Le projet émigrationniste de Mary Ann Shadd (1823-1893)

Abstract

In this article, I examine the life and work of Mary Ann Shadd (1823-1893), a Canadian-American abolitionist, in order to destabilize the dominant historiography of international law in slavery matters. Adopting an intersectional approach, I attempt to place the “black woman” at the center of her own history, rather than as an accessory figure in the triumphant history of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery led by Western men. I explore Mary Ann Shadd’s multiple – and contradicting – relationships to law and how she sought emancipation through the law, with the law, and against the law, to varying degrees and with varying success. In her major pamphlet published in 1852, A Plea for Emigration, Mary Ann Shadd defended an emigration project for Black Americans to Canada by mobilizing legal notions, including notions of international law. Yet Mary Ann Shadd was part of a larger movement in which Black Americans sought self-determination. I argue that Mary Ann Shadd’s intersectional position should invite us to revisit the relationships between colonialism, sovereignty, freedom, and intersectionality.

Keywords

• law
• slavery
• discrimination
• international legal history
• emancipation