WEL Partners Honours Trailblazer Mary Ann Shadd Cary

You may have noticed that Canada Post has come out with a new commemorative stamp for Black History Month. If you’re like myself, you may also be curious to learn the story of the name behind the face. This article will highlight the life and times of Mary Ann Camberton Shadd Cary (“Mary”), educator, publisher, lawyer, and abolitionist.

Mary was born on October 9, 1823, in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States of America.^[1] She was the first of 13 children born into a prominent abolitionist family; her father, Abraham, was a leader in Delaware’s free Black community.^[2] In fact, their home was one of the stops along the Underground Railroad, providing assistance to freedom seekers into Pennsylvania and further north to Canada.^[3] The Shadd’s eventually moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, where Mary was educated in a Quaker-sponsored school. By the age of 16, however, Mary would return to Wilmington where she would open a school for Black children.^[4]

After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, making it “legal” for free Black people to be captured and re-enslaved, the Shadd family moved to Windsor, Ontario.^[5] Having already been teaching for close to ten years, Mary’s services were requested by Henry and Mary Bibb, Black newspaper publishers living in and around the Windsor area. In 1851, Mary moved to Windsor and opened an integrated private school for children of freedom seekers.

In addition to teaching, Mary became heavily involved in community affairs. In 1852, she published a pamphlet entitled A Plea for Emigration; or Notes of Canada West which highlighted Canada as a preferable destination for enslaved and free African Americans.^[6] Mary was a fierce advocate and due to her outspokenness, a controversial figure at the time. She often challenged community leaders, both Black and White. Eventually, however, her unwavering convictions would cause her to lose her teaching position.^[7]

After leaving her post as a teacher, Mary focused her rebellious and courageous nature into the art of dissemination, creating The Provincial Freeman, a paper which wrote on slavery abolition and reflected on the condition of Black women.^[8] To ensure the paper was published, Mary concealed her identity by working with publisher and abolitionist, Samuel Ringgold Ward, who became the public editor. She also reduced her name to her initials to hide her gender.^[9]

Mary’s paper was first published on March 24, 1853, in Windsor, Ontario, making her the first Black woman in North America to establish and edit a newspaper.^[10] Just over a year later, on March 25, 1854, The Provincial Freeman began publishing weekly out of Toronto. The motto of the paper was “Self-reliance is the true road to independence.” The paper championed women’s rights and engaged in investigative reporting while advising readers to insist on fair treatment and seek legal redress where their efforts failed.

According to Huda Hassan, “What Shadd Cary understood was the political and social power of newspapers in disseminating reflections and information on their dire conditions, cautioning a future under these systems.”^[11] Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, the paper stopped its production in 1857.^[12]

Mary soon wed Toronto businessman Thomas F. Cary in 1856. Sadly, in 1860, Thomas died. After the loss of her husband, Mary returned to America where she helped Martin Delany recruit Black soldiers during the Civil War.

After the Civil War ended, Mary enrolled in the law program at Howard University School of Law, an all-Black male school, becoming Howard’s first Black female law student.^[13] At the age of 60, she graduated from Howard, becoming one of the first women to obtain a law degree in America.^[14] True to her spirit, Mary would eventually go on to sue Howard for discrimination.

Mary would later join the women’s suffrage movement and in 1874, addressed the House Judiciary Committee regarding women’s right to vote.^[15]

Mary Ann Shadd Cary died on June 5, 1893. Her lifetime was marked by many firsts and achievements and her long-lasting contributions to freedom and equal rights resonate to this day.

As a testament to her legacy, Mary received many eponyms including the Mary Shadd Public School which opened in Scarborough in 1985, designation as a National Historic Person in Canada in 1994, and the Canada Post release of a commemorative stamp in her honour in January 2024.^[16] Mary has been commemorated with a bronze bust and historical plaque in Chatham Ontario. You can visit the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum to see her printing press on display here.^[17]

A virtual tour of her family barn at the Buxton Historical Site can be seen here.

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[1] Adrienne Shadd, “Mary Ann Shadd” (November 6, 2013), The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed online: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mary-ann-shadd [Adrienne Shadd].

[2] Her father was the first recorded African American abolitionist and one of the first Black persons in Canada to become an elected official. Her sister Eunice was the first woman to graduate from Howard University.

[3] Adrienne Shadd, supra.

[4] Ibid.,

[5] The Fugitive Slave Act led to the exodus of thousands of formerly enslaved people into Canada where slaved had been abolished in 1833 by Great Britain under the Slavery Abolition Act, 1833.

[6] Our Ontario, “Ontario Black History – Mary Ann Shadd Cary”, accessed online: https://vitacollections.ca/multiculturalontario/476/exhibit/10 where it is shared that from this pamphlet Mary Ann wrote, “[in Canada]…If a colored man understand his business, he receives the public patronage the same as a white man. He is not obliged to work a little better, and at a lower rate – there is no degraded class to identify him with, therefore every man’s work stands or fails according to merit, not as is his color.”

[7] Adrienne Shadd, supra.

[8] Huda Hassan, “How Mary Ann Shadd Cary set the blueprint for abolitionist feminist writing” (October 27, 2022), CBC Arts – Against the Grain, accessed online: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/how-mary-ann-shadd-cary-set-the-blueprint-for-abolitionist-feminist-writing-1.6631709 [Hassan].

[9] Adrienne Shadd, supra.

[10] Adrienne Shadd, supra.

[11] Hassan, supra.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Mary was not only a student, but also taught at Howard University.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Bayan Atari, “Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Howard University’s First Black Female Law Student” (March 30, 2023), Howard University – The Dig, accessed online: https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/mary-ann-shadd-cary-howard-universitys-first-black-female-law-student-0

[16] Adrienne Shadd, supra.

[17] Ontario Black History, supra.