So startling were the rapid strides made by the colored people in
their mental development after the revolutionary era that certain
southerners who had not seriously objected to the enlightenment of the
Negroes began to favor the half reactionary policy of educating them
only on the condition that they should be colonized. The colonization
movement, however, was supported also by some white men who, seeing
the educational progress of the colored people during the period of
better beginnings, felt that they should be given an opportunity to
be transplanted to a free country where they might develop without
restriction.
Timorous southerners, however, soon had other reasons for their
uncharitable attitude. During the first quarter of the nineteenth
century two effective forces were rapidly increasing the number of
reactionaries who by public opinion gradually prohibited the education
of the colored people in all places except certain urban communities
where progressive Negroes had been sufficiently enlightened to provide
their own school facilities. The first of these forces was the
worldwide industrial movement. It so revolutionized spinning and
weaving that the resulting increased demand for cotton fiber gave rise
to the plantation system of the South, which required a larger number
of slaves.
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