Betsey Stockton
American missionary
Betsey Stockton (c. 1798 – 1865), sometimes spelled Betsy Stockton, was an American educator and missionary. In her early life, she was an enslaved person, but was emancipated and became a Christian missionary in Hawaii.
Early life
Betsey was born into slavery in Princeton, New Jersey, during the year 1798. While she was a child, her owner Robert Stockton gave her to his daughter upon her marriage to Reverend Ashbel Green, president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Much of what is known of her earlier life comes from sporadic mentions of her in Green's diary; while useful, this source also reflects Green's assumption of control over the enslaved girl, often leaving out key details about her. When Green decided she needed further discipline, young Betsey was temporarily sent to labor in the household of Green's nephew, the Reverend Nathaniel Todd. The Todd household seemed a place Betsey was more able to flourish, but financial matters related to Todd's employment caused Betsey to return to Green's household in 1816.
Stockton decided to become a Christian during a revival meeting held by Eliphalet Wheeler Gilbert.
She gained her education from reading in Reverend Green's library. She eventually gained fluency to read religious and scholarly texts in several languages.
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This entry incorporates text from “Betsey Stockton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.