Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Delaware was still a slave state, so Mary’s parents enrolled her in a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania at the age of 10. She studied there for the next 6 years, then returned to Wilmington and opened a private school for Negroes in 1840. She established or taught at schools for Negroes in West Chester PA, New York City, and Morristown NJ.
The infamous Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850. Negroes who had been free for years were arrested, and their property was taken from them. Whole families were seized in the dead of night, beaten, and dragged back into slavery.
Mary and her brother, Isaac, fled to Windsor, Canada, directly across from Detroit, Michigan. Almost all of her immediate family eventually emigrated there as well. In the states, there was a campaign to deter runaway slaves from seeking refuge in Canada, so in 1854 Mary founded a newspaper called “The Provincial Freeman,” dedicated to informing the fugitive slaves of the many opportunities available there. Thousands of men, women, and children crossed the border to safety.
During this time, Mary returned to America from time to time, speaking out against slavery and for equal rights for women, unmindful of the threats to her personal safety. To be an outspoken female and a Negro only doubled the dangers she shared with her fellow abolitionists, Abby Kelley, Lucretia Mott, and Lucy Stone—whom I wrote about in a previous post. Mary was called “The Rebel” by her own family.
Mary married Thomas Cary, a Toronto barber, in 1856. They had 2 children, Sarah and Linton. They lived in Chatham, where Mary worked at her newspaper and taught school, continuing to aid runaways in every possible way. Thomas died in 1860.
In 1863, when President Lincoln called for 500,000 men to serve in the Union army, Mary returned to the states and assisted in enlisting a regiment of Negro soldiers. When the war ended, she moved to Washington D. C. with her daughter. There, she served as principal to three large schools for seventeen years. During this time, she was also a regular contributor to two newspapers, “The New National Era” edited by Frederick Douglass, and “The Advocate” edited by John Wesley Cromwell.
In 1881, she became an active member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. She then entered The Howard University Law School, graduating in 1884 as the first Negro female lawyer in the United States, at the age of 61!
She resigned her school positions and spent the balance of her life practicing law, until her death in 1893. As educator, abolitionist, editor, attorney, and feminist, she devoted her entire life to improving the quality of life for everyone, be they black or white, male or female.
What an inspiration!
Copyright © 2006 Maggie MacLean
Tags:
