Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy.

Throughout the colonial period, and even in the post-Revolutionary United States, reading was usually viewed as compatible with the institution of slavery. Writing, on the other hand, was almost invariably perceived by southern slaveholders as intrinsically dangerous. After about 1820, reading became increasingly redefined in the slaveholding South as a seditious skill. To clarify the relationship between literacy and liberty, or literacy and any other topic, we need to ask different questions of each literacy skill. What is being read? Who is doing the writing? For whom is this an advantage?