva O’Donovan, Becoming Free in
the Cotton South (Harvard University Press, 2010); For female resistance, see Stephanie
M. H. Camp, Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the
This is the author's preprint version of Kim Tolley, "Slavery," in Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-
Making in America and Abroad, ed. A. J. Angulo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016),
13-33.
!
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plantation South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
36 Philip J. Schwartz, Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia,
1705-1865 (Union, New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, 1998), 211-14.
37 Cashin, Old Springfield, 28; Georgia, Acts Passed by the General Assembly of
Georgia, 1829, 172.
38 David Walker, Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the
Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the
United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829.
Boston: Revised and Published by David Walker, 1830, 4, 15. Accessed June 26, 2014
from www.docsouth.unc.edu.
39 W. T. Williams to George M. Gilmer, December 26, 1829, in Walker, David Walker's
Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, ed. Peter P. Hinks. Philadelphia:
Pennsylvania State Press, 2000, 93-4. For the impact of Walker's Appeal in the South, see
Clement Eaton, "A Dangerous Pamphlet in the Old South," The Journal of Southern
History, 2 (August, 1936): 323-334.
40 For the close bonds of northern and southern merchants and politicians during this era,
see Daniel Kilbride, An American Aristocracy: Southern Planters in Antebellum
Philadelphia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006). For the development
of the press, see Jeffrey L. Pasley, "The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the
Early American Republic (Charlotte: University of Virginia Press, 2002). For the
exchange of ideas through religious and reform organizations, see Ronald G. Walters,
American Reformers, 1815-1860. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Georgia, Acts Passed
by the General Assembly of Georgia … 1829, 168.
41 Georgia, Acts Passed by the General Assembly of Georgia … 1829, 119.
42 Georgia, Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, 1829, 168.
43 Sarah Frew Davidson, The Private Journal of Sarah F. Davidson, 1837, eds. Karen M.
McConnell, Janet S. Dyer & Ann Williams (Charleston, South Carolina: History Press,
2005), 107. For proslavery arguments about the inherent inferiority of slaves, see Larry
E. Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840 (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 1990); Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery:
Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1981).
44 Francis Wayland, The Elements of Moral Science (New York: Cooke and Company,
1835), 198.