Edmonson sisters

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Mary Edmonson (1832 - 1853) and Emily Edmonson (1835 - 1895), "two respectable young women of light complexion", were African American slaves in the United States who, after gaining their freedom, campaigned for the abolishment of slavery and gained celebrity in the abolitionist movement.^[1][2]

This daguerreotype photograph shows Mary Edmonson (standing) and Emily Edmonson (seated).

[edit] Early life

The Edmonson sisters were the daughters of Paul and Amelia Edmonson, a free black man and an enslaved woman. Born in Montgomery County, Maryland, Mary and Emily were two of fourteen children, all of whom were born into slavery. Law common to all slave states decreed that the children of a slave inherited their mother's legal status.^[3][4]

Their father, Paul Edmonson, was set free after his owner died and purchased land in the Norbeck area of Montgomery County. Amelia was allowed to live with her husband, but continued to work for her legal owner. The couple's children began work at an early age as servants, laborers and skilled workers. When they were old enough, the sisters were sent to work in an elite private home in nearby Washington, D.C.^[3][5]

[edit] Escape attempt

On April 15, 1848, the sea vessel Pearl docked on a Washington wharf, and the Edmonson sisters and four of their brothers joined a group of slaves in an attempt to reach the vessel and escape upon her to freedom in the North. Seventy-seven slaves made their way onto the Pearl, which was supposed to travel from the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. At the time, Emily was 13 years old and Mary was 15 or 16.^[3]

The Pearl, with all the fugitives hidden among boxes, began its way down the Potomac. The captain of a passing steam ship reported a suspicious vessel when he reached Washington, and authorities pursued the Pearl down the river and seized it as it was docked in a creek, waiting for a storm to pass.^[3]

A mob awaited the Pearl when she was towed back to Washington. Its two White captains had to be taken into safety as slave traders and other individuals attacked them. The fugitive slaves were taken to a local jail. It was later reported that when somebody from the crowd asked the girls if they were ashamed for what they had done, Emily replied proudly that they would do exactly the same thing again. Three days of riots and disturbances followed while new slave traders arrived to purchase the fugitives from their angry and resentful owners.^[3]

[edit] New Orleans

Despite Paul Edmonson's desperate efforts to delay the sale of his children so that he could raise money to purchase their freedom, slave trading partners Bruin & Hill from Alexandria, Virginia bought the six Edmonson siblings. Under inhumane conditions, the siblings were taken to New Orleans by boat. Among other things, New Orleans was well known for a market selling "fancy girls" as sex slaves.^[3][6]

Hamilton Edmonson, the eldest of the siblings, had been living as a freeman for several years, and was working as a cooper. With the help of donations from a Methodist minister arranged by their father, Hamilton arranged for the purchase of his brother Samuel Edmonson by a prosperous English cotton merchant to work as his butler.^[3][7][8]

The other siblings were forced to stay for days in an open porch facing the street waiting for buyers. The sisters were handled brusquely and exposed to obscene comments. Before the family could rescue the remainder of its members, yellow fever erupted in New Orleans and the slave traders transferred the Edmonson sisters back to Alexandria as a measure to protect their investments.^[3][7]

Ephraim Edmonson and John Edmonson, two other brothers who had been on the Pearl, remained in New Orleans where Hamilton worked for and eventually obtained their release.^[7]

[edit] Henry Ward Beecher

In Alexandria, the sisters spent their days laundering, ironing and sewing and were locked up at night. Paul Edmonson continued his campaign to free Mary and Emily while slave traders Bruin & Hill demanded $2,250 for their release.^[3]

With letters from Washington-area supporters, Paul Edmonson met Henry Ward Beecher, a young Congregationalist preacher who had just arrived in Brooklyn. Beecher's church members raised the necessary funds to purchase the Edmonson sisters' freedom. Accompanied by William Chaplin, one of the individuals responsible for the Pearl escape attempt, Beecher went to Washington to arrange the transaction.^[3]

Mary Edmonson and Emily Edmonson were emancipated on November 4, 1848. The family gathered for a celebration in another sister's house in Washington. Beecher's church continued to contribute money to send the sisters to school. They enrolled at New York Central College, an interracial institution in Cortland, New York, and worked as cleaning servants to support themselves.^[3]

While studying, the sisters traveled in the state of New York to participate in anti-slavery rallies. The story of their slavery, escape attempt and suffering was often-repeated and Beecher's son and biographer recorded that "this case at the time attracted wide attention."^[1][3]

They also participated in mock slave auctions designed by Beecher to attract publicity to the abolitionist cause. In describing the role that women such as the Edmonson sisters played in these well-publicized and politically-motivated acts of theater, a scholar at the University of Maryland asserted:

Beecher staged his most successful auctions using attractive mulatto women or female children (such as the Edmonson sisters, or the beautiful little girl, Pinky, who, according to Beecher, "No one would know from a white child"), making a material choice in "casting" his political protest that was calculated to arouse the audience's interest. As he displayed the women's bodies on the stage, Beecher exhorted his audience to imagine the fate that awaited these young women, or "marketable commodities," as he termed them, in the fancy girl auctions of New Orleans. His casting choices could only work with beautiful, fair-skinned women.^[6]

[edit] Slave Law Convention

Daguerreotype taken at the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law Convention, Cazenovia, New York. The Edmonson sisters are standing wearing bonnets and shawls in the row behind the seated speakers. Frederick Douglass is seated, with Gerritt Smith standing behind him and with Abby Kelley Foster the person likely seated on Douglass's left.

In summer 1850, the Edmonson sisters attended the Slave Law Convention, an anti-slavery meeting in Cazenovia, New York organized by local abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld and others to demonstrate against the Fugitive Slave Act soon to be passed by the U.S. Congress. Under this act, slave owners had powers to arrest fugitive slaves in the North. The convention declared all slaves to be prisoners of war and warned the nation of an unavoidable insurrection of slaves unless they were emancipated.^[3][9]

At this convention, the sisters were included in a historic daguerreotype photograph taken by Theodore Dwight Weld's brother, Ezra Greenleaf Weld. Also included in the picture is Abby Kelley Foster and the legendary orator Frederick Douglass.^[3][9]

As can be seen in the photo, the Edmonson sisters' complexion is approximately the same as that of Douglass and is discernibly darker than Foster's. While there were many slaves "whom it was impossible to tell from a white", the Edmonson sisters' mixed race appearance may have well-suited their role as two of the "public faces" of American slavery.^[1][10]

[edit] Oberlin College

In 1853, the Edmonson sisters attended the Young Ladies Preparatory School at Oberlin College in Ohio through the support of Beecher and his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Six months after arriving at Oberlin, Mary Edmonson died of tuberculosis.^[3]

That same year, Stowe included part of the Edmonson sisters' narrative along with other true accounts of slavery experiences in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.^[3]

[edit] Normal School for Colored Girls

Eighteen-year-old Emily returned to Washington with her father, where she enrolled in the Normal School for Colored Girls, a school located near the current Dupont Circle that trained young African-American women to become teachers. For protection, the Edmonson family moved to a cabin on the grounds while Emily and Myrtilla Miner, the founder of the school, learned to shoot.^[3]

[edit] Later life

In 1860, Emily Edmonson married Larkin Johnson. They returned to the Sandy Spring, Maryland area and lived there for twelve years before moving to Anacostia. There they purchased land and became founding members of the Hillsdale community. At least one of their children was born in Montgomery County.^[3]

Emily Edmonson maintained her relationship with fellow Anacostia resident Frederick Douglass, and both continued working in the abolitionist movement. Even after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, they remained so close that Emily's granddaughters observed that they were like "brother and sister." Emily Edmonson died at her home on September 15, 1895.^[3]

[edit] See also

• Fugitive slave laws

[edit] References and notes

[edit] Bibliography

• Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday, June 2006)

• Ricks, Mary Kay, "Escape on the Pearl: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad" (HarperCollins Publishers, January 2007)