se to go to Africa. Many of them went north of the Ohio
River and took up land on the public domain. Observing this longing
for opportunity, benevolent southerners, who saw themselves hindered
in carrying out their plan for educating the blacks for citizenship,
disposed of their holdings and formed free colonies of their slaves in
the same section. White men of this type thus made possible a new era
of uplift for the colored race by coming north in time to aid the
abolitionists, who had for years constituted a small minority
advocating a seemingly hopeless cause.

A detailed description of these settlements has no place in this
dissertation save as it has a bearing on the development of education
among the colored people. These settlements, however, are important
here in that they furnish the key to the location of many of the early
colored churches and schools of the North and West. Philanthropists
established a number of Negroes near Sandy Lake in Northwestern
Pennsylvania.[1] There was a colored settlement near Berlin
Crossroads, Ohio.[2] Another group of pioneering Negroes emigrating
to this State found homes in the Van Buren township of Shelby County.
Edward Coles, a Virginian, who in 1818 emigrated to Illinois, of which
he later became Governor, made a settlement on a larger scale. He
brought his slaves to Edwardsville, where they constituted a community
known as "Coles' Negroes."[3] The settlement made by Samuel Gist, an
Englishman possessing extensive plantations in Hanover, Amherst, and
Henrico Counties, Virginia, was still more significant. He provided in
his will that his slaves should be freed and sent to the North. It was
further directed "that the revenue from his plantation the last year
of his life be applied in building schoolhouses and churches for their
accommodation," and "that all money coming to him in Virginia be
set aside for the employment of ministers and teachers to instruct
them."[4] In 1818, Wickham, the executor of this estate, purchased
land and established these Negroes in what was called the Upper and
Lower Camps of Brown County, Ohio.

[Footnote 1: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 249.]

[Footnote 2: Langston,_From the Virginia Plantation to the National
Capitol_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 3: Davidson and Stuve,_A Complete History of Illinois_, pp.
321-322; and Washburne, _Sketch of Edward Cole, Second Governor of
Illinois_, pp. 44 and 53.]

[Footnote 4: _History of Brown County_,