Mary Laurinda Jane Smith Beatty
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February 1834
Mary Laurinda Jane Smith Beatty | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mary Laurinda Jane Smith February 1834 |
| Died | September 28, 1899 (aged 65) |
| Occupations | abolitionist and suffrage advocate |
| Known for | one of the first Black women to publicly agitate for women suffrage west of the Mississippi |
| Notable work | Cast a ballot as an American citizen and woman in Portland, Oregon (1872) |
| Spouse |
James William Beatty
(m. 1850) |
| Parents |
|
Mary Laurinda Jane Smith Beatty (February 1834 – September 28, 1899) was an African-American abolitionist and suffrage advocate who joined Abigail Scott Duniway, Maria P. Hendee, and Mary Ann King Lambert in 1872 to cast ballots in Portland, Oregon when women were not yet afforded the right to vote.[1] She was one of the first African-American women to publicly agitate for women's suffrage west of the Mississippi River.
Beatty was born Mary Laurinda Jane Smith in February 1834 near Louisville, Kentucky. Her parents, James Madison Smith and Catharine Ann Philips Smith, were free African-Americans who had purchased their freedom from slavery in the 1840s. They were married by the future Catholic bishop Ignatius A. Reynolds and were active in the Underground Railroad.[2]
Mary was married by Bishop Martin John Spalding to James William Beatty on January 8, 1850. The couple left Kentucky shortly thereafter, in the wake of newly passed state-level restrictions on Blacks, as well as passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. They settled briefly in Hanover, Indiana, leaving Indiana too after the Indiana constitution restricted Black immigration. The couple moved steadily westward over the next decade, before settling in Portland, Oregon, in 1864.[2]
Despite the discrimination they faced in Portland, including the state's Black Exclusion Laws of 1857 and the Poll Tax of 1862,[3] Mary and James Beatty established successful livelihoods in Portland: Mary worked as a dressmaker, while James worked as a painter. Despite Oregon's prohibition on Blacks owning property, the Beattys owned substantial real estate holdings.[2]