Sunday, November 14, 2010

Slaves Teaching Germans English

Excerpt from "Old Salem - The Official Guidebook" by Penelope Niven and Cornelia Wright (click on the link to purchase your copy). Visit the official website of Old Salem Museums and Gardens
"The history of the Moravians comes to life at Old Salem. A unique religious group, the Moravians made the town of Salem an oasis of beauty and order in the Carolina back-country. Today in the workshops, homes and gardens of Old Salem, men and women carry on the daily tasks of living just as they were done in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - crafting beautiful objects, running households and businesses, and engaging in artistic and musical pursuits. This guide will help you make the most of your visit to Old Salem, one of the most authentic living-history museums in the United States."
Slaves Teaching Germans English
Saint Philips Complex Salem, NC
A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840Enslaved Africans and African Americans lived and labored in Salem, helping to build and sustain the community. Some became members of the Moravian congregation. Because German was the primary language in the Wachovia settlement, it became the center of the "largest German-speaking black population known in the early south." Africans and African Americans in Salem frequently taught white residents to speak English, sometimes lived in dormitories with whites and often worked shoulder to shoulder with white brethren in farm fields, mills, craft shops and homes.

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