Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/23

Rh chivalry could bear. It had not been occupied many weeks in quietness, before three ruffians, calling themselves "confederate soldiers," but really guerillas, appeared in the night time, set the school-house on fire, rudely summoned Mrs. Croome from her house adjoining it, and bade her hasten away before that also should be given to the flames. They threatened her with violence, and tried to extort the promise that she would never again teach "niggers" to read. But she bore herself with dignity and calmness, and so escaped their power. The loss of clothing, books, school furniture, and other property is slight, compared with the calamity which despoiled these people, hungering and thirsting after knowledge, of the instruction they prized so highly. They were indignant, angry, and sorrowful by turns, and are more than ever determined that the school-house shall stand amid their forest homes, and that their children shall drink at the fountains of knowledge. The indefatigable Missionary Association has sent out the same agent, well furnished with materials, to rebuild at Clumfort's Creek the temple of learning. It will soon rise from its ashes. And not a few of the negroes have purchased muskets, with which to dispute the right of the burglar and the assassin, when again he comes that way.

Could anything be more significant than is this incident, of the spirit which animates on the one side the Union legions, and on the other the Confederate troops? The one diffuse knowledge, the other enforce ignorance; one would make the whole land bright with liberty and love, the other would pollute it with deeds of darkness and violence, and stain it with the blood of slaves.

Within a month after assuming the Superintendency of the Blacks in North Carolina, I was ordered by Major General J.G. Foster, then commanding the Department, to establish a colony of negroes upon Roanoke Island. The good or ill success of this experiment ought to be credited as well to the mind which originated the enterprize, as to those who were entrusted with its execution. It was General Foster's purpose to settle colored people on the unoccupied lands, and give them agricultural implements and mechanical tools to begin with, and to