A schoolhouse for black children from 1760 hides a complicated history of slavery and resilience

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A Virginia museum is nearing completion of the restoration of the nation’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for black children, where hundreds of mostly enslaved students learned to read through a curriculum that justified slavery.

The museum, Colonial Williamsburg, has also identified more than 80 children who lined the pine benches in the 1760s.

Among them was 5-year-old Aberdeen, who was enslaved by a saddle and harness maker. Bristol and George, 7 and 8, were owned by a doctor. Phoebe, 3, was owned by local innkeepers.

Another student, Isaac Bee, later emancipated himself. In newspaper advertisements seeking his capture, his slave trader warned Bee “can read.”

The museum will dedicate the Williamsburg Bray School on Friday, with plans to open it for public tours this spring. Colonial Williamsburg tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and hundreds of restored buildings.

The Cape Cod-style house was built in 1760 and still contains much of the original wood and brick. It will anchor a complex story about race and education, as well as resistance before the American Revolution.

The school rationalized slavery within a religious framework and encouraged children to accept their fate as God’s plan. And yet literacy also gave them more freedom of choice. The students then shared what they learned with family members and others who were enslaved.

“We don’t shy away from the fact that this was a pro-slavery school,” said Maureen Elgersman Lee, director of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab, a partnership between the university and the museum.

But she said school takes on a different meaning in the 21st century.

“It’s a story of resilience and resistance,” Lee said. “And I put Bray School resilience on a continuum that brings us to today.”

To underscore this point, the lab has searched for the students’ descendants, with some success.

Among them is Janice Canaday, 67, who is also the museum’s African-American community engagement manager. Her lineage dates back to students Elisa and Mary Jones.

“It grounds you,” said Canaday, who grew up with little connection to history. “That’s where your strength lies. And those are the things that give you strength – to know what your family has been through.”

The Bray School was founded in Williamsburg and other colonial cities at the recommendation of founding father Benjamin Franklin. He was a member of a London-based Anglican charity named after Thomas Bray, an English clergyman and philanthropist.

The Bray School was exceptional for its time. Although Virginia waited until the 19th century to impose anti-literacy laws, white leaders in much of colonial America prohibited the education of enslaved people, fearing that literacy would encourage them to seek freedom.

The white teacher at the Williamsburg school, a widow named Ann Wager, taught an estimated 300 to 400 students, whose ages ranged from 3 to 10. The school was closed with her death in 1774.

The school building became a private residence before being absorbed into William & Mary’s growing campus. The building was moved and expanded for various purposes, including student housing.

Historians identified the structure in 2020 through a scientific method that examines tree rings in wood. Last year it was transported to Colonial Williamsburg, which includes parts of the original city.

The museum and university have focused on restoring the school building, researching the curriculum and finding descendants of former students.

The lab has been able to link some people to the Jones and Ashby families, two free black households with students at the school, said Elizabeth Drembus, the lab’s genealogist.

But the effort has faced major challenges: Most enslaved people were stripped of their identities and separated from their families, so data is limited. And only three years of school schedules have been preserved.

Drembus talks to people in the region about their family history and how they can work backwards. She also searches 18th-century property records, tax documents and slave owners’ diaries.

“When you talk about research on people who were formerly enslaved, the records were kept very differently because they weren’t considered people,” Drembus said.

Researching the curriculum has been easier. The English charity cataloged the books it sent to the schools, said Katie McKinney, associate curator of maps and prints at the museum.

Materials include a small spelling primer, a copy of which was in Germany, that starts with the alphabet and moves on to syllables, such as “Beg leg meg peg.”

The students also received a more refined speller bound in sheepskin, as well as the Book of Common Prayer and other Christian texts.

In the meantime, the school building has been largely restored. About 75% of the original floor has been preserved, allowing visitors to walk where the children and teacher placed their feet.

Canaday, whose family roots include two Bray School students, wondered during a recent visit if any of the children here “felt safe, if they felt loved.”

Canaday noted that the teacher, Wager, was the mother of at least two children.

“Did some of her motherhood spill over into what she showed those children?” Canaday said. “There are times when we forget to follow the rules and humanity takes over. I wonder how many times that has happened in these spaces.”