Maria W. Stewart (1803 - 1879)
Maria Stewart, born Maria Miller, was the first woman in America to speak publicly amongst a multi-race crowd, and the first African-American female public speaker ever documented in America. Ms. Miller was born in 1803 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was enslaved, but her mother was not, hence she was born free. There is not much documentation of Miller’s life, especially in her early years, so most of what we know about her came from her own writing.
Stewart lost both of her parents by the age of five, and was forced into refuge as a servant to white clergymen. Leaving her oppressors at fifteen, Miller was “thirsty for knowledge”, but had no opportunity to learn for the previous ten years besides the clergymen’s library. Her lack of education inspired her to attend Sabbath school until the age of 20, so until 1823. Three years later, she married a man named James W. Stewart (whom she called James W. Steward), a well off veteran in Boston. Her husband died three years later, which qualified her for a hefty inheritance on her husband’s behalf. But, the white men who executed Mr. Stewart’s will defrauded her of the funds, forcing Mrs. Stewart to support herself, once again, through domestic servitude. It was around this time that she began faithfully relying on Religion for guidance in her life.
Bob Kellerman of RPM ministries made a great point in reference to Mrs. Stewart at that point in time of her life. She is 1. incredibly young, 2. African-American, 3. a woman and 4. a widow. She was subject to four of the greatest historical social burdens of her time, and that should not go unrecognized. Despite her apparent obstacles, Mrs. Stewart remained dedicated to educating her fellow Black & Brown skinned individuals on their supposedly promised freedoms.
In 1831, she made her first publication through William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Her piece was titled Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The Sure Foundations on Which We Must Build, and it referenced the Bible, the US Constitution and more. In it, she called upon Black men and women to reject the White man’s claim to superiority, to invest in their own skills because they were worthy of greatness, too. “It is not the color of the skin that makes the man, but it is the principles formed within the soul,” she mentioned.
Her words were undoubtedly powerful. Her ‘radical’ stance on feminism and slavery (I put quotes because, how radical is demanding equal rights as a human being?) and shortly after her first publication, she began to deliver public speeches. The first of which was on April 28, 1832, before the African American Female Intelligence Society of Boston, Massachusetts. This was history in itself, as African-American women did not speak publicly much at the time. She made history again on September 21st, 1832, in giving a speech to a mixed-gender audience at Franklin Hall in Boston. She would give a few more speeches before retiring her oratory prowess late in 1833.
After giving up delivering speeches, Mrs. Stewart began teaching and delivering lectures in Manhattan, New York. She published a collection of her works titled Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart in 1835. William Lloyd Garrison published this as well, along with previous works of hers not aforementioned. It is critical to note that, although her works were published, they were always sectioned in the “Ladies Department” of the editorial. In a society that was swamped with sexism and relied heavily on gender roles, Mrs. Stewart was not getting as much publicity or respect as she should have been, and it was micro-aggressions like these that reinforced those societal attitudes and practices.
Maria Stewart died in Washington D.C. in 1879, after moving there almost twenty years prior. In D.C. she opened a school for the children of runaway slaves, published more writings, and became Head Matron of the Freedman’s Hospital, now the Howard University Hospital. Her fearlessness to speak for what was morally correct, to use what privilege she had as a Free, light-skinned Black woman to advocate for those struggling just like or worse than her, is something that we can all learn, and be inspired from. Thank you, Mrs. Maria Miller-Stewart.
Read my sources on Maria Miller-Stewart here, here, and here.