Shadd and her family actively helped freedom seekers (people who escaped slavery). The Shadd family’s participation in the Underground Railroad became even more dangerous after 1850 when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Mary Ann Shadd became a prominent activist in the Underground Railroad refugee communities of Upper Canada during the 1850s.

Mary Ann was their oldest child. The Shadd family seemed like a typical middle-class, free Black family to outsiders, but they had a secret. Abraham and Harriet were part of the Underground Railroad, a network of activists who helped enslaved people escape from their enslavers. The work was dangerous.

Mary Ann Shadd (later Cary) was an African American abolitionist based in Canada and editor of The Provincial Freeman. ESSAYS: Barker. ROLES: Abolitionist

Following in the footsteps of her activist parents, whose home was a safe house (or “station”) on the Underground Railroad, Shadd pursued community activism upon settling in Canada. On September 10, 1851, at St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto, Shadd attended the first North American Convention of Coloured Freemen held outside of the United States.

Apr 14, 2017 · The route celebrates the history of the Underground Railroad, which was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used to help as many as 100,000 people escape slavery and oppression in the southern United States between 1840 to 1860. About 30,000 slaves came to Canada.

Shadd Cary was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1823 where her parents were abolitionists and their home was a station on the Underground Railroad. They moved to Pennsylvania so that their children could attend school because the education of Black children was illegal in Delaware.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was a prominent abolitionist leader and lawyer who published, edited, and ran The Provincial Freeman, championing the Underground Railroad and education for Black youth in Canada.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born free in the slave state of Delaware in 1823. Her parents, Abraham and Harriet Parnell Shadd, were abolitionists, and their home was a station on the Underground Railroad. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which compelled Americans to assist in the capture of runaway slaves and levied heavy penalties ...

Mar 8, 2024 · Her family was deeply involved with the Underground Railroad, which worked to help slaves fleeing from slavery in the United States – her shoemaker father supported the railroad as a ‘conductor’ or guide, and Mary spent her childhood in a home that frequently supported and hid fugitive slaves.