Black Canadians: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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===Underground Railroad===

There is a sizable community of [[Black Nova Scotians|Black Canadians in Nova Scotia]]<ref name=autogenerated1 /> and [[Black Canadians in Ontario|Southern Ontario]] who trace their ancestry to African- American slaves who used the [[Underground Railroad]] to flee from the United States, seeking refuge and freedom in Canada. From the late 1820s, through the time that [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833|the United Kingdom itself forbade slavery in 1833]], until the [[American Civil War]] began in 1861, the Underground Railroad brought tens of thousands of [[fugitive slave]]s to Canada. In 1819, [[Sir John Robinson, 1st Baronet, of Toronto|Sir John Robinson]], the Attorney- General of Upper Canada, ruled: "Since freedom of the person is the most important civil right protected by the law of England...the negroes are entitled to personal freedom through residence in Upper Canada and any attempt to infringe their rights will be resisted in the courts".<ref name="Hill">{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Daniel G. |title=The freedom-seekers : Blacks in early Canada |date=1981 |publisher=Book Society of Canada |location=Agincourt, Canada |isbn=0772552835}}</ref>{{rp|93}} After Robinson's ruling in 1819, judges in Upper Canada refused American requests to extradite run-away slaves who reached Upper Canada under the grounds "every man is free who reaches British ground".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|27}} One song popular with African Americans called the ''[[Song of the Free]]'' had the lyrics: "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 colored men are free!".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|25}}

In 1850, the United States Congress passed the [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850|Fugitive Slave Act]], which gave bounty hunters the right to recapture run-awayrunaway slaves anywhere in the United States and ordered all federal, state and municipal law enforcement to co-operatecooperate with the bounty hunters in seizing run-awayrunaway slaves.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}} Since the Fugitive Slave Act stripped accused fugitive slaves of any legal rights such as the right to testify in court that they were not run-awayrunaway slaves, cases of freemen and freewomen being kidnapped off the streets to be sold into slavery became common.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}} The U.S. justice system in the 1850s was hostile to black people, and little inclined to champion their rights. In 1857, in the ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'' decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that blackBlack Americans were not and never could be U.S. citizens under any conditions, a ruling that appeared to suggest that laws prohibiting slavery in the northern states were unconstitutional.

As a result of the Fugitive Slave Act and legal rulings to expand slavery in the United States, many free Black people living in the United States chose to seek sanctuary in Canada with one newspaper in 1850 mentioning that a group of Black people working for a Pittsburgh hotel had armed themselves with handguns before heading for Canada saying they were "...{{nbsp}}determined to die rather be captured".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}} The ''Toronto Colonist'' newspaper on 17 June 1852 noted that almost every ship or boat coming into Toronto harbor from the American side of Lake Ontario seemed to be carrying a run-away slave.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}} One of the more active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad was [[Harriet Tubman]], the "Black Moses" who made 11 trips to bring about 300 run-awayrunaway slaves to Canada, most of whom settled in St. Catherines.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|35}} Tubman guided her "passengers" on nocturnal journeys (travelling via day was too risky) through the forests and swamps, using as her compass the north-starNorth Star and on cloudy nights seeing what side the moss was growing on trees, to find the best way to Canada.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|38}} Such trips on the Underground Railroad involved much privation and suffering as Tubman and her "passengers" had to avoid both the bounty- hunters and law enforcement and could go for days without food as they travelled through the wilderness, always following the north-star.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|38}} Tubman usually went to Rochester, New York, where Frederick Douglass would shelter the run-aways, and crossed over to Canada at Niagara Falls.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|38–39}} Unlike the U.S. customs, which under the Fugitive Slave Act had to co-operatecooperate with the bounty hunters, the customs authorities on the Canadian side of the border were far more helpful and "looked the other way" when Tubman entered Canada with her "passengers".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|39}}

[[File:Samuel Ward.jpg|thumb|200px|Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward, c.1855. Ward had been forced to flee to Canada West in 1851 to escape charges of violating the Fugitive Slave Act by helping a run-awayrunaway slave escape to Canada.]]

During the course of one week in June 1854, 23 run-away slaves evaded the U.S. border patrols to cross the Detroit river to freedom in Windsor while 43 free people also crossed over to Windsor out of the fear of the bounty hunters.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}} The American-born Canadian sociologist [[Daniel G. Hill]] wrote this week in June 1854 appeared to be typical of the black exodus to Canada.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}} Public opinion tended to be on the side of run-awayrunaway slaves and against the slavers. On 26 February 1851, the Toronto chapter of the Anti-Slavery Society was founded with what was described by the ''Globe'' newspaper as "the largest and most enthusiastic meeting we have ever seen in Toronto" that issued the resolution: "slavery is an outrage on the laws of humanity and its continued practice demands the best exertions for its extinction".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|20}} The same meeting committed its members to help the many "houseless and homeless victims of slavery flying to our soil".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|20}} The Congregationalist minister, the Reverend [[Samuel Ringgold Ward]] of New York, who had been born into slavery in Maryland, wrote about Canada West (modern Ontario) that: "Toronto is somewhat peculiar in many ways, anti-slavery is more popular there than in any city I know save Syracuse...I had good audiences in the towns of Vaughan, Markham, Pickering and in the village of Newmarket. Anti-slavery feeling is spreading and increasing in all these places. The public mind literally thirsts for the truth, and honest listeners and anxious inquirers will travel many miles, crowd our country chapels, and remain for hours eagerly and patiently seeking the light".<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|20}} Ward himself had been forced to flee to Canada West in 1851 for his role in the [[Jerry Rescue]], leading to his indictment for violating the Fugitive Slave Act. Despite the support to run-awayrunaway slaves, Black people in Canada West, which become Ontario in 1867, were confined to segregated schools.<ref name="Walker"/>

American [[bounty hunter]]s who crossed into Canada to kidnap black people to sell into slavery were prosecuted for kidnapping if apprehended by the authorities.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|42}} In 1857, an attempt by two American bounty hunters, T. G. James and John Wells, to kidnap Joseph Alexander, a 20-year-old run-awayrunaway slave from New Orleans living in Chatham, was foiled when a large crowd of black people surrounded the bounty hunters as they were leaving the Royal Exchange Hotel in Chatham with Alexander who had gone there to confront them.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|43}} Found on one of the bounty hunters was a letter from Alexander's former master describing him as a slave of "saucy" disposition who had smashed the master's carriage and freed a span of his horses before running away, adding that he was keen to get Alexander back so he could castrate him.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|43}} Castration was the normal punishment for a male run-awayrunaway slave. Alexander gave a speech to the assembled by-standers watching the confrontation denouncing life in the "slave pens" of New Orleans as extremely dehumanizing and stated he would rather die than return to living as a slave.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|43}} Alexander described life in the "slave pens" as a regime of daily whippings, beatings and rapes designed to cow the slaves into a state of utter submission. The confrontation ended with Alexander being freed and the crowd marching Wells and James to the railroad station, warning them to never return to Chatham.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}}▼

[[File:William Hall VC.jpg|thumb|left|200px|William Hall of Horton, Nova Scotia was the first blackBlack man to win the Victoria Cross]]▼

The refugee slaves who settled in Canada did so primarily in [[Black Canadians in Ontario|South Western Ontario]], with significant concentrations being found in Amherstburg, Colchester, Chatham, Windsor, and Sandwich. Run-awayRunaway slaves tended to concentrate, partly to provide mutual support, partly because of prejudices, and partly out of the fear of American bounty hunters crossing the border.<ref name="Walker"/> The run-awayrunaway slaves usually arrived destitute and without any assets, had to work as laborers for others until they could save up enough money to buy their own farms.<ref name="Walker"/> These settlements acted as centres of abolitionist thought, with Chatham being the location of abolitionist [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown's]] constitutional convention which preceded the later raid on [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|Harper's Ferry]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|url = http://journals2.scholarsportal.info/pdf/14788810/v08i0002/165_oocaotcf.xml|title = Out of Chatham: Abolitionism on the Canadian frontier|last = Heike|first = Paul|date = 2011|journal = Atlantic Studies|page = 169}}</ref> The first newspaper published by a black woman was founded in North Buxton by the free Black [[Mary Ann Shadd]] which pressed for Black emigration to Canada as the best option for fleeing African Americans.<ref name=":0" /> The settlement of [[North Buxton|Elgin]] was formed in 1849 with the royal assent of Governor-General of the time [[James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin|James Bruce]] as a settlement for Black Canadians and escaped slaves based upon social welfare and the prevention of moral decay among the Black community there. Led by the Elgin Association and preacher William King, the settlement flourished as a model of a successful predominantly African settlement which held close to 200 families by 1859.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Whatever you Raise in the ground you can sell it in Chatham': Black Women in Buxton and Chatham, 1850–1865|last=Bristow|first=Peggy|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0802068811|location=Toronto|pages=75–79}}</ref>▼

▲American [[bounty hunter]]s who crossed into Canada to kidnap black people to sell into slavery were prosecuted for kidnapping if apprehended by the authorities.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|42}} In 1857, an attempt by two American bounty hunters, T.G. James and John Wells, to kidnap Joseph Alexander, a 20-year-old run-away slave from New Orleans living in Chatham, was foiled when a large crowd of black people surrounded the bounty hunters as they were leaving the Royal Exchange Hotel in Chatham with Alexander who had gone there to confront them.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|43}} Found on one of the bounty hunters was a letter from Alexander's former master describing him as a slave of "saucy" disposition who had smashed the master's carriage and freed a span of his horses before running away, adding that he was keen to get Alexander back so he could castrate him.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|43}} Castration was the normal punishment for a male run-away slave. Alexander gave a speech to the assembled by-standers watching the confrontation denouncing life in the "slave pens" of New Orleans as extremely dehumanizing and stated he would rather die than return to living as a slave.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|43}} Alexander described life in the "slave pens" as a regime of daily whippings, beatings and rapes designed to cow the slaves into a state of utter submission. The confrontation ended with Alexander being freed and the crowd marching Wells and James to the railroad station, warning them to never return to Chatham.<ref name="Hill" />{{rp|32}}

▲[[File:William Hall VC.jpg|thumb|left|200px|William Hall of Horton, Nova Scotia was the first black man to win the Victoria Cross]]

▲The refugee slaves who settled in Canada did so primarily in [[Black Canadians in Ontario|South Western Ontario]], with significant concentrations being found in Amherstburg, Colchester, Chatham, Windsor, and Sandwich. Run-away slaves tended to concentrate, partly to provide mutual support, partly because of prejudices, and partly out of the fear of American bounty hunters crossing the border.<ref name="Walker"/> The run-away slaves usually arrived destitute and without any assets, had to work as laborers for others until they could save up enough money to buy their own farms.<ref name="Walker"/> These settlements acted as centres of abolitionist thought, with Chatham being the location of abolitionist [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown's]] constitutional convention which preceded the later raid on [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|Harper's Ferry]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|url = http://journals2.scholarsportal.info/pdf/14788810/v08i0002/165_oocaotcf.xml|title = Out of Chatham: Abolitionism on the Canadian frontier|last = Heike|first = Paul|date = 2011|journal = Atlantic Studies|page = 169}}</ref> The first newspaper published by a black woman was founded in North Buxton by the free Black [[Mary Ann Shadd]] which pressed for Black emigration to Canada as the best option for fleeing African Americans.<ref name=":0" /> The settlement of [[North Buxton|Elgin]] was formed in 1849 with the royal assent of Governor-General of the time [[James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin|James Bruce]] as a settlement for Black Canadians and escaped slaves based upon social welfare and the prevention of moral decay among the Black community there. Led by the Elgin Association and preacher William King, the settlement flourished as a model of a successful predominantly African settlement which held close to 200 families by 1859.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Whatever you Raise in the ground you can sell it in Chatham': Black Women in Buxton and Chatham, 1850–1865|last=Bristow|first=Peggy|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0802068811|location=Toronto|pages=75–79}}</ref>

[[File:Levi Veney, ex-slave who lived in Amherstburg, Ontario (I0024830).tiff|thumb|Levi Veney, ex-slave who lived in Amherstburg, Ontario. Taken at J. D. Burkes’ general store, [ca. 1898]]]

Following the abolition of slavery in the British empire in 1834, any black man born a British subject or who became a British subject was allowed to vote and run for office, provided that they owned taxable property.<ref name="Henry">{{cite web|last=Henry|first=Natasha|author-link=Natasha L. Henry-Dixon|title=Black Voting Rights|publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia|date=18 January 2016|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/black-voting-rights/|access-date=29 May 2008}}</ref> The property requirement on voting in Canada was not ended until 1920.<ref name="Henry"/> Black Canadian women like all other Canadian women were not granted the right to vote until partially in 1917 ( when wives, daughters, sisters and mothers of servicemen were granted the right to vote) and fully in 1918 (when all women were granted the right to vote).<ref name="Henry"/> In 1850, Canadian black women together with all other women were granted the right to vote for school trustees, which was the limit of female voting rights in Canada West.<ref name="Henry"/> In 1848, in [[Colchester, Ontario|Colchester county]] in Canada West, white men prevented black men from voting in the municipal elections, but following complaints in the courts, a judge ruled that black voters could not be prevented from voting.<ref name="Henry"/> Ward, writing about the Colchester case in the ''[[Voice of the Fugitive]]'' newspaper, declared that the right to vote was the "most sacred" of all rights, and that even if white men took away everything from the black farmers in Colchester county, that would still be a lesser crime compared with losing the "right of a British vote".<ref name="Henry"/> In 1840, [[Wilson Ruffin Abbott]] became the first black elected to any office in what became Canada when he was elected to the city council in Toronto.<ref name="Henry2012">{{cite book|author=Natasha L. Henry|author-link=Natasha L. Henry-Dixon|title=Talking About Freedom: Celebrating Emancipation Day in Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LdS2lN5clQwC&pg=PA49|date=2012|publisher=Dundurn|isbn=978-1-4597-0050-5|pages=49–}}</ref> In 1851, [[James Douglas (governor)|James Douglas]] became the governor of Vancouver Island, but that was not an elective one. Unlike in the United States, in Canada after the abolition of slavery in 1834, black Canadians were never stripped of their right to vote and hold office.<ref name="Henry"/>