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Maria STewart |
Maria (pronounced like MARIAH) Stewart was an essayist, lecturer, abolitionist and women's rights activist. She is the first known American woman to give a lecture in public on political issues. She was born in 1803. Although her family was not enslaved, her parents died when she was at the age of five, so she had no other options besides being a servant to a white clergyman for ten years. There is very little known about her life from 1818 to 1826, the year when she married and moved to Boston as part of Boston's earliest Black middle class. When her husband died three years later, white executors of her husband's will robbed her of her inheritance, forcing her once again to turn to domestic service to support herself. Dealing with the grief of the loss of her husband and the state's willful theft of her money, she became a political "advocate for the cause of God and for the cause of freedom." (click here for more)
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In 1831, Stewart joined the abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the abolitionist newspaper the Liberator, and wrote several essays, including a twelve-page pamphlet called Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality that urged African Americans to organize against slavery in the South and against racism in the North, plan for black economic freedom and unity, and advocate for women's rights. Already in 1831, she was demanding equal treatment for Black women in the white nation and in the Black home: "How long," she asked, "shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles?"
After these first essays in the Liberator, Stewart began to deliver public lectures. Well aware that women were not supposed to speak in public, she believed in her core that history and God himself was on her side. Her first speech (1832), "Why Sit Ye Here and Die?" was directed to Black women who she asked them to turn to God and stand up for their rights. When she began addressing both men and women in her second speech (1833), "An Address (Delivered Before the Afric-American Female Intelligence Society of America)," she insisted that free African Americans were hardly better off than those in slavery. By her third speech, "African Rights and Liberty (An Address at the African Mason Hall)" (1833), she defended her right to speak publicly. In her fourth and final speech, "Farewell Address," she announced that she would be leaving the city and discussed the disdain she faced at being a Black woman who dared speak in public. Maria Stewart's four speeches give us a foundational legacy of Black feminist rhetoric. She achieved many firsts:
After these first essays in the Liberator, Stewart began to deliver public lectures. Well aware that women were not supposed to speak in public, she believed in her core that history and God himself was on her side. Her first speech (1832), "Why Sit Ye Here and Die?" was directed to Black women who she asked them to turn to God and stand up for their rights. When she began addressing both men and women in her second speech (1833), "An Address (Delivered Before the Afric-American Female Intelligence Society of America)," she insisted that free African Americans were hardly better off than those in slavery. By her third speech, "African Rights and Liberty (An Address at the African Mason Hall)" (1833), she defended her right to speak publicly. In her fourth and final speech, "Farewell Address," she announced that she would be leaving the city and discussed the disdain she faced at being a Black woman who dared speak in public. Maria Stewart's four speeches give us a foundational legacy of Black feminist rhetoric. She achieved many firsts:
- First African American woman to lecture about women's rights and Black women's rights
- First American woman to speak to a mixed audience of men and women
- First known American woman to lecture in public on political issues
- First African American woman to make public anti-slavery speeches (click here for more)
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Influences on maria stewart
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JARENA LEE (1783-185?)
Minister Jarena Lee was the first authorized woman preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. She was also the first African American woman to have an autobiography published in the United States. |
JULIA FOOTE (1823-1901)
Deacon Julia Foote, the child of former slaves, was the first woman deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was the second woman to be ordained as an elder. Today, she is well-regarded as a "renowned woman evangelist." |
AMANDA SMITH (1837-1915)
Amanda Berry Smith worked with international missionary groups, ran her own orphanage for Black children, and advocated for women in ministry. She worked particularly within the AME and Methodist churches for her advocacy and activism. |
