A Beloved Teacher

Adapted from folklore by Craig Dominey and Curtis Richardson

On the Georgia coast, there is an island called St.Simons Island - a beautiful place where the sea laps against the sandy shores, the Spanish moss sways gently in the salty breeze, and there is a real sense of peace. But St. Simons is also a place of mysterious and tragic stories - some true, and some folktales that have become legends.

One of these stories concerns a lone grave marker sitting a few yards off the main highway. What is strange about this grave is that no vegetation grows around it - no trees, no grass, and no moss.
marsh

The most popular version of this story takes place over 100 years ago, when large rice plantations were in operation up and down the coast. One day, the plantation owners on St. Simons decided they were going to hire a schoolmarm to teach their children. So they found a young woman from Ohio named Margaret to come down and live on the island as the local teacher. She was a wise woman, for she had traveled in Europe and had attended a number of well-known schools.

Margaret would teach the white plantation children during the day - but at night, she would teach the black slave children whose parents toiled day and night on the plantations. The plantation owners did not like this, for they did not want the slaves to be educated in any way. They thought that, if the slaves became educated, they might rise up and attack their captors.

But Margaret was headstrong, for she had seen how other people lived around the world, and firmly believed that blacks were as deserving of an education as whites. Since Margaret was such a good teacher, the white plantation owners reluctantly looked the other way. But they became very suspicious of Margaret, and kept a close eye on her.

There was one little slave boy named Joshua who Margaret liked to teach the most. Joshua soaked up knowledge like a sponge, for he felt that a good education was his ticket to freedom. Joshua especially loved English literature and poetry. Long after the other slave children had left school, he would stick around and beg Margaret to read to him some more. Margaret was truly touched by Joshua's eagerness, and found herself growing close to him.

But Joshua never got a chance to use his newfound knowledge. One day, a slave uprising erupted on one of the plantations. During the furor, a white slave owner was killed. Later that evening, an angry white mob rode through the island and started beating the horrified slaves, whether they were part of the uprising or not. They kicked down the door of Joshua's home and savagely attacked his parents. When Joshua leapt to his mother's defense, a young white man viciously clubbed him in the head, killing him instantly.

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