The reason for changing my school of white pupils for a1 school for colored pupils is as follows: I had a nice colored girl, now Mrs. Charles Harris, as help in my family, and her intended husband regularly received the Liberator. The girl took the paper from the office and loaned it to me. In that the condition of the colored people, both slaves and free, was truthfully portrayed, the double-dealing and manifest deception of the Colonization Society were faithfully exposed, and the question of Immediate Emancipation of the millions of slaves in the United States boldly advocated. Having been taught from early childhood the sin of slavery, my sympathies were greatly aroused. Sarah Harris, a respectable young woman and a member of the church (now Mrs. Fairweather, and sister to the before-named intended husband), called often to see her friend Marcia, my family assistant. In some of her calls I ascertained that she wished to attend my school,2 and board at her own father's house at some little distance from the village. I allowed her to enter as one of my pupils. By this act I gave great offence. The wife of an Episcopal clergyman who lived in the village told me that if I continued that colored girl in my school, it could not be sustained. I replied to her, That it might sink, then, for I should not turn her out! I very soon found that some of my school would leave not to return if the colored girl was retained. Under these circumstances I made up my mind that if it were possible I would teach colored girls exclusively.The first publication of the intended change was made in the Liberator of March 2, 1833, when the editor3 announced, ‘with a rush of pleasurable emotions,’ the insertion of ‘the advertisement of Miss P. Crandall (a ’
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Why did Miss Crandall contemplate so revolutionary a step, and why did she seek counsel, before all others, of William Lloyd Garrison?
Her own account, given in 1869, is as follows:
1 Larned's Windham County, Vol. 2, p. 491. See also Fruits of Colonizationism, p. 9.
2 In order to teach her own color (Lib. 3.82; “Fruits of Colonizationism,” p. 9). This was as early as September, 1832. Another pupil, Mary Harris, who afterwards became Mrs. Williams, was in 1881 engaged with her husband in ‘teaching colored persons, old and young, in Greensburg, La.,’ their home being in New Orleans, ‘where their oldest son is teaching, with six teachers under him’ (Mrs. Philleo [Miss Crandall], Ms. May 5, 1881).
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