Education in Antebellum Savannah

Drawing by Luther Vann

Although better off than the enslaved, the free people of color, as they were called, were only quasi-free. Each was required to have a white guardian, a person of their choosing. Since they were not citizens, they could neither vote, hold political office, or serve on juries. Besides there were many additional laws and local ordinances that limited their freedom. The field of education illustrates how restricted they were.

With no corps of professionally trained black teachers, what formal education there was took place in small classroom settings usually with marginally trained teachers. Classes were mixed with free and enslaved pupils. Free blacks were active as teachers. However, in 1817, the Savannah City Council passed an ordinance forbidding the teaching of free persons of color or the enslaved. In 1829, the Georgia legislature passed similar legislation. Generally, it appears that such legislation was discreetly ignored. However, the school operated by James Porter was once raided, which forced him to go into hiding temporarily. Even more drastic was the public whipping given to James M. Simms for operating a school. He refused to pay the fine and sailed for Boston until after the Civil War began.
Whites violated this law as well. In 1855, Sister Jane Frances of the Sisters of Mercy opened a small school for blacks, defying the ban on such activities.
 

The roster of known black teachers between 1818 and 1860 includes:
 

• Julien Fromantin, carpenter, taught school from 1818-1844, an immigrant from Santo Domingo (Haiti), Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church
• James Porter, originally from Charleston, very well trained for his time, a gifted musician and teacher of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
• Mary Beasley and Jane Deveaux, of Second African Baptist Church (Greene Square)
• James Simms, of First African Baptist Church

Source: Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788-1864

“Every southern state chartered public schools for whites, although their schools were neither numerous nor adequate. The upper classes instituted their own private academies (there were 3000 throughout the South in 1850) or had private tutors. The poor whites, for the most part, viewed education as an impractical frill.”
--Patricia Romero, a John Hopkins University Scholar
 
 
 

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