The Amazing Floating Freedom School Using Education to Free Black Slaves

John Berry Meachum was an enslaved person who brought his freedom. With this freedom, he became an independent businessman and ordained minister. He was also responsible for founding one of the oldest Black churches in Missouri. In addition, when the government banned the education of Black people on land, he founded the first floating freedom school.

Slavery and Freedom

John was born in slavery in Goochland County, Virginia, on 3rd May 1789. His father was an enslaved minister named Thomas Granger. His owner, Paul Meachum, was described as a kind man. Paul spent time teaching his slaves a trade. John was taught several trades.

John had earned enough money from these trades by the age of twenty-one to buy his freedom. He then walked seven hundred miles to Virginia, where he purchased his father's freedom. The father and son team amassed more money, purchasing the freedom of his mother and siblings. He also went on to marry a slave woman named Mary.

John states that when Paul Meachum was elderly, he made John the offer to free his seventy-five slaves if he would lead them out of Kentucky. He agreed and led the group across the Ohio River to Indiana.

He found that his wife's owners had taken her and their children when he returned. He followed them with only a few dollars in his wallet. Setting up as a carpenter in the river port, St Louis, he saved every penny he earned. Finally, in 1815, he had enough funds to buy his family's freedom.

Minister

In St Louis, he met John Mason Peck, a white Baptist missionary. Peck had previously built a place of education and worship for Native Americans; he enlisted the help of John to provide the same services to the black community.

The pair opened their church together in 1825, during the same year John was ordained. The church offered a place of worship, but it also provided education. Three hundred students enrolled. The lessons were taught secretly in the basement. His wife worked alongside her husband through all of this.

Educator

Initially, white men supported this education; however, slowly, over time, they started to see education for Black people as a threat. The government passed legislation banning education of black people. Punishment was twenty lashings.

One famous pupil was political leader, activist and educator James Milton Turner. In 1847, the school was closed down by police. John, along with a fellow white teacher, were arrested.

John was not going to let this stop him. He found that although the government could legislate the land, they could not legislate the open water. So, in 1847, he set up a floating freedom school to continue the education, which would travel up and down the Mississippi River. The steamboat would provide education for hundreds of enslaved people.

The freedom school was affordable to all, regardless of social status.

Businessman

John and his wife would also help enslaved people gain their freedom via the underground railway. They transported people by boat across the Mississippi River to the free state of Illinois.

John did not stop his endeavours there, to improve the life of the Black community. With his money from successful ventures, he bought the freedom of twenty enslaved people. He then housed these with him and taught them a trade. The enslaved people were then able to pay the purchase price back and support themselves in the future.

The couple's tremendous achievements were commemorated with the Mary Meachum crossing in St Louis in honour of their work. The John Berry Meachum Scholarship was established at St. Louis University to recognise his work; the scholarship is awarded to medical students. 

John Berry Meachum himself passed away on 19th February 1854, whilst he stood at the pulpit giving service to his parishioners. Mary continued their work freeing enslaved people and died on 8th August 1869.

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