a society of the free people of color was
organized to raise a fund, the interest of which was to sustain a
free school for orphan children.[2] This society succeeded later in
establishing and maintaining two schools. At this time there were
in New York City three other colored schools, the teachers of which
received their compensation from those who patronized them.[3]

[Footnote 1: See the Address of the American Convention, 1819.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the Am. Convention_, etc., 1812, p. 7.

Certain colored women were then organized to procure and make for
destitute persons of color. See Andrews, _History of the New York
African Free Schools_, p. 58.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 58.]

Whether from lack of interest in their welfare on the part of the
public, or from the desire of the Negroes to share their own burdens,
the colored people of Rhode Island were endeavoring to provide for
the education of their children during the first decades of the last
century. _The Newport Mercury_ of March 26, 1808, announced that the
African Benevolent Society had opened there a school kept by Newport
Gardner, who was to instruct all colored people "inclined to attend."
The records of the place show that this school was in operation eight
years later.[1]

[Footnote 1: Stockwell, _History of Ed. in R.I._, p. 30.]

In Boston, where were found more Negroes than in most New England
communities, the colored people themselves maintained a separate
school after the revolutionary era. In the towns of Salem, Nantucket,
New Bedford, and Lowell the colored schools failed to make much
progress after the first quarter of the nineteenth century on account
of the more liberal construction of the laws which provided for
democratic education. This the free blacks were forced to advocate for
the reason that the seeming onerous task of supporting a dual system
often caused the neglect, and sometimes the extinction of the separate
schools. Furthermore, either the Negroes of some of these towns were
too scarce or the movement to furnish them special facilities of
education started too late to escape the attacks of the abolitionists.
Seeing their mistake of first establishing separate schools, they
began to attack caste in public education.

In the eastern cities where colored school systems thereafter
continued, the work was not always successful. The influx of fugitives
in the rough sometimes jeopardized their chances for education by