Historical Figures

Prudence Crandall, right to education activist

Crandall Caution (1803 – 1890) caused scandal by creating, in Connecticut, before the abolition of slavery, a school for African-American girls. Arrested, judged, imprisoned for a short period, she ended up abandoning her project in the face of physical attacks against her school.

The Canterbury Female Boarding School

Prudence Crandall was born September 3, 1803 in Hopkinton, Rhode Island on the eastern seaboard of the United States -United. She is the daughter of Esther and Pardon Crandall, a Quaker farming couple. At New England Friends’ Boarding School , she studies arithmetic, Latin, sciences.

Crandall's parents moved to Canterbury, Connecticut. After completing her studies, Prudence became a teacher and obtained a first job in a school for young girls in Canterbury. In 1831, she opened the Canterbury Female Boarding School with her sister Almira. , a private boarding school originally aimed at young girls from wealthy families. The curriculum is demanding and the education provided is similar to that of good boys' schools; the Canterbury Female Boarding School is therefore very prominent.

Sarah Harris

In 1832, Sarah Harris, a 20-year-old black woman, daughter of a free African-American farmer, applied to join the school. In a letter to The Liberator newspaper, Prudence Crandall recalled the visit of the young woman in these terms:

“A colored girl of respectability – a professor of religion – and daughter of honorable parents, called on me sometime during the month of September last, and said in a very earnest manner, 'Miss Crandall, I want to get a little more learning, enough if possible to teach colored children, and if you will admit me into your school I shall forever be under the greatest obligation to you. If you think it will be the means of injuring you, I will not insist on the favor.’”

("A respectable black girl - a teacher of religion - and the daughter of honorable parents, contacted me during the month of September last and said to me in earnest:'Mrs. Crandall, I want to continue to educate myself, enough if possible to teach black children, and if you want to admit me to your school, I will be forever obligated to you. If you think it can harm you, I will not insist.”)

Prudence agrees. Many of the city's notables, outraged, try to pressure her to have Sarah ousted, but Prudence holds firm. In response, the students' families then withdrew their daughters from the Canterbury Female Boarding School .

Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color

Refusing to be impressed, Prudence Crandall then decided to reserve her school for black students. Closing the school for a while, in March 1833 she placed an advertisement in the sympathetic newspaper The Liberator to recruit students. From April, twenty young girls from Connecticut but also from Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, joined the Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color .

In this new school, students study various subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, geography, history, philosophy, history, astronomy, or arts such as drawing, painting, music. Prudence's enthusiasm and satisfaction at the opening of this school was, however, only short-lived.

Racist attacks

The reaction of Canterbury citizens to the opening of Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color is immediate and hostile. Many white citizens are opposed to the arrival of black women in their community, fearing in particular mixed marriages. Faced with Prudence Crandall's refusal to give in to warnings, threats, and the first acts of violence against the school, committees meet to decide on the measures to be adopted.

As early as May 1833, Connecticut adopted the “Black Law” which prohibited running a school welcoming African-American students from other states, without the authorization of the city. From that moment, all doors closed to Prudence and her students. Merchants, stagecoach drivers, even doctors refuse them their services. Worse still, neighbors poisoned the school well. Anna Eliza Hammond, one of the students, is briefly arrested. Despite the severity of the attacks on them, Prudence and her students held firm and did not give in to threats, continuing to teach under very difficult conditions.

Paroxysm of violence

In July, Prudence Crandall was arrested and imprisoned for one night, before being released pending trial. Arthur Tappan, a New York abolitionist, supports her by donating 10,000 dollars so that she can afford a good lawyer. After two trials and an appeal, Prudence is released. In response, the violence of the inhabitants of Canterbury redoubles. Vandals smash the windows with iron bars and in September the school is set on fire. Fearing for the safety of her students and her own, Prudence closes the school the next day and will not try the experiment again.

The same year, Prudence married Calvin Philleo, a Baptist preacher, with whom she settled in Massachusetts, then in New York, Rhode Island and finally in Illinois. When her husband died in 1874, Prudence moved with her brother Hezekiah to Arkansas. She died there on January 28, 1890, at the age of 86.

Connecticut abolished the Black Law in 1838. Today, Prudence Crandall is recognized as Connecticut's official heroine.