Certain others came to think that the policy of keeping Negroes in ignorance to prevent servile insurrections was unwise.

It was observed that the most loyal and subordinate slaves were those who could read the Bible and learn the truth for themselves.

Private teachers of colored persons, therefore, were often left undisturbed, little effort was made to break up the Negroes' secret schools in different parts, and many influential white men took it upon themselves to instruct the blacks who were anxious to learn.
Other Negroes who had no such opportunities were then finding a way of escape through the philanthropy of those abolitionists who colonized some freedmen and fugitives in the Northwest Territory and promoted the migration of others to the East.

These Negroes were often fortunate.

Many of them settled where they could take up land and had access to schools and churches conducted by the best white people of the country.