The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada

The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada

by Benjamin Drew (Author) - reproduction of Drew's 1856 book - originally published by John P. Jewitt, BostonPublisher: Johnson Reprint & Reproduction Company, NY (1968)Hardcover5.6 x 7.7 inches, 387 pages
A North-side view of slaveryRelated By Themselves, With an Account of the History and Conditions of the Colored Population of Upper Canada First hand accounts of escaped slavesBased on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography - Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 - contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery.----------------------In the mid-1850s, Boston abolitionist Benjamin Drew visited numerous Canadian towns, interviewing scores of refugees from Southern slave states and taking notes of what they had to say. For reasons of safety, he protected the identity of his informants and used fictitious names.Drew's subsequent book was an immediate response to a volume by a Boston preacher who opposed abolition. Drew's soul-stirring account, the culmination of countless fugitive slave autobiographies that preceded it, stressed the well-known abuses suffered by slaves. It also offered fresh insights into the workings of the plantation system and provided a valuable depiction of the lives of former slaves in the North and in Canada.A significant work in the abolitionist crusade that also had an enormous influence on twentieth-century historians, Refugees from Slavery is essential reading for students of American history and African-American studies.In the early 1850s, white American abolitionist Benjamin Drew was commissioned to travel to Canada West (now Ontario) to interview escaped slaves from the United States. At the time the population of Canada West was just short of a million and about 30,000 black people lived in the colony, most of whom were escaped slaves from south of the border. One of the people Drew interviewed was Harriet Tubman, who was then based in St. Catharines but made several trips to the U.S. South to lead slaves to freedom in Canada.
In the course of his journeys in Canada, Drew visited Chatham, Toronto, Galt, Hamilton, London, Dresden, Windsor, and a number of other communities. Originally published in 1856, Drews book is the only collection of first-hand interviews of fugitive slaves in Canada ever done. It is an invaluable record of early black Canadian experience.--------------------AUTHOR'S PREFACE:The colored population of Upper Canada, was estimated in the First Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, in 1852, at thirty thousand. Of this large number, nearly all the adults, and many of the children, have been fugitive slaves from the United States; it is, therefore, natural that the citizens of this Republic should feel an interest in their fate and fortunes. Many causes, however, have hitherto prevented the public generally from knowing their exact condition and circumstances. Their enemies, the supporters of slavery, have represented them as "indolent, vicious, and debased; suffering and starving, because they have no kind masters to do the thinking for them, and to urge them to the necessary labor, which their own laziness and want of forecast, lead them to avoid." Some of their friends, anxious to obtain aid for the comparatively few in number, (perhaps three thousand in all,) who have actually stood in need of assistance, have not, in all cases, been sufficiently discriminating in their statements: old settlers and new, the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, have suffered alike from imputations of poverty and starvation--misfortunes, which, if resulting from idleness, are akin to crimes. Still another set of men, selfish in-------------------This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original elements with text in an easy-to-read document.