Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Volume 111 / Number 4
ABSTRACT:
Samuel Davies and the Transatlantic Campaign for Slave Literacy in Virginia
- By Jeffrey H. Richards, pp. 333–78
Samuel Davies began his career in Virginia by evangelizing both slave and free congregants at his seven churches
in the Piedmont; by 1753, he had made a point of doing something about getting slaves to read. After his trip to
England and Scotland to raise funds for the College of New Jersey, Davies returned with greater enthusiasm for
the literacy effort among slaves. By drawing on the resources of the London-based Society for Promoting
Religious Knowledge among the Poor and getting his associates in the Hanover presbytery to join the
Society as well, Davies, John Todd, and John Wright, among others, began distributing thousands of
books and teaching hundreds of slaves to read catechisms, hymns, and the Bible. Theirs was
possibly the most successful eighteenth-century effort on behalf of slave literacy in the South;
however, following Davies's removal to Princeton to assume the college presidency, his death,
and the scattering of the ministers who were his original corps, the campaign dwindled. Nevertheless,
anecdotal evidence suggests that slaves originally taught by Davies may have taught other slaves,
extending that knowledge into the nineteenth century, and calling into question the "conservative"
label that Davies has been given by historians.
|
Share
