There are many structures and monuments throughout Ontario connected to the province’s Black community, whose history extends back into the early 19th Century. Although London had a relatively small Black community until the 1980s, there are several historic sites and monuments from the pre-Civil War era, when Canada was a safe haven for thousands of escaped slaves. There are also many resources in London for Black History studies, some of which are listed.
One of the first Black settlements in Canada, Wilberforce (named after the leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce [1759-1833]) was established in 1829 near the present-day community of Lucan, 15 miles north of London, by the number of free Blacks from Cincinnati. In Ohio, violence and prejudice had escalated with the strict enforcement of the state’s “Black Laws” which, among other things, required free Blacks to register and provide a $500 bond for “good behaviour.”
The most successful of the early Black communities was the Elgin Settlement, established in 1849 on a clergy reserve just southwest of Chatham by the Reverend William King, a Presbyterian minister from Ireland. He brought several freed slaves to the settlement that year, which, by the mid-1850s, had attracted over 1,000 other settlers, most of whom were former slaves. It became a very successful farming community, with its own limber mill, brick factory, and potash industry.
Other settlements were established to provide homes and education for fugitive slaves. White abolitionists Hiram Wilson and James Canning Fuller, and the Black abolitionist and former slave Josiah Henson founded the British-American Institute near present-day Dresden. The school became the nucleus for a large Black community of the “Dawn Settlement”, named for the lands it occupied in what was then the township of Dawn. For over 10 years the school was a source of vocational instruction for both young people and adult students, many of whom worked either on the land around the Institute or in the settlement’s sawmill, which produced hardwood lumber.
Many of Upper Canada’s earliest Black settlers were members of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church which formed an Upper Canada Conference in 1840. Soon a London Circuit of the AME was formed and in 1848 a church was built on Thames Street, the centre of early Black settlement in London.
The church was established in 1847 by the AME leadership in Philadelphia and was part of a large network of AME churches in Canada. It was the centre of the community’s life, known in the 1940s and 1950s for its Southern-style fowl suppers, held each November. The church remains active today despite a serious fire in 1991.
Site of the first convention of the Canadian League for the Advancement of Coloured People, 1927 It “is not what we were yesterday, not yet is it what we are today that gives us so much hope, but it is, according to the handwriting on the wall, what we shall be tomorrow. And thus we have chosen our name: The Dawn of Tomorrow” Robert Paris Edwards, Associate Editor Dawn of Tomorrow, July 14, 1923
Richard B. Harrison (1864-1935) was born in London to parents Thomas Harrison and Isabella Benton, both former slaves who had escaped to Canada in the 1850s. The family remained in London until 1880 when they moved to Detroit, where Harrison trained as an elocutionist. His stage work, which took him all over Canada and the United States, was comprised of dramatic monologues, as well as readings of poetry and literature.
Monday to Friday, 10am to 4:30pm, 519-661-2111, ext. 81111 *please call in advance of your visit as many items must be retrieved prior to your arrival. Western’s Black history holdings have a broad focus on the southwestern Ontario region. These can be found at the University of Western Ontario Archives.
The Ivey Family London Room has a large number of issues of The Dawn of Tomorrow from July 14, 1923 to the present as well as London Free Press newspaper clipping files on the Black community and the Beth Emmanuel Church, both of which are found in London, Ontario, Canada.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This tour will demonstrate the various locations fugitive slaves made names for themselves and became successful in different ways after their emancipation or escape.
