Читать книгу Benjamin Drew. The Refugee. Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada онлайн

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The mid-nineteenth century was marked by the opening of more space for new Black settlement. Canada’s reality was rife with diversity, and it witnessed more and more diasporic and imperial circulation that started to configure Black transnational geographies and the ongoing blossom of Canada’s own national and cultural emergence. In this context, the cross-border exchange, and the transnational unity in search of freedom and a more democratic North America became a commonplace that should be supported. Many voices were part of this attempt and all of them worked toward the same direction. The consolidation of Black communities in Canada, and especially in the West, found the aid and interest of transnational abolitionism. It was a way to display the positive ways in which the (already) Black Canadians had absorbed the professed values of freedom and equality in British North America. These Black communities were, then, the living proof that the way out of slavery was not only possible but also favourable for the country. Among the outstanding personalities that are an example of this transnational effort to foster freedom and anti-slavery defense for the benefit of the established Black communities in Canada is Mary Ann Shadd.