Samuel Ringgold Ward
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Samuel Ringgold Ward (October 17, 1817 – c. 1866) was an African American who escaped enslavement to become an abolitionist, newspaper editor and Congregational minister. He was author of the influential book: Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: his anti-slavery labours in the United States, Canada and England, written after his speeches throughout Britain in 1853, enabled him to raise funds for the Anti-slavery Society of Canada where may escaped slaves from the USA were arriving in the 1850s.
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[edit] Early life
Samuel Ward was born in Maryland to slave parents. In 1820, when Ward was three years old, his family escaped using the 'Underground Railroad' to New Jersey, then on to New York, where Ward attended the African Free School.
[edit] Pastoral & Abolition Work
After he left school, Samuel Ward worked as a teacher and developed a keen interest in abolition. In his early 20s, in May 1839, he became licensed to preach the gospel by the New York Congregational Association, assembled at Poughkeepsie. However, in November of the same year, he was appointed the travelling agent of first the American Anti-slavery Society and afterwards the New York Anti-slavery Society, and it was not until 1841 that he first became a pastor. In April of that year he accepted the unanimous invitation of the Congregational Church of South Butler, Wayne Co., New York, to be their pastor; and in September of that year was publicly ordained as its minister (later, in 1853, Butler Congregational Church, appointed Antoinette Louisa Brown - the first woman to be ordained in the USA).
In 1843 Samuel Ward reluctantly relinquished this pastorate, having contracted a disease of the tonsils which impaired his abilities as a public speaker. In December of that year he visited Geneva, where he was able to commence the study of medicine with Doctors Williams and Bell.
His voice improved, and he returned to America, whereupon he was appointed pastor of the Congregational Church in Cortland Village, New York, in 1846. Little progress had been made in America whilst he had been away and he was to record that here I saw more of the foolishness, wickedness, and at the same time the invincibility, of American Negro-hate, than I ever saw elsewhere. Whilst there, his youngest son, William Reynolds Ward, died and was buried; and two of his daughters, Emily and Alice, were born. From Cortland the family moved to Syracuse, New York, in 1851. However the stay was brief, on account of Samuel Ward participating in the "Jerry Rescue Case" on the first day of October in that year, leading him to emigrate in some haste to Canada, that November.
During the last few years of Samuel Ward's residence in the United States he had become editor and part owner of two newspapers; the Farmer and Northern Star, and Boston's Impartial Citizen. He was a firm believer in the need for anti-slavery labors, organizations, agitation, and newspapers and conscious of the need to keep the papers from being censured, or worse as in the death of Elijah P. Lovejoy, he commenced the study of law.
[edit] Anti-Slavery Work in Britain
Samuel Ward's talents were in demand in Canada. He was was offered work by the Anti-slavery Society of Canada, who decided he should visit Britain to further their anti-slavery work. He was given the names of contacts in London who would be keen to accommodate his visit, to strengthen their own long-standing anti-slavery work, and might be willing to help organise fund-raising for anti-slavery work in Canada.
Ward's preparation paid off and he was well received in Britain early in 1853; as Samuel Ward records,
- The Rev. Thomas Binney, to whom I brought letters from Rev. Mr. Roaf, my pastor, received me most kindly. Mrs. Binney acted as if we had been acquainted for the preceding six-and-twenty years; and, being the first London lady with whom I had the pleasure of acquaintance, I saw in her what I have since seen in English people of all ranks, who are really genteel - a most skilful and yet an indescribably easy way of making one feel perfectly at case with them. I cannot tell how it is done.
At the annual meeting of the Congregational Union, Samuel Ward was formally introduced to the body by the Secretary, Rev. George Smith of Trinity Independent Chapel, in company with Rev. Charles Beecher, the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe whom he had not met before. A dinner for the Congregational Ministers and delegates was organised at Radley's Hotel, at which Samuel Ward gave his first London anti-slavery speech about the need for financial support in Canada:
- The amiable Rev. James Sherman, at that time minister of Surrey Chapel, with his accustomed kindness took me in his carriage to the dinner; and afterwards, for four months, not only made me his guest, but made his house my home. I never lived so long with any other person, on the same terms. While I live, that dear gentleman will seem to me as a most generous fatherly friend.
Samuel Ward's visit to London was, he considered, at a most fortunate time for his fund-raising endeavour, because: of the twofold fact that Uncle Tom's Cabin was in every body's hands and heart, and its gifted authoress was the English people's guest. For anti-slavery purposes, a more favourable time could not have been chosen for visiting England. As Samuel Ward further explained, When Mrs. Stowe arrived in England... the book from the one side of the Atlantic, the address (by James Sherman) from the other side... awakened more attention to the anti-slavery cause in England, in 1853, than had existed since the agitation of the emancipation question in 1832. Ward, having met Mrs. Stowe at the house of Rev. James Sherman next door to his Surrey Chapel on Blackfriars Road, in May 1853, was invited to stay at the 'Surrey Chapel Parsonage' along with Mrs Stowe's husband, the Rev. Dr. Stowe, and brother Rev. C. Beecher, for three weeks.
On 7th June 1853 Samuel Ward was able to deliver his major London anti-slavery speech, and had secured 'Lord' Shaftesbury to take the chair. Ward's address had a successful impact, for almost immediately - 21st June - it led to the formation of a London Committee to seek financial support for the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. The Committee comprised 'Lord' Shaftesbury, Rev. J. Sherman, and S. H. Horman-Fisher, with G. W. Alexander its treasurer. This led to several months of hectic speaking engagements for Samuel Ward. He received invitations to speak at the London Missionary Society, kindred charities, and the pulpits of the most distinguished Dissenting divines in the land. Travelling in these causes took him to almost every county in England, and then on to Scotland. After just ten months, some £1,200 had been donated and it was possible to bring the organising committee to a close. A final, large meeting was held at Crosby Hall on the 20th of March, 1854, chaired by Samuel Gurney, where Samuel Ward was accompanied by many of those who had helped him - Rev. James Sherman, Samuel Horman Horman-Fisher, L. A. Chamerovzow, Esq., Rev. James Hamilton D.D., Rev. John Macfarlane, and Josiah Conder.
Samuel Ward' success enabled the Anti-slavery society of Canada to finance its work in support of escaped slaves from the USA, and in the following year, 1855 Ward published his influential book recounting all that he had achieved. The proceeds enabled him to retire to Jamaica.
[edit] Death and Memeory
Samuel Ward lived in Jamaica from late 1855 and is believed to have died there in 1866.
[edit] External links and references
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Ward, Ringgold Samuel. Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: His Anti-slavery Labours in the United States, Canada, & England. John Snow: London: John Snow, 1855. accessed on 23 October 2005 at [1]
- Documenting the American South article on Samuel Ringgold Ward
[edit] Published Books
- Ward, Samuel Ringgold (1855; reprinted 1970 and 1996) Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: his anti-slavery labours in the United States, Canada and England'. 1st edn Totonto: John Snow.
