Abraham D. Shadd

Abraham Doras Shadd
Abraham Doras Shadd
Born(1801-03-02)March 2, 1801
Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.
DiedFebruary 11, 1882(1882-02-11) (aged 80)
Ontario, Canada
Resting placeMaple Leaf Cemetery, Kent County, Ontario
OccupationsAbolitionist, civil rights activist, shoemaker
Known forUnderground Railroad activity; early Black elected official in Canada
SpouseHarriet Parnell
Children13, including Mary Ann Shadd, Eunice P. Shadd, Isaac Shadd

Abraham Doras Shadd (March 2, 1801 – February 11, 1882) was an African-American abolitionist and civil rights activist who emigrated to Ontario, Canada, and became one of Canada's first black elected officials.[1][2] He was the father of prominent activist and publisher Mary Ann Shadd and her siblings Eunice P. Shadd and Isaac Shadd.[3]

Personal life

The Shadd family held a visible place in Wilmington’s community life. Amelia, his mother, operated a tea room that became a gathering place for both free Black residents and white patrons in the early years of the nineteenth century.[4]

Through his father, he was a grandson of Hans Schad, also known as John Shadd. Hans was a soldier from Hesse-Cassel, a German state whose troops, commonly called Hessians, were hired by Britain during eighteenth-century wars in North America. Hans later settled in Delaware and married Elizabeth Jackson, a free Black woman, establishing the Shadd family’s multiracial lineage in the late eighteenth century.[5]

Shadd learned the trade of shoemaking from his father and established himself as a shoemaker in Wilmington. As a skilled artisan, he earned a stable livelihood, acquired property, and supported a large household through his trade.[5]

Shadd married Harriet Parnell in the early 1820s and together they had thirteen children, including Mary Ann, Isaac, Abraham, Emeline, Eunice, Elizabeth, Harriet, Joseph Lewis, Garrison, Sarah Matilda, Ada Theresa, Amelia and Gerrit.[4]

Several of Shadd’s children went on to notable careers. Mary Ann Shadd became a teacher, publisher, lawyer, and the first Black woman in North America to publish a newspaper.[6] Isaac D. Shadd served in the Mississippi Legislature during Reconstruction from 1871 to 1874. Abraham W. Shadd, trained in law at Harvard, practiced in North Buxton, Ontario.[4] Emeline Shadd joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C., among the earliest women appointed there.[4] Eunice P. Shadd graduated from Howard University College of Medicine in 1877 and became a physician.[7]

The Shadd homes in Wilmington and later West Chester functioned as stations on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers were sheltered, provided with food and clothing, and guided northward as they continued toward safety in Canada.[3]

In 1850, following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which increased penalties for assisting escaped enslaved people and heightened legal risks for free Black communities, the Shadd family relocated to Canada West, settling in the North Buxton area of present-day Ontario.[3]

Civil rights and abolitionist movements

By the 1830s, Abraham Shadd started to become more prominent in the abolitionist movement. He used both his homes in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware, to provide lodging for fugitive slaves fleeing southern states.[8] He was a prominent voice in the anti-colonization movement.[6] Shadd was one of five black men at the founding of the Board of Managers of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, as well as a prominent member of the Colored Conventions Movement, serving as a leading delegate in both the 1841 and 1848 black national conventions, both held in Philadelphia.[8]

Life in Canada

While being a vocal critic of black colonization for most of his life, Abraham Shadd was prompted to move his family north to Canada West (Ontario, Canada) with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Less than a decade later he would become one of the first black elected officials in Canada, being elected in 1859 to a seat on the Raleigh Township Council.[8] Shadd became a very prominent member of his new Canadian community, creating a school within the Raleigh Township, as well as creating a loan system with his farm tools and equipment, in order to assist other farmers in the community.[9] He also was a member and early trustee of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, which assisted former black slaves and freed men in their immigration to Canada West.[9][10]

Death

Shadd died on February 11, 1882. He was a very prominent and well-known man within Canada West and the abolitionist and civil rights movements of the 1800s. His prominence fostered a large funeral ceremony attended at Maple Leaf Cemetery by residents of Kent County, where he would be buried.[9]

Legacy

In February 2009, Shadd was commemorated with a stamp by Canada Post.[11]

In 1994, a central roadway running through North Buxton was officially renamed A.D. Shadd Road in recognition of his contributions.[3]

References

  1. ^ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (March 26, 2015). The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations. Routledge. p. 480. ISBN 9781317454168.
  2. ^ Alexander, Leslie M.; Rucker, Walter C. Jr. (2010-02-09). Encyclopedia of African American History [3 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp. 525–526. ISBN 9781851097746.
  3. ^ a b c d "Shadd, Abraham Doras (1801-1882) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed". blackpast.org. 24 February 2009. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d "Mary Ann Shadd Cary". Mural Arts. Retrieved 2026-02-15.
  5. ^ a b Rhodes, Jane (1998). Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Indiana University Press.
  6. ^ a b Rhodes, Jane (1998). Mary Anne Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 4.
  7. ^ "History | Howard University College of Medicine". medicine.howard.edu. Retrieved 2026-02-15.
  8. ^ a b c The Black abolitionist papers. Ripley, C. Peter, 1941–. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1985–1992. ISBN 0807816256. OCLC 10924134.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  9. ^ a b c "Shadd, Abraham D. (1801–1892)". Municipality of Chatham-Kent. 20 November 2017. Archived from the original on 19 December 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  10. ^ Hepburn, Sharon A. Roger (2007). Crossing the border : a free Black community in Canada. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252031830. OCLC 85622776.
  11. ^ "Abraham Doras Shadd & Rosemary Brown". Canada Post. February 2, 2009. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
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