Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Crafting Black Culture Through Empirical and Moral Arguments

This study examines the rhetoric of educator, journalist, and editor, Mary Ann Shadd Cary (October 9, 1823-June 5, 1893), who vigorously campaigned for Black fugitives' rights in Canada West during the 1850s. Drawing on the 1852 tract, Notes of Canada West, the author analyzes Cary's program of economic advancement and community-building for newly arriving former slaves in Canada. The author argues that Cary was the first influential North American Black female to use an empirical approach fortified by moral philosophy as a central argument, which functioned as an organizing principle. The author concludes that Cary's significance resides in her attempts to rearrange human knowledge at a pivotal time in Black history, her ability to shape Black behavior around a "radius of trust," her understanding of the relationship between knowledge and the practical art of rhetoric, as well as her keen understanding of how differing notions of human progress compete for attention and potentially influence social policies in significant ways.