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One of Elgin’s most significant accomplishments was the establishment of the Buxton Mission School, which gained a reputation for its high-quality education, attracting almost as many White students as Black.     Today, the community of Buxton is home to many descendants of the Elgin Settlement’s first inhabitants. The settlement was named for the Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of Canada, who agreed to support the use of the land, while the community was named for Sir Thomas Buxton, a British abolitionist who introduced the Emancipation Bill (1834) that freed almost 800,000 slaves, primarily in the British West Indies. The settlement is now a National Historic Site and a plaque is located next to the museum at 21975 A.D. Shadd Road.

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.

Elgin (Buxton National Historical Site and Museum)

This tour will demonstrate the various locations fugitive slaves made names for themselves and became successful in different ways after their emancipation or escape.

People and Places: Black History Tour (London and Southwestern Ontario)

Blacks in Canada Before the Civil WarBy 1860, more than 200,000 Blacks could be found in Canada West (Upper Canada prior to 1841), most of whom had left the United States in order to escape either slavery or the restrictive life free Blacks were forced to lead even in the northern states in the years before the Civil War. While the free Blacks could emigrate on their own, most of the escaped slaves, known as ‘fugitives,’ arrived in Canada via the Underground Railroad which developed in the 1820s and 1830s. The Underground Railroad was a network of escape routes and sanctuaries manned by abolitionists, Quakers and former slaves, who provided food, lodging, directions and transportation. In some cases, fugitive slaves traveled as much as 1000 miles with little more than a compass and a loaf of bread.In strictly legal terms, Canada West was a haven for Blacks, slaves and free. Although slavery was practiced within the province in the 17th and 18th centuries, the number of slaves remained small and a direct trade from Africa to Canada was never established. The Upper Canadian Act Against Slavery (1793) prohibited the importation of slaves into the province and by 1834, slavery itself was declared illegal throughout the British Empire. However, prejudice and racist attitudes persisted. The Black population, including former slaves and free people of colour, dramatically increased following the United States Congress’ passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Act also required state and local authorities to assist in the return of escaped slaves.While the Black population of Canada West greatly increased after 1850, there were already several Black settlements in southwestern Ontario, some of which had been specifically established to provide a home for escaped slaves. While many were short-lived, during the time they flourished, Black settlements were proof that former slaves could build successful lives for themselves, refuting claims to the contrary.

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.

Initially led by James C. Brown and later by Austin Steward, the immigrants established a farming community that, within several years, grew to include 32 families from Cincinnati and other states. After initial success, the settlement began to decline due to disagreement among the leadership, mismanagement of funds and the overall difficulty residents experienced transitioning from life in an urban setting to a rural existence in the sense bush of Upper Canada. Several of the settlers stayed on however, including Peter Butler, a former slave from Maryland whose descendants remain in the area today. An Ontario Heritage Foundation plaque describing the Wilberforce Settlement is located near the Lucan Area Heritage Museum, 192 Frank Street, Lucan. The Butler Cemetery is located just north of Lucan on the Coursey Line of Richmond Street.

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.”


Wilberforce

One of Elgin’s most significant accomplishments was the establishment of the Buxton Mission School, which gained a reputation for its high-quality education, attracting almost as many White students as Black.      Today, the community of Buxton is home to many descendants of the Elgin Settlement’s first inhabitants. The settlement was named for the Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of Canada, who agreed to support the use of the land, while the community was named for Sir Thomas Buxton, a British abolitionist who introduced the Emancipation Bill (1834) that freed almost 800,000 slaves, primarily in the British West Indies. The settlement is now a National Historic Site and a plaque is located next to the museum at 21975 A.D. Shadd Road.

The settlement’s charismatic leader was Josiah Henson, a slave from Maryland who escaped to Canada after trying to buy his freedom. He published several editions of his autobiography, and his life story served as a source for the fictional title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Today, Henson’s home near Dresden, now part of a seasonal museum site, is referred to as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the first widely distributed description of slave life. It sold 300,000 copies within a year of its appearance in 1852 and played a significant role in raising support for the abolition of slavery and in hastening the start of the Civil War.

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.

Dawn, Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site and Josiah Henson House

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.At this time, there were about 300 Black residents in London supporting a total of three churches - two Methodist and one Baptist. This population continued to increase particularly after the passage in the United States of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. The Act was one reason that caused the Canadian AME churches to break away from their American parent in 1856 and form the British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church. In the early 1860s, London’s BME minister, Rev. Lewis Chambers, reported on the success he’d had in establishing a temperance society, encouraging Sabbath schools, and in the growth of the congregation. In fact, several years later they purchased a lot on Grey Street, in an area where many in the congregation now lived. Here, they built a new church, in 1868, naming it Beth Emanuel. The little wooden chapel was then sold and for many years was used as a house.When the original church building on Thames Street was threatened with demolition in 2013, Beth Emanuel offered to provide it a new home next door. Hundreds of private citizens assisted by the City of London contributed to the relocation of the chapel.Working with Beth Emanuel, the Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project was formed, with the goal of restoring the chapel, building a small addition, and establishing a learning centre about slavery (both historic and contemporary), the Underground Railroad, and London’s Black history.

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. 

African Methodist Episcopal Church

London’s Black Community after the Civil WarIt ‘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”.      As with those elsewhere in Ontario, London’s Black community experienced a decline in numbers following the end of the Civil War in 1865, as many former slaves returned to the United States seeking family members. Even long-term residents wished to return following Emancipation and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. London’s 1878 City Directory, which lists the inhabitants of the city along with their addresses and occupations, includes 54 names each with the notation “col’d” beside it, indicating a “coloured” individual. Assuming that at least half of this group were heads of households of perhaps four persons each, there may have been a Black population of about 135 in the 1880s.      The remaining Black community held various occupations; some were labourers and some were in the boot and shoe trade; almost a quarter of the men listed, however, were barbers. Barbering became a traditional Black occupation throughout North America as Blacks sought out ways to serve the White population to achieve a level of economic independence. One of the best known of London’s Black barbers was Shadrack Martin. Born a free man in Tennessee in 1833, Martin trained as a barber and came to London when he was 21. The depression in the late 1850s caused him to return to the United States, where he earned a living as a barber on the Mississippi river boats. In 1861, he enlisted with the Union forces at the behest of the captain of a Mississippi river gunboat who wanted Martin for his steward. He stayed with the ship until 1863, when he returned to London. He worked in his own shop across from the market on King Street until World War I.      A large portion of the Black community remained in the vicinity of Grey and Maitland streets, where Beth Emmanuel British Methodist Episcopal Church had been built c. 1870. However, following 1878, the Black residents gradually disappeared from the area and Black families moving into the city after this period generally located further east.

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. 

Beth Emmanuel BME Church

Following WWI, the Black community in London began slowly to grow again, rising to about 250 people by 1930. This was the estimate made by the Canadian League for the Advancement of Coloured People, an organization founded in London in 1924. The League, whose leadership included both Black and White Londoners, was organized “to improve the condition of the coloured people of Canada,” particularly through the provision of educational opportunities for the young. The founding of the League was mainly the work of James F. Jenkins, a Georgia native who had been a resident of London since 1907. The League had an official newspaper, The Dawn of Tomorrow, which Jenkins had founded in 1923. The Dawn carried news of interest to the Black community, much of it originating in the United States. It also brought the Black communities in other Ontario towns and cities closer together by listing their activities in columns of social and church notices. It was also Jenkins’s intention to “chronicle any achievements of (the) people and any advance that would spur young people to self effort.” James Jenkins died suddenly following surgery in 1931. His widow Christina (later Mrs. Frank Howson), who had, from the beginning, supported and encouraged her husband’s work, carried on the publication of The Dawn of Tomorrow with the help of her large family. The success of the newspaper, at first a weekly and then a monthly publication, is a testament to the efforts of the Jenkins family. At its height about 1971, it had a total circulation of 48,000, and 21,000 subscribers in various parts of the world. Full files of the newspaper are at the Ivey Family London Room, London Public Library and the Archives at Western University.

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


James Jenkins and The Dawn of Tomorrow

To supplement his acting wages, Harrison maintained a railway porter’s job for many years and taught drama and speaking at several colleges. He left his last teaching post to take up the role that would make him famous, that of “De Lawd” in the play The Green Pastures. Written by Marc Connelly, the play is a theatrical version of Roark Bradford’s Ol’ Man Adam and his Chillun. Seen today as somewhat patronizing and fostering African-American stereotypes, the play was well received in its time, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1931. That same year, Harrison received the NAACP’s Springarn Medal, presented annually for outstanding achievement by a Black American. Harrison played “De Lawd” for the last five years of his life, both in the Broadway production and on the road. When The Green Pastures came to London’s Grand Theatre in October, 1934, Richard Harrison was officially welcomed back to his home and given the “freedom of the city”.

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.

Richard B. Harrison Park and Plaque, Wellington Street at the South Branch of the Thames River

Of particular significance are the Fred Landon Papers; the Canadian Black Studies Project (produced by the Cross Cultural Learner Centre); the Mary Shadd Cary and the Shadd Family papers, which relate to the Chatham area (on microfilm), as well as the Annie Straith Jamieson Papers, which contain materials on the Rev. William King. 	Also held are volumes of The Dawn of Tomorrow (1923-) and annual reports of the Canadian League for the Advancement of Coloured People, which are found in the Landon Papers and the Donald Simpson thesis, Negroes in Canada from Early Times to 1870. Several monographs in the Archive reading room detail Black history- Under the North Star: Black Communities in Upper Canada before Confederation by Donald Simpson; Ontario’s African Canadian Heritage: Collected Writings of Fred Landon 1918-1967 by Karolyn Smard et al; Wilberforce Beginnings: The Wilberforce Settlement and the Butler Family by Victoria Purcell.

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 University of Western Ontario Archives, J.J. Talman Regional Collection

There are also materials on the Wilberforce Settlement (Lucan), the Black community in Otterville (Oxford County) as well as extensive resources for genealogical research.           The Ivey Family London Room also has connecting to other different information outlets. Other resources for this research can be found through various websites and articles, courtesy of Huron University College, Chatham-Kent Historical Society, and the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum. Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865 by Peter Ripley and George E. Carter Promised Land Project at Huron University College <a href="http://www.huronuc.on.ca/research/promised_land_project" target="_blank">http://www.huronuc.on.ca/research/promised_land_project</a>Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society <a href="http://www.ckBlackhistoricalsociety.org/" target="_blank">http://www.ckBlackhistoricalsociety.org</a>Buxton National Historic Site and Museum <a href="http://www.buxtonmuseum.com/" target="_blank">http://www.buxtonmuseum.com</a>

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. 

People and Places: Black History Tour (London and Southwestern Ontario)

Elgin (Buxton National Historical Site and Museum)

Introduction

Backstory and Context