Maria Stewart | On Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, 1831
Maria Stewart was orphaned in 1808 at age five. She then worked as a servant for fifteen years, gaining an education by attending Sunday school. Married at twenty-three and widowed at twenty-six, she experienced a religious conversion the next year and began speaking publicly in 1831 to mixed-sex and interracial audiences. She urged black women to claim their God-given rights and improve themselves and their community. When some black Bostonians criticized her views, Stewart moved to New York City and later Washington, D.C.
Oye daughters of Africa, awake! awake! arise! no longer sleep nor slumber, but distinguish yourselves. Show forth to the world that ye are endowed with noble and exalted faculties. . . .
I am of a strong opinion, that the day on which we unite, heart and soul, and turn our attention to knowledge and improvement, that day the hissing and reproach among the nations of the earth against us will cease. . . .
. . . Why cannot we do something to distinguish ourselves, and contribute some of our hard earnings that would reflect honor upon our memories, and cause our children to arise and call us blessed? Shall it any longer be said of the daughters of Africa, they have no ambition . . . ? By no means. Let every female heart become united; and let us raise a fund ourselves; and at the end of one year and a half, we might be able to lay the corner-stone for the building of a High School . . . and God would raise us up, and enough to aid us in our laudable designs. . . .
How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles? . . . How long shall a mean set of men flatter us with their smiles, and enrich themselves with our hard earnings; their wives’ fingers sparkling with rings, and they themselves laughing at our folly? Until we begin to promote and patronize each other. . . . We have never had an opportunity of displaying our talents; therefore the world thinks we know nothing. . . . Do you ask the disposition I would have you possess? Possess the spirit of independence. The Americans do, and why should not you? Possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Sue for your rights and privileges. . . . That day we, as a people, harken unto the voice of the Lord our God, . . . and we shall begin to flourish.
Source: Maria Stewart, “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality,” in Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart. . . . First Published by W. Lloyd Garrison & Knapp (Washington, DC: Enterprise, 1879), 25, 31–32.
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