Abstract
Although first published a decade ago, Ronald E. Butchart’s quantitative study on the schooling of Southern Black students during and immediately following the Civil War is no less compelling in 2020. Butchart mines data from a wide range of primary sources—archives from aid societies and the Freedmen’s Bureau, military records, college alumni catalogues, census data, city directories, autobiographies, and more—to support the compelling stories of individual teachers and even entire families who devoted their lives to teaching freed slaves. Contrary to the image of these teachers as being youthful, single, white women from New England, the author provides evidence that the education of freed slaves was largely driven by Black men and women outnumbering Northern white teachers by four to three. A small but impressive number had completed secondary school, normal school or college, similar to the number reported for teachers in Northern common schools. Among the powerful stories shared by Butchart, Hannah Highgate and five of her children taught freed slaves in Maryland, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Like many other Black teachers, the Highgates taught for longer periods than white teachers in those schools while also facing opposition and outright racial hostility.
Southern white teachers have often been excluded from previous studies. Yet Butchart notes that they accounted for the majority of teachers in Southern Black schools during the period. Approximately 60 percent of these teachers were men and included former slave owners, Confederate soldiers, merchants, farmers, and others. Northern white men and women who taught freed slaves were generally from middle and western states instead of New England. They were more likely to be in their thirties than younger, and two-thirds were women. Most of these teachers were employed by Northern aid agencies such as the American Missionary Association. All of the teachers in Southern Black schools were poorly compensated. Sometimes pay came from tuition, partial support from the Freedmen’s Bureau, or funds from Northern aid societies.
Music instruction is not included in Butchart’s discussion of curricular materials, but he notes that two types of materials were used in the schools: curricular materials written specifically for freed people and common school textbooks available for all learners. The Freedman’s Library, for example, included spelling books, primers, readers, advice manuals, and other books, but these books were more focused on encouraging Southern Blacks to accept “culturally appropriate” roles as servants and field hands than supporting Black strength, equality, and pride. Fortunately, most Southern Black schools instead used the standard texts available to all common schools and covered the same curricula as in those schools.
While the teachers and materials of freed people’s schools are important to consider, even more significant are the learners themselves. Several teachers write about their students’ hunger for learning with classes often numbering more than one hundred students. Over the course of the first decade, tens of thousands of Black students achieved not only basic literacy, but more substantial education, with thousands more pursuing higher education. Sadly, within a few years state education bureaucracies allowed support for Black schools to erode. School years were shortened, many schools closed, and in many cases teachers went unpaid. By the end of the nineteenth century, white resistance, violence, and sometimes simple indifference led to generations of at-risk Black children being taught in inferior schools. Although Butchart does not specifically address music education, he provides essential historical background on the education of freed slaves during this era. Given the pressing need for historical research on the music education of Black Americans, Schooling the Freed People is an indispensable resource for future researchers.