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The
two Black newspapers, the Voice of the Fugitive and the Provincial
Freeman, differed on many issues, but both constantly
reminded refugees that they were in a fair and hospitable land where
they should be good citizens and take part in the life of their
communities. At the same time, they vigorously attacked injustice
and racism.
The
Voice of the Fugitive, owned and edited by Henry Bibb, was
the earlier of the two papers. Anti-slavery readers throughout Canada
and the United States considered it literally ". . . The Voice
of the Fugitive in Canada." Bibb's reports were long and detailed,
for he was struggling to gain acceptance for the thousands of blacks
who streamed into Canada after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed
in the United States.
As
well as helping to create a more sympathetic climate for Blacks,
Bibb's paper helped new arrivals to adjust by providing an invaluable
source of information particularly about the Black communities of
Essex County. Many escaped slaves read the paper to locate friends
and relatives:
In
enumerating the arrivals this week we can count only 17, 10 of
whom came together on the express train of the underground railroad.This
lot consisted of a mother with her six children, and three men.
The next day there came four men, two men arrived and then one
came alone. The latter tells us of having had a warm combat by
the way with two slave catchers, in which he found it necessary
to throw a handful of sand in the eyes of one of them, and while
he was trying to wash it out he broke away from the other and
effected his escape.
Before
long the Provincial Freeman, a more militant paper,
was founded in Windsor by Samuel Ringgold Ward.
Its
first issue appeared on March 25, 1853; a year later the Freeman
moved to Toronto, and in June 1855 to Chatham where it was named
of official printer to the town council; its last issue was published
in September 1857.
The
Freeman contained vivid descriptions of church, business
and abolitionist activities, and although it was plagued with difficulties
of money and management, it reflected the problems, hopes and thanks
of a new refugee group in a strange, but usually friendly land.
The
motto on its masthead reflected its editorial position: Self-Reliance
is the True Road to Independence.
In
its first issue the Freeman stated that its goal was to:
. . . represent the 40,000 Negroes, freedmen, fugitives, wealthy
and poor, recently arrived in Canada; encourage the right class
to enter Canada by publishing an account of the country and its
advantages; and develop in Canada a society to deny all assertions
regarding the Negro's inability to live with others in civilized
society.
Basically
integrationist in its policy, the Freeman fought hard against
Black colonization schemes and refugee aid societies that its editors
considered dubious:
Our tour satisfied us abundantly that the coloured people of Canada
are progressing more rapidly than our people in the States - that
the liberty enjoyed here makes different men of those once crushed
and dispirited in the land of chains - that along with the other
poor classes who come here and improve themselves in wealth and
status, the black people will also arise in some cases very rapidly,
but generally slowly, though surely - that the day is not far
distant when we shall put to shame the selfish, systematic charity
seekers who go to the States, and some of them to the south, to
beg partly for fugitives but chiefly for their own pockets - that
more money has been begged professedly for Canadian blacks than
said blacks ever did, or will ever receive, by a thousand fold
- that unless persons going to the States begging for us are the
accredited agents of some duly organized society, with honest,
unselfish men at its head, our friends should hold them at arms'
length - that what the recently arrived fugitive most needs is
not land buying societies, not old clothes, not any substitute
for labour, but stimulation to self-development.
The
paper's most colourful writer and, later, its first full-time editor,
was Mary Ann Shadd, who was well known for her sharp tongue and
biting editorials. Shadd is acknowledged the first Black newspaper-woman
in North America; she may also have been the first woman publisher
of a newspaper in Canada. In her final article as editor she wrote:
To colored Women we have a word - we have broken the Editorial
Ice whether willingly or not for your class in America, so go
to editing as many of you who are willing and able and as soon
as you may, if you think you are ready.
The
Provincial Freeman urged refugees to educate themselves
and enter business, agriculture or the professions.Occasionally
it goaded the community. Under a heading "Lectures" it urged:
One
great subject of regret is that the colored citizens of Toronto
should so seldom attend lectures, whether the meetings are called
by those of their own number or others.It
would be well for them to meet often, to look in the face the
cause of present discords and former antagonisms, and endeavour
to do away with the just imputation of 'division, ignorance, disunion,
love of menial occupation and the like' that however much we regret
it, can be and is brought against them with so much force every
day. Why with the abundant opportunities surrounding us - the
schools, churches, associations and lectures - need the sad spectacle
our people here present be persisted in by them?
While
the Freeman urged Blacks to use all the opportunities provided
by their new country, it also reported many cases of discrimination.
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In
1854 Blacks met to oppose a plan of the Anglican CCSS (Colonial
Church and School Society) to open a normal school for their people
in Toronto. On September 20, 1854 in the Wesleyan Church, Toronto's
Blacks rejected the plan and later published three resolutions about
it; the second and third of these read:
Resolved - That should such schools be opened, and efforts made
by the Colonial Church and School Society contrary to our expressed
wish and interest, we cannot consistently, and will not, as coloured
citizens, give them our support.
Resolved - That we caution our people throughout the province
to be careful as to how they give their influence and support
to institutions and efforts whether established and made by friend
or foe, white or black, that tend to make distinction on account
of colour and to destroy the foundation of our liberties.
The
Freeman had correspondents in London, Windsor, Brantford,
Toronto and St. Catharines; it had subscribers throughout Canada
West and the United States. Its pages sparkled with newsy items
on the life of Blacks in Canada; its editorials urged a relentless
war on bigotry and slavery. Mary Ann took a lively personal part
in this war:
One
Sunday a slave boy without hat, coat, or shoes who had thus far
eluded his pursuers, was overtaken in Chatham and about to be
carried off. Mrs.
Cary [Mary Ann Shadd] tore the boy from the slave-hunters, ran
to the court-house and had the bell rung so violently that the
whole town was soon aroused. Mrs. Cary with her commanding form,
piercing eyes, and stirring voice soon had the people as indignant
as herself - denouncing in no uncertain terms the outrage perpetrated
under the British flag and demanded that these man-hunters be
driven from their midst. The
result was that the pursuers fled before the infuriated people,
happy to get away without bodily harm; . . .
Mary
Ann Shadd finally left Chatham to become a recruiter in the Union
Army during the Civil War, then a school principal and at last a
lawyer in Washington, D.C. There she died on June 5,1893. Isaac
Shadd was an avowed militant and a supporter of John Brown. In spite
of their outspokenness, he and Mary Ann gained the respect of many
of Chatham's residents.
A
letter in the Chatham Planet on March 4,1858 proclaimed:
We
the undersigned citizens of Chatham and vicinity take pleasure
in recommending the Provincial Freeman Newspaper,
published by Messrs.
1. S. Shadd and T. F. Cary and edited by Mr. Shadd and sister
(Mrs. Cary) all ardent laborers in the cause of colored people
whose elevations and improvements they are seeking to advance.
For
three years Mr. Shadd and sister have published the paper independent
of the support usually given to papers and Institutions advocating
the interests of this class and have unflinchingly held up the
standard to incite the colored people to progress, both mentally
and morally. We take, or have patronized the paper and consider
it to be a great and efficient means of improving their conditions
and prospects and also feel satisfied that wherever it has circulated
it has not only been found improving but has reflected credit
upon the colored people generally.
H.
F. Douglass, the last editor of the Freeman, believed that
those liberties were firmly rooted in the British tradition.
On March
28, 1857, during the last months of the paper's life, he urged his
readers to become totally British in sympathy. In an article headed
"The Duties of Colored Men in Canada," he wrote:
What are the duties of colored men in these provinces, who have
been forced here from American despotism and oppression? . . .We
owe everything to the country of our adoption and nothing to that
miserable, contemptible despotism and government of the U.S....Colored
men should become as thoroughly British as they can. We are opposed
to all separate organizations, whether civil, political or ecclesiastical,
that can have no other effect than that of creating a line of
demarcation; fostering if not creating a spirit of caste here,
such as colored men are compelled to suffer in the U.S.Separated
schools and churches are nuisances that should be abated as soon
as possible, they are dark and hateful relics of Yankee Negrophobia,
contrary to that healthy, social and political equality recognized
by the fundamental principles of British common law, and should
never be permitted to take root upon British soil.
The
Black press tried in vain to re-establish itself in Windsor in the
1 860s with the founding of the True Royalist and Weekly Intelligencer.
The Reverend A. R. Green, a BME (British Methodist Episcopal) preacher,
was encouraged by Bishop Nazrey to start the paper.
It
was to be devoted to ". . . the cause of Universal Liberty, Emigration,
Temperance, Religion, Agriculture, Politics, Science, Literature
and General News." The paper lasted barely a year and published
very few issues. Its failure may, in fact, have shown that the Black
community had learned well the lessons of broader interests and
independence that earlier Black editors had urged upon it, for one
critic has written:
The
True Royalist while intended for Negroes, contained little
news that was racial, rather discussing dissension within the Church
and preaching political conservatism and obedience to the Queen.
Its potential readers had left the narrowness of its editorial policy
behind and were marking new horizons as they moved into the latter
part of the nineteenth century.
*An
earlier version of this article appears in Daniel G. Hill, The Freedom-Seekers:
Blacks in Early Canada (Agincourt, Ont.: The Book Society of Canada
Ltd., 1981).
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