DOCUMENT: EXCERPTS from PRUDENCE CRANDALL’S
OBITUARY, JANUARY 31, 1890
“Mrs. Prudence Crandall died at her home in Elk Falls (Kansas), this county,
Monday, the 27th of January, of influenza after an illness of several days, aged
86 years….
In 1831 she bought a large building in Canterbury Connecticut and turned it
into a boarding school for girls. In this school a colored girl names Harris
worked for her board and was also given some instruction in reading, writing,
and the lower branches (arithmetic). This brought forth a protest from some
of the patrons of the school and the citizens of Canterbury. It demanded that
Miss Crandall turn the colored girl out and send her away, but she refused to
do so. Then most of her patrons withdrew from her school, and she then
proceeded to carry out an idea that she had cherished for some time of
establishing a school exclusively for colored girls, and she at once published
her announcement to that effect.
This action caused great indignation in that virtuous community, and a public
meeting was held and resolutions were passed against allowing the “nigger”
school to be conducted in their midst. A committee waited on Miss Crandall
and warned her not to commence the school, or it would be violently
suppressed. The State legislature passed a law making it a crime punishable
by fine and imprisonment to teach colored scholars, and as Miss Crandall
persisted in trying to run her school, she was arrested and thrown into jail.
Pending her trial her house was stoned, windows smashed in, wells filled with
filth, etc. She was twice tried and convicted under the newly enacted law, and
appealing her case was finally cleared on a technicality.
She then attempted to resume her school, but a mob dispersed it, destroyed
her furniture and burned the house, and she was forced to leave the
community….
A few years ago, the State of Connecticut voted her an annuity of three or four
hundred dollars, as a small return for the damage done by the anti “nigger”
mob of 1833. This enabled her to live in comparative comfort until her death.
Her remains was (sic) interred in the Elk Falls cemetery last Wednesday.
Submitted by L. Morgan”
Source: www.ksgennet.org/ks/ek/bios/CrandallPrudence.html
EXCERPT FROM PRUDENCE CRANDALL’S LETTER TO SIMEON
JOCELYN on FEBRUARY 26, 1833
Prudence Crandall had opened a school for young women and had
admitted a black student, Sarah Harris, from a neighboring town.
After local white parents withdrew their daughters from her school,
Prudence visited abolitionist friends in Rhode Island and resolved to
open a school for African-American young ladies. Writing to an
abolitionist friend, Prudence Crandall relates the beginning of the
difficulties she began to face with the citizens of Canterbury.
“Mr. Jocelyn Sir
I can inform you that I arrived home last Friday evening-soon called
my family together and laid before them the object of my journey
and endeavoured to convince them of the propriety of the pursuit.
My views by them were pretty cordially received. Saturday morning
I called on several of the neighbors and to my astonishment
exhibited but little opposition.
Last evening they held a meeting to consult what shall be done to
destroy the school I have now in contemplation. They appointed a
committee (to wait on me at 9 o’clock this morning) comprised of
foure of the most powerful men of the towne. They callede and had
an interview with me-told me the meeting had resolve to do
everything in their power to destroy my undertaking ande that they
could do it ande should do it ands what will be the result of this
commotion I cannot tell….”
Source: www.yale.edu/glc/crandall/17.htm
EXCERPT FROM THE “BLACK LAW” Passed by the Connecticut
Legislature on May 24, 1833
The Connecticut state legislature passed this law at the urging of the
Canterbury officials, who had been unsuccessful in their attempts to
force Prudence Crandall to close her school. Andrew Judson was a
powerful local official, with significant power in the legislature, who
pushed for this legislation.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in
General Assembly convened, that no person shall set up or establish
in this state any school, academy, or literary institution for the
instruction or education of colored persons who are not inhabitants
of this State; nor instruct or teach in any school, or any other literary
institution whatsoever, in this State nor harbor or board, for the
purpose of attending or being instructed in any such school,
academy, or literary institution, any colored person who is not an
inhabitant of any town in this State, without the consent in writing,
first obtained, of a majority of the civil authority (town meeting) ,
and also of the Selectmen of the town, in which such school,
academy, or literary institution is situated.”…
Source: www.yale.edu/glc
EXCERPTS from STATEMENTS BY ANDREW JUDSON
Prosecutor in the case against Prudence Crandall, Judson was an
opponent of slavery and a member of the African Colonization Society,
which proposed resettling American blacks in Liberia. Judson believed
that blacks were not citizens of the United States and were, therefore,
“foreigners.”
“I would appeal to this court-to every American citizen and say that
America is ours-it belongs to a race of white men, the descendents of
those who first redeemed it from the wilderness. The American
name and character have been handed down to this generation and
it is our duty to preserve that character and perpetuate that name.”
“Our obligations as a State, acting in its sovereign capacity, are
limited to people of our own territory….We are under no obligation,
moral or political, to incur the incalculable evils of bringing into our
own State, colored emigrants from abroad….It is a fact confirmed by
painful and long experience, and one that results from the condition
of the colored people, in the midst of the white population, in all
States and countries, that they are a source of crime and pauperism.
As this, in our own state, proceeds from the degradation to which
their ancestors have been wrongfully subjected, it imposes on us an
imperious duty, to advance their morals and usefulness and
preserve them, so far as possible, from the evils which they have
been obliged to inherit, but at the same time the duty is not less
imperative to protect our own citizens, against the host of colored
emigrants, which would rush in from every quarter, when invited to
our colleges and schools.”
Source: www.yale.edu/glc/crandall/01.htm
EXERPTS from THE ARGUMENTS OF WILLIAM W. ELLSWORTH
As Prudence Crandall’s attorney in the case, Ellsworth argued that the “Black
Law” was unconstitutional because it discriminated against blacks, whom
Ellsworth contended were citizens of the United States. Ellsworth’s argument
would be refuted in 1857 by the Dred Scott decision of the United States
Supreme Court, which held that blacks were not, and could not be, citizens of the
United States. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
overturned the Dred Scott decision and affirmed that blacks are citizens of the
United States and of the states in which they live.
…The defense of Miss Crandall will be rested upon the constitutionality of this
statute law of Connecticut, and may be embraced under these two heads
1. These pupils are citizens of their respective states.
2. As citizens, the constitution of the United States secures to them the
right of residing in Connecticut, and pursuing the acquisition of
knowledge, as people of color may do, who are settled here….
To the first position then.
Are these pupils citizens of their states respectively? If they were white, it is
conceded they would be.
1. A distinction found in color, in fundamental human rights, is novel
(new), inconvenient, and impracticable. Hitherto we have seen no such
distinction; none in the ancient common law of England which justly
boasts of her equal principles; none in that immortal instrument which
our founding fathers put forth as the groundwork for all jus
government-the Declaration of Independence. There we read ‘we hold
these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….
2. Such (distinctions based on race) were not the ideas of out fathers,
when the colored soldier stood in the ranks of that army which achieved
for us our liberty….
3. These pupils are human beings, born in these states, and owe the same
obligation to the state and the state’s government, as white citizens.
Source: www.yale.edu/glc/crandall/14.htm
EXCERPT from SAMUEL J. MAY, “PRUDENCE CRANDALL AND
THE CANTERBURY SCHOOL”
Reverend Mr. Samuel May was minister of the Unitarian Church in Brooklyn,
Connecticut, an abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for blacks, and a close
friend and supporter of Prudence Crandall. An observer of, and participant in,
the travails of Prudence Crandall, Mr. May wrote this recollection in 1869.
“Soon after their (opponents of Prudence Crandall’s school) failure to get a
decision from the Court of Errors, an attempt was made to set the house on
fire. Fortunately the match was applied to combustibles tucked under a corner
where the sills were somewhat decayed. They burnt like a slow match.
Sometime before daylight the inmates perceived the smell of fire, but not until
nearly nine o’clock did any blaze appear. It was quickly quenched, and I was
sent for to advise whether, if her enemies were so malignant as this attempt
showed them to be, it was safe and right for her to expose her pupils’ and her
own life any longer to their wicked devices. It was concluded that she should
hold on and bear yet a little longer. Perhaps the atrocity of this attempt to fire
her house, and at the same time endanger the dwellings of her neighbors
would frighten the leaders and instigators of the persecution to put more
restraint upon “the baser sort.” But a few nights afterward it was made only
too plain that the enemies of the school were bent upon its destruction. About
twelve o’clock, on the night of the ninth of September, Miss Crandall’s house
was assaulted by a number of persons with heavy clubs and iron bars; five
window sashes were demolished and ninety panes of glass dashed to pieces.
I was summoned next morning to the scene of destruction and the terror
stricken family. Never before had Miss Crandall seemed to quail, and her
pupils had become afraid to remain another night under her roof. The front
rooms of the house were hardly tenable; and it seemed foolish to repair them
only to be destroyed again. After due consideration, therefore, it was
determined that the school should be abandoned….My bosom slowed with
indignation. I felt ashamed of Canterbury, ashamed of Connecticut, ashamed
of my country, ashamed of my color. Thus ended the generous, disinterested,
philanthropic, Christian enterprise of Prudence Crandall.”
Source: Samuel J. May, “Miss Prudence Crandall and the Canterbury School” Some
Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict (Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1869) pp. 39-72.
Questions to answer
Who is the author of the document?
What role did this person play in the Prudence Crandall affair?
What is the point of view of the author towards Prudence Crandall’s
efforts to educate black girls?
What evidence does the author use to support his argument?