Who was Mary Edmonia Lewis? Was she a black Indian, black Native American, or African-Native American? The answer is all of the above.
As if being partly Indian wasn’t challenging enough, Lewis was also of African-American descent. In the 1800s abolitionist used the term Africo-American. There was no difference in meaning, only in spelling—Africo instead of Africa.
Knowing the ethnicity of a person, one can surmise various controversial and adversarial conditions and struggles relative to race, especially in America.
Born free on July 4, 1844, in Greenbush (which is now Rensselaer), New York, Edmonia moved to Rome, Italy in 1866 and became famous.
But in the 22 years that she lived in America, a lot happened. And her road to success wasn’t a paved one.
Edmonia’s Native-American name was Wildfire. Both of her parents died by the time she was nine. Her father, a gentleman’s servant, was Afro-Haitian. A weaver and craftswoman, her mother was African-American and Ojibwe descent. Known as the Chippewa Indians, the Ojibwe people lived in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Ontario. They were one of the largest Native-Indian groups in North America.
After her parents died, Edmonia lived with her aunts and older half-brother, Samuel, near Niagara Falls. The family made a living by crafting useful, marketable items. They sold weaved baskets, embroidered blouses, and home-made moccasins to tourists visiting the falls, Toronto, and Buffalo.
Samuel, whose Native-American name was Sunshine, became a barber when he was 12. At age 18, he moved to California and used his income to pay for Edmonia’s lodging and education.
At the age of 12, she enrolled at New York Central College, McGrawville, and no longer lived with her aunts. Labeled as being “wild,” she left McGrawville, the Baptist abolitionist school, after attending for three years. While there she met many abolitionists and activists before she left in 1859.
Edmonia said, “Until I was twelve-years-old, I led this wandering life, fishing and swimming…and making moccasins. I was then sent to school for three years but was declared to be wild—they could do nothing with me.”
She may have been a “wildfire” or in today’s term a “fireball,” but she was destined for success.
In 1859, Samuel and some abolitionist sponsors sent Edmonia to Oberlin College in Ohio, where she studied art. Edmonia was 1 of 30 students of color at Oberlin which had an enrollment of 1,000.
While at Oberlin, she was accused of poisoning two fellow students. The college didn’t pursue charges due to lack of evidence. But the residents of Oberlin weren’t as lenient. One night, Edmonia was brutally beaten and left for dead. Soon after, she was arrested and tried by the city but acquitted of the charges. Months later, she was accused of stealing from the college. They said she stole artists’ materials. After a trial, she was acquitted of this also.
Racism, discrimination, and isolation plagued Edmonia. Forced to leave the college, she didn’t graduate from Oberlin.
She pursued sculpting after moving to Boston in 1864. Her college boarder and wife, Reverend and Mrs. John Keep, both white, wrote an introduction letter on Edmonia’s behalf to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. And Garrison helped her to find a sculpting instructor and become known in the community.
Edward Augustus Brackett, who sculpted marble portrait busts, became her instructor. Brackett’s subjects included the likes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Garrison, and other famous clients.
Edmonia’s bust of Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of a black Civil War regiment from Massachusetts was her most acclaimed work while in Boston. The sale of the sculptures financed her move to Rome.
On her 1865 passport to Italy was, “M. Edmonia Lewis is a Black girl sent by subscription to Italy having displayed great talents as a sculptor.”
She worked most of her career in Italy. Edmonia was the first woman of African-American and Native-American heritage to achieve international fame as a sculptor.
Italy’s less racist environment provided opportunities for a black artist. Compared to the Ohios of America, the social and artistic landscapes for success in Rome were promising.
Forever Free, a depiction of a black man and women emerging from slavery is one of Edmonia’s most famous creations. She had successful exhibitions in the U.S. and Rome.
In 2002, Mary Edmonia Lewis made Molefi Kete Asante’s list as one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.