Canadian Underground Railroad
The Canadian Underground Railroad was a crucial segment of the broader network that helped individuals escape enslavement in the United States, particularly during its peak from 1820 to 1861. Enslavement was abolished in Canada earlier than in the U.S., and those who managed to cross the border found themselves theoretically safe from recapture. The network involved a collaboration of free Black individuals, White abolitionists, and Native Americans who assisted more than 30,000 escapees in their journeys to freedom. Key routes led to various parts of Canada, including Ontario, New Brunswick, Québec, and Nova Scotia, with significant support provided by local antislavery societies and churches.
Prominent figures such as Harriet Tubman and Josiah Henson played vital roles in guiding freedom seekers, while organizations like the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada emerged in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which intensified efforts to help those escaping slavery. Although many who reached Canada were welcomed and assisted in establishing new lives, American slave-hunters occasionally violated borders, prompting Canadian abolitionists to stand against such actions. The legacy of the Canadian Underground Railroad highlights the complex interplay of resistance, community support, and the pursuit of freedom in the face of systemic oppression.
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Canadian Underground Railroad
The Canadian Underground Railroad was the northernmost extension of the secret network that assisted people who had escaped enslavement in the United States. Enslavement was outlawed in the territories that became Canada far earlier than it was in the United States, and persons who made it across the northern border were theoretically beyond the reach of enslavers. Both Britain and France, whose colonies were north of the US border, outlawed enslavement before this occurred in the United States. The Underground Railroad, which was made up of free Black persons and White abolitionists, may have aided more than one hundred thousand people from about 1820 to 1861, when it was most active. It operated until 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed enslavement in the United States.
Background
When the United States was a young nation, the land north of its borders that became Canada was the British North American colonies. Enslavement had been legal in the British North American Colonies and New France, the territories claimed by the French government, until 1763. According to researchers, from 1671 to 1834, about 4,200 persons were enslaved in Canada. About one-third were Black people, while the remainder were Indigenous persons.
Upper Canada’s 1793 Act to Limit Slavery stated that any enslaved person who arrived there was free. A small number of freedom seekers who learned of this legislation traveled to Canada and word began to spread. Some US military officers from the South traveled to Canada during the War of 1812, taking enslaved persons with them. When they returned to the United States, the enslaved individuals told others about free Black soldiers they had seen there, and greater numbers of freedom seekers fled to Canada. When Britain abolished enslavement in 1834, it was outlawed in the colonies as well, providing greater opportunities for those escaping enslavement in the American South. France issued a general emancipation act in 1848 that likewise affected French colonies, including those in North America.
The Underground Railroad consisted of individuals and groups, some operating in secret and others openly, depending on the circumstances and locations. Black and White abolitionists, Native Americans, and others were involved in the dangerous work. The movement’s name came from the terminology that its members used. Some were cargo, conductors, agents, conductors, passengers, stationmasters, and stockholders. Places of refuge along the way, such as barns and basements, were called stations. Conductors, the people who guided escapees from station to station (or depot), did not know the entirety of the route, which in some cases was more than one thousand miles. This was necessary to ensure the safety of people and locations along the way in case any person or group was arrested.
In the United States, the Underground Railroad helped people travel north as well as from Florida to Cuba, from Texas to Mexico, and even onto ships to leave North America. Initially, many formerly enslaved persons were essentially safe when they reached non-slaveholding Northern states, but Congress passed legislation such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that required law enforcement officials in those states to assist in capturing escapees.
Overview
Researchers believe that thirty thousand people fled to Canada to escape enslavement, many with the assistance of the Underground Railroad. Many were aided by formerly enslaved persons such as Harriet Tubman, who helped Black people navigate rivers, swamps, and forests to reach and cross the border into Canada. For many, the Province of Canada was the end of the line, though they often migrated to parts of modern-day Ontario including Niagara Falls, Buxton, Hamilton, Toronto, and other communities. Some arrived in New Brunswick, Québec, and Nova Scotia.
Although people who reached Canada were theoretically free, some American slave-hunters entered the country anyway. As happened in Northern states, these bounty hunters did not care if they found the people that they were looking for but would kidnap any Black person they encountered, regardless of whether they had been enslaved or were freeborn, and sell them in the South.
In Canada many Black people were welcomed and aided by antislavery societies. Churches, including some founded by freedom seekers, helped them get land to farm or find other livelihoods. In some communities, abolitionists drove slave-hunters away before they could grab the people they sought. Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 galvanized many Canadians who wished to aid enslaved persons and see the practice abolished in the United States. Abolitionists formed the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada in modern-day Ontario, then known as Canada West, at a meeting at Toronto City Hall in 1851. Members advocated for refugees, working with abolitionists in the United States and Britain to provide support including funding. Soon after forming, the organization hosted a lecture series that brought American orator Frederick Douglass and others to Toronto. It organized aid programs, set up a night school to teach refugees to farm in Northern climes, and offered other support to help them become self-sufficient.
In addition to Tubman, several notable figures were involved in the Underground Railroad in Canada. Josiah Henson was born enslaved in Maryland about 1789. He later became a preacher and in 1830 escaped with his wife and two youngest children, walking more than 600 miles to Canada. He helped start a freeman settlement, Dawn, which became one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad. As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, he returned to the United States many times to guide 118 people to freedom in Canada. He was the inspiration for the main character of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born in Delaware, a slave state, to free Black parents in 1823. Her family participated in the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania but faced possible imprisonment once the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. To avoid arrest she moved to Ontario, where she was a schoolteacher and editor of The Provincial Freeman, Canada’s first abolition newspaper. The motto in the masthead of the publication was “Self-reliance is the true road to independence.” She published a pamphlet in which she makes a case for escape or emigration to Canada. She also included a thorough examination of agricultural conditions and other practical information. Many Black Americans living in the North moved to Canada after 1850 for similar reasons as Cary’s.
Bibliography
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