he blacks in Northern Virginia.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv_., etc., 1797, p. 35.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., 1797, p. 36.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv._, p. 17; _ibid._, 1827, p.
53.]

[Footnote 4: _Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 198.]

Schools for the education of Negroes were established in Richmond,
Petersburg, and Norfolk. An extensive miscegenation of the races in
these cities had given rise to a very intelligent class of slaves and
a considerable number of thrifty free persons of color, in whom the
best people early learned to show much interest.[1] Of the schools
organized for them in the central part of the commonwealth, those
about Richmond seemed to be less prosperous. The abolitionists of
Virginia, reporting for that city in 1798, said that considerable
progress had been made in the education of the blacks, and that they
contemplated the establishment of a school for the instruction of
Negroes and other persons. They were apprehensive, however, that their
funds would be scarcely sufficient for this purpose.[2] In 1801, one
year after Gabriel's Insurrection, the abolitionists of Richmond
reported that the cause had been hindered by the "rapacious
disposition which emboldened many tyrants" among them "to trample upon
the rights of colored people even in the violation of the laws of the
State." For this reason the complainants felt that, although they
could not but unite in the opinion with the American Convention of
Abolition Societies as to the importance of educating the slaves for
living as freedmen, they were compelled on account of a "domineering
spirit of power and usurpation"[3] to direct attention to the Negroes'
bodily comfort.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 393.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv._, etc., 1798, p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the Am. Conv_., 1801, p. 15.]

This situation, however, was not sufficiently alarming to deter all
the promoters of Negro education in Virginia. It is remarkable how
Robert Pleasants, a Quaker of that State who emancipated his slaves
at his death in 1801, had united with other members of his sect to
establish a school for colored people. In 1782 they circulated a
pamphlet entitled "Proposals for Establishing a Free School for the
Instruction of Children of Blacks and People of Color."[1] They
recommended to the humane and benevolent of all denominations
cheerfully to contribute to an institution "calc