By Kaiya Downs

Growing up, it was rare to see black faces in my history books. They were there, but often they were a suffering collective, not the grand figures we were shown with the founding fathers or the oft talked about war heroes. Being biracial, it was disheartening to see faces like my own reduced to a blurry sea of faces like a watercolor painting. It did not help that biracial figures within history are often erased entirely or reduced to a footnote. As a result, despite my love for history, it was always distant.  

That distance also stemmed from the nature of academia. When you learn from textbooks, journals, and articles, the history is organized and straightforward; however, there is a vast separation between student and subject that results from it that is inherent to the way it is taught. While this is not wrong and I do not mean to portray it as such, it is an unfortunate side effect that this aids in the distancing between student and subject. Personally, I believe this is why so many of my peers found history to be so dry, as there is much less active engagement compared to other subjects, even math. It is difficult to care about something that you believe does not matter to you or does not require much effort aside from absorbing the information.  

Upon joining the William & Mary Bray School Lab, that distance all but evaporated. Instead of seeing these larger-than-life figures or blurry masses of people, there were lists of names, individual stories of students that attended the school and records of their existence. Instead of textbooks with sparse details and descriptions, more focused on events and leaders, I was met with singular people with their own lives in the minutia of eighteenth-century Williamsburg.  

My position within the Lab is working on the Records Project, where several others and I transcribe letters associated with the Associates of Dr. Bray. The letters that I have transcribed have been between the Associates and ministers stationed in Virginia. While it is disappointing that I have not come across any letters from students at the Bray Schools, the letters still provide me with an interesting insight, as all these men genuinely and wholeheartedly believe in what they are doing. Before joining the Lab, I researched the Williamsburg Bray School and the Associates of Dr. Bray, through which I learned their cause: teaching enslaved persons basic skills while also teaching them Christianity and the belief that God ordained their treatment under their enslavers. When I read about this, I was horrified and disgusted, but that distance was still there. I had wondered to myself how someone could believe these things. The Associates of Dr. Bray became faceless to me, a collective entity instead of individual men advocating for this.  

However, upon reading these letters, some of which mention the slaves these men owned within their letters, it became horrifyingly real. To these men, this was a cause they had to champion and something they felt they were doing out of the “kindness” of their own hearts. It was “God’s will” or a “good deed” or the acts of a “righteous man.” But their letters also detail their travels, their friends, their goals, all things that would not be out of place in an exchange between the average person today.  

This was sobering to me, as it was easy for me to image the Associates as an evil collective that sought to do harm, but no. They were a group of men who thought that what they were doing was right because they genuinely believed what they were saying. They believed that people of color were below them. They believed that what they were doing was God’s will. Not because of some “evil instinct” in them but simply because that was what they believed. As a result, they never paid any attention to it. They never thought to question the effect they were having because they believed they already knew.  

Upon having this realization, I was angry, and it was difficult to walk the brick pathways of Colonial Williamsburg without being reminded of that. However, when thinking about it further, I came to a seemingly obvious realization: they were all human. Everyone, from the Associates to the enslaved people they callously harmed, was a human being. Each of these people had their own lives, families, hopes, and dreams. Instead of blotchy watercolor, each face was defined and put into focus, with individual lives colliding with each other and building these spider webs of connections that we can only hope to find through our research.  

That day, I gained a new appreciation for what we at the Lab do; instead of just viewing the painting, we are the ones helping to restore it. Whenever we read and transcribe a letter, we add more details until we find the finished masterpiece and I will always be grateful for the opportunity to be a part of that. 

Kaiya Downs is currently a sophomore majoring in Classical Studies, with plans to minor in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, and has served as a Student Thought Partner at the W&M Bray School Lab since the fall of 2023.

By Elizabeth Drembus

Aggy, Molly, John Ashby, Isaac Bee.  When I first read their names and the names of 82 other students who attended the Williamsburg Bray School, I was struck that their names had been recorded at all.   

As the genealogist for the William & Mary Bray School Lab, I research the genealogical lines of all known Williamsburg Bray School students along with my colleagues.  Genealogy is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. At a time when there are concerted efforts to minimize and deny the history and legacies of people of African descent, genealogical research is emerging as a tool for reconciliation.  Our project is one of many in progress in the U.S., taking place ahead of the nation’s 250^th anniversary.  The National Archives recently announced their efforts underway to digitize tens of millions of historical records, previously unavailable online.  The Bray School Lab is in good company as we rediscover the students’ stories and recognize and share their contributions to our developing nation to tell a more expansive story of early America. 

Traditional and Reverse Genealogy 

Genealogists traditionally start with the present and work toward the past, with oral history and genealogy placed on equal footing.  We talk with members of the African American community in Williamsburg and beyond, many of whom are conducting their own family history research.  We journey alongside them, examining whether and how they connect to a Bray School student.  We also conduct reverse genealogy.  Starting with the names of the students on the school’s three surviving attendance reports, we work forward to the present tracing the students to their descendants, using a variety of records including — wills and estate inventories, court records, and newspapers.  While many records are available online at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, many are not.  In-person research in special collections, libraries, museums, and courthouses is still necessary.   

Records Found and Records that “Should Be There” 

For African Americans – free or enslaved – records were not always created consistently or at all.  For genealogists, this presents an enormous (but not impossible) challenge.  At times I get used to records being there such as William Prentis’s will naming Molly; Peyton Randolph’s estate inventory naming Aggy, Sam and Roger; and Christiana Campbell’s tax entry naming London, Aggy, Shropshire and Sukey.   

Then I am confounded when records that “should be there” are not (records essential to genealogists who do any research), such as John Blair’s estate inventory or tax entries for Harry Ashby.  These are stark reminders of the challenge of looking for people who were intentionally kept out of our nation’s story.   

Aggy’s Daughter, Kitty 

In 1762, seven-year-old Aggy attended the Williamsburg Bray School.  By the time she was twenty, Aggy was the mother of daughters Betsey and Kitty, and son Nathan.  When Peyton Randolph died in 1775, Aggy and her children were bequeathed to his widow – Elizabeth (Harrison) Randolph. Randolph then separated Kitty from Aggy when she gave Kitty to her niece, Elizabeth Harrison.   

Researching enslaved lineages involves tracing the enslavers’ families. To find Kitty, we traced niece Elizabeth Harrison to Surry County, VA, and to Mecklenburg County, VA, through her marriage to Lewis Burwell.  It was thrilling when we saw Kitty with her children – Clarasy, Nathan, and Walter Harrison – in Burwell’s 1803 estate inventory.  Subsequent chancery court records enable us to follow Kitty and her children into the 19^th century, allowing us to reconnect branches of Aggy’s family tree. 

Finding Isaac Bee 

Isaac Bee was among seven children sent to the school by John Blair in 1765.   Prior scholarship highlights Isaac’s escape from Lewis Burwell’s plantation in Mecklenburg County in 1774 and his return.   In 1785, Isaac was called as a witness in a trial concerning a suspected enslaved uprising.  His testimony was not recorded so we do not know what he said.  Soon after the trial, Isaac was sold to David Lambert in Richmond, VA. In February 1793, Isaac Bee was named in a bill of sale between Richard Littlepage and Samuel McCraw, who had jointly purchased Isaac Bee from David Lambert.  In March 1793, Isaac continued to seek freedom for himself, and made a daring escape taking a horse, saddlebags, pistols, and books.  What became of Isaac Bee after this is still unknown. 

The Work Continues 

Genealogical work is painstaking and purposeful; heartbreaking and joyful.  Often the findings raise new questions and urge us to consider new ways of thinking and understanding not just for ourselves but also as a nation.  As we continue the search for descendants, I cannot wait to see what other discoveries and truths are waiting to be found. Come be a part of this work! 

Elizabeth Drembus joined the Office of Strategic Cultural Partnerships as genealogist for the William & Mary Bray School Lab in March 2023.  She is the host of the monthly series Bray School Stories. Recordings of the sessions can be found by visiting the William & Mary Bray School Lab YouTube channel.   

By AJ Bucy

As a Sharpe Community Scholar, I received the significant opportunity to collaborate with the William & Mary Bray School Lab this past spring semester. As part of the growing Sharpe Action Research Pathways (ARP) program, I chose to volunteer as a Student Thought Partner. This is how I first learned about the school while working under Bray School Lab Assistant, Nicole Brown. My role included reviewing and transcribing eighteenth-century documents in relation to the late 1700s school.

The most meaningful work I contributed at this time were my tertiary reviews of the Fredericksburg letters of the Associates of Dr. Bray. I read specific letters and accounts detailing the process of founding another school, used the Transkribus software to transcribe, and afterwards converted each text into Word Document where I then reformatted the letters to be published for the public.

Reading these historical letters not only sharpened my transcription skills, but it also taught me how influential the Williamsburg Bray School was on its “sister” school in Fredericksburg. At the end of the year, I co-presented at the ARP research symposium alongside other Student Thought Partners who worked with the Bray School Lab. I proceeded to inform William & Mary staff and students on the Bray School and the lab’s mission. It was a great opportunity to collaborate with my peers and get the community more informed about the historical school.

Moving forward, I knew my intentions were to use my proficiency in transcribing to continue uncovering unheard voices from the Bray School and further my studies in African American history. So, I applied for the 2024 Charles Center Summer Research Grant to continue my discoveries with the lab. And I wanted to specifically shout out my work with each staff member and share my favorite memories.

With the lab’s genealogist, Elizabeth Drembus, I conducted independent research in the Special Collections of both the Earl Gregg Swem Library and John D. Rockefeller Library. One of my proudest accomplishments as an intern occurred when I analyzed five hundred pages of eighteenth-century documents and letters from household names in Williamsburg: the most prominent being the Blair and Dawson families. The Special Collection folders that I read in Swem Library contained information on enslavers and the enslaved. I took note of those children who could have possibly attended the Bray School at any time over its fourteen years. I also looked at the York City County Project at Rockefeller’s Special Collections, searching through Blair family records in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The experience taught me how to complete proper documentation of my findings using an Excel Spreadsheet and the basics of genealogy.

With Tonia Merideth, the lab’s oral historian, I learned how to professionally transcribe interviews. From watching videos on the importance of oral history and the rules of American transcription, to finishing first, second, or third pass reviews of interviews, I learned why oral history is one of the most important forms of historical preservation and advocacy. I am grateful to have heard twelve invaluable stories primarily from Bray School descendants and Colonial Williamsburg interpreters.

Throughout this internship I was fortunate to collaborate with the Bray School Lab’s Director, Maureen Elgersman Lee, to build my work schedule and weekly tasks. This experience was unique as I got to have consistent input on what I wanted to accomplish in my research, enabling me to devote myself to the process and lose myself in the work. Additionally, I received the opportunity to table and participate in the third annual Descendants Day at James Monroe’s Highland. As a first-time attendee, I had a truly memorable experience. While there, I was able to learn about and connect with other organizations that also work to uncover the history of descendants in the community. Additionally, it was special to hear about and support Highland’s plans to further help descendants connect with their heritage.

Later in June, I was able to table twice for the Juneteenth holiday. My first tabling experience for Juneteenth was at William & Mary in the Sadler Center. This was special because I got to speak to faculty about the importance of the school and share my developed interest in historical research. The second festivity was in the Williamsburg community where I helped promote the websites and social media platforms of the Bray School Lab to help Williamsburg residents stay connected with the ongoing research.

As a first-year undergraduate student, I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to have this partnership with the W&M Bray School Lab. I plan to continue to foster my academic interest in Africana studies by taking courses in that field this fall.

Even after more than two hundred and fifty years, the buried voices of Bray School students become clearer every day. It has been an honor to be a part of such a remarkable project.

AJ Bucy ’27 is a prospective English and History double major. She is a member of Orchesis Modern Dance Company, CHAARG Women’s Workout Group, and Botany Club, who continues as a 2024-25 Student Thought Partner for the William & Mary Bray School Lab.

By Cecilia Weaver

I first began working with the William & Mary Bray School Lab as a Student Thought Partner in the spring of 2022. At the time, I was a sophomore who had entered college during the fall of 2020, and I was interested in engaging in the research opportunities available on campus. I also wanted to make up for lost time due to remote classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hearing about the Bray School Lab at its inception has allowed me to witness its incredible growth and play a part in the work that the Lab has been able to produce over the past two and a half years. 

During my first year at the Lab, I created an annotated bibliography of sources about the Williamsburg Bray School and the broader history African American education in Williamsburg. As the history of the Bray School was still new to many people in the community, this annotated bibliography provided accessible scholarly and news sources for people who wanted to learn more. My experience with the annotated bibliography provided an incredibly valuable starting point for my future research, giving me a foundation not only of information about the Bray School, but also its broad research potential across institutions and communities.  

After my work on the annotated bibliography, I shifted my focus to the Virginia Gazette Project. The goal of this project is to record mentions of enslavers of students at the Bray School within the pages of the Virginia Gazette in an effort to understand the environments that enslaved students were living in. Additionally, this research provides a database of information for future genealogical research about these enslaved individuals and their descendants.  

Working with information about Robert Carter Nicholas from the Virginia Gazette, I wrote an essay for the upcoming book, The Williamsburg Bray School: A History Through Records, Reflections, and Rediscovery. In this piece, I reflected on how Robert Carter Nicholas’s ideas for the Williamsburg Bray School were focused on his understanding of its function, finances, and higher-level management, rather than individual student educational progress. This perception of the Bray School underscores one of the purposes that its trustees and elites in the community understood it to be: a financial investment which would serve their interests as Anglicans and enslavers. 

Research about institutions can sometimes have a similar bent, where larger political or financial implications overshadow the experiences of individuals. However, the research I have completed here at the Bray School Lab has upended that understanding. While my research has not necessarily centered on studying a specific student, individuals are the ultimate center of my research contributions. With the annotated bibliography, the goal was to provide an accessible community resource, allowing anyone who is interested to learn more about the Williamsburg Bray School, its students, and its legacies. While the Virginia Gazette may be a project that begins with enslavers, that is not its end goal. Instead, these entries paint a picture of the context in which students and the school itself existed. Thus, they provide information about experiences that shaped the lives of each student, along with perceptions of each individual enslaver who shaped the school’s operation. Further, by expanding the research on each of these households, additional genealogical study can be completed based on the associations of different individuals, as reflected in these Gazette advertisements and letters. 

My time at the W&M Bray School Lab has given me valuable research experience, but also reinforced my belief that centering the study of history on community is vitally important. Beyond these larger political or financial understandings of the Bray School as an institution, there are the lived experiences of individual students and the perceptions of the school’s mission by those who funded it. Similarly, the Descendant, Williamsburg, and William & Mary Communities exist in conversation with the Lab’s work. Working alongside descendants with the book project and hearing about research they have completed at Family History Day have underscored the value of research completed by and for a community itself and the importance in investing in such a rich resource. Also, my experience recording letters for the Lab’s Voices Project provides greater accessibility to primary sources and gives them new life, allowing me and others to see them in a new way. Collaborating with other student thought partners and Bray Lab staff has been an invaluable experience.   

As I end my college education and begin a career in public history, my experience at the W&M Bray School Lab will carry me through future research and educational opportunities. While research for research’s sake can certainly be interesting, its value is exponentially increased once it is made not only available, but also accessible to the public. Further, it is vital that public programming is designed with the interests of the community in mind. The Bray School Lab has continued to highlight the value of such a community history, beginning with those surrounding and attending the school during its operation, and extending to the Williamsburg community today. 

Cecilia Weaver graduated in May 2024 with a double major in history and government. She is working as an Interpretation Park Ranger at Boston National Historical Park. 

By Rachel Hogue  

This past March, to round out Women’s History Month, the W&M Bray School Lab partnered to host a workshop on eighteenth-century sewing—and the incredible skills it required. The goal of the workshop was to go beyond the research about the marking and plain stitching likely done by female Williamsburg Bray School scholars. We put sewing tools in our own hands to better understand that facet of life and labor at the school. In his letter regarding school rules, Robert Carter Nicholas made sure to note the female scholars would learn “sewing, knitting, and other such things.” While we cannot say with certainty what the product of that labor was, the sewing itself becomes a valuable artifact.  

Recently, historian Serena Dyer has written on the value of recreating the processes of historical sewing work in studying eighteenth-century labor. By putting needles to fabric and recreating the processes through which the Bray school female students would have learned, we can “echo the movements of multiple hands which labored.” These echoes, sounded in the movement of needles and collaborative learning, do not retrace one specific pair of Bray student hands but instead point us to all the female students. Pulling from a single line in the primary textual sources the movements of the past become the artifacts we recreate as ‘surrogates’ for what the archive does not tell us about the Bray school students. We can and should still lament the context of enslavement surrounding such labor and yet simultaneously uphold the dignity and resilience of black women and girls who did this sewing, mending, washing, and “other such things.” As an act of both research and restorative justice we engaged with the materials, movements, and learning they had to experience.  

This workshop was an example of how creativity is necessary to bring research into accessible forms for our public, especially our Descendant Community. I presented my research on the sewing done by female scholars of the Williamsburg Bray School at the Slate Seminar in October 2023 and at Lemon Project Symposium in March 2023. In the wake of my presentation, I was quickly asked how this sewing history could become a hands-on teaching tool. It was necessary to realize that those presentations were only step one. First the research is presented to the public, and then with a workshop, it can literally be placed in the hands of our community. During our workshop on marking and plain stitches, the learning became a communal process. Conscientiously engaging the Lab’s invested community does not start and end with traditional presentation of research, it is a collaborative effort. Sewing history lends itself to a specific kind of hands-on work that benefits the need to close the gap between individual research and accessible, public forms of that research.  

Once the workshop got going, there was no need for one person to lecture, but rather all of us sat around the table and helped one another through the stitches. There was also a good deal of laughter over our collective difficulty with marking stitches and our more informed respect for the skill and dexterity of the Bray school scholars as children who had no choice but to do such labor. The learning was mutual; as I assisted with sewing, descendants engaged me with their history and entrusted me with their memories of the Bruton Heights School, in which we met for the workshop. 

We started with a short presentation about what we do know of black girls’ school sewing contemporary to the Williamsburg Bray School. This meant before anyone picked up a needle the entire workshop was on equal footing with background knowledge and context for the sewing projects tucked into the workbags given to each participant. We wove the needles in and out of fabric to get some semblance of the reversible cross-stitch methods, also known as a marking stitch. In the counting of each stitch’s pattern and arrangement we all quickly concluded how important arithmetic would have been to Bray School scholars engaging in such work. The Bray School scholars’ material literacy would have been just as complex as their reading and writing. Bringing the importance of literacy and access into the present, a crucial part of the workshop was introducing a digital component of this research.  Together with the Lab’s graduate assistant, Nicole Brown, I made a digitized map of primary sources, stitch instructions, and material culture. I invite readers to explore this map, think through the dexterity and skill required for a Bray School girl to maintain her safety as an enslaved child. And, more importantly, as you ponder the “echoes” of their moving hands, think of how these skills could have been masterfully subverted for resistance, liberation, and freedom despite the school’s goals to make girls—and boys—more “useful” to enslavers.  

Rachel Hogue graduated in May 2024 with a major in History. She is pursuing her master’s degree in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York in England. 

By Emma Jackson

As I concluded my summer 2023 internship with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, I began to ponder how I would continue my burgeoning passions for history creation, public history, and descendant engagement. Then, I met the director of the William & Mary Bray School Lab, who invited me to join her team as a Student Thought Partner. At the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, I began researching the Williamsburg and Fredericksburg Bray Schools, initiating my investment in 18^th-century Black education and its ties to Christian colonialism. The W&M Bray School Lab allowed me to continue and expand my research, transforming it into a passionate and comprehensive project that focuses on mapping the schooling and Christianization efforts of Dr. Bray and his Associates.  

It has been meaningful to engage with these existing histories and analyze the data in a way that accommodates for reinterpretation, as I have found that existing frameworks of analysis utilized by historical institutions and scholarship tend to glorify the efforts of Dr. Bray. Incongruities and gaps between the current historical canon and my research instigated this project and continue to drive its processes. I found it confounding and disturbing that the existing narrative of Thomas Bray and his Associates’ efforts posits them as benevolent manufacturers of educational opportunities for African American children. These children were subjugated to and degraded by theories of racial inferiority at the hand of Anglican doctrine. 

My methodological approach has been to systematically log and analyze the missionary efforts of Dr. Thomas Bray, his Associates, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). I catalogued this data in four main categories, including: schools and three independent categories for educational outreach: books requested, libraries sent, and missionary/catechetical education. These categories provided a scaffolding from which the data built meaning, collective memory, and histories. The Bray School children deserved more than an education that subjugated them to the furthest position of racial inferiority by entering their spiritual psyche, causing the internalization of subservience. This is why I engage in this research – to correct the narrative of the Bray School students and to honor their legacy by engaging with their descendants.  

The data paired with my analysis has revealed specific and unique insights into the 18^th–century educational opportunities presented to enslaved and free African Americans, all imbued with Anglican indoctrination. My research demonstrates that the Anglican Church, Thomas Bray and his Associates, and the SPG were heavily invested in strategically controlling and mandating the minds and religious psyche of African Americans, contributing to their erasure and/or misrepresentation in the historical canon.  

Specific evidence of indoctrination is found in the curriculum for the schools. Overwhelmingly, the lists of books provided for students were religious material, designed to instruct a young Black person exactly where their “place in life” is, according to the Anglican doctrine. By targeting one of the most vulnerable people groups – children – the Bray Associates were able to extend the effects of American slavery and colonialism to invade the space of the psyche and spirit of children. 

I owe a great debt to the Bray School Lab: for accepting me as a Student Thought Partner my senior year, for bolstering my skills of multimedia research and analysis, and for providing me the space to conduct meaningful and exciting research. Exposure to descendant engagement practices has also been impactful, as I have witnessed firsthand how the desires of the Bray School descendants drive processes of innovation at the Lab.  

The W&M Bray School Lab has offered me the tools and vocabulary required to practice restorative history. This opportunity has provided me with a path, through which I can channel my passion for unveiling true histories, confronting the current historical narrative, and engaging with descendant communities. Although the stories of the American Bray Schools are grim at times, I have learned the importance of positioning these students as actors and agents in their own story. These students grasped hold of the reading skills they were taught, albeit most material was wholly concentrated in religion, and multiplied their knowledge among their communities. In this way, these students transformed what was meant to subdue them into a method for racial uplift and community building.  

The longevity of my work inspires me, as I trust the Bray School Lab to continue this research even when I am gone. The structure of my project allows for future partners to build upon it, with the intent of further corrective historical research. I am forever grateful that I joined the W&M Bray School Lab; it has transformed my ideas of public history, descendant engagement, and research processes required to engage with the public/descendants.  

Emma Jackson is currently a senior majoring in Anthropology and Art History and has served as a Student Thought Partner at the W&M Bray School Lab since the Fall of 2023.  

By Olivia Blackshire

Under the shade trees of Nassau Street lies a treasure hidden in plain sight. A diamond in the rough of Colonial Williamsburg’s (CW) exhibitions, the African American Baptist Meetinghouse Exhibit holds a very special place in my heart. Usually, my travels up and down this living history museum end with me feeling like a walking anomaly (or, on a good day, the last Black unicorn). As one of the few college students of color coming to CW for leisure and learning, I constantly walk the line between curiosity and discomfort as I struggle to find my place within the narrative. Still, the Meetinghouse provides space to understand race, religion, and resilience in its colonial context. Its dedication to nuanced perspectives on the African American experience keeps me coming back. So, imagine my surprise when I myself would have the pleasure of researching the very same topics in the W&M Bray School Lab.  

Studying religious education was never in the cards for me. I knew this opportunity would be another chance at engaging hands-on history, and it has; my transcription work on the Bray School Records Project, where the goal is making all the Bray Associate’s Virginia correspondence digitally accessible for public consumption, has made me well-versed in detailing every jot and tittle of a letter writer’s idiosyncrasies. I’ve gained a close friend in the Oxford English dictionary when tracking definitions for words lost in time, picked up the art of abbreviation, and am continuously reminded of the importance of context clues when discerning an author’s intent. But somehow, I thought the scope of my research would only extend as far as knowing the school’s direction and management—the attendance, trades learned, and who wanted the children there.  

It turns out the religious aspects are deeper than shipments of Bibles or prayer books lost in the mail. And as many references there are to reverends, clergy members, doctrine, and soul-saving, I have no choice but to read for a context much greater than maintenance! Between the lines, the school’s propagation of the Christian gospel revolved around mixed (and often contradictory) motivations. On one hand, religious re-education was afoot; the Bible was not only a tool for literacy but a means of exerting control. As the foundation of the scholars’ training, the text was thought by the Williamsburg’s Bray School Trustees to have a “direct Tendency to reform their Manners,” making them good Christians and even better servants. Furthermore, there are numerous instances where men of the cloth, such as Rev. James Mayre, Rev. Jonathan Boucher, and Rev. Alexander Rhonnald, describe the Black population as incapable of learning English or core tenets of the faith, a “poor” and “unfortunate” lot who are “very dull and stupid,” displaying a total lack of respect for their capabilities. Yet the same ministers’ boast of conducting numerous Black baptisms, converting the enslaved on a diluted gospel while praising their church attendance and levels of understanding (If you’d like to see more of these texts, feel free to dive into our research portal!). A scholar’s soul only mattered when it was beneficial to them. With the constant back-and-forth between spiritual transformation and quotas to fill, it leaves one to wonder whether the messaging the scholars received was ever biblical at all.  

But a chain-loving gospel wasn’t the promised land Black folk had in mind. Pliable as the Associates believed them to be, religious assimilation could never drown dreams of liberation. Like Dr. Antonio Bly says in his article “’Reed Though the Bybell’: Slave Education in Early Virginia,” I’m convinced “[t]hey, too, held within their breast the same natural rights their masters claimed for themselves.” What was meant to oppress could find other uses in religious resistance and gives us room to imagine the possibilities. With an analogical approach, the enslaved could claim stories (like the Exodus account) of earthly and spiritual freedom for themselves, as if it proved a divine declaration of their inherent value. But different faiths were practiced in secret, too. What if the language barriers or lack of comprehension was not incompetence but a willful ignorance safeguarding family wisdom? Or resistance towards an oppressive misuse of scriptures? Whatever the reason, observing such convictions asserts a dangerous dignity challenging upsetting norms in colonial Christianity. 

Just like the Meetinghouse, the history of the Williamsburg Bray School holds a complex web of narratives waiting to be told. In this unexpected collision of research and religion, I can only hope my work continues to unravel intersections of race, spirituality, education, and culture, even beyond the colonial era. If we remove the scales from our eyes, slowly, surely, we can build connections to the past to see wounds we’ve left unchecked. And whether it’s descendant engagement, unpacking Sunday segregation, or going on a casual walk through CW, recognizing and responding to misunderstandings nourishes clarity for such topics. The Williamsburg Bray School scholars cry out in the wilderness! Their wisdom, strength, and resilience tell me I’m more than a quota – I belong.  

Olivia Blackshire is a junior at William & Mary, as well as a Student Thought Partner and Lemon Project intern studying History and Anthropology. Her email is oblackshire@wm.edu.

By Daniel Pleasant

My initial motivation for joining the William & Mary Bray School Lab was to engage in research relevant to my major. However, my experience at the Bray School Lab has evolved into a transformative journey, prompting me to reflect on my family heritage and the stories of those who preceded me on this campus. 

As an African-American male, the Bray School story has facilitated meaningful conversations with older relatives, allowing me to explore firsthand experiences related to societal disparities—whether economic, social, or civil. Since joining, I’ve worked on the Standing in the Gap (SIG) Project, a challenging yet rewarding endeavor focusing on the period after the Williamsburg Bray School closed in 1774 through the termination of operations by the Bray Associates in North American during 1777. 

Specifically, my project delves into studying the households of the school’s students and their enslavers during this hiatus. While the W&M Bray School Lab possesses substantial information about the school’s operations, there’s a noticeable gap regarding events post-closure. Understanding this period is crucial for comprehending the Bray School’s functions, revealing what happened to some of the students and their communities between 1774 and 1777. 

Despite limited information, the sources gathered for the project have laid important scholarly groundwork, with continuous discoveries through new documents being a particularly enjoyable element of my work. This process not only enriches the “Standing in the Gap” timeline, but also fosters connections within the cohort of Student Thought Partners at the William & Mary Bray School Lab as we share findings and collaborate on projects. Utilizing various sources, including records of business endeavors and the states of enslavers’ households, we explored prominent figures such as John Blair, Lord Dunmore, and Christiana Campbell through the SIG Project. 

When looking at these prominent names within the history of the Bray School and its students, it has allowed us to make connections and uncover the particulars between students, their familial networks, and their enslavers. For example, when looking at John Blair, who served as the president of the William & Mary Board of Visitors before 1774, the SIG project gives us the ability to look at the specifics of his household and the treatment of his enslaved individuals. Through the examination of documents, both primary and secondary, we can learn that he owned upward of 15 enslaved people during his lifetime. This included Issac Bee, a learned young man who self-emancipated at the age of 18 and sought freedom. 

Furthermore, not only does this timeline incorporate information regarding the relationship between the Bray School and its students, but it also highlights how details regarding the American Revolution may have impacted the entire Black community between the closing of the school in 1774 and the Bray Associates ceasing operations in North America in April 1777.  In regards to the revolution, information can be seen through documents regarding Lord Dunmore, who served as the last royal governor of Virginia. In particular, when focusing on the American Revolution, the SIG projects highlight events such as Dunmore’s proclamation declared in November of 1775 which sought to recruit African American troops to fight for the British crown in exchange for their freedom.  

Lastly, the SIG project grants us information regarding sites and events that are still relevant to the city of Williamsburg today. This can be seen when we view someone such as Christiana Campbell, a tavern keeper and enslaver who owned multiple lots within Williamsburg. Her tavern operates within Colonial Williamsburg today and is a regularly frequented historical site (although the modern-day tavern was not the official residence of her or her household until 1771).  The tavern was an extremely popular location during 1774-1777 as it was frequented by individuals such as George Washington and used to quarter soldiers. The project goes even further by connecting the tavern with the events that transpired during the American Revolution by establishing its closing in 1776 due to “critical times.” 

On a broader scale, our project involves engaging potential in-person sources, like descendants of Bray School students or enslavers, still in the Williamsburg area. These interactions provide unique insights not found in traditional historical records, thereby expanding our ability to share the unfiltered history of the campus with its students. 

Soon, I could see the project expanding and potentially involving other minority groups on campus whether that be school-authorized cultural organizations or through the Center for Student Diversity. I hope that students across the campus will start to get a better sense of what came before them and to evoke a feeling of genuine awareness of William & Mary’s history. The Bray School Lab has become a focal point of my time at William & Mary, and I’m pleased to contribute weekly to the community that helps shape our campus today.  

Daniel Pleasant is currently a Junior majoring in Government and a Student Thought Partner at the W&M Bray School Lab. He has served as a Student Thought Partner since the fall of 2022.  

Terry L. Meyers

         With the tenement building that housed Williamsburg’s Bray School well on its way to restoration by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, people may want to know more about the education offered at the school. We know a lot about that since the correspondence between the school’s sponsors in England and its local overseers was published in John C. Van Horne’s Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery in 1985.

         The education was almost wholly religious. Focused on “the principles of the Christian Religion as professed by the Church of England,” the concern was with “the Piety & spiritual Advantage of the children.” The white schoolmistress, Mrs. Ann Wager (who had taught the Burwell children at Carter’s Grove) was to “teach them those Doctrines & Principles of Religion, which are in their Nature most useful in the Course of private Life, especially such as concern Faith & good manners.”

         But the education was also indoctrination—Blacks were taught subservience, that they were to abide by God’s divinely ordained social and racial hierarchy.  Robert Carter Nicholas, Treasurer of the Royal Colony, became the principal overseer of the school and summarized what many locals thought: that it was “dangerous & impolitick to enlarge the Understandings of the Negroes, as they would probably by this Means become more impatient of their Slavery & at some future Day be more likely to rebel.”

But, Nicholas assured the Associates, their plans were “by no Means calculated to instruct the Slaves in dangerous Principles [i.e., freedom], but on the contrary. . .to reform their Manners; & by making them good Christians they would necessarily become better Servants.”  The Associates were confident in asserting (with the threat of perdition) that “the tremendous Sanctions of our Religion are more likely to make honest faithful & industrious Slaves, than those who have no fear of God.”  Instruction “in the Christian Religion” was deemed “the best Mean[s] to reconcile them to their state of Servitude.”

         An edition of sermons to the enslaved that was sent by the Associates “for the Use of the Negroe School at Williamsburgh” is clear. The Rev. Thomas Bacon assured the enslaved that God has it all in hand: “some he hath made kings and rulers, for giving laws, and keeping the rest in order; some he hath made masters and mistresses, for taking care of their children, and others that belong to them …. Some he hath made servants and slaves, to assist and work for their masters and mistresses that provide for them.”

         One of the principal skills Mrs. Wager taught was reading—necessary for the children to use in reading the Bible and religious tracts. She was to teach the children “the true Spelling of Words, make them mind their Stops [i.e. pay attention to punctuation and pacing] & endeavor to bring them to pronounce & read distinctly.” 

         But there were corollary lessons as well; to make them “more useful to their Owners,” the girls were taught “sewing knitting &c.” and “such other things as may be useful to their Owners.” The children were expected to “keep themselves clean & neat in their Cloaths”; Mrs. Wager was to attend to “the Manners & Behaviour of her Scholars & . . . discourage Idleness & suppress the beginnings of Vice, such as lying, cursing, swearing, profaning the Lord’s Day, obscene Discourse, stealing &c.”  The children were taught “to be faithful & obedient to their Masters, to be diligent in their Business & peaceable to all men.” They were “in all Things [to] set a good Example to other Negroes.”

         Whether Mrs. Wager taught writing is a contested question. Writing was a dangerous skill to teach the enslaved since they could use it to forge documents allowing them to travel freely or even to pass as free. In all the Associates’ many requests for word of the Williamsburg children’s progress and in all the reports back, writing is never mentioned. And yet almost 50 fragments of slate pencils have been found at the site of the school. The current compromise between archeologists and documentarians is that writing was “possibly” taught.

The school was the longest lasting and the most successful of the Virginia Bray schools. It opened in September 1760 and closed only in 1774, amid increasing tensions with England and with the death of Mrs. Wager. About 30 students a year, aged three to about 10, received an education at the school. Ideally the children were to attend for three years, but Franklin noted the children’s “Continuance at the School being short.”      Recorded across three surviving Williamsburg lists are 94 student names, at least a few of which are duplicates. Still, this is a fraction of the total number of students likely educated at the Williamsburg Bray School. That very elusive number may be as low as 200 or closer to 400. That is a discussion for another blog.   

Terry L. Meyers is Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus, at William & Mary. This blog post is adapted from the Williamsburg Tatler (May 2023).

Historical imagination is a contested subject. While many historians utilize different examples of historical imagination, I have found that the definition by David J. Staley, associate professor of history at The Ohio State University, best encompasses the historical approach I seek to define. In his book of the same name, Staley defines historical imagination as “The threshold between what historians consider to be proper, imagination-free history and the malpractice of excessive imagination, asking where the boundary between the two sits and the limits of permitted imagination for the historian.” At first glance it may seem that historical imagination has no limits, but tools like narrative restraint—the idea that historical imagination must be rooted in the archive—are supposed to provide guardrails against scholars’ incorrect reconstruction of history. Although scholars offer a well-defined methodology for historical imagination, adhering to this technique is much harder in practice.

As an intern at the Lemon Project and a student thought partner with the Bray School Lab, I saw the scale at which the archive fails to capture the stories of enslaved African Americans in Williamsburg. For the past two years, this shortcoming has fueled my research and approach as a historian. The projects I worked on at the Bray School Lab directly reflect many of the techniques and methods I incorporated into my honors thesis. The primary project I worked on at the Bray School Lab was the Standing in the Gap project. This project focused on the period between Anne Wager’s death in 1774 and 1777, when the Bray Associates officially closed all the Bray Schools in the United States. This timeline was created to help the Lab and its stakeholders try to understand what happened to the students and their communities immediately after the school’s closing, as well as how we might understand their education beyond the classroom doors.  In my recently defended honors thesis, “Two London’s in Williamsburg: Using Historical Imagination to Reinterpret the Meaning of Reconciliation and Memorialization in the Archive,” I explore this topic and expand on my experiences at the Bray School Lab and how it assisted me on my journey as a historian. 

In my thesis, I write, “The Bray [School] Lab’s use of [historical imagination] has been groundbreaking and transcends the archives into [forms] meant to inform the masses.” The Bray School Lab student project Adam & Fanny’s World, a digital map that utilizes GIS technology to make real the contours of Bray School students’ lives, is a great example of historical imagination transcending the page in a way that prioritizes Bray School scholars and descendants over the academy. Historical imagination helped me decide that it was critical to find as much as I could on the students to ensure that the descendant communities of the Williamsburg Bray School were served as best as possible. What I ultimately found was unsurprising, but still disappointing. Documents on Bray School students were scant, and the stories available existed in the context of runaway ads or through financial deeds and wills of their enslavers. However, contextual details like the 1775 smallpox outbreak, Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, and William & Mary’s wartime measures provide details on Williamsburg during this period. 

In my research I found that war created upheaval for all institutions and a mechanism that forced tough choices for African Americans in Williamsburg and across the Virginia colony. While William & Mary faculty debated the merits of war, African American families considered Lord Dunmore’s guarantee of freedom against the inherent risks of picking a side in this nascent revolution. I relied heavily on historical imagination to accurately deconstruct what this proclamation might have looked like for enslaved African American families in Williamsburg. Some individuals enslaved by Peyton Randolph fled to the British to seek freedom, while others stayed. Historical imagination allowed me to take this example of the complicated price of freedom and apply it to the many unknown stories of enslaved individuals. We can use the Randolph example to understand that the allure of freedom was more complicated for enslaved African Americans than meets the eye. Some enslaved people in Williamsburg were clearly motivated by a force they deemed more powerful than freedom—like family.

Historical imagination has changed my approach not only as a scholar but as a thinker embarking on my next steps in the world. It encouraged me to think deeper and eschew traditional norms of the academic tradition; it showed me the power an individual has to highlight and illuminate critical stories forgotten to the archive. Leaving William & Mary as a graduate, a Bray School Lab ambassador, and an avid practitioner of historical imagination are all things I never would have anticipated four years ago, but for which I could not be more grateful.

Ethan Miller graduated from William & Mary in May 2023. He received a bachelor’s degree and majored in History.