Mary Garnet Barboza Explained

Birth Name:Mary Garnet
Birth Date:11 February 1845
Birth Place:Troy, New York
Occupation:educator
Known For:Founded school for girls in Liberia
Mother:Julia Williams
Father:Henry Highland Garnet

Mary Garnet Barboza (1845 – 1890) was an African-American school founder and campaigner for women's education in Liberia.

She was born Mary Garnet on February 11, 1845, in Troy, New York, the only surviving child of abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet and his wife, abolitionist Julia Williams.[1] In 1866 she married Antero Barboza, a black Brazilian civil rights campaigner.[2] They had four children.

From November 1880, she and her family emigrated to Brewerville, Liberia. Her father joined them the next year and died there in 1882. She founded the Garnet Memorial School in his memory with the support of American and British anti-slavery societies and the Presbyterian church.[3] [4] The school gave industrial training to 125 girls.

In 1885, having lost funding from the New York State Colonization Society, the Barbozas traveled to America to raise support from individual philanthropists.[5] In 1888, Mary was in England speaking at Manchester and Birmingham to raise money for her school, to the interest of the British press.[6]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Scruggs, L. . Women of Distinction . 1893 . 63.
  2. Belton . L . 2021 . A deep interest in your cause: the inter-American sphere of black abolitionism and civil rights. . Slavery and Abolition . 42 . 3 . 589–609. 10.1080/0144039X.2020.1860651 .
  3. Web site: Cornell University Library Digital Collections Bookreader . 2024-02-07 . reader.library.cornell.edu.
  4. Seraile . William . 1985 . The Brief Diplomatic Career of Henry Highland Garnet . Phylon . 46 . 1 . 71–81 . 10.2307/274947 . 274947 . 0031-8906.
  5. Mosher, Shawn, 'Competing Ideals: How Commerce, Christianity and Civilization Shaped Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Liberia,' PhD diss., 2018, p. 207.
  6. Watts . James . 2023 . "Carrying with her a most influential and intelligent audience." Women Lecturers, the British Empire, and the Manchester Geographical Society, 1884-1920 . North West Geography . 23 . 1 . 6.