The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis

by Harry Henderson

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” Aug. 26, 1873.

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  Figure 55. Harry Henderson (left) and Romare Bearden

  Harry and Romie first met in the 1940s at a studio that Romie shared with photographer Sam Shaw. Photo: Frank Stewart.

  NOTES

  [1] Suggested cataloging:

  Henderson, Harry Brinton, Jr., (1914-2003)

  The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis. A Narrative Biography / Harry Henderson and Albert Henderson.

  Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographical references, list of works.

  1. Mary Edmonia Lewis, 1844-1907. 2. Sculptors – United States – Biography. 3. Women sculptors – United States – Biography. 4. Expatriate sculptors – Italy – Rome – Biography. 5. Afro-American art. 6. Afro-American artists – Biography.

  I. Henderson, Albert (Kossack), 1938- II. Title

  ISBN 978-1-58863-451-1 (PDF electronic book)

  ISBN 978-1-58863-452-8 (EPUB electronic book)

  730.92

  NB237 L487

  NOTES FOR INTRODUCTION

  [2] See also Albert and Joseph Henderson, “Romare Bearden and Harry B. Henderson, Jr.,” 100 Fine Works on Paper, Swann, public sale 2049, Sept. 15, 2005, opp. Item 64; Harry Henderson, biography, http://harryhenderson.com/bio.

  [3] Veronica Chambers, book review, Los Angeles (CA) Times Book Review, Jan. 2, 1994, and Barbara Chase-Riboud, book review, African American Review 30 (Spring, 1996), 115-116, both described A History as a “ landmark work.” See also Ruth Fine, The Art of Romare Bearden (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art / Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003), 188-189, who termed it “an invaluable reference.”

  [4] Bearden and Henderson, A History, 54-77, 485-489, covers Edmonia Lewis and offers a number of illustrations not duplicated here.

  NOTES FOR PROLOGUE

  [5] “Colored” was the most common usage found in print with our subject.

  [6] We found evidence Edmonia returned to America in 1869, 1870, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1879, 1898, and possibly 1886 and 1899.

  [7] SFC, Aug. 26, 1873.

  [8] See Lydia Maria Child [hereafter “Child”], letter to the editor, New York (NY) Independent, Apr. 5, 1866; Sampson, “Doing the Centennial.”

  [9] The reforms included the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution banning slavery (ratified 1865); the Fourteenth guaranteeing citizenship, due process, equal protection of law, and representative government (1868); and the Fifteenth prohibiting the use of race in determining who could vote (1870).

  [10] Murray, Emancipation, 20-23.

  [11] Passenger list, SS Ville de Paris (French Line), which arrived in New York July 1, 1875, from Le Havre. The word of choice at the time, “emigrants” (rather than “immigrants”), emphasized foreign origins.

  [12] Fletcher, A History, II, 553. Unless indicated otherwise, historical details about the College come from this work, James Harris Fairchild, Oberlin: Its Origin, Progress, and Results (Oberlin: Shankland and Harmon, 1860), the U. S. Census, or Oberlin College, General Catalogue (1909). Of the village’s 2,915 people, twenty-five per cent were colored, the highest proportion of any northern city or settlement. Three to four percent of the student body were colored.

  [13] Oberlin College Archives. Edmonia attended Oberlin College’s preparatory course 1859 to 1860 and continued with the ladies’ course 1860 to 1863, including optional winter courses to study algebra, botany, composition, and rhetoric when the College was officially closed. She did not complete the 1863 term.

  [14] Anne Whitney [hereafter “Whitney”] to Adeline M. Manning, Aug. 9, 1864, Payne MSS: 511-512.

  [15] Leeson, History of Montana, 254, 1141; Miller, An Illustrated History, 374-376; Bozeman (MT) Courier, Apr. 6, 1896. Unless otherwise indicated, biographical details of Edmonia’s brother come from these three sources and the U. S. census.

  [16] Suggesting members of the Lewis family continued living in Newark, a New Jersey death certificate dated Dec. 19, 1882, recorded “Hannah M. Lewis” age 4 years, 10 months, colored, born in Newark, father black teamster Henry F. Lewis, and wife Cinderella.

  [17] Rayford W. Logan, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 13, indicated “a small number of Negroes … came in from the United States [1819-1844].”

  [18] Unless indicated otherwise, references to Edmonia’s childhood appear in the following sources: Child, letter to the editor, BL, Feb. 19, 1864; Child, “A Chat;” Child, “Edmonia Lewis;” Wreford, “A Negro Sculptress;” Wreford, “Lady Artists in Rome;” Boston (MA) Post; HELBAA; Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis;” NYDG, July 10, 1873; SFC, Aug. 26, 1873; Gay, “Edmonia Lewis;” Indianapolis (IN) News, Nov. 18, 1878; NYT, Dec. 29, 1878; NYT, Sept. 25, 1879; Boston (MA) Daily Traveller, Nov. 17, 1880; Faithfull, Three Visits, 293-94.

  [19] Record of Attendance, Conduct, and Grades of Students in the NYCC, 1854-1858. Lamont Memorial Free Library, McGraw, New York. See also Richardson, “Edmonia Lewis at McGrawville;” Cortland (NY) Standard, “New York Central College,” Mar. 1, 1915; NYCC Association, Annual Reports, New York State Library; Syracuse (NY) Daily Star, “New York Central College,” Aug. 3, 1849; L. F. Litwack, North of Slavery; the Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 141; Ralph Varney Harlow, Gerrit Smith, Philanthropist and Reformer (New York: Henry Holt, 1939), 231; McGraw Central School District, History, accessed July 1, 2010, http://www.mcgrawschools.org/teacherpage3.cfm?teacher=817. NYCC was sponsored by the American Baptist Free Mission Society (which had separated from the American Baptist denomination). Its supporters included Oberlin College backers William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, and Henry Ward Beecher.

  [20] HELBA
A. Cf. New York. State Education Dept, Iroquoian and Algonquian Indians: A Historical Perspective and Resource Guide (Albany, NY: University of the State of New York, 1985), 10.

  [21] H. W. [Henry Wreford] “A Negro Sculptress,” Athenæum 2001, Mar. 3, 1866, p. 302. See also HELBAA. Cf. New York Central College register of students from 1854 – 1858, Courtesy of Mary Kimberly, village historian, Village of McGraw NY.

  [22] Bearden and Henderson, A History, 54. The authors had information suggesting that Edmonia descended from a colored man named Lewis who married a daughter of the Mike family in the Chippewa community. The 1851 Canadian census, provided by professor Donald B. Smith, University of Calgary, June 12, 1996, listed the daughters of John and Caty Mike, Jane and Catherine, as ages 15 and 6, respectively, too young to have borne a child in 1844.

  [23] U. S. census, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900. Edmonia’s brother gave census takers a variety of birthplaces: New Jersey, Bermuda, and eventually the more truthful yet vague West Indies. He cited West Indies again in his brief histories published in 1885 and 1894. Only in his 1896 obituary and the census of 1900 do we find mention of Haiti. See also Tim Matthewson, “Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haiti,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 140 (1996): 22-48; Thomas O. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1973).

  [24] The term is found in Evangeline: A Tale of Arcadie (1847) and The Song of Hiawatha (1855).

  [25] Cleveland, Story, 109-110. Edmonia’s baptism, which could not be confirmed by Archivio Storico del Vicariato in Rome, must have taken place outside Rome.

  [26] Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton co., 1907-1914), s. v. “Chippewa Indians,” accessed July 7, 2010, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03690a.htm. The western Jesuit missions to the Catholic Chippewa of Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula were, we believe, too remote and too early to be relevant. By the time of Edmonia’s birth, the Michigan/Wisconsin Jesuits had long since turned their missions over to other Catholic priests and departed the area. Edmonia’s childhood tales made one reference to that area. A lone interview mentions Michigan: Boston (MA) Post, quoted in Philadelphia (PA) Daily Evening Bulletin, “American Artists in Rome,” Mar. 9, 1867. Not supported by any other source, the writer may have assumed she lived in Michigan based on her connection with Longfellow’s poem. See also Devine, Historic Caughnawaga, 61-62, 151-153, 244-247. Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, 29, 44- 221.