Canterbury Female Academy student helped by former slave
Charles C. Burleighl, William H. Burleigh
The Liberator 1834-04-05
Unionist content
Transcription
“MISS CRANDALL’S SCHOOL. One of the children now in that school is the daughter of a poor woman in the city of New-York who obtains a living by her daily labor. Of course she is unable to give her children an education, and this child is supported by another woman, who was once a slave, and purchased her freedom by her own exertions. Another of Miss C’s scholars is the daughter of a father who was himself a slave.
Where can we find such thirsting for knowledge among our white population?—Where can we find a man, nay, where can we find a woman who has risen from a state of the lowest degradation by her own unaided exertions, under the weight of all the prejudices which are crushing her in the dust, against the seemingly irresistible tide of public opinion which is ever setting against her—I say, where can we find a person with a white skin who has risen from such a situation, and taught himself the real worth of man, the real dignity of the human mind, and the exalting, ennobling power of education, to such as extent that, although by no means in affluent circumstances, he is willing to spend a portion of his little all to support at school the child of an indigent neighbor?”
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See Full Metadata Hide Full MetadataMary and Emily Edmonson, sisters escaped from enslavement
Above: Mary and Emily Edmonson were two sisters who escaped slavery and joined the Abolitionist cause in the North in 1848, working with Frederick Douglass and others reformers. They attended Oberlin, and Emily, who survived for a longer life, did go into teaching. While we cannot discern exactly who the student at the Canterbury Female Academy was who received the aid of a formerly enslaved woman, the remarkable story of the Edmonson sisters gives us yet another example of the striving for freedom and for intellectual growth so often seen in relation to Black women's education.