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Slaves were often denied education and literacy to maintain control and prevent rebellion. Enslavers feared that educated slaves could organize resistance or seek freedom. Illiteracy also limited slaves' ability to communicate and access information independently.

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6d ago
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6y ago

It was illegal to teach a slave or a "free person of color" to read and write. Anyone caught doing so was often ordered by the court to be whipped in public. Slave owners believed if a slave was taught to read and write they would no longer listen and obey their master and would then be worthless.

More:There was an additional, ultimately far longer lasting reason for keeping African-Americans from learning to read or write. That reason was to prevent their prerogatives under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. Section 2 thereof ought to have effectively invalidated the ruling in the Dred Scott case, which counted persons of color as only 3/5 of a whole. Alas, two powerful parties ensured that Dred Scott remained in effect, and that is to put it kindly.

Firstly, the Radical Republican Congress of Reconstruction feared that increased representation gained by the South by the colored vote would weaken their own political power. Ironically, Southerners ensured their own under representation by presenting various barriers to the voting of former slaves, and later, the great-grandchildren of former slaves. One of the essential elements of this strategy was the literacy test. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Federal authorities began to proactively intervene to ensure the rights of African-Americans to vote.

Another view:I must plead guilty to expanding the scope of the question somewhat. I would suggest, however, that in doing so I introduced no issue, which is not germane to the discussion. Besides, history clearly shows that slaves were not quite as ignorant as their "owners" had believed. Witness the many protest songs, which arose from slave culture, notably "Go Down Moses." It appears that while slaves may have lacked literacy, whites failed miserably in their interpretative skills. After all, what else could the line "let my people go" mean, when sung by a bunch of inferior beings? What a failure of imagination to understand that allegory can power an entire race of people, and leave a rich legacy to fly in the face of ignorant slave owners/racists!
They were not "unable" in the sense that they lacked the ability to read. In most places it was illegal to teach them to read. A literate slave might get ideas from things he read, about things like freedom, or how to get away, and where to go if he did. An ignorant slave is much more controllable.

It was even considered inadvisable to let domestic servants learn to read, for the same reasons.
Slaves can't read because as people kept slaves, they did not get the chance to discover how to read.
nobody would teach them... also it would make them as smart as the slave owners and they could revolt
because if the slaves were smarter than there owner then

the slaves could acomplish a lot of stuff and the owners would be useless
because if the slaves were smarter than there owner then

the slaves could acomplish a lot of stuff and the owners would be useless

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7y ago

They came from living in small villages in Africa where education was not based on literacy, but on the skills needed to survive. The slave owners in America did not offer the slaves any educational opportunities.

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13y ago

They were afraid that if the slaves learned how to read and write then they would be able to fight for their freedom and rebel against the plantations and their owners.

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10y ago

They were afraid slaves were going to communicate with eachother

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6y ago

Suppression of human rights. The 'owners' believed that a slave that could read and write would be a rebellious individual.

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9y ago

Yes

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Q: Why do you think most slaves were unable to read or write?
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What do slaveholders think of educating slaves?

Most were against it.


How did Roman slaves learn to write?

Most Roman slaves never learned to read or write, those that did were either taught by another educated slave, or their master sent them to a Gramaticus (school) to learn. Also some slaves were teachers.


Do slaves get to write letters?

That is a really difficult question to answer. Slaves have been kept since very early times in human history. Societies all over the world were dependent on slaves throughout history. Ancient Mesopotamia has some of the earliest examples of writing; writing which was usually for a business related matter. Slaves of that period could very well have been responsible to accounting for grain or bricks. In ancient Egypt and Rome, some slaves were in charge of business matter that would involve writing. Most societies of that time used slaves for labor and most likely laborers did not write. In the history of slavery in the new world, slaves were not permitted to learn to read or write. However, there were some slaves that were educated by their employers for the purpose of business and some slaves who educated themselves. Most who did so had to keep it a secret and they could not 'write' to their family or friends who did not read or write. In the US, the slave population did not need to write words on paper to communicate, they had any number of ways to create messages, that for the most part, only other slaves could interpret. And as all societies that lack written communication, the American slaves had a tradition of oral history and stories that served the purpose of communicating ideas.


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Well that depends on the location. Many African Americans eventually ended up fighting for the Union, but if you literally mean slaves then most were unable to fight, due to their masters forbidding them.


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Slaves did not know anything, because they didn't get the education to write or read. Thus, making their lives diffucult. Most slaves would probably know how to farm, mine, and build, because they did those things for a living.