Virginia Archaeologists Unearth Mysterious Ruins of America’s Oldest Schoolhouse for Black Children—A Hidden Chapter of History Revealed
The original schoolhouse building, sans its foundation, was recently moved to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2023 to be exhibited as part of the museum’s effort to expand their information on Black American history. And now, experts are able to learn more about the historic schoolhouse.
The History Of Williamsburg Bray School
The old schoolhouse, called Williamsburg Bray School, educated hundreds of Black children, most of whom were enslaved, from 1760 to 1765.
Despite the school rationalizing the institution of slavery by using religion, claiming the children’s enslavement was part of God’s plan, the Black students achieved literacy and thus walked away with more agency. The students could also share what they learned with their families.
“There was this need to proselytize and to bring salvation while still not doing anything to destabilize the institution of slavery,” Maureen Elgersman Lee, the director of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab, said of the schoolhouse’s history. “Save the soul, but continue to enslave the body.”
Following its time as a school, the building became a private home before becoming part of the growing William & Mary campus in the area.
The building would be expanded and would serve various purposes in the following years. It was eventually moved to make space for a dormitory. But from 1924 until 1930, the building itself served as a dormitory that housed some of the first women to get college educations in the United States.
William & MaryAlong with finding the 18th-century foundation of the building, archaeologists also uncovered a cellar full of artifacts.
The original structure of the building was identified and confirmed in 2021 using dendrochronology, a scientific method of examining tree rings to identify when the lumber had first been harvested.
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