October 10, 2013 William Swaby
History Assignment
Describe the educational policies of the British Caribbean government between 1838 and 1876. Before Emancipation very little effort was put in by the British Caribbean Government to help educate the people of the Caribbean. Children of wealthy parents had tutors to teach them and, later, were sent to Britain to further their education in universities while the girls stayed to continue their education under tutors. The first school in the Caribbean was a charity school built in 1686 and many more were built afterwards in various islands. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 19th century when there was a school of any sort for slaves, the ones before were for white children. The planters always feared in educating the slaves because they felt it would cause the slaves to “get ideas beyond their station in life”. It wasn’t until 1835 when the British Government participated in the education of the British Caribbean. The British Government set up the Negro Education Grant in 1835, which would be a source of income for the missionary societies to help them in their educational efforts. In both 1835 and 1836 £25,000 was funded to missionary societies so they build schools for children and for educating new teachers in the Caribbean. In the years after, £30,000 was given until 1841. This money was distributed to different islands based on the number of freed slaves in each colony. This grant later proved to be not as successful as anticipated and was completely withdrawn by 1845. Colonial legislatures were not prepared to provide financial provision for education and so many schools had to be closed. In 1835 there was yet another source of capital for the development of education in the British West Indies. This was the Mico Charity. In 1666 Lady Jane Mico willed £1,000 to her nephew, but he would only