Negroes had up to this time
enjoyed the right of suffrage there. Some attended schools open to
both races. A few even taught white children.[1]
[Footnote 1: Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p. 74; and
testimonies of various ex-slaves.]
The intense feeling against Negroes engendered by the frequency
of insurrections, however, sufficed to swing the State into the
reactionary column by 1835. An act passed by the Legislature that year
prohibited the public instruction of Negroes, making it impossible
for youth of African descent to get any more education than what
they could in their own family circle.[1] The public school system
established thereafter specifically provided that its benefits should
not extend to any descendant from Negro ancestors to the fourth
generation inclusive.[2] Bearing so grievously this loss of their
social status after they had toiled up from poverty, many ambitious
free persons of color, left the State for more congenial communities.
[Footnote 1: _Revised Statutes of North Carolina_, 578.]
[Footnote 2: _Laws of North Carolina, 1835_, C.6, S.2.]
The States of the West did not have to deal so severely with their
slaves as was deemed necessary in Southern States.
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