Colonial Education: A Summary View

New York The Dutch originally settled in New Amsterdam, which was renamed “New York” after its conquest by the English. Members of the Reformed Church, the Dutch colonists established Dutch-language parochial schools to teach reading, writing, and religion. These Dutch parochial schools continued to operate after the colony came under England’s domination.3 When New York City grew into a thriving commercial port, private for-profit schools, called private-venture schools, offered navigation, surveying, bookkeeping, Spanish, French, and geography.

pennsylvania As a proprietary colony founded by William Penn, Pennsylvania became a refuge for the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a religious denomination persecuted in England. As pacifist conscientious objectors, Quakers refused to support war efforts or serve in the military. Because of their tolerance, the Quakers welcomed members of other small churches, such as the German pietists, to Pennsylvania. Quaker schools were open to all children, including blacks and Native Americans. (Philadelphia had a small African American community, and some Native Americans remained in the colony.) While Quaker schools taught the standard reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion found in other colonial primary schools, they were unique in offering vocational training, crafts, and agriculture. Rejecting the doctrine of child depravity and corporal punishment, Quaker teachers used gentle persuasion to motivate their pupils.

Southern Colonies The Southern colonies—Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia—presented still another economic and educational pattern. Except for flourishing tidewater cities such as Charleston and Williamsburg, the southern population was more dispersed than in New England or the Middle Atlantic colonies. This made it difficult for rural families to establish centrally located schools. The economically advantaged children of wealthy white plantation owners often studied with private tutors. Some families sent their children to private schools sponsored by the Church of England in towns such as Williamsburg or Charleston.

The slave system, which used the forced labor of captive Africans on plantations, profoundly shaped culture, economics, and politics in the South. Although slavery existed throughout the colonies, the largest population of enslaved Africans was in the Southern colonies. Africans were seized by force and brutally transported in slave ships to North America to work on southern plantations. The enslaved Africans were trained as agricultural field hands, craftspeople, or domestic servants, but they were generally forbidden to learn to read or write. Some notable exceptions learned to read secretly. Over time, the African heritage became the foundation of African American religion and culture.4

The slave system also affected economically disadvantaged whites. While wealthy plantation owners occupied the most productive land, the poorer farmers settled in less fertile backcountry or mountainous areas. The wealthy and politically powerful plantation elite focused on the education of their own children and provided few schools for the rest of the population.

5-1c colonial education: a summary view

Despite regional religious and language differences, the New England, Middle Atlantic, and Southern colonies followed Western European, especially English educational patterns.5 The schools operated by different churches in the Middle Atlantic colonies were forerunners of faith-based private schools. Gender affected educational opportunities

3For the Dutch in North America, see Evan Haefeli, New Netherlands: The Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); and Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (New York: Random House, 2004). 4James Walvin, Crossings: Africa, the Americas, and the Atlantic Slave Trade (London: Reaktion, 2013). 5Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783 (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).