Because of the scarcity of slaves in that section they came into helpful contact with their masters.

Besides, the Kentucky and Tennessee abolitionists, being much longer active than those in most slave States, continued to emphasize the education of the blacks as a correlative to emancipation.
Furthermore, the Western Baptists, Methodists, and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians early took a stand against slavery, and urged the masters to give their servants all the proper advantages for acquiring the knowledge of their duty both to man and God.

In the large towns of Tennessee Negroes were permitted to attend private schools, and in Louisville and Lexington there were several well-regulated colored schools.
Two institutions for the education of slaves in the West are mentioned during these years.

In October, 1825, there appeared an advertisement for eight or ten Negro slaves with their families to form a community of this kind under the direction of an "Emancipating Labor Society" of the State of Kentucky.

In the same year Frances Wright suggested a school on a similar basis.