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Mary Ann Shadd Cary was a teacher, journalist and forthright leader of the Canadian emigration movement during the 1850’s. Shadd Cary was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1823 and grew up in an abolitionist household where her family as free blacks living in the North often served as a refuge for fugitive slaves.

“We should do more and talk less.” – Mary Ann Shadd

These were the words that Mary Ann Shadd Cary, 25 at the time wrote in a letter to abolitionist and African-American statesman Frederick Douglass in 1848. Who previously asked readers of his North Star Newspaper for suggestions on improving the overall life of Black people in America.

Shadd Cary went on to write in her letter:

“We have been holding conventions for years — we have been assembling together and whining over our difficulties and afflictions, passing resolutions on resolutions to any extent,” she wrote. “But it does really seem that we have made but little progress considering our resolves.”

Douglass printed the unapologetic critique of the abolitionist movement and its tendency for long-winded discourse. This became Shadd Cary’s first published work, but it did put her in somewhat of odds with some of the older generation. However, it did establish her as a young unconventional voice and was a stepping stone for her becoming an influential journalist and activist.

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In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act which compelled Americans to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. Also levied higher penalties on those who did not comply. This prompted Shadd Cary and some members of her family to leave the United States for Canada. At the time she believed in the move to be a political one, where she would have greater freedom to continue to fight for the abolitionist cause across the border.

She published several pieces that advertised Canada as a safe place for former slaves and free Blacks. One of the most notable was a pamphlet, “Notes of Canada West,” that detailed where Black Americans should settle in Canada, what they could expect and advocated for them to take the journey north.

“Well-educated, vivacious, with determination shining from her sharp eyes, she threw herself single-handed into the great Canadian pilgrimage when thousands of hunted black men hurried northward and crept beneath the protection of the lion’s paw,” W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of Shadd Cary 30 years after her death in an essay titled “The Damnation of Women.”

In 1853, Shadd Cary founded The Provincial Freeman, a paper published initially in Windsor, Ontario, then in Toronto and Chatham, Ontario. “Devoted to antislavery, temperance and general literature” was the slogan. Her progressive approach and unorthodox views sometimes alienated some people. She often criticized abolitionists who did not fight for full equality and instead supported segregated schools and neighborhoods. She also denounced refugee associations that gathered funds to support fugitive slaves but turned a blind eye to free blacks who were forced to live in poverty.

In 1870, Mary Ann Shadd Cary graduated from Howard University with a law degree. She was one of the first black women lawyers in the United States. She became the first black woman in North America to edit and publish a newspaper (The Provincial Freeman).

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