THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

slavery. In 1825, the Christian Observer announced the establishment of the Ladies’
Society for the Education of Negro Children, organized by evangelical Anglicans. In a
letter to the Christian Observer, Townsend claimed that focusing on education rather
than emancipation of slaves deflected time and energy away from the more important
cause of liberation. Townsend blamed the colonial system for the slaves’ current
condition, noting that schools attempted to teach “chastity” to female slaves; yet, slave
women continued to suffer sexual abuse in order to provide British women with
“luxuries.” 51
Other women shared Townsend’s concerns. Heyrick had noted in Immediate Not
Gradual Abolition that slaves would not accept Christian education so long as their
teachers violated their own lessons by supporting the sin of slavery. 52 The women of
Calne supported education, but were clear that education alone was ineffective: “As well
we might attempt to arrest the march of a pestilence with a barrier of straw as to
counteract the moral contagion of the West India system by instruction alone.” 53
Throughout the 1820s, women continued to support missionary and educational work
among West Indian slaves; however, doubts about its efficacy led women’s groups to
shift their focus, in terms of missionary and educational efforts, from the West Indies to
Africa. Increasingly in the late 1820s, women’s support for aid to West Indian slaves
51 Christian Observer 11 (1825), 715-717, 751, 750.
52 Heyrick, Immediate Not Gradual Abolition, 8.
53 The Second Report of the Ladies’ Association for Calne, Melksham, Devizes, and their
Respective Neighbourhoods, 5. Italics in original.
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