If a coloured man understands his business, he receives the public patronage the same as a white man," Shadd wrote. "In Canada as in recently settled countries, there is much to do, and comparatively few for the work. She wrote a 45-page booklet for American blacks entitled, A Plea for Emigration, or Notes of Canada West in its Moral, Social and Political Aspect. Mary Ann Shadd was a freeborn black woman - not born into slavery - from Delaware who settled in Canada. Southern slave-owners tried to discourage flight by telling slaves that the Detroit River was 3,000 miles wide and that the abolitionists (people who opposed slavery) were cannibals: "they get you darkies up there, fatten you up and then boil you."īut others countered the slave-owners' propaganda and encouraged slaves to take flight. In Upper Canada (officially called Canada West), slavery had been illegal since the end of the 1700s. (As portrayed by Barbara Barnes- Hopkins in Canada: A People's History)Ĭanada was viewed as a safe haven, where a black person could be free. She became known as the Moses of her people.
Harriet Tubman helped hundreds of slaves safely across the Canadian border.
#BLACK MAN ON RAILROAD STORY FREE#
In all 30,000 slaves fled to Canada, many with the help of the underground railroad - a secret network of free blacks and white sympathizers who helped runaways. In the 1850s and 1860s, British North America became a popular refuge for slaves fleeing the horrors of plantation life in the American South.
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