"
One demonstration of this "Christian attention" had lately been the
closing of the African Church,--of which, as has been stated, most of
the leading revolutionists were members,--on the ground that it tended
to spread the dangerous infection of the alphabet. On January 15th,
1821, the City Marshal, John J. Lafar, had notified "ministers of the
gospel and others who keep night- and Sunday-schools for slaves, that
the education of such persons is forbidden by law, and that the city
government feel imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there
were some special, as well as general grounds for disaffection among
these ungrateful favorites of Fortune, the slaves. Then there were
fancied dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen--since you cannot
keep men ignorant without making them unreasonable also--that on the
ensuing Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that
every black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them";
this being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to
be on its way from Hayti.
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