North Star of Freedom?
African-Americans in Canada
in the Days of the Underground Railroad
In the United States, we often forget that the American Revolution had losers as well as winners. Many Americans fought for Britain, and against independence. At the end of the war, some 30,000 Loyalists left for British protection, heading north to Canada.
They were the first Americans to look for freedom to the north. In the long run, far fewer Americans would go to Canada than Canadians would come to the U.S. But the Americans who left would have a significant impact on Canada. These Americans make an irregular group, ranging from the Loyalists to escaped slaves, religious minorities, draft dodgers, and even –for five years– Dakota chief Sitting Bull. Nearly all Americans who migrated to Canada went for political reasons. And these reasons all amount to the same complaint: a fear of exclusion and persecution in the United States. They were received and even welcomed by Canada, a nation eager for immigrants and sometimes also eager to show itself more tolerant and peaceful than the United States.
One of the most extraordinary groups to come to Canada was the more than thirty thousand escaped slaves and free blacks who headed north in the decades before the U.S. Civil War. As black leader and escaped slave Harriet Tubman declared, "I wouldn’t trust Uncle Sam with my people no longer, I brought them all clear off to Canada." The experience of those courageous migrants in Canada is the subject of this lesson.
I'm on my way to Canada
That cold and distant land
The dire effects of slavery
I can no longer stand–
Farewell, old master,
Don't come after me.
I'm on my way to Canada
Where coloured men are free.
-George W. Clark, "The Free Slave," around 1850
Abolition
In the late 1700s, a growing movement had been called for the abolition of slavery. During the last decades of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th, they mounted campaigns in England and North America to gradually eliminate slavery by limiting its expansion, outlawing the slave trade, freeing children of slaves and eventually freeing all the slaves outright. Led by prominent Quakers and Evangelicals, the abolitionists saw their cause as a righteous struggle. Their opponents saw slavery as a God-given right. During the last years of the 18th century, abolitionists would begin to see results for their long crusade, as several of the Northern states in the newly formed United States outlawed slavery or the slave trade, and slavery was also banned from the Northwest Territory, bordering Canada.
Some Loyalists had brought slaves with them to Canada, and were trying to strengthen the institution of slavery in Canada. But they would be defeated. As the northern parts of the United States had abolished slavery, many slaves in Canada fled south. And as slavery in the middle and southern states of the U.S. grew stronger, the British government wished to make its differences clear. In 1793, a local law banned the introduction of more slaves into Upper Canada and freed the children of slaves when they turned twenty-five. This was a weak compromise. Some of the supporters of the law were slave owners themselves, and this did nothing to eliminate slavery outright. But it began a gradual erosion that would lead to the effective elimination of slavery within decades.
When England and the United States went to war in 1812, this process would be accelerated. Although the Americans thought that conquering Canada would be easy, this turned out to be false; instead, the British captured Washington and burned the White House. Among the troops fighting on the British side were several black units, and from them word spread of the promises of life in the north. More than 2,000 slaves would join the British forces and emigrate to Canada at the end of the war. This was the beginning of a much larger migration. It would be sparked by two processes. Abolitionists in England would win their long struggle, and in 1833 slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. Within the United States, on the other hand, abolition faced a more difficult task, as the struggle over the future of slavery became more brutal, and the position of free blacks weaker.
The Underground Railroad
Slavery had been abolished in the northern United States. But growing tensions made the situation of free blacks more and more difficult. If the existence of slavery already meant for many blacks that the American promises of freedom and equality were a lie (see Document 1), the 1850 "Fugitive Slave Act" made even free blacks vulnerable to being kidnapped and dragged back into slavery.
In this difficult situation, Canada became an ideal destination. Not far from the United States, and especially close to the area in Northern New York where abolition was strongest, were lands where black people could be free of the fear of slavery, and allowed to own property and pursue a common future in peace. In the 1830s and 1840s, groups of white and black abolitionists began crossing the border and settling in Canada. Initially welcomed by the British government, these settlements were given idealistic names. One was called "Dawn," another "Wilberforce," after the British politician who had led the parliamentary struggle for abolition.
Black abolitionist James Holly saw Canada as "a beacon of hope to the slave, and a rock of terror to the oppressor." By showing what blacks could achieve by organizing their own lives, these settlements gave the lie to racist ideas of black inferiority. They also became the final destination of the "Underground Railroad," the secret network that abolitionists had set up to spirit slaves out of the south to freedom. Many of the leaders of the Canadian settlements were black, and often escaped slaves themselves. Their settlements were outposts in the wilderness, but also bases for operations, the places from which they wished to transform the whole continent. That they had to be placed in Canada was both a sign of the inventiveness of the leaders and of the desperation of their situation, at a time when even the movement to oppose slavery was often deeply racist against blacks themselves.
The "Underground Railroad" may have had a larger life in myth than in fact; certainly many of the most well-known slaves escaped on boat or through other paths, and more often along the East Coast than through the secret paths in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The slaves who did escape were overwhelmingly from the border states, where slavery was less prevalent, and often had been in relatively privileged positions, within the massively oppressive overall system of slavery. In short, the "Underground Railroad" did lead thousands out of the South, and over thirty thousand to Canada, massively increasing the black presence there. But by itself, it did not overthrow slavery, nor did it seem to seriously threaten slavery in its heartland in the Deep South.
Yet some of the most powerful threats to slavery did come from Canada. It was from Canada that John Brown launched his desperate raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, hoping to steal weapons and launch a slave insurrection. The colonies founded by free blacks and escaped slaves were one of the most important sites for testing out freedom, for trying to rebuild black communities, an experience the entire South would live through during Reconstruction. Several of the architects of Reconstruction, in fact, spent time before and during the Civil War in Canada.
It is from this period that the documents in this lesson come. They both show the enormous gratitude that many blacks felt towards Canada (and Britain), and also suggest the limits to that gratitude. On the one hand, many had left family behind in the United States, and with the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the great majority would return. The experiment in freedom in Canada would come to a close.
But this experiment did not only fail because of the enduring ties "of birth and misfortune" to the United States. It was also a function of racism and exclusion in Canada. Before the Civil War, the British authorities had welcomed blacks, but this welcome had not included many resources to help them. After the Civil War, the British provinces would be united as British North America, and there would be little place in this dominion for blacks. The utopian settlements would become segregated towns. At a time when official policy was founded on attracting immigrants, black immigration would be quietly blocked. Having come up against the limits of freedom in Canada, blacks would return to the United States to carry out the failed revolution of Reconstruction, and then live the enduring oppression of segregation.
Documents1. Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"
2. William Grose,"I am a true British subject"
3. Harriet Tubman,"We were always uneasy"
4. Alexander Helmsley,"My American blood has been scourged out of me"
5. Austin Steward, "Allied to this country by birth and misfortune"
6. James Holly, Voice from the "Green Mountains"Back to Top
1. Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"
Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Speech Given in Rochester, NY, 5 July 1852.
An escaped slave and leading abolitionist, Frederick Douglass was also a great orator. This document is an excerpt from a speech he gave on 5 July 1852 about the meaning of freedom in a country of slavery.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, extended to us?… I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us…The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…
The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense and your Christianity as a lie… It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement; the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes.
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2. William Grose, "I am a true British subject"
William Grose, interview in Benjamin Drew, The Refugee: A North-Side View of Slavery (Boston: John Jewett, 1854), 59.
I served twenty-five years in slavery, and about five I have been free. I feel now like a man, while before I felt more as though I were but a brute…. I have the rights and privileges of any other man. I am now living with my wife and children, and doing very well. When I lie down at night, I do not feel afraid of oversleeping, so that my employer might jump on me if he pleased. I am a true British subject, and I have a vote every year as much as any other man. I often used to wonder in the United States, when I saw carriages going round for voters, why they never asked me to vote. But I have since found out the reason –I know they were using my vote instead of my using it– now I use it myself. Now I feel like a man, and I wish to God that all my fellow-creatures could feel the same freedom that I feel… Here’s something I want to say to the colored people in the United States: You think you are free there, but you are very much mistaken: if you wish to be free men, I hope you will all come to Canada as soon as possible.
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3. Harriet Tubman, "We were always uneasy"
Harriet Tubman, interview in Benjamin Drew, The Refugee: A North-Side View of Slavery (Boston: John Jewett, 1854), 20.
Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave and perhaps the greatest black abolitionist leader.
I grew up like a neglected weed –ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented; every time I saw a white man I was afraid of being carried away. I had two sisters carried away in a chain-gang –one of them left two children. We were always uneasy. Now I’ve been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave. I have no opportunity to see my friends in my native land. We would rather stay in our native land, if we could be as free there as we are here. I think slavery is the next thing to hell. If a person would send another into bondage, he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him into hell, if he could.
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4. Alexander Helmsley, "My American blood has been scourged out of me"
Rev. Alexander Helmsley, interview in Benjamin Drew, The Refugee: A North-Side View of Slavery (Boston: John Jewett, 1854), 25-27.
Born a slave in Maryland, Helmsley escaped to New Jersey at age 23. Eight years later, slave-catchers came for him. Friends brought his case to the New Jersey Supreme Court. He won, and was freed once more: but he did not trust in his safety, and fled to Canada.
When I reached English territory, I had a comfort in the law –that my shackles were struck off, and that a man was a man by law. I had been in comfortable circumstances, but all my little property was lawed away. I was among strangers, poverty-stricken, and in a cold country. I had been used to farming, and so could not find in the city such assistance as I needed: in a few days, I left for St. Catharines, where I have ever since remained…
Contrasting my condition here with what it was in New Jersey, I say, that or years after I came here, my mind was continually reverting to my native land. For some ten years, I was in hopes that something might happen, whereby I might return to my old home in New Jersey. I watched the newspapers and they told the story. I found that there would be a risk in going back –and that was confirmed by many of my fellow men falling into the same catastrophe that I did– and the same things happen now.
When I reached St. Catherine’s I was enfeebled in health. I had come to a small inferior place; there were pines growing all about here where now you see brick houses. I rented a house, and with another man took five acres of cleared land, and got along with it very well. We did not get enough from this to support us but I got work at half a dollar or seventy-five cents a ay and board myself. We were then making both ends meet. I then made up my mind that slat and potatoes in Canada, were better than pound-cake and chickens in a state of suspense and anxiety in the United States. Now I am a regular Britisher. My American blood has been scourged out of me; I have lost my American tastes; I am an enemy to tyranny…. When you go back home, remember poor Joseph in Egypt.
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5. Austin Steward, "Allied to this country by birth and misfortune"
Austin Steward, Twenty-Two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Freeman (Rochester, 1857) , 110-111, 194-198
A freed slave and black community leader in New York, Steward became intimately involved in abolition work and headed up a free community in Canada.
The poor, persecuted colored people, had in the mean time made ready for their flight from their homes, their native land, and from this boasted free Republic to seek a residence in the cold and dreary wilds of Canada; to claim that protection from the English government which had been denied them in the land of their birth…
The township was one unbroken wilderness when purchased for the colony, and of course their lands must be cleared of the heavy timber before crops could be got in, hence, there was a great deal of destitution and suffering before their harvest could ripen after the land was prepared for the seed.
The day after I arrived at the settlement, which consisted of a few rude log cabins, a meeting was called to give the township a name. Several were suggested, but I at length motioned to name it in honor of the great philanthropist, Wilberforce. This was carried, and the township from that time has been known by that name. It is situated on what is known as the Huron Tract, Kent County, London District, and is the next north of the township of London. Our neighbors on the south, were a company of Irish people, who owned the township, and on the west side were a township of Welshmen, hardy, industrious and enterprising people.
I returned from Canada… and I determined I would remove there with my family, and do all in my power to assist the colored people in Canada…. I felt willing to make any sacrifice in my power to serve my Lord, by administering to the necessities of my down-trodden countrymen. How far my desire has been accomplished God only knows, but I do know that the purest motives influenced me, and an honest purpose directed my steps in removing to Wilberforce....
What inducement then, has the slave to shoulder his musket, when the American drum beats the call, "To Arms! To Arms!" Does he not remember that the wife of his bosom; the children –"bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh"– and the rude hearthstone they for a time are allowed to surround, belong not to himself, but to the tyrannical master, who claims dominion over all he possesses. As his property then, let the slave owner go further in defense of his own, and lay down his life if he please; but the poor slave has no home, no family to protect; no country to defend; nor does he care to assist in sustaining a government that instead of offering him protection, drives him from the soil which has been cultivated by his own labor –to be at the hand of England’s Queen, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Humiliating as it is for an American citizen to name these things, they are nevertheless true; and I would to God that America would arise in her native majesty, and divest herself of the foul stain, which Slavery has cast upon her otherwise pure drapery! Then would she be no longer a hising and by-word among the nations; but indeed what she professes to be, "the land of the free, and the home of the brave;" an asylum for the oppressed of every clime.
But should the monarchical government of England call for the services of the colored man, freely would his heart’s blood be poured out in her defense –not because he has a particular preference for that form of government; not because he has ceased to love his native country –but because she has acknowledged his manhood, and given him a home to defend. Beneath the floating banner of the British lion, he finds inducements to lay down his life, if need be, in defense of his own broad acres, his family and fireside –all of which were denied him under the Stars and Stripes of his fatherland….
Is not the necessity of an "underground railroad," a disgrace to the laws of any country? Certainly it is, yet I thank God that it afford a means of escape to many, and I pray that the blessings of Heaven may ever rest upon those who willingly superintend its interests. Oh, my country! When will the laws, just and equal, supersede this humiliating necessity!
Is the reader about to throw the blame of our nation’s wrong on England, and accuse her of first tolerating Slavery? We admit it; but did she not repent of the evil she had done, and speedily break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free?….
If the American people flatter themselves with the idea of getting rid of the hated negro race, by colonizing them on the sickly soil of Liberia, or any other country, they will surely find themselves mistaken. They are Americans, allied to this country by birth and misfortune; and here they will remain –not always as now, oppressed and degraded– for all who have any interest in the matter, well know that the free colored people are rapidly advancing in intelligence…. Yet here, in North America, will the colored race remain, and ere long in my opinion, become a great people.
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6. James Holly, Voice from the "Green Mountains"
Letter from James Theodore Holly to Henry Bibb, in Voice of the Fugitive, 1 June 1851, reprinted in Black Abolitionist Papers 138-142.
Holly was a free black leader, living at the time in Burlington, Vermont. In the letter he supports proposals Bibb had made in his newspaper, Voice of the Fugitive, for concentrating free black and escaped slave colonization efforts in Canada, where Bibb was living. Later in the summer of 1851, Holly and Bibb founded the North American League to aid fugitive slaves in Canada and encourage Canadian immigration. Eventually, Holly would grow disillusioned with Canada and become a leader of Haitian colonization, moving there at the beginning of the Civil War and later being named the Episcopal Bishop of Haiti.
Dear Sir:
I was agreeable surprised, on the receipt of the late copies of your valuable journal, to learn that you had already projected, and was agitating a plan for the systematic colonization of refugees in Canada West; and that you had thereby anticipated the suggestion contained in my former communication. Your plan meets my heart approbation, and I give in my adhesion of it, as an humble supporter of the same. And I design hereafter to give testimony in deed as well as in profession. I think it has now become the duty of the whole free colored poulation of the United States, to support your project as the most practicable one ever presented for their consideration, and the most available for the speedy emancipation of our enslaved brethren. We should regard you and those that immediately surround you in the noble project, as the head and centre of all our future efforts....
Let it be an understood matter from now and henceforth, that the central authority of the colored people of the United States, is in your asylum of the refugee, and that hereafter it is to be the grand rallying point of all our efforts. I have long been impressed with the necessity of some project to withdraw our people from the drudging employment of menials, about the towns and cities of the free states, and to locate them in a primitive community, where they might lay the foundation of their own future greatness, and at the same time afford a hospitable home to the escaping bondmen [slaves].
Three great schemes have been hitherto pressed upon our attention: African, Haytian and British West India colonization. But the distance of these locations from our enslaved brethren still clanking their chains, and their tropical latitudes, are insurmountable objections to the free colored people of the United States. And the persons with whom, and the circumstances in which, the African scheme originated, makes that project the most intolerable of all others, and it is not likely that any considerable number of our people will ever look upon Liberia with any degree of favor, no matter what advantages it may present for individual enterprise, until American Slavery is abolished.
But happily the question of Canadian colonization presents itself to us, divested of all these objections. It is on the North American continent, in close proximity to the United States, and convenient to the North-Western slave states. There is but a slight variation of climate from that we have all been used to. The project is an alternative we can spontaneously adopt ourselves, without having it marked out for us by doubtful philanthropists. Therefore we should vigorously pursue this project, and swarm in a ceaseless tide to Canada West, and hang like an ominous black cloud over this guilty nation, until the precipitated occurrence of providential circumstances –the terrible thunderbolts of Omnipotent judgment hurled from the hand of Jehovah, shall scale the Alleghany summits, and reverberate through the valley of the Mississippi, breaking every chain and letting the oppressed go free. To be a humble instrument in producing so glorious a result, is worthy of a lifetime of self-sacrificing toil, and heroic effort. I freely consecrate myself and my all to do the humblest share of the work.
I submit myself to the leadership you have so worthily assumed.... I think I am justified in assuring you of a full quote of noble spirits in Vermont, who will rally around your standard, after the project has assumed a more tangible shape. But we must move patiently, what though it should require years of labor, and succeding generations to perfect the design? It is the eternal truth of God, the destiny of a vast portion of the human race, and the fate of nations taht engages our attention, and we cannot move too securely. Let us not forget that by time, patience and perseverance, all things are accomplished.
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