Chapter VII: Life of the Colored Refugees in Canada (2)

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.

This church once stood near the house of Lewis Hayden, 66 Phillips Street, Boston, Massachusetts.

(From an old engraving.)]