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    The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!
    The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!
    The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!
    Ebook156 pages1 hour

    The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!

    By Adrienne Shadd, Afua Cooper and Karolyn Smardz Frost

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    "The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto! stands out as an engaging and highly readable account of the lives of Black people in Toronto in the 1800s. Adrienne Shadd, Afua Cooper and Karolyn Smardz Frost offer many helpful points of entry for readers learning for the first time about Black history in Canada. They also give surprising and detailed information to enrich the understanding of people already passionate about this neglected aspect of our own past."

    - Lawrence Hill, Writer

    The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!, a richly illustrated book, examines the urban connection of the clandestine system of secret routes, safe houses and "conductors." Not only does it trace the story of the Underground Railroad itself and how people courageously made the trip north to Canada and freedom, but it also explores what happened to them after they arrived. And it does so using never-before-published information on the African-Canadian community of Toronto. Based entirely on new research carried out for the experiential theatre show "The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Freedom!" at the Royal Ontario Museum, this volume offers new insights into the rich heritage of the Black people who made Toronto their home before the Civil War. It portrays life in the city during the nineteenth century in considerable detail.

    This exciting new book will be of interest to readers young and old who want to learn more about this unexplored chapter in Toronto’s history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateFeb 24, 2009
    ISBN9781770706828

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      Book preview

      The Underground Railroad - Adrienne Shadd

      The Underground Railroad:

      Next Stop, Toronto!

      Adrienne Shadd • Afua Cooper • Karolyn Smardz Frost

      NATURAL HERITAGE BOOKS

      A MEMBER OF THE DUNDURN GROUP

      TORONTO

      Copyright © 2002 Adrienne Shadd, Afua Cooper & Karolyn Smardz Frost

      Second edition, November 2005

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanic, photocopying or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

      Published by Natural Heritage Books

      A Member of The Dundurn Group

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Shadd, Adrienne L. (Adrienne Lynn), 1954-

             The underground railroad : next stop, Toronto! / Adrienne Shadd, Afua Cooper & Karolyn Smardz Frost. -- 3rd ed

          Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-1-55488-429-2

          1. Black Canadians--Ontario--Toronto--History--19th century. 2. Underground Railroad--Ontario--Toronto. 3. Toronto (Ont.)--History--19th century. I. Cooper, Afua II. Smardz Frost, Karolyn III. Title.

      FC3097.9.B6S43 2009         971.3’54100496           C2009-900443-7

      Cover and text design by Sari Naworynski

      Edited by Jane Gibson

      Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Printing Limited, Winnipeg, Manitoba

      Front cover image: From William Still, The Underground Rail Road (1872) Opp. 125. Toronto Public Library, Special Collections, Genealogy & Maps Centre.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

      J. Kirk Howard, President

      We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books and the Government of Canada through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit Program and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      To the memory of the many people who escaped to Canada

      by means of the Underground Railroad.

      CAUTION!!!

      FROM information received from reliable sources, we learn that parties are at present in Toronto, endeavouring to induce colored persons to go to the States in their employ as servants. From the character of the propositions, there is reason to believe that foul play is intended. Possibly, that Constable Pope’s designs on the fugitives and others are being carried out.

      Individuals have proposed to women to go to Detroit to live in their service, and another party under circumstances of great suspicion, to a boy to go as far South as Philadelphia. We say to our people, lisen to no flattering proposals of the sort. You are in Canada, and let no misplaced confidence in this or the other smooth-tongued Yankee, or British subject either, who may be mercenary enough to ensnare you into bondage by collusion with kidnappers in the States, deprive you of your liberty…

      An excerpt from the Provincial Freeman, April 21, 1851.

      Table of Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Foreword – Parks Canada

      A Word From the Ontario Black History Society

      Introduction

      1 Deborah Brown: A Fugitive Slave Woman

      2 Blacks in Early Toronto

      3 Underground Railroad to Toronto

      4 Social, Cultural and Religious Life in Toronto’s Black Community

      5 Life in the City

      6 Living on the Outskirts

      7 The World of Children

      8 Political Life

      9 Black Torontonians in the Civil War

      10 Notable Black Torontonians

      11 How Do We Know?

      Notes

      For Further Reading

      Index

      About the Authors

      Acknowledgements

      This book is more than a labour of love. Many people have heard of the Underground Railroad that brought thousands of runaway slaves to freedom in Canada, but very few know that Toronto was an important terminus of those secret routes. Dr. Daniel Hill, President Emeritus of the Ontario Black History Society, wrote several pioneering articles on the history of Blacks in Toronto in addition to his well-known book, The Freedom-Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada, These earlier articles are known only to a small coterie of researchers and historians, but they and the work of a number of other earlier historians have been enormously important to our work. In the area of African Canadian history, we also recognize the important scholarship and contributions of Dr. James W. St.G. Walker and the role he has played as a mentor to us in our work over the years. The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!, therefore, has enabled us to build on the ground-breaking work of Dr. Hill, Dr. Walker and others and to bring to the public something that we feel is not only important but which has also previously been largely unexplored. For that we feel immensely gratified.

      As always, there are many fortuitous events that magically come together to give birth to the baby. The information contained in this book was gathered over the course of a two-year research project that was part of the Historic Sites and Monuments Commission of Canada’s initiative to recognize sites associated with the Underground Railroad. We take this opportunity to thank the Consultative Committee, including Rosemary Sadlier of the Ontario Black History Society, Daniel O’Brien of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Christine Lockett of the ROM, Madge Logan and Catherine Slaney, as well as the Parks Canada staff members, who so ably steered the original project out of which our research for this book came. It is they who have generously permitted us to share the discoveries we made in the course of our research. In particular we are grateful to Ross Thompson, Southwestern Ontario, Field Unit Superintendent; Rob Watt, Project Manager; historians Owen Thomas and Shannon Ricketts; and curator Derek Cooke – all of Parks Canada – for their enthusiasm, dedication and hard work. We would also like to thank Tom Lackey for a great script, and Steve and Claudette Shaw of Steve Shaw Productions for their tireless effort and professionalism in producing in a very short time span The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Freedom! This experiential theatre production, which made its debut at the Royal Ontario Museum in April 2002, was a fascinating project and we thoroughly enjoyed our work on it.

      We are also very grateful to the numerous individuals and archival repositories for the use of their photographic and other visual materials: Dr. Daniel and Donna Hill, Pastor Michael Morris and Rochelle Williams, church historian, at the First Baptist Church, Toronto; Jill Delaney, Researcher Services Division and Martha Marleau, Art Acquisition and Research, National Archives of Canada; Donald Nethery, Museum and Archives, Toronto District School Board; Karen Teeple, City of Toronto Archives; Henri Pilon, Archivist, Trinity College Archives, University of Toronto. Alan Walker, Special Collections, Toronto Reference Library; Karen Jania, Access and Reference Services, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; Owen Jenkins, Central Agencies, Transportation, Photographic Records and Documentary Art Portfolio, and Ralph Coram, Senior Archivist, Finance and Architectural Records Portfolio, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; Rob Medina, Chicago Historical Society and Gillian Small and Eleanor Peterson, the Ontario Black History Society. The images enhance tremendously the quality and appeal of the text.

      Finally, we are indebted to Jane Gibson and Barry Penhale, the publishers at Natural Heritage Books, for their interest and dedication to ensuring that this work was brought to the public. Without their vision, the book might not

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