Stockton, Betsey (c. 1798-24 Oct. 1865), educator, was born in slavery of unrecorded parentage. As a child Betsey was given by her owner, Robert Stockton, as a wedding gift to his daughter when she married Reverend Ashbel Green, the president of the College of New Jersey. Most of Betsey Stockton's early life was passed as a slave domestic in the Green home at Princeton, except for four years that she spent with Green's nephew Nathaniel Todd when she was an adolescent. At Todd's she underwent a period of training intended to instill more piety in her demeanor, which had not been developed in the affectionate, indulgent Green household. Stockton returned to the Green home in 1816 and was baptized in the Presbyterian church at Princeton in 1817 or 1818, having given evidence through speech and deportment of her conversion to Christian ways. At the time of her baptism Stockton was formally emancipated from slavery, the Greens being reform-minded people who supported the abolition of slavery and believed she was prepared for freedom. Stockton became very well educated through their tutoring and the use of their enormous private library. So competent did Stockton become that the Greens finally placed her in charge of their entire household, and she remained as a paid domestic and family member.

Stockton often spoke to Green about her wish to journey abroad, possibly to Africa, on a Christian mission. Green introduced her to Charles S. Stewart, a young missionary, newly ordained in 1821, who was about to be sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to Hawaii. The ABCFM made special concessions to allow Stockton to join the mission because of her piety and interest in traveling and missionary work. Michael Osborn of the theological seminary at Princeton wrote a recommendation for Stockton, stating that she had a full and complete knowledge of all the Scriptures, the Jewish antiquities, the geography of the holy lands, and the larger catechism in addition to a keen understanding of English composition, literature, and mathematics. In short, she was well qualified for missionary endeavors. Through a special agreement between Green, the Stewarts, and the ABCFM, she joined the mission both as a domestic in the Stewart household and as a missionary. The agreement stated that although she was to assist Harriet Stewart domestically, Stockton was not to be called upon for menial work "more than any other member of the mission, or this might manifestly render her life servile, and prevent her being employed as a teacher of a school, for which it is hoped that she will be found qualified."

Stockton arrived in Hawaii in April 1823. She was part of the second company of Congregational missionaries sent to the islands to convert Hawaiians to Christianity. Upon their arrival in Honolulu, the company was greeted by an African from Schenectady, Anthony Allen, who was living in Hawaii. Allen presented the new arrivals, possibly because of the presence of Stockton, with gifts of food, including a whole goat for their trip to Lahaina, Maui, where they were stationed.

Stockton distinguished herself in Lahaina by offering education to the common people instead of erecting schools only for the alii (chiefs, or nobility). In the past, the Hawaiian chiefs had not allowed the missionaries to teach the commoners. By August 1824, however, the chiefs had determined that the missionaries could teach the lower levels of Hawaiian society as well. Charles Stewart's journal reveals the chiefs' new attitude: Indeed, till within a few weeks, they (alii) have themselves claimed the exclusive benefit of our instructions. But now they expressly declared their intentions to have all their subjects enlightened by the palapala (letters or learning), and have accordingly made applications for books to distribute among them. In consequence of this spirit, we have today been permitted to establish a large and regular school among their domestics and dependents. Stockton's school was formed upon special request from commoners in Lahaina, as Stewart's journal entry of 20 August 1824 revealed:

Now the chiefs have expressed their determination to have instruction in reading and writing extended to the whole population and have only been waiting for books, and an increase in the number of suitably qualified native teachers, to put the resolution, as far as practical, into effect. A knowledge of this having reached some of the makaainana, or farmers of Lahaina . . . including the tenants of our own plantation, application was made by them to us for books and slates, and an instructor; and the first school, consisting of about thirty individuals, ever formed among that class of people, has, within a few days, been established in our enclosure, under the superintendence of B-(Betsey), who is quite familiar with the native tongue. The missionaries, including Stockton, believed that education among the common people would prove, as it had among the chiefs, "the most effectual means," as Stewart wrote, "of withdrawing them from their idle and vicious habits and of bringing them under the influence of our own teachings in morality and religion." Stewart praised Stockton's efforts: "B-(Betsey) is engaged in a fine school kept by her every afternoon in the chapel adjoining our yard," and she took part in all the social activities of the mission settlement.

In 1825, over 78,000 spelling books had issued from the mission presses, and by 1826, 8,000 Hawaiians had received instruction on Maui. Stockton's efforts to educate the commoners had borne fruit, and the missionary efforts combated drunkenness, adultery, infanticide, gambling, theft, deceit, treachery, death, and what Stewart called "every amusement of dissipation." The missionary and educational efforts that Stockton extended to the masses also had a democratizing effect on the Hawaiians, as, while the chiefly class taxed off most of the food the commoners produced, they could not take away promised salvation. As Stewart remarked of the commoners, "Their only birthright is slavery. . . . Surely to such, the message of salvation must prove indeed 'glad tidings of great joy.' " If, after the shortest and most perfect tuition, many are capable of composing neat and intelligent letters to each other, now, almost daily passing from island to island, and from district to district; so far from judging them not susceptible of attainments in the common branches of education, we need not fear to encourage a belief, that some may yet rejoice in the more abstruse researches of philosophy and science. They can be civilized, they can be made to partake, with missions of their fellow-beings, in all the advantages of letters and the arts. Nor is there more doubt, that they can be converted to Christianity.

The Stewarts decided to return to Cooperstown, New York, after two and a half years because of Harriet Stewart's poor health. Stockton accompanied them, leaving native Hawaiian teachers she had trained to take her place. She ran the Stewart household and assisted Harriet Stewart with her children until Harriet Stewart's death in 1830. Stockton continued to care for the Stewart children, perhaps until Charles Stewart remarried in 1835. Venturing forth on her own, she taught at an infant school in Philadelphia, journeyed to Canada where she established a school for Indians along the same lines as the school she had started in Hawaii, and then returned to Princeton to set up a school, which later became the Witherspoon Street Colored School, the culmination of her life's work. She labored there, supported by northern blacks and whites and was committed to abolition in the area, until her death.

She was a strong role model for blacks and the less fortunate at every institution she established and administered. At her death, the Freedom's Journal of Cooperstown observed, "The superintendent and visitors of the public schools unhestitantly state that, in their inspections, they found no school better trained, better instructed, or with evidence of greater success than hers." Stockton was buried with the Stewart family at Lakewood, and her tombstone attests to that family's kinship with her: "Of African blood and born in slavery she became fitted by education and divine grace, for a life of great usefulness, for many years was a valued missionary at the Sandwich Islands in the family of Rev. C. S. Stewart, and afterwards till her death, a popular and able Principal of Public schools in Philadelphia & Princeton honored and beloved by a large circle of Christian Friends." Betsey Stockton had overcome bondage to distinguish herself as an educator of the disadvantaged and underprivileged.

Bibliography

The Hawaiian Mission Children's Society (HMCS) in Honolulu, Hawaii, contains the journal of Charles S. Stewart that describes Stockton's capable role in Lahaina, Maui. The HMCS collection also includes letters from contemporaries and diaries with references to her contributions, such as the letter from Michael Osborn to Jeremiah Evarts, 6 Sept. 1821, recommending Stockton to the ABCFM for a missionary appointment to Hawaii and the agreement signed by Betsey Stockton, C. S. Stewart, and Ashbel Green sent to Levi Chamberlain, 18 Nov. 1822. Thomas French, The Missionary Whaleship (1961), contains the letter from Ashbel Green to Jeremiah Evarts, 3 Sept. 1821, recommending Betsey Stockton for missionary service.

Barbara Bennett Peterson

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