Biography of Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins was born in the city of Baltimore
in the year 1825. Although of "free" parentages she was
subjected to many of the disadvantages and oppressive
influences which bond and free alike experienced under
slave laws. Mrs. Harper, after she had grown up,"
expressed very pathetically, but clearly, the loneliness
of her childhood days, in the following extract from her
writings:
"Have I yearned for a mother's love? The grave was my
robber. Before three years had scattered their blight
around my path, death had won my mother from me. Would
the strong arm of a brother have been welcome? I was my
mother's only child."
The earliest portion of her life was spent in the care
of her aunt, while she enjoyed the privilege of
attending the day school taught by her uncle, Rev.
"William Watkins, for the benefit of "free" colored
children. But, when she was about thirteen years of age,
she was taken from school and put to work to earn her
own living. She had, of course, many trials and
temptations; but, at the same time, she greatly profited
by her environment, in the white family where she was
employed. Very early, in her teens, she gave
unmistakable evidence of poetic and literary ability.
She was taught sewing, while she cared for the children
of the household, and, at the same time she satisfied
her ever-growing fondness for books and good literature.
She had scarcely reached her majority 'ere she had
written a number of prose and poetic pieces which were
deemed of sufficient merit to be published in a small
volume under the title of "Forest Leaves." Some of her
efforts found their way into the newspapers. Her mind
was of a strictly religious caste, and all the effusions
of her pen bear a highly moral and elevating tone. About
the year 1851, she left Baltimore to seek a home in a
Free State; and, for a short while, took up her abode in
the State of Ohio, where she engaged in teaching. Her
residence in Ohio was but for a short time. She removed
to Little York, Pennsylvania, where she continued the
work of teaching. It was while teaching in York that she
became thoroughly drawn to the work of the Anti- Slavery
cause, and, eventually, became one of its leading public
lecturers, and with devotion and energy, gave herself,
wholly to the cause.
What may be termed her "maiden speech" was delivered in
August, 1854, and the following extract of that date is
interesting:
"Well, I am out lecturing. I have lectured every night
this week; besides, addressed a Sunday school, and I
shall speak, if nothing prevents, tonight. My lectures
have met with success. Last night I lectured in a white
church in Providence. Mr. Gardener was present, and made
the estimate of about six hundred persons. Never,
perhaps, was a speaker, old or young, favored with a
more attentive audience. My voice is not wanting in
strength, as I am aware of, to reach pretty well over
the house. The Church was the Roger Williams; the
pastor, a Mr. Furnell, who appeared to be a kind and
Christian man. My maiden lecture was Monday night in New
Bedford, on the 'Elevation and Education of Our People.'
"
In 1856, Mrs. Harper, desiring to see the fugitives in
Canada, visited the Upper Province, and, in a letter
dated at Niagara Falls, September 12 she gives the
impression of that visit upon her heart and mind in the
following language:
"Well I have gazed for the first time upon Free Land,
and, would you believe it, tears sprang to my eyes, and
I wept. Oh, it was a glorious sight to gaze for the
first time on a land where a poor slave flying from our
glorious land of liberty would in a moment find his
fetters broken, his shackles loosed, and whatever he was
in the land of Washington, beneath the shadow of Bunker
Hill Monument or even Plymouth Rock, here he becomes a
man and a brother. I have gazed on Harper's Ferry, or
rather the Rock at the Ferry; I have seen it towering up
in simple grandeur, with the gentle Potomac gliding
peacefully at its feet, and felt that that was God's
masonry, and my soul has expanded in gazing on its
sublimity. I have seen the ocean singing its wild chorus
of sounding waves, and ecstasy has thrilled upon the
living chords of my heart. I have since then seen the
rainbow-crowned Niagara chanting the choral hymn of
Omnipotence, girdled with grandeur, and robed with
glory; but none of these things have melted me as the
first sight of Free Land. Towering mountains lifting
their hoary summits to catch the first faint flush of
day when the sunbeams kiss the shadows from morning's
drowsy face may expand and exalt your soul. The first
view of the ocean may fill you with strange delight.
Niagara, the great, the glorious Niagara, may hush your
spirit with its ceaseless thunder; it may charm you with
its robe of crested spray and rainbow crown; but the
land of Freedom was a lesson of deeper significance than
foaming waves or towering mounts."
"When we recall the scenes of those awful days of
sorrow, anxieties, and genuine affliction, centering
around the tragic outcome of the 'John Brown's raid," at
Harper's Ferry, we can get some idea of the deep
sensations which I energized the heart of the subject of
this sketch, from the note addressed by her, from her
home in Ohio, to John I. Brown's wife. On that memorable
occasion, she wrote thus:
"My Dear Madam:
In an hour like this the common words of
sympathy may seem like idle words, and yet, I
want to say something to you, the noble wife of
the hero of the Nineteenth Century. Belonging to
the race your dear husband reached forth his
hand to assist, I need not I tell you that my
sympathies are with you. I thank you for the
brave words you have spoken. A republic that;
produces such a wife and mother may hope for
better days. Our heart may grow more hopeful for
humanity when it sees the sublime sacrifice it
is about to receive from his hands. Not in vain
has your dear husband periled all, if the
martyrdom of one hero is worth more than the
life of a million cowards. From the prison comes
forth a shout of triumph over that power whose
ethics are robbery of the feeble and oppression
of the weak, the trophies of whose chivalry are
a plundered cradle and a scourged and bleeding
woman. Dear sister, I thank you for the brave
and noble words you have spoken. Enclosed I send
you a few dollars as a token of my gratitude,
reverence and love.
"Frances Ellen Watkins.
'P. S. May God, our own God, sustain you
in the hour of trial. If there is one tiling on
earth I can do for you or yours, let me be
apprised. I am at your service.''
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It was in the fall of 1860 that Miss Watkins was married
to a Mr. Harper, of Ohio. Mr. Harper died in May 1864.
This brave woman who had traveled throughout the North
in the interest of the Anti-Slavery cause, immediately
after the close of the Civil War, was among the very
first to go south, and labor on behalf of her
emancipated brethren. She traveled, and labored in
nearly every one of the Southern States. She went on the
plantations, and amongst the lowly, as well as to the
cities and towns, addressing schools, churches, meetings
in Court Houses, Legislative Halls, and sometimes under
the most trying and hazardous circumstances; influenced
in her labor of love, wholly by the noble impulses of
her own heart, working her way along unsustained by any
society. She came into contact with all classes, the
original slave holders, and the Freedmen. In no instance
did she permit herself, through fear, to disappoint an
audience when engagements had been made for her to
speak, although frequently admonished that it would be
dangerous to venture in so doing.
In a letter from Darlington, S. C, to the late Mr.
William Still, of Philadelphia, under date of May 13,
1807, she writes:
"You will see by this that I am in the sunny South. I
here read and see human nature under new lights and
phases. I meet with a people eager to hear, ready to
listen, as if they felt that the slumber of the ages had
been broken, and that they were to sleep no more. I am
glad that the colored man gets freedom and suffrage
together; that he is not forced to go through the same
condition of things here, that has inclined him so much
to apathy, isolation, and indifference, in the North.
You, perhaps, wonder why I have been so slow in writing
to you, but if you knew how busy I am, just working up
to or past the limit of my strength. Traveling,
conversing, addressing day and Sunday Schools (picking
up scraps of information, takes a large portion of my
time) besides what I give to reading. For my audiences I
have both white and colored. On the cars, some find out
that I am a lecturer, and then, again, I am drawn into
conversation, what are you lecturing about?' the
question comes up, and if I say, among other topics,
politics, then I may look for an onset. There is a
sensitiveness on this subject, a dread it may be that
someone will put the devil in the niggers head, or exert
some influence inimical to them; still, I get along
somewhat pleasantly.
"Last week I had a small congregation of listeners in
the cars, where I sat. I got in conversation with a
former slave-dealer, and we had rather an exciting time.
I was traveling alone, but it is not worthwhile to show
any signs of fear. Last Saturday I spoke in Sumter; a
number of white persons were present, and I had been
invited to speak there by the Mayor and editor of the
paper. There had been some violence in the district, and
some of my friends did not wish me to go, but I had
promised, and, of course, I went. I. am in Darlington,
and spoke yesterday, but my congregation was so large,
that I stood near the door of the church, so that I
might be heard both inside and out for a large portion,
perhaps, nearly half of my congregation were on the
outside: and this is Darlington where, about two years
ago, a girl was hung for making a childish and
indiscreet speech. Victory was perched on our banners.
Our army had been through, and this poor, ill-fated
girl, almost a child in years, about seventeen years of
age, rejoiced over the event, and said that she was
going to marry a Yankee and set up housekeeping. She was
reported as having made an incendiary speech and
arrested, cruelly scourged and then brutally hung. Poor
child, she had been a faithful servant, her master tried
to save her, but the tide of fury swept away his
efforts. Oh, friends, perhaps, sometimes your heart
would ache, if you were only here and heard of the
wrongs and abuses to which these people have been
subjected. Things, I believe, are a little more hopeful;
at least, I believe, some of the colored people are
getting better contracts, and, I understand that there
is less murdering. While I am writing a colored man
stands here, with a tale of wrong, he has worked a whole
year, year before last, and now he has been put off with
fifteen bushels of corn and his food; yesterday he went
to see about getting his money, and the person to whom
he went, threatened to kick him off, and accused him of
stealing. I don't know how the colored man will vote,
but, perhaps many of them will be intimidated at the
polls."
In June of the same year, Mrs. Harper writes the
following from Cheraw, South Carolina:
Well, Carolina is an interesting place. There is not a
State in the Union I prefer to Carolina. Kinder, more
hospitable, warmer-hearted people, perhaps, you will not
find anywhere. I have been to Georgia; but Carolina is
my preference. The South is to be a great theatre for
the colored man's development and progress. There is
brain power here. If any doubt it, let him come into our
schools, or even converse with some of our Freedmen,
either in their homes or by the way-side."
Mrs. Harper's Philadelphia correspondent had jestingly,
suggested to her in one of his letters, that she should
be careful not to allow herself to be bought by the
rebels." Her reply to this jesting remark is specially
interesting, revealing as it does, her wonderful grasp
of the grave and intricate situation. She said:
''Now,
in reference to being bought by rebels and
becoming a Johnsonite, I hold that between the
white people and the colored people there is a
community of interests, and the sooner they find
it out, the better it will be for both parties;
but that community of interest does not consist
in increasing the privileges of one class, and a
curtailing of the rights of the other, but in
getting every citizen interested in the welfare,
progress and durability of the State. I do not,
in lecturing, confine myself to the political
side of the question. While I am in favor of
Universal Suffrage, yet I know that the colored
man needs something more than a vote in his
hands; he needs to know the value of a home
life; to rightly appreciate and value the
marriage relation; to know how to be incited to
leave behind him the old shards and shells of
slavery and to rise in the scale of character,
wealth, and influence. Like the Nautalus
outgrowing his home to build for himself more
'stately temples' of social condition. A man
landless, ignorant and poor may use the vote
against his interests; but with intelligence and
land he holds in his hand the basis of power and
elements of strength." |
Writing from Greenville, Ga., Mrs. Harper says: 'I am
now going to have a private meeting with the women of
this place, if they will come out. I am going to talk
with them about their daughters, and about things
connected with the welfare of the nice. Now is the time
for our women to begin to try to lift up their heads and
plant the roots of progress under the hearthstone. Last
night I spoke in a school house, where there was not, to
my knowledge, a single window glass: today I write to
you in a lowly cabin where the windows in the room are
formed by two apertures in the wall. There is a
widespread an almost universal appearance of poverty in
this State where I have been, but, thus far, I have seen
no, or scarcely any pauperism. I am not sure that I have
seen any. The climate is so fine, so little cold that
people can live off less than they can in the North.
Last night my table was adorned with roses although I
did not get one cent for mv lecture.
"The political heavens are getting somewhat overcast.
Some of this old rebel element, I think, are in favor of
taking away the colored man's vote, and if he loses it
now it may be generations before he gets it again. Well,
after all, perhaps, the colored man, generally, is not
really developed enough to value his vote and equality
with other races so he gets enough to eat and drink, and
be comfortable, perhaps the loss of his vote would not
be a serious grievance to many; but his children
differently educated and trained by circumstances might
feel political inferiority rather a bitter cup. After
all, whether they encourage me or discourage me, I
belong to this race, and when it is down I belong to a
down race; when it is up I belong to a risen race."
Mrs. Harper was not only an educated and queenly woman,
but she possessed wonderful self-control, coupled with a
remarkable tactfulness. These rare gifts were greatly in
evidence in her extensive Southern campaign, after the
close of the Civil War. For, the woman who had been so
bold and energetic in the Anti-Slavery cause, without
delay, took up her work in the South among her recently
enfranchised brethren, going in among the most ultra of
Southern white people, and compelling their admiration
by her wise, gracious, and discriminating good sense.
All extended account of her Mobile address is given, for
it presents a true grasp of the most intricate
situation, and her clever handling of the same. 'It was
in the month of July, 1871, in the city of Mobile,
Alabama. The extract here presented is by Mr. John
Forsyth, Editor of the Mobile, Alabama, Register, and it
was published in his paper, at the time, indicating the
impression made upon this prominent Southerner, who had
attended the "lecture" more out of curiosity than for
any other reason.
A Lecture
We received a polite invitation from the
trustees of the State St. African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church to attend a lecture in
that edifice on Thursday evening. Being told
that the discourse would be delivered by a
female colored lecturer from Maryland,
curiosity, as well as interest to see how the
colored citizens were managing their own
institutions, led us at once to accept the
invitation. We found a very spacious church gas
light, and the balustrades of the galleries
copiously hung with wreaths and festoons of
flowers, and a large audience of both sexes,
which, both in appearance and behavior, was
respectable and decorously observant of the
proprieties of the place. The services were
opened, as usual, with prayer and a hymn, the
latter inspired by powerful lungs, and in which
the musical ear at once caught the Negro talent
for melody. The lecturer was then introduced as
Mrs. F. E. W. Harper, from Maryland. Without a
moment's hesitation she started off in the flow
of her discourse, which rolled smoothly and
uninterruptedly on for nearly two hours. It was
very apparent that it was not a cut and dried
speech, for she was as fluent and as felicitous
in her allusions to circumstances immediately
around her as she was when she arose to a more
exalted pitch of laudation of the Union or of
execration of the old slave system. Her voice
was remarkable as sweet as any woman's voice we
t ever heard, and so clear and distinct as to
pass every syllable to the most distant ear in
the house. Without any effort at attentive
listening we followed the speaker to the end,
not discerning a single grammatical inaccuracy
of speech, or the slightest violation of good
taste in manner or matter. At times, the current
of thoughts flowed in eloquent and poetic
expression, and often her quaint humor; would
expose the ivory in a half a thousand mouths.
We, confess that we began to wonder, and we
asked a fine looking man before us, What is her
color?' 'Is she dark or light?' He answered: She
is mulatto; what they call a red mulatto.' The
'red' was new to us. Our neighbor' asked, 'How
do you like her?' We replied: 'She is giving
your people the best kind and the very wisest of
advice. He rejoined, I wish I had her education.
To which we added, that's just what she tells
you is your great duty and your need and if you
are too old to get it yourself, you must give it
to your children."
The speaker left the impression on our mind that
she was not only intelligent and educated, but
the great end of education she was enlightened.
She comprehends perfectly the situation of her
people, to whose interests she seems ardently
devoted. The main theme of her discourse, the
one string to the harmony of which all the
others were attuned, was the grand opportunity
that emancipation had afforded to the black race
to lift itself to the level of the duties and
responsibilities enjoined by it. "You have
muscle power and brain power," she said; ''you
must' utilize them, or be content to remain
forever the inferior race. Get land, every one
that can, and as fast as you can. A landless
people must be dependent upon the landed people.
A few acres to till for food and a roof, however
humble, over your head, are the castle of your
independence, and when you have it you are
fortified to act and vote independently whenever
your interests are at stake."
That part of her lecture (and there was much of
it) that dwelt on the moral duties and domestic
relations of the colored people was pitched on
the highest key of sound morality. She urged the
cultivation of the home life," the sanctity of
the marriage state (a happy contrast to her
strong-minded, free love, white sisters of the
North), and the duties of mothers to their
daughters. "Why," said she in a voice of much
surprise. "I have actually heard since I have
been South that sometimes colored husbands
positively beat their wives. I do not mean to
insinuate for a moment that such things can
possibly happen in Mobile. The very appearance
of this congregation forbids it; but I did hear
of one terrible husband defending himself for
the unmanly practice with, well, I have got to
whip her or leave her.' "
There were parts of the lecturer's discourse
that grated a little on a white Southern ear,
but it was lost and forgiven in the genuine
earnestness and profound good sense with which
the woman spoke to her kind in words of sound
advice.
"On the whole, we are very glad that we accepted
the Zion's invitation. It gave us much food for
new thought. It reminded us, perhaps, of
neglected duties to these colored people, and it
impressed strongly on our minds that these
people are getting along, getting onward, and
progress was a star becoming familiar to their
gaze and their desires. Whatever the Negroes
have done in the path of advancement, they have
done largely without white aid. But politics and
white pride have kept the white people aloof
from offering that earnest and moral assistance
which would be so useful to a people just
starting from infancy into a life of
self-dependence."
Mrs. Harper, the same year, writing from the
same State says:
"While in Talladega I was entertained, and well
entertained, at the house of one of our new
citizens. He is living in the house of his
former master. He is a brick-maker by trade, and
I rather think, mason also. He was worth to his
owner, it was reckoned, fifteen hundred, or
about that, a year. He worked with him seven
years; and in that seven years he remembers
receiving from him, fifty cents. Now mark the
contrast. That man is now free, owns the home of
his former master, has I think, more than sixty
acres of land, and his master is in the
poor-house. I heard of another such case not
long since. A woman was cruelly treated once, or
more than once. She escaped and ran naked into
town. The villain in whose clutch she found
herself was trying to draw her downward to his
own low level of impurity, and at last she fell.
She was poorly fed, so that she was tempted to
sell her person. Even scraps thrown to the dogs
she was hunger-bitten enough to aim for. Poor
thing, was there anything in the future for her?
Had not hunger, and cruelty, and prostitution,
done their work, and left her an entire wreck
for life? It seems not. Freedom came and with it
dawned a new era upon that poor, over-shadowed,
and sin-darkened life. Freedom brought
opportunity for work and wages combined. She
went to work, and gotten dollars a month.
She has contrived to get some education, and has
since been teaching school. "While her former
mistress has been to her for help.
"'Do not the mills of the gods grind exceedingly
fine?' And she has helped that mistress, and so
has the colored man given money, from what I
heard, to his former master. After all, friends,
do we not belong to one of the best branches of
the human race? And yet, how have our people
been murdered in the South, and their bones
scattered at the grave's mouth. Oh, when will we
have a government strong enough to make human
life safe?''
Fifty thousand copies, or more, of the four
volumes by Mrs. Harper have been sold. During
her later years she published her greatest work,
"Iola Leroy, or Shadowy Up-lifted." Before the
Civil War she was in the service of the
Anti-Slavery Society; since, then, by
appointment of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union, she held the office of "Superintendent of
Colored Work'' for years. She also held the
office of one of the Directors of the Women's
Congress of the United States. Under the
auspices of these influential associations, she
has often been seen on their platforms with the
leading women orators of the nation.
Grace Greenwood, in the Independent, in noticing
a course of Lectures in which Mrs. Harper
participated (in Philadelphia) thus portrays
her:
"Next on the course was Mrs. Harper, a colored
woman, about as colored as some of the Cuban
belles I have met at Saratoga. She has a noble
head, this bronze muse: in a strong face with a
shadowed glow upon it, indicative of thoughtful
fervor and of a nature most femininely
sensitive, but not in the least morbid. Her form
is delicate, her hands daintily small. She
stands quietly besides her desk, and speaks
without notes, with gestures few and fitting.'
Her manner is marked by dignity and composure.
She is never assuming, never theatrical. In the
first part of her lecture she was most
impressive in her pleading for the race with
whom her lot is cast. There was something
touching in her attitude as their
representative. The woe of two hundred years
sighed through her tones. Every glance of her
sad eyes was a mournful remonstrance against
injustice and wrong. Feeling on her soul, as she
must have felt it, the chilling weight of caste,
she seemed to say,
'I lift my heavy heart up solemnly.
As once Electra her sepulchral urn.
As I listened to her, there swept over me, in a
chill wave of horror, the realization that this
noble woman had she not been rescued from her
mother's condition, might have been sold on the
auction block, to the highest bidder, her
intellect, fancy, eloquence, the flashing wit,
that might make the delight of a Parisian
saloon, and her pure Christian character all
thrown in, the recollection that women like her
could be dragged out of public conveyances in
our own city, or frowned out of fashionable
churches by Anglo-Saxon saints."
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The author esteems it a special and sacred privilege to
have personally known Mrs. Harper, and, in her later
years, to be regarded by her, a most devoted friend. As
Frederick Douglass is often spoken of as the "Grand Old
Man'' of Maryland, in like manner, it is eminently
fitting to think of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper as the
"Grand Old Woman" of Maryland. In the ages yet to come,
the redeemed and uplifted womanhood of the race will
lovingly revert to the precious memories of the past,
and rise up and call her blessed of the Lord.
Maryland
Biographies | Maryland
AHGP
Source: Gazetteer of Maryland,
by Henry Gannett, Washington, Government Printing
Office, 1904.
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