Black Communities in Canada West in the 1850s: Freedom, Voice and Obstacles

Let's start with a question

Imagine running a newspaper in the 1850s. You set every letter of type by hand. You pay for paper and ink. You travel from town to town to sell subscriptions. Now imagine doing all this as a Black woman, at a time when most people thought women should not speak in public at all.

Mary Ann Shadd did exactly that. In this lesson you will meet her and other Black Canadians who helped build the foundations of the country in the years before Confederation.

Remember from Grade 7

In Grade 7 you learned that slavery ended in the British Empire in 1834, that freedom seekers came north on the Underground Railroad, and that Black communities such as Wilberforce, Dawn (Josiah Henson) and the Elgin Settlement at Buxton were founded before 1850. You also learned that a 1850 change to Canada West's school law allowed separate schools for Black children.

Now we look at what happened next, in the 1850s.

1850: a new law pushes thousands north

In 1850, the United States passed the Fugitive Slave Act. It let slave catchers seize people who had escaped slavery anywhere in the US, even in the northern states where slavery was illegal. People who helped freedom seekers could be fined or jailed.

Consequence: Black people living in northern US cities were no longer safe, even if they had lived there for years. Many decided that British territory was the only safe place. The number of Black people coming to Canada West rose sharply in the 1850s. Many settled in towns and farms in places such as Windsor, Amherstburg, Chatham, Buxton, Dresden, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Toronto and Owen Sound.

Mary Ann Shadd: "Self-Reliance is the True Road to Independence"

Mary Ann Shadd was born free in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1823. In 1851 she moved to Windsor, Canada West, and opened a school for the children of freedom seekers that was open to children of any background.

• In 1852 she published A Plea for Emigration; or, Notes of Canada West, a guide encouraging Black Americans to move to Canada West, with facts about land, climate and jobs.
• In 1853 she founded the Provincial Freeman, a weekly newspaper. It was published from Toronto and then from Chatham (from 1855). She is recognized as the first Black woman in North America to publish and edit a newspaper.
• The paper's motto was "Self-Reliance is the True Road to Independence." It argued against slavery, reported on Black communities, and argued for integration: Black people should live as equal citizens alongside everyone else, not in separate settlements.
• Money was always short, and the paper stopped publishing around 1859.

Shadd later married Thomas Cary and is often called Mary Ann Shadd Cary. She is a Person of National Historic Significance in Canada.

Harriet Tubman in St. Catharines

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in Maryland in 1849 and became one of the best-known "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. After the Fugitive Slave Act, even the northern US was unsafe for the people she rescued, so she guided them all the way to St. Catharines, Canada West.

• She lived in St. Catharines for much of the 1850s, while making dangerous trips back to Maryland. The Canadian Encyclopedia says she made at least 10 trips and brought at least 70 people to freedom, including members of her own family.
• St. Catharines had a growing community of freedom seekers. Salem Chapel, a British Methodist Episcopal church built around 1855 near where she lived, is connected with her. It is now a National Historic Site.
• Around 1859 she moved her parents to Auburn, New York, which became her later home. In the US Civil War she served the Union army as a nurse, scout and spy.

Voting and taking part in government

In Canada West, Black men who owned enough property could vote, like other men. (No women could vote in elections for the legislature.) But some politicians tried to limit Black people's rights.

• In 1849, a politician named Edwin Larwill proposed taxes on Black immigrants and asked whether Black residents should be allowed to vote at all. In the 1857 election, Black voters in Kent County voted together for his opponent, Archibald McKellar, and helped defeat Larwill.
• In 1859, Abraham Shadd, Mary Ann's father and a long-time anti-slavery activist, was elected to the council of Raleigh Township near Chatham. He is recognized as the first Black man elected to municipal government in Canada.

Black residents used the vote, petitions, newspapers and the courts to defend their rights.

Obstacles: free, but not equal

• Segregated schools: The 1850 school law allowed separate schools for Black children. In many towns, white trustees used it to keep Black children out of common schools, even when Black parents wanted their children in the same schools. The separate schools usually had less money. Black parents protested and went to court; some won, many did not. (Ontario's last segregated school did not close until 1965.)
• Racism in daily life: some hotels, churches and businesses treated Black people unequally.
• Kidnappers sometimes crossed the border to try to seize freedom seekers.
• Hard beginnings: many freedom seekers arrived with almost nothing, in a cold climate, and had to clear land or find work fast.

Black communities answered by building churches, schools, newspapers, mutual-aid societies and businesses, and by helping each newcomer who arrived.