t not lead to servile insurrection, nevertheless feared that their
conversion might work manumission. To meet this exigency the
colonists secured, through legislation by their assemblies and formal
declarations of the Bishop of London, the abrogation of the law that
a Christian could not be held as a slave. Then allowed access to the
bondmen, the missionaries of the Church of England, sent out by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen in Foreign
Parts, undertook to educate the slaves for the purpose of extensive
proselyting.

Contemporaneous with these early workers of the Established Church of
England were the liberal Puritans, who directed their attention to the
conversion of the slaves long before this sect advocated abolition.
Many of this connection justified slavery as established by the
precedent of the Hebrews, but they felt that persons held to service
should be instructed as were the servants of the household of Abraham.
The progress of the cause was impeded, however, by the bigoted class
of Puritans, who did not think well of the policy of incorporating
undesirable persons into the Church so closely connected then with the
state. The first settlers of the American colonies to offer Negroes
the same educational and religious privileges they provided for
persons of their own race, were the Quakers. Believing in the
brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, they taught the colored
people to read their own "instruction in the book of the law that they
might be wise unto salvation."

Encouraging as was the aspect of things after these early efforts, the
contemporary complaints about the neglect to instruct the slaves show
that the cause lacked something to make the movement general. Then
came the days when the struggle for the rights of man was arousing the
civilized world. After 1760 the nascent social doctrine found response
among the American colonists. They looked with opened eyes at the
Negroes. A new day then dawned for the dark-skinned race. Men like
Patrick Henry and James Otis, who demanded liberty for themselves,
could not but concede that slaves were entitled at least to freedom of
body. The frequent acts of manumission and emancipation which followed
upon this change in attitude toward persons of color, turned loose
upon society a large number of men whose chief needs were education
and training in the duties of citizenship. To enlighten these freedmen
schools, missions,