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By 1850 the more powerful Fugitive Slave Act had been passed in the United States. It stipulated that any black person could be arrested as a suspected runaway slave if a white person accused them anywhere in the United States, and the charged black person could not testify on their own behalf or be represented by a lawyer. In other words, now there was no safe place in the United States for those who had been free because they had been manumitted or self-emancipated. In the eyes of the law, if you were black, you were likely an escaping slave who ought to be captured. If you had achieved some measure of wealth through hard work, your business, home, or assets might seem attractive to someone who would then accuse you of being an escaped slave. It also stated that any person aiding a runaway slave could be fined $1,000 or face six months in jail. To make matters worse, the special commissioners who chaired the hearings were paid on the basis of their verdicts. They received twice the amount of money for every black person they sent back to the south and perpetual slavery than for the ones who were freed. It was therefore more profitable for them to return someone to slavery. This made Canada seem to be the only viable refuge for American blacks because the legal and social system which had provided some measure of support for free black people now clearly was being used against them.

Harriet’s Escape Routes

A

This was probably Harriet’s favourite route: from Polar Neck in Caroline County to Denton and then into Delaware; from there up to Wilmington, home of Harriet’s friend, the Quaker abolitionist Thomas Garrett, and from there across the Pennsylvania state line to Philadelphia.

B

The daring route of James and Kessiah Bowley and their children, from the courthouse steps in Cambridge and into the Choptank River on a small boat, in which they rowed their way into the Chesapeake and up to Baltimore, where Harriet awaited their arrival in order to whisk them on to Philadelphia. Afterward they made their way across New York State and into Canada.

C

The route from Cambridge to Polar Neck, which Harriet used when facilitating rescues from Bucktown and other Dorchester communities.

D

From Philadelphia, Harriet travelled through the Delaware Canal and down the Chesapeake to Baltimore, where she gathered up Tilly. The two women then went by steamboat even farther south, beyond Cambridge to the southern Dorchester County line, where, after passing through the Hooper Strait, they steamed up the Nanticoke River to Seaford, Delaware, then took a land route north to Wilmington, and, finally, Philadelphia.

Many incidents of racial intolerance and riots also occurred during this period in the northern States as the competition for manual labour or any wage labour became more competitive since immigration from Europe was increasing. Harriet, her passengers, and her family were at terrible risk. Canada presented itself as the closest location in which to find freedom, although other British possessions within the Caribbean and South America were potential sites, but not as easy to travel to. Harriet had travelled on her own two feet; being self-reliant, Harriet would want to take a route that she could walk the whole way if she had to, a route that allowed her many options in arriving at her goal. Canada seemed a good choice, not only because it was close and because it would be possible to walk to this destination, but also because of a series of laws and events within Canada that had given the impression that Canada truly welcomed slaves and would respect their rights to remain free under the law.

The first African to reach Canadian shores was a free black, Mathieu Da Costa, serving in the capacity of translator, and he arrived as early as 1604. The first slave arrived in 1628. So people of African descent had long been part of the fabric of what we now call Canada. While large-scale plantation use of African Canadians was not common, they did provide personal and domestic services for affluent and prominent individuals in all the major cities of the time. The black population grew slowly and steadily following the American War of Independence and the War of 1812, until certain events accelerated this rate.

Black men had been invited to join the ranks of the British forces by Lord Dunmore in 1775 to help to overcome the rebels in the American colony. Sir Henry Clinton invited all blacks, whether fighting men or infirm, women or children, to come to the British side by 1779, and they were promised they would receive the same treatment and rewards as white Loyalists for fighting the rebels. The Upper Canada Abolition Act of 1793 provided that any slave that came into what we now call the province of Ontario would be free, whether being brought in by a master or brought there by the force of the slave’s will to escape bondage. Any child born of a slave mother would be free by the age of twenty-five. William Osgoode, Chief Justice of Lower Canada, declared in 1803 that slavery was inconsistent with British Law. The Cochrane Proclamation aimed at the white and black refugees of the War of 1812 and invited Americans to become British citizens through residence in British Possessions which included Canada, the West Indies, and Bermuda. The British Imperial Act of 1833 abolished slavery throughout the Empire, including Canada. This act became effective August 1, 1834. And, at the North American Convention of Colored Freemen, held for the first time outside of the United States in Toronto in September 1851, it was decided by black peoples that Canada was the preferred choice for black emigration from the United States because free black people within Canada would be able to assist the fleeing former slave population. Canada seemed to be a safe haven for enslaved black people wanting their freedom and for free blacks desiring a more secure lifestyle because it seemed to be a place where the rights and privileges of the African population would be protected. It was close enough to walk to, the climate was similar to that of the northern United States, there were opportunities to become self-supporting, and Canadians spoke English, the language that most enslaved Africans had become familiar with during enslavement in the United States.

Beginning in the 1830s, free black people and other abolitionists often met at conventions. Initially these gatherings allowed people to share their concerns and to plan ways to end slavery. Interested black people would invite others to their city to have these meetings.

One of the most important of these meetings was the North American Convention of Colored Freemen held in St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto from September 11–13, 1851. It started a trend of discussing black nationalism and emigration of enslaved Africans to Canada. Called by many Ontario black residents such as Henry Bibb, editor of the Voice of the Fugitive, and James Theodore Holly, an American-born free black who was devoted to emigration, the convention concluded with the agreement that Canada was a preferred destination for freedom seekers. Other options, such as the West Indies or Africa, were too far from black abolitionist centres in the U.S., and Canada was a more convenient location from which to initiate the escapes of slaves or to assist in the establishing of African-Canadian settlements. Canada, in the eyes of the black community, was considered to be a “beacon of hope” to the enslaved.

When Harriet decided to make her fourth rescue to get her brother James Ross, his wife, children, and nine others, the trip was longer and more dangerous. After stopping at the home of black abolitionist Frederick Douglass in Rochester, Harriet likely made her way to St. Catharines, Ontario, in December 1851 with eleven fugitives.

Frederick Douglass was a self-freed former slave who hailed from Maryland like Harriet Tubman. Unlike Tubman, who suffered a disabling injury as a young woman, Douglass was secretly taught to read by his owner’s wife while a young man. In this way he came to learn about other abolitionist stances and about The Liberator, the paper of William Lloyd Garrison, a white anti-slavery worker. Ultimately making himself free through the use of a sailor’s uniform with “free papers,” Douglass married and began to give rousing public speeches, later to write about his experiences as an enslaved African. His autobiography, Narratives in the Life of Frederick Douglass, was a bestseller and reprinted several times. He would write a paper, The North Star, that would challenge the readership of the Garrison paper and became an advocate for women’s rights. Following the Civil War, he was appointed Consul General to Haiti.

However, for Harriet, Douglass also had some valuable contacts in many of the cities that became a part of Harriet Tubman’s routes to Canada. From his first steps as a free man, he was acquainted with David Ruggles in New York, initially staying at his safe house. From his women’s rights activities he knew the co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, James Mott, his wife Lucretia (Lucretia having relatives in Rochester), and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other abolitionists or station masters would include John Hooper and Stephen Meyers in Albany (the Meyer home is being restored as an example of a black abolitionist abode) and Jermaine Loguen in Syracuse.

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Some of Harriet’s helpers. From left to right: unidentified woman (possibly Eliza Wright Osborne’s daughter), Martha Coffin Wright, Eliza Wright Osborne (Martha’s daughter), and Lucretia Mott.

Courtesy Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

While some freedom seekers were comfortable in remaining in some of these northern cities, others opted to head all the way across the Canadian border. This would have them enter Canada at Niagara Falls. However, since it was so close to the border at Niagara Falls, a safer option was to go further inland to St. Catharines, Ontario. Harriet Tubman met with Douglass in Rochester and headed to St. Catharines because of a well-known contact, Reverend Hiram Wilson. Wilson had been working with refugees first in Dresden, Ontario, then in the Niagara area for several years.

In addition to the human landscape, there was the physical landscape that presented an excellent opportunity for Harriet Tubman and to anyone wishing to have a fairly direct route to the Niagara area. The canal system of New York State and in southern Ontario provided good secret highways for freedom seekers and the canal systems were fairly well established by the 1850s. Tubman could make her way to Troy, New York, and from there travel east along the route of the Erie Canal. This route would have her touch the tips of the Finger Lakes under the shroud of cover provided by the canal trench and the human connections. If her connections were able to respond to her request for assistance, that would further facilitate her journey. Ultimately crossing at Niagara, a freedom seeker could make their way without as much need for secrecy since crossing into Canada provided freedom under the law. However, should there have been a need to be extra cautious, freedom seekers could have also followed the Welland Canal north from Port Colborne into St. Catharines. With the construction going on for its second stage, the movement of new arrivals would scarcely have been noticed.

Many blacks had settled the Niagara Peninsula before 1840. As a group they were tolerated and accepted, primarily for the manual labour they provided at a low cost. At times, despite their hard work, thriftiness, and industriousness, they were in need of assistance or were in a position where they needed donated food, especially when they first arrived in Canada. At the time of the Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837, the men, black and non-black, left their families for military duties. So when a group of white women gave the “coloured ladies of St. Catharines” some highly rationed sugar and tea, it was not just enough for them to say thank you, but it became an item for the newspapers! Even though the assistance was sporadic, and not really enough to have kept black people from starving if they were impoverished, there was a certain expected type of behaviour that sympathetic whites wished to see. Blacks were to be overly grateful for every courtesy extended to them, even by people who considered themselves to be abolitionists — the supposed progressive, liberal, activist element of society. Mary Ann Shadd, a black investigative reporter and editor, felt that anti-slavery advocates were more inclined to expect this degrading behaviour than the regular population who might be less supportive of the black community. Said of this ad hoc charity by Shadd, “[The charity of white abolitionists displays] this disgusting, repulsive surveillance, this despotic, dictatorial, snobbish air of superiority of white people over the fugitives.”

In June 1852, a group of black military men were parading and, without provocation, were attacked by a group of white young people who also damaged or destroyed homes within the African-Canadian community. The sight of black men in military uniform invoked angry feelings since it was seen by the white youth as demeaning to the uniform. And, because blacks had a role in peacekeeping with the canal workers and in halting the illegal importation of goods from the United States, they were further resented as officers and as African Canadians. The town of St. Catharines voted in 1853 to pay for the damages to the black settlement caused by this riot.

At St. Thomas Church, a black churchgoer, Augustus Halliday, felt that he had to take Communion last so that he would not offend other white churchgoers who would not want to use the Communion cup after him — this even by the 1900s and even though he was a property owner on Wellington Street. His concern was very real and appropriate for the recent historical and social experience of being a person of African descent in St. Catharines. A stained glass window depicting St. Thomas was dedicated on September 10, 1905, in the honour of Mr. Halliday who left money to the church in his will.

In 1867, a young black woman who was employed at the Stephenson House, another of the city’s spas, attempted to buy a ticket for the mineral baths, which were supposed to have therapeutic properties, and was refused admission. In an editorial in the St. Catharines Journal, some attitudes about African Canadians using public facilities are reflected:

… the managers would be extremely foolish to allow any such person to bathe with the guests of the house … for there are few who are willing to meet him [the black person] on terms of equality … So long as the coloured man behaves himself in this country he will be respected, but when he presumes to dine at a public house, or to wash in the same bath as a white man, he is going a little too far, and public opinion will frown him down.

As long as the growing black population applied themselves to their work and made themselves as unseen as possible, there would be no problem. And with the 1840s arrival of European immigrants who were also eager to work, the interest in tolerating or supporting people of African descent was waning. After all, by the time of the 1863 abolition of slavery in the United States and the 1865 end of the Civil War, many people may have felt that the blacks could now go home, back where they came from, or, at the very least, someplace else. It was a time of white encouragement for blacks to resettle in the Caribbean Islands, Africa, or remote outposts as if their usefulness had been outlived, as if they were not rooted to the soil they had tilled, as if they were not entitled to live in the country that they had chosen or were born into. Black people were now discouraged from remaining in Canada, but the choice to remain was as challenging as the choice to return to the United States. Freedom in Canada did not also mean full and meaningful employment, full and regularized living arrangements, equal and appropriate education and training for the young, or the possibility of living as if they were the same as anyone else. Though coloured people envisioned their broad entitlement of the same full freedoms granted to others, their race and history did not make this a reality.

The Common Schools Act of 1850 allowed for the creation of separate schools for blacks and Catholics. While blacks wanted to send their children to the best equipped or the nearest schools, white residents protested the integration of schools, so the act was used to create separate institutions. Advertisements in the St. Catharines Standard required teachers with a third-class standing qualification teach at the coloured school, while white students would be taught by teachers with no less than second- or first-class standing. Black parents used the power of the vote to defeat an unhelpful school trustee who was felt to be supportive of segregated schools. Protests continued until 1873, at which time the St. Catharines Committee on School Management reported that “mixing coloured and white children in the same classes would prove destructive to the efficiency of the school.”

Schools in St. Catharines were later integrated despite the concerns of a few about the effects of social contact between the races. It is important to note that the population of St. Catharines included some families of Native Canadians who lived among the descendants of Africa or Europe. These families were sometimes families of mixed heritage, so the schools that these children attended may have reflected the perceptions of the time regarding racial classification. Clearly, larger settlements of Native peoples existed in other areas of southern Ontario, especially near Brantford.