Perspectives on the Williamsburg Bray SchoolSarah MarcellinClass of 2013History and Secondary Education

Lemon Project Scholarship

Sponsored by the

Dewey Renick Memorial Fund

Jody AllenAdvisor

Lemon Project Co-Chair

Methodology• Introductory Research• Through Earl Gregg Swem Library Databases• Secondary Sources

• Investigatory Research• Through Special Collections Research Center• Primary Sources

Questions• What was the Williamsburg Bray School? Who started it,

funded it, staffed it, and why?• What were the goals of the Williamsburg Bray School?• What was life like for students of the Williamsburg Bray

School?• What were the impacts of education on free and enslaved

blacks, intended and unintended?• How has scholarly analysis and interpretations of the

Williamsburg Bray School reflected changing attitudes towards race and slavery?

Thesis

Primary documents from the Williamsburg Bray School have been interpreted by scholars in different ways over time. These interpretations reflect generationally sensitive depictions of slavery and race in colonial times. Scholarly investigations surrounding the Bray School have become more objective over time. This trend, however, has resulted in documents that are categorized by descriptive narrative, instead of deep inquiry.

Van HorneReligious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery

• Published in 1985, the work is approached with an emphasis on objectivity—assessment of the Associates is explicitly based upon evidence, and a great deal of it.

• Van Horne readily admits that the Bray Associates were not the “moralist upside” to slavery as an institution.

• Argues that Christianity did not reform attitudes surrounding slavery, so much as help direct and mold them into racial attitudes.

PenningtonThomas Bray’s Associates and their work amongst the Negroes

• Published in 1939, this book represents an apologetic, moralist outlook on slavery and racial attitudes in colonial America.

• The language of the text reveals implicit agreement with contemporary assessments of “Blacks as Heathens.”

• Narrative format lacks strong supporting evidence– selective evidence.

OastEducating eighteenth-century Black children: the Bray Schools

Published in 2000, this master’s thesis represents another improvement on objective distance from the subject of slavery.The formality of Oast’s research and her reliance on scarce primary sources limits her thesis to descriptive narration.

MarcellinPerspectives on the Williamsburg Bray School

• In 2012, the letters and minutes of the Bray Associates reveal contradictions in colonial attitudes towards free and enslaved blacks.

• Property could possess property in the forms of books and information; education of blacks leaned toward opportunity and skills, which was intended to benefit whites.

• Though the Williamsburg Bray School directly impacted a limited number of black individuals, it effected the Williamsburg community (black and white) in a lasting way.

The Williamsburg Bray School• Open 1760-1774• Mistress Anne Wager• Superintendents:• Rev. Thomas Dawson 1760

• Bruton Parish Rector, President of the College

• William Hunter 1760-1761• Printer of the Virginia Gazette

• Rev. William Yates 1761-1764• Bruton Parish Rector

• Robert Carter Nicholas 1761-1774• Treasurer of the Colony

Sources• Associates of Dr. Bray. Bray Papers: 1730-1817. Special Collections Research

Center.• Bly, Antonio T.. “In Pursuit of Letters: A History of the Bray Schools for

Enslaved Children in Colonial Williamsburg.” History of Education Quarterly 51.4 (2011).

• Meyers, Terry L.. “Benjamin Franklin, the College of William and Mary, and the Williamsburg Bray School.” Anglican and Episcopal History 79.4 (2010).

• Morgan, Philip D.. Black Education in Williamsburg-James City County, 1619-1984. The Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools and The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 1985.

• Oast. Educating eighteenth-century Black children: the Bray schools. Dissertation. College of William and Mary, 2000.

• Pennington, Edgar Legare. Thomas Bray’s Associates and their work amongst the Negroes. American Antiquarian Society, 1939.

• Van Horne, John C.. Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery: the American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray, 1717-1777. University of Illinois Press, 1985.