Enslaved Blacks in the United States, seeking freedom, often fled to Canada, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 compelled citizens in free states to help slave-catchers apprehend them. Although they frequently faced racial prejudice in their new country and struggled with discriminatory hiring policies, they were free to make their own decisions and realize their dreams. In the words of one freedom seeker, Mrs. Christopher Hamilton of London, Canada West, "I thought it best to come to Canada and live as I pleased" (Primary Document Reader, 12), and Mrs. Hamilton was not alone in that.
Narratives of former slaves (freedom seekers) from Canada often note the challenges of racial prejudice but also the greater quality of life enjoyed in Canada when compared even with life in the northern, free United States. Scholar Kate Clifford Larson comments:
Newly arrived former slaves struggled with discrimination, prejudice, and racism. Many cities and towns refused to educate young black children, for instance, in integrated classrooms, forcing black communities to establish, staff, and fund private segregated schools. In some ways, the situation in Canada was little different from that in the northern states [of the USA].
In Canada, however, blacks enjoyed political liberties not often shared by African Americans in the northern United States. Under Canadian law, blacks were guaranteed the same rights as whites; they could vote, serve as jurors, testify in court, own property, and run for political office. Racism and discrimination tempered the enjoyment of those rights, but for many former slaves who had fled from the South, a life of freedom and relative independence in Canada far outweighed the myriad of prejudices and indignities they faced in the North.
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The former slave narratives from Canada, only a small sample given below, testify to the truth of Larson's observations. All the former slaves interviewed had done quite well for themselves and, even acknowledging the difficulties of discrimination – such as were endured during Ellen and William Craft's Escape through Canada – or many far worse, preferred life in Canada even to the Northern United States and, of course, far more than their lives as slaves in the South.
Black Communities in Canada
A common response to racial prejudice in Canada was the formation of all-Black communities. Many former slaves established themselves in Black communities such as Wilberforce Colony in London, Canada West (known as Upper Canada, now part of Ontario), founded by the fugitive slave, James C. Brown in 1829, the Sutton Township in Canada East (now part of Quebec), or the Dawn Settlement, established in 1834 by Josiah Henson (1789 to 1883). Henson, who escaped from slavery in Maryland, is thought to have been the model for the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
The most successful Black community was the Elgin Settlement (in modern North Buxton, Ontario) which included the Buxton Mission, where many former slaves were educated and learned necessary skills, including Anna Maria Weems (circa 1840 to circa 1863), who escaped slavery in Rockville, Maryland, posing as a young Black carriage driver and assisted by the Underground Railroad.
American abolitionists working with the Underground Railroad – including Passmore Williamson (1822-1895) and William Still (1819-1902) – sent many freedom seekers on to Canada, and Harriet Tubman (circa 1822-1913) led groups there personally. Once arrived, the former slaves made their own way as they saw fit.
Although pro-slavery propaganda in the United States attempted to paint a bleak picture of a former slave's life in Canada, narratives of former slaves completely contradict the slaveholders' claims. Even the poorest Black in Canada was free after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 went into effect in 1834 and preferred whatever financial struggles they faced to a life in bondage. Many former slaves, if not most, did quite well in Canada, and the following sampling of slave narratives attests to this.
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The following narratives are taken from Primary Document Reader – Across the Border: A Transnational Approach to Teaching the Underground Railroad, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the Harriet Tubman Institute.
HENRY WILLIAMSON (Hamilton, Canada West)
I came from the State of Maryland, where I was a slave from birth until thirty-three years of age, in a small town.
Around that part of the country, the slaves are better treated than in some other parts because they are so near the line. They are better used than they were a few years ago. I was taught to read but not to write I used to tell my boss that I wouldn't stand such treatment as the people got on some farms. He used to laugh and say, "you wouldn't, eh?" There was one Gen.–had a slave, and it was town talk, that his overseer, by his order, dug a hole in the ground, and set a man in it as if he had been a post, and then cut him so badly with a whip that he died in about half an hour.
My father was sold about twelve years ago and taken west. About two years ago, I came away because I wanted to be free. The circumstances were these. I had then been married about ten years. My wife's sister was sold at private sale to a trader to go south and was carried away. Her father and mother were dissatisfied with this and concluded to go to Canada. I concluded to start with them with my family. In all eighteen of us came away at one time. We were more troubled on the way from want of money than from any other cause.
Those who came out with me, are scattered in various parts of Canada. I have heard from them, and they are doing well. We came like terrapins, – all we had on our backs. We took a house together when we came, – the house was bare of furniture: there was nothing in it at all. We had neither money nor food. It was in the fall: we gathered chips and made a fire. That is the way the principal part of our people come: poor, and destitute, and ignorant, their minds uncultivated, and so they are not fitted for business. In the face of these drawbacks, they have to do the best they can. I went to work on a railroad, – to which I was wholly unused, having been a waiter. I worked at it till I found something I could do better. I enjoy better health here than I ever did before in my life.
I heard when I was coming that Canada was a cold and dreary country; but it is as healthy a place as a man can find. The colored people tell me the climate agrees with them, and I do know it is so.
Some of our people are very jealous of the white people. If they approach them with the best intentions in the world, they are suspicious, and will not communicate anything, even if it were to their own benefit. This is because they have been so much deceived and kept down by the white people. I have seen people who had run away, brought back tied, like sheep, in a wagon. Men have told me, that when making their escape, they have been accosted, invited into a house in a friendly way, and next thing, some officer or their owner would be there. The lowest class of people do this to get money, – men who might get an honest living, – some having good education, and some good trades.
Others who owned servants used to find fault with my master and mistress for using us so well. They did use us well, and I would not have left them only for the love of liberty. I felt that I was better off than many that were slaves, but I felt that I had a right to be free.
In all places and among all kinds of men there are some loafing characters: so with my color. Some few of them get in with poor, low, white young men, and get into bad ways. But the better part are disposed to elevate themselves.
I am a member of the Methodist church, having had good religious instruction from Bible and catechism from my youth up.
I have heard that my master has set his older slaves free.
Contrasting what I feel now and what I was in the south, I feel as if a weight were off me. Nothing would induce me to go back, – nothing would carry me back. I would rather be wholly poor and be free, than to have all I could wish and be a slave. I am now in a good situation and doing well, – I am learning to write.
MRS. CHRISTOPHER HAMILTON (London, Canada West)
I left Mississippi about fourteen years ago. I was raised a house servant, and was well used, – but I saw and heard a great deal of the cruelty of slavery. I saw more than I wanted to – I never want to see so much again.
The slaveholders say their slaves are better off than if they were free, and that they prefer slavery to freedom. I do not, and never saw one that wished to go back. It would be a hard trial to make me a slave again. I had rather live in Canada, on one potato a day, than to live in the South with all the wealth they have got.
I am now my own mistress and need not work when I am sick. I can do my own thinkings, without having any one to think for me, – to tell me when to come, what to do, and to sell me when they get ready.
I wish I could have my relatives here. I might say a great deal more against slavery – nothing for it. The people who raised me failed; they borrowed money and mortgaged me. I went to live with people whose ways did not suit me, and I thought it best to come to Canada, and live as I pleased.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON (London, Canada West)
I was brought up in St. Louis, Mo., – was not very badly used, except that I was not taught to read nor write, – I was not used well enough to stay there. I have seen many very badly used, and many sent down the river to the south. It was a common thing to take off a drove for a cotton farm. I never heard that it was intended to sell me; but I knew it might be so, and I thought I would make hay while the sun shone.
I left St. Louis in '34, at the age of about eighteen. We don't know our ages exactly. I knew one man to cut off the fingers of his left hand with an axe, to prevent his being sold South. I knew of another who, on hearing that he was sold, shot himself: I saw physicians dissecting this man afterward.
I knew of a woman who had several children by her master, who, on being sold, ran down to the river and drowned herself: I saw the body after it was taken from the water. I think that God made all men to be free and equal, – not one to be a slave.
Other nations have abolished slavery, and there is no reason why the United States cannot do the same thing. We would many of us like to live in the United States were it not for slavery.
Many separations I have seen, – dragging husbands from wives, children from their mother, and sending them where they could not expect to see each other again.
I reached Canada in 1834. I had only a dollar and a half. I had no need to beg, for I found work at once. I have done well since I came here: have made a good living and something more. I own real estate in London, – three houses and several lots of land. It is a healthy country–Canada.
The colored people in London are all making a living: there is no beggar among them. Some of us would like to live in the South if slavery was done away with, and the laws were right. I am naturalized here and have all the rights and privileges of a British subject.
MRS. HENRY BRANT (Sandwich, Upper Canada)
I am from Maryland. I suffered the worst kind of usage: that of being held as a slave.
I was fortunately among those who did not beat and bruise me. I was gambled off to a trader by my owner. I made such a fuss, (and the people told him 't was a shame to let me go to a trader, – that I was too good a girl for that, having taken care of him in sickness, – that I ought to have had a chance to find someone to buy me,) that he felt ashamed of what he had done, and bought me back.
Then he gave me a chance to buy myself, – gave me one year to pay $270: before the year was out, I offered him $150 in part payment, – he wouldn't take that unless I'd pay all. I then asked him, would he take that, and security for $120, payable six months after, and give me my papers down. He refused. Then I said to myself, "If you won't take that, you shan't take any." I started for Canada, and travelled in style, – he couldn't take me.
My sister was a freewoman. She was to buy me, and pay $270, and I was to be the security. But he overreached himself: for he drew the paper in such a way, that he could not get the money of my sister. Had I overstayed the year, I would never have seen Canada; for then I would have been carried back to the eastern shore.
One thing which makes it bad about getting our children into school here is, we are so near Detroit. The people here would feel ashamed to have the Detroit people know that they sent the white into the same school with the colored. I have heard this from a white woman.
