Mary Ann Shadd Cary Birthplace: Wilmington, Delaware Died: 1893
(Washington, D.C.) The oldest of 13 children born to Harriet and
Abraham Shadd, leaders of the free black community who were
active in the Underground Railroad, Mary Ann Shadd understood at
an early age the importance of racial equality. Because Delaware
was a slave state and forbade the education of blacks, Shadd was
sent to a Quaker school in West Chester, Penn. Returning to
Delaware as a teacher, the 16-year-old took a post ministering
to less fortunate African Americans. In response to the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850, Shadd published a pamphlet, "A Plea for
Emigration or Notes of Canada West," which espoused emigration
to Canada; Shadd herself moved north in 1851. Now living in
Chatham, Canada, Shadd established her own newspaper, Provincial
Freeman, which endorsed racial and sexual equality. In 1856, she
married Thomas F. Cary with whom she had one daughter, Sally
(Thomas died in 1860). Shadd Cary later moved to Washington
D.C., where she hel