Provincial Freeman (newspaper)
The Provincial Freeman was a significant weekly abolitionist newspaper published in the 1850s in Ontario, Canada, under the leadership of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who is recognized as the first Black woman to serve as a chief editor and publisher of a North American newspaper. Launched on March 24, 1853, the newspaper emerged as a crucial platform for advocating against slavery and promoting the rights of Black individuals during a time of intense racial discrimination. The Provincial Freeman not only tackled abolitionist topics but also engaged with issues related to temperance, cultural development, and early feminist activism.
The publication served as a voice for thousands of Black Americans who sought refuge in Canada, offering them encouragement and community support amid the oppressive atmosphere created by the Fugitive Slave Act in the United States. Its editorial stance was marked by a strong condemnation of racism and a call for moral integrity within Black leadership. After several years and a few location changes, the newspaper's print run is believed to have ended around 1860 due to financial challenges.
Although it faded into obscurity for many years, the rediscovery of its issues in the 1950s highlighted its importance as a primary source documenting Black life and perspectives in 19th-century Canada. Today, the Provincial Freeman is recognized by scholars for its unique contributions to understanding the racial dynamics of its time. Mary Ann Shadd's legacy continued beyond the newspaper, as she became one of the first Black female lawyers in the United States and an advocate for civil rights until her passing in 1893.
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Provincial Freeman (newspaper)
The Provincial Freeman was a weekly abolitionist newspaper published during the 1850s in what is now the Canadian province of Ontario. Issued under the leadership of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the Provincial Freeman is believed to be the first North American newspaper ever to have a Black woman as its chief editor and publisher.
For about a century, the Provincial Freeman was an obscure historical footnote; the historians who knew about it widely believed there were no surviving examples of its original print run and the newspaper was believed to have been lost. In the 1950s, staff members at the University of Pennsylvania library found a volume containing issues of the periodical, the discovery of which was publicized in the Journal of Negro History in 1959.
Background
Mary Ann Shadd Cary, whose name is alternately given as Mary Ann Shadd Camberton or simply as Mary Ann Shadd, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1823. Her father was a high-profile abolitionist leader in the city’s Black community whose strong anti-slavery views were shared by Shadd’s mother. The Shadd family home was a refuge point on the Underground Railroad, a secret travel network designed to assist formerly enslaved Black people attempting to escape to free states in North or to Canada. Canada had banned slavery along with the rest of the British Empire in 1834. The Shadds primarily assisted runaway enslaved persons trying to reach Pennsylvania, a free state, from origin points in the slave states of Maryland and Delaware.
The Shadd family relocated to Pennsylvania in the 1830s to give their children easier access to formal education. Shadd later returned to her birth city, where she opened a school for local Black children when she was only sixteen years old. Over the next decade, Shadd worked as an educator, schooling Black children in cities throughout the eastern United States.
In 1850, the US federal government passed the Fugitive Slave Act. The controversial legislation allowed enslavers and their hired agents to pursue escaped enslaved people across state lines and into free states in the North. The statute also required both state-level authorities and everyday civilians to assist so-called “slave hunters” in apprehending fugitives and returning them to their enslavers. After the implementation of the law, free Black people living in both free and slave states were routinely captured and enslaved or re-enslaved. Seeking permanent protection from the Fugitive Slave Act, thousands of Black Americans relocated to British colonies in Canada.
Shadd, who had cultivated a high profile in the abolitionist Black community through her activism, was contacted by a Black couple living in what is now Windsor, Ontario, where they published a newspaper. The couple asked Shadd to join them in Canada and help serve the fast-growing local community of Black migrants from the United States. Shadd honored the request, opening a private school for Black students and publishing activist missives in the Windsor couple’s newspaper, the Voice of the Fugitive. Following an ideological dispute with the couple, Shadd was relieved of her teaching duties in 1852. She ultimately elected to launch her own weekly newspaper, which became the Provincial Freeman.
Overview
Shadd published the debut issue of the Provincial Freeman on March 24, 1853. Sources vary when quoting the duration of the newspaper’s original print run; some say the Provincial Freeman continued until September 1857, while others say that new issues continued to appear until 1860. In either case, the Provincial Freeman had passed into historical obscurity until surviving issues were rediscovered at the University of Pennsylvania about a century after its initial publication.
Under Shadd’s editorial direction, the Provincial Freeman adopted “self-reliance is the true road to independence” as its official motto. Along with abolitionist viewpoints, the newspaper’s content aligned with the temperance movement while also promoting cultural and intellectual engagement. Shadd also used the periodical as a platform for encouraging freedom-seeking Black residents of the United States to relocate to Canada, which nominally considered Black residents equal under the law. The publication’s editorial perspectives were also heavily critical of racism, which remained common even among committed abolitionists, and of Black leaders and institutions considered by Shadd to have undermined or abandoned their moral principles. Contemporary readings of the newspaper’s content also note sympathies for early manifestations of first-wave feminist activism.
Shadd published the Provincial Freeman in what is now Windsor, Ontario, from 1853 to 1854 before relocating its operations to Toronto and finally to Chatham, Ontario, which hosted a large population of Black residents and like-minded abolitionists. Several of Shadd’s twelve siblings later joined her in positions of editorial leadership, especially as the publication’s growing prominence elicited invitations for Shadd to deliver guest lectures and speaking engagements throughout Canada and the United States. At its peak, the Provincial Freeman was a primary voice for the estimated forty thousand Black emigrants who had fled the United States to new lives in Canada.
While some sources say the Provincial Freeman became inactive in 1857, the Canadian Encyclopedia states that the newspaper published its final issue in 1860 before ceasing operations due to an unsustainable financial outlook. Historians note the unique perspectives forwarded by the periodical, which chronicled Black life in 1850s Canada in highly descriptive detail. Contemporary scholars consider the newspaper a critically important firsthand document of the era’s racial dynamics, valuing the rarely expressed perspectives found in the newspaper’s content.
Shadd married in 1856 and subsequently started a family. Following the closure of the Provincial Freeman, Shadd returned to the United States to help enlist Black soldiers to fight for the abolitionist cause during the American Civil War. She later earned a law degree and became one of the first practicing Black female lawyers in US history. Shadd died in Washington, DC, on June 5, 1893, a few months before what would have been her seventieth birthday.
Bibliography
“March 24, 1853: Mary Ann Shadd Cary Published ‘The Provincial Freeman.’“ Zinn Education Project, www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/mary-ann-shadd-cary/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
“Mary Ann Shadd Cary.” National Women’s Hall of Fame, www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/mary-ann-shadd-cary/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
“Provincial Freeman.” Black Abolitionist Archive, University of Detroit Mercy, libraries.udmercy.edu/archives/special-collections/index.php?record‗id=1377&collectionCode=baa. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
“Provincial Freeman.” The State University of New York, University at Buffalo, http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/ProvincialFreeman.html. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
Shadd, Adrienne. “Mary Ann Shadd.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 23 Jan. 2024, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mary-ann-shadd. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
Shadd, Adrienne. “The Provincial Freeman.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 7 June 2023, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-provincial-freeman. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
“Shadd, Mary Ann Camberton (Cary).” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 2003, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/shadd‗mary‗ann‗camberton‗12E.html. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.
“The Provincial Freeman.” Ontario Heritage Trust, 2008, www.heritagetrust.on.ca/pages/programs/provincial-plaque-program/provincial-plaque-background-papers/provincial-freeman. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.