Truth Stranger Than Fiction/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
CLOSING CHAPTER,
CONTAINING AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF THE PAST AND PRESENT CONDITION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVES IN CANADA, WITH SOME REMARKS ON THEIR FUTURE PROSPECTS.
I have been requested by many friends in this country to devote a chapter of my book to the fugitive slaves in Canada; to a statement of their present numbers, condition, prospects for the future, etc. At the time of my first visit to Canada, in the year 1830, there were but a few hundred fugitive slaves in both Canadas; there are now not less than thirty-five thousand. At that time they were scattered in all directions, and for the most part miserably poor, subsisting not unfrequently on the roots and herbs of the fields; now many of them own large and valuable farms, and but few can be found in circumstances of destitution or want. In 1830 there were no schools among them, and no churches, and only occasional preaching. We have now numerous churches, and they are well filled from Sabbath to Sabbath with attentive listeners; our children attend the Sabbath School, and are being trained as we trust for Heaven. We depend principally upon our farms for subsistence, but some of our number are good mechanics—blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, etc., etc. We have found the raising of stock very profitable, and can show some of the finest specimens of horse-flesh to be found on this continent, and we find a ready market for all our products. The soil is fertile and yields an abundant return for the husbandman's labor; and, although the season is short, yet ordinarily it is long enough to ripen corn, wheat, rye, oats, and the various productions of a Northern New England or New York farm. Of late considerable attention has been paid to the cultivation of fruit trees, apples, cherries, plums, peaches, quinces, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, etc., and they are doing well, and in a few years we doubt not will be quite profitable. It is a mistaken idea that many have, that fruit trees and vines cannot be cultivated to advantage on account of the severity of the climate; I have raised as delicious sweet potatoes on my farm as I ever saw in Kentucky, and as good a crop of tobacco and hemp.
We have at the present time a large number of settlements, and connected with these are schools at which our children are being taught the ordinary branches of an English education. We are a peaceable people, living at peace among ourselves and with our white neighbors, and I believe the day is not far distant when we shall take a very respectable rank among the subjects of her majesty, the excellent and most gracious Queen of England and the Canadas. Even now, the condition and prospects of a majority of the fugitive slaves in Canada is vastly superior to that of most of the free people of color in the Northern States; and if thousands who are hanging about at the corners of streets waiting for a job, or who are mending old clothes, or blacking boots in damp cellars in Boston, New York, and other large cities, would but come among us and bring their little ones and settle down upon our fine lands, it would be but a few years before they would find themselves surrounded by a pleasant and profitable home, and their children growing up around them with every advantage for a good education, and fitting themselves for lives of usefulness and happiness. The climate is good, the soil is good, the laws protect us from molestation; each and all may sit under their own vine and fig tree with none to molest or make them afraid. We are a temperate people; it is a rare sight to see an intoxicated colored man in Canada.
My task is done, if what I have written shall inspire a deeper interest in my race, and shall lead to corresponding activity in their behalf I shall feel amply repaid.