Black Women Writers and Speakers
This year we have been going on a journey through the last few centuries to rediscover the stories of many amazing American Black Women. So far we have talked about the lives of four Black women who were the first to earn their PhD’s and a number women who were outstanding in their fields.
Last time we related the stories of two early writers – Sojourner Truth (nineteenth century) and Phillis Wheatley, (eighteenth century). These women were also active as speakers bringing to light the abuse of slavery. We will continue for many months to relate stories of Black Women in America with a special focus on Black Female Firsts.
This week we will continue with three nineteenth-century Black women writers – all Firsts – Harriet Wilson, first published author of a novel, Hannah Crafts, only known narrative written by a female fugitive slave, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, first female to teach at Union Seminary.
All of these women bravely overcame challenges to rise above the prejudice of their day to give us thought-provoking and encouraging stories.
Harriet Wilson (1825-1900)
Harriet Wilson is considered the first African American of either gender to publish a novel. Her novel was published anonymously in 1859. We cringe at the title – Our Nig, or sketches from the Life of a Free Black. How horrible!! But hopefully we can learn from the past. Society has progressed somewhat in a fairer treatment of black people, including how we talk to and about them. From “nigger” to “Negro” to “Colored” to “African American” to “Black” gains have been made in justice for black people. The fact that we can see how belittling the older terms were shows that we have made some progress, but it is too slow. It’s time to make sure we treat all people with dignity and respect.
That is why I am writing this series on remarkable Black Women in America. By raising awareness of their achievements, the prejudice against them should diminish. When we remember how much opposition there was to blacks and women in the nineteenth century the story of Harriet Wilson demonstrates courage and perseverance. It was illegal to teach blacks to read or write. Nevertheless, women like Harriet put their thoughts and feelings down in poetry, stories, autobiographies, narratives, and novels in spite of the prejudice.
Harriet was born a free mixed-race “person of color” in Milford, New Hampshire on March 15, 1825. Her mother was Irish, and her father was black. Her father died while she was just a small child and her mother abandoned her. She worked as an indentured servant to the Hayward family to support herself until she was eighteen years old. Researchers have discovered that Harriet was physically and mentally abused in their home. The family called her Nig.
She married an escaped slave, Thomas Wilson in 1851 in Milford. Thomas abandoned her for a time, saying he had never been a slave but used the story to get support from the abolitionists. Harriet was pregnant and had to move to a poor farm to care for herself and her son, George Mason Wilson, born in 1852. Thomas returned and took his family back. He worked as a sailor but died soon. Harriet decided to get a job but couldn’t make enough money to support her and her son, so she left him at the poor farm where he died at the age of 7 in 1860.
In 1859 Harriet wrote Our Nig or sketches from the Life of a Free Black and copyrighted her work. It was published anonymously by a publishing firm in Boston. Our Nig tells the story of an African American woman, named Frado (short for Alfrado) who grew up in tragic circumstances. The story matches Harriet’s own life – a child who was left by her parents to be raised by a wealthy New Hampshire family. This story is particularly interesting because it shows that racial prejudice was just as strong in the North as in the South. Though Frado was not a slave she certainly wasn’t free either. Harriet wanted to document the injustice for indentured black servants by white racists in the North.
In her later years, Harriet earned her living as a housekeeper and/or seamstress for wealthy people in New England. There is no evidence that she wrote anything else for publication. Harriet died on June 28, 1900, in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Harriet’s story clearly demonstrates the racial prejudice that existed in the nineteenth century even in the North and how it manifested itself in treatment for African Americans. Though it is over 150 years since a war was fought to end slavery, prejudice and unequal treatment for black people has continued. We must continue to seek justice for all people.
Hannah (Bond) Crafts (1830’s – 1880’s)
There is some mystery surrounding Hannah Bond (Crafts) and her novel. But if Hannah, a fugitive slave, did write The Bondwoman’s Narrative, then her book is very unique as the first one by a female fugitive slave. It is also one of the few that were unedited by white editors.
Hannah was born into slavery. She never knew her parents. As a girl she was a caretaker for other slave children. She befriended a neighbor, an older white woman named Aunt Hetty. Aunt Hetty taught Hannah to read the Bible. Hannah loved learning to read, especially the Bible and followed its teaching all her life.
The next family that owned Hannah originally employed her as a ladies’ maid. John Hill Wheeler bought her for his wife, Ellen Hill. At some point they dismissed her from the house and told her to go work in the fields. This was backbreaking work and Hannah decided to escape. She did so, traveling north and settling in New Jersey. She married a minister, Thomas Vincent and became a Sunday School teacher.
Hannah wrote The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, Fugitive Slave from North Carolina in 1957. It is a moving account of the life of a slave in the early nineteenth century. Like Harriet Wilson, Hannah pointed out the inherent injustice in racial prejudice.
We are not sure what she did with her manuscript, but it was found years later in a private citizen’s attic in New Jersey. Many years after that, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. – professor of African American literature and history at Harvard University purchased the manuscript in 2001 and published it in 2002. Scholars validated the details of Hannah’s life, and the book became a bestseller.
Several of the main themes in the book are freedom and loyalty. Hannah asks deeply philosophical questions about life and death. Clearly, she had an exceptional intellect and a thought life very different from most slaves. Note her wisdom in the following quote:
“At finding ourselves, and without having committed any crime, thus introduced into one of the legal fortresses of a country celebrated throughout the world for the freedom, equality, and magnanimity of its laws, I could not help reflecting on the strange ideas of right and justice that seemed to have usurped a place in public opinion, since the mere accident of birth, and what persons were the lease capable of changing or modifying was made a reason for punishing and imprisoning them.”
― Hannah Crafts, The Bondwoman’s Narrative
Hannah enjoyed other cultural activities such reading, art, and painting. She was thankful to God for the privilege of freedom of thought and the ability to read and learn. What a blessing for her to be able to satisfy the longings of her intellectual ability. What a blessing for us that she wrote down her story for others.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)
Unlike Harriet and Hannah, Frances was born into a free family. She was born in 1825 in Baltimore. Sadly, she was not quite three years old when her mother died. She was raised by her uncle, Reverend William Watkins who was active in the civil rights movement. He had founded a school for African American Negro Youth. Frances was educated there until age thirteen.
Frances then went out to earn her living. She worked for the Armstrong’s as a caretaker for their children. Mr. Armstrong owned a bookstore and Frances was allowed to take advantage of that. Mr. Armstrong encouraged her in her writing. By the time she was in her early twenties, Frances was writing poetry and novels. Her first collection of poetry, Forest Leaves was published around 1846.
In 1850, Frances moved to Ohio to teach at Union Seminary. She became the first women to teach at that seminary in spite of the protests of many of the male professors. She left in 1852 to teach in York, Pennsylvania. Living in a house that was on the Underground Railroad, Frances became determined to do something about the plights of the escaping slaves. She quit her teaching job and became a lecturer for the abolitionist cause.
In 1858, Frances wrote one of her most famous poems about the injustice to African Americans. Here is the first stanza (of 8 total):
Bury Me in a Free Land
Make me a grave where’er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth’s humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.[1]
Besides poetry, Frances wrote about many topics including equality in race, gender, and education for youth. She was characterized as a noble Christian woman and considered one of the most well-read women of her day. Her faith led her to be active in many causes for justice.
Frances married Fenton Harper in 1860. They had one daughter, Mary, in 1862. Frances retired somewhat from public life to raise her daughter, but she never stopped writing and supporting social reform, including racism and women’s suffrage. Fenton died in 1864. Frances became active in speaking and lecturing again. Besides speaking and writing she worked with the American Equal rights Association, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the YMCA, the Notional Congress of Colored Women, and the National Association of Colored, of which she was a founding member. Frances continued her fight for freedom and justice until her death in 1911 in Philadelphia.
Harriet, Hannah, and Frances devoted their talents to telling the story of the injustice to black Americans. Our society has changed a lot since then, but we still have an unacceptable amount of racial prejudice. My prayer is that the message these women left us will be instrumental in promoting justice for all citizens.
[1] Here is the whole poem:
Bury Me in a Free Land
Make me a grave where’er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth’s humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.
I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.
I could not rest if I heard the tread
Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,
And the mother’s shriek of wild despair
Rise like a curse on the trembling air.
I could not sleep if I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.
I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
And I heard the captive plead in vain
As they bound afresh his galling chain.
If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.
I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might
Can rob no man of his dearest right;
My rest shall be calm in any grave
Where none can call his brother a slave.
I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.
