organizations, the American Convention of Abolition Societies of 1794
urged the branches to have the children of free Negroes and slaves
instructed in "common literature."[1] Two years later the Abolition
Society of the State of Maryland proposed to establish an academy to
offer this kind of instruction. To execute this scheme the American
Convention thought that it was expedient to employ regular tutors,
to form private associations of their members or other well-disposed
persons for the purpose of instructing the people of color in the most
simple branches of education.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition
Societies_, 1796, p. 18.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1797, p. 41.]

The regular tutors referred to above were largely indentured servants
who then constituted probably the majority of the teachers of the
colonies.[1] In 1773 Jonathan Boucher said that two thirds of the
teachers of Maryland belonged to this class.[2] The contact of Negroes
with these servants is significant. In the absence of rigid caste
distinctions they associated with the slaves and the barrier between
them was so inconsiderable that laws had to be passed to prevent the
miscegenation of the races. The blacks acquired much useful knowledge
from servant teachers and sometimes assisted them.

[Footnote 1: See the descriptions of indentured servants in the
advertisements of colonial newspapers referred to on pages 82-84; and
Boucher, _A View of the Causes_, etc., p. 39.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp. 39 and 40.]