their determination to gain their freedom, or die in the attempt.
To each I gave a few dollars in money, a pocket compass, knife,
pistol, and as much cold meat and bread as each could carry with
ease. I again explained to them the route.... I never met more apt
students than these poor fellows.... They were to travel only by
night, resting in some secure spot during the day. Their route was
to be through Pennsylvania, to Erie on Lake Erie, and from thence to
Canada.... I learned, many months after, that they all had arrived
safely in Canada. (In 1863 I enlisted three of these brave fellows
in a colored regiment in Philadelphia, for service in the war that
gave freedom to their race.)"[533]
[533] Ross, _Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist_,
pp. 10, 11, 12.
Mr. Ross was a naturalist, and his tastes in this direction
furnished him many good pretexts for excursions. A journey into the
far South was made in the guise of an ornithologist. Describing his
trip to the cotton states Mr. Ross says: "Finally my preparations
were completed, and, supplied with a shot-gun and materials for
preserving bird-skins, I began my journey into the interior of the
country.... Soon after my arrival at Vicksburg I was busily engaged
in collecting ornithological specimens. I made frequent visits to
the surrounding plantations, seizing every favorable opportunity to
converse with the more intelligent slaves. Many of these negroes
had heard of Canada from the negroes brought from Virginia and the
border slave states; but the impression they had was, that Canada
being so far away, it would be useless to try and reach it. On
these excursions I was usually accompanied by one or two smart,
intelligent slaves, to whom I felt I could trust the secret of my
visit. In this way I succeeded in circulating a knowledge of Canada,
and the best means of reaching that country, to all the plantations
for many miles around Vicksburg.... I continued my labors in the
vicinity of Vicksburg for several weeks and then went to Selma,
Alabama."[534]
[534] _Ibid._, pp. 37, 38, 39.
"In the ways described in these selections Mr. Ross induced
companies of slaves to exchange bondage for freedom. How many he
thus liberated we have, of course, no means of knowing. The risks
he ran were such as to put his life in danger almost constantly.
Betrayal would have ended, probably, in a lynching; and the
disappearance simultaneously of a band of fugitives and the unknown
naturalist was a coincidence not only sure to be noticed, but also
widely published, thus increasing the dangers many fold. It is
unnecessary to recount the occasions upon which the scientist found
himself in danger of falling a victim to his zeal in befriending
slaves. Suffice it to say, his adventures all had a fortunate
termination. Mr. Ross is best known by his numerous works relating
to the flora and fauna of Canada, for which he received recognition
among learned men, and decoration at the hands of European
princes."[535]
[535] Mr. Richard J. Hinton in his book entitled _John Brown and
His Men_, p. 171, while writing of Captain Brown's convention
at Chatham, Canada West, mentions Mr. Ross in the following
words: "Dr. Alexander M. Ross of Toronto, Canada, physician and
ornithologist, who is still living, honored by all who know
him, then a young (white) man who devoted himself for years to
aiding the American slave, was a frequent visitor to this section
(Chatham). He was a faithful friend of John Brown, efficient as
an ally, seeking to serve under all conditions of need and peril."
More or less extended notices of Dr. Ross and his work have
appeared during the past few years; for example, in the _Toronto
Globe_, Dec. 3 and 10, 1892; in the _Canadian Magazine of
Politics, Science, Art and Literature_, May, 1896; and in the
_Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean_, March 18, 1896.
Elijah Anderson, a negro, has been described by Mr. Rush R. Sloane,
an underground veteran of northwestern Ohio, as the "general
superintendent" of the underground system in this section of Ohio.
Mr. Anderson's work began before the enactment of the Fugitive Slave
Law of 1850, and continued until the time of his incarceration in
the state prison at Frankfort, Kentucky, where he died in 1857.
During this period his activity must have been unceasing, for he
is quoted as having said in 1855 that he had conducted in all more
than a thousand fugitives from slavery to freedom, having brought
eight hundred away after the passage of the act of 1850. Not all of
these persons were piloted to Sandusky, although that city was the
point to which Anderson usually conveyed his passengers. After the
opening of the Cleveland and Cincinnati Railroad he took many to
Cleveland.[536]
[536] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 44.
The last two of the devotees of abduction to be considered in this
chapter are persons that were themselves fugitive slaves, John Mason
and Harriet Tubman.
Our only source of information about John Mason is an account
printed in 1860, by the Rev. W. M. Mitchell, a colored missionary
sent to minister to the refugees of Toronto by the American Baptist
Free Mission Society.[537] This may be accepted as a credible source.
The author has printed in the little book in which the account
appears testimonials that serve to identify him, but better
than these are the references found in the body of the book to
underground matters pertaining to southern Ohio that have been made
familiar through other channels of information. The statements
of Mr. Mitchell, thus supported, lend the color of probability
to other statements of his not corroborated by any information
now to be obtained, especially since these are in keeping with
known manifestations of liberating zeal. We may therefore use the
narrative relating to John Mason with a certain degree of assurance
as to its accuracy.
[537] See p. 3, Chapter I.
While engaged in Underground Railroad operations in Ohio Mr.
Mitchell became acquainted with John Mason, a fugitive slave from
Kentucky. He had obtained his liberty but was not content to
see his fellows go without theirs, and "was willing," wrote Mr.
Mitchell, "to risk the forfeiture of his own freedom, that he might,
peradventure, secure the liberty of some. He commenced the perilous
business of going into the State from whence he had escaped and
especially into his old neighborhood, decoying off his brethren
to Canada.... This slave brought to my house in nineteen months
265 human beings whom he had been instrumental in redeeming from
slavery; all of whom I had the privilege of forwarding to Canada by
the Underground Railroad.... He kept no record as to the number he
had assisted in this way. I have only been able, from conversations
with him on the subject, to ascertain about 1,300, whom he delivered
to abolitionists to be forwarded to Canada. Poor man! he was finally
captured and sold. He had been towards the interior of Kentucky,
about fifty miles; it was while returning with four slaves that he
was captured.... Daylight came on them, they concealed themselves
under stacks of corn, which served them for food, as well as
protection from the weather and passers-by.... Late in the afternoon
of that day, in the distance was heard the baying of negro-hounds
on their track; escape was impossible.... When the four slaves saw
their masters they said, 'J. M., we can't fight.' He endeavored
to rally their courage ... but to no purpose.... Their leader
resisted, but both his arms were broken, and his body otherwise
abused.... Though he had changed his name, as most slaves do on
running away, he told his master's name and to him he was delivered.
He was eventually sold and was taken to New Orleans.... Yet in one
year, five months, and twenty days, I received a letter from this
man, John Mason, from Hamilton, Canada West. Let a man walk abroad
on Freedom's Sunny Plains, and having once drunk of its celestial
'stream whereof maketh glad the city of our God,' afterward reduce
this man to slavery, it is next to an impossibility to retain him in
slavery."[538]
[538] Mitchell, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 20 _et seq._
Harriet Tubman, like John Mason, did not reckon the value of her own
liberty in comparison with the liberty of others who had not tasted
its sweets. Like him, she saw in the oppression of her race the
sufferings of the enslaved Israelites, and was not slow to demand
that the Pharaoh of the South should let her people go. She was
known to many of the anti-slavery leaders of her generation; her
personality and her power were such that none of them ever forgot
the high virtues of this simple black woman. Governor William H.
Seward, of New York, wrote of her: "I have known Harriet long,
and a nobler, higher spirit or a truer, seldom dwells in human
form."[539] Gerrit Smith declared: "I am convinced that she is not
only truthful, but that she has a rare discernment, and a deep and
sublime philanthropy."[540] John Brown introduced her to Wendell
Phillips in Boston, saying, "I bring you one of the best and bravest
persons on this continent--General Tubman as we call her."[541]
Frederick Douglass testified: "Excepting John Brown, of sacred
memory, I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils
and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that
you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as
I know you...."[542] Mr. F. B. Sanborn said: "She has often been in
Concord, where she resided at the houses of Emerson, Alcott, the
Whitneys, the Brooks family, Mrs. Horace Mann, and other well-known
persons. They all admired and respected her, and nobody doubted the
reality of her adventures...."[543] The Rev. S. J. May knew Harriet
personally, and speaks with admiration, not only of the work she did
in emancipating numbers of her own people, but also of the important
services she rendered the nation during the Civil War both as a
nurse and as "the leader of soldiers in scouting-parties and raids.
She seemed to know no fear and scarcely ever fatigue. They called
her their Moses."[544]
[539] Sarah H. Bradford, _Harriet the Moses of Her People_, p.
76. See also Appendix, p. 137. These testimonials were given
in 1868 and were printed in connection with a short biography
of Harriet in the year mentioned. The first edition of this
biography has not been accessible to me, but it is mentioned by
the Rev. Samuel J. May in his _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery
Conflict_, published the following year. The second edition of
the book appeared in 1886.
[540] _Ibid._, p. 139.
[541] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, p. 173.
[542] Mrs. Bradford, _Harriet the Moses of Her People_, p. 135.
[543] _Ibid._, pp. 136, 137.
[544] _Ibid._, p. 406.
The name, Moses, was that by which this woman was commonly known.
She earned it by the qualities of leadership displayed in conducting
bands of slaves through devious ways and manifold perils out of
their "land of Egypt." She first learned what liberty was for
herself about the year 1849. She made her way from Maryland, her
home as a slave, to Philadelphia, and there by industry gathered
together a sum of money with which to begin her humane and
self-imposed labors. In December, 1850, she went to Baltimore and
abducted her sister and two children. A few months later she brought
away another company of three persons, one of whom was her brother.
From this time on till the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion her
excursions were frequent. She is said to have accomplished nineteen
such trips, and emancipated over three hundred slaves.[545] As may
be surmised, she had encouragement in her undertakings; but her main
dependence was upon her own efforts. All her wages were laid aside
for the purpose of emancipating her people. Whenever she had secured
a sufficient sum, she would disappear from her Northern home, work
her passage South, and meet the band of expectant slaves, whom she
had forewarned of her coming in some mysterious way.
[545] James Freeman Clarke, _Anti-Slavery Days_, pp. 81, 82. Also
M. G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_, p. 62.
Her sagacity was one of her most marked traits; it was displayed
constantly in her management of her little caravans. Thus she would
take the precaution to start with her pilgrims on Saturday night
so that they could be well along on their journey before they were
advertised. Posters giving descriptions of the runaways and offering
a considerable reward for their arrest were a common means of making
public the loss of slave property. Harriet often paid a negro to
follow the man who posted the descriptions of her companions and
tear them down. When there were babies in the party she sometimes
drugged them with paregoric and had them carried in baskets. She
knew where friends could be found that would give shelter to her
weary freedmen. If at any stage of the journey she were compelled
to leave her companions and forage for supplies she would disclose
herself on her return through the strains of a favorite song:--
Dark and thorny is de pathway,
Where de pilgrim makes his ways;
But beyond dis vale of sorrow,
Lie de fields of endless days.
Sometimes when hard pressed by pursuers she would take a train
southward with her companions; she knew that no one would suspect
fugitives travelling in that direction. Harriet was a well-known
visitor at the offices of the anti-slavery societies in Philadelphia
and New York, and at first she seems to have been content if her
protégés arrived safely among friends in either of these cities;
but after she comprehended the Fugitive Slave Law she preferred
to accompany them all the way to Canada. "I wouldn't," she said,
"trust Uncle Sam wid my people no longer."[546] She knew the
need of discipline in effecting her rough, overland marches, and
she therefore required strict obedience of her followers. The
discouragement of an individual could not be permitted to endanger
the liberty, and safety of the whole party; accordingly she
sometimes strengthened the fainting heart by threatening to use her
revolver, and declaring, "Dead niggers tell no tales, you go on or
die." She was not less lenient with herself. The safety of her
companions was her chief concern; she would not allow her labors to
be lightened by any course likely to increase the chances of their
discovery. On one occasion, while leading a company, she experienced
a feeling that danger was near; unhesitatingly she decided to ford a
river near by, because she must do so to be safe. Her followers were
afraid to cross, but Harriet, despite the severity of the weather
(the month was March), and her ignorance of the depth of the stream,
walked resolutely into the water and led the way to the opposite
shore. It was found that officers were lying in wait for the party
on the route first intended.
[546] Mrs. Bradford, _Harriet the Moses of Her People_, p. 39.
Like many of her race Harriet was a thorough-going mystic. The
Quaker, Thomas Garrett, said of her: "... I never met with any
person, of any color, who had more confidence in the voice of God,
as spoken to her soul. She has frequently told me that she talked
with God, and he talked with her, every day of her life, and she
has declared to me that she felt no more fear of being arrested
by her former master, or any other person, when in his immediate
neighborhood, than she did in the State of New York, or Canada, for
she said she never ventured only where God sent her. Her faith in
the Supreme Power truly was great."[547] This faith never deserted
her in her times of peril. She explained her many deliverances as
Harriet Beecher Stowe accounted for the power and effect of _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_. She insisted it was all God's doing. "Jes so long as
he wanted to use me," said Mrs. Tubman, "he would take keer of me,
an' when he didn't want me no longer, I was ready to go. I always
tole him, I'm gwine to hole stiddy on to you, an' you've got to see
me trou."[548]
[547] Mrs. Bradford, _Harriet the Moses of Her People_, pp. 83,
84.
[548] _Ibid._, p. 61.
In 1857, Mrs. Tubman made what has been called her most venturesome
journey. She had brought several of her brothers and sisters from
slavery, but had not hit upon a method to release her aged parents.
The chief difficulty lay in the fact that they were unable to walk
long distances. At length she devised a plan and carried it through.
A homemade conveyance was patched together, and an old horse
brought into use. Mr. Garrett describes the vehicle as consisting of
a pair of old chaise-wheels, with a board on the axle to sit on and
another board swinging by ropes from the axle on which to rest their
feet. This rude contrivance Harriet used in conveying her parents to
the railroad, where they were put aboard the cars for Wilmington;
and she followed them in her novel vehicle. At Wilmington, Friend
Garrett was sought out by the bold abductor, and he furnished her
with money to take all of them to Canada. He afterwards sold their
horse and sent them the money. Harriet and her family did not long
remain in Canada; Auburn, New York, was deemed a preferable place;
and here a small property was bought on easy terms of Governor
Seward, to provide a home for the enfranchised mother and father.
Before Harriet had finished paying for her bit of real estate, the
Civil War broke out. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, appreciating
the sagacity, bravery and kindliness of the woman, soon summoned her
to go into the South to serve as a scout, and when necessary as a
hospital nurse. That her services were valuable was the testimony
of officers under whom she served; thus General Rufus Saxton wrote
in March, 1868: "I can bear witness to the value of her services in
South Carolina and Florida. She was employed in the hospitals and as
a spy. She made many a raid inside the enemies' lines, displaying
remarkable courage, zeal and fidelity."[549]
[549] Mrs. Bradford, _Harriet the Moses of Her People_, Appendix,
p. 142.
At the conclusion of the great struggle Harriet returned to Auburn,
where she has lived ever since. Her devotion to her people has never
ceased. Although she is very poor and is subject to the infirmities
of old age, infirmities increased in her case by the effects of ill
treatment received in slavery, she has managed to transform her
house into a hospital, where she provides and cares for some of the
helpless and deserving of her own race.[550]
[550] Lillie B. C. Wyman, in the _New England Magazine_, March,
1876, pp. 117, 118. Conversation with Harriet Tubman, Cambridge,
Mass., April 8, 1897.
CHAPTER VII
LIFE OF THE COLORED REFUGEES IN CANADA
The passengers of the Underground Railroad had but one real refuge,
one region alone within whose bounds they could know they were
safe from reënslavement; that region was Canada. The position of
Canada on the slavery question was peculiar, for the imperial act
abolishing slavery throughout the colonies of England was not
passed until 1833; and, legally, if not actually, slavery existed
in Canada until that year. The importation of slaves into this
northern country had been tolerated by the French, and later, under
an act passed in 1790, had been encouraged by the English. It is a
singular fact that while this measure was in force slaves escaped
from their Canadian masters to the United States, where they found
freedom.[551] Before the separation of the Upper and Lower Provinces
in 1791, slavery had spread westward into Upper Canada, and a few
hundred negroes and some Pawnee Indians were to be found in bondage
through the small scattered settlements of the Niagara, Home and
Western districts.
[551] "A case of this kind," says Dr. S. G. Howe, "was related
to us by Mrs. Amy Martin. She says: "My father's name was James
Ford.... He ... would be over one hundred years old, if he were
now living.... He was held here (in Canada) by the Indians as a
slave, and sold, I think he said, to a British officer, who was a
very cruel master, and he escaped from him, and came to Ohio, ...
to Cleveland, I believe, first, and made his way from there to
Erie (Pa.), where he settled.... When we were in Erie, we moved a
little way out of the village, and our house was ... a station of
the U. G. R. R." _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, by
S. G. Howe, 1864, pp. 8, 9.
The Province of Upper Canada took the initiative in the restriction
of slavery. In the year 1793, in which Congress provided for the
rendition by the Northern states of fugitives from labor, the
first parliament of Upper Canada enacted a law against the
importation of slaves, and incorporated in it a clause to the
effect that children of slaves then held were to become free at
the age of twenty-five years.[552] Nevertheless, judicial rather
than legislative action terminated slavery in Lower Canada, for a
series of three fugitive slave cases occurred between the first
day of February, 1798, and the last day of February, 1800. The
third of these suits, known as the Robin case, was tried before the
full Court of King's Bench, and the court ordered the discharge
of the fugitive from his confinement. Perhaps the correctness of
the decisions rendered in these cases may be questioned; but it is
noteworthy that the provincial legislature would not cross them, and
it may therefore be asserted that slavery really ceased in Lower
Canada after the decision of the Robin case, February 18, 1800.[553]
[552] Act of 30th Geo. III.
[553] See the article entitled "Slavery in Canada," by J. C.
Hamilton, LL.B., in the _Magazine of American History_, Vol. XXV,
pp. 233-236.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF REFUGEE SETTLERS, OF WINDSOR, ONTARIO.
MRS. ANNE MARY JANE HUNT, MANSFIELD SMITH, MRS. LUCINDA SEYMOUR,
HENRY STEVENSON, BUSH JOHNSON.
(From a recent photograph.)]
The seaboard provinces were but little infected by slavery. Nova
Scotia, to which probably more than to any other of these, refugees
from Southern bondage fled, had by reason of natural causes, lost
nearly, if not quite all traces of slavery by the beginning of
our century. The experience of the eighteenth century had been
sufficient to reform public opinion in Canada on the question
of slavery, and to show that the climate of the provinces was a
permanent barrier to the profitable employment of slave labor.
During the period in which Canada was thus freeing herself from the
last vestiges of the evil, slaves who had escaped from Southern
masters were beginning to appeal for protection to anti-slavery
people in the Northern states.[554] The arrests of refugees from
bondage, and the cases of kidnapping of free negroes, which were
not infrequent in the North, strengthened the appeals of the hunted
suppliants. Under these circumstances, it was natural that there
should have arisen early in the present century the beginnings of a
movement on the northern border of the United States for the purpose
of helping fugitives to Canadian soil.[555]
[554] M. G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_, p. 20.
[555] _Ibid._, p. 60; R. C. Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, p.
26.
Upon the questions how and when this system arose, we have both
unofficial and official testimony. Dr. Samuel G. Howe learned upon
careful investigation, in 1863, that the early abolition of slavery
in Canada did not affect slavery in the United States for several
years. "Now and then a slave was intelligent and bold enough," he
states, "to cross the vast forest between the Ohio and the Lakes,
and find a refuge beyond them. Such cases were at first very rare,
and knowledge of them was confined to few; but they increased early
in this century; and the rumor gradually spread among the slaves
of the Southern states, that there was, far away under the north
star, a land where the flag of the Union did not float; where the
law declared all men free and equal; where the people respected
the law, and the government, if need be, enforced it.... Some, not
content with personal freedom and happiness, went secretly back to
their old homes, and brought away their wives and children at much
peril and cost. The rumor widened; the fugitives so increased, that
a secret pathway, since called the Underground Railroad, was soon
formed, which ran by the huts of the blacks in the slave states,
and the houses of good Samaritans in the free states.... Hundreds
trod this path every year, but they did not attract much public
notice."[556] Before the year 1817 it is said that a single little
group of abolitionists in southern Ohio had forwarded to Canada by
this secret path more than a thousand fugitive slaves.[557] The
truth of this account is confirmed by the diplomatic negotiations
of 1826 relating to this subject. Mr. Clay, then Secretary of
State, declared the escape of slaves to British territory to be
a "growing evil"; and in 1828 he again described it as still
"growing," and added that it was well calculated to disturb the
peaceful relations existing between the United States and the
adjacent British provinces. England, however, steadfastly refused
to accept Mr. Clay's proposed stipulation for extradition, on the
ground that the British government could not, "with respect to the
British possessions where slavery is not admitted, depart from the
principle recognized by the British courts that every man is free
who reaches British ground."[558]
[556] S. G. Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp.
11, 12.
[557] William Birney, _James G. Birney and His Times_, p. 435.
[558] Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Clay, Sept. 26, 1827, _Niles'
Register_, p. 290.
During the decade between 1828 and 1838 many persons throughout the
Northern states, as far west as Iowa, had coöperated in forming
new lines of Underground Railroad with termini at various points
along the Canadian frontier. A resolution submitted to Congress in
December, 1838, was aimed at these persons, by calling for a bill
providing for the punishment, in the courts of the United States,
of all persons guilty of aiding fugitive slaves to escape, or of
enticing them from their owners.[559] Though this resolution came to
nought, the need of it may have been demonstrated to the minds of
Southern men by the fact that several companies of runaway slaves
were organized, and took part in the Patriot War of this year in
defence of Canadian territory against the attack of two or three
hundred armed men from the State of New York.[560]
[559] _Congressional Globe_, Twenty-fifth Congress, Third
Session, p. 34.
[560] The Patriot War defeated a foolhardy attempt to induce
the Province of Upper Canada to proclaim its independence. The
refugees were by no means willing to see a movement begun, the
success of which might "break the only arm interposed for their
security." _J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman_, p. 344.
Each succeeding year witnessed the influx into Canada of a larger
number of colored emigrants from the South. At length, in 1850,
the Fugitive Slave Law called forth such opposition in the North
that the Underground Railroad became more efficient than ever. The
secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society wrote in 1851
that, "notwithstanding the stringent provisions of the Fugitive
Bill, and the confidence which was felt in it as a certain cure
for escape, we are happy to know that the evasion of slaves was
never greater than at this moment. All abolitionists, at any of
the prominent points of the country, know that applications for
assistance were never more frequent."[561] This statement is
substantiated by the testimony of many persons who did underground
service in the North.
[561] _Nineteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society_, January, 1851, p. 67.
From the other end of the line, the Canadian terminus, we have
abundant evidence of the lively traffic both before and after the
new act. Besides the later investigations of Dr. Howe we have the
statement of a contemporary, still living. Anthony Bingey, of
Windsor, Ontario, aided the Rev. Hiram Wilson and the Rev. Isaac
J. Rice, two graduates of Hamilton College, in the conduct of a
mission for refugees. Mr. Bingey first settled at Amherstburg, at
the mouth of the Detroit River, where he kept a receiving station
for fugitives, was in an excellent place for observation, and was
allied with trained men, who gave themselves, in the missionary
spirit, to the cause of the fugitive slave in Canada. When Mr.
Bingey first went to Amherstburg, in 1845, it was a rare occurrence
to see as many as fifteen fugitives arrive in a single company. In
the course of time runaways began to disembark from the ferries and
lake boats in larger numbers, a day's tale often running as high
as thirty. Through the period of the Mexican War, and down to the
beginning of Fillmore's administration, many of the fugitives from
the South had settled in the States, but after 1850 many, fearing
recapture, journeyed in haste to Canada, greatly increasing the
number daily arriving there.[562] That there was no tendency towards
a decline in the movement is suggested by two items appearing in the
_Independent_ during the year 1855. According to the first of these
(quoted from the _Intelligencer_ of St. Louis, Missouri): "The evil
(of running off slaves) has got to be an immense one, and is daily
becoming more aggravated. It threatens to subvert the institution
of slavery in this state entirely, and unless effectually checked
it will certainly do so. There is no doubt that ten slaves are now
stolen from Missouri to every one that was 'spirited' off before the
Douglas bill."[563] It is significant that the ardent abolitionists
of Iowa and northwestern Illinois were vigorously engaged in
Underground Railroad work at this time. The other item declared
that the number of fugitives transported by the "Ohio Underground
Line" was twenty-five per cent greater than in any previous year;
"indeed, many masters have brought their hands from the Kanawha
(West Virginia), not being willing to risk them there."[564]
[562] Interview with Elder Anthony Bingey, Windsor, Ontario, July
31, 1895. On this point Dr. S. G. Howe says: "Of course it [the
Fugitive Slave Law] gave great increase to the emigration,
and free born blacks fled with the slaves from a land in which
their birthright of freedom was no longer secure." _Refugees from
Slavery in Canada West_, p. 15.
[563] _Independent_, Jan. 18, 1855.
[564] _Independent_, April 6, 1855; see also _Von Holst's
Constitutional and Political History of the United States_, Vol.
V, p. 63, note.
That portion of Canada most easily reached by fugitives was the
lake-bound region lying between New York on the east and Michigan
on the west, and presenting a long and inviting coast-line to
northern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. Lower
Canada was often reached through the New England states and by
way of the coast-line routes. The fugitive slaves entering Canada
were principally from the border slave states, Missouri, Kentucky,
Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Some, however, favored by rare good
fortune and possessed of more than ordinary sagacity or aided by
some venturesome friend, had made their way from the far South, from
the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, even from Louisiana.
The fugitives who reached Canada do not seem to have been notable;
on the whole they were a representative body of the slave-class. An
observer on a Southern plantation could hardly have selected out
would-be fugitives, as being superior to their fellows. If he had
questioned them all about their desire for liberty he would have
found habitual runaways agreeing with their fellows that they were
content with their present lot. The average slave was shrewd enough
under ordinary circumstances to tell what he thought least likely
to arouse suspicion. That such discretion did not signify lack of
desire for freedom is shown not only by the numerous escapes, but
by the narratives of fugitives. Said Leonard Harrod: "Many a time
my master has told me things to try me; among others he said he
thought of moving up to Cincinnati, and asked me if I did not want
to go. I would tell him, 'No! I don't want to go to none of your
free countries!' Then he'd laugh, but I did want to come--surely
I did. A colored man tells the truth here,--there he is afraid
to."[565] "I have known slaves to be hungry," said David West, "but
when their master asked them if they had enough, they would through
fear say, 'Yes.' So if asked if they wish to be free, they will say
'No.' I knew a case where there was a division of between fifty
and sixty slaves among heirs, one of whom intended to set free her
part. So wishing to consult them she asked of such and such ones
if they would like to be free, and they all said 'No,' for if they
had said yes, and had then fallen to the other heirs, they would be
sold,--and so they said, 'No,' against their own consciences."[566]
"From the time I was a little boy it always ground my feelings to
know that I had to work for another man," said Edward Walker, of
Windsor, Ontario.[567] When asked to help hunt two slave-women,
Henry Stevenson, a slave in Odrain County, Missouri, at first
declined, knowing that his efforts to find them would bring upon
him the wrath of the other slaves. "I wouldn't go," he related;
"the colored folks would 'a' killed me." In his refusal he was
supported by a white man, who had the wisdom to observe that "'Twas
a bad policy to send a nigger to hunt a nigger." Nevertheless,
Stevenson's trustworthiness had been so often tested that he was
taken along to help prosecute the search, and even accompanied the
party of pursuers to Chicago, where he disappeared by the aid of
abolitionists and was afterward heard of in Windsor, Ontario.[568]
Elder Anthony Bingey, of the same place, said, "I never saw the day
since I knew anything that I didn't want to be free. Both Bucknel
and Taylor [his successive masters] liked to see their slaves happy
and well treated, but I always wanted to be free."[569]
[565] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, 1856, p. 340.
[566] _Ibid._, p. 91.
[567] _Detroit Sunday News Tribune_, quoted by the _Louisville
Journal_, Aug. 12, 1894.
[568] Conversation with Henry Stevenson, Windsor, Ont., July,
1895.
[569] Conversation with Elder Anthony Bingey, Windsor, Ont., July
31, 1895.
The manifestations of delight by fugitives when landed on the
Canada shore is another part of the evidence of the sincerity of
their aspirations for freedom. Captain Chapman, the commander of a
vessel on Lake Erie in 1860, was requested by two acquaintances at
Cleveland to put ashore on the Canada side two persons, who were,
of course, fugitives, and he gives the following account of the
landing: "While they were on my vessel I felt little interest in
them, and had no idea that the love of liberty as a part of man's
nature was in the least possible degree felt or understood by them.
Before entering Buffalo harbor, I ran in near the Canada shore,
manned a boat, and landed them on the beach.... They said, 'Is
this Canada?' I said, 'Yes, there are no slaves in this country';
then I witnessed a scene I shall never forget. They seemed to be
transformed; a new light shone in their eyes, their tongues were
loosed, they laughed and cried, prayed and sang praises, fell upon
the ground and kissed it, hugged and kissed each other, crying,
'Bress de Lord! Oh! I'se free before I die!'"[570]
[570] E. M. Pettit, _Sketches in the History of the Underground
Railroad_, pp. 66, 67. See also Chapter I, p. 14, and Chapter VI,
p. 178.
The state of ignorance in which the slave population of the South
was largely kept must be regarded as the admission by the master
class that their slaves were likely to seize the boon of freedom,
unless denied the encouragement towards self-emancipation that
knowledge would surely afford. The fables about Canada brought to
the North by runaways well illustrate both the ignorance of the
slave and the apprehensions of his owner. William Johnson, who fled
from Hopkins County, Virginia, had been told that the Detroit River
was over three thousand miles wide, and a ship starting out in the
night would find herself in the morning "right whar she started
from." In the light of his later experience Johnson says, "We knowed
jess what dey tole us and no more."[571] Deacon Allen Sidney,
an engineer on his master's boat, which touched at Cincinnati,
had a poor opinion of Canada because he had heard that "nothin'
but black-eyed peas could be raised there."[572] John Evans, who
travelled through the Northern country, and even in Canada, with
his Kentucky master, was insured against the temptation to seize
his liberty by the warning to let no "British nigger" get near him
lest he should be slain "jess like on de battle-field."[573] John
Reed heard the white people in Memphis, Tennessee, talk much of
Canada, but he adds "they'd put some extract onto it to keep us from
comin'."[574]
[571] Conversation with William Johnson, at Windsor, Ont., July
31, 1895.
[572] Conversation with Allen Sidney, Windsor, Ont.
[573] Conversation with John Evans, Windsor, Ont., Aug. 2, 1895.
[574] Conversation with John Reed, Windsor, Ont.
Although many disparaging things said about Canada at the South were
without the shadow of verity, there were still hardships enough to
be met by those who settled there. The provinces constituted for
them a strange country. Its climate, raw, open and variable, and
at certain periods of the year severe, increased the sufferings of
a people already destitute. The condition in which many of them
arrived beyond the borders, especially those who migrated before
the forties, is vividly told by J. W. Loguen in his account of his
first arrival at Hamilton, Canada West, in 1835. Writing to his
friend, Frederick Douglass, under date of May 8, 1856, he says:
"Twenty-one years ago--I stood on this spot, penniless, ragged,
lonely, homeless, helpless, hungry and forlorn.... Hamilton was
a cold wilderness for the fugitive when I came there."[575] The
experience of Loguen corroborates what Josiah Henson said of the
general condition of the fugitives as he saw them in 1830: "At that
time they were scattered in all directions and for the most part
miserably poor, subsisting not unfrequently on the roots and herbs
of the fields.... In 1830 there were no schools among them and no
churches, only occasionally preaching."[576]
[575] _The Rev. J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman_, 1859,
told by himself; chap. xxiv, pp. 338, 340.
[576] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, 1858, p. 209.
The whole previous experience of these pioneers was a block to their
making a vigorous initiative in their own behalf. Extreme poverty,
ignorance and subjection were their inheritance. Their new start in
life was made with a wretched prospect, and it would be difficult
to imagine a free lot more discouraging and hopeless. Yet it was
brightened much by the compassionate interest of the Canadian
people, who were so tolerant as to admit them to a share in the
equal rights that could at that time be found in America only in the
territory of a monarchical government. By the year 1838 the fugitive
host of Canada West began to profit by organized efforts in its
behalf. A mission of Upper Canada was established. It was described
as including "the colored people who have emigrated from the United
States and settled in various parts of Upper Canada to enjoy the
inalienable rights of freedom."[577] During the winter of 1838-1839,
this enterprise conducted four schools, while the Rev. Hiram Wilson,
who seems to have been acting under other auspices, was supervising
during the same year a number of other schools in the province.[578]
[577] _Mission of Upper Canada_, Vol. I, No. 17, Wed., July 31,
1839.
[578] _Ibid._
From this time on much was done in Canada to help the ransomed slave
meet his new conditions. It was not long before the benevolent
interest of friends from the Northern states followed the refugees
to their very settlements as it had succored them on their way
through the free states. In 1844 Levi Coffin and William Beard made
a tour of inspection in Canada West. This was the first of several
trips made by these two Quakers "to look after the welfare of the
fugitives"[579] in that region. The Rev. Samuel J. May made two such
trips, "the first time to Toronto and its neighborhood, the second
time to that part of Canada which lies between Lake Erie and Lake
Huron."[580] John Brown did not fail to keep himself informed by
personal visits how the fugitives were faring there.[581] Men less
prominent but not less interested among underground magnates were
drawn to see how their former protégés were prospering; such were
Abram Allen, a Hicksite Friend of Clinton County, Ohio, and Reuben
Goens, a South Carolinian by birth, who became an enthusiastic
coworker with the Quakers at Fountain City, Indiana, in aiding
slaves to the Dominion.
[579] _Reminiscences of Levi Coffin_, p. 253.
[580] May, _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict_, p. 303.
[581] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, p. 175.
These efforts were helpful to multitudes of negroes. Some insight
into the work that was being accomplished is afforded by Levi
Coffin, who gives a valuable account of his Canadian trip,
September to November, 1844. Among the first places he visited was
Amherstburg, more commonly known at that time by the name of Fort
Malden: "While at this place, we made our headquarters at Isaac
J. Rice's missionary buildings, where he had a large school for
colored children. He had labored here among the colored people,
mostly fugitives, for six years. He was a devoted, self-denying
worker, had received very little pecuniary help, and had suffered
many privations. He was well situated in Ohio, as pastor of a
Presbyterian church, and had fine prospects before him, but believed
that the Lord called him to this field of missionary labor among
the fugitive slaves who came here by hundreds and by thousands,
poor, destitute, ignorant, suffering from all the evil influences
of slavery. We entered into deep sympathy with him in his labors,
realizing the great need there was here for just such an institution
as he had established. He had sheltered at this missionary home many
hundreds of fugitives till other homes for them could be found.
This was the great landing-point, the principal terminus of the
Underground Railroad of the West."[582] Later Mr. Coffin and his
companion "visited the institution under the care of Hiram Wilson,
called the British and American Manual Labor Institute for colored
children."[583] "The school was then," he reports, "in a prosperous
condition." Mr. Coffin continues: "From this place we proceeded
up the river Thames to London, visiting the different settlements
of colored people on our way, and then went to the Wilberforce
Colony.... I often met fugitives who had been at my house ten or
fifteen years before, so long ago that I had forgotten them, and
could recall no recollection of them until they mentioned some
circumstance that brought them to mind. Some of them were well
situated, owned good farms, and were perhaps worth more than their
former masters.... We found many of the fugitives more comfortably
situated than we expected, but there was much destitution and
suffering among those who had recently come in. Many fugitives
arrived weary and footsore, with their clothing in rags, having
been torn by briers and bitten by dogs on their way, and when
the precious boon of freedom was obtained, they found themselves
possessed of little else, in a country unknown to them and a climate
much colder than that to which they were accustomed. We noted the
cases and localities of destitution, and after our return home took
measures to collect and forward several large boxes of clothing and
bedding to be distributed by reliable agents to the most needy."[584]
[582] Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp. 249, 250.
[583] _Ibid._, p. 251.
[584] Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp. 252, 253.
The government of Canada was not in advance of the public sentiment
of the provinces when it gave the incoming blacks considerate
treatment. It was early a puzzle in Mr. Clay's mind why Ontario
and the mother country should yield unhindered entrance to such a
class of colonists; his opinion of the character of the absconding
slaves and of the unadvisability of their being received by Canada
was expressed in a despatch of 1826 to the United States minister
at London: "They are generally the most worthless of their class,
and far, therefore, from being an acquisition which the British
government can be anxious to make. The sooner, we should think, they
are gotten rid of the better for Canada."[585] But the Canadians
did not at any time adopt this view. Dr. Howe testified in 1863
that "the refugees have always received ... from the better class
of people, good-will and justice, and from a few, active friendship
and important assistance."[586] The attitude of the Canadian
government toward this class of immigrants was always one of welcome
and protection. Not only was there no obstruction put in the way
of their settling in the Dominion, but rather there was the clear
purpose to see them shielded from removal and to foster among them
the accumulation of property.
[585] _Niles' Register_, Vol. XXV, p. 289.
[586] Howe, _Refugees in Canada West_, p. 68.
In the matter of the acquirement of land no discrimination was made
by the Canadian authorities against the fugitive settlers. On the
contrary these unpromising purchasers were encouraged to take up
government land and become tillers of the soil. In 1844 Levi Coffin
found that "Land had been easily obtained and many had availed
themselves of this advantage to secure comfortable homesteads.
Government land had been divided up into fifty-acre lots, which they
could buy for two dollars an acre, and have ten years in which to
pay for it, and if it was not paid for at the end of that time they
did not lose all the labor they had bestowed on it, but received a
clear title to the land as soon as they paid for it."[587]
[587] Levi Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp. 252, 253.
In 1848 or 1849 a company was formed in Upper Canada, under the
name of the Elgin Association, for the purpose of settling colored
families upon crown or clergy reserve lands to be purchased in the
township of Raleigh. It was intended thus to supply the families
settled with stimulus to moral improvement.[588] To whom is to
be attributed the origin of this enterprise is not altogether
clear; one writer ascribes it to the influence of Lord Elgin,
Governor-General of Canada from 1849 to 1854, and asserts that a
tract of land of eighteen thousand acres was allotted for a refugee
settlement in 1848;[589] another says it was first projected by the
Rev. William King, a Louisiana slaveholder, in 1849.[590] Mr. King's
own statement is that a company of fifteen slaves he had himself
emancipated became the nucleus of the settlement in 1849; and
that under an act of incorporation procured by himself in 1850 an
association was formed to purchase nine thousand acres of land and
hold it for fugitive settlers.[591]
[588] Benjamin Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 292.
[589] George Bryce, _Short History of the Canadian People_, p.
403.
[590] Benjamin Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 291.
[591] S. G. Howe, _Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp.
107, 108.
The Canadian authorities facilitated the efforts made by the friends
of the fugitives to provide this class such supplies as could be
gathered in various quarters, and they entered into an arrangement
with the mission-agent, the Rev. Hiram Wilson, to admit all supplies
intended for the refugees free of customs-duty. Mr. E. Child, a
mission-teacher, educated at Oneida Institute, New York, received
many boxes of such goods at Toronto;[592] and at a hamlet called
"the Corners," a few miles from Detroit, a Mr. Miller kept a depot
for "fugitive goods." Supplies were also shipped to Detroit direct
for transmission across the frontier.[593]
[592] _History of Knox County, Illinois_ (published by Charles C.
Chapman and Co.), p. 203. Here it is stated: "Mr. Wilson arranged
with the authorities to have all supplies for the fugitive
slaves admitted free of customs duty. Many were the large
well-filled boxes of what was most needed by the wanderer taken
from the wharf at Toronto during that winter [1841] by E. Child,
mission-teacher. He was then a student at Oneida Institute, N.Y.,
but for many years has resided in Oneida, this county. He went
into Canada for the purpose of teaching the fugitives."
[593] Conversation with Jacob Cummings, a fugitive from
Tennessee, now living in Columbus, O. Mr. Cummings was at one
time a collecting agent for a settlement at Puce, Ont. He told
the author, "While agent, I was sent to Sandusky. I would
collect goods for the settlement, and ship it to Detroit, marked
'Fugitive Goods.' Brother Miller, at the Corners, a little place
about fifteen miles from Detroit, would take care of these, and
Canada wouldn't charge any duty on 'fugitive goods.'"
The circumstances attending the settlement of the refugees from
slavery in Canada were favorable to their kindly reception by the
native peoples. It was generally known that they had suffered many
hardships on their journey northward, and that they usually came
with nought but the unquenchable yearning for a liberty denied them
by the United States. The movement to Canada had begun when the
inter-lake portion of Ontario was largely an unsettled region; and
indeed, during the period of the refugees' immigration, much of the
interior was in the process of clearing. Moreover, the movement
was one of small beginnings and gradual development. It brought
into the country what it then needed--agricultural labor to open up
government land and to help the native farmers.
In the elbow of land lying between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, the
fugitives were early received by the Indians under Chief Brant,
having possessions along the Grand River and near Burlington Bay.
Finding hospitality on these estates, the negroes not infrequently
adopted the customs and mode of life of their benefactors, and
remained among them.[594]
[594] J. C. Hamilton, _Magazine of American History_, Vol. XXV,
p. 238.
In the territory extending westward along the lake front white
settlers were working their clearings, which were beginning to
take on the aspect of cultivated farms. But farm hands were not
plentiful, and the fugitive slaves were penniless, and eager to
receive wages on their own account. Mr. Benjamin Drew, who made
a tour of investigation among these people in 1855, and wrote
down the narratives of more than a hundred colored refugees,
gives testimony to show that in some quarters at least, as in the
vicinity of Colchester, Dresden and Dawn, the number of laborers
was not equal to the demand, and that the negroes readily found
employment.[595] It was not to be expected that the field-hands and
house-servants of the South could work to the best advantage in
their new surroundings; a gentleman of Windsor told Mr. Drew that
immigrants whose experience in agricultural pursuits had been gained
in Pennsylvania and other free states were more capable and reliable
than those coming directly to Canada from Southern bondage.[596] But
such was the disposition of the white people in different parts of
Canada, and such the demand for laborers in this developing section,
that the Canada Anti-Slavery Society could say of the refugees, in
its _Second Report_ (1853): "The true principle is now to assume
that every man, unless disabled by sickness, can support himself
and his family after he has obtained steady employment. All that
able-bodied men and women require is a fair chance, friendly advice
and a little encouragement, perhaps a little assistance at first.
Those who are really willing to work can procure employment in a
short time after their arrival."[597]
[595] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 311, 368.
[596] _Ibid._, p. 322.
[597] Quoted by Drew, p. 326.
The fact that there were large tracts of good land in the portion of
Canada accessible to the fugitive was a fortunate circumstance, for
the desire to possess and cultivate their own land was wide-spread
among the escaped slaves. This eagerness drew many of them into the
Canadian wilderness, there to cut out little farms for themselves,
and live the life of pioneers. The extensive tract known as the
Queen's Bush, lying southwest of Toronto and stretching away to
Lake Huron, was early penetrated by refugees. William Jackson, one
of the first colored settlers in this region, says that he entered
it in 1846, when scarcely any one was to be found there, that other
fugitive slaves soon followed in considerable numbers and cleared
the land, and that in less than two years as many as fifty families
had located there. The land proved to be good, was well timbered
with hard wood, and farms of from fifty to a hundred acres in extent
were soon put in cultivation.[598] In some other parts of Canada the
same tendency to spread into the outlying districts and secure small
holdings appeared among the colored people. Mr. Peter Wright, the
reeve of the town of Colchester, noted this fact, and attributed the
clearance of much land for cultivation to fugitive slaves.[599] That
such land did not always remain in the possession of this class of
pioneers was due to their ignorance of the forms of conveyancing,
and doubtless sometimes to the sharp practices of unscrupulous
whites.[600]
[598] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 190.
[599] _Ibid._, p. 367.
[600] _Ibid._, pp. 367, 369; Austin Steward, _Twenty-two Years a
Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman_, p. 272.
[Illustration: REV. THEODORE PARKER,
A LEADING MEMBER OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE OF BOSTON.]
[Illustration: COL. T. W. HIGGINSON,
ONE OF THE PRIME MOVERS IN THE ATTEMPTED RESCUE OF BURNS.]
[Illustration: DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE,
who made a valuable report on the life of fugitive settlers in
Canada in behalf of the United States Freedman's Inquiry Commission
in 1863.]
[Illustration: BENJAMIN DREW,
who studied the condition of the colored refugees in Canada in 1855,
and wrote an interesting book on the subject.]
Encouragement was not lacking to induce refugees to take up land;
several fugitive aid societies were organized for this purpose,
and procured tracts of land and founded colonies upon them. The
most important of the colonies thus formed were the Dawn Settlement
at Dresden, the Elgin Settlement at Buxton and the Refugees'
Home near Windsor.[601] These three communities deserve special
consideration, inasmuch as they illustrate an interesting movement
in which benevolent persons in Canada, England and the United States
coöperated to improve the condition of the refugees.
[601] Howe, _Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 68, 69.
The Dawn Settlement, the first of the three established, may be
said to have had its beginning in the organization of a school
called the British and American Institute.[602] The purpose to
found such a school seems to have been cherished by the missionary,
the Rev. Hiram Wilson, and his coworker, Josiah Henson, as early
as 1838; but the plan was not undertaken until 1842.[603] In that
year a convention of colored persons was called to decide upon the
expenditure of some fifteen hundred dollars collected in England by
a Quaker named James C. Fuller; and they decided, under suggestion,
to start "a manual-labor school, where children could be taught
those elements of knowledge which are usually the occupations of a
grammar-school; and where the boys could be taught, in addition, the
practice of some mechanic art, and the girls could be instructed in
those domestic arts which are the proper occupation and ornament
of her sex."[604] It was decided to locate the school at Dawn,
and accordingly three hundred acres of land were purchased there,
upon which were erected log buildings and schoolhouses, and soon
the work of instruction was begun. It was "an object from the
beginning, of those who ... managed the affairs of the Institute,
to make it self-supporting, by the employment of the students, for
certain portions of their time, on the land."[605] The advantages of
schooling on this basis attracted many refugee settlers to Dresden
and Dawn. The Institute also gave shelter to fugitive slaves "until
they could be placed out upon the wild lands in the neighborhoods to
earn their own subsistence."
[602] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 308.
[603] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, 1852, p. 115. See also _Father Henson's Story of
His Own Life_, 1858, p. 171. Mr. Drew ascribes the honor of the
original conception of this Institute to the Rev. Hiram Wilson.
(See _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 311.) Mr. Henson, after
asserting that he and Mr. Wilson called the convention of 1838,
continues, "I urged the appropriation of the money to the
establishment of a manual-labor school...." (_Father Henson's
Story of His Own Life_, p. 169.) It appears that both Wilson and
Henson were placed on the committee on site. As they were friends
and coworkers, it is safe to accord them equal shares in the
undertaking.
[604] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, p. 169.
[605] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, p. 115.
The Rev. Mr. Wilson served the Institute during the first seven
years of its existence, teaching its school, and ministering to
such refugees as came. The number of "boarding-scholars" with
which he began was fourteen, and at that time "there were no
more than fifty colored persons in all the vicinity of the tract
purchased."[606] In 1852 there were about sixty pupils attending the
school, and the settlers on the land of the Institute had increased
to five hundred;[607] while other colonies in the same region had,
collectively, a population of between three thousand and four
thousand colored people.[608] From what has been said it is easy
to see that the influence of Dawn Institute was considerable; its
managers were not content that it should instruct the children of
colored persons only; they extended the advantages of the school
to the children of whites and Indians as well. Adult students were
also admitted, and varied in number from fifty-six to one hundred
and sixteen.[609] The good results of the policy thus pursued
are apparent in the character and habits of the communities that
developed under the influence of the Institute.
[606] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 311.
[607] _First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada_, p. 17. See also Drew's _North-Side View_, p. 311.
[608] _Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by
Himself_, p. 118.
[609] _Ibid._, p. 117.
Concerning these communities Mr. Drew observed: "The colored people
in the neighborhood of Dresden and Dawn are generally prosperous
farmers--of good morals.... But here, as among all people, are a
few persons of doubtful character, who have not been trained 'to
look out for a rainy day,'--and when these get a little beforehand
they are apt to rest on their oars.... Some of the settlers are
mechanics,--shoemakers, blacksmiths and so forth. About one-third
of the adult settlers are in possession of land which is, either in
whole or in part, paid for."[610] In 1855, the year in which these
observations were made, the Institute had already passed the zenith
of its usefulness, and its buildings were fast falling into a state
of melancholy dilapidation. The cause of this decline is probably to
be found in the bad feeling, neglect and failure arising out of a
divided management.[611]
[610] _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 309.
[611] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, pp. 182-186.
The origin of the Elgin Settlement is discussed above; whether or
not it was projected by Lord Elgin in 1848, it is certain that
in 1849 the Rev. William King, a Presbyterian clergyman from
Louisiana, had manumitted and settled slaves on this tract. This
company, fifteen in number, formed the nucleus of a community named
Buxton, in honor of Thomas Fowell Buxton, the philanthropist, and
the rapid growth of the settlement thus begun seems to have led to
the incorporation of the Elgin Association in August, 1850. It is
probable that Mr. King early became the chief agent in advancing
the interests of the settlers, his support being derived mainly
from the Mission Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Canada.
The plan that was carried out under his management provided for the
parcelling of the land into farms of fifty acres each, to be had by
the colonists at the government price, two dollars and fifty cents
per acre, payable in twelve annual instalments. No houses inferior
to the model of a small log house prescribed by the improvement
committee were to be erected,[612] although settlers were permitted
to build as much better as they chose. A court of arbitration was
established for the adjudication of disputes, and a day-school and
Sunday-school gave much needed instruction.
[612] The dimensions of the model house-were twenty-four by
eighteen feet, and twelve feet high.
The growth of the Elgin Settlement is set forth in a series of
reports, which afford many interesting facts about the enterprise.
The number of families that entered the settlement during the first
two years and eight months is given as seventy-five;[613] a year
later this number was increased to one hundred and thirty families,
comprising five hundred and twenty persons;[614] the year following
there were a hundred and fifty families in Buxton;[615] and eight
years later, in 1862, when Dr. Howe visited Canada, he was informed
by Mr. King that the population of the settlement was "about one
thousand,--men, women and children," and that two thousand acres
had been deeded in fee simple to purchasers, one-third of which had
been paid for, principal and interest. The impressions of Dr. Howe
are well worth quoting: "Buxton is certainly a very interesting
place. Sixteen years ago it was a wilderness. Now, good highways
are laid out in all directions through the forest; and by their
side, standing back thirty-three feet from the road, are about two
hundred cottages, all built on the same pattern, all looking neat
and comfortable. Around each one is a cleared place, of several
acres, which is well cultivated. The fences are in good order,
the barns seem well-filled; and cattle and horses, and pigs and
poultry, abound. There are signs of industry and thrift and comfort
everywhere; signs of intemperance, of idleness, of want, nowhere.
There is no tavern, and no groggery; but there is a chapel and a
schoolhouse.
[613] _Third Annual Report_, September, 1852, quoted by Drew in
_North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 293.
[614] _Fourth Annual Report_, September, 1853. See Drew's work,
p. 294.
[615] _Fifth Annual Report_, September, 1854; Drew's work, p. 295.
"Most interesting of all are the inhabitants. Twenty years ago most
of them were slaves, who owned nothing, not even their children.
Now they own themselves; they own their houses and farms; and they
have their wives and children about them. They are enfranchised
citizens of a government which protects their rights.... The present
condition of all these colonists, as compared with their former one
is very remarkable."[616] Mr. King told Dr. Howe that only three
of the whole number that settled in the colony had their first
instalment on their farms paid for them by friends;[617] and he
summed up his experience as follows: "This settlement is a perfect
success.... Here are men who were bred in slavery, who came here
and purchased land at the government prices, cleared it, bought
their own implements, built their own houses after a model, and have
supported themselves in all material circumstances, and now support
their schools, in part.... I consider that this settlement has
done as well as a white settlement would have done under the same
circumstances."[618]
[616] Howe, _Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 70, 71.
[617] _Ibid._, p. 108.
[618] _Ibid._, p. 110.
The colony known as Refugees' Home was the outgrowth of a suggestion
of Henry Bibb, who was himself a fugitive slave. Soon after the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, he proposed the formation
of "a society which should 'aim to purchase thirty thousand acres of
government land ... in the most suitable sections of Canada ... for
the homeless refugees from American slavery to settle upon.'" The
association, organized in the summer of 1852, set about carrying out
Bibb's plan and accomplishing a work similar to the objects of the
Elgin Association. The money required for the purchase of land was
to be obtained partly through contributions and partly through sales
of the farms first marketed. Each family of colonists was to have
twenty-five acres, "five of which" it was to "receive free of cost,
provided" it should "within three years from the time of occupancy,
clear and cultivate the same." For the remaining twenty acres the
original price--two dollars an acre--was to be paid in nine equal
annual payments. Those obtaining land from the Association, whether
by purchase or gift, were to hold it for fifteen years before having
the right to dispose of it.
In the first year of the association's existence forty lots of
twenty-five acres each were taken up, and arrangements were made
for a school and church. Mrs. Laura S. Haviland was employed as a
teacher in the fall of 1852, and at once opened both a day-school
and a Sunday-school. She also organized an unsectarian or Christian
Union Church, which later entered the Methodist Episcopal
denomination. The material condition of the settlers Mrs. Haviland
describes for us in a few words. She says: "They had erected a
frame-house for school and meeting purposes. The settlers had built
for themselves small log houses, and cleared from one to five acres
each on their heavily timbered land, and raised corn, potatoes and
other garden vegetables. A few had put in two and three acres of
wheat, and were doing well for their first year."[619]
[619] Laura S. Haviland, _A Woman's Life Work_, pp. 192, 196, 201.
The three colonies described in the foregoing pages are typical of
a number of communities settled upon lands purchased in Canada for
their use, and regulated by rules drawn up by the associations that
had sprung into existence for the benefit of the homeless refugees.
The assumption upon which these associations proceeded was that
they were to deal with a class of persons who, notwithstanding
their present destitution, were desirous of living worthily in the
state of freedom to which they had just attained, a class needing
direction, instruction and opportunity for self-help rather than
sustained charity. It was intended that fugitives should not be left
to work out alone their own salvation, but that the deficiencies of
ignorance and inexperience should be mitigated for those willing
to profit by the good offices of the missions. The fugitive aid
society did not, as we have already seen, try to prevent the
fugitives from settling together in the form of communities; on
the contrary, such colonization was the inevitable result of their
procedure, and doubtless to them it seemed desirable. Such is the
suggestion contained in the arrangement under which farms were sold
to purchasers by the Elgin and Refugees' Home associations: settlers
on the tract of the former agreed to hold their farms for at least
ten years without transferring their rights; settlers on the land
of the latter were to keep their holdings for a minimum of fifteen
years without transfer. In the dealings of the Home Association this
restriction, we are told, caused some dissatisfaction.
Whether this segregation of the colored people in localities more
or less apart from the white population of Canada was a good thing
for the refugees has been questioned. Dr. S. G. Howe studied the
life of this class in Canada in 1862 as the representative of the
United States Freedman's Inquiry Commission, and wrote a report
which is indispensable for a knowledge of the conditions surrounding
the colored settlers in the provinces. He summarizes his judgment
as follows: "The negroes, going into an inhabited and civilized
country, should not be systematically congregated in communities.
Their natural affinities are strong enough to keep up all desirable
relations without artificial encouragement. Experience shows that
they do best when scattered about, and forming a small proportion of
the whole community.
"Next, the discipline of the colonies, though it only subjects the
negroes to what is considered useful apprenticeship, does prolong a
dependence which amounts almost to servitude; and does not convert
them so surely into hardy, self-reliant men, as the rude struggle
with actual difficulties, which they themselves have to face and to
overcome, instead of doing so through an agent.
"Taken as a whole, the colonists have cost to somebody a great deal
of money and a great deal of effort; and they have not succeeded
so well as many who have been thrown entirely upon their own
resources....
"It is just to say that some intelligent persons, friends of the
colored people, believe that in none of the colonies, not even in
Buxton, do they succeed so well, upon the whole, as those who are
thrown entirely upon their own resources."[620]
[620] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 69, 70.
Upon examination, these objections do not seem to be well grounded.
It is noteworthy that of the prime movers in the organization of
the three colonies we have considered, two, Josiah Henson and Henry
Bibb, were themselves fugitive slaves; the third, the Rev. William
King, had been at one time a slave-owner, and the fourth, the Rev.
Hiram Wilson, was a missionary among the refugees for many years.
These men were persons of wide observation and experience among
fugitive slaves. It is safe to say that there were no men in Canada
that knew better the disadvantages under which the average fugitive,
just arrived from the South, was called upon to begin the struggle
for a livelihood. And it will be admitted that there were none in
or out of Canada more zealous and self-sacrificing in promoting
the refugee's interests. These men evidently believed that the
fugitive was not in a condition to do the best for himself upon his
first arrival on free soil, that he needed to be delivered in some
degree from the weight of his ignorance, and guided in his wholesome
ambition to secure a home.
To the eyes of some Canadian observers those runaways who had
lingered a while in the Northern states before crossing the border
into Canada appeared to be more vigorous, independent and successful
in all undertakings than their less experienced brethren. Whatever
superiority they may have possessed that is not assignable to
natural endowment, cannot safely be set down to the unchecked play
upon them of rough experiences, or to their facing and vanquishing
great discouragements unaided. The runaway slaves that lived in
the free states were not as a class left to fight their way to
attainable success alone. They settled among friends in anti-slavery
neighborhoods, whether in city or country, and were stimulated by
the practical interest manifested by these persons in their welfare.
They were thus enabled to benefit by those educative influences
that the missions of Canada were organized to supply. It is not
improbable that some of the refugees whose self-reliant behavior
called out the approval of Dr. Howe and others belonged to this
group of partly disciplined fugitives. Dr. Howe must have seen many
such persons, for his journey in Canada West was not made until
1862, after the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 had driven many of them
from the states into the provinces. Drew remarks pertinently: "The
Fugitive Slave Bill drove into Canada a great many who had resided
in the free states. These brought some means with them, and their
efforts and good example have improved the condition of the older
settlers."[621]
[621] _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 367.
The other group of Canadian refugees--those whose passage had been
direct from the condition of abject dependence, where the whole
routine of life had been determined by the master or overseer, to
the condition of active independence and responsibility, where
the readiness to take hold and to care for one's own interests
were required--this group doubtless contained persons of ability
and energy; but they must have been in the minority. During the
later years of its history the Underground Railroad made flight
comparatively easy for all who once got out of the slave states, so
that frail women and young children often went through to Canada
with little or no difficulty. There were of course many individuals
of extraordinary ability, who had enjoyed in slavery a wider range
of experience than was vouchsafed the average slave; but such people
could take care of themselves anywhere. Here we are concerned with
the large number that needed to have the way pointed out to them if
they were ever to become the possessors of their own homes; they
were not sufficiently informed to originate and carry on successful
building and loan associations for themselves, but they certainly
could profit by an institution devised to serve the same purpose. If
it be admitted that ownership of land and all that that implies was
a good thing for the refugee, then it is difficult to see how that
idea could have been better inculcated far and wide than through the
methods employed by the Canadian organizations.
Besides enabling refugees to secure homes for themselves there were
other offices the associations conceived to be a part of their duty,
and the performance of which is set forth in their records. The
first and most urgent of these was to supply immediate relief to the
wayworn travellers continually arriving; with this was combined the
necessity of helping these persons to find employment. The British
and American Institute at Dawn was obliged to conduct, as part of
its work, what would now be called perhaps a supply and employment
bureau. Josiah Henson, one of the founders of the Institute,
describing this branch of the work, says: "Many of these poor
creatures arrive destitute of means, and often in want of suitable
clothing, and these, as far as possible, have been supplied them.
Since the passage of the late Fugitive Slave Bill, ... they have
arrived in large numbers at the Institute, and have been drafted
off among their brethren who had been previously settled, and who
are now making every effort and sacrifice to meet their destitute
circumstances."[622] Henry Bibb, of the Refugees' Home, as early as
1843 saw the need of maintaining a stock of supplies at Windsor out
of which to relieve the immediate necessities of fugitives.[623]
The missionary, Isaac J. Rice, kept a similar supply room at
Amherstburg.[624] It appears from all this that the recognition of
the deplorable destitution of arriving fugitives was general among
the aid societies and their representatives, and that prompt action
was taken to meet wants that could brook no delay.
[622] _The Life of Josiah Henson, as narrated by Himself_, p. 117.
[623] Conversation with the Rev. Jacob Cummings, a refugee now
living at Columbus, O.
[624] _Ibid._
Another service performed by these colonization societies was that
of providing superior schools for the colored people; education for
all that could take it was one of the cardinal features of their
programme. The state of public sentiment in some places in Canada
was such that colored children were either altogether excluded from
the public schools, or, if allowed to enter, they were annoyed
beyond endurance by the rude behavior of their fellow-pupils.
In some places they braved the prejudice against them, but the
numbers courageous enough to do this were insignificant. Under
such circumstances the best that could be done by the friends of
the black race was to open schools under private management. That
the societies were not averse to mixed schools is shown by the fact
that white pupils were admitted in various instances to classes
formed primarily for colored children.[625] This need of schools
did not appeal alone to the colonization societies. It was seen
and responded to by other organizations; thus the English Colonial
Church and School Society thought it advisable to locate schools at
London,[626] Amherstburg,[627] Colchester[628] and perhaps other
places; and certain religious bodies of the United States felt
it incumbent on them to support school-teachers (ten or more) in
different parts of Canada.[629] Besides the schools thus provided
a few were conducted by individuals; as examples of this latter
class may be named a private school at Chatham taught by Alfred
Whipper,[630] a colored man, and another at Windsor managed by Mrs.
Mary E. Bibb, the wife of Henry Bibb mentioned above.[631]
[625] _First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada_, 1852, Appendix, p. 22.
[626] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 148.
[627] _Ibid._, p. 349.
[628] _Ibid._, p. 369.
[629] _First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada_, 1852, p. 22.
[630] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 236.
[631] _Ibid._, p. 322.
The supervision of the colonies maintained by their respective
associations does not appear to have been unduly strict.
Occasionally controversies came up over what was thought by the
refugees to be improper assumption of authority by some agent
or representative of the association, but an examination of the
terms under which land was taken by the intending settlers brings
to light only such rules as were meant to foster intelligence,
morality and sobriety among the colonists. The aid societies were
not only zealous for education. They also provided against those
evil influences to which they thought the negroes were most likely
to succumb. Thus, for example, in the case of the Buxton[632] and
Refugees' Home settlements the manufacture and sale of intoxicants
were forbidden. Such regulations seem to have been sustained by
the sentiment of the communities for which they were made, and
are not known to have been the source of opposition. Indeed, the
directors of Buxton specially commended the habits of sobriety
prevalent among the people whose best interests they were striving
to promote,[633] and the Rev. William King found satisfaction in the
fact that a saloon opened on the borders of that settlement could
not find customers enough to support it, and closed its doors within
a twelvemonth. His testimony relating to the standard of social
purity mantained by the colonists was creditable in its showing,
and indicated a high sense of morality scarcely to be expected
among a people stained by the gross practices of slave-life.[634]
Of the colored people in the neighborhood of Dawn Institute the
reports were equally good. Mr. Drew found them to be "generally
very prosperous farmers--of good morals, and mostly Methodists and
Baptists."[635] Mr. Henson related with evident pride that out of
the three thousand or four thousand colored people congregated in
the settlements about Dawn not one had "been sent to jail for any
infraction of the laws during the last seven years (1845-1852)."[636]
[632] _Ibid._, pp. 294, 325.
[633] _Third Annual Report (1852)_, quoted by Drew, p. 293.
[634] Howe, _Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 109, 110.
[635] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 309.
[636] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, p. 118.
The widest range of dissatisfaction appeared at the Refugees' Home,
where the fugitives are reputed to have been unduly burdened.
Thomas Jones, not a colonist, and without any personal grievances
to complain of, voiced the feeling to Mr. Drew. After relating
some annoying changes made in the regulations as to the time in
which clearings were to be made, as to the size of the houses to be
erected and so forth, he declared that the settlers "doubt about
getting deeds, ... The restrictions in regard to liquor, and not
selling [their land] under so many years, nor the power to will ...
property to ... friends, only to children if ... [they] have any,
make them dissatisfied. They want to do as they please." From
this it appears that the population of Refugees' Home was not
altogether content with the local government under which it lived,
but apparently the complaints made were to be attributed more to the
unjust changes in the charter of the colony than to the moral régime
the Home Association sought to enforce.
In general we may say, then, that in so far as the three colonies
considered were typical of the whole class, there was nothing
inherent in the provisions of their constitutions or in the
nature of their organizations to place their members in a kind of
servitude. As property owners, these citizens became subject to
legitimate obligations, which might have been differently arranged,
but could scarcely have been less onerous or of better intention.
The requirement that ownership should be for a period of ten or
fifteen years, made by the Elgin and Refugees' Home societies,
was perhaps annoying; but the explanation, if not the full
justification, of such a demand lay in the evident desire of the
societies to give all purchasers ample time in which to make their
payments, and in the irresponsibility of the class with which they
were dealing.
It is impossible to tell how many landed colonies there were in
Canada. Dr. Howe, perhaps the best contemporary observer, speaks
indefinitely of benevolent persons that formed organizations at
various periods for the relief and aid of the refugees, and says
that these organizations generally took the form of societies for
procuring tracts of land and settling colonies upon them, but he
gives no further details.[637] Whatever their number, it is quite
certain that these colonies comprised but a small part of the
refugee population. The natural tendency was for fugitives to drift
at once to the towns, where there was immediate prospect of relief
and employment. In this way many of the Canadian centres came to
have an increasing proportion of colored inhabitants. The towns
first receiving such additions were naturally those of mercantile
importance in the lake traffic of the decades before the Civil War.
Thus, Amherstburg and Windsor, Port Stanley and Port Burwell, St.
Catherines, Hamilton and Toronto, and Kingston and Montreal, early
became important places of resort for escaped slaves.
[637] Howe, _Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 69.
The movement was normally from these and other centres on the lake
shore, or near it, to the interior. How rapid it was we can only
judge by the few chance indications that remain. During Drew's
travels in Canada West he learned that in 1832 the town of Chatham
was a mere hamlet comprising a few houses and two or three shops,
although the oldest deed of the place on record is dated 1801.
Steamboats did not begin to ply on the river Sydenham between
Chatham and Detroit until 1837. But long before this year, and, in
fact, at the first settlement of the town, colored people began to
come in.[638] When Levi Coffin made his first trip to Canada, in
1844, he visited a number of settlements of colored people scattered
along the river Thames north of Dawn, and found the colony at
Wilberforce already established.[639] This colony had been founded
as early as 1830, and because it was originally settled by a group
of emancipated slaves, it soon began to attract new settlers from
the incoming stream of runaways. By 1846 the more distant interior
was invaded. In that year the long strip of country stretching
from the western extremity of Lake Ontario across to Lake Huron,
and designated on the general map as Queen's Bush, was entered by
pioneers who had escaped from slavery. This region was not surveyed
until about 1848, and by that time there were as many as fifty
families located there.[640] Some time during the years 1845 to
1847, the Rev. R. S. W. Sorrick went as far north as Oro, where
he found "some fifty persons settled, many comfortable and doing
well, but many [suffering] a great deal from poverty."[641] The
surveying of the tract called Queen's Bush, and the subsequent
arranging of the terms of payment for land already occupied, caused
a number of colored settlers to sell their clearings in "the Bush"
and move away. Some of these, it appears, went south to Buxton, but
some went north to the shores of Georgian Bay and located at Owen
Sound.[642] From this testimony it is certain that by 1850 fugitive
slaves had found their way in considerable numbers throughout the
inter-lake portion of Canada West.
[638] _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 235.
[639] _Reminiscences of Levi Coffin_, p. 521.
[640] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 189.
[641] _Ibid._, p. 190.
[642] Drew, _North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 190.
Farther east, the Province of Quebec attracted negroes from the
Southern states as early as the thirties; and they began to make
pilgrimages northward by way of secret lines of travel through
New England. By 1850, there were at least five or six of these
lines, all well patronized, considering their remoteness from
slaveholding territory. Maritime routes, by way of ports along the
New England coast to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and even Cape
Breton Island, seem also to have existed. A case is cited by the
Rev. Austin Willey in his book, entitled _Anti-Slavery in the State
and Nation_, in which more than twenty colored refugees were sent
from Portland to New Brunswick at one time, soon after the rescue
of Shadrach in Boston, in 1851. It is reported that there are still
settlements of ex-slaves in Nova Scotia, near Halifax;[643] and the
statement has recently been made that "there are at least two negro
families living in Inverness County, Cape Breton, who are, in all
probability, the descendants of fugitive slaves."[644]
[643] A statement to this effect, which appeared in the _Marine
Journal_ of New York, is quoted in _McClure's Magazine_ for May,
1897, p. 618.
[644] See the letter signed "D. F.," printed in _McClure's
Magazine_, May, 1897, p. 618.
As regards this movement into the Eastern provinces, no detailed
information can be had. Even in the Western lake-bound region,
it was the towns that were the most accessible for the traveller
desirous of studying the condition of fugitives; most visitors
contented themselves with the briefest memorials of their visits;
and those whose accounts are at the same time helpful and extended,
describe or even mention only a limited number of abiding-places
of escaped slaves. Though Drew notices in his book but thirteen
communities, and Dr. Howe refers to eleven only, numerous other
places are mentioned by other observers. Sketching his first visit
to Canada, Mr. Coffin writes: "Leaving Gosfield County, we made our
way to Chatham and Sydenham, _visiting the various neighborhoods of
colored people_. We spent several days at the settlement near Down's
Mills, and visited the institution under the care of Hiram Wilson,
called the British and American Manual Labor Institute.... From
this place we proceeded up the river Thames to London, _visiting
the different settlements of colored people on our way_, and then
went to the Wilberforce colony."[645] After naming a list of
twelve towns near which refugees had settled, Josiah Henson says:
"Others are scattered in small numbers in different townships, and
at Toronto there are about four hundred or five hundred variously
employed...."[646] Such testimony goes to show that the refugee
population of Canada was widely distributed, both in the cities and
towns and in the country.
[645] _Reminiscences of Levi Coffin_, p. 251. The italics are my
own.
[646] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, p. 100.
If the information at hand in regard to the distribution of the
refugees is unsatisfactory, it can hardly be expected that the
numbers can now be ascertained. The official figures of the
successive Canadian censuses are untrustworthy. Dr. Howe, who
studied them, concluded that, "It is impossible to ascertain the
number of exiles who have found refuge in Canada since 1800.... It
is difficult, moreover, to ascertain the present number (1862). The
census of 1850 is confused. It puts the number in Upper Canada at
2,502 males and 2,167 females. But in a note it is stated, '_there
are about 8,000 colored persons in Western Canada_.' This word
"about" is an admission of the uncertainty; and as if to make that
uncertainty greater, the same census in another part puts the number
in Western Canada at 4,669." The census of 1860 Dr. Howe found to be
equally unreliable. In giving the colored population as 11,223, it
underrated the number greatly, as he discovered by looking into the
records of several cities and by making inquiry of town officers. In
this manner he learned that the number of colored people living in
St. Catherines was about 700, although the census showed only 472;
in Hamilton, probably more than 500, despite the government showing
of only 62; in Toronto, 934, although the census gave but 510; in
London, Canada West, as the mayor estimated, there were 75 families
of colored people, whereas the census showed only 36 persons. "There
has been no movement of the colored population," Dr. Howe tells
us, "sufficient to explain such discrepancies; and the conclusion
is that the census of 1850, and that of 1860, included some of the
colored people in the white column."[647]
[647] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 15,
16.
If the information contained in the census reports of the Canadas
relating to the refugee population of the provinces is misleading,
so also is it true that little value can be attached to the
estimates made at various times by visitors to the communities of
fugitives, most of whom had inadequate data upon which to base their
conclusions. These estimates not only differ widely, but sometimes
leave room for doubt as to what geographical area and period of time
they are intended to cover. Coffin in 1844 was told that there were
about forty thousand fugitives in Canada;[648] but eight years later
Henson estimated the number at between twenty thousand and thirty
thousand, and daily increasing.[649] In the same year (1852) the
Anti-Slavery Society of Canada in its _First Annual Report_ stated
that there were about thirty thousand colored residents in Canada
West.[650] The Rev. Hiram Wilson said from the lecture platform that
there were sixty thousand fugitives in Canada, and Elder Anthony
Bingey, a coworker with Mr. Wilson, who heard this estimate given
by his friend, informed the writer that Mr. Wilson had travelled
over the country from Toronto westward and was as competent a judge
as could be found in Ontario.[651] John Brown attended a conference
at Chatham in the spring of 1858, and his biographer, Mr. R. J.
Hinton, thinks there were probably not less than seventy-five
thousand fugitives living in Canada West at that time.[652] The
Rev. W. M. Mitchell, a negro missionary writing in 1860, was of
the opinion that there were sixty thousand colored people in Upper
Canada, that fifteen thousand of these were free-born, and that the
remaining forty-five thousand were fugitive slaves from the United
States.[653] The Rev. Dr. Willes, Professor of Divinity in Toronto
College, is quoted as having said that there were about sixty
thousand emancipated slaves in Canada, the most of whom had escaped
from bondage.[654] Dr. Howe came to the conclusion in 1863 that the
whole number of slaves enfranchised by residence in the provinces
was between thirty and forty thousand. He thought that at the time
of his visit the population did not fall below fifteen thousand nor
exceed twenty thousand; although other observers, he said, estimated
it as ranging from twenty thousand to thirty thousand.[655]
[648] _Reminiscences of Levi Coffin_, p. 253.
[649] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, Appendix, p. 99.
[650] Quoted by Howe in _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada
West_, p. 17.
[651] Conversation with Mr. Bingey, Windsor, Ont., July 31, 1895.
[652] _John Brown and His Men_, p. 171.
[653] _The Underground Railroad_, p. 127.
[654] _Ibid._, p. 166.
[655] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 15, 17.
Besides the diversity of the figures here presented, it should
be noted that most of the estimates refer only to Canada West;
and further that they take no account of the losses under a high
death-rate, due to the action of the new climatic conditions upon
the settlers. Travellers were not in possession of the elements
necessary for a computation, the resident missions were tempted to
overstate, and the Canadian officials did not know how to secure
data, and, perhaps, did not try to secure them fully. One can only
say that the numerous lines of Underground Railroad would not have
been taxed beyond their capacity to convey a number of refugees
equal to the highest estimate given above during the period these
lines are known to have been active.
The great majority of escaped slaves were possessed of but little
more than the boon of freedom when they arrived in what was for
them "the promised land." Church missions, anti-slavery societies
and colonies found in them worthy subjects for their benefactions,
which were intended to put the recipients in the way of earning
their own livelihood. The need of clothing, shelter and employment
was provided for as promptly as circumstances would allow, and the
fugitives soon came to realize that the efforts made in their behalf
were to help them attain that independence of which they had been so
long deprived.
As the region to which the refugees had recourse in largest numbers
was well covered with forests, and was beginning to be cleared
for tillage, a common occupation among them was that of the
woodsman. Many were able to hire themselves to the native farmers
to cut timber, while many others, who arranged to lease or buy
land, went to work to clear garden patches and little farms for
themselves. Josiah Henson sought to develop a lumber industry in
the neighborhood of Dawn by setting up a sawmill on the farm of
the British and American Institute, and shipping its products to
Boston and New York.[656] Such work, in a climate to which they were
unaccustomed, was an experience beyond the strength of some of the
fugitives; and their exposure to the cold of the Canadian winter
sowed the seeds of consumption in many.[657]
[656] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, p. 173 _et seq._
[657] This is substantiated by the testimony of various Canadian
refugees.
Farming appears to have been the occupation naturally preferred
by the refugees, and probably the majority of them looked forward
to owning farms.[658] It was the pursuit their masters followed,
and for which they themselves were best adapted. The way to it was
open through the demand for farm-hands on the part of many white
settlers, and the special encouragement frequently needed was
supplied by the example and aid of one or another of the colonies.
[658] _First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada_, p. 15.
It is not surprising that a considerable number of the fugitives
contented themselves with the present enjoyment of their newly
acquired liberty, and neglected to make provision for the future.
Such persons were quite ready to work, but were slow to understand
how they could acquire land in time, and secure the full profits
of their labor to themselves. The weight of enforced ignorance,
dependence and poverty was upon them. Not infrequently they entered
into profitless bargains, leasing wild lands on short terms, and
finding themselves dispossessed when their clearings were about
ready for advantageous cultivation.[659] Their knowledge of
agriculture was scanty, and their planting, in consequence, often
injudicious. They were, however, zealous to learn. The Rev. R. S.
W. Sorrick, who gave some instruction to the settlers at Oro in the
art of farming, declared them to be a most teachable people.[660]
The refugees at Colchester appear to have been equally open-minded
to the practical suggestions given them in a series of lectures on
"crops, wages and profit" delivered before them by Mr. Henson.
[659] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, pp. 165, 166;
Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 196, 369.
[660] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 120.
It is well known that among the slave-owners of the border states
the practice existed widely of entrusting some of their negroes
with the responsibilities of farm management; and that in the same
portion of the South slaves were often permitted to hire their
own time for farm labor; thousands of runaways also had gathered
experience in the free states before their emigration to Canada;
hence one is prepared in a measure to understand the rapid strides
made by a large class of the negro population in the country of
their adoption. Many of these people already had a gauge of their
ability, and were not afraid to go forward in the acquirement of
lands and homes of their own. To the advancement made by this
numerous class is due the favorable comment called forth from
observing persons, both Canadians and visiting Americans. Dr. Howe
has left us some interesting information concerning the condition of
refugee farmers in Canada. He found some cultivating small gardens
of their own near large towns, where they had a ready market for the
produce they raised; others, more widely scattered, tilled little
farms, which for the most part were clear of encumbrance; these
farms were "inferior to the first-class farms of their region in
point of cultivation, fences, stock and the like," but were "equal
to the average of second-class farms"; their owners lacked the
capital, intelligence and skill of the best farmers, but, far from
being lazy, stupid or thriftless, supported themselves in a fair
degree of comfort, and occupied houses not easily distinguishable
in appearance from the farmhouses of their white neighbors. The
miserable hut of the worthless negro squatter was occasionally to
be seen, but usually the rude cabin and small clearing marked the
spot where a newly arrived fugitive had begun his home, which in
due course was to pass through successive stages until it should
become a well-cleared farm, with good buildings and a large stock of
animals and tools.[661]
[661] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 65, 66. See
also Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 368.
A fact deplored by some friends of the refugees was the inclination
to congregate in towns and cities.[662] A committee of investigation
appointed by the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada reported in 1852
that, although many fugitives were scattered through the various
districts, the larger number was massing in certain localities,
those named being Elgin, Dawn and Colchester village settlements,
Sandwich, Queen's Bush, Wilberforce, Hamilton and St. Catherines,
together with the Niagara district and Toronto.[663] According to
Josiah Henson the towns about which these people were gathering were
Chatham, Riley, Sandwich, Anderton (probably Anderson), Malden,
Colchester, Gonfield (doubtless Gosfield), London, Hamilton and the
colonies at Dawn and Wilberforce.[664] Other centres undoubtedly
existed, though no exhaustive list of such places could be made from
the meagre accounts left us.
[662] Mitchell, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 128.
[663] _First Annual Report of the Society_, pp. 16, 17.
[664] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, p. 100.
The movement to the towns was natural, for friends and employment
were more easily to be found there than elsewhere. Certain parts or
quarters of the towns rapidly filled up with the negroes, and the
bonds of race and sympathy came into full play, causing constant
accretions of new settlers. This was especially true of Fort Malden
or Amherstburg, for years the principal port of entry for fugitives
landing from the Michigan and Ohio borders. The result in this
and similar cases was unsatisfactory; the people seemed not to do
as well as in other places.[665] In Hamilton and Toronto, we are
told, the dwellings of the blacks were scattered among those of
the whites, instead of being crowded together in a single suburban
locality more or less distinct from the city of which it formed a
part.[666] However, local conditions existing in Toronto, such as
rent charges, tended to confine the colored people to the northwest
section of the city.[667]
[665] Dr. Howe quotes the following statement from Mr. Brush,
town clerk of Malden: "A portion of them (the colored people)
are pretty well behaved, and another portion not.... A great
many of these colored people go and sail (are sailors) in the
summer-time, and in the winter lie around, and don't do much....
We have to help a great many of them, more than any other class
of people we have here. I have been clerk of the council for
three years, and have had the opportunity of knowing. I think
the council have given more to the colored people than to any
others." See also _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 58.
[666] _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 62.
[667] _Ibid._, p. 94.
A wide range of occupations was open to the refugees in the towns;
besides the lighter kinds of service about hotels and other public
houses, and the work of plastering and whitewashing, often performed
by negroes, various trades were followed, such as blacksmithing,
carpentering, building, painting, mill-work and other handicrafts.
There were good negro mechanics in Hamilton, Chatham, Windsor,
Amherstburg and other places. A few were engaged in shopkeeping,
or were employed as clerks, while a still smaller number devoted
themselves to teaching and preaching.
As a class the fugitives in the towns, as in the country, were
accounted steady and industrious, and their dwellings were said
to be "generally superior to those of the Irish, or other foreign
emigrants of the laboring class," and "far superior to the
negro huts upon slave plantations, which many of them formerly
inhabited."[668] Dr. J. Wilson Moore, of Philadelphia, visited
the refugee communities in various Canadian towns, for example
at Chatham, London and Wilberforce, and was favorably impressed
with what he saw; with the orderly deportment of the crowds of
colored people at Chatham while returning from a celebration of
the anniversary of the West Indian emancipation, with the air of
neatness and comfort displayed by the homes of the fugitives at
London, with the advance from log cabins to brick and frame-houses
made by the settlers at Wilberforce.[669] The weight of evidence
supplied by Mr. Drew was unquestionably favorable to the view
that the refugees were making substantial progress. He found the
condition of the colored people in Toronto such as to be a proper
cause of satisfaction for the philanthropist; many men in Hamilton
were well-to-do; concerning those living in London he learned that
some were highly intelligent and respectable, but that others
wasted their time and neglected their opportunities; he noted that
there was great activity among the negroes at Chatham, where they
engaged in a large variety of manual pursuits; at Windsor, almost
all the members of this class had comfortable homes, and some owned
neat and handsome houses; at Sandwich a few were house-owners, the
rest were tenants; in Amherstburg the assurance was given that the
colored people of Canada were doing better than the free negroes in
the United States; the settlers at New Canaan were reported to be
making extraordinary progress, considering the length of time they
had lived there; and out of a colored population of seventy-eight at
Gosfield all of the heads of families, with two or three exceptions,
were freeholders.[670] Dr. Howe, who visited the houses of the
colored people in the outskirts of Chatham and other large places,
described them as being for the most part small and tidy two-story
houses with garden lots about them, neatly furnished, the tables
decently spread and plentifully supplied. He was convinced that the
fugitive slaves lived better than foreign immigrants in the same
region, and clothed their children better.[671]
[668] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 63.
[669] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. xvii.
[670] _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 94, 119, 147, 234, 321,
344, 348, 376, 378.
[671] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 63, 64. See
also Mitchell's _Underground Railroad_, pp. 130, 131, 133, 135,
137-139, 142-144, 146, 148 _et seq._
The relation of the slave to his wife and children was a precarious
one in the South, especially in the border region from which most
of the Canadian exiles came. Slave-breeding for the Southern market
was extensively carried on in Virginia, Kentucky and other border
states; slave-traders made frequent trips through this section; and
their coming brought consternation, distress and separation to many
a slave-family. These and other violations of the domestic ties
might be expected to react on the home life of the slave-family,
tending to discourage regard for the forms of family life, and to
take away incentive to constancy. In view of such degradation it is
surprising to note the care taken by many refugees for the formal
legitimation of the alliances made by them in slavery. Once secure
in their freedom and in their domestic relations, they began to
substitute for the marriage after "slave fashion" the legal form of
marriage, which they saw observed about them in Canada. Dr. Howe
noticed that the fugitives settled themselves in families, respected
the sanctity of marriage, and showed a general improvement in
morals.[672]
[672] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 95, 101,
Appendix, pp. 109, 110. In her book, _A Woman's Life Work_, p.
193, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland reports some interesting cases of
this sort.
This recognition of a new standard of social virtue signifies a
great gain on the part of the refugees. As the withholding of any
real instruction from the slaves in the South helped to brutalize
them, so their moral elevation in Canada went hand in hand with
their enlightenment through schools and religious teaching. What
advantages were afforded them in the way of education in their new
abiding-place, and what measure of benefit did they derive from
these opportunities?
It appears that under the Canadian law colored people were permitted
either to send their children to the common schools or to have
separate schools provided from their proportionate share of the
school funds. In some districts, however, local conditions stood in
the way of the education of colored children. Many of the parents
did not appreciate the need of sending their children to school
regularly; it often happened that they were too destitute to take
advantage of these opportunities; again, they were unaccustomed to
the enjoyment of equal privileges with the whites and were timid
about assuming them. The children, unused to the climate of the new
country, perhaps also thinly clad, were sickly and often unable to
go to school.[673]
[673] Mitchell, _The Underground Railroad_, pp. 140, 164, 165.
Prejudice was also not wanting in some quarters among the whites.
In the town of Sandwich, on the Detroit River, in 1851 or 1852, the
feelings of the two people were much agitated over the question
of mixed schools.[674] The towns of Chatham, London and Hamilton
appear also to have been more or less affected by prejudice against
the negro.[675] Partly owing to this prejudice, and partly to their
own preference, the colored people, acting under the provision of
the law that allowed them to have separate schools, set up their
own schools in Sandwich and in many other parts of Ontario.[676]
Drew incidentally noted the existence of separate schools at
Colchester, Amherstburg, Sandwich, Dawn and Buxton; the existence
of private schools at London, Windsor and perhaps one or two other
places; and the presence of an extremely small number of colored
children in the common schools at Hamilton and London. Concerning
Toronto, he tells us that no distinction existed there in regard
to school privileges. Such figures as Drew supplies show the
separate, private and mission schools to have been more numerously
attended than the public or common schools. The former furnished
the conditions under which whatever appreciation of education there
was native in a community of negroes, or whatever taste for it
could be awakened there, was free to assert itself unhindered by
real or imagined opposition. That the refugees were capable of a
genuine interest in the schools provided for them, even under the
most disheartening circumstances, appears from the fact that "many
of the colored settlers were attracted to Dresden and Dawn by the
preferred advantages of education on the industrial plan in the Dawn
Institute."[677] Adults and children both attended; the schools of
the mission-workers were intended to reach as many as possible of a
constituency made up largely of grown persons. An evening school for
adults was established in Toronto, and had a good attendance.[678]
Sunday-schools were an important accessory, furnishing, as they did,
opportunities to many whose week days were full of other cares.
Mrs. Haviland's experience was probably that of mission-teachers
in other parts of Canada. On Sundays her schoolhouse was filled
to overflowing, many of her congregation coming five or six miles
to get to the meeting. The Bible was read with eagerness by those
whose ignorance required prompting at every word. The oppression of
past years was forgotten, for the hour, in the pleasure of learning
to read the Word of God. An aged couple, past eighty, were among
the most regular attendants.[679] The spread of the earnest desire
for knowledge shown in these meetings would suffice to explain
an observation made by Dr. Howe in 1863 to the effect that a
surprisingly large number could then read and write.[680]
[674] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 341, 342.
[675] _Ibid._, pp. 118, 147, 235.
[676] _Ibid._, p. 341.
[677] _Ibid._, p. 308.
[678] _First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada_, p. 15.
[679] _A Woman's Life Work_, pp. 192, 193.
[680] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 77.
An agency illustrative of the refugees' desire for self-improvement
was the association made up of local societies called "True Bands."
The first of these clubs was organized at Amherstburg or Malden in
September, 1854, and in less than two years there were fourteen such
societies in various parts of Canada West. The total membership of
the association is not known, but the True Band of Malden comprised
six hundred persons, and that of Chatham, on the first enrolment,
three hundred and seventy-five. Persons of both sexes were admitted
to membership, and a small monthly payment was required. The objects
of the association were comprehensive; they included the improvement
of the schools, the increase of the school attendance among the
colored people, the abatement of race prejudice, the arbitration
of disputes between colored persons, the employment of a fund for
aiding destitute persons just arriving from slavery, the suppression
of begging in behalf of refugees by self-appointed agents, and
so forth. The True Band at Malden did much good work; and in all
other places where the societies were formed it is reported that
excellent results were secured. These clubs demonstrated their
ability by concerted action to care for numerous strangers as they
arrived in Canada after their long pilgrimage.[681]
[681] Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 236, 237.
Another object of the True Band association was to prevent
divisions in the church, and as far as possible to heal those that
had already occurred. This provision was apparently intended to
serve as a check on the disposition of the refugees to multiply
churches. "Whenever there are a few families gathered together,"
wrote one observer, "they split up into various sects and each
sect must have a meeting-house of its own.... Their ministers have
canvassed the United States and England, contribution-box in hand;
and by appealing to sectarian zeal, got the means of building up
tabernacles of brick and wood, trusting to their own zeal for
gathering a congregation...."[682] This eagerness to build churches
has been criticised as consuming much of the time and substance of
the exiles, and causing division where union was desirable. But
if this side of the religious life and activities of the refugees
calls for condemnation, another side, which was fostered by the
new conditions, was the more marked manifestation of the religious
nature of the blacks in what has been well called in contrast with
their emotionalism the higher forms of conscience, morality and good
works.[683]
[682] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 92.
[683] _Ibid._
The minds of many of the Canadian exiles were ever going back to the
friends and loved ones they had left behind them on the plantations
of the South. Each new band of pilgrims as it came ashore at some
Canadian port was scanned by little groups of negroes eagerly
looking for familiar faces. Strange and solemn reunions after years
of separation and of hardship took place along the friendly shores
of Canada. But the fugitive that was safe in the promised land was
anxious to assist fortune, and as soon as he had learned to write or
could find an acquaintance to write for him, was likely to send a
letter to some trusted agent of the Underground Railroad for advice
or assistance in an attempt to release some slave or family of
slaves from their thraldom. Many, we know, took a more dangerous
method than this, and went personally to seek their relatives in
the South, and piloted them safely back to English soil; but the
appeal to anti-slavery friends in the States, while probably less
effective, sometimes secured the desired results. William Still,
the chairman of the Acting Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia,--a
position that brought him in contact with hundreds of escaped slaves
as they were being sent beyond our northern frontier,--was the
recipient of numerous letters entreating his aid for the deliverance
of the kinsmen of refugees.[684]
[684] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, 2d ed., pp. 59, 65,
105, 137, 193, 249, 263, 291, 293, 337, 385, 448, 490.
Fugitive slaves were admitted to citizenship in the provinces on the
same terms as other immigrants. Many of them became property owners
in the course of time, paid their allotted share of the taxes,
and thus gained the franchise; Dr. Howe examined the records of
several towns in 1862 and made comparisons of the amount of taxable
property owned by whites and blacks. According to his statement the
proportion of white rate or tax payers to the white population of
Malden was in the ratio of one to three and one-third; that of the
colored ratepayers of the town to the colored population, one to
eleven. The average amount paid by the whites was $9.52, while that
paid by the blacks was $5.12. In Chatham the white ratepayers were
"about one to every three and one-half of the white population,
and the colored about one to every thirteen of the colored
population." The average tax paid by white and black was $10.63
and $4.98 respectively. At Windsor it appears that the proportion
of ratepayers among the whites was as one to seven and one-fourth,
and among the blacks it was as one to five. Here the per capita
average was $18.76 for the former, and $4.18 for the latter.[685]
These towns, it is to be noted, were not colonies; and in them the
fugitives were offered no peculiar inducements to become the owners
of property. All things considered, the showing is highly creditable
for the negroes.
[685] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 61, 62.
The fact that they had been slaves did not debar the refugees
from the exercise of whatever political rights they had acquired.
The negro voters used their privilege freely in common with the
native citizens, allying themselves with the two regular parties of
Canada, the Conservative and the Reform.[686] In some communities
negroes were elected to office. The Rev. William King, head of the
Buxton Settlement, has mentioned the offices of pathmasters, school
trustees, and councillors as those to which colored men were chosen
within his knowledge. These, he said, were as high as the negro had
then attained, and he thought that white men would refuse to vote
for a black running for Parliament.[687] Dr. J. Wilson Moore, a
friend of the refugees, said of them in 1858 that their standing was
fair, and that the laws of the land made no distinction. He observed
that they did jury duty with their white neighbors, and served as
school directors and road commissioners. On the whole, he thought,
they were as much respected as their intelligence and virtue
entitled them to be.[688]
[686] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. xxvii.
[687] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, Appendix,
p. 108.
[688] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. xvii.
In view of the remarkable progress made by the refugees and of
their general serviceableness as settlers in the provinces, it
is easy to understand why the Canadian government maintained its
favorable attitude towards them to the end of the long period of
immigration. In 1859 the Governor-General testified to the favorable
opinion the central government entertained of the fugitives as
settlers and citizens by assuring the Rev. W. M. Mitchell that "We
can still afford them homes in our dominions"; and the Parliament
of Ontario manifested its interest in their continued welfare
by voting to incorporate the Association for the Education and
Elevation of the Colored People of Canada upon the showing that the
association would thereby be enabled to extend its philanthropic
labors among the blacks.[689] The Canadian authorities seem to
have become established in the view reached after a candid and
prolonged investigation by Dr. Howe, that the refugees "promote the
industrial and material interests of the country and are valuable
citizens."[690]
[689] Mitchell, _The Underground Railroad_, pp. 155, 156.
[690] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 102. William
Still, who made a trip through Canada West in 1855, expressed a
view similar to that above quoted, and added the words: "To say
that there are not those amongst the colored people in Canada,
as every place, who are very poor, ... who will commit crime,
who indulge in habits of indolence and intemperance, ... would
be far from the truth. Nevertheless, may not the same be said of
white people, even where they have had the best chances in every
particular?" _Underground Railroad Records_, p. xxviii.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVES IN BOSTON.
This church once stood near the house of Lewis Hayden, 66 Phillips
Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
(From an old engraving.)]
CHAPTER VIII
FUGITIVE SETTLERS IN THE NORTHERN STATES
There were many fugitives from bondage that did not avail themselves
of the protection afforded by the proximity of Canadian soil. For
various reasons these persons remained within the borders of the
free states; some were drawn by the affinities of race to seek
permanent homes in communities of colored people; some, keeping
the stories of their past lives hidden, found employment as well
as oblivion among the crowds in cities and towns; some, choosing
localities more or less remote from large centres of population,
settled where the presence of Quakers, Wesleyan Methodists,
Covenanters or Free Presbyterians gave them the assurance of safety
and assistance; and some, after a severe experience of pioneer
life in the woods of Canada, preferred to run their chances on
the southern shores of the lakes, where it was easier to gain a
livelihood, and whence escape could be made across the line at the
first intimation of danger.
As one would suppose, it is impossible to determine with any
accuracy how many fugitive settlers there were in the North at any
particular time. Estimates both local and general in character
have come down to us, and, naturally enough, one is inclined to
attach greater value to the former than to the latter, on the
score of probable correctness, but here the investigator is met
by the extreme paucity of examples, which, as it happens, are
confined to two towns in eastern Massachusetts, namely, Boston and
New Bedford. In October, 1850, the Rev. Theodore Parker stated
publicly that there were in Boston from four hundred to six hundred
fugitives.[691] Concerning the refugee population of New Bedford
our information is much less definite, for it is reported that
in that place there were between six hundred and seven hundred
colored citizens, many of whom were fugitives.[692] Nevertheless one
cannot doubt that the representatives of this class were numerous
and widely scattered throughout the whole territory of the free
zone, for reference is made by many surviving abolitionists not
only to individual refugees or single families of refugees that
dwelt in their neighborhood, but even to settlements a considerable
part of whose people were runaway slaves. Where conditions were
peculiarly favorable it was not an unknown thing for runaways to
conclude their journeys when scarcely more than within the borders
of free territory. The Rev. Thomas C. Oliver, of Windsor, Canada,
is authority for the statement that fugitive settlers swarmed among
their Quaker protectors at Greenwich, New Jersey, on the very edge
of a slave state.[693] In communities situated at greater distance
from the sectional line, like Columbus[694] and Akron,[695] Ohio,
Elmira[696] and Buffalo,[697] New York, and Detroit, Michigan, many
fugitives are known to have lived. The Rev. Calvin Fairbank relates
that, while visiting Detroit in 1849, he discovered several families
he had helped from slavery living near the city. He went to see
these families, and afterward wrote concerning them: "Living near
the Johnsons, and like them contented and comfortable, I found the
Stewart and Coleman families, for whom I had also lighted the path
of freedom."[698] In the vicinity of Sandy Lake, in the northwestern
part of Pennsylvania, there was a colony of colored people, most of
whom were runaway slaves.[699]
[691] _Chronotype_, Oct. 7, 1850.
[692] Clipping from the _Commonwealth_, preserved in a scrap-book
relating to Theodore Parker, Boston Public Library.
[693] Conversation with Mr. Oliver, Windsor, Ont., Aug. 2, 1895.
[694] Conversation with the Rev. James Poindexter, Columbus, O.,
summer of 1895.
[695] _History of Summit County, Ohio_, pp. 579, 580.
[696] Letters of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, N.Y.
[697] See p. 250, this chapter.
[698] _The Chicago Tribune_, Jan. 29, 1893.
[699] Letter of John F. Hogue, Greenville, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895.
Such evidence, which is local in its nature, should be considered
in conjunction with the general estimates of those persons that
expressed opinions after wide observation in regard to the whole
number of fugitive settlers in the North. The most indefinite of
these contemporary opinions is that of the veteran underground
helper, Samuel J. May, who states that "hundreds ventured to
remain this side of the Lakes."[700] Other judges attempt to put
their estimates into figures; thus, Henry Wilson thinks that by
1850 twenty thousand had found homes in the free states;[701] Mr.
Franklin B. Sanborn, admitting the inherent difficulty of the
calculation, places the number at from twenty-five thousand to fifty
thousand;[702] and the Canadian refugee, Josiah Henson, wrote in
1852: "It is estimated that the number of fugitive slaves in the
various free states ... amounts to 50,000."[703]
[700] _Some Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict_, p. 297.
[701] _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power_, Vol. II, p. 304; see
also E. B. Andrews' _History of the United States_, Vol. II, p.
36.
[702] Conversation with Mr. Sanborn, Cambridge, Mass., March,
1897.
[703] _The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated
by Himself_, p. 97.
Fugitives that thus dwelt in the Northern states for a longer or
shorter period did so at their own risk, and in general against the
advice of their helpers. Their reliance for safety was altogether
upon their own wariness and the public sentiment of the communities
where they lived, and until slavery perished in the Civil War they
were subjected to the fear of surprise and seizure. The Southern
people apparently regarded their right to recover their escaped
slaves as unquestionable as their right to reclaim their strayed
cattle, and they were determined to have the former as freely and
fully recognized in the North as the latter;[704] and it might be
added that there were not a few people in the North quite willing to
admit the slaveholder's right freely to reclaim his human property,
and to aid him in doing so. What the sentiment was that prevailed in
the North during the twenties and thirties of the present century is
evidenced in certain laws enacted by the legislatures of some of the
states in line with the Federal Slave Law of 1793. Thus, in an act
passed by the assembly of Pennsylvania, March 25, 1826, provision
was made for the issuance by courts of record of the commonwealth
of certificates or warrants of removal for negroes or mulattoes,
claimed to be fugitives from labor;[705] and in a law enacted by
the legislature of Ohio, February 26, 1839, it was provided that
any justice of the peace, judge of a court of record, or mayor
should authorize the arrest of a person claimed as a fugitive slave
on the affidavit of the claimant or his agent, and that the judge
of a court of record before whom the fugitive was brought should
grant a certificate of removal upon the presentation of satisfactory
proof.[706]
[704] James H. Fairchild, _The Underground Railroad, Tract No.
87_, in Vol. IV, Western Reserve Historical Society, p. 106.
[705] G. M. Stroud, _A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery_,
2d ed., 1856, pp. 281, 282.
[706] _Statutes of the State of Ohio_, 1841, collated by J. B.
Swan, pp. 595-600.
Among those that paid homage to such laws as these, and thus
made the North an unsafe refuge for slaves, were to be found
representatives of all classes of society. Samuel J. May opens to
view the convictions of some of the most cultured people of his day
by the following incidents related concerning two well-known New
England clergymen. "The excellent Dr. E. S. Gannett, of Boston, was
heard to say, more than once, very emphatically, and to justify it,
'that he should feel it to be his duty to turn away from his door
a fugitive slave,--unfed, unaided in any way, rather than set at
naught the law of the land.'
"And Rev. Dr. Dewey, whom we accounted one of the ablest expounders
and most eloquent defenders of our Unitarian faith,--Dr. Dewey was
reported to have said at two different times, in public lectures
or speeches during the fall of 1850 and the winter of 1851, that
'he would send his _mother_ into slavery, rather than endanger
the Union, by resisting this law enacted by the constituted
government of the nation.' He has often denied that he spoke thus
of his 'maternal relative,' and therefore I allow that he was
misunderstood. But he has repeatedly acknowledged that he did
say, 'I would consent that my own brother, my own son, should go,
_ten times rather_ would I go myself into slavery, than that this
Union should be sacrificed.'"[707] After the occurrence of the
famous Jerry rescue at Syracuse, October 1, 1851, many newspapers
representing both political parties emphatically condemned the
successful resistance made to the law by the abolitionists as "a
disgraceful, demoralizing and alarming act."[708]
[707] _Some Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict_, p. 367.
[708] _Some Recollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict_, p. 380.
The newspapers named by Mr. May are, _The Advertiser_ and _The
American_ of Rochester, _The Gazette_ and _Observer_ of Utica,
_The Oneida Whig_, _The Register_, _The Argus_ and _The Express_
of Albany, _The Courier_ and _Inquirer_ and _The Express_ of New
York.
There were not wanting in almost every community members of the
shiftless class of society that were always ready to obstruct the
passage of fugitive slaves to the North, and whose most vigorous
exercise was taken in the course of some slave-hunting adventure.
The Rev. W. M. Mitchell, who had had this class to contend with in
the performance of his underground work during a number of years in
Ohio, characterized it in a description, penned in 1860, in which
he sets forth one of the conditions that made the Northern states
an unsafe refuge for self-liberated negroes. "The progress of the
Slave," he wrote, "is very much impeded by a class of men in the
Northern States who are too lazy to work at respectable occupations
to obtain an honest living, but prefer to obtain it, if possible,
whether honestly or dishonestly, by tracking runaway slaves. On
seeing advertisements in the newspapers of escaped slaves, with
rewards offered, they, armed to the teeth, saunter in and through
Abolition Communities or towns, where they are likely to find the
object of their pursuit. They sometimes watch the houses of known
Abolitionists.... We are hereby warned, and for our own safety
and that of the Slave, we act with excessive caution. The first
discoverer of these bloody rebels communicates their presence to
others of our company, that the entire band in that locality is
put on their guard. If the slave has not reached us, we are on the
lookout, with greater anxiety than the hunters, for the fugitive,
to prevent his falling into the possession of those demons in human
shape. On the other hand should the Slave be so fortunate as to
be in our possession at the time, we are compelled to keep very
quiet, until the hunter loses all hopes of finding him, therefore
gives up the search as a bad job, or moves on to another Abolition
Community, which gives us an opportunity of removing the Fugitive
further from danger, or sending him towards the North Star...."[709]
[709] _The Underground Railroad_, pp. 13, 14.
It is not to be supposed, of course, that the business of
slave-hunting was carried on mainly by the persons here described
in such uncomplimentary terms. Persons of this type contented
themselves generally, no doubt, with acting as spies and informers,
and rarely engaged in the excitement of a slave-hunt except as the
aids of Southern planters or their agents. If it is true that there
was a sentiment averse to slavery prevailing through many years in
the North, it is also true that the residents of the free states
for the most part conceded the right of Southerners to pursue and
recover their fugitives without hindrance from their Northern
neighbors. The free states thus became what the abolitionists called
the "hunting-ground" of the South, and as early as 1830 or 1835
the pursuit of slaves began to attract wide attention. During the
years following many localities, especially in the middle states,
were visited from time to time by parties on the trail of the
fleeing bondman, or seeking out the secluded home of some self-freed
slave; and after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
Southerners became more energetic than before in pushing the search
for their escaped chattels. It has been recorded that "more than two
hundred arrests of persons claimed as fugitives were made from the
time of the passage of the Bill to the middle of 1856. About a dozen
of these were free persons, who succeeded in establishing the claim
that they never had been slaves; other persons, equally free, were
carried off. Half a dozen rescues were made, and the rest of these
cases were delivered to their owners. These arrests took place more
frequently in Pennsylvania than in any other Northern state. Many
fugitives were caught and carried back, of whom we have no accounts,
save that they were seen on the deck of some river steamboat, in the
custody of their owners, without even passing through the formality
of appearing before a commissioner. About two-thirds of the persons
arrested as above had trials. When the arrests to the number of two
hundred, at least, can be traced, and their dates fixed, during six
years, we may suppose that the Bill was not, as some politicians
averred, practically of little consequence."[710]
[710] Weiss, _Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker_, Vol.
II, p. 93.
Concerning the efficiency of the new law there is a difference of
opinion among the contemporary writers that commented upon it;
but there could be no disagreement as to the distress into which
it plunged some of the refugees long resident in the free states.
In not a few instances these persons had married, acquired homes,
and were rearing their families in peace and happiness. Under the
Fugitive Slave Act some of these settlers were seized upon the
affidavit of their former owners, and with the sanction of the
federal authority were carried back into slavery. Among the many
cases that might be cited the following will serve to illustrate the
misfortunes ever ready to be precipitated upon fugitive settlers
in the Northern states. In 1851 John Bolding, claimed as the
property of a citizen of Columbia, South Carolina, was arrested in
Poughkeepsie, New York, and taken back to the South. Bolding was a
young man of good character, recently married, and the possessor
of a small tailor shop in Poughkeepsie.[711] In August, 1853,
George Washington McQuerry, of Cincinnati, was remanded to slavery
in Kentucky. He had lived several years in Ohio, had married a
free woman, and they had three children.[712] In September, 1853,
a family of colored persons at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, were
claimed as slaves by a Virginian. Their statement that they had
been permitted by their master to visit friends in Fayette County
did not prevent their immediate restoration to him.[713] In May,
1857, Addison White, a runaway from Kentucky, was found living
near Mechanicsburg, Ohio, where he had been at work about six
months earning means to send for his wife and children. Some of the
abolitionists of the neighborhood prevented his reclamation.[714]
In three of these cases at least the reënslavement of the refugees
was prevented by an abolition sentiment locally strong enough to
lead to the purchase of the slaves from their claimants; but it is
noteworthy that public opinion in the neighborhoods where these
runaways lived was unable to shield them from capture.
[711] _The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims_, by Samuel May,
Jr., 1861, p. 19.
[712] _Ibid._, p. 31. See Appendix B, p. 374.
[713] _Ibid._, p. 68 _et seq._
[714] See Appendix B, p. 375.
The refugees that preferred to settle in the Northern states rather
than in Canada naturally made homes for themselves in anti-slavery
communities among tried friends. Here they could rest with some
assurance upon the benevolence of these localities and feel safe,
although their liberty was still in danger. A slave-hunter in
entering such neighborhoods was obliged to move with great caution;
he was in the midst of strangers, with few allies, and his scheme
was likely to fail if his presence became known. Sometimes, when
he was in the very act of leading the captive back to the South
in bonds, he would find his progress interrupted by a crowd, his
authority questioned, his return to the office of a magistrate
insisted upon, and ultimately, perhaps, his prisoner released by a
procedure more or less formal. The slave-hunter that incautiously
flourished weapons and made threats was likely to be arrested and
subjected to such additional delays and inconveniences as would
render his undertaking expensive as well as vexatious. There can
be no doubt that this was the experience of many slave-owners that
sought to recover their servants in the free states. Mr. Clay
touched on this point, April 22, 1850, in presenting petitions to
the United States Senate from four citizens of Kentucky. These
persons, he said, "state that each of them has lost a slave.... That
these slaves have taken refuge in the state of Ohio, and that it is
in vain for them to attempt to recapture them; that they cannot go
there and attempt to recover their property without imminent hazard
to their lives."[715] This statement, reiterating the idea contained
in the petitions themselves, namely, that the danger attending
pursuit was great, is too strong in reference to a large number of
the abolition communities in the Northern states, in many of which
non-resistance principles were advocated. At the same time it must
be remembered that the usual methods of slave-catchers were not
conciliatory to the people among whom they went, and that their
bravado sometimes secured for them rough treatment at the hands of
a mob, especially if the number of colored people present was large
enough to warrant their venting their outraged feelings.
[715] _Congressional Globe_, New Series, Vol. XXII, Part I, p.
793.
The difficulty of recovering slave property in the North had been
considerable for some years, and it was steadily growing greater.
The uncertainty of reclamation in the large number of cases made
the whole business unprofitable and undesirable for slave-owners.
A writer in the _North American Review_ for July, 1850, says,
"Though thousands of slaves have escaped by crossing the Ohio
River, or Mason and Dixon's line, during the last five years, no
attempt has been made to reclaim them in more than one case out of
a thousand."[716] If one takes this statement as meant to convey
merely the idea that the number of pursuits was extremely small in
proportion to the number of escapes there will be no difficulty
in accepting it, for probably this was the fact down to 1850; and
the explanation of it, so far as can be gathered from the lips of
Southern men, is to be found in the strong probability of failure in
undertaking these costly enterprises. Thus Mr. Mason, of Virginia,
in his argument in favor of a new fugitive slave law, declared that,
under the existing conditions, "you may as well go down into the
sea and endeavor to recover from his native element a fish which
has escaped from you, as expect to recover a ... fugitive. Every
difficulty is thrown in your way by the population.... There are
armed mobs, rescues. This is the real state of things."[717]
[716] F. Bowen on "Extradition of Fugitive Slaves," Vol. LXXI, p.
252 _et seq._
[717] _Congressional Globe_, Thirty-first Congress, First
Session, p. 1583; also M. G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_, p. 31.