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

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I have been through both Upper and Lower Canada, and I have found the colored people keeping stores, farming, etc., and doing well. I have made more money since I came here, than I made in the United States. I know several colored people who have become wealthy by industry – owning horses and carriages, – one who was a fellowservant of mine, now owns two span of horses, and two as fine carriages as there are on the bank. As a general thing, the colored people are more sober and industrious than in the States: there they feel when they have money, that they cannot make what use they would like of it, they are so kept down, so looked down upon. Here they have something to do with their money, and put it to a good purpose.

Other testimonies that are very prolific in praising Canada against the tyranny of a slavery-based U.S. are the words by William Howard, who claims: “[After I escaped] I stopped a while in the free States, but came here on account of my friends being here…Canada is the best place tthat ever I saw; I can make more money here than anywhere else I know of”. John A Hunter: “I feel more like a man – I feel that I am a man a great deal more than I did a year ago. A year ago I was in bondage…A great many slaves know nothing of Canada – they don’t know that there is such a country”. Henry Williamson: “I heard when I was coming that Canada was a cold and dreary country; but it is as healthy a place as a man can find. The colored people tell me the climate agrees with them, and I do know it is so”. The now African Canadian citizens choose to glorify Canada since, regardless of the suspicious consideration of British North American citizens, it is a country that has granted them the chance to escape from the hell of slavery.