Interviews of black and white residents of Canada West, conducted by Samuel

Gridley Howe for the American Freedmens Inquiry Commission, 1863

Introduction

In the fall of 1863, during the middle of the American Civil War, abolitionist Samuel
Gridley Howe made two trips through Canada West (modern-day Ontario) where he
conducted a total of 98 interviews with white and black residents on topics including race
relations, the present and future prospects of black and mixed-race people in Canada and
in the United States, and American slavery.

Howe was a member of the three-man American Freedmens Inquiry Commission, who
were appointed by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton on March 16, 1863 to investigate
and report on the condition of newly-freed former slaves and recommend what measures
will best contribute to their protection and improvement. The Commissions final report,
which has been called a blueprint for Radical Reconstruction, was delivered on May
15, 1864 and helped inform the Congressional debate over government policy toward the
approximately four million African-American slaves who would soon become free.
Howes separate report on his experiences in Canada, and the conclusions he drew about
the black and mixed-race population there, was published under the title The Refugees
from Slavery in Canada West that same year.1

Howes interviews were originally transcribed in longhand by J.M.W. Yerrinton,

stenographer to the Commission. They have been digitally transcribed below by Matthew
Furrow, matthew.furrow@utoronto.ca, from the Commissions records, stored in
microfilm at the National Archives, Washington D.C.

These transcriptions may be cited as:

[Name of interviewee] interview by Samuel Gridley Howe, [date of interview], in

American Freedmens Inquiry Commission records, File No. 10: Canadian Testimony, in
U.S. Department of War, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General, Main
Series, 18611870 (microfilm: frames [frame numbers], reel 201, M619), RG 94
(National Archives, Washington, D.C.) (unpub. transcription by Matthew Furrow).

In the transcriptions below:

[Brackets] indicate clarifications by the transcriber.

{Braces} indicate illegible text in original, and the transcribers best guess as to meaning.
(Parentheses) are in the original text.

1
For more analysis of the American Freedmens Inquiry Commission and of Howes interviews in Canada,
see John G. Sproat, Blueprint for Radical Reconstruction, Journal of Southern History 23 (Feb. 1957),
2544; Matthew Furrow, Samuel Gridley Howe, the Black Population of Canada West, and the Racial
Ideology of the Blueprint for Radical Reconstruction, Journal of American History 97, 2 (Sept. 2010),
344-370. The microfilmed records of the Commission include a variety of material, including interviews
conducted by the Commissioners of Union officials in occupied portions of the Southern states.
 -2-

Index

FILE NO. 10. CANADIAN TESTIMONY...................................................................................................1

HAMILTON, C[ANADA].W[EST]., SEPT 3, 1863............................................................................................1
Testimony of Rev. Mr. Broadwater (formerly Pastor of the Baptist Church)..........................................1
Testimony of William Howard.................................................................................................................2
Testimony of Henry T. Ridley, M.D.........................................................................................................4
Testimony of Rev. J. G. Geddes...............................................................................................................5
HAMILTON, SEPT. 4, 1863............................................................................................................................6
Testimony of Rev. Tho[ma]s. Kinnard (Minister of the British Methodist Episcopal Church)..............6
Testimony of Robert McElroy (Mayor of Hamilton)...............................................................................7
Testimony of Josiah Cochran (Barber)...................................................................................................7
Testimony of Mr. McCullum, Principal of Central School.....................................................................8
Testimony of Hon. Isaac Buchanan, M.P..............................................................................................10
TORONTO, SEPT. 5, 1863............................................................................................................................10
Testimony of Hon. George Brown, M.P................................................................................................10
Testimony of Thomas Henning..............................................................................................................11
Testimony of Alfred Butler (Periodical Depot, Fancy Goods & Circulating Library).........................11
Testimony of Tho[ma]s Smallwood (Wood worker).............................................................................13
Testimony of Dr. Workman, (Lunatic Asylum)......................................................................................14
Testimony of Dr. Egerton Ryerson (Chief Sup[erintenden]t. of Education).........................................14
Testimony of George A. Barber (Sec. Board of School Trustees).........................................................16
Testimony of J. J. Cary (Barber)..........................................................................................................16
Testimony of F[rancis]. G[riffin]. Simpson (Shoemaker)....................................................................18
Testimony of Dr. James H. Richardson.................................................................................................22
Testimony of Rev. Dr. McCaul, (President of University).....................................................................23
Testimony of George Allen (Governor of Jail).....................................................................................24
LONDON, SEPT. 9, 1863.............................................................................................................................24
Testimony of Mr. Dunn (Barber)...........................................................................................................24
Testimony of the Chief of Police...........................................................................................................25
Testimony of Thomas Webb...................................................................................................................25
Testimony of J.B. Boyle (Principal Central School).............................................................................25
Testimony of Miss D. Gurd (Teacher)...................................................................................................26
Testimony of Miss M. Yates (Teacher)..................................................................................................26
[LONDON,] THURSDAY, SEPT. 10, 1863.....................................................................................................26
Testimony of Rev. James Proudfoot......................................................................................................26
Testimony of Mr. McBride (Chairman School Trustees)......................................................................28
Testimony of Dr. A.T. Jones...................................................................................................................29
Testimony of Wm. Clark........................................................................................................................30
CHATHAM, SEPT 10, 1863..........................................................................................................................32
Testimony of Mr. Bissell (Hotel Clerk).................................................................................................32
Testimony of Mayor Cross....................................................................................................................32
Testimony of Mr. Payne, Jailor Kent Co...............................................................................................34
Testimony of Mrs. Payne......................................................................................................................34
Testimony of Mr. Sinclair, Teacher........................................................................................................34
Testimony of John W. Sparks, Watchmaker..........................................................................................37
Testimony of Mr. Shadd (Farmer).........................................................................................................37
Testimony of Henry Jackson, (Cabinet-Maker)....................................................................................38
Testimony of Rev. Dr. McCaul, Superintendent of Schools...................................................................38
Mem. for Chatham................................................................................................................................38
BUXTON, SEPT 12, 1863.............................................................................................................................39
Testimony of Rev. W[illia]m. King........................................................................................................39
Mem......................................................................................................................................................44
WINDSOR, SEPT. 14....................................................................................................................................44
 -3-

Testimony of Rev. A.R. Green (Bishop M.E. Church.)..........................................................................44

Testimony of Alex. Bartlett, Town Clerk...............................................................................................46
Testimony of Alfred Whipper (Teacher Colored School)......................................................................47
SANDWICH, SEPT. 14..................................................................................................................................47
MALDEN, SEPT. 14.....................................................................................................................................47
Testimony of Dr. Andrew Fisher (Insane Asylum)................................................................................47
Testimony of Mr. Meigs, (Insane Asylum).............................................................................................49
Testimony of Mr. Park, (Merchant.)......................................................................................................49
Testimony of Capt. Averill.....................................................................................................................50
Testimony of Mr. Bush (Town Clerk)....................................................................................................50
Mem......................................................................................................................................................51
Testimony of Mr. Foster (Livery Stable Keeper)...................................................................................51
TUESDAY, SEPT. 15....................................................................................................................................55
[Memorandum]....................................................................................................................................55
ST. CATHARINES, SEPT. 17.........................................................................................................................56
Testimony of C.P. Camp, Town Clerk & Treasurer...............................................................................56
Testimony of John Kinney (Barber.).....................................................................................................57
Testimony of Mrs. Brown......................................................................................................................57
Testimony of W[illia]m. Henry Gibson, (Gardener)............................................................................59
Testimony of Col. E.W. Stephenson, (Landlord)...................................................................................59
Testimony of Dr. Theophilus Mack.......................................................................................................61
Testimony of Elder Perry (School Teacher)..........................................................................................62
Testimony of James Brown (Govt Colored School).............................................................................63
Total black population of Canada 11,413.........................................................................................63
FILE NO. 11. CANADIAN TESTIMONY NO. 2....................................................................................63
[SUSPENSION BRIDGE,] TUESDAY, NOV 5TH, 1863....................................................................................63
Testimony of Thomas Likers.................................................................................................................63
ST. CATHARINES, NOV. 6TH, 1863.............................................................................................................64
Testimony of J.W. Lindsay.....................................................................................................................64
Testimony of George Ross,....................................................................................................................70
[ST. CATHARINES,] SATURDAY, NOV. 7, 1863...........................................................................................73
Testimony of Mrs. Joseph Wilkinson.....................................................................................................73
[ST. CATHARINES,] SUNDAY, NOV 8, 1863................................................................................................74
Testimony of Joseph Smith....................................................................................................................74
Testimony of Mrs. Joseph Smith...........................................................................................................74
Testimony of Mrs. Amy Martin.............................................................................................................75
Testimony of Mrs. Hannah Fairfax.......................................................................................................75
Testimony of Rev. L. C. Chambers........................................................................................................76
Testimony of Henry Stewart..................................................................................................................77
Testimony of C. H. Hall........................................................................................................................79
Testimony of Mrs. Susan Boggs............................................................................................................80
Testimony of John Boggs......................................................................................................................82
Testimony of William Cornish...............................................................................................................83
Testimony of Tho[ma]s. P. Casey, (Barber)..........................................................................................86
HAMILTON, NOV. 9, 1863..........................................................................................................................89
Testimony of George Johnson...............................................................................................................89
HAMILTON, NOV. 10, 1863........................................................................................................................89
Testimony of John H. Hill.....................................................................................................................89
Testimony of Wm. H. Howard (Tailor)..................................................................................................90
Testimony of Willis Reddick (Barber)...................................................................................................90
Testimony of J.H. Bland (Barber).........................................................................................................91
LONDON, NOV. 11TH, 1863........................................................................................................................92
Testimony of Dr. A. T. Jones..................................................................................................................92
Testimony of Isaac Throgmorton (Barber)...........................................................................................93
Testimony of W[illia]m. C. Bell............................................................................................................96
 -4-

[LONDON,] NOV. 12...................................................................................................................................96

Testimony of William Williams..............................................................................................................96
Testimony of George Williams..............................................................................................................97
Testimony of George Dunn (Barber)....................................................................................................98
Testimony of John Shipton....................................................................................................................98
Testimony of Benj. Miller (Farmer)......................................................................................................98
CHATHAM, NOV. 12, 1863.........................................................................................................................99
Testimony of Andrew Smith (Blacksmith).............................................................................................99
Testimony of Mrs. Andrew Smith........................................................................................................100
Testimony of James W. Hall (Wagon and Carriage-Builder).............................................................101
[CHATHAM,] NOVEMBER 13TH................................................................................................................102
Testimony of William Jackson (waiter)...............................................................................................102
Testimony of Eli Holton......................................................................................................................102
Testimony of George Ramsay (Blacksmith)........................................................................................102
Testimony of Washington Thomas (Plasterer)....................................................................................103
Testimony of Grandison Boyd.............................................................................................................103
Testimony of Rev. Horace H. Hawkins...............................................................................................103
Testimony of John Davis.....................................................................................................................105
Reel 201

Frame 277 --
File No. 10. Canadian Testimony

278-79 -- Canadian Testimony

280 -
Hamilton, C[anada].W[est]., Sept 3, 1863
Testimony of Rev. Mr. Broadwater (formerly Pastor of the Baptist Church)
There are two Methodist Churches here and one Baptist. Our people are a very religious
people. I suppose I have baptized more by immersion than any one else around here. I
never had any salary. They gave me one year $100; and since that, one year, they gave me
$60. The society own their own building and ground like other people. The white people
help them. They are very generous in this country, though it is not said so. If a colored
person is sick, as soon as they find out it is not from his own neglect or ill-disposedness,
you may go among them, and in one hour raise six or seven dollars, and they will send
around subscriptions. As a general thing, the people take care of themselves without
charity -- they are too proud to beg. They do not have so much charity as poor whites.
Every child is allowed to go to the Government school, but the colored people can have
separate schools if they desire it, and they have them in Chatham and St. Catharines.
They were deceived by the Abolitionists, who told them they could

281 - not school their children so well at the government schools, and if they would take
them away, they would teach them for less -- and they charge them double. The colored
child has just the same treatment in the Government schools as the white; there is no
deception about that. There is a spirit here, just the same as there is in other places, to call
them niggers, and make a bugaboo of them, but just let them go right along, and that
soon wears away. Hardly any colored people would stay in Canada if the States were
free. If there were no colored people came here from the States, I think they would
increase. There is not a whits difference between this climate and in the Northern States;
the winter is rather longer -- that is all. The colored people have as many children as
white people -- five, six, seven and eight -- and the children are pretty thrifty. There is a
man here by the name of {Sl? H?}aughter, I name him for one; his wife has a child pretty
near every year. There is no difference between whites and blacks about that. I think the
children grow up. There are no particular diseases to which the colored people are liable.
I rather think this country agrees with them better than the States. We have steady cold
weather, and when it changes, we have it warm. The colored people

282 - are married here like white people. If they are not married, they cannot become
members of any church. They marry at pretty much the same age that others do. Most all
colored people who are not church members in some other denomination, are married in
the English Church. No clergyman refuses to publish the banns. If he was to refuse it, the
Established Church could take his gown away. There are a great many who own real
estate, and every person who is of industrious habit will do it; he sees that it is much
better for him [sic]. They usually vote. No person can vote without he pays [sic] so much
 -2-

tax, or owns property. I believe the law was altered last year, and a colored man must pay
a tax on $200, or he cannot vote for member of the Legislature. But the payment of a road
tax & school tax entitles a man to vote for municipal and all the small offices.

283 -
Testimony of William Howard

There are five or six hundred colored people in Hamilton. The largest portion are
mulattoes, and the majority fugitives. I think the number of men and women is about
equal. The women came the same way as the men. Most of those who live about the city
are employed by other people; out there are five or six carpenters here, and some
plasterers, and they all get enough to do. There is one man here -- a plasterer -- who came
from Virginia six years ago, and has built him [sic] a house, bought two lots, & is no
worth two thousand dollars. There are several farmers in this vicinity, who have from 50
to 200 acres under cultivation. Many of them employ other help during harvest; I do not
know any that keep any permanent hands. Those that I am acquainted with have sons,
who assist their fathers. A large number of the colored people go to the English Church.
That is quite common. The white people invite them to come, and they are sorry more of
them do not go to the white churches; but they seem to prefer their own. The majority
assemble among themselves. There is not the least practical difficulty in their going to
other churches -- I know that by experience. In

284 - the English Church, there are three persons who hold pews, and are considered
regular members of the Church. Their children go to the Sunday school. There was a
Sunday School pic-nic the other day, and a colored boy took the first prize in the running
match. This church is Christs Church, of which Rev. J. G. Geddes is pastor. The colored
churches own their buildings and property. We pay so much on the annual value of
property -- what is called the assessment tax. For instance, if we pay $4 a month, or $48 a
year rent, we pay so much on the dollar on that rent. There is a colored man here who
held the office of license inspector -- John Burns. He was put up against a white man, and
elected. Several others further West have been elected school trustees and commissioners.
The colored children here go to the public schools. The law allows them separate schools,
if the colored people wish, and in several places they have them, but now they regret it. I
suppose, on the average, a larger number of colored children attend school than of the
children of other laboring people. The colored people seem to take an interest in having
them taught. Oftentimes, there are little rows about color, but nothing to amount to
anything. I have visited the schools. All the children mix right up, according to

285 - their classes. It is the same in the Sunday School. There are colored teachers
teaching white children in Mr. Geddes Sunday School. There is a colored man here -- a
fugitive -- keeping the International hotel, and doing well. He has been here since 15
years [sic], and is worth 8 or $10,000. There are some few colored people who receive
charity. There are no actual vagrants among them. They are far superior to the Irish in that
respect. It is a strange thing to find a colored person brought up for drunkenness or
vagrancy. The colored people would keep up their population if no immigrants came
here. I guess if you visited some of their families, you would think they had as many
 -3-

children as white people. In this neighborhood, there are three families who number
twenty-three in all. There are many who have no children, and other families have only
two or three. I dont think they increase quite as fast as the Irish, on the average. Their
children do not die so fast here as in other places. I do not think there are so many deaths
among colored children as among white. The paper was speaking of that fact some time
ago, and thought that it was on account of the inattention of parents, and they threw out
some suggestions in regard to the raising of children. I do not know whether the abolition
of slavery in the States would itself

286 - entice them back; if there was a change in public sentiment, also, it would. Since
the recent riots in the Northern States, some of them seem to think they might as well be
slaves, and several families have come over here since the riots. If there was entire
security, I think they would prefer going South. It is natural. It is the land of their birth,
and their feelings lean that way. It is human nature.
I have been here nine years. I was raised in Baltimore. I do not find much
difference in the climate. I just came here on a visit, and liked this place so well that I
concluded to stay here. I have been doing pretty well, and have no reason to complain. I
do not get so well paid here as in Baltimore, but still I make a good living, and save a
little, too.
The colored people have two benevolent societies -- a Masonic Lodge & an Odd
Fellows Lodge -- separate lodges. The whites have invited them to join their Lodges, but
they are more satisfied among themselves. There are five colored men in this city, the
average value of whose property would amount to $20,000. They have made that since
they lived [sic] here. I think about four-fifths of the colored people here are fugitives. The
free people of the United States do not seem disposed to emigrate at all. The colored
people here

287 - have the same political privileges as the whites, in voting at elections, etc. We meet
with some prejudice in some instances, but we are not debarred from any place of public
amusement. No place is set apart for us. We ride in all public conveyances, and go to all
the public houses, just as white people do. Sometimes, when a colored man goes to a
public table, some one sitting opposite will show signs of disgust, but there is nothing to
keep a colored man out of the house. There are a great many Americans here, but more in
St. Catharines. The colored people are better off in Toronto than here. There is one
colored man there worth well night to [sic] $75,000. There is one colored young man
here studying law under Judge OReill{e?}y. There is no colored physician here. The
colored people have a stronger feeling of loyalty than white people; they almost go crazy
when the name of the Queen is called. It is often remarked by white people who strong
their loyalty is. When the National Anthem is sung, it is almost like one of their own
Methodist hymns. They look upon the U.S. as you would naturally suppose they would.
They hardly know what is to grow out of the recent war. The last disturbance in New
York of course makes the colored people feel badly. They all seem to think that Mr.
Lincoln is the greatest of men, from the skilful man-

288 - -ner in which he has managed, and that all is right now. They think that it is all
providential, and that Providence is working the thing out.
 -4-

Another thing operates in favor of the colored people here. Public sentiment is not
so demoralized, as a general thing, as it is in the States. If a colored man commits a
crime, there are no such degrading comments made upon it as in the States. A colored
man committed a rape on a white girl, and the papers merely recorded the fact, and no
disagreeable comments were made upon it, as many of us expected there would be,
because the crime was very atrocious.
A man who pays a rent of $36 a year, is entitled to vote here. Taking a general
view, I think the colored people are no worse off here than in the United States. I know
there is not so much actual poverty in the large cities as in the large cities of the United
States.

289 -
Testimony of Henry T. Ridley, M.D.
I think the colored people here live an average life. I think the disease they are liable to is
consumption. They are fertile. They have as many children as white people. There is no
mistake about that, so far as we are concerned here. I do not think their children are so
likely to live as the children of white parents. I dont think they rear the average number. I
have been in practice only eleven years, but I know members of families in this town
where they have quite a large number of children. But they have certainly a tendency to
tubercular diseases of the lungs, bowels, glands and brain. I am satisfied of that. When
they get over five and twenty, I think they are as likely to live as anybody else. There are
very few that insure their lives. I examine for the Colonial Office, and have examined for
three or four offices, and I never had an application from a colored man. I should as soon
take a colored mans life, after he had reached forty years of age, as a white mans, if I
found no other objection to him but his color. If two men, eighteen or twenty years old,
came to me, one black and the other white, I should prefer taking the white man -- and
certainly should if it

290 - was a child of ten. This country is very healthy, but I have no doubt that a man
coming from a hot Southern climate, as many of them do, becomes consumptive in a few
years, because the action of their skin is checked, and there is a tendency to congestion of
the internal organs. The majority are temperate. In respect to venery, they may be a little
worse than the whites. I think the colored population are a very quiet, well-behaved set of
people. My patients are bale to pay a moderate fee. Full one half of the colored people, I
suppose, are able to pay nothing. I think they compare well with the lower Irish -- are just
about on a par with them. Colored men are not inclined to work hard. All they do is as
servants in hotels, barbers and white-washers; and in the summer, they go out harvesting.
There are a few carpenters and some masons, and they do very well. There are no colored
shop-keepers here. There are a few farmers, but they do not farm to any extent; probably
they may rent a farm of 40 or 50 acres. I do not know of any about here who own any
property. I dont think we would want a great many more colored people here. For a few
years, it is up hill work with them. Unless they are very steady, very quiet, and work very
hard, the

291 - larger number could scarcely get a living, because there are so few estates of life
they can occupy. To a certain extent, they are valuable, in the station of life they occupy,
 -5-

and of course we should miss them, if they were all to leave the country. Although I am
partial to colored people, or at least, not inimical to them, and I have found a great many
decent, respectable people among them -- I would not care to have a colored person
occupy the door next to me, nor to have colored servants about me -- not on account of
the color, particularly, but they have a peculiar odor about them which is disagreeable to
me.
Very few of the colored people beg. I do not know of a colored man who has
come to me for a cent. They assist each other. There are a few who own lots in town; but
there is no colored man here, that I know of, who is considered well off. I am one of the
six physicians in the hospital, and I do not trust the colored people send any greater
proportion there than the whites. The colored people have suffered considerably here
from the small-pox. It has been almost confined to them, and has been very fatal to them.

292 -
Testimony of Rev. J. G. Geddes
There are several colored people belonging to my church; I have them in the
church and in the Sunday School, and I have always taken an interest in the improvement
of their condition, socially and religiously. There are two young colored women teachers
in the Sunday School, who teach white children of respectable people. They have a
brother who is studying law, who will in due time be an attorney and barrister; and in our
principal Canadian College, they have had colored young men who grew up and acquired
sufficient education to qualify them for professions. The great mass of the colored
populations will be found in the West; and where they go in any great numbers, the
people acquire a strong prejudice against them. At Chatham, there is a very strong feeling
against them, so much so that two young ladies from there, who attended a school here,
and connected themselves with my church, were ordered by their parents to leave,
because they had heard that colored people were admitted. Their teacher told me that the
parents of these young ladies would not suffer them to mingle with colored people, and
that they

293 - had peremptory orders to take them away. I said I was very sorry that any persons
belonging to our church were so narrow minded as to suppose their children could be
injured by the presence of a very few colored persons in the same church, but of course
we could not change our principles, and the young ladies must go. He then explained to
me that some flagrant crimes had been committed there by colored people, which had
created a tremendous feeling throughout the neighborhood. I think they are more capable
of improvement where they are mingled with whites. If you leave them among
themselves, of course their progress will be slow. I think they compare very well with the
lower class of whites, and that the instances of bad conduct are exceptions. I think they
are sober and temperate. Occasionally you meet with intemperance among them; but not
oftener, I think, than among other classes in the community. The Irish Roman Catholics
are the worst class of people we have. The colored people are very emotional, very
susceptible to religious impressions. There is one man who has property here, who went
from here to California, during some depression of business here, and is increasing his
means there; he has recently
 -6-

294 - sent for his wife, who has gone out there. They have a child who was educated in
the Central School, where the chief part of our population go for education, and who is a
very clever child. I think, of the more respectable colored people, I have had 12 or 14
families regularly connected with my church. Some of them have gone, and some of them
remain here. There are a good many grades of color among them. I do not find the same
intelligence in the child of the regular negro as in the white child. I think, as the shade
becomes lighter, there is more intelligence. We have some who are thorough negroes --
with all the characteristics of the negro race -- and I think their intellect is below par. The
most respectable people among them do not desire to have separate church organizations
or separate schools. They consider it a privilege to attend the same church with white
people, and have their children go to school with white children.

295 -
Hamilton, Sept. 4, 1863
Testimony of Rev. Tho[ma]s. Kinnard2 (Minister of the British Methodist Episcopal
Church)
A good many of the colored people here carry on shops for themselves, and there
are a great many farmers. There are many who own property. I think we beat the colored
people of the United States in intelligence. In regard to our loyalty, I would like to have
that recorded as a secret, because we are between the hawk and the eagle, and God only
knows which will devour us. Certainly, we are loyal, but we are more loyal to freedom
than to any other parties. I am more loyal to human freedom than I am to Britain or the
United States. If freedom were established in the United States, beyond all question, in
my opinion, there would be one eternal black streak reaching from here to the uttermost
parts of the South. All that drove us out of the country was slavery. One reason why we
should not stay here is, that this is not our home. We were driven from home, and you
know when a man is outraged and driven from home, he is very glad to see the day come
when he can return home. The children may be attached here, but you generally see the
chickens follow the old hen. If the chickens are hatched in the barn, and the old hen
makes for the house for the crumbs, the

296 - chickens follow her. This is the healthiest country in the known world. There are
two extremes of heat & cold; but still we can manage it here, by preparing in the summer
for the winter. After staying here two or three years a man becomes somewhat adapted to
the cold as well as the heat. I do not know that colored children are more sickly here than
in the States. I have never thought of the question whether families have as many children
here as at home. I can show you some as fine and hearty mulatto children as you ever saw
in your life; and as just as mammy gets one baby out of her lap, there is another coming.
Among the ignorant classes of the blacks, there are some taunts thrown out, when they
quarrel, like Youre a yellow fellow or Youre a black nigger, but there is no
difference between them. Neither considers his the superior race. I have studied medicine
some, and in my opinion, there is no difference between them and the whites in regard to
their liability to certain diseases. The colored people own their own churches and land
here. I have just put up a brick chapel, which is worth about $4000 -- a part of which
money I collected in England.
2
Transcribers note: possibly Kincaid or Kinnaird.
 -7-

297 -
Testimony of Robert McElroy (Mayor of Hamilton)
I have had very little to do with the colored people. I have never been troubled
with any of them, but I would not be a fair index, and I cannot give you any information
that would be of service to you. The colored people are liable to be drawn as jurors, but in
fact they are not put on the list here. I only know of one instance in Canada when a
colored man has been put on a jury, and that was in Chatham or London, and then a white
man refused to sit with him and the judge fined him $20. Some of the colored people are
as decent men as any I ever had transactions with -- honorable men. A good many of
them are worthless, and are not as fond of work as the laboring class of Europeans, if
they can do without it; they are more in the habit of doing light work, as waiters and
barbers. There is no disguising the fact, that although in theory there is no difference here
on account of color, in practice it is quite otherwise.

298 -
Testimony of Josiah Cochran (Barber)
I have been eleven years in Hamilton. I think the number of colored people here is 8 or
900. They take care of themselves. Some of them are carpenters, masons, and
blacksmiths. One blacksmith has a shop of his own, and two carpenters have shops of
their own. I only know a very few who are not able to take care of themselves. I dont
believe there are more than half a dozen. There is one charitable society in Toronto and
two in Chatham. There are Masonic, Odd Fellows and Temperance Societies here, of
colored people. We have no Lyceums. All the children go to school together, colored and
white. The colored children are treated just the same as the white. I have two going to
school, about as well advanced as you will find in any place. My children never get badly
treated on account of their color. If a colored boy whips a white boy, it dont amount to
any more than if a white boy whips a black one. I think the colored people are generally
pretty temperate. They are far ahead of the Irish. You may take as a criterion the
statement of the jails, prison, &c., here two years ago. In the course of the year, there
were

299 - some 1300 white persons imprisoned, and only four colored men. That will show
how well they are behaving and conducting. There is no separate burial place for colored
people. They {unite?} with separate churches or with white churches, according to their
own view. There are colored people belonging to the Catholic Church, the English
Church, the Presbyterian Church, and other churches, and they have a Methodist &
Baptist church of their own. The English Church is supported by the Government, but all
the other churches, white and colored, have to support themselves. You will find colored
men right on the first sheets, who own large buildings, worth from two to three thousand
dollars apiece. A colored man in Toronto passed a year ago for worth a million of money,
saying nothing of real estate, and up at Chatham, there are some very wealthy colored
people.
I find the climate agrees very well with our people. There is not much sickness or
mortality here among the children. You take those born and brought up in the South, who
come here, and do not take proper care of themselves, and put on such clothes and shoes
 -8-

as they ought, & they are very apt to get consumption or rheumatism. It is just as with
white people coming here.

300 - But otherwise, they are just as healthy as any body here. So, although I say it
myself, I dont believe there is a better country the Lord has spread his hand over, for the
white man or colored man, than Canada. I think a good many would go back if you had
entire freedom in the United States. I believe that is as pretty a country as the sun ever
shone over -- except that one evil. It is a fine country, and honest, hospitable people, too.
Some splendid people there, and some of the same here. But I would not pull straws
between the two countries. I would just as lief live here as there, or there as here.
I never knew any colored man down on the jury in Hamilton -- I have West [sic].
In the West, the majority are colored people, and in the elections, they swing the vote. We
all vote here who pay taxes. The colored people are very loyal to the Government. In fact,
they couldnt very handily be any otherwise [sic], and be anywise near right at all. There
are two papers published by colored men at Chatham -- the Provincial Freeman and
American Baptist -- both religious papers.

301 -
Testimony of Mr. McCullum, Principal of Central School
I had charge of the Provincial Model School at Toronto for over ten years, and I
have had charge of this school over four years, and have had colored children under my
charge all that time. I never knew any want of capacity or any inability in them. But I
have not had them as long as other children. They had to go to work before others did,
and that is the reason they are more deficient than others. They conduct themselves with
the strictest propriety, and I have never known an occasion where the white children have
had any difficulty with them on account of colour. When any new ones came, particularly
in Toronto, I used to go out with them in the yard myself, and play with [them] specially,
just to show that I made no distinction whatever, and then they made none. I found this
[illegible insertion] most healthy in its operation. I have had [illegible insertion] into the
higher branches [of] mathematics and geometry. They got on just as well as others. We
had one girl, not quite black, but nearly, in the highest department. She did just as well. I
am quite satisfied that it is an entire

302 - mistake to consider that they are in any way different, except from the difference of
circumstances -- the unfortunate circumstances in which they have been placed. Little
children do not show the slightest repugnance to playing with them or coming in contact
with them. I never knew of a case. I have heard of cases out in the country where parents
would not let their children sit at the same desk with a colored child. That is the origin of
the difficulty, where they are not treated like other children. We have not the least
difficulty here. We give the children their seats according to the credit mark they have
received the preceding month, and I never have had the slightest difficulty. The usual
conduct of the colored children is just as good as that of the others. I have had white boys
in the school who have behaved worse than any colored boys, but I have a large number
of white boys, in comparison with the number of colored, so that this goes, of course,
only a certain way. I have had very little formal acquaintance with the colored people --
not so much with grown people as with children; but year after year, when I was in
 -9-

Toronto, the Police Magistrate repeatedly stated in his annual report, that for their
numbers, there were less before him than of any other class in the community. In my
opinion,

303 - they make good citizens, as far as I know. They are just as {quiet?} as other people,
for the circumstances in which they are placed; for I think we should always take the
unfortunate circumstances in which they are placed into account. They are quieter, better
citizens, for they endure more aggravation than any other class of people. Practically, we
do not regard them as equals. For instance, no colored boy can be clerk in a store; that is,
there are more or less prejudiced people who would resent it in some way, and so that
avenue, & others, are closed against them. But there is noth the slightest difference in our
University at Toronto. I do not know that there is any colored young man there now, but
there was one, partly negro, there; and there were Indians there, also.
I have spoken to the teachers at the school in reference to the colored pupils, and
they all coincide in the opinion I have given, that they are fully equal to the others in
mental attainments and in their conduct and discipline at school. As I said, it would be a
thing unthought of to take a young man of color for clerk in one of our stores, and so they
are {found?} laborers and barbers, and I think they feel this exclusion very keenly. It is
too bad that it is

304 - so; yet it is so, and we must do the best we can with it. Up at the oil springs, the
colored people have quite a little town. The white people were there, and they had all the
work. They charged six shillings for sawing a cord of wood. The colored people came
from Chatham, and to get constant employment, they charged only fifty cents. Well, what
did the white people do? They raised a mob, and went one night and burnt every shanty
that belonged to a colored person, and drove them off entirely. Well, it was a mob; it was
not society at all; it was but the dregs of society who did this. The parties were arrested,
and two of them were sent to the Penitentiary for seven years. They took some of the oil,
and while some of them were parleying with the colored people in front of their doors,
they took it behind, and threw it over their shanties, set it on fire, and the buildings were
on fire in an instant. They did not hurt them much in any other way, but they would have
done so, if the colored people had returned. However, the rioters had to leave, so that they
gained nothing by it. I think they do better when scattered about among the white people,
than when congregated in separate communities. When they come together, they excite
prejudice, and

305 - compete in certain things with others, and where such a result is brought about, this
wicked prejudice acts with all its fiery vigor. Then there is another thing I would to
mention. I am impressed with the idea that colored persons brought up among white
people look better than others -- their rougher, harsher features disappear. I think that
colored children brought up among white people look better than their parents. It is just
so with white people. So I have not a particle of sympathy with those who try to make out
they are a distinct genus -- that they are not of the same species with ourselves. Yet there
are certain points upon which some physiologists have dwelt with considerable force; but
I never could see that there was any great force in them. I suppose we do not have any
true negroes in Canada, or very few of them. Just so with the Indians -- we have not a
 - 10 -

score of true Indians in the country. I dont think the colored people inclined to drink, and
they seldom have any quarrelling among themselves. There was a case, however, about
two years ago, where two negroes had a quarrel, and one of them threw a stone, which
struck the other on the head, & killed him; and a great cry was made about it, because
they were negroes.

306 -
Testimony of Hon. Isaac Buchanan, M.P.
I am not sufficiently familiar with the facts in regard to the colored people to be
willing to express any opinion on which you might form a judgment. There are some
exceedingly good people among them, and some exceedingly bad ones -- just what you
might expect. I think we see the effects of slavery here very plainly. The children of the
colored people go to the public schools, but a great many of the white parents object to it,
though the white children do not, that I know of. I suppose, if the question was put to
vote, the people of Canada would vote against having the niggers remain here. I think it
will be found that the[y] commit more than their proportion of the crimes -- not only of
the petty offences, but the graver ones. In case slavery were abolished in the United
States, I think a great many of them would go back.

Mem. For Hamilton. During the month of August, 1863, the attendance at the Central
School and Primaries was 2220, only 33 of whom, or 1 per cent. were colored -
Hamilton paper.

307 -
Toronto, Sept. 5, 1863
Testimony of Hon. George Brown, M.P.
I regard the colored people of Canada as a useful class of citizens. All their vices
grow out of their former condition of slavery. Thieving is natural to them. But one thing
you must keep in mind -- It will not do to trust the criminal statistics, for if a man with a
black face is put into the box, it is almost tantamount to conviction. My impression is that
the Buxton settlement, in respect to showing their capability to work the soil, has not
been very satisfactory. There they are by themselves. The settlement at Wilberforce, near
Buxton, it [sic] is worth your while to visit, because it is a very old settlement. The
settlers there are very comfortable, and have good houses. You will find, I think, that they
should not settle by themselves. They do better when mixed up with the white
community. If Rev. King had not been at Buxton the experiment would have failed years
ago. I think the prejudice against the colored people is stronger here than in the States. To
show you the prejudice that exists against tem, when I was a candidate for Parliament in
Upper Canada, 150 people signed a paper, saying that if I would agree to urge the passing
of a law that the negro should be excluded from the common schools, and putting a head
tax upon those coming into the country, they would all vote for me -- otherwise, they

308 - would vote for my opponent. There were 150 men degraded enough to sign such a
paper and send it to me. It is said that white people have tried to get their children into the
colored school at Buxton. I dont know how true it is, but it will be worth while for you
to inquire into it. That school is kept up by the Presbyterian Church. You may depend
 - 11 -

upon it, if slavery is abolished at [sic] the South, they will go down there almost to a man.
It just suits them. One thing about them is quite remarkable -- they never beg. They only
ask for work, and when they get work, if they have borrowed any money, they will come
back and pay it -- a thing I never knew white men to do. Their ministers are about the
only beggars with black faces I have ever seen.

Testimony of Thomas Henning

There is no prejudice among the white children in the schools against the colored
children. I think they are rather pets. If they succeed in getting prizes, and most of them
do, they are more praised than the others. They are great favorites at the University, also.

309 -
Testimony of Alfred Butler (Periodical Depot, Fancy Goods & Circulating Library)
I think there are not over 800 colored people in Toronto now -- 200 families,
perhaps. There are a considerable number here to own property and pay taxes. The
colored people here at one time were doing very well, and at the time when business was
good, -- about 1856 and 7 -- most of us went into speculations, laying out our money as
fast as we made it, expecting times to continue as they were. The consequence was, that
after our money was gone, times began to get bad, and we found the want of money
again. When I started here, in 1855, I did not have fifty cents in my pocket. Now, I own
all the stock [sic], which I value at $2000. I pay 20 a year rent, which is considered very
cheap. There are a good many of our people who carry on business for themselves --
grocers, shoemakers, carpenters, tobacco-manufacturers, bricklayers -- and there are a
good many cabinet makers, who work for a large firm here. Our city has turned out two
colored doctors, two of whom [sic] -- Dr. Augusta and Dr. Abbott -- are surgeons in the
Union army. The refugees here were mostly slaves. Our people find the climate here
pretty tough for the first months, but we get used to it

310 - after a while. Of course, it does not agree with us so well as a warmer climate
would. I dont think it is quite so easy to raise children here as down South. I think the
climate preys more upon the constitution than the Southern climate does. I have become
pretty well acclimated here, and I can endure as much cold as most people raised here;
and yet I think the weather preys upon a persons constitution more, and a man gives way.
I presume most of them would go away, if freedom prevailed in the United States,
notwithstanding they have property. Those who have property would endeavor to sell out,
and go South. I am pretty sure I should myself, notwithstanding my store here. I had
much rather live in a warmer climate. As a general thing, we are treated pretty well. There
is some prejudice, but we cannot complain. When a man comes here, they do not, as a
general thing, employ him directly, without knowing any thing [sic] who he is and what
he is, as we have been used to in the States; but after they find out who he is and what he
is, he generally gets employment very readily. If colored men are in business, they are
generally patronised, for there are a great many persons in Canada who feel an interest in
our welfare, and will patronise us, if they see that

311 - we are industrious and trying to get along. We have all the advantage of the public
schools. Our children go regularly to the schools, and there is no distinction made in this
 - 12 -

city between white and colored children. As a general thing, we do not meet with any
disagreeable treatment here in Toronto. As a general thing, the feeling of loyalty, before
this American rebellion broke out, was very strong among the colored people; but of late,
since the Trent affair came up, and since there have been so many iron clads [sic] built in
England, and so many English vessels run the blockade, and the tone of the English press
in regard to the rebellion has been noticed, and the movements of different members of
Parliament, it has rather lowered the feeling of loyalty among our people. They look with
more interest toward the United States of late, especially since the Presidents
Proclamation has come out, and they see the opportunity of enjoying freedom in the
States shortly, and expect it. There are a great many who do not feel satisfied with the
course that has been pursued by the British Government, in conniving at the sailing of
those steamers that were built there. They have a feeling, after all, for the old mother
land. Most of them feel very well inclined toward the

312 - President. They {believe?} he is an honest man, willing to do the right thing, and
trying to do it. There are a good many different societies among the colored people here.
There is what is called the St. Johns Society, and an Odd Fellows Society, and a
Masonic Institution, also. The St. Johns Society has both male and female members. The
object of the Society is to take care of each other, to provide money for those who are
sick who belong to the Society, bury the dead decently, and if there are any in need, they
assist them. We do not go to the white people hardly at all for charity. We take care of
ourselves.
I have a circulating library here. Most of my patronage comes from white people.
We have no separate burial ground, but our dead are buried in the general burying
ground, and no objection is made to it. A good many of our people go to the white
churches and Sunday Schools, and many of them are communicants. It is only because
many of the people have been accustomed to worshipping among themselves in the
States, that they prefer to have separate churches. There are two Methodist churches and
two Baptist churches here. Most of our people who are in any kind of business employ
white people.

313 - I speak German and French. I learned French and German when I was in Buffalo. I
learned them out of books. I learned German first, and then found it easier to learn
French. I have found the knowledge of these languages of great service in my business. I
am now 48 years old. I was raised in Tennessee, a slave. I learned to read while a slave.
When I was a small child, four years old, living with my father and mother, they bought a
book, and my mother, who could read, taught me and the rest of the children, on the sly. I
could read before I was six years old. I was put upon the auction-block and sold when I
was eight years old.
We do not meet so much blackguardism here as in the States. If we are abused or
insulted here in any way, we can have recourse to the law, and, as a general thing, we get
more justice than in the States. At any rate, that class of persons who would be disposed
to blackguards and interrupt people, do not do it so much here as in the States, and I
suppose it is because the law is enforced more rigorously; for I know there are plenty
here disposed to disturb people, if they could do it without being punished. I used often to
 - 13 -

remark, in my travelling, that when I would go to make any inquiries, at a depot, for
instance, I would always get

314 - as civil an answer from the person in charge as any other men; but frequently, in the
States, as quick as I went to any depot, they would want to begin some kind of
blackguard, to humbug me or take me off [sic] -- something in that way.

Testimony of Tho[ma]s Smallwood (Wood worker).

I have been in Canada 20 years the 14th of next month. I have made a good deal
of money, and have lost a good deal. I lost $300 in a paper that was started here by
colored men. I find the climate agreed with me, still I would rather go back to the old
place, and intend to go back. Nothing but slavery and the wish to educate my children, in
some part, brought me away from there. I lived in Washington, D.C., and the facilities at
that time were not at all favorable to the education of colored children there. Our people
are drawn on juries here. They have a right to the jury-box as well as any body else; but
whether they get in it or not depends upon what kind of Government we have here. For
instance, the Government that preceded the present one -- the Tory, or Conservative
Government -- though they have always professed to be the great friends of the

315 - colored people, are their worst enemies, and they have proved themselves so since
this war. But prior to that, they proved it from time to time. When I first came to Canada,
the colored people here supported the Conservative Party, and it was for this reason --
because they believed that party was more true to British principles than the Reform
party. They were jealous [sic] that at some future time the reform party would bring on
annexation. They said then -- and I argued the same thing, and went with them -- they
said then, that [if?] the movement that took place, all home for the African race on the
American continent vanished [would vanish?] away. That was the ground we went upon;
but we were deceived. There was Mr. Geo[rge]. Brown, who came here about the time I
did, and started the Globe, and his father started the Banner. The old man and the young
man advocated the cause of the colored man, and yet we would not support Mr. Brown
for many years, not because we did not believe him as a sincere anti-slavery man, and in
his father, but because we thought the party he was the leader of was really the other way,
and if we supported him and his party, we should just go against our own interest.
Notwithstanding the antecedents of the Conservative party had been bad

316 - enough, for in the two fugitive cases -- the Hackett case and the Moseby case -- the
Conservative party would have surrendered the fugitives into bondage but for the
exertions of their friends; and Moseby was rescued at Niagara at the cost of the lives of
some of the colored people[;] yet we supported them. Then there was the case of Samuel
Brown, who was accused of shooting his young master, and when they could not convict
him of that, he was sold to Orleans. By some means, he got very excellently got-up free
papers, and they brought him safely to Pittsburg[h], and he went to Philadelphia, and Mr.
Mott employed him in his store. He had a wife and nine children in Maryland, and the
anti-slavery people got them to Philadelphia, and then they sent a letter to his grown-up
son to get him away, and that letter fell into the hands of the slaveholders. Brown & his
family were brought here by a Mr. Young, and we sent him to Montreal, to the Attorney
 - 14 -

General for the West, Mr. Sherwood, thinking he was our friend, and that if he told him
his story, it would be all right. Mr. Young saw him and told his story; but all he said was,
that if that was the case, the man would have to be given up, and never offered to
introduce him to the Governor-General. But the Attorney-General for the East, Mr.
Badgl{e?}y, a Frenchman, received

317 - him very cleverly, and soon gave him an introduction to the Governor-General. He
told his story to the Under-Secretary, and when he got through, the Governor thanked
him, and told him they would be ready for them when they came. And sure enough, in
half an hour after he left, the officers from Boston arrived, with a requisition for Mr.
Brown. But they did not get him. Mr. Young came back and reported the circumstances to
us, and we set it down as the second instance in which the Conservative party had
deceived us. The election came on soon after that, and we called Mr. Sherwood to
account for it. At that time, we held the balance of power in elections. Mr. Sherwoods
friends got round us, said it was a mistake on the part of Mr. Sherwood, and should never
be the case again, if we would look over it. Well, we did look over it, and went on and
supported that party for several years, until the Anderson case came up, and that finished
us all off. That was the third case, and we thought that was about enough.

318 -
Testimony of Dr. Workman, (Lunatic Asylum)
I have had but very few colored patients. They very seldom recover. I never have
discharged but one colored patient, recovered. I have two now in the Asylum -- brother
and sister. Most of the colored patients who have died here have died of phthisis, or
tubercular disease in some form. I am not an admirer of the colored race myself, but we
owe a certain duty to them. They are our fellow-beings. I dont think, with all our fluster,
that we have any more sympathy than you have for black people. You know the steamers
on this side allow colored people at the cabin table, while no captain on the other side
dare [sic] to do it; and a great parade is made about it; but I question whether there is not
a great deal more of national antagonism in that than benevolence. I do not think there is
any undue proportion of colored insane. They do not go into the country and take the axe,
the plough or the spade. They try to get on with light work, indoor work -- what we might
call choring. I dont think mulattoes are so strong as the negroes. It seems as if Nature has
set a certain ban upon the mingling of the blood.

319 - I have observed the same thing in Indians. All the half-breeds that come down here
die of phthisis. My brother had an Academy at Alexandria, and a great many came down
to board with him. Those who did not die early of phthisis, were killed by whiskey. I do
not know of any recorded statistics in regard to the cross between the Indian and the
White.

Testimony of Dr. Egerton Ryerson (Chief Sup[erintenden]t. of Education)

The colored people here live a very quiet life. I employ them sometimes, but
know very little about them. They give me no trouble. They are industrious. The
American feeling still exists in this country in regard to the colored people, especially
among the country people. I do not consider it a natural feeling, because it is not an
 - 15 -

English feeling. I do not know whether it is a natural feeling or not. I have sought to
promote their interests. I appealed to the Trustees here, and they admitted them to the
schools on equal grounds. We have had some in the {Normal?} School, on the same
footing as other children. No distinction has been made; on the contrary, one of them (a
half blood) who showed a good deal of talent, the head-master

320 - permitted to teach. It is within the power of the Trustees to make a distinction
between colors. In cities and town, the Boards of Trustees have the control of all the
schools; but in the country {places?}, district school municipalities, it is at the option of
the colored people to have separate schools or not. In some cases, the Trustees in country
places have refused to admit colored children to the schools, and the colored people have
appealed to me, I have referred them to the Courts, and the Courts have always given
decisions in their favor. There is a good deal of difficulty in the Western counties, (of
which Chatham is the principal town) where there are a great many refugees, and the
white people speak very unfavorably of their character. But as far as I know, in this city,
they are as industrious & sober as any class of people. I had a very hot time when I was
in the West. I make an official visit to the country once every four or five years, and hold
what is called a Count{r?}y Convention; of magistrates, clergymen, trustees, and all who
are interested, to hear suggestions, answer questions, &c., and when I went there, both
parties came forward & wanted to draw something {given?} me that would favor each of
them. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, whom I had known from his youth -- a
very excellent and amiable man -- came up and said that he would say two or three
things.

321 - In the first place, the colored people all lived in one ward of the town; they
managed their own affairs; they would not have white clergymen, but would have
clergyment of their own color; and as they wished to have their other affairs in their own
hands, the Trustees {thought?} they ought to have schools of their own -- he said they
would admit that the Board had employed the very best teacher in town for their school,
and he could say that without offence to the other teachers, for they {would?} all admit it,
and they were the best provided with apparatus and {maps?} of any school in town. The
Trustees had determined they should have no ground for complaint; but it was for the
comfort and advantage of all concerned to have separate schools. The colored people are
very troublesome in some places. They assert their rights in an ostentatious and offensive
manner, pushing themselves forward in a way that even those who are friendly to them
cannot justify. I do not know that there has been a legal decision in regard to the right of
Trustees to require the attendance of colored children at separate schools. They have no
right beyond {common?} school instruction. They have no right to a particular school-
house. If the Trustees do not choose to provide them with common school instruction,
they have a right to appeal to the law. The {simple?}

322 - distinction between cities and town and country places is this: that in country
places, it is at the option of the parties themselves (the colored people) to have separate
schools, while in the cities and towns, it is in the control of the Trustees. Where they have
separate schools, they are supported by the Government. It is useless to attempt to force
colored children into schools where the people are opposed to it; it is only to {shut} up
 - 16 -

the schools. If we had undertaken to force the thing in Hamilton, they would have risen
up in arms. When they inaugurated their system, they wished me to address them, and I
met the Trustees afterwards, and took up the subject. Where colored and white children
are mixed up in the same school, no real inconvenience arises. The City Corporation, or
the Board of Trustees, has established a number of scholarships in the Grammar school
and a number of prizes, and I was very glad to find, last year, at the meeting at City Hall,
that out of a dozen or fourteen prizes, some four or five were taken by colored children.
Of those who were in the normal school, a majority did not get on well in the higher
branches; they could not master them. That is my own impression in regard to their
capacity; but I have not had enough experience to form a deliberate opinion.

323 -
Testimony of George A. Barber (Sec. Board of School Trustees)
The colored people in this city are an industrious and painstaking class, according
to their idea, mind you. They do not like hard work. They are temperate, and never beg. I
have been surprised, on reading the police reports, to see how few are brought before the
Courts. I do not agree with Dr. Ryerson in the opinion that it is optional with the Board of
School Trustees to establish separate schools for colored children. I believe the right is
with the colored people to ask for their establishment, if they see fit, but no power vests
in the Trustees in that matter.
I have the return of the number of colored persons resident in the city, according
to the Provincial Census of 1861, which I will furnish you, certified by myself (Here
follows the return, subsequently furnished.)
Ward of St. George -- 21
St. Lawrence -- 60
St. Andrew -- 75
St. Patrick -- 138
St. James -- 81
St. Davis -- 21
St. John -- 538
Total -- 934

324 -
Testimony of J. J. Cary (Barber)
I have lived here ten or twelve years. I came here from Ohio, where I had lived
some 14 years, and where my condition was little better than it would have been if I had
lived right across the river in Kentucky; not particularly on account of prejudice, but the
law. The law of ohio then prohibited a colored man from testifying in a case where a
white man was a party; and there was another law, very odious in its character, requiring
every colored man to give bonds and security for his good behavior in the sum of $500.
That law was passed in 1807. Another law required him to pay taxes to support schools
which his children were not allowed the privilege of attending. Under these
circumstances, it was not to be wondered at that I should feel quite sore. I want to be
treated like other men. I find it so here. There is no privilege which any other man enjoys
which I may not enjoy, if I wish. If I wish to send my children to the University, there is
 - 17 -

no prohibition. There is no social prohibition here, on account of {complexion?}. Still

there are individual instances where you find white men who show an opposition

325 - to mingling or commingling with blacks, as you find such cases every where. You
will find some colored men who do not want to mingle with whites. So far as I am
concerned, and so far as my intercourse allows me to observe, I do not see that there is
that cause for complaint, on account of prejudice, that many suppose. I suppose that the
prejudice exists more in imagination than reality. The number that come here who were
not slaves is not large -- at least, not about here. There are some, however, who come
from such {motives?} as I have stated. Our people are drawn on juries, and serve. They
cannot get away from it. The law is very stringent in that particular. If a man is
empanelled on a jury, either in the Court of Assizes or the Recorders Court, he is
required to serve, unless he can give some very reasonably excuse to exempt him from it;
and if he fails to obey the summons, he is amenable [sic] to punishment. We have some
men of considerable wealth among the colored people. I have known some of the most
wealthy on the jury, and some of the most indigent; so that I have seen no distinction in
that particular at all. I recollect being empanelled on the jury myself nad at the same time
there were some men there whom I felt

326 - were not eligible, so far as intelligence went, and if I had had the selection of the
panel, I dont think I would have selected some of the men I saw on the jury. We are
eligible to office, and some of the town councillors have been elected from the colored
people; and one or two town municipal office{r?}s have been elected from the ranks of
the colored people. But they do not aspire, it seems, to those positions. I have not the
slightest doubt, myself, that if they aspired to things and used the same means to secure
those positions that white men use, they would succeed in doing so.
As I said before, we have some colored men in this city who are in pretty easy
circumstances. Among them, a man by the name of Abbott, I suppose, is worth some 75
or $100,000. He ran for a seat in the Corporation; and his failure to get elected was
mainly attributable to the fact that he did not use the same means that white men use.
They are in the habit, when they set up for Alderman or Councillor, to go round and
solicit the vote of each elector in the Ward. He did not do that. The consequence was, that
he got but a very few votes, whereas his opponent, who went around and canvassed the
ward, was elected. The voters said, if Mr. Abbott

327 - did not think their votes worth asking for, they did not think it worth while to give
him their votes. In the Township of {Rowley?}, Kent Co., where the prejudices are
strongest against the blacks, two colored men have been occupying the position of
township councillors for five or six years. It would be difficult to get at the amount of
taxes paid by our people. The assessment is taken without any distinction of color. There
are some colored people who have their lives insured. The Minerva Life Assurance Co.
takes risks on colored men; and, so far as I know, any of the offices would. They take the
lives of colored men on the same terms that they take white people. I think they believe
the colored people are longer lived than whites, freer from those diseases that are liable to
carry them off suddenly. I find there are a great many cases of lung disease, but I dont
think the proportion is greater among the blacks than the whites. I cant say that I have
 - 18 -

observed any disease to which colored people are more liable than white. I find there is a
great deal of rheumatism among them. If the parents are healthy, I think there is no
difficulty in rearing the children, but if the parents have not a healthy constitution, I think
the climate will very much interfere

328 - with it. I have had considerable intercourse with a doctor who resided here some
years by the name of Augusta, who was educated here at Trinity College, and he says he
finds no difference between the white & colored races, that they are both susceptible to
the same class of diseases here as there are elsewhere. I know some families where there
are a large number of children; but the families are larger West. The climate there is not
so severe as here. I suppose colored families will average five children; and they rear
them. I hear more complaint of rheumatism, among grown-up people, than anything else.
There may be cases, but I dont think {affectisis? Affections? Afflictions?} of the lungs
are very general among children. I have not had the opportunity of seeing how the
colored people succeed in settlements, from this fact, that I have not been among them;
but from what I have been told, I dont see any advantage that they enjoy in a settlement
over those who reside in a city. There are quite a number of colored mechanics about
Toronto, who seem to progress very well. There are several men in a small business way
who get along very well, and I dont see that those in settlements and

329 - farming situations get along any better. The main difficulty with the colored people,
in getting along in any position in life, is the difficulty of proper training. In regard to the
privileges of schools and churches, there is no ground of complaint, so far as I know. By
the law, white and colored are equal. As for social privileges, that is something that has
got to regulate itself. That is something that never troubled me in the least. I have not
known [sic], to tell you the truth, any thing about my color since I have been here. I have
no cause to find any fault with it. If I want to rent a house, I never find any trouble on
account of my color. If I can pay the same rent for the same premises that another man
can, I can get them; in any part of the city. I do not know of any instance of a house being
refused to a colored person, even in the most genteel part of the city, if he could pay the
rent. {T?}here is a vacant store right above me (on Yonge St.) If a colored man came
along and wanted to hire that store, for business purposes, there would be no objection to
his taking it, if he could pay the rent.

330 -
Testimony of F[rancis]. G[riffin]. Simpson (Shoemaker)
I have been here about eight years. I was born in New York State. I cant say that I
have found this a better country than New York State. It answered my purpose when I
came here, out of course I should prefer the United States. This country is not so good a
country to make money and get along in as the States. It is a newer country, and the
people are not so go-ahead as the Yankees are. They go ahead and spend their money for
the improvement of the country, whereas the Canadians keep their money for the benefit
of themselves. That makes the difference. I learned my trade in this city. Though the
colored people may manage to eke out a scanty living, they dont do much more, many of
them, I must say. Some few are doing pretty well. Some, who brought means with them,
are doing pretty well -- a very few, I think all those who came here from the free States,
 - 19 -

or from the Slave States, who were free, came because of the prejudices under which they
labored there. I know persons living here who came from Philadelphia, Richmond,
Charleston, and Cincinnati, who were free; and they came for the purpose of bettering
their social condition. They were free, and making

331 - money in the States. When I first came times were better than they are now. But
after the crisis in 1836, every thing went to {mush?} in this country, and it has never been
any better. I am hardly making a living now. The depression of the war affects this
country wonderfully. I cant see in what way it affects it; yet capitalists here are so very
cautious and afraid to spend their money. My impression is that men with money ought to
make money here now; for every thing is cheap here -- breadstuffs, grain, &c., -- which is
dear in the United States. The most speculation the capitalists have done has been with
their money. I must say, that leaving the law out of the question, I find that prejudice here
is equally strong as on the other side. The law is the only thing that sustains us in this
country. There is not the slightest prejudice here to keep us out of the churches. We are
treated with the utmost respect in the best churches here. The highest seat in the
synagogue is {thought? the right?} not too good for us. The people here dont want the
colored people to have the separate churches. In fact, they would be far better off if they
had no churches. I am certain they would. It would help to allay & break down the
prejudice against color. There is not the slightest bit of prejudice in any

332 - of the schools. Our children suffer not the slightest inconvenience in regard to their
color. There are very few here so poor that they cannot find books for their children. I
belong to a society for furnishing poor children with books for the common schools, and
we have had but one or two applications. The schools are pretty well attended by colored
children. We undertake to clothe children here and send them to school, but there are very
few that require it. We had only one or two cases.
I think the climate is rather hard upon the people, generally. They have to be
exposed a great deal. The kind of labor they get -- the generality of them -- is far different
from what they get in the States, and hence they are exposed a great deal, and the climate
may work more strongly upon their constitutions; and perhaps they may not be so warmly
clothed as they should be to face the inclemency of the season. Still, I think that, as a
whole, the climate is rather too hard for the generality of the colored people -- more
especially those from the far South -- though they stand it pretty well. But I notice that
many of them die of decline or consumption here. I dont think there are any diseases
peculiar to colored

333 - children. As far as I myself am concerned, this is the most healthy climate I was
ever in. I never saw so much rheumatism in New York State as I have seen here. Nobody
there complained of rheumatism but old men, but here I have seen young people
prostrated by it. This climate is very changeable. I have seen it change 20 degrees in a
few hours. Those not prepared with clothing suffer from these sudden changes. I doubt if
our people are so fertile here as at the South. I think a warm country, for any race of
people, tends to make them more prolific than a cold climate. I may be mistaken, but I
dont think the colored people are so prolific here as they are in the States. Judging from
appearances, there are not so many children here. Since the war, a great many colored
 - 20 -

people have come here. The churches take care of what poor belong to them; but in jail,
there are no poor of any consequence. I dont see them going about begging, & I dont
think you will find one in the poor house. I dont know of any, although there may have
been one or two in there since I have been in the city. At the poor house, they do not
admit all poor as they do in the States -- it is called a house of industry, and those who

334 - are not able to work much are sent there. There are very few beggars here, white or
colored. I never was in a place of its size where there were so few. Our people, as a
general thing, are self-supporting. There are quire a number that have acquired property,
but I think the greater number of these brought some little nucleus with them when they
came here. It is difficult to acquire property here, for the facilities for making money are
not so good as in the States. A good many go to the other side to wait and cook & then
come back to spend the money they have earned. I tell them they might as well stay there,
if they are obliged to go there to earn their money. If I went over there as they do, I would
not come back. I have seen the colored people from Hamilton to Kingston, and I find
them all just about alike, though I must say, that I found more people in Kingston who
were in rather poor circumstances than in any other places. After you leave Kingston, you
find very few East. You find quite a number in Port Hope, Coburg and Bellville [sic].
There are perhaps twenty or thirty families in each of those places, and they are all very
prosperous -- as a general thing, more so than they are in these large cities, because where
they are so few, the com-

335 - -petition is not so great in the kinds of work they get to do, and the people give
them a better chance. If they had the opportunity of getting employment in other
branches, and were encouraged, they might excel in them, for I am told there are some
good mechanics in the South; in fact, we have some here from the South, who are as
good mechanics as there are in the city. We have shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths and
tobacco manufacturers. There are three benevolent societies among the colored people --
one male society, and two female societies. Then there is one literary and social society.
There are men here who have been here between thirty and forty years. I think that Mr.
Lewis told me he had been here forty years, and Mr. Abbott has been here a long time.
Mr. Harris has been here between twenty & thirty years. There are quite a number of
colored people here who own property. Mr. Abbott, I should say, is worth $100,000. I am
almost inclined to doubt whether even those who have lived here a great many years have
feelings of loyalty to the government. Many of them might not desire to leave their
property, but that there is any thing like a firm satisfaction on the part of those who were
born on the other side, I very much question.

336 - I think the early local attachment would carry them back. I judge from this fact.
Some year & a half or two years ago, there was an excitement raised about emigration to
Hayti [sic]; and some of our oldest inhabitants {broke?} up, root & branch, and went to
Hayti. It was an unfortunate experiment, and I was very much opposed to it, but of course
my little influence was unable to prevail, but I persuaded some of my friends to wait
awhile, and they are very glad now that they did. Some of the emigrants have come back,
utterly broken down, and they will never recover as long as they live. My opinion is, that
if the people felt they would be as secure in the United States as here, the major part
 - 21 -

would move over to the States; many of those who have property here would not,
perhaps. I was talking to a gentleman some months ago about countries, and he intimated
to me that we had no disturbances here under the Queen, &c. I said that they would soon
be over their difficulties at home. He said -- Home! Where is your home? I thought this
was your home. Oh, no, I said, this is not my home. Why, said he, I thought you
were a British subject. So I am a British subject, said I. []I had to become a British
subject to as to be able to enjoy all the rights and

337 - privileges the country afforded; but of course, said I, the Queen would not give
much for her adopted subjects, if they had no love for home, because they could not make
good subjects, if they had no love for home. We are exiles, not from justice, but
oppression, and of course, we are like the Hungarians, and all the other exiles; when
home becomes tranquil & secure, of course we must return to our homes. That is my
feeling; and I suppose, if I had not been young & foolish, and not willing to submit to the
many little inconveniences and disagreeable things that I met with in York States, I
should have staid [sic] there; and if I had had the knowledge I have now, I should not
have moved here. The fact is, I could not stand it. The older I grew, the harder it became
to bear. When I came here, I swallowed all those little things, because I had redress. I
dont think the removal of the major part of the colored people of Canada to the United
States would be at all injurious to the United States, because I feel certain there is not a
more industrious class than the black, in Canada. And they have to be so, because this
country calls for great exertions. There is no use talking about it. The climate is
invigorating, and we are in the midst of an industrious

338 - people, and all these things make a difference. I can assure you that the difficulties
in the way of laying up money here are very great. There is no mistake about it; because,
in the first place, you make very little, and the long winters take every thing you can
make to feed, warm & clothe yourself. Now, there are thirty-one families that I can count
over in my mind, that have purchased houses for themselves since I came here, to my
knowledge. I do not count Mr. Tinsley or Mr. Abbott, who had something when they
came here. I happen to be familiar with these parties, because I have been here quite a
long time, and I was connected with the Anti-Slavery Society of which Mr. Henning was
a member for a long time, and it brought me into contact, not only with the persons living
here, but with the fugitives who came over during the great influx in 1854, & along there.
I have kept pretty good watch of [sic] them. A gentleman came to me a little while ago
and said, How do you do, Mr. Simpson? Well, said I, I am pretty well, how do you
do? I am well, thank you, said he. But you have the advantage of me, I said; I dont
know you. You dont know me? -- you dont know Butler? said he. Said I -- Yes, Sir,
I know a great

339 - many Butlers, but I dont know you. Then he went on to tell me that he was a poor
fugitive in 1853,3 and came to me in the office, and I assisted him, and although he had
never seen me since, the moment he saw me, he knew me. He said I told him the best
thing he could do was to go away into the country and see what he could do; that he did
so, and now, said he, I have got a little hotel and boarding-house in Hamilton, that I
3
Transcribers note: Butlers own testimony claims 1855 as his date of arrival (see frame 309).
 - 22 -

own myself, and my property amounts to some $1500. That was six years ago. He is a
very skilful, sharp man, and has accumulated that, and I call it a very good beginning.
Alfred Butler has been here eight years. Less than four years ago, he was living up stairs,
and carrying round a few papers under his arm. He is a very energetic man; anything he
undertakes he will go through with. But he has a great many difficulties to encounter --
there is no question about that. I have often wondered how in the world he could get
customers, for Nature has unfortunately made him rather worse-looking than others. But
there is something about him that engages the attention. I believe, if he had the
opportunity, he could do more business in the news line than any other man in the city;
and as it is, I believe he does as much as any other man

340 - in the city. I have had a misfortune befal [sic] me in this city, and that was the loss
of a number of books I had, and among them were the memoranda of conversations I had
with fugitives or persons from the other side. I would not have lost that book for any
money, because it was just verbatim what they had told me; but as it is, I might say, just
from the talk I had with them, that all those who came from the South here were men of
superior mind -- there is no question about that -- energetic, bold men. The very fact of
their coming here implies that. There were two men came here -- two Hills -- and the loss
of those men would be felt in any country. That is my opinion; because, just as ordinary
citizens, they would be worth anything in any country. They went to Hamilton from here,
& I have not followed them since then. In regard to the matter of religion, I am very
liberal; I believe every man has a right to his own opinion; but as a general thing, (I am
not going to give advice, but this is my own opinion,) the colored clergy are a very
indifferent class of people, and they are the last parties that you would gain information
from.

341 -
Testimony of Dr. James H. Richardson.
I am examining physician for the North British Life Assurance Co. We do not
make any difference between colored & white in taking risks. I do not know as that
would be safe on a large scale. It is my impression that the mixed breeds are predisposed
to phthisis -- tubercular diseases generally, you may say. I think they are predisposed to
rheumatism. I should be inclined to look less favorably, I think, on the life of a mulatto,
than on that of a pure white or pure black. I have no statistics to guide me in reference to
their fertility. I believe mulattoes are generally prolific. I dont think they raise their
children to maturity to the same degree. I think their constitutional predisposition carries
off a great many children before they reach maturity. I know Dr. Wilson intimately. He is
a man of great eminence. He is a man whose statements in regard to the Indians may be
relied upon implicitly. I dont know whether he knows much about the colored
population. As regards the general capacity of the negroes, I have seen considerable of
them [sic], and am very favorably impressed with them, as compared with the similar
class of lower orders of whites. I believe them as capable, in every

342 - situation in which they are placed. I speak a very strong conviction on that point. I
grant we have the most favorable specimens. We have not only refugees, but we have
blacks raised here. Up West, they have them ruder, but here we have a better class. They
 - 23 -

are a peaceable, well-disposed, industrious people. They have some very decent men
indeed among them. Mr. Butler is a man of considerable attainments, but he has very bad
qualities. I have heard (I dont know how true it is) that he is living with two women. It is
very singular that the low Irish, who have such a strong prejudice against the colored
people, are the very ones who take up with black men. There are several Irish women
here living with black men. I know nothing vicious about Butler. He is a well-behaved
member of society, so far as peace and order are concerned. I have never compared the
jail statistics to see the proportion of criminals in the two classes, but I am under the
strong impression that the criminal population of blacks is much smaller than the whites.
The black, when he is vicious, is very vicious. He generally puts himself in the way of the
highest punishment. The number of colored people in the jail is much smaller, in
proportion to their numbers, than of Irish.

343 -
Testimony of Rev. Dr. McCaul, (President of University)
I can give you my own experience in regard to the capacity of the blacks. There
was a boy here from Upper Canada, by the name of {Galigo?} who, I think I am safe in
saying, was a thorough black. He did exceedingly well. He manifested a capacity equal to
any white boy of his standing. We had a mulatto this last examination who took the
double-first -- first in both classics and mathematics. He has very great ability. There
are very few whites who can do what he did. It would be considered a rare thing to have a
double-first got once in five years, and that amongst the highest honor men. The honor
men, as we call them, are in the ratio of one to thirty. There was very great competition,
but he carried off the prize. He expected to come out first of all in mathematics, but he
failed in that, and came out second; but he came out in the first class of honors, in both
Classics and Mathematics, as no one else in the year did, and I dont think there are more
than three instances since the establishment was opened, twenty years ago. Laferty was
his name. His father was a man of very humble capacity. I think his father was a full
black. There was another man who was an occasional student here, who did

344 - very well in medicine -- Mr. Augusta; though he is not fit to compare for a moment
with Laferty. There was another medical student here -- Mr. Abbott, who got along very
well. I do not hesitate at all to say, with regard to Laferty, that he is pretty equal to any
white, and, as I mentioned to you, far superior to the average of them. It was a great
subject of astonishment to some of our Kentucky friends who came over here last year in
October, (the public meeting of the University is towards the end of October,) when they
saw this mulatto get the prize for writing Greek verse first, which he had to recite; and he
was the crack man of the day, all the others listening to him with great pleasure. I think,
from what I have seen of these two, that the rarety [sic] of their success, as compared
with the whites, has an injurious effect upon them. I think they become excessively
conceited, as compared with whites. Of course, that would be the case with most people.
I know Laferty possesses it in a great degree. The colored children do very well in the
public schools. As to the standing that the colored people have here, I do not think any of
them have done very well; I mean, as to getting into good commercial positions, or
making money. But then, on the other hand, it is a very rare thing, I think, to see a black
man in as bad a position as you see white; and I think there is very
 - 24 -

345 - little drunkenness among them indeed. I think they are a decent population. There is
one very curious thing -- the number of white women who marry black men; they make
better husbands. That is remarkable here. No white men marry black women. I dont
think they do as well when they form communities of their own, as when they are
scattered among the white population. I think they should have their lot in our
community, and receive the benefit of our Christianity & cultivation. I think some of
them will go to our possessions in Honduras. That country is being opened for them now.
I know very well that they feel the prejudice that exists against them. There is a fancy that
they are not agreeable neighbours. Not only do they have every chance at the University,
but we are quite anxious to have them come. There is nothing to contend with among our
young men. There is nothing of that kind among the students.

Testimony of George Allen (Governor of Jail)

The colored prisoners bear a very favorable comparison with the whites.

Mem. for Toronto. Pop. (1861) about 20,000. The Life Assurance Cos make no
distinction in regard to color. In one Savings Bank, there are 15 colored depositors, the
average deposit of each not exceeding $15{,}00.

346 -
By the books of the tax collectors of the several Wards of Toronto it appears that the taxes
paid by the colored {people?} are as follows:
St. Johns Ward, $665.24
St. Andrews $549.55
St. Lawrence $388
St. David $57.25
St. Patrick $347.63
St. Georges $75.95
St. James 261.57
--------
Total $2345.19

347 -
London, Sept. 9, 1863.
Testimony of Mr. Dunn (Barber)
I have done well enough in this country in the course of my life. I have made $50
a month clear of all expenses, but am not now making $5.00. The colored people are
expecting to go back when the war is closed up. I have two sons in the war -- in the 27th
Michigan. If they ever get out of that, I think they will settle at [sic] the South, and then I
suppose I shall go there. There are no particularly influential colored men here.

Testimony of the Mayor of London

I can give my own opinion of the colored people, and that is, that they are not fit
to govern themselves. I think there are about 75 heads of families in this city. They all
pay taxes. They have not all got property, but every male over the age of 21 years, who
 - 25 -

has no property, pays what is called a road-tax of $2 per annum. The statistics of crime
are against them, I think, as compared with the Irish. They are different here from what
they are in Toronto. For instance, here this morning, there are two up for trifling crimes,

348 - and one was arrested within a week for horse-stealing. There have been severfal
cases of crimes of violence committed by colored men -- the use of the knife and such
things. There are just about 15,000 inhabitants in this town. I dont think the colored
people avail themselves of their right to send their children to school as the whites do.
Mr. Boyle, at the Union School can tell you all about that. I never went into one of the
schools in my life. Some of the colored people keep little {bit?} of huckster shops, but
that is about as far as they get in that direction. There are none of them of any wealth.
There are a good many who own a single lot apiece. I dont think there are any worth a
thousand dollars. There has been considerable agitation about the separation of colored
from white children in the schools. As the law now stands, and the system now is, they all
go to school together. They have a right to, and do.

Testimony of the Chief of Police.

I dont think the proportion of crimes committed by the colored people, in
proportion to their numbers, is any greater than among the Irish. I think they compare
favorably with the Irish. They do not give us so much trouble as the same number of
whites.

349 -
Testimony of Thomas Webb
About a year ago, the census of the colored population of this town was taken,
with reference to the question of separate schools. I do not remember the number, but I
will give you a copy of the Report made at that time. (See printed slip.) I think it
advisable to have separate schools, for there is always bickering between the white and
colored children. There are not many colored people here who pay taxes; they are rather a
poor class. There is one school where the colored children are more numerous than in the
others, and there is more quarrelling there than in all the other schools put together. I have
been in Canada since 1822, and I dont think the colored people are any benefit to the
community, except in some cases where servile work is required. They are lazy and
indolent.

Testimony of J.B. Boyle (Principal Central School)

It does not work well with us to have colored children in school with the whites.
In our community, there is more or less prejudice against the colored people on the part
of the whites, and the children receive it from their parents. The colored

350 - children must feel it, for the white children refuse to play with them in the play-
ground. Whether it is a natural feeling or not, I cannot tell; but it shows itself in the play-
ground and in the class-room. One day, I saw there was a vacant seat by the side of a little
girl, with scarcely any color, -- a very pretty little girl she was, too -- and I told one of the
other children to take that seat. The girl looked a long while, and I had to tell her twice
 - 26 -

before she would take it. I never had a fair specimen of the negro here, and therefore and
I cannot draw any conclusion in relation to their intellectual capacity.

Testimony of Miss D. Gurd (Teacher)

I think the colored children would be better educated, and that it would be more
conducive to the happiness of both colored and white children, if they were in separate
schools. The colored children would not be subjected to so much annoyance and
unpleasantness. There are some children, of the lower order, who dont mind sitting by
them in school, but there are others who are very particular, and dont like it at all. I
perceive a difference in the odor, especially in summer. We have more colored children in
this school than

351 - there are in any other. They are often very untidy and dirty; but I dont know that
they are any worse in that respect than the low Irish. I think they would get on as well as
white children, if they came regularly to school, but they dont.

Testimony of Miss M. Yates (Teacher)

They boys play more freely with the colored children than the girls do; they are
not so particular as the girls are. I have ten colored pupils in my class to-day.

352 -
[London,] Thursday, Sept. 10, 1863
Testimony of Rev. James Proudfoot
I have but one colored member of my church. I have employed colored persons
considerably in town, and they are an industrious, steady class, as far as I know. I dont
think they do so well in the country as in the town. They make the best barbers and
waiters we have. They dont seem to be very successful when cast upon their own
resources. They want the guidance of some person, to tell them what to do. We have an
illustration of that here. There is the Wilberforce settlement, where the colored people had
a number of small farms, and I think they all sold them out, when they had a fair chance
as agriculturists, and moved into town. Then we have another settlement, near Chatham --
Buxton settlement. Rev. Mr. King is one of our ministers. I am a member of the Synods
Committee to go and examine that movement at Buxton this fall. From all I can hear, that
mission is a failure. Mr. King has spent a good deal of money, and I think his wifes
money has all been sunk. He gets assistances from the churches. His colony is not self
supporting, and never has been. He has, I think, some 1000 or 1500

353 - on hand for a building fund. I am told by gentlemen who have travelled there that
he is not able to hold the population. He is a Presbyterian and wishes to instruct them, but
they seem more fond of excitement than real instruction. They want an emotional
religion. He has a teacher and several assistant teachers, but has very few pupils. In fact,
it is a difficult thing to get his report passed at every Synod. And yet his report is handled
very delicately, one reason being, the sympathy that is felt for him on account of the
sacrifices he has made for that people, and the other reason Is, that he does not draw his
entire contribution from us -- the First Presbyterians give him 100 a year, and I dont
know but he gets something from other sources. I have employed colored men frequently,
 - 27 -

and I think, in certain kinds of work, they will do as much as any other men. As sewers,
or cradlers, or mowers, they will do as much work as other men, and they are very civil,
too. I think they have an advantage over other laborers in the matter of temperance. With
one exception, I have never met an intemperate man among them, and I dont know a
beggar among them. I think they would hold their own in this climate, if there were no
more emigrants.

354 - They have as many children in their families as white people, as far as I have an
opportunity of judging, but I have had no very great opportunities of judging. I never
have seen a family with seven, eight or nine children. $1483 were expended last year for
the Buxton Mission -- 1862,3.
I had the pleasure of examining one young man for admission to Knox College.
He had the elements of a thoroughly liberal education. He was just as intelligent & bright
as any white young man I ever examined. I was quite pleased with him. I think there must
be two colored young men in Knox College, as theological students, who contemplate
preaching. You will find a great many colored people about Chatham -- too many. It has
produced a certain reaction among the white people there. The white people do not
associate much with them; and even in the courts of justice, a place is allotted to the
colored people -- they are not allowed to mix with the whites. A number of gentlemen
have told me that. And, further, a particular friend of mine (Rev. Walter {D?G?
ugalls})who was eleven years missionary of the London Missionary Society in {Caff?
aria}, but whose mission was broken up by the Caffir [sic] war, went home and offered
his

355 - services to come to Canada. He came here, and we received him into our own
congregation. He took a great interest in the colored people. I know that one society in
Chatham talked of inviting him to settle there, but when they found he intended to try to
get the colored people into the church, they said it was no use to invite him. He told me,
further, that in Hamilton, he had tried to become acquainted with them, and had gone to
some of their meetings, but he was afraid that Presbyterians could not do anything for
them, they were so excitable and enthusiastic.
There used to be a good many colored gardeners here, but there are very few now,
I dont know of but one. Some have died, and some went away to the West Indies. I think
the movement for a separate school for the colored children has been caused by the
American feeling which has been fostered and encouraged here. I have always opposed it
as anti-British, and have told its friends, While you are acting in an anti-British spirit,
you have also departed from our your own system. They would not admit that, but said
it was far better that the white and colored children should be separated, for the colored
children were treated with disrespect by the whites, and could not possibly feel
themselves at home with them. Mr. Boyle told me he was anxious to separate them on
that account. He said that one day he found a little colored boy

356 - standing by himself in a corner of the fence, and asked him why he did not play
with the other boys. He said they would not play with him. Now, if Mr. Boyle had
introduced him to the other boys, and played with him himself, that difficulty would have
been got over.
 - 28 -

The colored woman who belongs to my church is from Philadelphia. When she
asked for admission, I did not know how my people would feel about it. I mentioned it to
my elders, and asked if they had any objection. They said, No, we know no difference of
color here. At the communion service, it so happened that she was placed in the centre
of the communicants, and I never heard a single remark, except of gratification at seeing
this daughter of Africa there. But the prejudice against the colored people is growing
here. It is not a British feeling. It does not spring from our people, but from your people,
coming over here. There are a great many Americans here, and there is great difference
paid fo this feeling. There is a much larger number here than in Hamilton or Toronto. I
argued the matter with Mr. Boyle, and his {?ial}argument -- the one he trusted very much
to [sic] -- was the danger of matrimonial alliances being formed between white and
colored persons.

357 - He said the union of the two races produced a physically weak race, that will
necessarily be swallowed up and extinguished. The establishment of a separate school is
a settled matter here. We have a great deal of Southern feeling here. The sympathy for the
South is much more extensive than you would imagine. In fact, I have been very much
vexed at it. I think the colored people are far more polite than other nations [sic] in the
same class of society, and they have remarkable taste. There is great delicacy and
courtesy among them. They all try to act like gentlemen and ladies, and they treat each
other with the utmost courtesy when they meet, shake hands most politely, and ask after
the family in a style that might make white people blush. I have noticed that characteristic
with great admiration. That is exceedingly pleasant; it shows that the race is aspiring.
Whatever a little {puny?} town like London may do, the Provincial University is open to
them, & while the British Government remains, they will be received there. There has not
been a black boy at the Grammar school here for five or six years. They are not excluded.
As one of the Trustees, I should insist on their admission. A puny village government

358 - may exclude them in deference to the American feeling, but the Canadians
generally would not tolerate their exclusion from the University.
We in this side who are the friends of the black race have always trusted, that in
Gods Providence, this war would end in the freedom of the blacks. I have always
thought the black race right to fight for their freedom, and I think it is perfectly right for
the States to employ them in the war. But there is a feeling in this country as if the North
were endeavoring to produce a servile insurrection, with all its horrors.

Testimony of Mr. McBride (Chairman School Trustees)

I have had occasion to employ colored men a good deal, and would rather employ
them than the laboring Irish. In 1858 and 59, I was Mayor of the city. There was then
great distress among the laboring people, for there was no business to give them
employment, and I was called up on for assistance by all the poorer classes. The colored
people never came except in cases of absolute necessity, and seemed very grateful for
what they received,

359 - if it was {?} little. They seemed to take it as a favor, not demand it as a right, as
some other classes did. I must say, it gave me a high respect for them, especially for the
 - 29 -

colored women, who were almost always the applicants for their families, and reported
their necessities. The men did not trouble me much.

Testimony of Dr. A.T. Jones

I have been here thirty years. The experiment seems to succeed very well here,
where the colored people are not dependent upon other parties. Where they are left to
themselves, they go right to work. One thing I find injurious to the colored people, and
that is, where they are dependant upon agents begging in the States; but where they
depend upon themselves entirely, like emigrants from the old country, they get on very
well. They do better where they are scattered about, just like the other people. I do not
believe the climate is altogether congenial with their health. I do not think the colored
community would flourish as much here as down in Kentucky or Maryland. The disease
to

360 - which they are most liable is consumption. It does not affect children much --
grown persons mostly. Children are subject to troubles with the mesenteric glands. I do
not believe there is any greater mortality among children of colored parents than among
white children. I dont think there is any greater mortality than there would be at home.
The only cases in which I perceive a difference is where persons have grown up in a
Southern climate and are exposed to a Northern climate, where lung diseases are very
frequent. They suffer from colds. I dont see much difference between the number of
children in colored families and in white. They have five, six, seven & eight children. I
only judge from myself. I was married at 41, and have a family of eight living, and three
have died. My wife is a mulatto. Her father was a mulatto, her mother white. She was
raised in New York. I have two children grown up. Some of our people here are
freeholders, and some farmers, and they are doing very well; but upon the whole, they are
not doing so well as they might, if they would devote their attention more to agricultural
pursuits. I am sorry to say, they have their own churches. I am not in favor of that. There
are two churches

361 - belonging to the colored people here -- one Methodist and one Baptist. They are
supported entirely by the people, but the churches were generally built by contributions.
They cannot give their clergymen over $100 or $150. There is no church that is able to
support its minister without his doing other work. The Baptists have had one minister, by
the name of David A. Turner, ever since the formation of the Society -- 10 or 12 years
ago -- until about two years ago, when he died. The Methodist minister is changed every
year, by Conference.
The people here wont make the separate schools go. When they try it, they will
have trouble. It seems there had been no trouble here until a man by the name of Webb --
a poor, ignorant illiterate man -- got in as one of the School Trustees, and ever since he
has been in he has been striving for a separation. He may be a pretty honest man in his
way. I will tell you precisely what I tell them. I tell them -- Now, here I have got eight
children, who were all born in this town -- British subjects, as much as the whitest among
you, and they dont believe in any thing else but the Queen. Now, instead of leaving those
children to grow up with that love for the
 - 30 -

362 - country and the Queen, you are trying to plant within them a hatred of the country;
and the day may come when you will see those children, instead of having sympathy and
love for this country, and saying, This is the country I was born in, saying, this is the
country that disenfranchises us and deprives us of our rights; and you may see them
coming back here from the United States with muskets in their hands. I dont believe
that in ten years from this time, you will see a colored man in this country. We wont stay
here after this war is decided -- for I have my opinion in which way it is to be decided. I
have told my children to stay in school until they are put out. If they tell you to go, I
have said to them, dont go, but wait until they lay hands on you to put you out, & then
you go quietly home, and I will attend to it. I have four children in the school, who go
regularly, and are getting on very well, and there is no complaint of them. I told the
Trustees, if there was any complaint of them not behaving well, or any thing of the kind,
to expel them from the school, or let me know. Judge Wilson, one of our leading men, has
given an opinion against the right of the School Trustees to establish separate

363 - schools for colored children. The colored children go to the school picnics with the
rest. The white children do not object to going with the colored children. The objection
seems to be principally got up by the parents. My children have no trouble at the school
whatever; but my little girl heard one of the scholars say she hoped to God that Mr.
McBride would get in, for then all the colored children would be put by themselves.
You cant find a black man in Canada who would stay here if he could have the
same privileges in the United States. There is a mean prejudice here, that is not to be
found in the States, though the {Northern?} States are pretty bad. My opinion is not to be
compared with yours, but my opinion is, that before this war is over, the black man will
be able to ride anywhere in the United States. You will find that the black men will be the
soldiers yet. They are going to be a body of men that you can count on anywhere. All that
the colored people want in this country or in any country is a fair and equal chance.

364 -
Testimony of Wm. Clark
I have been a resident here 29 years. I have been to Buxton several times. One
school there was intended to give a higher degree of education, and received assistance.
Some colored people were here when I first came here. The people at Buxton were
expected to have made more progress than they have. The Association was commenced
some 15 years ago, and it was supposed the people would get all through their difficulties
in 10 years. The Association purchased the land from [the] Government, and paid one or
two instalments, and I dont think there has been much more paid to Government. Some
of the colored people have got their deeds. I think they would have done better if the
Association had appointed an agent to show them how to work; but instead of that, they
left Mr. King as a missionary among them, and they rather impose upon him. They are
not so provident as they would be under other circumstances, for they know they can rely
on Mr King to help them, but they are very civil and very intelligent. I dont suppose
there is any pauperism among them. They make no provision for

365 - the future. They get on in this way. If they dont raise enough off the land, they first
chop some wood, burn it, and make pot-ash in small quantities, which is bought at the
 - 31 -

stores, so that they get every thing they want. I am speaking only of Buxton. I dont know
that there is any pauperism here among the colored people. They get work here, and some
of them work very well indeed. I never knew any difficulty with them here, any more
than with white people. I have lived amongst them, & never had any difficulty with them
at all. Some of them are very good, and some very bad, just like other people. They
compare very favorably with the other laboring classes, especially when we remember
the way they were brought up, a good many of them coming from slavery.
I dont think the feeling of prejudice is growing; it was always here. It seems to be
all through Canada, especially on the frontier. They have a very respectable class of
colored people at Toronto and at Hamilton. I dont know how they are in that respect
here. I dont think the idea of having separate schools was countenanced by the people
here. Judge Wilson gave his opinion against the right of the Trustees to establish them.
There is a

366 - prejudice against them, and then, they have the feeling that they are not treated as
they should be. I think that at first, they would have been very glad to have separate
schools; but seeing that they must have them, they dont want them. You will find very
great prejudice against them West of Chatham. In the town of Chatham, there are great
numbers of them, and then, in the Buxton Settlement, there are some 200 families. There
has been very little seriously wrong in Buxton since they went there. Mr. King thought
the settlement would come to some thing that it has not come to; and his idea now is, that
if they could get their deeds, they would sell their lands, and go somewhere else. I dont
think they were settled in a good place. The land is very low, and cannot be worked in
Spring. If they had gone further North, I think they would have done better. There was a
large interest accruing to the Govt -- and the Govt allowed them that money to drain the
land and put it into better shape; that may help them somewhat. I am satisfied, that if
there was freedom in the U.S., they would all go there. I have seen several who have
escaped from slavery, and asked them -- If you could be free, would you

367 - return to that country[?] O yes, they said; we would go back to morrow. The
climate is too cold for them. Then they didnt know any thing about working land when
they came here, and they have been getting into it very slowly, & they do not like it well.
They like to be with white people, and they would get on much better with them in every
way. They have been entirely neglected here; whereas, in Toronto, I dont know they have
been so much neglected. The white people never took any interest in them, and they had
to fight their own way. They may have got a little help in building their churches, but the
white people never have taken any interest in them. Some of them used to go to Rev.
Scotts church, but not many of them go now. There used to be a Presbyterian minister
among them, but he did not succeed very well. I dont know what has become of him. I
think the settlers at Buxton would have been much better off if half the money that has
been spent on the settlement had been given [to] them, and they had scattered themselves
round the country.

Mem. The whole number of commitments in London jail from Jany 1st, 63 to Sept. 9th,
was 127 -- 115 white & 12 colored. Whole No. in 62, 467 -- 448 white, 19 colored.
 - 32 -

368 -
Chatham, Sept 10, 1863
Testimony of Mr. Bissell (Hotel Clerk)
The niggers are a damned nuisance. They keep men of means away from the
place. Chatham has got the name of Nigger Town, and men of wealth wont come here.
I never knew one of them that would not steal, though they never steal any thing of any
great amount. Chickens have to roost high about here, I tell you. The Grand Jury of this
Country has just got through its session, and they indicted seven persons, and every one
of them was black. They will steal a little sugar, or a pound of butter, and put it in their
pocket. But perhaps they are not to blame for it, for they have been trained to steal in
slavery.

Testimony of Mayor Cross

I think we have somewhere around 150 colored voters in town, and between four
& five hundred colored people. Our total population is about 4500. I can give you a pretty
accurate estimate by going to the Town Clerk and by looking at the rolls. Some of them
are very good citizens, & some

369 - exceedingly bad. Generally, as a class, they have not made that improvement which
white people have. They compare very favorably with the laboring Irish, and as a whole,
conduct themselves very well. The only objection we have to them here is that they are
indolent. They are not indolent about light work. As a whole, there is no fault to be found
with the colored people; but as a general thing, we find them indolent -- disposed to laze
around. In regard to temperance, they are the most abstemious people we have. I think
that is about the best habit in their character. There are exceptions, of course. There are a
good many paupers among them, whom the municipality has to support. We generally
pay out about $15 a month, and two-thirds of that are for the colored people. We have no
poor-house. We have a charity committee, and the moment we hear of a case of
pauperism, we send the chairman of the charity committee to look after it, and if we find
the person a proper object, we afford him relief. The real objects of charity are the men
who are incapacitated for work on account of sickness. We extend relief to the persons in
their own houses, and when they are poor people,

370 - who have no houses, we either get a house for them, or put them out as boarders,
and pay their board. I suppose there is no municipality that has been so liberal in regard
to its poor as Chatham. The colored people generally live apart. There has been hitherto,
a very strong prejudice against them, and the result is, that they are generally speaking,
confined to a particular locality of the town. They had rather be there. But colored men
can hire a house or buy property in any locality; there is no opposition to that. I call Dr.
Delaney a very intelligent, clever man, & a credit to any community. I feel very happy to
give him a good character. There is more animosity among them toward each other than
there is among the whites. They never agree, but are always quarreling. Our church
quarrels with the other church, and one sect quarrels with the other sect, and one man
quarrels with his neighbour. Very few colored people speak well of Dr. Delaney.
 - 33 -

I have practiced much among these people. They have the same diseases that
white people have. I have had three or four cases of tubercular diseases of the lungs the
past year. It is not so general

371 - among them as you find among the whites. They have billious [sic] fevers and fever
and ague just as we have. Those diseases are not common in Canada, but our land is very
low. You would almost think that Lake St. Clair was above the land. Our diseases are of a
febrile character, and consumption prevails among us a great deal, peculiarly confined to
this locality. Consumption decidedly is not more common among the colored people than
among the whites -- not so common, I think. I think the colored people have as many
children as the whites. It is a common thing among them to have large families -- 8, 9, or
10 children. I think the families, as a general thing, are not so large as among the whites. I
have had a good deal of experience among them. I have been among them for 23 years.
Their children are liable to the same diseases as ours are. The small-pox goes very hard
among them. They very rarely recover. There seems to be some peculiarity in the skin, so
that the eruption cannot be got out. I think there is great neglect among the blacks in
regard to vaccination. I have had several very severe cases of small-pox after vaccination,
one of which proved fatal, but I had no means of knowing whether the vaccination was
good or not. Then all eruptive diseases are very bad among them. The scarlet

372 - fever is very bad among them. They do not intermarry much with the whites, and it
is only the most abandoned whites who marry them. And it is a very good habit in the
character of the people, that they do not regard it as any honor to marry a white person. A
very laughable instance occurred here the other day. A colored man ran away with a white
girl, and a colored man speaking of the affair, said -- I always looked upon him as a
respectable man. I didnt think he would fall so low as to marry a white girl.
I should say that it is 14, 15, or 16 years since the colored school was established
here. It was forced upon the colored people. The law then was that separate schools might
be forced upon colored people or Catholics. They have been supplied with good schools,
and have good teachers, white or black, as they please. They pay the same tax for the
support of schools that the whites do; but they dont pay enough to keep up their own
school. The same is true of the laboring Irish, perhaps; yet I dont know that it is, because
our laboring Irish in the country are all farmers, and in the town there are very few Irish. I
have not an unfavorable report to make of the colored people, by any

373 - means. They are very jealous, and apt to think they are misrepresented. The
settlement of Dawn is quite a failure, all through Mr. {N? Sc?}oble. He did more to injure
the colored people than anybody else, and intentionally, I think. He appropriated the
money intended for their benefit to his own use. Colored men have not been on the jury
until the last assize, when they were called, and some white men refused to serve, and
were fined, and one sent to prison.

Testimony of Mr. Payne, Jailor Kent Co.

We have not much more than an average of colored prisoners, according to the
population. The most we get here are what we call petty thieves -- stealing chickens, and
little things -- thefts that you taught them in the United States. They are far quieter than
 - 34 -

white prisoners. We have not so much trouble with them as with white prisoners. I will
take ten white & ten colored, without education, and find five times the ambition to learn
among the colored people that I find among the whites. They are very ambitious. The fact
is, that is one of the great evils of the colored people. They are very vain &

374 - very ambitious, and want to be like white people. You find them ambitious for
knowledge and very quick; and they are very imitative. I have had men come here who
could not read a letter, herhaps, and in six months, they would read out of the first and
second books -- they took such pride in learning. I have been one of the Trustees of the
Schoool for a number of years, and we have some very smart, active colored boys & girls
in the school. The prisoners here are mostly sent here for petty larcenies. I believe the
colored people are not so bad as the whites are. There are some intemperate people
among them, but you will find that the whites are worse than they. I have known a good
many who perhaps were a little lazy, and perhaps would steal a chicken or something, but
they were not drunken. I have often thought that this picking and stealing sprang from the
fact that the poor things thought that whatever was their master[]s was their own, when
they were in slavery. We mostly have colored girls in the house, and we find them as
honest as white girls. Our average number of prisoners last year was 12. This year, I
think it will hardly average so much. Our whole committals, for 12 years and eight
months, have been 1315, of whom 202 were colored. The total population of the country
is 31,144.

375 -
Testimony of Mrs. Payne
As an instance of the desire of the colored people for knowledge, I will mention
the case of a woman by the name of Harriet who came here for four months. I asked her
if she could read, and she said no, she had had no opportunities in slavery. She said she
could spell such words as cat and dog. I asked her if she thought she could learn. She
said she could, if she had a book. So I got a book for her, and every day, when the work
was all done, I would hear her lesson, and in four months, she could read a chapter in the
New Testament. You would have been surprised to see how she got on.

Testimony of Mr. Sinclair, Teacher.

The average attendance of colored children is equal to that of white children, in
proportion to their population, and they are full as easily managed as white children. We
hardly ever find the extremes of rudeness among them that we find among white
children. The usual attendance is about 60, and there are some

376 - 80 names on the roll. One assistant is allowed to this school. On the whole, they
learn about the same as whites. The only difference I have observed is this -- that in one
week, they learn faster than the whites, but then they require frequent reviews, so that, on
the whole, it is about the same.
With regard to the colored people, I may say what I have said to a great many
from the other side -- for I have been applied to by a great many -- we find they are
constantly improving; not only those who go to school, but those who never went to
school. And it is very reasonable; there is nothing paradoxical about it. Many of them
 - 35 -

who come here have very strange ideas, or no ideas at all, about their position as
freedmen, & members of the community, and many of them are addicted to little vices, &
even little crimes, such as making free with what is not their own, -- robbing hen-roosts,
and picking such other things are come in their way; and they have comparatively very
little self-respect. I suppose that, having been held in a state of degradation, they dont
look for any thing else. But some of these very persons, after having been a few years in
the country, have risen as members of the community, have improved in self-respect, &
would

377 - scorn to do what upon their arrival became almost a matter of course. Then again,
those who have been born in the country, and those who have come from the free States
-- as many of them have -- are decidedly superior to those who came from the Slave
States. Our laws know nothing about creed, color or nationality. If foreign-born, when
they take the oath of allegiance, they are the same as natives. But in regard to social
prejudice, that is something we cannot help. They are considered inferior, and must
remain so for many years, and perhaps forever, because their color distinguishes them.
One or two colored men are constables here, but that is all. They have just commenced to
be drawn on the jury. At the last session of the Court of Queens Bench, last Spring, there
was quite a fuss about that. A colored man was drawn to sit on the jury, and three men
protested against sitting with him. The Judge had to do his duty, and fined them $20
apiece, and one, who refused to pay the fine, was confined in a cell for three days. The
Judge regarded it as contempt of Court. However, when the session was over, the Grand
Jury petitioned the Court to overlook the offence, as it was the first time it had occurred,
and they hoped it would not occur again. The Judge then said -- I have

378 - fined them, but I shall not sign the warrant for collecting the fine; and if they
behave themselves, there shall be nothing more said; if they do not, the fine shall be
collected. I have been a selector of the jury and have put colored men on the roll, but
none of them were summoned. I suppose the Sheriff manages it so that they shall not be
drawn. Socially, they are no where. But they are improving. There are some who are
intelligent, and show business enterprise and tact. We never invite them to social
gatherings. A poor man would not invite a colored man to his house. It is, indeed, in the
poorer stratum of society that the prejudice exists most. If they have any chance of being
invited, it is by those who hold a higher position in society. Our Mayor, and Counsellors,
and well-to-do merchants will be far more free and social among the colored people than
the laboring class; because, if some, especially of the poorer people, and what we may
call the lowest and least intelligent, were to begin to associate with blacks, it would be
like losing caste altogether, and they would soon find that the blacks were all their
society, for their own caste would disown them. So it is with a white woman who marries
a negro. The whites will have

379 - nothing to say to her, and her society is entirely with the blacks. Such marriages
occur once in a while, but not so frequently as they did a number of years ago. There was
considerable stir and fuss made about it, and the greater part of the colored people, and
their leading men, are opposed to it themselves. They recommend to each other the taking
of an independent stand, and not to attempt to worsen themselves, by sycophancy, or
 - 36 -

anything of the kind, into a society where they would be considered intruders. For my
own part, I dont know that I have any prejudice, or much prejudice, but I have always
been opposed to amalgamation, and have often said to intelligent colored men, that if I
was a colored man, I should be just as much opposed to it as white men, for when a white
woman becomes wedded to a black man -- (white men hardly ever marry black women)
-- they immediately take a degraded position, and are regarded as such, and it does not at
all elevate the black, while it injures the white; and they seem under the same impression.
In the Buxton settlement, where Rev. Mr. King has been very active and laborious and
successful, there are, I believe, no intermarriages at all. He discouraged them from the
first, and gave it as his opinion that

380 - for their own sake, they ought not to ask for such alliances; and they are of the same
opinion, so that now they would rather look down upon a black man who should take a
white wife. I dont know any instance of a white man marrying a black woman. We hear
very little lately of the marriage of black men to white women. I dont know of any
instance for the past four years. Quite a noise was made about the marriage of a black
man to a white woman about four years ago, and the blacks seemed as much displeased
as the whites; and I have not heard of any such marriages since.
Many of the colored people, even in this town, say that if they could have the
same privileges in the States that they have here, they would not remain a moment. The
prejudice is not so strong in this town, where they have been so long known, and where
the people see that they can be improved and elevated; but even in this country, there is
one township where they will not allow a colored man to settle. A colored man has tried
to build a house there, but as fast as he built it in the day time, they would pull it down at
night. No personal violence was done to him. That was in the township of O{r?x?}ford.
In the township

381 - of Howard, I think there are only about four colored families, and they are a very
respectable color of people. In that township, there was as much prejudice as anywhere
fourteen years ago; but two colored families settled there -- very respectable and
intelligent -- they were rather superior, in these respects, to the neighborhood generally --
and they did a vast amount towards doing away with the prejudice. They were intelligent,
cleanly, moral; and even religious; so that ministers of the Gospel would actually call and
take their dinner with these people, as they found everything nice, tidy and comfortable;
and the poor colored people so kind and so ready to welcome any decent person who
came. So that a good deal depends upon the first samples that go into a town.
With us, the colored children get on well in the elementary studies; with the
chronology and ordinary facts of history they are familiar; but it is difficult to get them
into the philosophy of history; and in reference to arithmetic, they are not equal to the
whites. The few who have advanced into algebra and geometry have done very well.
There are three scholars just now who are in algebra. When I first took the school, I
thought

382 - I found a difference in the pupils, and that those who were a shade whiter than the
others did the best. That impression has been removed however; it was merely incidental;
 - 37 -

it happened so with the scholars turned out at that time. I find now that the clear blacks
learn just as fast as the mulattoes, or quadroons, or whatever they are.

Testimony of John W. Sparks, Watchmaker

I have been here eleven years. I cannot find any fault with the colored people out
here. The prejudice is worse here than it is in South Carolina. I went down [to] the Grand
Lodge in Toronto, and I declare I heard Nigger hollered more than I ever did in Ohio,
where I used to live. We have carpenters, bricklayers, stone masons, ship-carpenters, and
the best cabinet-makers in town. The white people trade with me more than colored
people do; I must say that. The colored people will take their work right by my door and
carry it down town, while white people come from the lower end of the town to trade
with me. There is this about the white people -- they will trade where they can get their
work done the cheapest, if it can be done as well. The colored people will pay more

383 - and trade with somebody else rather than me. The climate agrees with me first rate.
I weighed 170 pounds when I came here, and now I weigh 241. The colored people here
are doing just about as well as the white people. The only thing is, they have not got as
much education as the whites, to enable them to go into business; but as for working and
picking up property, they are getting on as well as the whites. The colored people own
pretty nearly all the upper end of the town, and, generally, it is clear from mortgage. They
generally started with nothing. I have been a constable of this town for five years. The
constables are appointed by the Court; the people have nothing to do with it. We have
here the best gunsmith in the province -- a Mr. Jones. He made a pair of pistols to be
presented to the Prince of Wales, when he was here, but the Presentation Committee
declined to present them, because they didnt want it known that a black man could do so
much better than any white man.

384 -
Testimony of Mr. Shadd (Farmer)
This country agrees with us as well as any part of the United States. I should have
been dead and in my grave before this time if I had staid [sic] in the United States; though
it is true I was in sedentary employment there, and when I came here, I went into the
farming business. The colored people are not particularly subject to consumption and
rheumatism. Most of the individuals who have died of consumption have contracted it
before they came here: men who have been steamed out before kitchen ranges and in
barber-shops. But among those who came here hearty, there has been less consumption
than in Chester Co., Del., where I came from. Mr. Jackson, a cabinet maker here, has
drawn first prizes here and in Toronto, for his handiwork. I dont know about the colored
people going back if slavery is abolished in the United States. I certainly wouldnt for
one.

385 -
Testimony of Henry Jackson, (Cabinet-Maker)
I have been here nine years. I learned my trade in Washington, D.C. I am not
laying up money -- rather the other way. The trouble is, I spent my money too freely
when I first came here. I have steady work. I have been at work for one firm six or seven
 - 38 -

years, except two years, when I set up business for myself. I have eight or nine white men
at work with me. They treat me as well as I want to be treated. Mechanics in this section
can get work where ever they are able to do it. A great many of the colored people will go
back if you have freedom in your country. When I first came here, I made from ten to
fifteen dollars a week for the first eighteen months; but after the crises of 1857, wages
came down, with everything else.

386 -
Testimony of Rev. Dr. McCaul, Superintendent of Schools
I think that the white children in the schools are making more progress than the
blacks, but this may be accounted for by the fact that the white children are more regular
in their attendance. The parents of the colored children often keep them away, and that
throws them back considerably. I cant say that I see any difference in regard to
discipline. If there be any difference, it may be accounted for by the different character of
the teachers. Some of them have more skill in keeping order than others. I believe
personal chastisement is commonly resorted to. Sometimes the parents complain, and if
there is undue chastisement, the trustees meet and examine witnesses and decide
accordingly. It is not commended here. It is a thing that is had recourse to only when the
teachers deem it necessary. I dont see any difference in comparative progress and
intelligence, except what may be accounted for by the irregularity of the attendance. I
have no colored communicants in my church. They have churches of their own, and seem
to prefer to be by themselves. They imagine that they are looked upon with prejudice, and
they prefer to be, as far as I can learn, by themselves. They

387 - are looked down upon as an inferior class of the population. A good many of them
are bad characters, but there are a good many whites [who are] bad characters, too. At the
time of elections, both parties seem to be very anxious to get what they call the colored
votes, and they are easily led astray by promises. Promises are made to them that can
never been fulfilled, and when the election is over, they are left where they are. So far as I
know, I cannot say that they are more intemperate than any other class. I cannot speak
with regard to them, because there are persons who are more likely to know about them,
from associating more with the people generally. I go among them, it is true, but my
duties confine me to a particular class -- at least, comparatively so. There are some very
superior men among the colored people, certainly. There is a man here by the name of
Jones, a gunsmith, who seems to be a man of very superior mind. I venture to guess there
is no other one in town equal to Jones in capacity or mental power. Then there is a family
of Shadds here, who are, male and female, very clever. When I mentioned Mr. Jones, I
forgot Dr. Delaney, who is also a very intelligent man.

388 -
Mem. for Chatham.
By Rev. Dr. McCauls book, it appears that in October, 1862, there was on the roll of the
principal white school, (Mr. Thompsons) 175 names, with an average attendance of 124
-- about 70 per cent. At Mr. Sinclairs (colored school) the number on the roll was 150,
and the average attendance 104, or about the same (70) per cent. At another school (Miss
{Pr?W?atts} the number on the roll was 59, and the average attendance nearly 70 per
 - 39 -

cent. At Miss Frazers, the number on the roll was 80, the average attendance 54 -- or
67 per cent. At still another school, the number on the roll was 80, and the average
attendance 60 -- or 75 per cent.

389 - By the books of the Assessors, it appears that the total number of rate payers in the
town of Chatham for the year 1863 was 1021, of whom 134 were colored. The total
amount of tax collected was $10,179.79, of which the 134 colored rate-payers contributed
$667.45 -- or $4.98 apiece, on an average. The 887 white rate-payers contributed
$9,433.34, or $10.63 apiece. The total population of Chatham is given in the Census as
4,466, and the colored population, 171{6?}. [Crossed out: estimated at 1300.] It thus
appears that the white tax-payers are about 1 to every 3 of the population, and the
colored about one to every 9. In addition to this tax on real and personal property, there
is a what [sic] is called a road tax of $2[.]00 per annum, levied on every male over 21
years of age, who has an income of over $200. The tax in Chatham was 15 per cent., this
year (1863) on the annual value of the property -- estimated at 6 per cent. of the full
value.

390 -
Buxton, Sept 12, 1863
Testimony of Rev. W[illia]m. King.
This settlement was formed in 1849. I brought 15 of my own people here, and
have trusted to voluntary emigration [sic] since. They formed the nucleus of the
community, and others came in. When I came to the Provinces, I saw the colored people
living here in the degraded condition in which slavery had left them. They were living
here & there, and perfectly free, as yours will be when you manumit them. The people all
said, They can do as they please; but I said, There is an error in that. Whenever a man
gets into a condition of ignorance, he must have help, or he will never rise. I had had
experience of that in Edinboro, where I have [seen] degradation, such as I never saw in
the Southern States. I had lived in the South and was acquainted with the South, and
when I came up here, I visited every locality throughout the length and breadth of the
Provinces, and then went to the Governor General, Lord Elgin, and told him what I
wanted to do for the colored race, and he generously said he would do whatever he

391 - could to help me. The colored people had gone and settled in different localities,
haphazard, and they did not succeed. One township was set apart for them, and they were
allowed to go and settle it. They went in voluntarily, without any aid or assistance, and it
came to nothing. I saw it was necessary that they should be collected together, and that
schools should be established, so that they should be educated and become independent
and self-supporting; and I saw that the only way in which that could be done would be by
placing them upon the soil, and giving them the title in fee simple, as soon as they could
pay for it. In August, 1850, I procured an Act of Incorporation from Parliament. When a
fugitive came to me who had not a cent, I said to him, You can go to work and earn
$12.50, and pay the first instalment [sic] on your land; and have ten years in which to pay
the rest. They might pay annually, or (if they chose to use the money in improvements,
which some of them did) at the end of the ten years, with simple interest. They were all
 - 40 -

able to pay the first instalment, for the railroads were being built at that time, and they
could readily get work. I taught them never to ask a man for a cent if they

392 - could earn it themselves. You would hardly ever see one of them begging, and we
have endeavored to cultivate that principle throughout the whole. The whole of my plan
was this -- to provide them with a home, and their children with an education, and with
these two things I feel confident, {?o??y} blessing would come. Some of the men
brought their wives with them. The very best settlers we have are the men and women
who came together. There have been a greater number of males than females come from
the States, though I have seen women come in without any men. We have got a large
supply of females from those who were born free, and came here to enjoy the privileges
of a free Government. The marriage of black men to white women is the exception; not
the rule. The white female character is lost, in nine cases out of ten, where that happened.
And the women are not respected by the blacks. The moment they come among them, the
blacks do not respect them. Whatever influence they possessed is gone the money they
take that step. The reason why there are more cases of that kind here than in the States is
because the women make their husbands come into Canada from the States, because they
can get into society here in some cases; though as a general

393 - thing they cannot go into the upper classes. The people here were charged $2.50 an
{acre?} for the land, to be paid in 12 annual instalments. My idea was to make them self-
supporting, and give their children an education; and in three years I think I shall
succeed. They have supplied their own tools and cattle. I was at considerable expense in
establishing the settlement, but I have asked no fee or reward, because I knew the
moment I did so, it would be said that I was acting from mercenary motives. I formed the
Association, in order to secure all this land, if they failed to purchase it themselves,
because I knew speculators would come in and buy it if I did not take that precaution.
There was a strong prejudice against me when I came here, in 1849. The whole
Western country was opposed to me, and no man dared to stand by me except Mr.
McMillan. The Globe has always been a firm warm friend to me, and in the midst of all,
has stood firmly by me. The excitement was great all over the Province -- the papers were
full of it. The whole country was in a perfect terror. The Commissioner of Crown Lands
told me that blood would flow here if I persisted in my undertaking, but I said

394 - I was not responsible for the consequences; the colored people were free to
purchase lands wherever they saw fit.
The houses here were put up by the colonials themselves, after a model furnished
them, 18 feet by 24, 12 feet high, and set 33 feet from the road, enclosed with a picket
fence. In three years after I cam here, there were 100 men who could become British
subjects. We can turn out 180 voters for Members of Parliament now. I had an anti-
alienation clause inserted in the deeds, so that they could no transfer their land to a white
man, until they had been here for ten years. That has kept them a compact body, so that
the political power they have got will protect them. The prejudice has melted before that
political power. With that power, I beat down the prejudice, and now they are respected
and elected to office -- {path? post?} masters, school trustees, and councillors. That is as
high as we can get, for a white man would never vote for a colored man as member of
 - 41 -

Parliament. In this district, we have had two Councillors in one year. These councillors
have all power in each township. One councillor is called a reeve, and one reeve from
each township governs the county. We can only

395 -
cast about 150 or 160 votes for Member of Parliament, but we can carry 220 votes for
Councllor. A man who lives in a house, pays a tax, and has his name on the roll, can vote
for Councllors.
At the present time, 2000 acres are deeded, in fee simple, and one-third has been
paid for, principal and interest. There are about a thousand men, women & children in the
settlement. The whole block contains 9000 acres, but about 3000 acres have been taken
up around us, on account of the goodness of the land. There are not more than 220
families in the whole settlement. I have made them self-supporting in their schools at the
present moment. They have established two schools in the Northern part of the
settlement, of which they pay all the expenses, and as soon as I can get them to pay for
the land, I shall make this school self-supporting. I expect to settle the whole thing up in
eighteen months. The most that any of them owe on 50 acres of land is $183. They are
apt to take advantage when they find that they are not compelled by necessity to pay the
money which they owe. [Howes marginal note: apt to shirk] Out of all who came in,
there were only three men who had their first instalment paid by a friend.

396 - I took the notes of the three parties for the amount, one of them paid, but the other
two will not. If the friend had been a Jew, they would have paid him. I have known some
of the men borrow $1.00 for their own purposes, and it has always been repaid. I have no
doubt in regard to their paying every cent on their land. I am making arrangements to get
all the deeds out this Fall, and let them borrow the money from a money-lender and pay
what is due, giving him mortgages, which I am sure will all be paid in eighteen months. I
would not do that until they were able to pay them off, and that I will show you they can
do. I find they will not pay me, knowing that I will not force them, and so I mean to put
the thing out of my hands, when I am sure they will pay all there is due.
There have not been more than ten or twelve who have left the settlements. If any
worthless persons came in, they would just go out and sell their land to another colored
man. They have sometimes sold a farm of 100 acres, which I sold them for $2.50 an acre,
for $500. One man sold fifty acres of his 100 for $500. About ten families have gone
away, but there has not been one failure. Sixteen persons went from here to Hayti; twelve
of whom have since died.

397 - Since they day I came here to this, there has not been a drunken colored man in this
settlement. No man is allowed to sell liquor in this settlement; and to their honor be it
said, that when one man came on our borders and opened a grog shop, he had to move
away, or they would not support him; he did not remain twelve months. But if {but?}
brought together, and left to idleness, they would soon become demoralized. Having
obtained an Act of Parliament, every law I make is as binding as an Act of Parliament;
but I have never used the power. Moral influence is all I have used; for we have never
had even a Temperance Society. But one thing must be borne in mind -- that the man who
escapes from slavery is of a superior class, because as a general thing, the man who can
 - 42 -

plan his escape and come 1500 miles is a superior man; and I require from every man a
certificate of moral character.
With regard to the climate, I find when they are clothed the same as Canadians, it
has no more influence on them than on whites. Those that I brought from Louisiana (it
was not far from Port Hudson) stood the climate just as well as those who ere born in the
North. They do not complain at all

398 - about the climate. They are most liable to consumption, and that is contracted,
generally, in escaping, and often by carelessness, in letting the feet get wet in the Fall.
But in general they are pretty robust and healthy. There has been but very little sickness
in the settlement. We have had no epidemic. We vaccinate the people, and have had but
one case of small-pox.
They are generally prolific. There are some large families here. There is one man
with fourteen children; another has twelve; another ten. They are about half blacks and
half mulattoes. The average of children to a family is about three -- not including the
deaths. I dont think the mortality here has been any greater than it would have been in
any settlement, under the same circumstances.
Only four illegitimate children have been born in this settlement; & that is a better
state of things than you will find in Europe. Either England, Scotland, or Ireland far
exceeds it, in the same number. In Scotland, virtuous Scotland, there is one case where
there were 20 per cent. of bastards. The people here consider it a disgrace. There was a
very pretty light-colored girl here who had an illegitimate child about six months ago,
and I have not seen

399 - her since. She has not come out of her fathers house. I observe that they pay a very
high respect to chastity and to the marriage relation. They all want to be proclaimed in
church three times. There will be cases of infidelity among them, but the guilty parties are
not respected. The most blame falls on the woman. Very few cases of adultery have come
under my observation. I very strongly suspect three or four women, from their conduct
among men, but I have no proof of criminality.
I cannot say that there has been any more pilfering here than in a white
neighborhood. I find as many things taken from any house in Chatham as from any house
here; but, unfortunately, they charge the colored people with it if they are taken there. I
had that difficultly to contend with here, for it was charged upon me that I was going to
plant in the finest part of the Province a class that would violate the law; but I said that if
any of them violated the law, I would be the first to punish them; if any of them went
astray, we would give them the law, the same as we did others. The fourth year after I
came here, I had a saddle-horse stolen from my pasture, and of course it was supposed
that some of the

400 - colored people had stolen Mr. Kings horse; but when I found him, I ascertained
that he was stolen by white men. About six months after that, two horses were stolen
from this neighborhood, and it was charged upon two negroes who were seen about there
that they had taken them. The owner, who was an enemy of mine, said Here is Mr. King
bringing in a parcel of thieves here. But it turned out that two white men who were
travelling [sic] along the road took the horses and rode them off, because they were sore-
 - 43 -

footed, and left them about fourteen miles from here. We have had one or two cases of
petty larceny, and one of man-slaughter. The class we have here has been very free from
pilfering; it has been an exception to the generality of the race. I will tell you one fault
they have. When they borrow an article from me, they never return it. I cant say they
have stolen it, but they neglect to return it.
I have colored servants altogether. Some of the colored families here hire help;
they never hire white help. We have had very few fugitives since the {settlement?} was
commenced. All the lots in this settlement were taken up in 1854. There is not an acre to
be got now. It is a perfect success; there is

401 - no doubt about that. I am prepared to prove that in any place. Here are men who
were bred in slavery, came here and purchased land at the government price, cleared it,
bought their own implements, built their own houses after a model, and have supported
themselves in all material circumstances, and now support their schools [insert: in {p?
a??}]. I charge them now 25 cents a month for schooling, when they are able to pay it.
Not one fourth pay here, where there is no compulsion; but in the government schools,
where the law obliges them to pay, they all pay it. I consider that this settlement has done
as well as any white settlement would have done under the circumstances, and I am
prepared to prove that a colored community can be made industrious and self-supporting,
if they are properly treated. I have no doubt that the colored people of your country, as
soon as the war is over, if they are put upon the farms of the South, will become self-
supporting. A finer class of laborers cannot be found in the world for raising cotton. Only
introduce Northern capital, or Southern capital, give them full remuneration, and in a
short time you will find an industrious, respectable, self-supporting community.

402 -
The colored people care nothing about offices, when they find they can get them.
Last year, there was not a colored man in the Council, because, having the power to put
them there, the colored people did not care to exercise it. They contended for the right to
sit on juries until they gained their point, and then they cared nothing more for it. They
come together now and hold their political meetings as regularly as white people, and
consider how they shall vote. I have always advised them to vote only for those who were
friendly to them; and at the last election, there were not three votes cast against Mr.
McKellar (who is a particular friend of mine,) in this county.
We have a threshing machine that is owned by the colored people. The mills were
put up at my own expense. All the farming implements -- ploughs, harrows, horses, oxen,
wagons -- were bought by themselves. There are one or two of them who have got spring
wagons now. They dont like to borrow. All these things they want to have themselves.
For the first two or three years, I kept $800 floating capital, which I lent out to them, and
didnt know much about it. But after three or four years I had to stop that, because,
knowing I would not press them, I could not collect it, and now I dont loan [to] them at
all.

403 - Last year, 350 barrels of pearl ash were manufactured in the settlement.
If freedom is established in the United States, I dont think it will have any effect
upon the settlers here; but the young men & young women who are educated here will go
 - 44 -

down there, because they cannot get white schools here to teach, such is the prejudice
here against them, and there are not colored schools enough to employ them. I dont think
the colored schools will be multiplied, because they are not expedient, and in a few years,
I think there will be but few left in the Province. It is not a fair criterion to say that a
young colored man cannot get on in this country as well as a white man, because the
avenues are not left open to them; but it is a fair criterion when I put them upon fifty
acres of land, and you cannot prevent the rains & dews of heaven from falling on them. I
have never encouraged the formation of villages, because I thought the main-stay of the
people would be agriculture. If any of the settlers are unfortunate, the others freely help
them. There are thirty orphans in the settlement, who are supported by different families.
I think that the mulattoes are not so long-lived here as the whites or the blacks.

404 - And even in New Orleans, Dr. Stone -- very good authority there -- stated to me that
he was of [the] opinion that the mixed race would die out in four generations. I have
watched that matter since, and it seems to me that as a class, they have not the same
stamina as pure blacks or pure whites.

Mem.
Passing through the Settlements we saw a young man, 21 years old, now a student at
Knox College, who was brought out of bondage on the back of his father, who is an
escaped fugitive from Missouri.

405 -
Windsor, Sept. 14.
Testimony of Rev. A.R. Green (Bishop M.E. Church.)
It is twelve or fourteen years since the colored people commenced coming here to
any great extent. They are increasing now all the time. About the oldest settlers in this
town came fifteen years ago. There are three colored churches in this town. One church
reports 130 or 140 members, another 92, and there are somewhere about 80 in the other.
The congregation of one of the Methodist churches numbers 160 or 170, the other, over
100, and the Baptist church, over 100. I should think the colored people in this town were
over 500. We have a separate colored school -- a government school. It was established at
the request of the colored people, who were induced to ask for it by some kind of
stratagem that was brought to bear upon them by some few friends of the colored people,
who came here a few years ago, and recommended them to get up a petition for a
separate school, so that they could assist them. There are two colored teachers. The
school is rather full now, though the larger scholars are away at work, and the schools I
not so full as it will be in

406 - the Fall and Winter. I think the school numbers 130 -- I dont recollect exactly.
I have known this community for the last thirteen years. I think the colored people
here flourish as well physically as in any country under the sun. They are as healthy here
as anywhere I have ever seen them. That is the only evidence I have. They are not liable
to any peculiar diseases. Consumption rages here as it does in the Northern States, but the
great difficulty, I believe, is the diseases that are contracted by the people in getting away.
The effects of getting here, half-naked, half-shod, and laying out nights, make it seem as
 - 45 -

though there were something more fatal in consumption here than in other places; but we
are [sic] to take into account the condition of the people who come here. One half of
those who die of consumption come here with death upon them, and in a short time, they
are gone. Those who come in a right condition are healthy. The children are healthy. You
cant see any healthier children than we have. An evidence of that can be had in the
school. Some families have six, seven and eight children -- some have less and some
more -- just the same as white people. There is no obstruc-

407 - -tion, I believe, to the increase of posterity.

There is no special provision for taking care of the poor. I think the Town Clerk
told me that last year they had one or two colored paupers. There is one old man -- old
Father Lee -- who is not altogether a pauper, but I believe they help him some. They help
white people, too. He is, I believe, the only one in this town. The colored people
generally support themselves entirely. There are a number of carpenters, who follow that
for a livelihood; there are some house-plasterers, a number of grocers, who have their
own shops; there are others who are {drag? bray?}men and others who are hackmen, who
make their living by driving hacks between here and Sandwich. Three hacks are owned
by colored men. There are other who make their living by working daily at the depots.
There are others who do all kinds of work. If you go four units out, you will come into a
settlement of colored farmers. There are no private schools here for colored children now.
They have had private schools until this present year, when they were all thrown together.
There are writing schools here, in the evening, which are largely attended. Our people
have a Samaritan Society, which is a benevolent society, to help the

408 - members, and they bestow charity upon others. The Lydian Society is another
among them, and they have a Union League, though they have not lived up strictly to its
Constitution; still, it exists. The object of that Society is, to see to the interests of our
people when they come here.
Our people have not met with much difficultly from the prejudice of white people.
I dont see that we have met with any. There is this about it: There is a prejudice that
holds a man a certain distance from immediate sociability in the circles of community.
You have your communities, and you pass along, and nobody interferes with you. As a
general thing, this is a very peaceable country. If any injury is done to the colored people,
they have the law to appeal to, which will defend them. I cant complain of prejudice
here. I go into white communities, and meet with the same kindness {that?} I do from my
neighbors. The colored children would not be allowed to go into the common schools
because they have separate schools. There is a Catholic school, and a Protestant white
and a Protestant colored school; and the Catholics cannot go to the Protestant school, nor
the colored to the white school.
There is not much intermarriage between the colors. Our people have too much

409 - good sense to think a white woman is degraded because she marries a black man. A
respectable colored man and a respectable white woman are looked upon as a respectable
family. The people dont say any thing against such marriages. If the man is an upright
man, and the woman an upright woman, they treat them as if they were both colored; they
have sociability among them. Here is Mrs. Graham, the wife of a colored grocery keeper,
 - 46 -

who is held in as much respect among the first colored women as any black woman in
town. Here is Mrs. Moore. Her husband is a house-plasterer, and she is as much respected
as any black woman. I dont know that there are more such cases now than formerly. The
most of them marry in the States & move here. The immediate community here have
their associations with their own people, and you do not see any of our respectable people
here marrying any persons but their own associates. The young men of our community
are of [the] opinion that they can find as good wives among their own class as can be
found anywhere, and you cant find any of them offering to marry a white woman. They
have their own associates, I assure you, and they cannot be influenced to do otherwise.
These intermarriages are exceptional cases. Most

410 - all of them are from the States. I see nothing to hinder the advancement of this
people. I think their advancement has been so clear that any one can see it. When I came
here, six years ago, there was only one Methodist Church here, numbering not more than
42 members, and the Baptist Church was not formed at all. Now there are two Methodist
churches, one number 100 and odd members, and the other some 90 members, and the
Baptist Church has some 70 or 80 members. There has been great advancement in the
matter of property. Ten years ago, there were not five men who owned real estate here;
now there are some sixty or seventy -- some of them owning two, three and four lots and
houses. I think the colored people pay as much regard to the obligations of marriage as
any other people. A good many would go back if freedom were secured in the United
States, though perhaps they would be no better off than they are here.

411 -
Testimony of Alex. Bartlett, Town Clerk
I should say that we have a population of some 4000 - 7 or 800 of them colored.
Our total tax is about $9000. We have 600 tax-payers in all. Our assessment is 24 cents
on a dollar of the annual value. The estimate of annual value is exceedingly low -- not
more than one half what it should be. If we did not keep down our assessment, we should
have to pay a most undue proportion of the county taxes, as this is by far the largest town
in the county. My house and lot {they?} only assess for $42, and yet I was offered $1200
in gold for it, and would not take less than $1500. We have between 3 and 400 voters. A
voter is one who is assessed for twenty dollars and upwards. The greater proportion of the
colored people are cut off from being voters. There are not, probably, more than 20
colored voters in town. I dont think there would be any disposition to crowd the colored
people under. They have a number of very good friends here, and may get their rights if
they chose. They are crowded off the juries; but there are not more than four colored men
who have the jury qualification. The selection of the jury is a simple thing. We begin with
the man who is assessed the highest on the

412 - roll, and we go down to half the names on the roll; then that person who is lowest
on the roll forms the qualification for that jury. Then we take two thirds of that number,
and of course the selectors have it in their power to say what two thirds shall be taken,
and of course the colored man is cut off, because they dont want him on. There would
not be much trouble here from the prejudice, even if they were not kept off, from the fact
 - 47 -

that there are so few qualified. We have no fire company of any kind here, but at
Chatham, there is a good colored fire company.

Mem. By Mr. Bartletts books, it appears that there are 152 colored tax-payers in town --
and 448 whites. The total annual value of the property for which the colored people are
taxed amounts to $2648, affording a tax of $635.52, which deducted from the total tax
($9000) leaves $8364.48 to be paid by the whites. Taking the colored population at 750,
this shows one tax-payer to every five of the population; and estimating the white
population at 3250, there is one tax-payer to every 7 of the population. The average
amount paid by each colored tax-payer is $4.18; by each white tax-payer, $18.76.

413 -
Testimony of Alfred Whipper (Teacher Colored School)
The number of scholars on the roll is 136, the average attendance, 100. Our
teachers are paid the same as those in the white schools. We have no mops{?} in the
school, and there are none in the white schools, unless they have got them during the last
six months. I do not resort to corporal punishment in many cases. When I cam here, I
found it necessary to resort to it considerably, for I found very little discipline. There are
seven children here whom the war has brought from Missouri.

414 -
Sandwich, Sept. 14
Testimony of Mr. Leach (Jailer, Essex Co. Jail)
About half the prisoners here are colored. They are in for all sorts of crimes --
larceny, robbery and horse stealing. They dont give us much more trouble than the white
prisoners -- about the same.

(A gentleman in the Jailers office said a good many of the colored prisoners were
punished for horse-stealing, but most of them were in for petty offences. There were
some very respectable colored men in the county, he said; industrious, hard-working
people; but the largest proportion of them were petty thieves. There is much prejudice
against them, he continued; because they are getting very impudent, and giving a good
deal of trouble; but those who are respectable get along well enough. At the settlement in
Sandwich, called The Institution, a majority of the married women are white; at least,
they used to be; I dont know how it is now.)

415 -
Malden, Sept. 14
Testimony of Dr. Andrew Fisher (Insane Asylum)
I believe the settlement at Colchester is the most successful one that has been
formed by the colored people. The best and most thrifty of them go back into the country
and settle down. Those who are round here are rather of a poorer class. They have not
come much under my observation. There is a mulatto here, a Mr. Foster, who is a pretty
wealthy man, and doing a thriving business. There is another man who came here with
nothing, worked out at $10.00 a month, paid $500 for his land, and now has a thriving
place. I think they stand the climate very badly. In a very short time, lung disease is
 - 48 -

developed, and they go by phthysis [sic]. The majority do not pass 40 years. Of course,
there are exceptions. They die off fast. I suppose I have had thirty colored people here
with little children, some with scrofulus {scropilus?} disease extending as far as
ulceration of the temporal bone. Then they are a good deal subject to rheumatism. They
bear a good many children, but raise only about one half of them, I think. The children
are generally weakly

416 - and puny -- not so strong and hearty as our white children. A great many of them
die in childhood. The principal disease is tubercular deposition of the stomach and
intestines. They cannot be complained of in respect to intemperance. Of course, I have
seen drunkards here in town, but it is rather the exception to the rule. About one third of
our population is colored. They live more in the back part of the town, away from the
river, and back in the country. They generally settle down among themselves. I cant say
that they are generally industrious. They generally prefer light work. They always shirk
hard work, as far as possible. Of course, those who go back into the country and buy
farms and clear them, work hard, but as a general thing through the town, they shirk hard
work, and get the lightest employment they can. There are a great many paupers among
them. I say so from the number who have been to me this summer. I suppose I have given
away three dollars in five cent pieces, to colored children who came here and said they
had run away from Buffalo [insert: Detroit], on account of the riots. There are few
paupers among the residents here. They generally manage to get along. Stealing, pilfering
and bawdiness are their

417 - principal crimes. They are generally self-supporting. They desire amalgamation, but
the white population keep them aloof. Most of the causes of amalgamation we have come
from abroad. There have been half a dozen white men with black wives, and half a dozen
black men with white wives come here this summer. Those who are here generally marry
among themselves, and keep aloof. I have been here four years, and I have never heard of
a white person getting married to a colored.
We take them upon equal terms. Our colored patients are mixed up with the
whites. We never find any difficulty with the patients on that account. Sometimes they
talk about it among themselves, but we have no trouble with them. I used to keep school
myself, and had colored children among the scholars, and I noticed the offensive odor
from them. I dont think it is so strong with children as with adults. I have noticed that in
some cases, when I have attended children, the odor from the parents would be very
offensive, while there would be hardly any from the children. I should say, that mulattoes
dont have children enough to keep up the breed without assistance from emigration [sic];
from the fact that more of the diseases I have

418 - been mentioning are developed among mulattoes than among pure blacks. I never
have watched very particularly, but I have noticed these diseases more prevalent among
them than among pure blacks or pure whites.
There is a great deal of prejudice against the colored people among the whites and
it is growing all the time -- not so much because they are increasing, as because the
prisoners at our jail in Sandwich are half colored, and every Grand Jury almost makes a
strong {presentment?} against them. They have presented strongly against the negro race,
 - 49 -

and beseeched the judge to bring it to the attention of the Executive, to see if something
cannot be done to {turn?} them out of this country.
There are two colored Methodist churches & one Baptist church in this town.

Testimony of Mr. Meigs, (Insane Asylum)

I have been here for 23 years. The feeling against the colored people has been
growing ever since I came here, and more particularly since your Presidents
Proclamation. They are becoming now so very haughty, that they are looking upon
themselves as the equals

419 - of the whites. Col. Prince, who is now a judge, made a proposition, some time
mago, to the Government, to have them removed from the country and placed on the [sic]
Manitoulin Island, and endeavored to get a bill passed to that effect, but did not succeed.
The children of Mr. Fosters4 second wife by her first husband are admitted to the
white school, but his children are not. The colored people were forced to send their
children to the separate school.

Testimony of Mr. Park, (Merchant.)

Including the Asylum, the population of this town is 2400 -- about one-third
colored. There are only ten or twelve of the colored men who have a right to vote. There
are some thirty colored families in Anderdon and there are about thirteen votes out of
them. Most of the colored people here have been residents here for a number of years. A
great many of the men sail on the lake, and make this their home in the winter. I have
known them for the last 20 or 25 years. Twenty years ago, there was nothing like the
number of colored people here that there are now. I dont think they are in any better
condition in regard to

420 - property than they were twenty years ago. I dont think they are thriving in that
respect. I dont think they accumulate much property. Of course, there are always
exceptions. Part of them are disposed to be industrious, and part of them are pretty
indolent. They dont take care of their own poor. We have no poor house. The poor are
relieved either by the government of the municipality or by the people. The colored
people get about the same assistance, in proportion to their numbers, that the whites do. I
think they beg more than the whites do. They have a settlement at Colchester. I dont
think many of them have paid for their lands. They are getting the wood off and bringing
it here to sell. The majority of them are pretty poor. I dont think there is much difference
between them and the whites in regard to intemperance; they are not more intemperate
than the whites. There are separate schools in town for colored children. It was the choice
of the town. They dont fancy them. Those who sail make very good deck hands.

421 -
Testimony of Capt. Averill
Colored men do very well for deck hands and firemen, and the like of that. They
are the best men we have. We have to pay them the same as white men, and I prefer t hem
to some portion of our citizens. We have to keep them separate from white sailors. We
4
Transcribers note: see frame 415.
 - 50 -

cannot mix them. We always either carry a black crew of a white one. We will take a
crew of firemen darkies or a crew of deck hands [sic] darkies. They are fully as good as
white sailors in regard to temperance. We can put more confidence in them than we can
in white men. We have got a miserable race of firemen and deckhands here. The moment
you think you have got them, you dont know any thing about them. The colored men are
not much inclined to lay up their wages. They spend their money just about as fast as they
go along. Some of them will stay about a boat all Summer long, and not take up any
wages of any consequence; and when you can get a man like that, he is very valuable,
because he will influence the others. They dont get to places of confidence. We never
make them mates. None of them own any craft.

422 -
Testimony of Mr. Bush (Town Clerk)
The colored people here are getting but very little more comfortable than they
have been. I dont know that thye have much more property than they had when I first
came here, fifteen years ago. A portion of them are pretty well behaved, and another
portion not. We have a very small Irish laboring population. A great many of these
colored people go and sail in the summer time, and in the Winter, lie round & dont do
much. The upper part of this town is inhabited by French people, -- the worst people in
the world. There is not the top of a copper between them and the colored peopled. We
have to help a great many of them -- more than any other class of people we have. I have
been Clerk of the Council for three years, and have had the opportunity of knowing. I
think the Council have given more to the colored people than to any others. And there is
one thing that I must say: they are the most uncharitable people to one another I ever saw
in my life. I have known destitute people to come here from the country for aid, and
when I have told them to go back to the country and get their friends to help them, they
have said that the people there would not help them

423 - and if I told them to apply for assistance to the colored people here, they would say,
that they would not do any thing for them. They are not at all liberal in giving help to one
another. I dont speak from any antipathy at all against them, for there are some very nice,
respectable colored men among them -- men whose word I could rely upon as well as
upon any other mans word. But take the generality of them, they are just exactly like the
French. You can depend upon them when they are in your sight, but when they are out of
your sight, you cant depend upon them at all. I am sorry to say it, but that is actually the
case. There have been two or three ministers who have been over the other side collecting
things for the colored people, who have not distributed their collections as they ought to
have done, I am sorry to say. They would make each and every one pay something for
what they got, at a reduced price; what they did with the money I cannot say. One man
who went over [to] the other side made [money] sufficient to build a mill and some built
themselves houses when they came back. There is more trouble at the jail with the
colored people than with any other people. They are taken up for stealing, drunkenness,
&c. When they get going, there is no stopping them. I am bailiff of the Court, &

424 - I have more trouble with them than with any other people in the world. The great
trouble is that people give them credit; and as long as they do that, they will run in, tell a
 - 51 -

good story, and get trusted, and then not pay, and I have to go and seize upon them; &
then they will swear all manner of things. One of them went up to Court as a witness; and
when he was called to the stand, he said to the man who called him. Here, Mr. Nelson,
you have called me up here, and never told me what you want me to swear to. Then the
judge said, Mr. Nelson, did you bring such a man as that up here as a witness? Let him
go out of court. The fact is, some of them dont know any thing about the obligations of
an oath.

Mem.
By Mr. Bushs books, it seems that there are in all 550 tax-payers in Malden (or
Amherstburg,) of whom 71 are colored. The annual value of the property on which they
were assessed in 1863 was $1253, on which a tax of 29 per cent. was levied -- amounting
to $363.37 -- or about $5.12 to each tax-payer. The total tax of the town was $4,916.37 --
leaving $4553.00 to be paid by the whites -- or an average of $9.52 each. Assuming the
population given by Mr. Bush to be correct, there is one white tax payer to every 3, &
one colored to every eleven.

425 -
Testimony of Mr. Foster (Livery Stable Keeper)
I have been in Canada 25 or 26 years. I came here in 1838. I was born in the State
of Ohio. My father and mother were from Pennsylvania. The prejudice here is a little
different from what it is in most parts of the States -- different from what it is in Ohio.
Not having their oath there, they were treated as nobody; they were looked upon as of no
weight. If a colored man expressed his opinion, he was considered saucy. Still, the
colored people had a good many friends. Here, too, there is prejudice against them. It was
got up by persons who came here from slavery. They rather preferred to be treated like
inferiors; they did not wish to be treated like white men. They would sooner eat in the
kitchen than be guests at the table, and the white people soon found they could treat them
in that way. Now, I can travel in this country and go to a log cabin, every way inferior,
and they would rather want me to stay in the kitchen, or in a corner. But when we come
to talking as men, I get up on the stump and make my speech, and the people listen to me
as well as they do to any one else while I express my views. When it comes to that, we
are men. Here , it is only the low, mean class of people who

426 - deny the rights of the colored people; in the States, it began in the White House,
and went through all classes of society. We have colored people here from slavery, and
you cant expect to find intelligent slaves. You might find a poor, ignorant set of people
from any country -- from Ireland -- and you might want to keep your children away from
them, -- they would rather draw off from them, on account of their living poor and
ignorant. Now, nearly all our settlers come here from slavery, and some of our wealthiest
men were born and raised as slaves; only a few of us were born free. Once in a while one
would come from the North, where he had not the right of suffrage, because here in
Canada he would have the right to his oath and the right to vote & hold office the same as
any other man. There is one thing which is an undeniable fact; and that is, that the colored
people are doing much better than the white people. I speak it fearless of contradiction.
Take any number of colored people who have been here 10 or 12 years, and take the same
 - 52 -

number of white people, raised here, and the colored people have bought 100 acres to
every five bought by white mens sons raised in the place. There is a settlement about ten
miles from here called the New Canaan settlement. It has been settled fifteen or sixteen
years; but you

427 - would almost think that their fathers had bought that land and given it to them to set
them out, to see the work that has been done. This land is hard to clear, and in the Spring
of the year, the water is half a foot deep upon it, and being so wet, the roots are on the top
of the ground, and no paying crop can be raised until they are dug out; then it is first-rate
land. So it is very hard to make a beginning. Well, these men have come here with
nothing, they have gone round and worked and earned a little money, bought land,
cleared it, put up their buildings, churches, and school-houses, and all those kind of
things, and they are living at home -- many of them living comfortably.
There were a good many here when I came here. They have been coming here 30,
35 and 40 years. There are men here now who have been here 40 years and more. When
the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, they came in quite fast. We have got a very
remarkable climate. The colored people can stand as cold a climate as white people. We
cant plant corn here so early as in Ohio, because the ground is so low. We can plant
generally from the 12th to the 15th of May, and this year we might have planted corn on
the 6th of May. I think our people would increase in numbers

428 - if there was no emigration [sic]. It is the greatest place to raise children you ever
saw. There is some consumption, but that is the only complaint of any consequence. I
only know of one consumptive person now in town -- a boy.
The way we came to have separate schools was this. When I first came to this
place, I didnt know what the name of Abolitionist meant. The first man I ever saw that I
heard called an Abolitionist was Mr. Hiram Wilson, and I heard him state his mission, and
what he was to do for the slaves, and I thought his was the noblest mission I ever heard
of, and that his plan was a very good one. But, as I have told him since, he took the
wrong course, and, unintentionally, did us great injury. If he had gone as a missionary
among the white people, preaching among them, and taken the colored children into the
schools, he would have done us great service. But instead of that, he and his friends
commenced preaching to us, and established schools for colored children along; they did
not try to draw in the whites at all, so that the whites had nothing to do with them. The
colored people would not go to the white churches. They were not able to dress quite so
well as the white people, and were rather enthusiastic and

429 - excitable, and didnt like to have white people looking at them, so they had every
inducement to keep by themselves. Soon the government gave them schools, and then the
white people said -- Now you have got your schools to yourselves, and you must keep
them. A colored child, as the schools are now arranged, may have to walk four or five
miles, and go by two schools, before he gets to his own. A town may need one, two or
three schools, and it is left to the judgment of the Trustees to say how many schools shall
be established. Perhaps there are three schools, and it is left to the Trustees to do what
they think is proper to educate the people. The law says a town shall be laid off in wards,
but they pay no attention to that. They establish a school somewhere which is to include
 - 53 -

all the white Protestant children in town, another one that is to include all the Catholics,
and then go over the same ground to get colored scholars for a third. I own a piece of land
three miles out of town. There is a colored school out in one division, and the colored
people have sued the white people and made them pay for that school, because it is the
only school in that division. My land is in a white division -- No. 4. Well, they have got a
great part of the township of

430 - Anderton and Malden into what is called a Union School, for colored children,
which I dont believe there is any law to justify: the tax out there is $4.50, where white
men, who own the same amount of land, only pay $1.40. This year, I told them up town
that I would not pay it, but would pay in my own district. They inquired whether I had
any thing to seize on, and I told them I had some apple trees and a stack of hay; and says
I, let me know when you seize it, and have a {saif?} on it. They havent seized it yet,
but I keep a sharp watch, for fear they may take it away without my knowing it.
There are not many colored paupers here. There is an old fellow by the name of
Morgan, who was shot in the South, and I guess he goes round begging a little. Pretty
much all the colored people take care of themselves. They are in as good and thriving
condition as the white people. Some years ago, there was a Society formed here called
the Free Band Society, and it spread like wildfire for a while. Every member paid a
shilling for a month; and we assisted a good many slaves who came over; we would pay
their board for a short time, and see to getting them work; and we had plenty of money to
take

431 - care of them all completely. But after a while the Society ran down, and now there
are no slaves coming here. The most that come over now are white people; [crossed out:
running away from the draft.] A few colored people have come over, thinking they
might be drafted, but as slaves.
I guess a good many would go back if freedom were established in the United
States. I should prefer living in the States, if the laws were all right, the war all over, and
you had your debts all paid, so that we should not be taxed to death. The reason I should
prefer to live there is, that I was born in the States and brought up there; and the people
there are more familiar than the Canadians. I could live much more pleasantly with my
family among Eastern people than with the Canadians. The Canadian French are pretty
good neighbors; but a burnt child dreads the fire, they say; and they are plenty dark
enough, without mixing with colored people. The way the French came here, as perhaps
you know, was this. The soldiers that France gave to the United States to gain their
independence were discharged, a great part of them, on Detroit river, and at that time, it
was as disreputable for a white woman to marry a Frenchman

432 - as it is now for a white woman to marry a black man. They could not get white
women for wives, so they took Squaws, and there is now scarcely a Frenchman here in
whom you cannot see Indian blood. This gives them their dark, swarthy skin, and they are
plenty dark enough, without being mixed with any body darker. No, I would not live in
Canada if the laws and all were all right in the States.
I have three sons engaged in boating. There are a good many colored men
employed on the river. There is one man here, a Mr. Smith, who has run boats some times
 - 54 -

-- a very trustworthy man. All that keeps him down is his being a colored man. There is a
farmer two miles from here worth 7 or $8000. His name is Tho[ma]s. Buckner. One of
the best farmers any where in this part of the country is a colored man by the name of
Thomas Green. He has the best cattle, the best fences, and looks down on all the rest of
the farmers. And there are plenty of other farmers between Colchester and here; farming
25 and 50 acres of land. The best horses raised in this country are raised by colored
people.
We prayed here very hard at first that Jeff. Davis would not give out too soon. By-
and-by we began to get a little mad when it began to look as if the South was going to
whip

433 - the North out. There has been a wonderful change in the feelings of Canadians in
regard to your country. Up to the time Fremont ran for President, a Democrat in feeling
was a novelty. Every Canadian that I knew was for Fremont. When Lincoln ran, there
was a pretty strong feeling in his favor, but not so much as for Fremont. They like the
word Free. Every one says We dont want the black man a slave. We may treat him
like a dog, but we dont want him a slave. We thought the North would free the slaves,
and set them against their masters. When the Canadians found the Northerners were
beginning to send slaves back and all that kind of thing, they began to go against the
North. And then the Northern papers came out and boasted of what they could do against
Canada, and all this has turned the Canadians, till now you can hardly find a man who
wont say that the South can whip the North.
We have a remarkably good teacher at our school here -- the best in the place.
There are no two ways about that. There are three churches among the colored people. It
is just like them; they divide and split up. Buckners family is the only family that attends
a white church. My wife came from the old town (Boston.) Her name was Harris. The
white

434 - people acknowledge that the colored school is better than the white. I believe that
the colored school has outlearned the white. My little girl went to the colored school and
then to the white, and she says she could learn fastest in the [crossed out: white]
colored school because it is more orderly.
There is not a colored family in New Canaan that lives on rented land. The people
went there without anything. One man, who came from Brooklyn, New York, was the
only moneyed man who came into that settlement, that I know of. He came there with
considerable money, bought 100 acres of land, and sold 50 to a man by the name of
Howard, who had been long away from slavery. He has a splendid woman for a wife -- an
Englishwoman, and a hard worker. They paid for the land, and they ran right by the other
m{a?e?}n. If he had a good house, he would be the best situated man in that settlement.
He has a good barn. There is one thing I have noticed, and that is, that the colored men
who have white wives are more prosperous than the others. Whether they are more
industrious, and economical than the colored women, I cant tell, but the fact is so. There
is a man by the name of Robt. Green, who keeps a grocery about five miles from
 - 55 -

435 - here, who is very prosperous. Two years ago, I went to the fair at London, and I was
surprised to find that there was not a colored man in Canada, besides myself, who
showed any thing at that fair.
One of the School Trustees here is a colored man, but he has always been
identified with the whites. He was born in New Orleans, and can talk the French language
well, and the Spanish a little. He called himself a Spaniard, married a French wife, and
has been identified with the white people. He has been Mayor and Councillor of our
town, and is a magistrate now, and auctioneer. He has got to go through, because some of
the people were determined he should not come down, and the white people can put
through whoever they please. So he is not called a colored man, but a Spaniard, though
everybody knows what he is.
The colored people are a heap like white folks. There are some of them who will
steal and lie, and do all sorts of things; only that in stealing, they dont go so high as
white folks; they only steal little things.

436 -
Tuesday, Sept. 15
[Memorandum]
Left Amherstburg for Colchester. Before passing out of the township of Malden,
in which Amherstburg is situated, stopped at Mr. Buckners farm, of which Mr. Foster
speaks in his testimony. The place is under good cultivation, and has a number of fine
cattle upon it, and every thing about indicates thrift and care. Further on, called at a log
cabin occupied by a colored family, who had rented the place. The women only were at
home, who said they were getting along very well with the farm. The younger of the two
women was uncommonly bright and intelligent, and both kind & civil-spoken. At another
house, saw an old lady, who said she was from Kentucky, where she had been free, but
her husband was a slave. She said she had worked harder in Canada, trying to get a start,
than she ever did in Kentucky. She thought the climate not so healthy as that of Kentucky,
especially for children, who took colds, and were somehow carried off very fast. She
declared she would go back to the old home when freedom was established in the States.
Stopped at a wayside tavern, where the people were French. The woman said

437 - the colored people were good neighbors, except that they would pilfer small things.
Met a man on horseback, who said the colored people were poor farmers, and did not do
so well as the most inferior class of whites. They did not know any thing about farming,
he said, and when hired, needed to be told every fifteen minutes what to do and how to do
it. He thought the climate prejudicial to children. The darkies, he said, were charged with
stealing a good deal, but he thought they didnt steal any more than some white people.
He thought the thefts of white men were often charged upon the blacks.
Stopped at another tavern, kept by a Frenchman, who said the blacks were good-
natured, and not disposed to be quarrelsome, but given to pilfering. When asked if they
were any worse in that respect than the whites, he said perhaps they were, a little, but it
was hard to say which were the worse. Saw here two fugitives from Kentucky. One of
them said he had been here six years, and worked out as a laborer, getting 50 cents a day
for common work, 62 cts. for cutting corn, and $1.00 for harvesting -- and {found.} He
said he could not lay by anything, having a wife and three children to support. He was
 - 56 -

438 - anxious to have a place of his own, he said, but had no means to buy one. His
children did not go to school at all, for there was no school for colored children, and thhe
whites would not permit his children to go to their school.
Saw a little cabin near the road, and a man and woman, and some children about.
On being interrogated, the man said he was from North Carolina, and allowed he found
Canada a hard place to get a living in. He would be glad, he said, to get back to the
States, as soon as he could be free there. The woman said she was from Virginia, and that
the prejudice was a heap stronger in Canada than it was at home. The people seemed to
think the blacks werent folks, any way. She was anxious to go back.
Met a farmer, who said the blacks were the worst people round. They werent
good for anything unless a man wanted them to work, and then; [sic] if they were looked
after right sharp, they would do pretty well. He didnt know that the blacks stole any
more than the whites; but thought the whites often got clear by saddling their sins on the
backs of the darkies.
Returning, visited the colored school at Amherstburg. No. of names on the roll,
90; average attendance, 60.

439 -
St. Catharines, Sept. 17.
Testimony of C.P. Camp, Town Clerk & Treasurer
The colored people here get on very poorly. They steal our sheep, our chickens,
and every thing else. They are a curse to any country. I wish they were all back South, for
my part. They are a lazy set, especially the young men. We have to support them while
they live, and bury them when they die. We have some Irish laborers. I dont know that
the colored people are any worse than the Irish are. The population of St. Catharines is
7007. The Government census was all wrong. They made the population 6284; but we
took the census a year ago, and made it 7007. The total number of tax-payers is 1433.
The total annual value of the property taxed is $166,686 -- which is 6 per cent. of the
actual value. The rate of taxation is 19 per cent.

Mem. By Mr. Camps books, it appears that there are 112 colored tax payers, on property
the annual value of which is set down at $5151.00; which, at 19 per cent. gives a tax of
$1012,24 -- or a trifle over $9.00 to each colored tax-payer.

440 -
The Assessors books show that 205 dogs are taxed, but not one bitch -- the tax
for the latter being $2.00, while for dogs it is only $1.00.
Taking the figures given on the preceding page as the total annual value of the
property taxed, and deducting that paid for by colored men, there remains $161,495,
which at 19 per cent. yields a revenue of $31,491.52 -- or an average of nearly $23.84
to each white tax-payer -- 1321 in all.

441 -
Testimony of John Kinney (Barber.)
 - 57 -

I have been here right by the court house since a year ago last April, and there has
not been a colored man arrested for stealing since I have been here. There is a great deal
of prejudice here, for we are right on the line. The colored people have two churches
here. Some of them go to white churches, and some white people go to the colored
churches. The majority of the colored people dont like the intermarriage of colored and
white people. I want to have a woman I am not ashamed to go into the street or into
company with, and that people wont make remarks about. It dont amount to anything I
know, but it hurts a mans feelings. We are pretty well treated here as a people, and as far
as I know the colored people get along very well. I have never seen so large a body of
people as they are here who drank so little. It is very seldom you will see a man drunk in
the street. If Mr. Camp says the colored people are thieves, he is a liar, and I will tell him
so to his face. There are three Societies among the colored people. There is one Society
of women, who have funds to take care of their own colored sick and bury the dead; there
is a Masonic Lodge, who take care of the Masons; and there is another Society which
meets every month, and each member

442 - puts in two or three shillings a month, which money is {put?} at interest, and when
any of the people are sick, they live on that fund, if they are obliged to apply to the
Society. It is unjust for a man to tell such falsehoods. The colored people are bad enough,
at the best, but the white people make them out worse than they are. If you had asked Mr.
Camp which class of people caused the county the most trouble, the Irish or the colored
people, he would have told you, if he told you the truth, the Irish.
Our people bear the climate here very well. They battle with the cold as well as
the white people. I dont believe there are {3000?} men in Canada who would not prefer
a steady climate to this. I should like to know why a black man would not go back to the
South, if he was not born here in Canada. I am sure I know what cold weather is, for I
was born & brought up in Geneva; and I dont see any difference in that respect. The
winters are longer, thats all. I would go South in a moment, if you had freedom there.

443 -
Testimony of Mrs. Brown
The colored people are not doing much here. Since I have been here, there has
been considerable improvement. I have been here fifteen years; and have paid taxes all
the time. I came from New York State. I am an Albanian. My husband is a Marylander.
The climate here is about the same as where I come from; but Southern people of course
find it different. I dont find the winters any longer than they were at home. When I was
on the Mohawk, the winters were as long as they are here. I am as healthy, and healthier,
here than I was at home. I dont know much about the colored people here. I never go
among them, and dont know anything about them. You know as much about them as I
do. They all live just in a heap among themselves, and I never go there. They are in a free
country, and can live decently if they like. I have got one boy here -- my daughters child.
I have not sent him to school much, for I dont think we shall stop here long. I think of
going to Montreal or the States. They will have him go to the Presbyterian Sunday
School, and I let him go.

444 -
 - 58 -

A good many of the colored people own their own homes, and have owned them
ever since I came here. When they came here, of course they were destitute, and had
nothing. Most of them came from the Slave States. There are some here who are doing
very well. The reason they do not get so much property as the Irish is because the Irish
will live on nothing, like a dog. They live like pigs, and worse than pigs. The colored
people cant live like the Irish, on potatoes & salt. They want something to eat, if they
have to work. An Irishman will take potatoes and salt, and a sup [sic] of milk, and say
nothing about it; but as a people, we are used to living different [sic] from that and cant
do it. The Irish will get along anywhere. In the winter time, you will see Irish children,
even of people pretty well-to-do, who wear shoes only on Sunday; and women of any age
will go round the house with their bare feet all day, and will even go out into the garden
to get a cabbage or something without shoes or stockings; and that, you know, would kill
anybody else. The colored people are capable of doing any thing that they have a chance
to do. All we want is good schools for the children, and capital enough to give them good
trades. I mean my boy shall be edu-

445 - -cated as well as any body; if it costs the last cent I ever make. I mean to make
some thing of him, and I shall send him off, too. If the colored people are able to take
care of themselves, they will. There are some men who wont take care of themselves, go
where they will. My husband is 80 years old, and he can work and take care of himself
and me too; and of course I can take care of myself and of him too, if he is sick. My
husband was an officers servant at the time Baltimore was taken, about 1812. My
husband says he would go back if freedom was established, for he doesnt like Canada,
no way. I am sure I dont, and never did. I would have gone back, with my husband, to
Maryland, if it had been a free State, but it never has been; but when it is free, I tell you, I
will go back, and he will go back. He has some children there, & he wants to go back.
That he calls home, though he has been here 22 years.
I find more prejudice here than I did in [New] York State. When I was at home, I
could go any where; but here, my goodness! You can get an insult on every side. But the
colored people have their rights before the law; that is the only thing that has kept me
here. The law will protect my husband, I was always free. There is great prejudice

446 - here. This is a regular Yankee place. You can just tell your people that every person
can get along here, if he will only work for it. I have to work myself, like {sixty?}. My
first husband was a Massachusetts man. His name was James W. Robinson. The colored
ministers here are not very intelligent. I wonder at their being put over a flock; they cant
enlighten them much.

Testimony of W[illia]m. Henry Gibson, (Gardener)

I have been here seven years. The colored people are generally doing pretty well.
A good many of them pay taxes. They make a pretty good living, without it is [sic] some
who are afflicted, and some few who would not get a living anywhere. I dont own any
place myself; I am gardener here. The climate seems to suit our people very well. I like it
very well myself. Of course, our people are more used to the climate of the States than to
the climate here. With some it agrees very well; with others, not so well. There are two
 - 59 -

charitable societies here for helping poor colored people, but I dont belong to either of
them. The principal part of the people here are able to take care

447 - of themselves, without coming upon charity. They are like all other people. There
are some who are always asking for assistance, but every person who will work can make
a good living. The colored people are generally treated pretty fairly here. There is a
prejudice here against us. I dont think it is so bad as it is in the States. I can get a living
here as well as in the States. I dont know as I should go back if slavery was abolished.
Mr. Lindsay owns some three or four houses. He has been here, I think, 20 or 30 years. I
want to be where I can be free -- that is the main thing -- to be where I can have my rights
as much as any man, free and equal. This is a very healthy climate.

Testimony of Col. E.W. Stephenson, (Landlord)

I have been here 35 years. The colored people have been coming in ever since I
came here. There were three or four colored families here then. They are mostly runaway
slaves. I think they would live here and flourish if there were no more came in. There are
some very old people here. They all have a great love of country. They dont marry much
with whites,

448 -
it is looked down upon with such dreadful contempt by all classes -- even by the negroes
themselves. The respectable colored people dont like it to have one of their color marry a
white whore -- for a woman is nothing else when she comes into such a connection as
that. The white women are broken down outcasts when they come to that. They all get on
slowly (the colored people); for it is pretty hard for any man without capital, or any
advantages, to make much. I always employ colored waiters. I have men here who have
worked for me six, eight, and ten years, and most of these have got little houses, and they
raise a pig, and their wives take in washing, and they live very comfortably. I have found
that no influence produces such a good effect upon them as their religious principles, and
I always do every thing I can to promote those feelings, speak in the highest terms of
them, and give them opportunities to go to meeting[s] evenings and daytimes; for I find
that as a rule it stimulates them with a degree of pride, and they dare not cut up [sic]
mean if they are considered members of the church. I very often bring it up here when I
find they are getting a little beside themselves, and

449 - I find that it always has a very good effect. Most of the colored families belong to
one church or the other; though there are some vagabonds among them.
The Irish get along better than the blacks. They are a different class of people. I
think we have as many and more tax-paying Irish than negroes. We have a great many
Irishmen here who are worth property [sic], who came here poor. One great reason why
the negroes do not get on so well is because they are possessed, either by custom or
nature, with pride, and spend money on dress, and adorn themselves, and live very
expensively, every way. They have not that love for money which these low Irish have,
who will work for anything, live on nothing, and hoard every cent. The negroes are a
much neater class of people, as a general thing, than the Irish. The negro houses are
generally neat and clean. It is a rare exception to go into one where you do not find every
 - 60 -

thing of the greatest neatness. The negroes have furniture, whereas the Irish have none.
Every copper of money they get they lay up, and the victuals they eat, they generally go
out and beg from the people. I have seen an old woman here begging who had $17{.?}00
in the bank.

450 - You could not get a negro to do that. We dont find many paupers among the
negroes, as a general thing. There is one thing I have noticed: they cannot bear prosperity.
If they get a little ahead, they wont work, unless they can get higher wages. Taking
pattern last year from the hatters and other workmen, they struck for higher wages for
mowing. I suppose there were fifty in the settlement who didnt earn two dollars all
Summer. When Winter came, they must have suffered a good deal for the people had no
sympathy for them. The consequence was that mowing machines were introduced, which
cut them all out, and they are satisfied now that they were wrong. There are some
professional mowers along the colored people, who pride themselves on their skill, and
will do an excellent days work. They cut wider & better, and generally get a quarter of a
dollar a day more than the others. These men are now the only ones employed. Still, there
is work enough to be had. They can all get land; and if you go through the market, you
will see a great many of them who come in in [sic] the morning with baskets of stuff to
sell, and go home

451 - at night. You can hardly call them farmers; but they have gardens, & raise a great
deal of stuff. There are seveeral men who have really made a nice living of it, and have
followed it up for years. I dont think there is as much crime among the colored people as
among the Irish -- nothing like it. I am happy to say, that in the matter of pilfering, there
has been a vast improvement among them. I rarely hear of such a thing now a-days.
There used to be a class who came here who made a practice of stealing chickens and
such things.
As a body, the colored people are very tidy and cleanly. They are not a
quarrelsome, but good natured people, and very temperate, as a body. I think the country
would be worse off if they were all taken away. We want them very much. I employ fifty
through the Summer. I prefer them to Irish, as you can tell, or I would not employ them. I
understand the character of the negro pretty well, and to have a negro do to suit you, you
have got to make allowances. If you want to send a negro on an errand, or on two or three
errands, he will bungle half of them, unless you are very careful to tell him all you want
done; and it

452 - is just so with an Irishman. But if you take time enough, and make a negro
understand what you want done, he will be sure to do it.

Testimony of Dr. Theophilus Mack

My first acquaintance with the colored people was at Amherstburg, where my
father was a minister of the Church of England. It strikes me that the mixed races are the
most unhealthy, and the pure blacks the least so. The disease they suffer most from is
pulmonary -- more than general tubercular; and where there is not real tubercular
affection of the lungs, there are bronchitis and pulmonary affections. I have the idea that
they die out when mixed, and that this climate will completely efface them. I think the
 - 61 -

pure blacks will live. I have come to this conclusion, not from any statistics, but from
personal observation. I know A, B and C, who are mulattoes, and they are unhealthy; and
I know pure blacks, who do not suffer from disease, and recover from the small-pox and
skin diseases and yellow fever,

453 - which are very fatal to mulattoes. I think there is a great deal of {stromus?}
diathesis developed in the mixed race, produced by change of climate. It is certain death
to bring them here. I know it is so. That has been constantly observed among the
profession. We see it here very plainly. They come here, and the first winter they will be
laid up. They tell us they were never sick before.
Their most common crime is rape on white women. It is most extraordinary. They
dont increase much in this country -- I mean, the mixed race. The purse blacks are the
healthiest, and get on the best, and have the best character, every way. I think the children
of mulattoes are not so easily raised as white or black children. They are puny, sickly
children, every way. I think they are not quite so fruitful here as they are in the South,
from their own accounts. Their fecundity is not near so great as that of the Irish, and yet
parturition5 is not so difficult with them. It is very extraordinary, that there is no class of
women that has so many difficult labors as Irish women, who are noted for their ease
with which they get through. I think it is in the consequence of their laborious

454 - life, and their habit of drinking. They can get whiskey here very freely. I dont
know any mulatto family that has persisted, without any admixture, for several
generations. My conviction is that they die out. They grow shorter and shorter lived, until
at last they dont reach adult age. There seems to be a downright limit to the race in a
Northern climate. Dr. Wilson, of Toronto, and I had a very interesting conversation upon
this very subject at one time. He has paid a great deal of attention to the races of men.
I think the blacks are not a vicious race, except that disposition to mingle with the
whites; that is, their amativeness is very strong. If there is any thing else, it is rather
negative. They are utterly indolent. It is a want of innervation; it is a physical incapacity
for work; he is really unfit for it in cold weather, and in warm weather, his natural
luxuriousness leads him to want to enjoy himself. The Irish are trying to crowd them out
of the light work, and are doing it as fast as they can. The Irish are, upon the whole, when
once they break away from their brutalizing habits, more bright and clever than the
negroes. In New

455 - York you will see twenty Irish waiters where you used to see but ten years ago, and
that, I think, is going to be another element of the opposition between these two races.
They dont make as quick and active waiters, but I think you can rely upon them better --
they will do more work. A great many of their faults must be attributed to their habits as
slaves. Those you must eliminate in forming a judgment in regard to them; because if you
make a man a slave, you make him deceptive, and every thing else. Generally, they do
amass a little property. The steady and industrious among them acquire a little property.
There must be nearly a hundred of them who pay taxes on real estate. They come here,
where there is little employment, [and] they come into direct competition with the Irish,
and are not favored, and if they have acquired any real estate (which is an expensive
5
Transcribers note: Childbirth.
 - 62 -

thing to acquire) in 10, 12 or 15 years -- and they have not generally been here longer
than that -- it speaks very well for them.
In regard to their general character for morality, taking into account their position
in life and their temptations, I think they are a little better than the Irish. Really, I

456 - dont know that I ought to say so, but I am inclined to think so. I suppose the
Irishmen to be their superiors in intellect. You may improve an Irishman up to anything;
but, on the other hand, the Irish have, along with that capacity -- as we know all noxious
poisons are powerful for good as well as for evil -- furious vices of all kinds -- murder,
assault, drunkenness, and every thing except want of chastity. The Irish men & women
are more chaste, I think, than others. I think the chastity of the negro woman is very poor.
Nothing can be worse except that of the squaw. The squaw has no idea of it at all,
apparently. As a class of inhabitants, I dont think you would find more vice among the
colored people than among any others. The prejudice against them is dreadful; then they
have this compe[ti]tion to meet.
What I have said to you I have often talked over with my brethren of the
profession. We often compare notes, and we agree that the fact stares us in the face, that it
is death to the race to come here & mingle with the whites. There is no doubt they will go
home if freedom is established there.

457 - I shall never forget the first negro I had any thing to do with. He had just come,
poor creature, from South Carolina. It was in the winter, and my father sent him up into
the woods to chop, and there I found him, with a big fire on each side of him. He had
chopped about a quarter of a cord in the course of the day. He couldnt stand it, evidently.

Testimony of Elder Perry (School Teacher)

This is a private school, which was established because the public school is not a
good one. Mr. James Brown has been teaching there for the last six years, and is a most
shameful inebriate. The colored people have remonstrated against it, until finally they
have brought the Board up to a conviction of the propriety of dismissing him. No colored
man has had charge of the colored school in this town for the last 10 or 12 years. There
are between 6 and 700 people of color in the town. I opened this select school simply for
the benefit of those who would not attend the public school, and I find I have more
scholars than I expected. I have 37 on the

458 - roll, and have had as many as 40. The scholars pay 50 cents a month; and they are
so poor, that I have them pay it weekly. The ages range from 18 to 6. The children are
mostly girls. I have two classes in English Grammar, three classes in Geography, one
class commencing the study of Latin, and I have one scholar in Greek. I was educated at
the Kalamazoo Theological College and Seminary, and am the only colored person ever
educated there

Testimony of James Brown (Govt Colored School)

In the Winter our roll numbers 120 or 130; in Summer, 70 or 80. We have had an
average attendance, in Winter, of 110. I have taught white children, and I dont think the
colored children attend as regularly as the white. In capacity, they are very fair. I find that
 - 63 -

to differ, according to the color. What we consider as the regular negro is very opaque,
but the lighter colored are very smart. Take them as a whole, I dont find much difference
between them and white children. I perceive a very offensive odor from them. I dont
know that there is any

459 - difference, in that respect, between children and adults. Our school in Summer
averages about 40. We are supplied well with just the same maps and apparatus that the
white schools are. The great difficulty I have to contend with is want of books. The
Government does not give us books. It expects the children to fund them. I went to the
Trustees four or five years ago, and got a number of books. If it had not been for those
books, I dont know what I should have done. It was actually teaching by word of mouth.
The parents cannot afford to {fund} the books. They are a very poor set here. I have some
scholars pretty well advanced in Geometry & Algebra. Some of the lads are very quick.

460 -
Total black population of Canada 11,413

Commitments in 1862
Whites 295
Colored 20
Indians 3
Colored about 1 per cent. of population -- commits 10 per cent. of crime.

Remaining in Penitentiary, 31st Dec. 62, 700 Whites -- 44 Blacks -- 14 mulattoes -- 7

native Indians. Total, 765.

461 -
File No. 11. Canadian Testimony No. 2.

462 - Index

463 -
[Suspension Bridge,] Tuesday, Nov 5th, 1863
Testimony of Thomas Likers
Head Waiter at the Monteagle House, Suspension Bridge

I was born in Maryland, a slave, but never had any of the sufferings of a slave, always
having had the privilege of hiring my own time. But as swoon as I came to the age of
maturity, and could think for myself, I came to the conclusion that God never meant me
for a slave, & that I should be a fool if I didnt take my liberty if I got the chance. No
matter what privileges I had, I felt that I had not my rights as long as I was deprived of
liberty. I didnt run away, but rode off in the {cars?}. I paid my fare like a gentleman, and
had no trouble in getting away. I saw so much inequality in the States, that what was
sauce for the goose wasnt sauce for the gander -- that I wouldnt stay there, but came to
Canada. I have lived in Toronto, which I think is the best place in Canada. There is as
much prejudice against the black man in Canada as there is in the States, and I have
 - 64 -

sometimes thought more; but the law makes no difference between black & white. If it
had not been for that, I would not have gone to Canada. If a man spits upon us or insults
us, we punch him down, and the law will treat us fairly. We cant do that in the States.

464 - I lived two years in Baltimore, and earned plenty of money there; -- more than I can
in Canada -- and enjoyed all the pleasures. That is a good place for pleasures; but no
place for a black man who wants to improve himself intellectually.

St. Catharines, Nov. 6th, 1863

Testimony of J.W. Lindsay
I was free born, but was kidnapped, when a child, like thousands of others. I was
taken from Washington city, and carried to West Tennessee. My parents advertised me in
the papers, and the individuals who kidnapped me carried me to South Carolina, Georgia
and Alabama. I went to the general postmaster at Nashville, Tenn., whose name was
Stephen Gray, and told him I was free. He said the man had made it all right. He said,
Dont they treat you pretty well? I said that had nothing to do with my liberty. He
hooted me off in that kind of way, and of course I had to go about my business. As soon
as I got old enough, I gave them leg bail for security. I started back for my parents, but
when I got as far as Pittsburg[h], I heard that they were still kidnapping people in
Washington, and thought it was no use to go back. There was another young man there,
by the name of {Lawrenton} from New Orleans, who was a shoemaker (I was a
blacksmith) and he proposed leaving the United States, saying it was not

465 - a safe place for us to be in, and I agreed with him, and we came to Canada. He died
in Toronto. I carried on blacksmithing until I acquired some property, but worked so hard
that I used myself up, and turned my attention to other business; now I follow gardening
& teaming and the small beer business. Sometimes I have three or four horses, and I have
two now.
I find the prejudice here the same as in the States. I dont find any difference at
all. In fact as far as prejudice goes, the slaveholders have not so much absotley prejudice
as the people here -- not half. In this country, they will twit us with having been in
Virginia, and about having been in slavery. They take hold of it as a handle to throw their
{slogans? slights?} upon us. We may have the best teams in the world, & the best means
in the world to carry on business, but unless we can make business within ourselves, such
as gardening or something of that kind, we cannot get anything to do. Here are our
children, that we think as much of as white people think of theirs, and want them elevated
and educated; but although I have been here thirty years, I have never seen a scholar
made here amongst the colored people. I speak only of St. Catharines. There are several
graduates in Toronto, I know. The Irish are getting so, down at the docks, where the
colored men may do a few hours work, once in a while, loading &

466 - unloading, that they want to run them off the docks. Then here are two railroads &
here is the canal, where there [are] about 300 hands employed, and you wont see a
colored face at either of them. The white folks wont give them any chance at all. I have
asked the authorities here What are you going to do with the colored people? What will
become of them? What kind of citizens will they make? You will only make paupers &
 - 65 -

culprits of them. They set a side school off for the colored children, and gathered them
up from one end of the town to the other. They have had an old drunken teacher for
several years, who has been killing time, not half teaching the children -- sometimes lying
drunk in the school house, it is said, and the children playing on the outside. My children
are as much advanced, just by what they can spell out at home, as children wh ogo there.
I was in slavery until I got to be a man grown. Of course, they treated me pretty
well, for the reason that I would not allow them to treat me any other way. If they
attempted to use any barbarity, I would walk off before their faces. They said That
fellow knows enough to go any where in the United States he wants to go, and I did.
Wherever I wanted to go, I went, and found no difficulty in going. I made up my mind
that I would not live & die a slave, and that what ever man had done, a man could do, and
that it was no use for me to bow down to the yoke of

467 - slavery when I could throw it off as well as not, by using a little exertion, and I did
so. I have managed to get along very well here. I married a lady who was sent out here as
a teacher. I have been married 24 years, and have got along astonishingly well,
considering there was so much prejudice, and so many pullbacks upon the progress of the
colored people. I got along so at one time that I had over $300 a year rent coming in. I
went one year to the clerk of the corporation to find out why my taxes were so high. He
said, You own considerable property. I asked him how much they valued it at. He said,
They assess you for $6000, in real estate. And then, I have been raising a big family of
children! I have had a family of nine children, seven of whom are living.
We feel the effects of slavery desperately in this country. Slavery curses every
man on the continent of America. Very often, when a colored man goes to a farmer for
work, he will not take him, through he may want help ever so bad, because he wont
condescend to have him about his house. Maybe his wife will say, I am not going to the
trouble of setting two tables, and so the poor fellow has to go and get his living the best
way he can. All this is the effect of slavery.
There was a general desire among the slaves to get away. When I started,

468 - there were three or four more who talked about coming off, but they couldnt raise
ambition enough; they were afraid. I told them I was coming, live or die. Then there were
some who, if they knew a man was coming, would tell it directly, to curry favor with their
masters.
The war affects us badly here. It deranges money matters, and when the white
people come to [p]lumb up the foundation of it, they say it is on account of the niggers.
There is not a farmer here who will take U.S. money now, any more than he will touch
poison, whereas, it used to be current here like our own money. Of course, there are many
things that would draw U.S. money into the country, if it would only pass. There is a
great deal of prejudice here, because there are a good many Americans here. We should
find more substantial friends in Georgia or South Carolina, who could really do us a
kindness, than we should find here. I found the people in Pittsburg[h], Pa., very familiar;
and in fact, so far as treatment, & the rights of humanity & hospitality are concerned, I
never saw any place where I enjoyed myself so much as Pittsburg[h]. There are a great
many Englishmen who come to this country, and they seem, when they first come here,
 - 66 -

quite moderate in their views. They do not seem to have so much scorn of the black man,
nor so much disposition to

469 - browbeat him, as the Canadians, because it is not tolerated in England. The black
man is thought a great deal of there. We had an Englishman to preach for us in our church
a couple of weeks ago, who had not been out from England but a little while, and he said
he was really surprised when he came to America to see how isolated and brow beaten
the colored people were. In fact, I have seen so much of prejudice, and its dirty work, that
I have absolutely come to the conclusion that it is wicked in the first degree; that it is a
wicked outrage upon the human family; that those who cherish it are blaming the
Almighty Creator of all things. Why, it beats every thing in the world to see! A man, you
know, cannot help his skin, and if he has been oppressed, he cannot help that. Yet if he
asks sympathy, he is hooted at & driven away. A good many vulgar creatures will get
together in their bar rooms and taverns, and spend a whole half day, almost, talking about
the niggers -- the niggers do this, & the niggers do that. And this feeling is handed
down to the children. The smallest child you see, though he may not be more than three
years old, if he sees a black man going by, although he cannot say nigger plain, will
still manage to say it so you can understand it.

470 -
An intelligent man by the name of Cowan, who lived some eight or nine miles
from here, came down here one day, and began to talk about the colored people. He said
he had not been in the habit of knowing them round him at all, but one harvest, when he
had a large crop of grass to cut, a man who had just escaped from slavery came along,
and began begging for work. He told him -- They tell me you are all lazy & wont work,
& cant do any thing, any how. When the colored man found he wouldnt hire him, he
got over the fence, took up a scythe, and began to cut. He cut such a nice, smooth swarth
[sic], and laid the grass over so beautifully, that he concluded to hire him for a day or
two; but after he had worked three days, he fell so in love with his conduct and manners
that he hired him by the year, and not only paid him his money, but advised him how to
take care of it.
I knew another man by the name of Darby, who lives about three miles from here.
There was a colored man by the name of Tobias King living in this neighborhood, who
used to take his cradle & go wandering round in the neighborhood to get work. He came
up to Mr. Darby one day, and told him he wanted work. But Darby, who was one of the
stiff Canadians, and ignorant at that, hooted at him. So King got over his fence &
commenced working; and finally Mr. Darby fell in love with his work, and says he, I
had heard such accounts of you darkies, that I thought I would never have one about me.
So King got through with that job, and it was not very long before Mr. Darby was up here
inquiring where King was, & he told me the circumstances, and how he felt towards him.
King had done hunting for him, & he had come after King.
You, who come from the States, have often heard slavery described, but it has
never been painted so bad as it is. Say, for instance, you were married, (I will put it in that
form,) and you had a lot of slave women around you. You bring up a tier of children by
your wife; and another tier of children by your slave women. By & by your children grow
 - 67 -

up, & those you had by your wife have children by those you had by your slave women,
and then you take those same children & sell them.
There are very few mulattoes that come from pure white women, though I have
known some cases of that kind; they mostly come from white men. There are men who
will buy a sprightly, good looking girl, that they think will suit their fancy, and make use
of them in that way. I knew a man by the name of Ben Kidd -- a desperate mean man to
his slaves -- who had three or four slave women, & some of them he had children by. He

472 - kept a stallion in his farm, and he made one of his women tend upon that stallion,
and used to meet her at that barn. She had a husband, too; but that made no difference --
he used her whenever he saw fit. He generally carried a white oak cane, one end very
heavy, and if the women did not submit, he would make nothing of knocking them right
down. He had a boy by one of his colored women, & he would take hold of his hair, and
lift him up as high as your head, and let him fall down, and almost knock the breath out
of him. He was the worst man I ever saw. I dont think the poor white women of the
South are any better than the women of the North, but there is a restriction on the blacks.
It is given out that they will be hanged if they trouble a white woman. There are cases
where white women fall in love with their servants. There was a Squire Green, who had
a slave, and he & his mistress knocked up a young one between them. There was great
talk made about it, & the child was sent off South. A colored child wouldnt be treated
any better, if from a white woman, than one from a black woman by a white father. There
are some few slaveholders who think a good deal of their children by their slaves, &
some have sent their children North. Some of them have been to Oberlin. There are some
slaveholders who have got pretty refined

473 - feelings about them, [as?] though they are great men to go into these depredations.
Sometimes they get really attached to their mistresses. Sometimes white mistresses will
surmise that there is an intimacy between a slave woman & the master, and perhaps she
will make a great fuss & have her whipped, & perhaps there will be no peace until she is
sold. I have seen slaveholders with little {b?}its of children on a horse, whom they were
taking from home to sell -- children not more than three or four years old. They want a
little money, & take a baby off & get one or two hundred dollars for him. I remember
once, in crossing Lookout Mountain, in Tenn., with a drove of hogs, I saw two old black
people there, in the neighborhood of eighty years old. They could not be of any service,
so their master had turned them loose upon the mercy of the world. That is very often the
case. These two old persons were pretty near starved. When we went into the room where
they were, we didnt see any thing but dirt, poverty & distress. The next morning, before
I started, I gave the old woman a piece of meat, & the moment I gave it to her, she laid
hold of my hand and kissed it, and dropped upon her knees; and if I ever saw any thing in
this world that took hold of me, it was that. But when a man hardens his

474 - heart & stiffens his neck against all human feelings, what can you expect of him?
The old slaves are generally left to sit round in rags and dirt, and take care of the
children; and when they cannot do that, they just lie round and suffer, until they die, &
there is no great account taken of them, any way.
 - 68 -

The slaveholders sometimes tell the slaves stories about Canada to prevent their
moving away. I understood that Canada was {1? 4? 7? 9?}000 miles off, & that it was so
cold there that we couldnt do any thing. I heard a man telling about a colored man who
came from the States over here, & he said it was so cold here that when they were cutting
grass, the ice was so thick on it that they couldnt get their scythes through. The
slaveholders told the slaves that they need not try to get away, for if they got into the
Northern States, they could be taken there just as well as anywhere. Of course, they made
that good when they passed the Fugitive Slave Bill. That was a horrible thing -- making
every man a slave-catcher; under a penalty. That was a most disagreeable thing.
If it is known here that a man has a drop of black blood in him, he is all the time
twitted about being a nigger;

475 - whereas, if a man marries an Indian, nothing is thought of it. Here is lawyer
McDonald, the oldest & biggest lawyer in town -- his mother was a squaw & his father a
Scotchman. He ranks among the most respectable people in town. They dont think
anything about marrying among Indians, but when it comes to Ethiopians, it is something
terrible. That all comes from slavery. If colored people had never been enslaved, it would
be altogether different. The influence slavery has exerted in Canada is terrible.
Clergymen {of?} the South own slaves, and some of them are pretty severe. They
dont do much of the barbarous treatment work themselves, but have overseers to do it
for them. They sell their slaves, of course. Their biggest text is, Servants, obey your
masters6; but he that knoweth his masters will, & doeth it not, shall be beaten with
many stripes,7 is a favorite text with them. A great many masters call up their servants
on Sunday morning, & give them a slice of meat apiece, after they have fed them all the
week on a peck of corn. There is a great deal of difference between slaveholders. There
are some slaves who are just as well off as their masters, so far as liberty is concerned. I
knew a slaveholder there, Capt. Black, whose slaves lived round

476 - different parts of his farm, and had their own houses, & they were better furnished
than mine is, a great sight. There is great jealousy about the treatment of slaves. One
slaveholder out here may treat his slaves very well, & another, out there, may treat his
very badly; and of course where that is the case, there is very little correspondence
between them, because they are so different. The man who treats his badly will say to the
other -- You are a great injury to my slaves. I cant get them to do as I want them to,
because you give your slaves so much liberty, & have them free around you, & my slaves
want to be free too. There are some who will allow their slaves to go to market once a
week, maybe two or three times, and allow them to raise hogs, and some of them to have
a horse. But these are only rare cases. On the worst kind of places, some of them have a
little property. Old Ben Kidd, that I spoke of, would not allow his slaves to own anything
in the world; but, as a general thing, they try to have something of their own, & take care
of it. I have known colored men to have as much as three or four hundred dollars, but the
white people would generally manage to cheat them out of it. The colored people have
their chickens, & sometimes they are

6
Transcribers note: 1 Peter 2:18.
7
Transcribers note: Luke 12:47.
 - 69 -

477 - allowed to take a fig or two, and some of htem will make baskets & brooms. I have
know[n] them to pull up the crab grass in the night, which makes very nice hay, and lay it
by until it got dry, & then sell it to their masters for the horses. Then there are a great
many that have a little land, on which they raise cotton, & sell it to their masters, or
somebody else; but those are the exceptions. According to my experience, I think slavery
is the worst in the States of Georgia & Alabama. I have thought Alabama was a desperate
place.
A great many colored people who were free born have been kidnapped. I
remember one family, by the name of Parris, who lived in an out-of-the-way place in that
part of Tennessee that was taken from the Chickasaw Indians, I believe, who all at once
disappeared, & it was said that they had been carried away by some kidnappers. There are
speculators there who are all the time speculating in human flesh & blood -- buying up
men, women & children, and if they find out that there are any free families who are not
much noticed by the inhabitants, they will go in the dead hour of the night & kidnap
them, take them off 25 or 30 miles, put them into a slave-pen, & that is the last of them.
They never kidnap men

478 - who are known to be slaves. They will steal a mans horse, or his cow, but they
wont steal his slaves, as a general thing.
The masters often try to find out if their slaves want to get away; & sometimes
they surmise -- and perhaps have reason for doing so -- that a man is going to run away,
and then they slap him right into jail & when the trader comes along, then will sell him to
the trader. I have seen eight or ten men all chained to a chain, standing two deep, waiting
to be sent South. The most affecting sight I ever saw in my life, except that of those old
people on Lookout Mountain, I saw in Lousville, Ky., one Sunday morning. I saw a new
boat, and a great many colored people round, and I drew near to see what was the matter.
Directly I saw the slaves coming down. Sometimes a young girl would come, looking
like she might be 16 or 17, with a little bundle, & the tears streaming, or a young man,
about the same age. And the people kept gathering, until there were two or three hundred
there. Old gray-headed fathers & mothers had come there to bid their children a long and
last farewell. One man ran up the wheel house, and put his head into a window, to see his
wife, perhaps, and one of the keepers took him by the shoulders and flung him back, & he
came very near

479 - going into the water. I think that was the most horrible scene I ever saw in my life.
Such sighing, such groaning, such tormentation! Well, they groaned with groanings that
cannot be uttered.
I dont know whether I am right nor not, but I think that perhaps God means to
bring good out of this great war. God is a man of war, and Jehovah is his name. He had
power to walk upon the water, & cause the waves of the sea to be stilled; & when he gets
ready, I suppose he will cause this commotion that now is to be still.
The colored people in Canada have no chance for advancement; not only social
advancement, but they are barred out from every thing that will give them a living. I see
my neighbor prospering, bringing up his children & educating them; I see boys of the
same age with him clerks in stores, studying law and medicine; or, if they are not doing
that, I see them going into machine shops & getting 14 shillings or $2.00 a day for their
 - 70 -

labor. But you dont see a colored child that dares put his head into a school or a
blacksmith shop; or a mechanics shop of any kind. I have taught two colored boys to be
blacksmiths since I have been here, & they both turned out well. They

480 - got into shops, after they had worked with me for a while and got to be very useful,
but at a low rate of wages.
As a general thing, the colored people are not invited into society. I have never
been invited to but one party since I have been here. What is called the Conservative
party here gave a dinner to Hon. John A. McDonald, and I met Squire Middleborough the
morning of the day it was to come off; and he asked me if I would go if he would give me
his ticket. There was no backing out from that, and I said I would. Well, says he, I will
give you my ticket, & you must fix yourself up and go, for I want to see you there. So I
went & bought some $20 worth of clothing that day, & went to the party. John A
McDonald stood in a prominent position to receive all who came, and I was introduced to
him by lawyer McDonald as a citizen, and we had a hearty shake [of?] hands, and then I
was introduced to several other distinguished gentlemen, and we shook hands. Well, soon
after that, the dinner came on, and Mr. McDonald hunted me up and set me down to the
table. There was one other colored man invited, but I was the only one there. The table
was filled up with some of the most conspicuous men of the country, & I was never better
treated in my life, and much to my surprise, too, for there had been so much cold-
shoulder treatment. But as a general thing there is no mixing up in society.

481
Testimony of George Ross,
Head Waiter at the Stephenson House
I came from Hagerstown, Md., & have been here twelve or thirteen years. I had a
pretty hard time for three years, when I worked on a farm, but principally I was a waiter
and driver. I came away because I was {standing?} in fear of being separated from my
wife and children. That was one of the principal reasons for my coming away; otherwise,
I dont know {if?}I would have bothered my head about coming away, for I had lived
pretty well, say for the last 25 years. I got my family all away. I pursued about 18 months
in Pennsylvania, and since that, I have been waiting all the time. I had religious privileges
at the South just the same as here. Sundays, I had my regular work just the same as I have
here, and used to go to church three times a day one Sunday, and in the week, if I chose
to go. I have had three bosses. The last was a very nice man, and very much of a
gentleman. He never laid the weight of his hand on me to whip me. After I got to be a
man grown, I knew how to behave myself and how to work and of course there was no
call to whip me.
I have seen hundreds of cases where families were separated. I have seen them

482 - in droves, 150 or 200 together -- men, women and children -- linked side by side.
There used to be two drivers to a drove, on[e] driver in front and one behind. I have seen
them from eight or nine years old up to 45 and 50; and when the mothers were sold, I
have seen young babes from the cradle in these gangs. I have seen this many & many a
time, and heard them cry fit to break their hearts.
 - 71 -

I had always heard that Canada was a very cold country, that nobody could live in
but those brought up in it; but I had come to the conclusion, that if any human being
could live in a cold country, I could live there. I just considered that a man must clothe
himself according to the weather -- I had sense enough for that; and so when I came to
Canada, which was in cold weather, I clothed myself very well, and I have always got
round as well as I could in Hagerstown, Md. Many were the stories that were told to
terrify men from going North. There were tales that half their labor -- no matter how
much -- would go to the Queen, & the other half they would have to live on, and that they
would abuse you and knock you about, and all that kind of thing. They used to say that
even in Pennsylvania & New York they would sell us in a round about way to New
Orleans. But I found all that to the contrary. In fact, I dont think a great many

483 - believed those stories, for we knew they were told to keep us there. I was never
down South. I was a little ways in Virginia, but not far. Slavery is harder down there than
in Maryland. They have larger plantations & more servants, & they seem to be more
severe. Down in Prince Georges County, Md., they are a little harder than they are in the
upper part of the State. If I had my choice, I would rather live in Maryland than in
Virginia. I hope they will all be free there. I should like to go down there again, for I have
two sisters living there somewhere.
I was 46 years old the 4th of last April. I have been treated first-rate since I have
been in Canada. I cant complain at all. I darsent [sic] say I would rather go back there to
live, if all was right there. It always seemed I would get work wherever I went. I suppose
it must be because I was steady and did the {work?} good.
I dont know as I have known any particular instances where slaves were raised
for the purpose of selling them; but I have been on a farm where they had 30 or 40
colored people, & as the younger growed [sic] up, they sold off the older; so I rather think
that it was done pretty near for that purpose. Sometimes, when they could get good
bargains, they would sell the young just the same. I have often heard of slaves being kept
for the purpose of breeding but I have never seen it. That may be done down

484 - in Virginia & the other foreign States, perhaps.

There was a great desire among the slaves to get away. All they wanted was the
means. The great difficulty is to get the families off. A man can get off a great deal easier
than a woman. Some say if they cant get their families off, they wont go themselves; if
they are to be sold, they will be sold with them. I was persuaded to go away and leave
mine supposing I could not get them away; but I studied {head?} {work?}, & got them
away very well indeed. Often the argument is used to the slaves that they have been
treated well, and it would not be fair for them to go away. There are some of the slaves
who are not exactly overseers, but they go forward and the others follow them. For
instance, they measure the grain and barrel the flour, and their masters send them to mill
and give them a little money, & tell them, You are a good boy, & we will give you
enough to eat and drink, & clothe you pretty well, & pay your doctors bill, and see what
little trouble you have, & you should make yourself satisfied. Some of them, if they
want a horse and carriage, can have it, and consequently they make themselves satisfied,
& say they cant do better. Undoubtedly, they keep others from going, by saying, You
 - 72 -

see what privileges we have, and if you do as well as we do, your master will treat you
well, and here is a home for you; & of course that will have an influ-

485 - -ence upon others. Of course, there are some who are smarter than the others, who
can read and write some, & of course their influence will bear upon the others. The
religious feeling is used to induce the slaves to feel that they owe a duty to their masters
& mistresses, more than to their great Maker above. Certain parts of the Scripture, about
obeying masters & mistresses, they quote very much, but not in the right light.
I have known instances where clergymen owned slaves -- Methodist preachers &
Presbyterian preachers. I believe we had one in our place that owned seven or eight, and
also sold them. I have often known cases where slaves were sold for debt. My boss was a
specimen. He owned several large {buck?} houses & so on, and a great house in New
Orleans, but he got in debt, so that eight of us were levied on and put in jail. We were
kept in jail three or four months, to give him a chance to raise the money to redeem us.
Then he redeemed us and got us out; but in a short time, he got so much in debt again that
we were put in jail again, && the last time we were all sold. But the gentleman went
round to the gentlemen in town & got them to bid for us and got the Sheriff not to let any
slave-driver bid. They did bid some, but the town gentlemen bid over them, and we were
knocked down to them, and so saved in the town. The

486 - gentlemen who bought me let my boss have me, and so I got back in a few months.
We were treated first rate in jail & could not have been treated better. We were in
confinement about a month, & then the jailer, seeing we were trusty servants, let us out to
wait on tables, sweep the yard, and so on. I was married, & he said, You may go home
every night at 7 oclock and come back at 7 in the morning, and so I did. The other
fellows drove the jailers wife all over town, & walked round the streets smoking segars,
[sic] and came back to the jail to sleep nights. If I could not have been sold, you may be
sure I would not have left, because I could not expect to be any better off in slavery. I did
not have to work as hard as I do now, and I dressed equally well, if not better, and if I
wanted a horse & carriage to go out into the country, or anywhere, I could have it. Now,
after coming to a free country, and seeing the privileges I have, by acting decently, you
may depend upon it I wouldnt stay there any time. I would not care what privileges I
had, or how well I was treated; I would not stay there under any consideration, because I
know how good freedom is. I know now that if a man will work and behave himself and
respect himself, other people will respect him, & he will always get work, & it is a
pleasure to a man to work for his own living & pay his own way through the world. I
know what it is to be a man -- that is the idea exactly. I never was blessed with the
privileges of education myself, though my children read & write very well.

487 -
[St. Catharines,] Saturday, Nov. 7, 1863
Testimony of Mrs. Joseph Wilkinson
I was raised in Winchester, Va. I was treated kindly by the Dutchman with whom I
lived, & they freed me after my husband ran away, & gave me my son, when he was
about three years old. My husband came here because he wanted to be free. He was not
treated right. I was living very well, same as if I was free, although they hadnt given me
 - 73 -

my free papers. I had no hardships. There were two sets of children, & when the old
gentleman was dead, the second set of children thought that they & their mother [had]
better give me my freedom, and let me go, because, if {she? died?}, they didnt know but
the first set of children might come in, and enslave me. I was 28 years old when I was
freed. We made out pretty well here, after we got a little start. I considered my clothes &
the little things I had when in slavery my own, but I didnt see it as I do now. I see now
that everything I considered mine didnt belong to me, but could be taken away from me
at any time. I didnt set the same store by my little things that I do now, for I didnt see
things then as I do now.

488 -
I was over here 21 years, and then went back just to see the old place & all my
friends. That was six years ago. I saw my masters family. I wanted to see them -- indeed
I did, for I nursed them. I brought them with me; and will get them & show them to you.
(Mrs. W. here left the room, & returned presently with a daguerrotype, which she handed
to Dr. Howe.) I nursed that man when he was a child. His name is John Hoover. I nursed
his brother too. They thought a good deal of me, & wouldnt do any thing at all without
asking me. This (another picture) is a picture of my young masters cousin. She gave it to
me herself, thinking I might not go back again, but I dont know but I shall.
I have seen a good deal of hard treatment of others, but never had any myself. I
was just raised up like one of the family. I used to call my master father, & the old lady
mother, until I came to this country. That is the way I was raised. I came off to follow
my husband. He came away in June, and I came in the second Fall month afterwards.
There were a good many colored people here then, but nothing like so many as now.
They always used to write for me to come home & see them, but since the war, I dont
get {no?} letters from home. I wasnt disturbed, not any thing at all when I went. I
travelled a

489 - long road there twice, going & coming. It cost me considerable. I dont know how I
found my way in the beginning. I had never been but 15 miles before from home in my
life. I went to Pittsburg[h] & stayed there two weeks, but didnt hear from my husband at
all. Then I started as though I was going back to Somerset, and went a hundred miles, &
there I heard from him. I wrote home to inquire about my husband, for I didnt know but
he had been taken back; but they didnt know anything about him. I was living with a
good abolitionist lawyer at the place where I stopped, and he wrote my letters for me, for
I couldnt write, though I could read. I stayed there & worked all winter, for it wouldnt
do for me to spend all my money. My masters children would have taught me to read &
write, but I wouldnt let them. Now I feel very sorry that I didnt learn to read & write. I
see plainly now where I was standing in my own light, but didnt see it then. The bad
masters dont allow the good masters to do as they would -- the laws are so. After I came
out here, Mr. Wilson & his wife used to keep school at nights, but we were so poor that
we had to quit going to school and dig right into work.

490
[St. Catharines,] Sunday, Nov 8, 1863
Testimony of Joseph Smith
 - 74 -

I came here from Maryland, and have been here 21 years. I might like to go back
there & see the place, if there was freedom there, but as to going back there to live, I
dont care about that now. I came here without a cent -- with nothing but my hands, and I
have this place, entirely {unencumbered?}. I could get a thousand dollars for my property
any time I would sell, but I wouldnt sell anyway. I have some considerable personal
property besides real estate.
I cant say that I had a very tough time in slavery, any more than working &
getting nothing for it; but then, where I had a good time, there were thousands who
hadnt. I came away because I was working & getting nothing for it. I stayed there until I
was 21 years old, & then I came off. I began to think I might as well be working for
myself and I thought this a long time before I came away. I stopped in Jersey State some
six or seven years before I came to Canada, & there is where I got intelligence about
Canada. The white people at the South said nobody could live here; that they had no
horses here, no dogs, & no cows, & all such

491 - stuff as that -- that they didnt raise any thing here much at all. Well, I always made
them believe that I didnt care anything about Canada or any other free State. And so
some five years after that, they got some wild goose cereal, that was called Canada
Wheat, and I said I thought they couldnt raise any thing in Canada. How did this
wheat grow there? Why, it was upon a warm, ridgy [sic] place, they said; thats how
it came to grow there.
I had no trouble at all in getting away. I started on Saturday night, and Tuesday
morning, at 6 oclock, I was in Jersey. My wife was in Jersey long before I got there, and
after I got married, I concluded I would come out here. We were near Burlington, New
Jersey. There was no difficulty in getting away from Jersey. When I got ready, I packed
up & came away, and nobody disturbed me. I work here at common laboring work --
anything I can get to do. They give four shillings a day and board you, or six shillings a
day and [you] board yourself.
I was born and brought up right on the eastern shore of Maryland, and I never see
[sic] anybody tied up and cut and slashed as they say it was in Virginia & New Orleans. It
was so near the Northern States, they were afraid to whip them, because they knew, if
they did, they would run away from them. The professed Christians at the South dont
treat

492 - their slaves any better than other people, not so well. Id rather live with a card
player and a drunkard than with a Christian.

Testimony of Mrs. Joseph Smith

I was born and brought up on the Eastern shore of Maryland. I didnt have a hard
time, but a pretty easy one; but I was a slave, any how. I never see [sic] none of the
cutting and slashing that I have heard of. I came away because I wanted to be free. I was
tired of working for somebody else, and I knew they might sell me whe{n? r?}ever
theyd a mind to. The ministers used to preach -- Obey your masters and mistresses and
be good servants; I never heard anything else. I didnt hear anything about obeying our
Maker. Those who were Christians & held slaves were the hardest masters. A card player
and drunkard wouldnt flog you half to death. Well, it is something like this -- the
 - 75 -

Christians will oppress you more. For instance, the biggest dinner must be got on Sunday.
Now, everybody that has got common sense knows that Sunday is a day of rest. And if
you do the least thing in the world that they dont like, they will {mash? it down against
you, and Sunday you have got to take a whipping. Now, the card-player & horse-racer
wont be there to trouble you. They will eat their

493 - breakfast in the morning and feed their dogs, & then be off, & you wont see them
again till night. I would rather be with a card player or sportsman, by half, than a
Christian.

Testimony of Mrs. Amy Martin

I was born in Erie, Penn. My fathers name was James Ford. He was born in
Virginia, but was sold to Kentucky, and was there taken by the Indians. He was 86 years
old when he died, and would be over 100 years old if he were now living. The Indians
brought my father to Canada -- I think to Fort Malden. He was held there by the Indians
as a slave, & sold, I think he said, to a British officer, who was a very cruel master, and
he escaped from him, and came to Ohio. He got off in a sailboat and came to Cleveland, I
believe, first, and made his way from there to Erie, where he settled. After I came over
here, I married a man who was a fugitive, and the old folks moved over here to be with
me in their old age. When we were in Erie, we lived a little way out of the village, and
our house was a place of refuge for fugitives -- a station of the underground railroad.
Sometimes there would be 13 or 14 fugitives at our place. My parents used to do a great
deal toward helping them on to Canada. They were sometimes pursued by their masters,
and often

494 - advertised, and their masters would come right to Erie. We used to be pretty careful,
& never got into any trouble on that account that I know of. The fugitives would be told
to come to our house. Old Father Henson used to make it his business to go out to the
Southern States & bring off great droves, and they used to hear of our place long before
they got there. A Mr. Lucas went out several times & brought out companies. Sometimes
they would have 15 or 16 in a gang.

Testimony of Mrs. Hannah Fairfax

I am 108 years old now. I was born in slavery and raised my children in slavery. I
have seen Washington, & all those old folks, who were gone long ago. I was born on Bull
Run, where they have been fighting -- on that very Run -- and was raised up there, &
raised some of my children there. That is near Fairfax. It divides Prince William &
Fairfax counties. I recollect the time of the Revolutionary War. I remember they used to
steal the light horses, {and?} they used to do every thing. I remember when the
Revolutionary War began; some of my people went to it. Times aint now like they was
[sic] when I was a gal. Even the people is [sic] altered mightily. The people I lived with
treated me kindly. We take our

495 - name from Lord Fairfax. He was a very rich man, and owned almost all Fairfax
County. Some of my folks belonged to Lord Fairfax. I remember the Dark Day very well.
I dont remember how old I was at that time, but think I must have been as old as ten
 - 76 -

years, for I was a good big gal. I remember I ran away one day when I see [sic] the light
horse men coming. They were pointing at something, and I thought they was [sic]
pointing at me, and I thought I was gone. I came here 23 years ago. I have had six
children, but they are all dead long ago, except one. I have one son {in?} living here in
Canada. My name was Henderson before I was married.

Testimony of Rev. L. C. Chambers

I have been a slave, and have been sold three times. My last master was William
Little, Nottingham, Md. My second master was a tyrant, and I didnt get much to eat
sometimes, but the last man who owned me was a man of bitter feeling. For eight years I
had control of his farm, and I thought more of him than I did of my own father. He
educated me to believe that I shouldnt fellowship with the poor class of whites or the
free people of color. But still he deceived me. He used to reason me out of going to see
my own father,

496 - though he belonged to the Presbyterian Church; as I did then. He promised me my

freedom, and that stimulated me to work; and really, I did not know my own condition
until I read Jays Inquiry. I purchased my freedom, giving $250, and after I purchased my
freedom, they drove me out of the states. I then came under the title of worthless
fellow. I came to Philadelphia, and lived there sometime [sic] working in a chemical
establishment, and acquired a great deal of information, and then went to Jersey &
purchased a small farm and accumulated a little means -- some 6 or 700 dollars, & then
emigrated to this country, with a company of fourteen, and bore the expenses of all of
them, except one. I have been engaged here in missionary operations, and farmed it [sic]
at the same time. I have preached and taught in the Sabbath School every Sunday except
four since I have been in the Province. The first year, all I had was $12, and the most I
have had any year is $150, and board myself, but I have had some aid from the American
Missionary Association. I rent a farm of fifty acres at London, and pay $150 a year for it.
Last year, I had 350 bushels of wheat, 150 bushels of oats, and 100 bushels of peas. I own
a house on that place 22 by 28, & have a barn on it 22 by 70. All these improvements I
get pay for when the lease is out. My farming materials are second to none in the
neighborhood. I own three horses, three colts, 14 head of sheep,

497 - 8 head of cattle, a new lumber wagon, that cost $68, a farming mill ($25), another
light wagon ($40), a two horse sled ($18), a cutter ($14), and a sulky ($25). There is
another man close by me who came to this county six years ago, by the name of Henry
Harris, who lives [in] a lot of fifty acres next to me, and has two horses, a wagon, a fine
colt, and two cows. There is another man, living this side of me, by the name of
{Corsey?}, who owns fifty acres of land, & has three fine horses, a flock of 25 or 30
sheep, & some eight or ten head of cattle. His land is all paid for. He is an old resident
here. I know a man at Chatham, who came here seven years ago, and I gave him the first
25 cents he had, towards buying an axe. He has now bought 30 acres of land, paying $15
an acre, & has a horse, a yoke of oxen, and two cows.
The prejudice here against the colored people is stronger a great deal than it is in
{Maptts??}. Since I have been in the country, I went to a church one Sabbath, & the
sexton asked me, What do you want here to-day? I said, Is there not to be service here
 - 77 -

to-day? He said, Yes, but we dont want any niggers here. I said, You are mistaken in
the man. I am not a nigger, but a negro.[] Eight years ago, I was driven out of
Wallaceburg, which is near Dresden, by a mob of lumbermen, simply because of my
color, and three [sic] have

498 - been two or three colored men driven out of their houses, near Ridgetown. I built a
new house house [sic] three years ago, which was all paid for, and the day it was finished
some person put a match to it, and it was burned. It was not insured. There is a {good?}
feeling toward the colored people in Toronto and Montreal.

Testimony of Henry Stewart8

I was born in Maryland, about a hundred miles below Baltimore. My old boss told
us if we served him faithfully, he would give us our freedom after his death. His name
was Edward Brodess. There were some ten of us in the family. I had a sister, who had a
young child, about two or three months old, & the master came after her to sell her to
Georgia. Her husband had great confidence in a gentleman, who was a class leader, & he
takes [sic] my sister and carries her to him to keep her from her master. He told him --
Get your wife & bring her to me, and I will take care of her. So he did it. And the same
time, the old master had got him to look out and get her, and after her husband carries her
there, this man turns round & lets the master understand it, & he comes & gets her & sells
her down to

499 - Georgia and leaves that young child; and on his death-bed, sometime after the
mother was sold, his greatest cry was Take this young child away from me! After that,
a Georgia man came and bought my brother; and after he had bought him, the master
calls to him to come to the house & catch the gentlemans horse, but instead of his
coming to catch the horse, my mother, who was out in the field, and knew what the
master was doing, comes in. She had a suspicion that they were going to sell the boy, and
went to the backside of the house, and heard the master count the money; and after he had
counted out the money, the master says, I ought to have fifty dollars more yet; and then
they took and counted the money out and put it all away, and then sent for the boy; as I
have told you. When the mother comes, she says, What do you want of the boy? He
wouldnt tell her, but says to her, Go and bring a pitcher of water; and after she brought
the pitcher of water, she goes to work again. Then he makes another excuse, & hollers to
the boy to put the horse into the carriage. But the mother comes again. Then he says,
What did you come for? I hollered for the boy. And she up & swore, and said he
wanted the boy for that (ripping out an oath) Georgia man. He called three times, but

500 - the boy did not come, and the third time, he came to look for the boy, but the
mother had him and kept him hid, I suppose, for a month. The master still kept the
money, and told the Georgia man, Before you get ready to make up your flock, I will try
to catch the boy someway. The mother had the boy hid, all this time; in the woods, and
at friends houses. The master had a servant who was working for him, who knew where
my brother was, and he got him to betray the boy. He told him to tell the boy to come and
bring his dinner to him, in the woods, and he would appear there & catch him. But when
8
Transcribers note: Also known as Henry Ross - brother of Harriet Tubman.
 - 78 -

the old gentleman said to my mother, You send my dinner out by the boy, she didnt let
on she wouldnt send it, but thought there was something wrong. At noon, he appears in
the bush, expecting the boy would be there, with the dinner, but the boy wasnt there. And
then, late at night, he came to the door, and asked the mother to let him come in, but she
was suspicious, and she says, What do you want? Says he, Mr. Scott wants to come in
to light a segar [sic]. She ripped out an oath, and said, You are after my son; but the
first man that comes into my house, I will split his head open. That frightened them, &
they would not come in. So she kept the boy hid until the Georgia man

501 - went away, and then she let him come out. Then the master came to the mother, and
said he was exceedingly glad she hid the boy, so that he couldnt sell him. He told her,
When we wanted you to send the boy into the woods, we were there to catch him. And
then he promised us, that if we would only be faithful, he would leave us all to be free;
but at his death, he left us all to be slaves. We started to come away, but got surrounded,
and went back. After we went back, we concealed ourselves, and a white gentleman
offered to buy us as we run; but our mistress says, If I cant keep them, Id rather see
them sold to Georgia. After the gentleman saw she wouldnt sell us to him at any price,
he sent us word, Boys, I cant buy you. If you can get away, get away. We had then
been concealed some six or eight months, and advertisements had come out about us, and
he didnt know what course to take. Our father abided in Caroline County, and after this
friend failed, he took the case up; and after this gentleman told us to get away, we made
an effort to start, and our father looked out for a man who said he could carry us away.
But when we got to this man, he disappointed us, and we didnt know what to do. We had
to turn round & go back to our owners, after we had been gone six

502 - months. The old woman was awful glad, & said unto us, Boys, have you come
back again. [sic] And after we came back, we had the same resolution to go away we
ever had. We worked there about a year or more, and then we were to be sold. We made
ready to go away, but we couldnt get away, and our sister, (the one that is now here) was
out in Pennsylvania, and came down after us when she heard we were going to be sold;
but we wouldnt go. After she had gone away, our hearts mourned that we didnt go with
her. Just after that, we were to be sold again, and she came in good season. She brought
us all off together -- ten of us -- and we rode to Canada, and have been here ever since. I
have been here about eight years. At first, I made pretty good headway, and then my
brother and I rented a farm, for which we paid $200 a year, and we got into some trouble
there and left that, and my brother went to Berlin and I undertook to buy six acres of land
out in the country, and am now living on it. If slavery remains, just as it is, I will stay in
Canada. I have no idea of going back unless freedom is established.

503
Testimony of C. H. Hall
I was born in Maryland. My mother was the mother of fifteen children, I being the
seventh child. I was born a slave and came up a slave until I was about 12 years old, and
at that time my oldest brother was sold to Georgia. That first opened my eyes against
slavery. I took into consideration how it was that my mothers children were sold, and
other children were not sold. I got uneasy, and began to think over these things. It was a
 - 79 -

rule in that country, that a slave must not be seen with a book of any kind; but old Madam
Bean, my mistress, belonged to the Baptist Church, and she said we might all learn to
spell and learn the Bible. The old man fought against it for some time, but found it
prevailed nothing. After she got to work pretty well, she used to teach me with the
children. I learned how to spell considerable [sic], and afterwards I got so I could read a
little. I got to be a good stout boy, and got to know too much for the old boss himself, and
he said it wouldnt do. He said I was going just like my brother {Bige?}, who had learned
to read and was a preacher, and was raising the devil in the place. So after a little
{scorning? / scolding? / scourging?}, I stopped it, and gave up

504 - reading until I got to be 19 years old. But the more I read, the more I fought against
slavery. Finally, I thought I would make an attempt to get free, and have liberty or death. I
went to a camp meeting about 15 miles off, and when I got home, my old boss wanted to
know where I was. I wouldnt tell him, and he proceeded to try to whip me. I wouldnt let
him, and he called his three boys out of bed to help him. I wouldnt be taken by them,
until they backed me into a room, where I couldnt get out, and then the old gentleman
gave me enough to let me know that I wouldnt be a slave. I told one of my brothers that I
was going to be free. He was the only one of my mothers fifteen children that I had any
confidence in, for all the rest believed every thing the white people told them. He had
learned to read, as I had, and knew better. He said I had better stay there, and prevailed on
me to stay. After a while he was sold, and when he was sold, he bought himself, and he
travelled North considerable, and came back again, and was telling me about coming
away. In this time, I moved about forty miles, and was not allowed to see my mother only
[sic] once or twice a year. I had my sister and younger brother with me, but I was afraid
to let my sister know what

505 - my right hand done [sic], for she thought every thing the white people said was
right. I was ready to go away about four years, and waited for a man who was going with
me, but never got ready. Finally, he told it round the neighborhood, and it got round to the
boss, and he attacked me on the 23d day of March, 1836, and he and I had considerable
of a battle. After a long time, I gave up, and that night I was handcuffed for the first time
in my life. I was put in a room up stairs and locked up, and stayed there until Monday.
His father in law and his wife came up and wanted me to beg pardon for what I had done,
but I wouldnt give up. I went to sleep about eleven oclock in the day, and dreamed that I
was {dreaming?}, & when I woke up, something whispered in my ear, Come out, if you
can; it will be the best for you. I set [sic] there to see whether this was true, and it was
repeated. I goes [sic] to the fireplace, and found I could take up the bricks and the boards
underneath, and go down into the room below. At night, I went down in that way, and
came down upon the mantlepiece. I went and roused a friend, to get him to pay me some
money and cut those handcuffs off. Finally, he got my handcuffs loose, and I started for
the city of Baltimore, which was about 14 miles off.

506 - There I stayed from Monday night until Friday night. I walked the streets every day,
and read my own advertisement -- $100 in the States. Sunday night I was in Columbia,
Penn., where I fell in with a friend, and remained there a week, and then came to
Philadelphia. I left Philadelphia on Monday, and Friday evening, I was across Suspension
 - 80 -

Bridge. Out of the fifteen children I left, I cannot give an account of but four besides
myself. The others have been sold and dragged about the country. I have had three
owners. My first owners name was Harry Dorsey, my second, Samuel Blunt, and my
third, Atwood Blunt.

Testimony of Mrs. Susan Boggs

I was born in Williamsburg, Va., and raised in Norfolk. I was never distressed
much in slavery myself, but I have seen a great deal of distress in slavery. A son of mine
-- the only son I had -- was sold for a thousand dollars. The first thing that started me
from slavery was my son. Young Dr. Clark graduated at New Orleans, and when he came
home, all the children was [sic] of age, and all the property was to be divided. This only
son of mine fell into his hands as body servant, as you call it there. But he wanted his part
of the property in money,

507 - and he took my son and sold him for a thousand dollars. Yet I minded him in my
arms, and he led my own child by the hand. So my boy came up and said, Mother,
Massa Robert Parrott says that I am sold for a thousand dollars. Says I, Who to. Says
he, Massa Robert Parrott. So in the evening I went down to the tavern where he was
working. He was about fifteen -- and after he had done his tea, I took his little basket, that
had his clothes in it, a kind of champagne basked -- and he came outside the door, and I
got him away, gave him a little money, and sent him to Canada. They telegraphed to try
to catch him, and put me in jail, and I lay there three weeks. I hardly know how I got him
away myself. I started him along, and he got into peoples hands who said they would see
him through. That was my reason for coming away. They said he would never have gone
but for me, and that I knew where he was, but I said No, I dont know where he is. He
was there, but they thought he was gone. There came a letter while I was in jail, saying
that he was in Canada. So then this young Doctor comes to the jail. Well, says he,
Susan, we hear that young rascal of yours is in Canada. If he had sense enough to go, he
may go. However, we believe you know all about his going, and well not own you any
longer.[] So I was put in the traders jail, but as I belonged to rich

508 - people, I didnt have any bad treatment there. I fared better than some other
peoples servants there. Then I was sold and came out of jail and about four months after,
I started to come out and see my son. I was doing there better than I am here, you might
say, only I was in slavery. I was seven days & nights from that shore to this. I found
friends, abolition friends, to help me along.
I have seen a great deal of barbarity in the treatment of slaves in Virginia. I have
seen a heap of ill treatment of other people in slavery. I used to work out by the day, and I
worked a great deal in the traders jail, and saw a great deal of cruelty there. The traders
stole a little free child that was out on the road somewhere, -- a little boy about ten years
old, -- and brought it to the jail; and then they sent a colored woman to ask this child
where he came from, and he told her he was free, and where his mother lived, and how
they got him; and she went right straight and told the boss man. So they took that child
and stripped him and stretched him out on a kind of barrel, and then this jail keeper took
a piece of board with holes bored through it (what you call a paddle) and cobbed [sic]
 - 81 -

him and cobbed him, and then they took salt and washed him. This I saw myself; this is a
fact. They cobbed him till the blood trickled

509 - down to the floor. They didnt want him to tell his story when he was sold. They
would have a woman stripped and cobbed in the same way if she did any thing they
didnt like. Perhaps if the bread didnt rise well, the mistress would tell the master when
he came home, and she would be sent to the traders jail to be cobbed. It is awful to think
of women, of human beings, being exposed in that way. What [sic] better is my mistress
than me, and what business has she with me, any how? Well, I sent a thousand dollars
away when I came away myself. My husband has been treated very bad. He is crippled in
consequence of the overseers licking him so as to bring him down and make him
humble.
If it was not for the Queens law, we would be mobbed here, and we couldnt stay
in this house. The prejudice is a great deal worse here than it is in the States. The colored
people can always get more money than the laboring white people, because they can do
the work better.
My son, who was sold for a thousand dollars, is here. He has been married seven
years last May. His wife has had four children. My thousand dollars has been a great deal
of pleasure to me. It has been a great pleasure to me that I sent that thousand dollars
away. But there is [sic] so many

510 - people ignorant there, and kept so much down, that they dont know how to get
away, though they have been trying for years and years. But I had the good luck to get
away. My son married a white woman. Not that his marrying a white woman made it any
better for me, but I saved my thousand dollars. Although I had seen thousands of others
sold, I thought the selling of my son was the awfullest thing I ever saw. And then the
chain gangs that I saw go through the street! I told my mistress I wouldnt go to the
traders jail to work, if I could get work any where else. I paid my mistress a quarter of a
dollar a day for my hire, but I got more than that, and had the rest for myself.
I didnt see any difference between the slaveholders who had religion and those
who had not. The Protestants there are a great deal better than the Methodists & Baptists.
They are more pure. The others are very deceptive. You know they carry a point out so
neat, and are so very religious, that they will deceive you. Why the man that baptized me
had a colored woman tied up in his yard to whip when he got home, that very Sunday,
and her mother belonged to that same Church. We had to sit & hear him preach, & her
mother was in church hearing him preach. The daughter was as pretty a young woman as
you would ever find in a days run. He only

511 - hired her. She had a light skin, & her hair {first?} hung down on her shoulders. And
he had her tied up & whipped. That was our preacher! He preached, You must obey your
masters and be good servants. That is the greater part of the sermon, when they preach
to colored folks. Then there are some parts that they preach in Latin, or something that
we dont understand. I have understood more Scripture since I came away than I knew
was in the Bible before, and now I begin to read a little. I had my son taught to read &
write while I was there in a secret school, but I was always so busy in getting a little
money to pay for it, that I never learned to read myself. I saw a woman who lived by
 - 82 -

herself and sold cooked victuals on the wharf, who went crazy because her two sons were
sold and sent to the traders jail. She went up and down the streets, crying like an animal.
Ladies would come to the window to see what the noise was, but her moanings were so
bad that they had to shut the window and go away. She went and went, until they were
brought home dead to her house. It broke their hearts. I knew a man by the name of
Hatcher, a nigger-buyer. One day his wife said to him, We ought to go and get religion.
No, said he; if I should

512 - get religion, all the people of Alabama would starve. You go and get religion, and I
will keep on selling niggers. That man lost all his property afterwards, and died
miserable. His wife was a real religious woman; and I saw one Catholic woman there
who was religious.
I often think, if I had sense, and had my intellect like people that were brought up
and had learning, what money I could make! I could set down and think of every thing I
have seen, and write a book. I could make a living by writing a book of what I have seen.
You see what a bad thing it is for people not to have no [sic] learning. But I did have a
great deal of headwork in getting away. We would like to travel back there if we live, but
I dont think we will ever live to go back. We would like to see our old friends and
kindred. I would just like to walk over the ground where my father & mother are buried.

513 -
Testimony of John Boggs
I lived with old William Merrick, as bad a man as ever lived in the world. I was
born on the Eastern shore of Maryland, and was sold from there to Baltimore, and from
Baltimore I was sold down to Charles County, Md., and lived there some 30 odd years, &
then I was sold about from one man to another. I have been sold five or six times. I was
sold from William Merrick, when he was broke, on the 4th of April, to a man in Newport,
& on the first day of the next April, I was sold again; and I stayed with the man who
bought me, whose name was Tom Kent, a year and a half, I think, & then he sold me to a
man in Baltimore. I was in jail from Thursday, when I came to Baltimore, until the next
Wednesday following, and then a trader bought me & kept me about three weeks. He sold
me to another man, who lived 30 miles from Baltimore, who paid $550 for me, and $550
for a girl, and $400 for another man. I served him three weeks and one day from the day
of purchase; and that purchase day brought me here. I thought I had been sold enough for
them to make money out of me, and that if it was time for me to look after a better
chance. I had often heard of Canada,

514 - and wished I could get there, but some of the old folks told me, No, you fool, you
can never get to Canada. I asked my master one Sunday if I might go to church, and he
said, No, I dont {have?} niggers to go about. I dont let my mules run about -- only
when their gear is on them. I thought it was rather a sad thing, and I couldnt help crying
about it. After I started, I came right along. I didnt make any delay. They said Canada
was the worst place that could be; and even the people of the North, after I started, told
me that it was a very poor place to come to. I stopped with a Mr. Lewis and a Mrs.
{Noris?} -- abolition men and women. There were four young ladies called the Misses
Lewis. I stayed with Mr. {Noriss} brother about six months, and then I came to Canada.
 - 83 -

If I live to see the sixth day of next April, I shall have been here ten years; and those ten
years that I have seen here have been more pleasure to me than all my life -- more
pleasure to me and more comfort. Slavery is the dreadfullest thing that ever a man talked
of in this world. Old William Merrick would cut and slash his slaves. I have seen him
handcuff them and sell them. I was sold for a thousand dollars to a Georgia man, but he
wouldnt take me because I had been disfigured by poison-

515 - -oak, and the loss of a finger, so my master had to put in two other young fellows
instead of me. I would have been in a cotton-field for years ago [sic] if it hadnt been for
that. That is what our people dread the most. The idea is like this. When a man goes out
in the morning, he may have a wife and a parcel of children, and maybe when he comes
back at night, he will find nobody who will tell him any thing about them. If a woman
asked about her children that had been sold, she would be whipped or knocked and
slashed about. Old William Merrick had children by his slave women and then sold them;
and he had as nice a wife as any gentleman need [sic] to have anywhere. You couldnt tell
the difference between the children he had by his slaves & those he had by his wife, only
they were a little brighter. They all favored him. He used to have some Irishmen on the
plantation, and he said these children were theirs, but every body knew they were his.
They were as much like him as himself. I really dont know my age, but I was over fifty
years of age long before I started from Merrick; that was the account they gave. I saw the
boss where I lived one Sunday morning whip every man on the farm, and one Sunday, he
whipped every man on the farm because they were not there at the time

516 - set. I have planted tobacco in the night until 10 or 11 oclock, by a lamp, and I have
worked Sundays for a month, during the wet season. I see every thing in slavery, without
it be death [sic]. I know was slavery is. You cant tell me any thing about slavery. I would
rather be in the street and let the wagons run over me every day, than be in slavery.

Testimony of William Cornish

I was born on the Eastern shore of Maryland, and came here in 1836. I had a very
good time down in Maryland, considering I was a slave. I didnt come here because I was
abused; I came here just for freedom. That was my object. I was abused too, in a manner,
although I was never struck since I was a boy by anybody. Still, the others was [sic]. The
masters were privileged to use them as they were a mind to. Still, I had a very good time.
I prepared myself to move away from the time I was 17 years old until I did get away. I
always had a hope that some day I should be free. I always had sufficient confidence for
that. I was raised almost as one of the children. The master told the whites there that he
would trust me the same as he would one of his children. He never told me so, but I knew

517 - I was trusted with every thing. I could go to Baltimore and stay a week or two, or
go to a camp meeting. I would go and come back. So he had confidence in me, and didnt
believe I wanted to leave him.
Well he always promised us all our freedom. After he moved into town & quit
farming, I hired my time, and then I wouldnt go home, only once in a while. I stopped
with one man five years; and I hired every man on the farm. He had just the same
confidence in me that my master had, and wouldnt suffer any hand to come on the farm
 - 84 -

-- only what I hired. He paid my boss $55 a year for me, and I had all I earned over that.
He used to carry on wood-chopping, and that I used to attend to for him -- see to
measuring it, and see what hands he had in the bush, just as I did for my old boss. My
master told me I might pay my wages to his son, who kept store in town, and go about
like a freeman. But I hated to leave this man Jones, because I loved him like a brother.
Then I worked for a man by the name of Skinner, and got some money. He said he
couldnt get along without me, any way. I leaves [sic] there and goes [sic] up in Caroline
county. The other man had five sons, three older than I am, and two younger. There were
about thirty of us slaves. When the old man died, I was 25 miles from

518 - him, working for a Methodist preacher. The Dr. comes up to me and says, William
Cornish, your masters dead. Said I, Has he left a will? Said he, No. Said I, Well,
all is, we are all slaves. No, said he, You may be recorded manumitted. No, said I,
he who isnt true to God wont be true to man. I was much grieved. My heart ached. I
thought it was a thing impossible for me ever to serve any body else. Nobody knows
what feelings I had. I waited about a month from that time, and then I went down to see
the boys at Cambridge, which was my family home. I see the young man, Thomas{J.?}
Dale, and I says [sic] to him these words, Young master Thomas, old master is dead, and
I want my freedom. I said, The last door to freedom is now shut, and I told him, It is
a thing impossible for me now to outlive all his children and grand children. Well,
says he, William, it is bad. Then I goes to a lawyer, Mr. Josiah Bailey, that I used to go
to school to [sic] sometimes, and I said, Mr. Bailey, my old master is dead, and I want
my freedom. I dont want run away freedom, but still, I says, I want to be free. He
says to me, William Cornish, if you want to buy yourself, it is a thing you cant do now,
because you are not divided; you belong to the estate. I says, Mr. Bailey, cant I go &
petition, or cant his Executors petition, the {Orphan?} Court to have me appraised, and
with that

519 - appraisement give me the privilege of buying myself? He says, William Cornish,
youve got more sense than me. You can do that. I never thought of that. I went to the
Executors & they consented to that, and each one of the sons signed his name to the
paper. I was appraised at $400. Thomas Dale said if I thought it was too much, each one
would give me five dollars apiece. After I had made two payments, one of $45 and the
other of $60, I took my papers and showed them to a man, and he said they were not
good for any thing -- that nothing was said about what was to be done with me after I had
paid the money, and that if I paid 399 dollars and 99 cents, the heirs could sell me if they
pleased. So that woke me up. I went to Mr. Wingate, who was one of the Judges of the
Court, and told him I wasnt satisfied with my papers. He says, Then boys wouldnt rob
you of your freedom for anything in the world. Still I didnt feel satisfied, and I went
home. I had about $200 worth of property, and I left in Sheriff Douglasss hand $75 in
cash, and property that would sell for $100 more, I suppose, to be turned into cash and
paid to these heirs. In the Summer of 1856 my mother came to my place and said, The
estate is going to take you in again. I said, But I wont serve them. Oh, what are you
going to do? said she. I found the old woman was pretty suspicious, so I thought
 - 85 -

520 - I wouldnt say anything more to her. I had tried my wife before, but she didnt like
the idea of my running away and leaving her folks, and burst out crying, so I never said
any thing more to her. I goes up to a camp-meeting in Caroline county and sees my young
boss. I was carrying some water to a tent and he came along and said, William, I want to
see you in a day or two. I thought about what my mother had told me, and said, You
can see me now. He says to me, William, Josiah (that was one of his brothers) is dead,
and his estate is over $4000 in debt, and it will take all his personal property to pay it. I
said, That money is called for immediately? No, William, said he, I am going to
petition the Orphan Court to have a private sale. I said, That is hard. Yes, said he,
William, it is hard. And I believe the fellow felt sorry himself. Well, said I, I will
attend to it about Saturday. He said, Any time will do in the course of two or three
weeks. When I told him that, I was sincere, and meant to do it. I thought I would go to
some friend, who knew more about such things than I did, and ask him about it; so I went
to an old Quaker and told him my circumstances, and he said, If I was in your place, I
would run away. My wife and mother were at the camp meeting and I went to them and
said that I was

521 - going to Vienna, twenty miles off, to work; and I told them not to be noways [sic]
uneasy if I shouldnt be at home. I left the camp on Saturday, and Saturday night I was up
in the State of Delaware. I had no trouble in getting here at all. A man took me in a wagon
and carried me about 30 miles on Sunday night; another man took me in the daytime on
Monday, about 12 oclock, and he travelled with me until about a half hour of the {sun?},
with a fast horse. He told me to go to another man, and I had to walk about two miles & a
half, & stayed there all Monday night and all day Tuesday. That night, he travelled with
me about four or five miles on foot, and placed me in the hands of another man, who took
me in a wagon and carried me about thirty miles that night, and then I got out and walked
into Wilmington. There I took the cars, Wednesday, for Philadelphia. Eleven days from
the time I started, I was in Canada.
I have had very bad luck since I have been here. I was sick for six or eight months
after I got here. My wife came out three months after. She was taken sick, and there were
three weeks that I couldnt go out, but had to stay there and just turn her over in bed. I
have buried three children since I have been here, and have had six children in all. The
poorest day I ever see out here,

522 - I would rather be here than be with the best slaveholder that lives in the South; and
I have seen slaves out there that were better treated than they can treat themselves here. I
feel for the United States, even now, long as I have been. I have got some good friends
here; but even now, if I see a Southerner come here, I cannot treat him with scorn, as
some do, such are my feelings for the country; because there are as good people in the
South as there are any where, and so there are in the North; and there are men in the
South just as bitterly opposed to slavery as any in the North or here.

Testimony of Tho[ma]s. P. Casey, (Barber)

It is a mistaken notion altogether that colored people cant take care of
themselves. I was never a slave, but I was born in Virginia. I lived there until I was 25 or
26 years old, and then went to Ohio and carried on business in Cincinnati 12 or 13 years.
 - 86 -

I left Ohio on account of the social oppression there. That was all that made me leave. I
was doing well there. I was making money there faster than I can make it in this country,
in my present business. I came from Richmond, Va, in the first place. I worked there
some four or five years, and I got along as well there as a man could in my
circumstances. I felt perfectly safe

523 - in Virginia, but when I got old enough to know what the rights of a freeman were &
{t?/w?}hat he should have, I knew I couldnt attain that situation in life that a freeman
should, in Virginia. I knew that the laws were against me, and I knew further that it was
perfect nonsense for any colored man to attempt to resist any law, in any shape or form,
or attempt to assert his rights. The consequence was, I became dissatisfied with living
there, and made up my mind to leave the country. A gentleman who was a slaveholder
there, who was going to move to Kentucky, advised me to go to Cincinnati. He said, I
dont know a better place for you to go to if you want to start business. It is a very
thriving town, and destined to be a very large place. I didnt know any thing about
Cincinnati at that time, but knew the gentleman wouldnt advise me to do any thing that
was not really beneficial, so I made up my mind to go either to Cincinnati or St. Louis. I
didnt apprehend any danger in going to a slave State to live, because I had been living in
a slave State. In fact, I didnt know the difference between a free State and a Slave State.
Still, I knew there was a better chance for me to get my rights in the Northern States than
there was there. I had learned to read and write in Virginia. I went to Cincinnati in 1828, I
think. I succeeded very

524 - well in business there. I kept a shop there three years, and then sold out and went to
Mexico. I got acquainted with a Mexican gentleman who was exiled from Mexico on
account of some political {broils?} between Santa Anna and Bustamente. This man was a
Santa Anna man, & was called home when the Santa Anna party got into power. He was
talking with me, and he said, This is no country for you, Mr. Casey. You must go to my
country. That is the country for the colored man. He pointed out the manners and
customs of the country, and I just made up my mind that I would go there. I understood
that the revolution was all over, but found, when I got to Vera Cruz, that it was not, but
that Santa Anna only had possession of Vera Cruz and the places round there, and
Bustamente held all the interior of the country. The consequence was, that I had to sell
the goods I had taken with me at wholesale, and I lost money by the speculation. Then I
got a passport from the American Consul to go to the city of Mexico, but I found every
thing so unsettled that it was no use to go into business there. I was married at that time,
and my wife became very much dissatisfied with the manners and customs of the people,
and wanted to come back to the United States again, and finally, to pacify her, I came
back. I came to New Orleans, and

525 - was going to start a shop there; but that was in 1862, when the cholera was there, &
I thought I would pull up stakes and go to Cincinnati again, and there I did very well. But
I found the laws of Ohio were worse against the colored man than in Louisiana. The free
colored man could have his oath against a white man in Louisiana, but in Ohio he could
not. So far as prejudice is concerned, I have experienced more prejudice in the Northern
states than in the South; but the laws of the South are severe for the purpose of keeping
 - 87 -

their slaves in subjection, and to prevent intercourse between the free people and the
slaves. Another thing. A colored man cannot travel in the South without he has his free
papers; and in a great many places he cannot travel even if he have [sic] his free papers. I
found the laws of Ohio were equally as bad against me as in the South. If a man owed me
any money in Ohio, I couldnt collect it unless I could bring a white man to prove the
debt. I had a law suit with a man there, and lost $600 by not having a white man as a
witness. I had some three or four young men in my shop as witnesses -- as respectable
young men as could be scared up in the city; yet their oaths would not be taken against
this white man. So in consequence of that I just made up my mind to leave, although I
was making

526 - money there. I find I can have my rights in Canada, as well as any man in my
circumstances. But I never came here with the expectation of ranking with the higher
class of persons, because I was equal before the law. [sic] I expected to have the same
rights as any man in my circumstances could have, and to have my word go as far as any
other mans in Court, and I have found all that to my satisfaction. But I could make five
dollars in Cincinnati where I can make one here.
I find the laboring class of colored people has to come in contact a good deal with
the Irish. In many instances, colored men show that they can do their work better than the
whites. There are a great many people here who like to encourage them when they find
they can do the work. There are a great many who will give them work to encourage
them; but then, there are a great many who will give it to white men. The only way that I
can see that prejudice affects them much is when they come in contact with the whites.
Many times they are insulted, perhaps, but it is generally round the frontier. I think the
lower class of people have more prejudice in the United States, because there are a great
many of them here who dont know any thing about prejudice, especially when they came
from the old country. They are willing to treat a poor

527 - colored man as well as any body else, and to associate with him; but when they
have been here a little while, they find that the colored people have been in a degraded
state in the United States -- (for it all comes from that; if it were not for slavery in the
United States, the colored man would have just the same chance here as the white men
have in the United States) -- and they think a colored man has no right to be treated as a
man, but is a {?int?}. And some will tell you that a colored man is not susceptible of
education. I have been told that myself. I have known a great many who have left the
South from the same sort of feeling that I did; and there are others living in the South
whom you couldnt hire to live there, because they dont know any better. Then there are
some to whom the white people say -- What do you want to go North for? The damned
Yankees hate you worse than the devil.
It is well known that any man who has to labor for his living in the South is just
on an equality with the slave. They will even put their slaves to insult such men and drive
them out of the country; and they will talk with their slaves, and tell them how much
superior they are to the poor whites.
There has been a great deal of contention and hard feelings and controversy, and
one thing and another, concerning the public schools
 - 88 -

528 - here; but it was the colored peoples own fault that they had separate schools. They
asked for them in the first place: and then, when the white people got them out of their
schools, they kept them out, and now the colored people find they made a wide [sic]
mistake. The colored people said that the white children had insulted their children, by
calling them niggers, and they thought they had better be separated. I asked them if
they were going to keep their children down, and never give them a chance to rise,
because some white people called them niggers. I told them they were negroes, and
there was no help for it, and that niggers was only a term of reproach. The parents did
not know the consequences of taking their children out of school, and took them out, and
established a little school down in the colored village, and now there are people who
come in and tell them they are in error, and they are dissatisfied. I must say, I cannot
blame the white people for any thing they have done in that matter; it was the fault of the
colored people themselves. When they came here, the churches were thrown open to any
who chose to come in. There was no difference between white & black. I have known
white people to go round among the colored people here, and try to persuade them to
attend other churches; but they would not do it; they would never rest until they had built

529 - churches for themselves. That has been the worst thing for the colored people that
has ever happened. They just retain their old manners, habits, and customs, that they
fetched with them to this country, and are not a whit better than their forefathers. Their
children may learn to read and write, but as far as refined manners are concerned, they
are not an inch ahead of their parents.
The colored people here are generally encouraged if they show a disposition to
work, & if they are industrious, they will always get employment; and I know a good
many who have come here without a farthing in their pockets, who now own
considerable property. You will never see one begging. They will suffer a good deal
before they will beg. Some own carriages and horses, and there are a good many who
own farms and good horses and teams, and drive them to market just the same as the
whites. All the trouble grows out of their congregating together. If they would only settle
just where they could get a house, there wouldnt be one-tenth part of the prejudice there
is now. I will tell you one little incident to show that. There was a colored family living in
one of our streets who had some three or four little children, who were as black as could
be, and not very well clad either. There were nothing but whites living round, and I have
seen those children, their arms locked with the white

530 - children, and having their little childish play together. You would never hear the
word nigger but they would act as if they were all white together. But let a colored
child from the colored village go through the street, and the moment they got sight of
him, they would call out, Hallo, you little nigger! and then little black fellows would be
after them, too, and call them niggers. That is the trouble. They will cluster together,
and have their village. I know it is natural, but it operates much against them.

531 -
Hamilton, Nov. 9, 1863
Testimony of George Johnson
 - 89 -

I came here from Maryland when about 15 years old, because I wanted to be free.
That was about 30 years ago. I was not treated at all badly at the South; indeed, some part
of the time, I see [sic] easier times than I have seen since I came here, because I ha{ve?}
had some care upon me here, and there I had none. I stayed in Pennsylvania 21 years, and
then came to Canada. My reason for leaving Pennsylvania was that I always felt myself a
freeman, and wanted to be a freeman, and as the Government didnt give me the liberty I
wished, I concluded I would go where I could possess the same liberty as any other man.
I have got along very well here, farming and carrying on different business for myself. I
have one place of 135 acres and another place of 21 acres. I rent both these places. I have
had twelve children, but have lost three since last April.

532 -
Hamilton, Nov. 10, 1863
Testimony of John H. Hill
I am from Richmond, Va. The whole family of us bought ourselves. If a mans
free papers are lost, he must advertise them, and if they are not found, he can get others if
he can prove he has lost them; if he cant, he is liable to see trouble. I have known cases
where free persons have been put to a great deal of trouble, & put in jail for a long time
because they had lost their papers. I came away from Virginia because I didnt like the
condition of things there. I didnt like to be trod upon. A colored man there, let him be
free born or not, must have a scrap of paper in his pocket to show that he is free, or he has
not the privilege of moving. He is not really a freeman, because, if he wants to go to New
York, for instance, he must get a white man to vouch for his freedom.
We are manufacturers of tobacco, and there are merchants here who have agreed
to take all we can manufacture and to encourage us all they possibly can. I came from the
South in September 1853, and my family followed in December. My wife had to get a
voucher for her freedom before she could come on. Sometimes they put obstructions in
the way of free people coming away, if they are so disposed.

533 - I was in slavery until I was about 18 years old. There were four uncles, myself and
mother, and another sister of my uncles. My uncles paid $1500 apiece for themselves.
They bought themselves three times. They got cheated out of their freedom in the first
two instances, and were kept in jail at one time, and were going to be sold down South,
right away; but parties who were well acquainted with us, & knew we had made
desperate struggles for our freedom, came forward and advanced the money and took us
out of jail, and put us on a footing so that we could go ahead and earn money to pay the
debt. We have an uncle in Pittsburg[h] who has accumulated a good deal of property
since he obtained his freedom. My uncles bought me and my mother as well as
themselves. I saw a great deal of slavery; and not only that, but my parents had to
undergo a great deal of hardship in their earlier days. I never suffered any particular
hardship myself. I had a grandfather, who had long been free, and when the boys grew
up, he would take them and learn them a trade, and keep them out of the hands of the
traders; and when they became men and women, having had his industry instilled into
them, they would be able to work to the best advantage.
I dont see anything in the way of our doing a
 - 90 -

534 - good business here. We employ twelve or fourteen hands now, and have white &
black boys at work; there is such a demand for boys, that we have to take anybody we
can get. There are four of us in the firm, all colored men. Our business is paying about
$26 a day, and we hope to make it pay $50 a day. We mean to succeed. As a general
thing, our men get pretty good wages. I have known some of them to make from $20 to
$25 a week, since the tobacco factories were opened. When we came here, in 1855, we
formed no difficulty in getting into the best shops of the city; and after we had worked
here a while, I believe we were preferred, because we were steady & strict to our work. I
never heard of any objection being made to taking a colored boy into a shop to learn a
trade. One of the best machinists in the city will take colored boys into his shop. There is
no difficulty in a good colored mechanic getting work among white men. I think the
colored people, after a while, will surmount the prejudice against them. I have no doubt
that a great many, if they could enjoy entire freedom at the South, would go back.

535 -
Testimony of Wm. H. Howard (Tailor)
I have been here eight years. I lived in Baltimore when I was a boy, and my father
sent me to Philadelphia to learn my trade, because I couldnt learn it in Baltimore. If I had
been a slave, I could have learned it there, for the white people are obliged to work with
slaves, if their masters set them at work in a shop, but they wont work with a free
colored man. If my father had not sent me to Philadelphia, I might have [sic] been living
in Baltimore now, for of course I should have been ignorant, and would not have known
any better. I went to England when I was 22 or 23 years old, and after that I went to
Australia. In England, I learned to appreciate the difference between the customs of the
two countries, and when I returned, I resolved to take up my residence under the British
government, simply because I wanted to enjoy the rights and privileges of a freeman.
After I had been here three years, I had all the rights of any British subject, on taking the
oath of allegiance, and paying a tax on an annual rental of $30 a year. No amount of
personal property entitles a man to vote. Dr. Jenkins, who lives about eleven miles from
here, has bought three members of his family since he has been here. One of his
daughters was a slave to the Governor of Florida, & he sent a man down there with $1500
for her.

536 -
Testimony of Willis Reddick (Barber)
I was born free, in Carlisle, Pa., they say; but I have no recollection of Carlisle at
all. I was brought up in {?}or{p/f}ort, Va. My father & mother were servants of an officer
at Carlisle Barracks, and he was ordered to {Gosport?}, & they went with him. I
remained at Gosport until I was about 29. Sometimes I found a little difficulty there, but
not much. I got a pretty good living there. I got into a little difficulty with some white
men, and staged my way to Canada, and after I got here, I didnt like to go back. I found
a little more freedom there than I found in the United States, and consequently I stopped
there. I came away with the intention of getting more freedom. I didnt see the prospect
of making money so well as in the United States, still, I thought I could save as much
here as there. I had some apprehension of losing my freedom, for I had seen men who
were free taken and sold. Perhaps they would do something that would be considered an
 - 91 -

outrage in that part of the country, and they would put them in jail, and then sell them for
the jail fees. I have known that to be done. The United States {button?} was no protection
to a man. If the men who were in the service of the Government went out on liberty, and
hap-

537 - -pened to do anything, they would drag them to jail, and then drag them before a
magistrate and then they would be punished severely. I was crossing from Portsmouth to
Norfolk one day, and a slave on board happened to run against the harbor-master, and the
harbor-master knocked him down and treated him in a most brutal manner, and not a man
dared to come to his assistance. Seeing a great many things like that enacted every day
gave me a hatred against the place; and I determined to leave. They wouldnt allow any
black man to be out after nine oclock at night. I was in what was called the ordinary
service of the United States. I was regularly enrolled and was mustered to all the duties
that the other sailors were, and wore the buttons.
We see the effects of slavery here in Canada. Before Rev. T. M. Kinnaird9 went to
England, he could not get into any white church here to preach; the prejudice was so
great that they wouldnt admit him. But now, every church in town is open to him, and
they take up collections for him.

538 -
Testimony of J.H. Bland (Barber)
I have been here about twelve years. I came from Warrenton, Va, originally. I was
in New York before I came here. I did not consider myself safe there, after the passage of
the Fugitive Slave Law, and so I left. I was in Virginia until I was 21 years old. My
people were rather milder than the most [sic] of slaveholders; but they were not half mild
enough for me at that. I had a desire to better my condition. I was tired of that life. I have
got along very well since I have been out here. I find the climate agrees with me better
than the Southern climate. I dont like cold weather; but still this climate agrees with me.
My health has been better since I have been here than it ever was before. I dont think I
should like to go back there to live, unless I could have the same privileges I have here. If
I could have the same privileges, I would rather be there, as I have a natural affinity for
the place of my birth.
I never saw any particular cases of cruelty, but I have known people to be shipped
so that they would die in a few days. Such cases are common among slaveholders. They
dont look upon such cases as cases of particular cruelty; they are every day occurrences.

539 - I do a very good business here. I cant ask for much better, as long as I have to
work myself. This is a country where a man has got to exert a great deal of perseverance.
It is hard to get the confidence of the people. I have had people walk by my shop for five
or six years and never look in; but some day they would come in, looking as if they were
half frightened to death, and then, if they got a good shave, they would come again, and
be among my best customers. They are very different from the Americans. There, when a
man opens a new shop, everybody comes to see what he has got; but here, a man will go
half a mile out of his way to patronize the old place. I like this country very well since I
have got acquainted.
9
Transcribers note: see frame 295.
 - 92 -

540 -
London, Nov. 11th, 1863
Testimony of Dr. A. T. Jones
I was born in Madison Co., Ky., and was in bondage until I was 20 years old. My
family were treated rather better than the ordinary treatment of slaves in that
neighborhood. I was not a house servant, but a field hand; but on that plantation, there
was never any overseer; we were our own managers. Any orders were given to my oldest
brother. There were 15 slaves on the plantation. It is generally the case, that where there
are small gangs, they are better treated than those on larger plantations. It is only on those
plantations where they have a number of slaves and where they have overseers, that the
slaves are so cruelly treated. I believe it is the case, that colored men make very hard
overseers in a great many instances, but that is only through fear of losing their situation,
and the same lash being applied to them. It is only for self protection. In our
neighborhood, there were some slaveholders who had a number of slaves, who were
treated rather inhumanly. In fact, they would not be allowed to leave their homes without
a pass. There was a near neighbor of ours, named Duncan, who whipped a slave to death.
I know about

541 - it myself; it was only half a mile from our place. No notice at all was taken of it. I
suppose it was scarcely his intention to kill the man, because it was the only man he had;
but he got into a passion. The man went out against his orders.
My father had accumulated a good deal of money peddling round the country, and
bought himself and my mother; but it was after the birth of fourteen children, who of
course were all in slavery. My oldest brother fell to one of the oldest sons, who sold him
to a millwright, and he learned him [sic] the millwrights trade. After serving seven years,
he was emancipated, and taken into partnership by the miller, and in the course of two
years saved considerable money, which he gave to two of my sisters to purchase their
freedom. At this time, the old man was dead, and we were divided among the sons. The
son that claimed me had four of us. This money bought two of us. I was the next oldest,
and I made an agreement to give him $350 for my liberty, which was in proportion to
what the others paid. Before the expiration of the time I was allowed to pay the $350, a
Methodist ministers son, by the name of Sam Bennett, told my master it was a shame for
him to set those likely boys free; that it would

542 - have a bad effect upon the other slaves in the neighborhood, and that he would give
him $400 for me. I had three weeks or a month to raise this money in, and I had made an
agreement with Edward Johnson, of Frankfort, to lend me a portion of the money; but on
hearing that this man Bennett had offered $400 for me, and that, in fact, my master had
taken the money, I left for Canada. I was satisfied he was going to cheat me; and I left
Frankfort, where I was stopping, for Georgetown, twelve miles this side of Lexington,
and waited there two or three days, until I ascertained that it was a fact that there was a
sale, & the money was paid over, and I there wrote myself a pass. I could scarcely put
two syllables together grammatically, but in fact, one half the white men there were not
much better. I wrote my pass Please let the bearer pass and repass, on good behavior, to
Cincinnati and return. I knew I would behave myself, and I knew I would return. There
 - 93 -

were two facts. I took the stage from Georgetown to Cincinnati, (producing my pass) and
when I arrived at Cincinnati, I took the stage for Chillicothe, in the middle of the State of
Ohio. There I passed myself off as the son of a gentleman living in Cleveland, & came

543 - on the casual boat to Cleveland. I had no trouble in getting to Canada. The only
trouble I had was this. I took the stage at eleven oclock at night, and the next morning, at
the stage house, I went into a room with the rest of the passengers, and when I was
observed, they ordered me into the kitchen. That caused some words. I would not go into
the kitchen, but remained out on the platform walking round until the stage started. That
was about the only difficulty I had. I had no knowledge of Canada beforehand. I
recollect, when Canada was first taken possession of by the British, hearing my old
mistress mention the fact, and saying that it would be like a weedy field; when the blacks
got into it, they would never get them out. That had reference to the corn fields there.
When the hogs got into them, they never could be got out. I came away the first day of
January, 1834. There hadnt been much talk then among the colored people about
Canada. I was satisfied that I should be free when I got here, because it was under the
protection of the British Government. I knew, from hearing the papers read by the whites,
and from what I could read myself, that the British Government was opposed to slavery;
and in fact, ever since my first recollection, the only source that the

544 - colored people looked to for deliverance from slavery was the British Government.
They prayed that there might come some war, or something, between the two countries,
by which the British Government should destroy slavery. That was the talk among the
slaves.

Testimony of Isaac Throgmorton (Barber)

I was born in the State of Kentucky, and lived there until I was 22 years old. My
first beginning was as a gardener, & then I came to the city of Louisville, where I was put
at the barbers trade. I served my apprenticeship of seven years, and then kept shop for
myself one or two years, & then I was one year steamboating up the river. I never
suffered from any severe treatment. There are very few slaves who are blessed with such
blessings as I was blessed with. The man was a pedlar, and his servants were always out.
He put me at a trade with a freeman, and I lived with free people, and it was just as
though I was free, only when he would send for me to come round, and let me know that
I was not altogether free. I have seen people very cruelly treated in Ky. and La. The
sufferings of the slaves in Louisiana are awful. A man there was accused of killing a hog,
and four men took

545 -
[blank except for phrase 3d line from bottom of page]

546 - him, took off every stitch of clothing, and then whipped him from his neck down.
One man had hold of each arm; and the hold of each leg, and the overseer whipped him
till he was tired, and then he would make the driver whip him, & whip him, & whip him.
The master knew this, and made us all go to see it done, but he stayed at the house. They
struck him 800 lashes. I saw that with these eyes. They rang the bell to assemble the
 - 94 -

slaves to see the flogging. They asked this fellow questions, but he denied stealing the
hog, & then they whipped. The overseer was drinking and smoking while the whipping
was going on. I dont believe he stole the hog, but some persons had been stealing, for
they had to steal, because they were pretty nearly starved out. I knew a man who would
let his slaves carry on a meeting for a while, but when they got a little happy, the overseer
would come and whip them. I have known him whip a woman with 400 lashes, because
she said she was happy. This was to scare religion out of them, because he thought he
wouldnt be able to get any thing out of them if they were religious. He said he would
rather see them stealing and swearing and whoring than be religious. Such things are
common. There are cases that are much worse than these. There was a man in our

547 - neighborhood who belonged to a Mr. Briscoe. They treated him so bad that he ran
away, & him and his wife was gone [sic] for six months, and lived out in the canebreaks.
They hunted him with the hounds of Bullen, a great negro-hunter. The dogs pushed him
so that he and two others ran out, and they ran them right across a bayou, right across our
road, and they catched [sic] one right at the edge of the water, and hamstrung him and
tore him all to pieces. The other two got across, but one of them was caught afterwards.
They put the man that the dogs tore into St. Joseph jail, & sent for his master, who lived
about 200 miles off, and when he came, he said he didnt want him, and wouldnt pay his
jail fees. The dogs had used him up so that he was never good for anything. On Jeff.
Briscoes place, just below us, they never gave the slaves enough to eat, and drove them
within an inch of their lives. They had to get up at half past four in the morning, and cook
their own grub, and be in the field and stand waiting until it was light enough to go to
work. If a man was not there at the appointed time, he was thrown down, when he did
come, and struck two or three hundred lashes. Sometimes they would put on eight or nine
hundred lashes; and if a man brought in trashy cotton, they would fling him down &

548 - give him four or five hundred lashes. Mr. Haller {Nott?}, who lived in Louisiana,
was very cruel indeed, & one man on his place was tied up by the thumbs, and whipped
awful; the next morning, he was a dead man. His master had taken his wife and said he
was saucy; and of course he would be rather saucy, if he had taken his wife. After that, he
said the slaves didnt pick the cotton clean enough, (it was in the trashy season,) and he
told the overseer to drive them, and make them pick it cleaner. The slaves then
commenced to run away, and some of them that were caught were whipped so that they
had to grease them -- their clothes stuck to them so; and the women were whipped as bad
as the men. A man ran away, and they said a woman knew where he was, and they
actually took the woman, and made the men hold her over a log heap until she was
burned to death. I didnt see that myself, but it was in our neighborhood, and I heard the
boss & overseer talking about it. They talked of having a council among the farmers
about it, but it was said the master had dismissed his overseer for doing it, and as he was
very popular, nothing was done about it.
I will tell you the reason why I ran away. I had one or two reasons. In the first
place, as I had been raised a barber and among freemen, it always seemed to me that I
was free;
 - 95 -

549 - but when I was turned over to another man, who kept me close round, I saw I was
not a freeman; that all the privileges were taken from me that I had when I was working
with freemen. Then, when I was moved from Kentucky to Louisiana, I saw so many
cruelties that it sickened my heart, and not withstanding I was treated well, there was no
comfort for me. I found there was no pleasure in any thing. Then, secondly, although my
master treated me well enough, when he got married, his wife and all her kin considered
that I had been treated too well, and I knew directly that [when] his head was laid low
(and he was an old man) I would be done forever. I came here in 1853. I had no particular
trouble in getting away. This man just wanted me to shave him and travel round with him.
He was a heavy planter, and of course he never stayed in New Orleans all summer. Well,
I always had to be on my ps and qs, and saw that if I turned to the right or the left, he
would dismiss me. That kept me always in trouble. Well, he came up to Kentucky to
spend his summers, and he brought me there, and I saw it was a good chance. I had been
seeking a chance for all those eleven years, and the first chance that I saw clear, I started
off fishing. I had all my arrangements made to go down to New Albany, and carried my
fishing

550 - tackle in my pockets. The ferryman at New Albany asked me if I was a freeman,
and I said Yes. Said he, Where are your free papers? You must show your free papers,
or have somebody that knows you are free. I said, Your son knows me. (I went over
the day before with a freeman, and the son saw me.) He asked his son if he knew me, and
he said, Yes, he went over the other day. From New Albany I went to Jeffersonville,
and there took the cars and came right along to Canada. When I got to Cleveland, I hadnt
eaten any thing for two things [sic], and as soon as I got off the cars, I rushed to the lake,
and found what was called the May Queen, that was going to sail for Detroit. There I
got something to eat. When she drew in her plank and rang the bell, I felt as if the
shackles were broken off; I felt free. It was a beautiful night, and I sat up until 12 oclock,
watching the lake, and thinking of my freedom, and of the scenes I had seen in Louisiana.
I felt like a new man.
I believe the people that were not religious treated their slaves better than those
who were religious. A religious man will believe whatever the overseer says, and he has
the control of the hands in the field. Whatever he says is law and gospel. If he says John
has acted independent, the master will come round and say, Chastise him for it, & the

551 - overseer will give him two or three hundred lashes. Then, in the next place, they
dont feed nor clothe their slaves as well as the irreligious man. There was one Mr.
Anderson, a preacher, who married a girl who had slaves, and after that, he quit preaching
pretty much, and drove his slaves very hard. He couldnt see any thing but cotton bales. If
the hands were making 500 bales, he said, We must have 650 next year; and of course
the hands would have to be driven. If pork was selling at a high price, all the slaves
would get from the religious man would be three pounds a week, while the man that
wouldnt be so religious would give them four pounds.
I had two [or] three dollars when I crossed over to Canada, and when I got to
Chatham, I had five shillings. I hired out to a contractor on a railroad for eight shillings a
day, and worked for him until about October; and then went to work as a waiter in a
hotel, and got $10 a month. After I left there, I went to work barbering, and in November,
 - 96 -

1853, came to London. I had then clothed myself well, and saved eight or nine dollars
besides. I went to work here for eight dollars a week and my board. About Christmas, I
went to work for another man, who gave me $26 a month; and then the man sold out to
me and another man; we giving him $250 for his shop.

552 - Since then, I have been doing very well. I have bought a house and lot, for which I
paid $1800. I have never had any trouble since I came to Canada. I have got a very good
shop, and am doing as well as I could expect. I would not change my situation under any
consideration. I would rather die than exchange freedom in Canada for slavery. I am
satisfied here, but I would like to go over there to see my friends. The climate has a good
deal to do with it. If it was perfectly free, I would like to go there whenever I had a mind
to.
It is sometimes said by white people that colored people wont work if they are
free, but I have known a plantation down South where there were 400 slaves, who could
work very hard if they had an opportunity to make money. For instance, supposing their
task was to pick 300 pounds of cotton, and their master told them he would pay them
extra if they picked 350 pounds, they would work very hard to earn something for
themselves. It is the general desire of the slaves to be free, and to have pay for their labor,
and when they are not paid for it, they are discouraged.
I escaped from slavery twice. The first time was when I was living in Kentucky. I
went back after my sister, and my master sold me South after a year. I had tasted the
sweets of freedom, and I never was satisfied after that.

553
Testimony of W[illia]m. C. Bell.
I was born in Cincinnati and came over here to work for my brother, who had a
job here. I think there is a great deal more prejudice here than there is in the Southern
States, or in Ohio.

[London,] Nov. 12
Testimony of William Williams
I was raised in Salisbury, N.C. My master was Gen. Tho[ma]s. G. Polk. He was a
cross, ugly fellow when he got mad, but otherwise he was a good fellow, and I should
like to hear from him. He was a resolute sort of fellow, and didnt care for anything. I
have been here 14 years, but I would go back in three days if there was freedom there. I
have got a pretty little place out here, where I am farming it, but I would give up all I
have got here, I would just let it go, to get back there. I was raised as a farmer, and was
my masters foreman. If I could get back there, I would be glad. I am so used to those
people that I understand their ways better. I could get as much again money as a slave
there than I can here as a freeman. I will bet anything in the world, that if I could see my
master or mistress, (for she was very much attached to me, too,) that same man, although
I have been away from him so long, would help

554 - me greatly, because he was always so good to me. My father was a white man, and
my grandfather sold me, and it was a long time before my father found me, and then he
tried to buy me, but couldnt, and then he got another white man to run me off. I wish
 - 97 -

they would get over their trouble, and let me go back that way. The white people where I
was made money very fast, and the young fellows down there, if you brought out their
horses sleek and right, would give you two dollars just as quick as anything else; but if
you didnt bring them out all right, they would be mighty apt to give you a cut over the
head. The way the laws are here, I would rather live on bread and water here, than live
there the way I did. (See over)

[William Williams testimony concludes on frame 555:]

I think the North will whip the South, because I believe they are in the right.
There never was any better people in the world than the people of the North. I didnt
know anything about the Abolitionists when I came away, but they took me and carried
me along, and risked their own lives to give me my freedom. That is what makes me
stand up for the North so. I holds [sic] by the Northern States, and I will stand by them,
and I will fight for them, if they want me to, though I am getting old. There is nothing to
hinder a man doing well here, if he will come here and behave himself, only the climate
is too cold.

[frame 554 continues:]

Testimony of George Williams
I dread the day that I ever left the States to come here. I am not better off here
than I was there. I was born in Maryland, and bought my time. I paid $250 out of the
$350 I was to pay, and then I found they were going to cheat me out of it, and I put [sic].
I went to Pennsylvania, and from there to Rochester, N.Y. I could afford to stay there and
put money in the bank, but I could never afford to put money in the

555 - [frame 555 contains the rest of William Williams testimony, above, and no other
material]

556 - bank here. That is the reason why I say I would rather be there than here. There are
some days here when I can hardly get {[a]head? bread?}. I left with another family to
come out here and see the country. I drew $250 out of the bank when I came, and was
putting money in the bank every week. I was not uneasy on account of any prejudice
there. I went to Detroit a little while ago, and they tried to get me to enlist; but I didnt
feel disposed. After I had paid $250, I went back and had the books looked over, and they
said I hadnt paid but $50. The man I was at work for had seen me pay the money, and he
told me not to pay any more. He told me to put my money away. I worked for him two
months longer, at $26 a month. He was a good man. I was never abused much by my own
people; I was abused by those to whom I was hired out.

557 -
Testimony of George Dunn (Barber)
I was born in Virginia, I believe, but was reared in Frankfort, Ky. Our folks
werent treated so awful bad. We couldnt do more work than our boss wanted us to do,
of course, but then, we werent worked and drove so bad as some people were. I dont
believe I ever had but one whipping in my life, but still, I had to worked [sic] rather hard.
I farmed it twelve years. The man who brought me up was a Baptist preacher, and was a
 - 98 -

little more indulgent than some others. I have been in Canada about twelve years. I
always had a mind to come to Canada. I always thought slavery was wrong, but I
wouldnt come to Canada until I got in the way to save some money. I bought my time, &
paid $500 for it. A great many of our family have bought their time. But slavery as a
general thing is a hard system, and as soon as I could get out of it, I thought I would. I
never saw any particular cases of cruelty; but at the time I was a boy, they used to be very
cruel with their slaves roundabout Louisville; whipping, selling and driving them, and all
such as that. There was a man who used to live about Frankfort by the name of Maffit,
who was a great slave driver, and drove hundreds at a time, handcuffed, and every thing
such as that. But I was never down in the low country, & never saw anything very
abusive, as some others have.

558 -
Testimony of John Shipton
I was born in Missouri. I am in my 33d year now. I was raised in the State of
Iowa. I was only three years old when I left Missouri. My parents had been slaves, but
bought themselves, and I was born free. I was in California about seven years, and then I
came back to the States and came out here. The reason I came over there from the States
was that I didnt like the laws of the States very well. I have done very well since I have
been here. I am a smelter in the foundry, and have been there four years. I have a dollar a
day. I like the States much better than I do this country; the people there seem more like
my own people. I could do a great deal better there than here. I have always made up my
mind that when things got settled, I would go back. I never experienced near the
prejudice down there that I have here. The prejudice here would be a heap worse than in
the States if it was not that the law keeps it down. A colored person who is doing any
business in the States is patronized a heap better by the whites than such a man is here.

559 -
Testimony of Benj. Miller (Farmer)
I was born in Lincoln Co. North Carolina. I left there when I was twelve years
old, and was brought up in Lincoln Co., Missouri. I was in bondage in Missouri, too. I
cant say that my treatment was bad. In one respect I say it was not bad, but in another I
consider it was as bad as could be. I was a slave. That covers it all. I had not the rights of
a man. One day I went with my master to Mr. McGilliss store, in St. Louis, and Mr.
McGillis asked him, Is that your boy? I thought he was free. My master said, Yes, but
I mean to give him a chance to buy his liberty. What is a man without liberty? He is
nothing. And I said to myself, Sure enough, what is he? I never forgot that. My master
trusted me with everything. I would bring a load to market, and he would give me a
dollar a day to go and sell for him. The old man dealt fair enough with me as respects
that, but still I was a slave. I bought myself for $450, when he was away from home with
me, at St. Louis. When he went home, his neighbors laughed at him, and told him he was
a fool to sell me for $450, when he might have got $800, and when I got home, he
charged me $500. I would have paid me [sic] that, but a friend of mine, a hard old slave
holder too, told me they were going to run me
 - 99 -

560 - off, after I had paid the money, before I got my papers. I have done first-rate here. I
will tell you what I call first-rate, and then you can judge. I say first-rate, from the fact
that we have to row against wind and tide when we get here, and being brought up
illiterate, I consider that if we live and keep our families well fed and clad, we have done
first-rate.

561 -
Chatham, Nov. 12, 1863
Testimony of Andrew Smith (Blacksmith)
I came from North Carolina. I didnt like [it] down there well enough to stay; but
[would have] liked [it] well enough, too, if I had had the rights that were intended for me.
I wasnt free there, and yet I was left free by the will of my grandfather, it might be said,
but there being no proper witnesses to the will, or some thing to that effect, of course we
were cheated out of it, and I thought the next best step would be to try the road on my
own {hook? hoof?}. I didnt know anything about Canada before I started. Ohio was the
place I started to. I wasnt safe there, but it was called a free country then in North
Carolina. My father was the son of the old man, and he made his way to Ohio, and I knew
he was there, and got a man who was friendly to us to get up some kind of papers; and I
started off on that scale. My father had taught me to read a little, and I could scratch a
little. After I got away, the man that befriended me was found out by the fellows who
pretended to own me, -- my uncles -- and they made him (so he said) promise to get me
back, or pay so much for me. He followed me to Ohio & tried to have me arrested &
taken back. But

562 - I found some warm friends there, who wouldnt have allowed me to be taken back,
even if I had been taken up, and they kind of scared him in some way, so that he was in
danger of himself, so he just dropped me, and I started again for Michigan. He followed
me up there, and they done just about the same thing there, and so he went back to North
Carolina, I suppose -- I have never heard of him since. I have heard from my relatives
several times since. My father, some years ago, had letters very often. My father learned
his trade in Salisbury, as a blacksmith. I follow the same trade. I learned some part of the
trade there, and since then I have been learning all my life.
I have got along very well here, and I have got along very poor. I have worked
hard enough to make myself comfortable, but I have lost over three thousand dollars by
way of endorsements in this town; still, I am half-way comfortable -- that is, as a laboring
man. I have got a good house, which I own, and I own two or three other places in town,
and some little [houses?] out in the country. I have earned it mostly by my own labor. I
have hired a man occasionally, & occasionally made a trade perhaps -- no great deal. We
send our children to the Mission School. We have

563 - a very good Government school here; at least, we pay taxes enough to have a good
school. Our taxes have been $25, $30 and $40 a year.
Prejudice runs pretty high here. There are parts of Ohio that are so superior in that
respect that they dont compare at all. One the Western Reserve, in Ohio, there is very
much less prejudice than there is here. I think a great deal of this prejudice arises from the
fact that a great many of the white people are not acquainted with the colored people. If a
 - 100 -

man proves himself really a man, of course they respect him a little more. When I first
came here, there seemed to be a lower class of colored people here -- an indolent class --
a hundred per cent. more than at the present time; and that may have caused the prejudice
to run higher here than in other places. It certainly depends a great deal, too, upon the
degree of intelligence of the white people. I have looked upon the majority of the whites
as really ignorant. More ignorant, according to their chances, a great deal, than the
colored people. Our colored farmers are certainly improving a great deal. It is really
astonishing. I have been away a little while, and I have a chance to see. They are getting,
instead of their little carts, wagons,

564 - and for their wagons, a span of horses instead of cattle, and are making a great deal
of improvement. I see that the colored people in Tilburg, Raleigh, and different places,
are bringing in potatoes, wheat, barley, and other stuff, the same as other farmers.
I have been here over twelve years, and have made a heap of money, building
houses, and one way and another. I have had a prudent family, who are disposed to live
within their means. I want my children to have a good education, if possible, even if they
dont have good clothes. My great aim and wish is, to have them brought up so that they
will fill some useful station in society. I try to encourage them a little, and have them do
what I think is right. I find no difficulty in making money, because I try to do the work
that is brought to me as it ought to be done; and a man who finds his work well done,
even if he is a stranger, will be very apt to come again.

Testimony of Mrs. Andrew Smith

I came here from Raleigh, N.C. I cant say that my experience was hard down
there. I knew nothing at all of hardship. I was free there, and knew nothing about slavery.
I always lived just as well, and knew nothing more about hardships than when I came out
to Ohio. I didnt realize the evils of others, any more than one of these children -- not so
much, because they have read of the consequences of slavery.

565 - There were some very hard slaveholders in Raleigh, and my father used to tell of
the hardship, that others suffered. My parents came away on account of not having the
privilege of educating their children. That was all that drawed [sic] my father from South
[sic] Carolina, because he did better there, so far as business was concerned, than
anywhere else. He did very well there, and was thought a good deal of. My father was set
free when he was a little boy. His father was his master. Colored children could not be
taught there. An old gentleman taught a school way out in the country a while, but a lot of
people went out one night & tore the school house down. Then the miserable system
father didnt like; he wanted to be away from it.

Testimony of James W. Hall (Wagon and Carriage-Builder)

I came from Rochester, in York State. I cant make out here so well as I could in
Rochester. I would be willing to give up all I have here, and $300 to boot, if I could go
back there and have the same chance that I had when I left, because I hate this country.
The prejudice here is tenfold worse than there, and more ignorant. It is the lowest grade,
the very scum of creation, that are
 - 101 -

566 - here. I have just come from Rochester, and I feel so provoked when I come back
here. It is just like a man making out of prison and being caught and sent back again. I
intend to go back if God gives me health, and I can get enough to go back decent. Things
were misrepresented. I thought I was bettering my condition, and I am tenfold worse off.
When I was in Rochester, I was considered and treated as a man, and here I am not. The
white folks in Toronto and Hamilton are better than they are here; there is more
refinement. I am a member of the English Church. When I was in Toronto, I could rent a
pew as well as anybody else, and enjoy the same privileges as a member; and so I could
in Hamilton. But here, after I had rented a pew, they wouldnt let me sit in it, and
threatened to nail it up, if I didnt give it up. When I was in Rochester, I could rent any
pew that I was able to pay for. My children have no Sabbath School to go to here. I have
to keep them at home all day Sabbath, unless I send them to a dissenting church.
I have now as much work ordered as I can finish from now until the first of April
if I dont have another job come in. You see, these folks will patronize the Adversary, if
he only does his work well. I could do well enough here, if I could

567 - enjoy myself; but what does it signify what a man has, if he cant enjoy it? I live for
enjoyment. I have been here only about three years, and when I came here, I only had
nine dollars. The only way I can get along is to work hard. I wouldnt take a thousand
dollars for what I have got here. I am not insured; and when there is a fire, I get up and
look out of the window, thinking my shop is going; but I satisfy myself with thinking that
it will just give me a chance to leave. I hate to pull up and go away and leave it so, but if
it was burned, I should never undertake to drive down the stakes again. If I could go to
church here, and the people here would recognize me as a brother of the human family, I
could do pretty well, and I should feel better satisfied. I did think of buying some
property here, but I have given up all idea of that now. It is just this way. You couldnt
live here any more than a fish out of water, because three-fourths of the men who own
property here wont sell it, nor improve it, nor let anybody else. There are enough places
here where the prejudice is just as bad as it is in the States. There is a place up here called
Tilburg, twenty miles off, where the people are most all Scotch. A colored man settled
there, and they abused him and oppressed him in different ways, and finally ordered

568 - him to leave the settlement; but he didnt like to go, because he had a house &
property there. They drove his children out of school, although they made him pay his
taxes, & finally a lot of the neighbors blacked their faces and broke his doors and
windows open, and burnt his house, and so drove him out.

[Chatham,] November 13th

Testimony of William Jackson (waiter)
I was born in Maryland, but have lived in New Orleans, and in Louisville, Ky. I
came from Kentucky to Canada a little over a year ago. I bought my freedom of my
master, and paid him $1005 for it. I was twenty years saving the money -- laying by $50 a
year. I hired my time of my master, before I bought my freedom, paying him $240 a year
for it. I paid him, during the years I hired my time, almost $6000.

Testimony of Eli Holton

 - 102 -

I was born in Kentucky, free, & went from there to Georgia, with some horse-
drivers. I stayed in Georgia eleven years, and went from there to Buffalo. A freeborn man
wasnt safe down in Georgia at that

569 - time, unless he were with somebody. I see [sic] plenty free people in Savannah and
Augusta who were to be sold, because they couldnt prove their freedom. I have been
here about six years. I do about as well here as [my] heart could wish. I did not get my
property here, but in California. The colored people here are doing as well as in any other
part of the country, I believe. Everybody can make money here that will work, and most
of the colored people do work. I dont believe any of them go round begging here. I have
built three of four houses since I have been here.

Testimony of George Ramsay (Blacksmith)

I came here from the State of Kentucky. I was not free born. I didnt feel that any
body had a right to me, after I began to think about it. I had a middling good time there --
good as the common [man?] did. I was learnt [sic] the blacksmiths trade there. I worked
a very little on the plantation though. There are a great many good mechanics there who
never came away. I cant say that I experienced any hard treatment there, but I worked
hard, and got nothing for it. I thought that was hard, when I got to be about 22. I had it in
my mind long before that

570 - age, that I wouldnt stay longer than I was 21 or 22 -- that I should want to be a
man when other men were men, by the age I got a wife -- that is what caused me to come
away as quick as I did. They carried her off South, to what they called Arkansas territory.
The man who had me tried to get her to keep me, but couldnt do it. I had been living
with her as my wife, but her master carried her off, with the rest of his slaves. All my
children went with her, and I have never seen them since. I went after her once, and got
her, but they took her away from me. Canada was not in my head till I lost her
completely, and then I thought I would go to Canada. I knew very little about it. I had
only heard there was such a place, but what it was, I didnt know. They said it was to the
North and was a free country, and so I started for it. When I got to Indiana, a man marked
out the course I had to travel, and that was all I knew about it. I had considerable
difficulty in getting away. I was not at liberty 24 hours for six weeks.
I came here the 5th of October, 1832. I am now 58 years old. I have always kept
at work here, but still, I have not done near as well as I might. For twenty years I worked
steadily, and made about $20,000, and

571 - saved something every year. I got married and raised a family. I have wasted a great
deal of the money I have made. I own this shop, and several other places around town. I
have had six children since I came to Canada -- I have lost my oldest girl. All the rest are
men and women, but one boy.

Testimony of Washington Thomas (Plasterer)

I came from Kentucky. I was a slave there. I didnt have very hard times. I was on
the river all my life, from the time I was old enough. I didnt know how long them [sic]
good times would last; that was the reason of my coming away. I didnt have any money.
 - 103 -

What I made, I had to pay my boss. I paid my boss $160 a year, from the time I was ten
years old up to 16. I came here when I was 16. I had no difficulty in getting here. I like it
first-rate since I have been here. If I could be just as free there as I am here, I would go
there. I could make more, and I like the climate better. Me and my mother own the
property here. I am a plasterer by trade, but I have worked at the carpenters trade a little.

572 -
Testimony of Grandison Boyd
I was born in Virginia, forty miles from Richmond. I came here in 1833. I
considered myself free born. They said they had a claim on me, but I didnt acknowledge
it. I never acknowledged that right. I didnt experience any hard treatment there. Nobody
ever laid a hand on me. I have fared here just as well as I could anywhere in the world. I
have attempted several times to make a fortune, but havent done it yet, but have always
had something to eat and to wear. I have everything else promised me -- a life eternal,
and plenty to eat and drink. I have been to Mexico, England, and Australia. I have never
experienced any prejudice. I always keep myself away from persons I dont like. I think
they lose as much as I do.

Testimony of Rev. Horace H. Hawkins

I am a Kentuckian by birth. I came away when I was 15 or 16 years old, in 1835.
Fourteen of us came away together. We were all slaves, from the estate of Edmund
Taylor, and his brother, Gen. James Taylor. We crossed the Ohio river about 9 oclock at
night Saturday evening, and Sunday morn-

573 - -ing arrived at Dayton, Ohio. We were accommodated by Quakers, and we had a
large Quaker wagon, with canvas over it, & two fine horses, which we borrowed from the
Quakers. We drove them so hard Saturday night and Sunday, that they couldnt eat nor
drink. We purchased another horse, as a lead horse, and we drove the whole of them so
hard that they all gave out, and we just left them on the turnpike, and abandoned the
wagon. We went on foot, and otherwise, until we arrived at Huron, and as soon as the
steamer touched the dock, we walked aboard, and the captain hollared out, Here comes
Old Kentuck! The next day we arrived at Malden, C.W., and as the steamer neared the
dock, who should I see but my sister and my mothers oldest brother. They had no
knowledge of our coming, but just happened to be there to see the boat land. I stayed in
Canada and worked in a tobacco factory through the winter; and went to the State of New
York in the Spring. There I went to school at Geneva, and also at Rochester, entered the
ministry, and commenced preaching to the colored Baptist church in Rochester. I
remained there until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, and then I came to Canada, to
Malden, and had an appointment from the New York Baptist State Convention, white, as
a missionary among my people, at a salary of

574 - $300 a year, for three years, regularly. The church grew strong and I declined to
receive further support from them. I went to Chicago, and preached there a while, and
while there received a letter from Gov. C.S. Morehead, who wanted to sell my brother to
me, and I made an arrangement, and paid him some, got my brother out of his hands, and
never paid the rest. I also purchased my sister Josephine, and her son George, from
 - 104 -

Edmund Taylor, of Frankfort, Ky. After I got here, I didnt like to be pent up in Canada,
and I saw they were determined to catch me if they could, if I ever went to the American
side. I went to Columbus, Ohio, to see the Rev. Henry Davis, pastor of a Baptist church
there, and he gave me a note of introduction, and I juts went back to my friends in
Rochester and in the State of New York, and soon raised the necessary money to purchase
my free papers -- $300. The owners refused to take the $300. They were told that I had
been to school and understood something of the languages, and one of them said, if he
got me, he would teach me a language I hadnt yet learned. He wanted $500. Well, the
parties who were doing the business for me, got in with a man who lived in Kentucky,
and got him to tell this man that if he didnt take the money, it would be returned to me,
as an

575 - outfit for the coast of Africa. That made such an impression upon his mind that he
thought he would take the $300 that had been offered, and sent me a note to that effect,
but they then refused to give him the $300. Then this Kentuckian went to him again, and
told him that he wouldnt get anything, but to make an offer, and get what he could. Then
he said he would take $200. They gave that to him, and he gave them my free papers. In
nine days from that time, I returned to Kentucky, and just as soon as I touched the dock,
my hair rose on my head, just as if it was a hogs bristles. I felt as weak as water. I was in
Old Kentuck. I then wrote a letter, requesting an interview with my former owners.
They didnt return any answer. Afterwards, I understood the man said the only objection
he had to seeing me was, that I might be there at meal time, and then he would have to
treat me as one of his guests, and the other servants seeing it would make a bad
impression on their minds.
I have travelled a good deal in the Province, and have found the prejudice greater
than in the States. The potential influence of the colored people now has quite a tendency
to moderate the prejudice. Electioneering time, they come here for me, and

576 - I must go round and stump the country with them. The lawyers come for me with a
horse and buggy, and I must go out with them, and fare just as they do. But when the
election is over, they speak, of course, when we meet, but nothing more. A colored man
cannot get accommodated at any of the hotels in Canada or any line of railroad or public
travel. I have found only one place in Canada where they made no distinction, and that
was at Simcoe. There we all sat down and ate at the same table. Even the omnibuses here
wont allow the colored people generally, to ride, though they make exceptions in favor
of some particular persons, on account of their influence; but for that we dont thank
them. I have seen the same spirit manifested on the steamboats. I think the root of the
prejudice is to be found in the fact that the colored people came in here very rapidly, &
the whites got the impression that the colored people would become a majority in the
Western county. The reason that the colored people have not got along better is that they
came here poor, and ignorant, and with no trades to help them along. I came here with
only twelve and a half cents, and now I consider myself worth two thousand dollars, at
least.

577
Testimony of John Davis
 - 105 -

I came here in 1837, poor as any other man need [sic] to go to any country. I had
only one shirt, and not a second suit of clothes to my back. I have saved property to the
amount of $5500. I came from Kentucky when I first came here, and am a Kentuckian by
birth. I wasnt born free, but freed myself. I was glad to get here, and my master never
has seen the scratch of a pen from me since I have been here. I believe the colored people
here in Canada within twenty miles around us, are doing as well as any people in the
world. Prejudice has been in our way somewhat here, but it is not so much now as it has
been. When I first came here, the white people hardly knew whether we were human, or
what we were. I cant say that I ever suffered any thing particular down South; but they
always kept my nose down to the grindstone, and never gave me anything for my labor.
But I found out I wouldnt last always that way, and concluded to free myself.