USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -According to a new five-volume compilation called Historical Statistics, the percentage of former slaves who said they couldn’t read or write plummeted after emancipation. Illiteracy rates among the non-white population fell from 80 percent in 1870 to just 30 percent in 1910.

Detailed explanation-2: -In the antebellum South, it’s estimated that only 10 percent of enslaved people were literate. For many enslavers, even this rate was too high.

Detailed explanation-3: -Fearing that black literacy would prove a threat to the slave system–which relied on slaves’ dependence on masters–whites in many colonies instituted laws forbidding slaves to learn to read or write and making it a crime for others to teach them.

Detailed explanation-4: -Some enslaved people were educated in Bray schools. These schools educated enslaved people in Christian teachings. This allowed enslaved Africans to learn to read and sometimes write. Christian leaders thought that being literate was important to being a Christian.

Detailed explanation-5: -As early as the 1710s slaves were receiving Biblical literacy from their masters. Enslaved writer Phillis Wheatley was taught in the home of her master. She ended up using her skills to write poetry and address leaders of government on her feelings about slavery (although she died in abject poverty and obscurity).