By the time Lewis reached the age of nine, both of her parents had died. Her father died in 1847.[6] Her two maternal aunts adopted her and her older half-brother Samuel. Samuel was born in 1835 to Lewis's father and his first wife in Haiti. The family came to the United States when Samuel was a young child.[6] Samuel became a barber at age 12 when his father died.[6]
The children remained with their aunts near Niagara Falls for about four years. Lewis and her aunts sold Ojibwe baskets and other souvenirs, such as moccasins and blouses, to tourists visiting Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Buffalo. During this time, Lewis went by her Native American name, Wildfire, while her brother was called Sunshine.[7] In 1852, Samuel left for San Francisco, California, leaving Lewis in the care of a Captain S. R. Mills, although Samuel continually provided money for her board and education.
In 1856, Lewis enrolled at New York Central College, McGrawville, a Baptist abolitionist school.[8] During her summer term there in 1858, Lewis took classes in the Primary Department in order to prepare for courses she would take in collegiate programs. In a later interview, Lewis said that she left the school after three years, having been "declared to be wild."[9][a]
Education
In 1859, when Edmonia Lewis was about 15 years old, her brother Samuel and abolitionists sent her to Oberlin College, one of the first U.S. higher-learning institutions to admit women and people of differing ethnicities.[11] She changed her name to Mary Edmonia Lewis[5][9] and began to study art.[12] Lewis boarded with Reverend John Keep and his wife from 1859 until she left the college in 1863. Reverend Keep was white, a member of the board of trustees, an avid abolitionist, and a spokesperson for coeducation.[9] During the 1859-60 school year, Lewis enrolled in the Young Ladies' Preparatory Department, which was designed "to give Young Ladies facilities for the thorough mental discipline, and the special training which will qualify them for teaching and other duties of their sphere."[13]
During winter of 1862, several months after the start of the Civil War, Edmonia Lewis was attending Oberlin when an incident occurred between her and two classmates, Maria Miles and Christina Ennes. The three women, all boarding in Keep's home, planned to go sleigh riding with some young men later that day. Before the sleighing, Lewis served her friends a drink of spiced wine. Shortly after, Miles and Ennes fell severely ill. Doctors examined them and concluded that the two women had some sort of poison in their system, apparently cantharides, a reputed aphrodisiac. For a time it was not certain that they would survive. Days later, it became apparent that the two women would recover from the incident, and, because of their recovery, the authorities initially took no action.
News of the controversial incident rapidly spread throughout the town of Oberlin, whose populace did not generally hold the same progressive views of the college, and through Ohio. While she was walking home alone one night, she was dragged into an open field by unknown assailants and badly beaten.[14][15] After the attack, local authorities arrested Lewis, charging her with poisoning her friends. John Mercer Langston, an Oberlin College alumnus, and the only practicing African-American lawyer in Oberlin, represented Lewis during her trial. Although most witnesses spoke against her and she did not testify, the jury acquitted her of the charges.[14]
The remainder of Lewis' time at Oberlin was marked with isolation and prejudice. Also, about a year after the trial, Lewis was accused of stealing artists' materials from the college. She was acquitted due to lack of evidence, but not fully cleared. She was forbidden from registering for her last term by the principal of the Young Ladies' Course, Marianne Dascomb, which prevented Lewis from graduating.[16]
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