Everyone American knows how slaves used the Underground Railroad to escape from Canada, but what they don't teach is what happened when they got there. Were they still discriminated against, like was racism still a big issue in Canada? Did any get sent back to the US? What provinces did most of them go to? Were there communities set up of escaped slaves? What were their economic prospects? And how many actually got to Canada? Any info would be appreciated since in US history the story of runaway slaves usually stops with the US.
Great question! While fugitive slaves settled as far afield as the Atlantic coast, I can speak more specifically on Southwestern Ontario, an area known in Underground Railroad literature as the North Star or Promised Land. Several communities were established in the area, most famously the Dawn Settlement and Buxton, both run by prominent black abolitionists. Rev. Josiah Henson, an escaped slave from Maryland and key figure at Dawn, exported lumber back to the states with the help of white Methodists in Boston, met Queen Victoria on at least one occasion, and became inextricably connected to the titular character of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Frederick Douglass toured the area seeking support for the eventual rebellion at Harper’s Ferry. The rifle he pawned to help pay his expenses can still be seen in the collection of James “Gunsmith” Jones, a black craftsman whose firearms were coveted in Upper Canada at the time.
Black abolitionists stood on both sides of the Garrisonian debate and many felt that supporting radical antislavery movements in the U.S. (in preference to slaves arriving in Canada) violated international sovereignty and endangered the international movement. In fact recent research by Olivette Otele of Bath Spa University suggests that the British Empire supported anti-slavery efforts in Canada as a “pilot project” to ensure the smooth transition of its far more lucrative Caribbean colonies.
While Colonial authorities did not return slaves to the U.S. and the importation of slaves was banned in 1793, the border was (and is, to some extent) porous. Marauding American slave-catchers periodically brought people back across, typically splitting the bounty with unscrupulous Canadian informants.
In short, fugitive slaves and their descendants have a rich but problematic history in Canada, most contemporary slave narratives depict scenes of promise countered by nearly insurmountable hardship. Escaped slaves could establish their own communities (most of which included white settlers) but continued to face institutional racism in addition to the hard reality of life in Canada.
Sources -Henson, Josiah. “Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life.” An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson. Ed. John Lobb. London: Christian Age Office, 1877. Print.
-Otele, Olivette. “Resisting Imperial Governance in Canada: From Trade and Religious Kinship to Black Narrative Pedagogy in Ontario.” The Promised Land: History and Historiography of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent’s Settlements and Beyond. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. 131-148. Print.
-Winks, Robin W. The Blacks in Canada: A History. 2nd ed. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1997. Print.