Short Stories of Blacks in The Niagara Region
by Slaves coming to Canada and Freedom, these are taken from articles that existed at the time.
A story was told lately by a sergeant in the Volunteer Camp here: “I was a little boy living in the Red Barracks (Navy Hall) about 50 years ago, my father being a soldier, and I saw one day a party of eleven black people land at King’s wharf. They were all escaped slaves, men, women and children, and their action in landing was indelibly impressed on my memory. I shall never forget how they all knelt down, and kissing the ground, fervently thanked God, the tears streaming from their faces, that they were now in a free country.
In the Niagara Mail, August 10th, 1853, is found the following account of another slave reaching Niagara by a perilous land and lake journey. The steamer chief Justice Robinson picked up a coloured man about twelve miles from Niagara, floating on a raft made of a gate. He escaped from Tennessee and came to Lewiston, but was afraid to go on one of the steamers to cross and tried to cross the river on the gate, but the current being strong, he was drifted out into the lake. He said, “Thank the Lord, Massa, I am a free man now.” The poor fellow must have been carried on his precarious support a distance of twenty miles. What must have been his thoughts on that broad and lonely field of waters?
The period from the 1800’s to the 1860s showed a large number of escaped slaves arriving in Niagara. Some actually were brought here by masters taking the waters of the local spas or viewing the wonder of Niagara Falls.
William Riley thus accompanied his master. His daughter, Mary Ann Guillan, writes: “My father came here in 1802. He was a slave. No, he did not run away. He came with his master all the way from Fredericksburg, Virginia, driving the carriage with six horses, his master bringing his money in bags, enough to last him; he came all that way to see the Falls, and stayed at Black Rock a while. My father was the coachman, and though his master was not cruel like some masters, my father was always afraid he might be sold off to work in the cotton fields, and a gentleman from Niagara, Mr. D., told him he could easily escape and come to Niagara where there were many colored people. So he hid in the corn fields … At last his master had to go back without his coachman, although he waited a long time, and then my father came to Niagara
Liked it
