336 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
Prominent black nationalist Martin Delany’s association
with her paper could not save it from closing.
Shadd Cary remained active throughout the Civil
War and served as a Union Army recruiter in 1864. She
returned to live in the United States four years later and
began teaching in Detroit and Washington, D.C. In 1869,
she enrolled in Howard University Law School. Shadd
Cary’s enrollment marked the fi rst time in the nation’s his-
tory that a black woman had gained admission into law
school. As a law student, Shadd Cary became actively in-
volved in the suff rage movement to secure women’s right
to vote. She addressed the House Judiciary Committee on
women’s suff rage in 1871. Simultaneously, she was still
teaching and served as principal of a local Washington,
D.C., school for black children. Shadd Cary earned her
law degree in 1883 from Howard University Law School,
becoming the second black woman to do so, aft er Char-
lotte Ray. Th ough Shadd Cary accomplished much in her
life, she constantly fought battles because of her gender
and race. In 1872, the Bar Association of Washington, D.C.
refused to admit Shadd Cary because of her gender. For-
tunately because of Shadd’s activism, Charlotte Ray was
allowed to enter the Bar Association of Washington, D.C.
shortly thereaft er. Shadd Cary died of stomach cancer in
1893 in Washington, D.C.
See also: Colored Convention Movement; Delany, Martin R.;
Destination, Canada; Douglass, Frederick; Shadd, AbrahamDeirdre Benia Cooper OwensBibliography
Bearden, Jim, and Linda Butler. Th e Life and Times of Mary Shadd
Cary. Toronto, Ontario: NC Press, 1977.
Rhodes, Jane. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Th e Black Press and Protest
in the Nineteenth-Century. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1998.Cinque, Joseph
In 1839, West African Joseph Cinque (1813–1897), a name
given by the Spanish to the captured African, garnered in-
ternational notoriety when he led a slave mutiny on the
slave ship Amistad. Before this rebel, mutineer, rice farmer,
trader, and slave catapulted into historic lore, he was born
the son of a Mende headman in present-day Sierra Leone, aAspect, with Suggestions Respecting Mexico, W. Indies and
Vancouver’s Island, for the Information of Colored Emigrants,
urging blacks to leave the United States. Because of her ac-
tivism and outspokenness, she was fi red from her job, and
her school was forcibly closed in 1853. As a woman, Shadd
held a very unique and contested role in publicly addressing
black political concerns to overwhelmingly male audiences.
Yet Shadd was undaunted and entered journalism.
In 1854, Shadd published the fi rst edition of the Pro-
vincial Freeman, an abolitionist newspaper. Shadd named
Samuel Ward as the editor and Rev. Alex McArthur as
coeditor in name only because newspaper publishing was
viewed as men’s work. Shadd was not discouraged because
of the prevailing sexism and served as the business man-
ager and editor of the newspaper. Shadd became an orator
and fund-raiser mainly to raise funds for her paper. Shadd
began publicly speaking against migration to Africa and en-
couraging black migration to Canada West. Shadd thought
that blacks would be strangers in Africa because they had
lived in America for many generations. Her beliefs were
based on several factors including language, environment,
and religious diff erences.
Aft er several months of publishing her newspaper,
Shadd revealed that she was the editor. Th e Provincial Free-
man became extremely popular throughout Canada and the
United States. Because of the importance of the black press
within black communities, Shadd and other black Canadi-
ans formed the Provincial Union to aid the black Canadian
press. Less than a year later, a fi re destroyed her offi ce, and
she resigned her post as editor. Readers began to criticize
Shadd as a female editor and she named a man as the new
editor of her paper.
Shadd endured heavy criticism because of her gender
and the political work she performed, yet she still sought
leadership positions in black civil rights organizations. On
October 13, 1855, Shadd attended the Colored Convention
in Philadelphia and became the convention’s fi rst female
corresponding member. Aft er Frederick Douglass pub-
licly lauded her work, Shadd’s status increased even more.
Th ough she remained busy with public speaking, teach-
ing, and working for her newspaper, she married Th omas
F. Cary, a barber, in 1856 and became a stepmother to his
three children. Shadd Cary eventually bore two children
during their four-year union. Th omas Cary died in 1860.
By this time, the death knell had also sounded for the Pro-
vincial Freeman, and its last issue was published in 1860.