Mary Mildred Williams

Mary Botts, daguerreotype. Julian Vannerson, c. 1855. Massachusetts Historical Society. A later ambrotype, thought to be a portrait of Mary Mildred Botts/Williams and her brother, Oscar. Cutting and Bowdoin, ca. 1855–1856. Collection of Massachusetts Historical Society. Mary Mildred Williams (born Botts, c. 1847 – 1921) was born into slavery in Virginia and became widely known as an example of a "white slave" in the years before the Civil War.

In 1855, her escaped father bought his family's freedom with financial aid from abolitionists, and she, her mother and siblings joined him in Boston, Massachusetts. After arriving in Boston at the age of seven, Williams's photograph became widely distributed, as her appearance was startling for white people who were not used to resembling slaves. She toured with abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner. He used her as an example to confront Northerners with the injustice of slavery, and to raise awareness and funds for the abolitionist cause. Williams was compared to Ida May, the main character in a popular novel of that name; she was a white girl who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Early life

Born Mary Mildred Botts in Virginia, Williams was the second child of Seth Botts and his wife Elizabeth (née Nelson), who were both enslaved. Elizabeth had a white father. Seth and Elizabeth were married in the early 1840s. Through her father, Humphrey Calvert, Constance had purchased Williams's maternal great-grandmother, Lettice (known as "Letty"), and grandmother, Prudence Bell (known as "Prucy" or "Pru"), between 1809 and 1812. According to court and census records, Williams' mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Prudence and a white man named Thomas Nelson, who was Cornwell's executor. Because John Cornwell was not of age at the time of Constance's death, her slaves were to be retained and managed by the executor of her will, Thomas Nelson, until John turned 21 in 1830. John Cornwell instituted proceedings to recover the family from Weedon in 1847, as they had been willed to him by Constance. It awarded all of the property to John. Cornwell was aided by Prudence's husband and Mary's father, Seth Botts, then known as Henry Williams.

Relationship to the abolitionist movement On March 1, 1855, a letter from Charles Sumner dated February 19 and addressed 'Dear Doctor' was published in the New-York Daily Times (originally published in the Boston Telegraph on February 27) that had accompanied a daguerreotype of Mary Williams.

In the letter, Sumner says: In a subsequent article dated March 9, 1855, reporters of the New-York Daily Times expressed "astonishment" that the girl was "ever held a slave".

In early 1855, articles were published about Mary Williams in the Boston Telegraph and the New York Times, and copies of her photograph were widely publicized. After her photograph was published, she accompanied Senator Charles Sumner on a publicity tour to raise awareness and funds for the abolitionist cause. Abolitionists emphasized Williams's perceived whiteness to enlist sympathy, and to suggest to Northerners that any child, regardless of appearance, might be snatched and made a slave.

On May 19 and 20, 1856, Sumner spoke in the Senate comparing Southern political positions to the sexual exploitation of slaves then taking place in the South. Two days later Representative Preston Brooks (D-SC), nearly beat Sumner to death with a cane on the floor of the Senate in the Capitol. She became a clerk at Boston's Registry of Deeds, where she worked until at least 1900.

She rented an apartment in the Eleventh Ward of Boston and according to the 1900 census, she lived there with her partner, Mary Maynard. Maynard worked as a bookkeeper and probation officer. She was descended from Irish and English immigrants.

Williams died in 1921 and was buried in Boston.