MARY ANN SHADD CARY CANADIAN SHERO

Murphy Browne © October 9-2017

OCTOBER IS WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH IN CANADA

MARY ANN SHADD CARY CANADIAN SHERO

One hundred and ninety four years ago on October 9, 1823, Mary Ann Shadd was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She was the eldest of 13 children of Abraham Doras Shadd and Harriet Burton Parnell. The Cary family were free African Americans living in a slave holding America. When it became illegal to educate African American children in the state of Delaware, the Shadd family moved to Pennsylvania, where Mary attended a Quaker school. In 1840, after being away at school, Mary Ann returned to West Chester and established a school for African American children. She also later taught in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and New York City.


When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 in the United States threatened to return free northern African Americans and those who had escaped slavery back into bondage, Shadd and her brother Isaac moved to Canada and settled in Windsor, Ontario. In Windsor, she established a school and published an anti-slavery newspaper called The Provincial Freeman, 1853 which made her the first female editor in North America. She encouraged African-Americans to leave the United States and immigrate to Canada.


In 1856 she married African Canadian businessman Thomas Cary who passed away in 1860. Thomas Cary and his brothers (George, Isaac and John) like Mary Ann Shadd were free born African Americans who chose to move to Canada since slavery had been abolished in Canada on August 1, 1834. The couple had a son and a daughter.

 When the Civil War broke out, Mary Ann Shadd Cary returned to the United States to help in the war effort. In 1863, she worked as a recruiting officer for the Union Army encouraging African Americans to join the fight against the Confederacy and against slavery. After the war, Shadd Cary attended one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Howard University from where she earned a law degree in 1883 when she was 60 years old!
Mary Ann Shadd Cary transitioned on June 5, 1893 in Washington, D.C.


Murphy Browne © October 9-2017