vent the migration of
Negroes to that section. Their education at certain places was
discouraged. In fact, in the proportion that the conditions in the
South made it necessary for free blacks to flee from oppression, the
people of the North grew less tolerant on account of the large number
of those who crowded the towns and cities of the free States near the
border. The antislavery societies at one time found it necessary to
devote their time to the amelioration of the economic condition of the
refugees to make them acceptable to the white people rather than to
direct their attention to mere education.[1] Not a few northerners,
dreading an influx of free Negroes, drove them even from communities
to which they had learned to, repair for education.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_.]

The best example of this intolerance was the opposition encountered
by Prudence Crandall, a well-educated young Quaker lady, who had
established a boarding-school at Canterbury, Connecticut. Trouble
arose when Sarah Harris, a colored girl, asked admission to this
institution.[1] For many reasons Miss Crandall hesitated to admit her
but finally yielded. Only a few days thereafter the parents of the
white girls called on Miss Crandall to offer their objections to
sending their children to school with a "nigger."[2] Miss Crandall
stood firm, the white girls withdrew, and the teacher advertised for
young women of color. The determination to continue the school on this
basis incited the townsmen to hold an indignation meeting. They passed
resolutions to protest through a committee of local officials against
the establishment of a school of this kind in that community. At this
meeting Andrew T. Judson denounced the policy of Miss Crandall, while
the Rev. Samuel J. May ably defended it. Judson was not only opposed
to the establishment of such a school in Canterbury but in any part of
the State. He believed that colored people, who could never rise
from their menial condition in the United States, should not to
be encouraged to expect to elevate themselves in Connecticut. He
considered them inferior servants who should not be treated as equals
of the Caucasians, but should be sent back to Africa to improve
themselves and Christianize the natives.[3] On the contrary, Mr. May
thought that there would never be fewer colored people in this country
than were found here then and that it would be unjust to exile them.
He asserted tha