I found this in one of the free boxes here and had it put to one side. I realized at the beginning of Black History Month that I did not have a single book by a Black author on my on-deck shelf, except this one. I was a bit worried it was going to be too dry but it makes obvious sense to read now so I started it.
It did start out to be very hard to get through as the introductory essay by Drew is written in that verbose, indirect manner of the 19th century. I do enjoy long and complex sentences, but they have to be well-written and actually clearly deliver their meaning. Unfortunately here, the language is cumbersome and indirect. It's not entirely Drew's fault as he is writing in response to the insane pro-slavery arguments that were the dominant rhetoric in America at the time. At the time, pro-slavery propaganda was pushing the lies that slaves were happy and needed the structure and guidance of their masters. This book was written to counter those arguments. Even though it was hard to read, the opening essay also drives home how the forces of oppression have used propaganda and sophistic logic to defend their clearly immoral positions. These techniques have flared up to an extreme today, amplified by social media, leading to a bunch of con artists and racists taking over the US government. I suspect a smarter and more informed historian could trace a direct line between the slave-holding south of the 19th century to today's MAGA.
From a purely reading perspective, once we get past the introductory essay, this book gets extremely readable, though very very painful at times. It is divided up into sections by region or town, each one starting with a brief overview with some statistics on the number of people per race, the state of land clearing and schools. Then we get a series of narratives by various individuals. Given that many of them could not read or write, I am assuming they were told verbally to Drew who then transcribed them. They tend to have a consistency of language and structure that also suggests he asked specific questions in a specific order in order to put forth a consistent argument. So they usually talk about their own story that led them to Canada, followed by their current situation, like how much land they own and how much of they have cleared, what animals they have, etc. and concluding with their opinion on slavery. They also often mention that the money gathered to help slave refugees never seems to get to them and that even if they did, they wouldn't want it and don't need it, as there is ready work for them in Canada and they are able to gather their own community support for new arrivals.
Anyhow, I am myself being quite dry here in describing the structure. The narratives themselves are incredibly powerful and enraging. Each one could make a novel of their own. It seems obvious to us today that slavery is a profound evil, but reading about the actual details of the brutality and tortures that were done to the actual people is still shocking. The list of atrocities that go on in these stories is long and varied from the most basic concept of one human owning another (and all the ancillary crimes that stem from that such as hiring out a skilled slave and the owner taking all the salary), splitting off children from their parents, wives from husbands to just straight up torture, rape and murder. One thing I didn't realize is that one of the most common triggers to finally drive a slave to run away is that they often would be raised to a "good" master who treated them well and promised to give them freedom but as soon as that person died or hit economic issues, they would be sold off to a potentially much worse owner.
The escapes themselves are harrowing. Though written in very dry language ("I lived in the forest for 3 months"), the toughness and will of these people is astounding. They had to survive both intense physical challenges, like not having shoes or food for weeks long treks as well as never being able to trust anybody else on their road. The Fugitive Slave Law basically made it legal for people to just grab any Black person, escaped slave or not, and kidnap them back to the South for a reward or just to be sold into slavery. And even other Black people could not always be trusted, as they were under their own pressures. On the other hand, there are great tales of bravery and selflessness both by Blacks and abolitionist whites, like when all the waiters surrounded one of the escapees when he was working at a restaurant and got accosted by slave hunters.
On the Canadian side, this is a tantalizing insight into the very early days of Black Canadians. I was totally ignorant of the many Black communities in what is today the far western side of the Windsor corridor near the border. Sadly, their populations were reduced by usurious land practices and the end of slavery. Today, though, there are still several famous Black Canadians who came out of that region and some interesting museums and historical locations (I plan to visit the Josiah Henson Museum of African-Canadian History one day). I am curious if there are still Black people living in that area. I am very ignorant of the Windsor-Toronto corridor even though it is a crucial economic region for Canada!
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