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

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Slavery was legally abolished in the British empire in 1834 but the Black population in what we know nowadays as Canada grew in numbers during the subsequent two decades as a result of a considerable influx of fugitive slaves from the United States. As the number of free Black people made their way into these Northern territories, the abolitionist movement focused its interest on their testimonies about their enslavement aiming to condemn slavery and to launch an ideological attack against such capital sin. By the time slavery was abolished in British North America, abolitionism was very well established at both sides of the frontier. This abetted ex-slaves, fugitive slaves and refugees to rely on the help of abolitionists and their compassionate humanitarianism to give account of their personal stories. Central to this ideological crusade against slavery, and to the eventual publication of their stories, was the mythical Underground Railroad, otherwise known as United States’ first civil rights movement. This secret network of safe houses and routes was used by fugitive slaves to escape and get their way into free states of Canada. The network was assisted by abolitionists as well as other active participants who were sympathetic to the cause of the escapees and committed to fight against slavery. They were “compelled by the philosophies of Abby Kelley Foster, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Coffin Mott, and John Woolman, volunteers captain Daniel Drayton and Captain Alfred Fountain,” and were engaged in “bold acts of civil disobedience to federal laws that required citizens to support slaveholders and federal agents” (Snodgrass xxxi). Yet, taking into account the nature of the secrecy on the Underground Railroad there are a few historical sources available that provide information about the refugee slaves themselves. The greatest amount of information about the secret network comes directly from the abolitionists who published their stories and writings in books and newspapers. A notable exception to this practice is a collection of interviews published by American abolitionist Benjamin Drew in 1856 and titled A North-Side View of Slavery; the Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. The book still bears importance and relevance since it is useful to answer questions regarding the actual travel of escapees between slavery and freedom, the kind of infamous conditions slaves endured while enslaved, and what St. Catharines and other Canadian cities were like when these fugitives set foot in the new country. Although the volume was created specifically as a response to Nehemiah Adam’s pro-slavery A South-Side View of Slavery (1855), it can be added to the catalogue of slave narratives that appeared from the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century in North America.