Overview:
Initially printed on Feb. 3, 2019, this text explores the lifetime of Mary Ellen Nice, a Haitian-descended entrepreneur and abolitionist who used her wealth and affect to battle for civil rights in Nineteenth-century America. Regardless of backlash, she remained a strong pressure for justice.
By Bianca Silva
Few girls within the 1800s captivated society with as a lot ambition and cleverness as Mary Ellen Nice. In line with varied sources, she was born into slavery on a Georgia plantation to a Vodou priestess from the Caribbean and the youngest son of Virginia governor James Nice. As a younger lady, she was despatched to work as an indentured servant in Nantucket.
Being a light-skinned Black lady, Nice usually handed as white to keep away from being captured and compelled again into slavery. In 1852, she moved to San Francisco and have become one of many wealthiest individuals in California whereas persevering with to cross as a white lady.
Throughout her lifetime, she amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune from the $45,000 in gold she inherited from the property of her first husband, James Smith. Smith, a rich plantation proprietor, additionally handed as white. As an actual property innovator, Nice constructed boarding homes for high-society males, infiltrating elite circles to achieve monetary and social leverage, which she later used to develop extra companies.
Marjorie Charlot, a librarian of Haitian descent and writer of Did You Know? – Over One Hundred Information about Haiti and Her Youngsters, explains the importance of Nice’s accomplishments as a marginalized particular person within the Nineteenth century.
“She did issues that girls her gender weren’t recognized to be doing,” Charlot stated. “She ran companies, she had cash of her personal, she traveled. She took a job on the Underground Railroad. She was not a type of individuals who grew to become well-known and rich and forgot the place she got here from.”
A pressure in abolition and civil rights
Exterior of white excessive society, Nice was a devoted abolitionist who made her biracial id recognized to the Black group. Generally known as the “Black Metropolis Corridor,” she served as a hyperlink to the Underground Railroad, serving to enslaved individuals escape as far north as Canada. She additionally offered employment to freed slaves in each her companies and high-society properties in California.
Nice fought for the desegregation of the transit system in courtroom, serving to safe the proper for Black passengers to experience streetcars with out being forcibly eliminated. She was additionally stated to have financially supported abolitionist John Brown in his failed 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, an try to incite a slave revolt.
Haitian heritage and Vodou backlash
Regardless of her many accomplishments, what many—particularly inside the Haitian group—may not know is that Nice was of Haitian descent. In line with one among her memoirs, her mom was of Haitian heritage, and her grandmother was a Vodou priestess from Haiti.
In 1865, Nice started publicly figuring out as Black and was met with hostility. She was vilified within the press, known as a “mammy” to decrease her standing, and accused of utilizing Vodou to amass her wealth.
“They wanted one thing to make her look like a detrimental particular person,” Charlot stated. “‘What’s one of the simplest ways? Model her a Vodou particular person, one thing individuals don’t perceive, issues persons are afraid of.’”
Nevertheless, for Charlot, Nice’s Haitian heritage extends far past Vodou.
“There have been girls that fought simply in addition to the lads within the [Haitian] revolution, and she or he carried that spirit along with her,” she stated. “I feel she belongs to all Black communities—not simply Haitian—but in addition to Blacks as a result of she additionally embodied the spirit of the ancestors in Africa. Her work as a businesswoman is a practice that goes again to historic Africa. Ladies had been merchants in Africa. The truth is, many began the gold commerce. They managed the market. Her actions weren’t one thing new to African tradition.”
Charlot emphasised the significance of Haitian Individuals recognizing the historic figures who helped form the USA—significantly at a time when Black individuals had been dehumanized. She famous that Haitian historical past in America predates the waves of migration within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, when Haitians fled political unrest beneath the dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Child Doc” Duvalier.
“I feel it’s crucial that Haitians on this nation are conscious that our contributions on this nation go from the very starting of this nation,” Charlot stated. “The truth is, the primary impartial teams of Blacks to steer this nation had been really from the island of Hispaniola.”
EDITORS NOTE: This text, initially printed on Feb. 3, 2019, is being republished from The Haitian Instances archives in honor of Black Historical past Month, highlighting the wealthy contributions of Haitians and the diaspora to Black historical past.