​HARPER AT 200

MARY ANN SHADD CARY

Accessible Archives African American Newspapers: The Provincial Freeman. Reproduced by permission. www.accessible-archives.com/

Three years before Frances Harper attended the 1858 Colored Convention in Ohio, Mary Ann Shadd Cary had to fight for her place at the 1855 National Colored Convention in Philadelphia. Both women’s work paralleled one another. As with Harper, convention minutes only tersely record Shadd Cary’s speech and participation. 

An Exceptional Speech

At the national assembly of 1855, Mary Ann Shadd Cary delivered “the speech of the Convention.” But in the published proceedings, that speech was left out.

Shadd’s presence at the convention was exceptional from the start. On the first day in Philadelphia, she had to sit, wait, and listen while a group of men debated whether to recognize a woman as a delegate for Canada. Isaiah C. Wears and other prominent Black leaders opposed recognizing her as a delegate. But support for Shadd prevailed. They could not prevent her from joining the convention and its debates.

Although the proceedings are silent on her speech, coverage in Black newspapers tells a much different story. The journalist William J. Wilson, writing under his pseudonym Ethiop in Frederick Douglass’s Paper, reported the events. Each delegate was allowed only ten minutes to speak before the convention. After Shadd spoke for ten minutes—on the highly unpopular cause of emigration—her peers voted to allow her an extra ten minutes. That recognition came from a group of men who vehemently disagreed with her politics.

“We may differ with her on the subject of emigration,” Wilson wrote, but “she is a superior woman; and it is useless to deny it . . . however much we may differ with her on the subject of emigration.” Whatever the other delegates had thought about Shadd before then, she promptly proceeded to give, in his admiring words, “one of the speeches of the Convention. 

Activist Roots and Travels

Although she had to fight for a place at the 1855 Convention, Shadd was born into a storied family of notable activists and convention goers. Mary Ann was born as the first child of Abraham and Harriet Shadd on October 9, 1823. The family would eventually include 13 children who lived to adulthood. The Shadds were a prominent family in the Wilmington, Delaware, area, dating back to Mary’s grandmother, Amelia Cisco, who ran a tea parlor that existed at the center of social life for free Blacks and whites alike near the end of the eighteenth century. Her father attended five of the first six national meetings and served in the leadership as well.

Abraham and Harriet Shadd moved Mary Ann and her siblings to West Chester, Pennsylvania, so that the children could attend the Quaker school there; they were particularly concerned for the girls in the family who were excluded from formal educational opportunities in Wilmington. After finishing her formal education, Mary Ann Shadd went back to become a teacher in Wilmington and then moved on to teach in West Chester, Trenton, and Norristown in New Jersey, and at the African Free School on Centre Street in New York City. Then, in 1851, Shadd decided to move to the province of Canada West after hearing a series of speeches about the opportunities there in the face of Fugitive Slave Act and challenges to the rights of free African Americans that were only escalating. 

Mary Ann Shadd’s time in Canada West secured her place in history. She founded a school, became highly active in local politics, and her paper The Provincial Freeman (1853-1859) made her the first Black woman publisher and editor in North America.  She also married Thomas Cary, a barber, businessman and activist in Toronto, on January 3, 1856. 

The life story of Mary Ann Shadd Cary cannot be told in isolation apart from the varied and rich historical contributions by her family. Her father Abraham had a key role in the Colored Conventions Movement. Abraham, born to Jeremiah Shadd and Amelia Cisco in 1801, would become the President of the 1833 Convention after having served as a delegate at each of the preceding national conventions. When he, too, went to Canada, he became among the very first Black elected officials in that nation.

The siblings of the Shadd family could make for an entire book-length study on their own. Her brother Isaac Doras (1829-1896) followed his older sister Mary Ann to Chatham, Windsor and Toronto in Canada West. Isaac’s role in managing the daily business affairs of The Provincial Freeman was significant. His house in Canada West also served as the meeting place for the Chatham Convention John Brown held as part of the planning for the raid on Harper’s Ferry. After the Civil War, Isaac left Canada and was elected to the Mississippi State Legislature from 1871 to 1874. During that time, Isaac was also involved as a part owner of several experiments in Black-owned cotton plantations. 

Several other siblings took after Mary Ann’s example as well. Amelia Cisco Shadd Williamson (1831-1897) followed her two older siblings to Canada West where she married a self-emancipated man named David T. Williamson who later contributed to The Provincial Freeman and ran a successful small business in Toronto. Emeline Shadd (1835-1894) became one of the first women appointed to the faculty of Education at Howard University. Much more work remains to be done to learn about the rest of the history of the illustrious Shadds, including siblings Elizabeth, Harriet, Joseph Lewis, Garrison, Sarah Matilda, Ada Theresa, and Gerrit S. Shadd.

This page is adopted from a previous exhibit. Click here to learn more.

CREDITS

Contributed by Jim Casey, graduate student at the University of Delaware. Researched for English 634, Spring 2013, taught by Professor P. Gabrielle Foreman.

Edited by Dr. Gabrielle Foreman.