For nearly two centuries, the story of Mary Ann Macham has rested – untold – in archives, but this year a teacher in England found and shared Macham’s account with the BBC. That led reporter Jane Downs to call the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, where historians searched their collection and discovered a letter written by an English minister at Mary Ann’s request. Associate curator Elizabeth Klaczynski says it was addressed to Mary Ann’s mother – an enslaved woman named Judith.
“It’s extraordinary, because this is a white man in the U.K. writing back to an enslaved woman in Virginia. It’s a really poignant story -- like her daughter is okay, she made it and now she is free.”
The letter explains how another slave hid Mary Ann in a haystack and persuaded the mate on a ship bound for Europe to take her. He hid Mary Ann in the hold, among water casks where she survived the ocean crossing and was taken in by a Quaker family when the ship docked at a port in North Shields. There she would work for a local family, marry and live until the age of 91.
Mary Ann knew she would not see her mother again. “Your daughter prays for you, though you never may look each other in the face in this world,” the minister wrote. “She would not lose hope of seeing you in the world beyond the grave.”