Enslaved people used Noah Webster’s speller for self-education despite literacy bans

Evidence

I also wanted them to correct the narrative: my ancestor was the opposite of what Agassiz had theorized. Papa Renty taught himself how to read, using the Webster Blue Back Speller, at a time when it was illegal for enslaved people to be literate. I’d heard this story countless times growing up and knew how important that book was for the enslaved. It was originally published in 1783 by Noah Webster Jr., who’s considered the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” as he sought to develop a way to teach children how to read using an orderly progression of words, rules, and pronunciations. At first he was mocked for trying to reform the King’s English, but Webster traveled the country, specifically the South, circulating his speller as an inexpensive and more efficient way to teach children. This elementary approach to learning was embraced by all, including the enslaved, who seized the Webster speller as a vehicle for intellectual emancipation. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 215

Categorization

• XREF: Renty’s literacy directly contradicts Agassiz’s polygenist thesis that he photographed people to prove racial difference — connects to the core argument of the whole book about how Black subjects refute their archival framing.