Isabella Gibbons: Difference between revisions
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Isabella Gibbons’ birthday, birthplace, and parents remain unknown. Around 1850, when she was in her late teens, she was purchased by a UVA professor of natural philosophy, William Barton Rogers. It is likely that it was during her enslavement by Rogers that she learned to read and write. It is possible that a member of Rogers’ family taught Gibbons, although it is also said that both Gibbons taught themselves how to read and write using discarded books. At the time, it was illegal for anyone to teach an enslaved person literacy, in order to restrict as much power and knowledge as possible. | Isabella Gibbons’ birthday, birthplace, and parents remain unknown. Around 1850, when she was in her late teens, she was purchased by a UVA professor of natural philosophy, William Barton Rogers. It is likely that it was during her enslavement by Rogers that she learned to read and write. It is possible that a member of Rogers’ family taught Gibbons, although it is also said that both Gibbons taught themselves how to read and write using discarded books. At the time, it was illegal for anyone to teach an enslaved person literacy, in order to restrict as much power and knowledge as possible. | ||
Gibbons was known for being the “general reader” for illiterate Black people at the University. Colleague Anna Gardner said that “she has read to one colored man who has paid for a newspaper for the past four years, though he cannot read a word himself. He is exceedingly well-informed with regards to the events of the war.” Gibbons opened a “pay school” for freedmen before emancipation. When Anna Gardner arrived to open a freedmen’s school, a white woman told Gibbons that she “would lose all her scholars.” Gibbons retorted that not only would she send her children to Gardner’s school, but that she was going to attend herself. Gibbons was part of the first graduating class of the Jefferson School and became a member of the staff. Each teacher named their classroom, which was in turn called a “school.” Gibbons named her “school” the Major Savage School, after the Union soldier brother of Elizabeth Savage Rogers.<ref name="disturber">{{cite web|title=Disturber of Tradition: A Portrait of Anna Gardner|url=|author=White, Barbara Ann|work=Print|publisher=Nantucket Historical Association|location=|publishdate=2017|accessdate=}}</ref> | Gibbons was known for being the “general reader” for illiterate Black people at the University. Colleague Anna Gardner said that “she has read to one colored man who has paid for a newspaper for the past four years, though he cannot read a word himself. He is exceedingly well-informed with regards to the events of the war.”<ref name="disturber"/> Gibbons opened a “pay school” for freedmen before emancipation. When Anna Gardner arrived to open a freedmen’s school, a white woman told Gibbons that she “would lose all her scholars.” Gibbons retorted that not only would she send her children to Gardner’s school, but that she was going to attend herself. Gibbons was part of the first graduating class of the Jefferson School and became a member of the staff. Each teacher named their classroom, which was in turn called a “school.” Gibbons named her “school” the Major Savage School, after the Union soldier brother of Elizabeth Savage Rogers.<ref name="disturber">{{cite web|title=Disturber of Tradition: A Portrait of Anna Gardner|url=|author=White, Barbara Ann|work=Print|publisher=Nantucket Historical Association|location=|publishdate=2017|accessdate=}}</ref> | ||
Gibbons frequently wrote to and was published in the Freedmen’s Record, the journal published by the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society (NEFAS), who paid her salary when she taught at the Jefferson School.<ref name="disturber"/> Her most famous quote is engraved as follows on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia: | Gibbons frequently wrote to and was published in the Freedmen’s Record, the journal published by the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society (NEFAS), who paid her salary when she taught at the Jefferson School.<ref name="disturber"/> Her most famous quote is engraved as follows on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia: | ||
Revision as of 12:33, 9 June 2021
Isabella Gibbons and her husband William Gibbons were married slaves owned by University of Virginia families until their emancipation on Liberation and Freedom Day. After emancipation, Isabella became a schoolteacher and William founded a church in Washington D.C. They would later return to Charlottesville, where Isabella graduated from and taught at the original Jefferson School.
Isabella Gibbons’ birthday, birthplace, and parents remain unknown. Around 1850, when she was in her late teens, she was purchased by a UVA professor of natural philosophy, William Barton Rogers. It is likely that it was during her enslavement by Rogers that she learned to read and write. It is possible that a member of Rogers’ family taught Gibbons, although it is also said that both Gibbons taught themselves how to read and write using discarded books. At the time, it was illegal for anyone to teach an enslaved person literacy, in order to restrict as much power and knowledge as possible.
Gibbons was known for being the “general reader” for illiterate Black people at the University. Colleague Anna Gardner said that “she has read to one colored man who has paid for a newspaper for the past four years, though he cannot read a word himself. He is exceedingly well-informed with regards to the events of the war.”[2] Gibbons opened a “pay school” for freedmen before emancipation. When Anna Gardner arrived to open a freedmen’s school, a white woman told Gibbons that she “would lose all her scholars.” Gibbons retorted that not only would she send her children to Gardner’s school, but that she was going to attend herself. Gibbons was part of the first graduating class of the Jefferson School and became a member of the staff. Each teacher named their classroom, which was in turn called a “school.” Gibbons named her “school” the Major Savage School, after the Union soldier brother of Elizabeth Savage Rogers.[2]
Gibbons frequently wrote to and was published in the Freedmen’s Record, the journal published by the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society (NEFAS), who paid her salary when she taught at the Jefferson School.[2] Her most famous quote is engraved as follows on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia:
“Can we forget the crack of the whip, cowhide, whipping-post, the auction-block, the hand-cuffs, the spaniels, the iron collar, the negro-trader tearing the young child from its mother’s breast as a whelp from the lioness? Have we forgotten that by those horrible cruelties, hundreds of our race have been killed? No, we have not, nor ever will.”[1]
The University of Virginia named a new residence hall after the couple in 2014. [3] The idea was a recommendation from the President's Commission on Slavery and the University.
See also: William Gibbons
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References
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Web. [ Disturber of Tradition: A Portrait of Anna Gardner], White, Barbara Ann, Print, Nantucket Historical Association, 2017
- ↑ Web. New U.Va. Residence Hall, Gibbons House, Named for Former Slave Couple - See more at: http://news.virginia.edu/content/new-uva-residence-hall-gibbons-house-named-former-slave-couple#sthash.tPpTtl6n.dpuf, Ann Broomley, March 26, 2015, retrieved November 4, 2015.