Samuel Ringgold Ward to Frederick Douglass, November 27, 1851
Letters from Canada.—No. I.
Frederick Douglass, Esq.: Dear Sir:—I thank you for the kind and friendly manner in which you were pleased to notice the demise of the Impartial Citizen. I thank you the more for this token of your friendly regard, as I contrast it with a very different notice from another quarter. It may be, that ere the Editor of that paper shall have seen as much service as you and I have seen in editorial labor, that he will feel the need of better sympathy from the craft. I take this opportunity of expressing my grateful sense to yourself and to all the American members of a profession which I fondly loved, [(]but which I have left forever) for this very generous courtesy to me during my four years of connection with that department of reformatory labor.
Many of your readers may be, as I was, but very imperfectly informed in regard to Canada. And yet, this very Canada bears very important relations to the cause of Human Freedom in North America. Until your Northern politicians shall determine to allow the Northern States to become, in the full sense of the term, free states, there will always be need of some such refuge for American fugitives, as Canada is. Your slaves are not contented and happy. They ever will avail themselves of all opportunities offered them, in the profidence of God, to escape from their bondage. And while the "vigorous prosecution" of the Fugitive Act demonstrates that the non-slaveholding states are not safe as refuges from the man-hunter they will seek some other land as a land of safety. Canada, being nearer and more congenial than the West Indies, Novia Scotia, New Brunswick or Prince Edward's Island, will be the adopted home of the majority of those who, in future, shall flee from republican slavery and despotism.
Then, if in Canada, American refugees shall prove themselves to be equal to any and every other class of Her Majesty's provincial subjects—if they, in education, in morals, in the acquisition of property, in the cultivation of refinement in manners, in manly self respect—shall prove themselves equal to the Scotch, Irish, English or Dutch settlers in the Province, how proudly can the abolitionists of your country point to them as so many practical refutations of the falsehoods of Southern slaveholders, Northern Colonizationists and their [illegible]! How brilliant and irresistable would be the attraction held up before the cursed masses in the land of bondage! How impossible for their task masters so to increase the rigors of their bondage as to keep them in chains. Then, too those who are here would make those newly arriving much more comfortable than we can now, and that fact would add to the attractions of Canada for the slave.
If, on the other hand, we should be indolent, clinging to our slavery [illegible], making no progress in mental, moral, and religious improvement, and so making ourselves beneath all other classes of peasantry, the enemies of the black man in the United States and in Canada, (for we have enemies here as well as there,) would [rejoice] to point to us as a living demonstration of negro inferiority. The withering influence of this upon the cause of freedom in your midst would make you feel indeed, how [illegible]mate for evil are the relations of the United States and Canada, touching the [illegible] very cause!
Be assured, Mr. Douglass, that the friends of freedom on this side of the line, will never be forgetful of these important ideas. And I hope I shall be able to promise in behalf of my fellow citizens of Africo American origin, that the cause of humanity in your states shall receive no detriment from us in our moral behavior here. I start, in a few days, on a tour through the western part of the province. I shall visit every settlement of the black people, and I shall do myself the pleasure of communicating to our friends in the United States through your columns, in respect to what I shall find. I hope the statements I shall make will not be without interest to you and your readers.
Allow me, just now, to say a few things concerning Canada in general, Toronto in particular, and a few meetings I have attended. Very ignorant are most persons in your country concerning Canada. While in the United States, I shared in that ignorance to a most shameful extent. Like others, I had visited Canada some five or six times before I came here to reside. But such hasty calls give one no just views of things as they are here. The climate is as mild as that of any portion of New York State. Do not contradict me, for you know there is no part of the country where climate differs more, in different localities, than in your state. Warsaw, Geneva, Ithaca and Syracuse differ materially from regions surrounding them within a mile or two. Peterboro, Pompey, Cortland and the north eastern counties, during at least nine months in the year, give me a tolerable correct idea of what Nova Zembia might be. So in Canada, Montreal, Quebec and even Kingston are very much colder than Toronto, Hamilton, St. Catherines, London and the country surrounding them, and west of them. The present autumn, we have less cold weather than there has been in Syracuse. We had a fall of snow a day or two since, furnishing a little sleighing; but it is rapidly disappearing under a warm sunshine. This 27th day of November, (and its predecessors for almost six weeks,) is as pleasant a day as any I ever enjoyed in New Jersey, of the same time of the year. We have an occasional day in winter when the thermometer falls below zero, and as a Yankee once said, "It might be colder if the thermometer was longer." But such "spells" are shorter and less frequent than at Boston or indeed Rochester.
Further up, in the counties of Kent, Lambton, Haldimand, Essex, [Niagara], &c., &c., the [climate] is equal to that of New Jersey, and the [productions] of the same class as Jersey [productions]: peaches, nectarines, grapes, [illegible], and sweet potatoes!! not excepted. [Illegible] grows as luxuriantly in these coun[illegible] in Marland. Wheat is as common [illegible] of a Canadian farm as of a [illegible] Genesee county farm, and its quan[illegible] and its quality as good, [illegible] Oak, hickory, pine and [illegible] are plenty, while beech, maple, [illegible] everywhere. [illegible] rivers, the [illegible] not, than ours. The St. Lawrence is a succession of magnificent bays, be[illegible] with groups of most beautiful islands, [of] most every variety, size and appearance. [Illegible] is not inferior to your Hudson [illegible] smaller streams irrigate our [illegible] and in size compare most [illegible] Seneca, Genesee, Black [illegible] Mohawk rivers. Of course, we share with [illegible] the navigation of Lakes Huron, Ontario, [Erie, &c.]. The fish we derive from them is [illegible] item among our "creature com[forts."]
[Illegible] brings a better price than would [illegible] generally. The market here [illegible] than the Cleveland, Columbus, [illegible] Detroit market. Sixty cents [illegible] price, while many farmers [illegible] of the thousand they grow [illegible] than sixty five. The average price [illegible] states, is fifty cents.
[Illegible] a good price here, but the de[illegible] the price is so good, that [illegible] a good market or on a [illegible] river, pays for his land by the sale [illegible] wood. And yet I buy wood cheaper [illegible] than in Syracuse. Provisions, rent, [illegible] are lower here than in most parts of New York State. Wild land of the most su[illegible] can be purchased at from two [illegible] to four dollars per acre.
[illegible] some twenty five thousand [illegible]. It is the metropolis of [illegible]. It [does] more business than [illegible] I know of. During the [illegible] betwixt this port [illegible] Lewiston, where there is railroad connec[tion] via Buffalo, with New York and Boston. [Illegible] an advantage not enjoyed by Chicago, [illegible], Cleveland, or Cincinnati. This cir[cumstance] gives Toronto an immense whole[illegible]. The retail business of this city is [illegible]. In provisions more business is [illegible] than in any city of double the size [in] North America. [Illegible] thousand fares, especially [illegible] with some of the most [illegible] stores and shops to be found any[where]. Washington st., Boston, Broadway, New York, Chestnut st., Philadelphia, present but few specimens of greater elegance and taste.
There is no limited amount of religion, [illegible] of religious profession in Toronto. Everybody goes to church on Sunday, and churches [illegible] the various denominations abound.—The [Methodist sect] seems to be divided into [illegible] parties here than in the United States.
On the [subject] of Temperance, Toronto is [behind] many places among you. I mean Toronto is what your cities are rapidly becoming. To drink alcohol as a common [beverage] is neither unfashionable nor un[illegible]. The traffic is in no wise discreditable. But in anti-slavery, the Torontoese are in advance of the people of any American city, [illegible] Syracuse. True, there is negrophobia here, and there is pro-slaveryism, but it does not prevail here as with you. As a specimen of negrophobia, let me refer you to Captain Kerr—don't [...]—formerly of the steamer Ad[miral,] now of the America, running betwixt [Lewiston] and Toronto. A more perfect specimen of what I am speaking of is not to be found this side of hades, than Captain Robert Kerr, except it be his chambermaind. This Robert Kerr allows no black person a cabin passage in his boat. My wife, son and three daughters, were ordered out of the Admiral, by the ill bred cabin maid on the 13th inst., she said, and so said the purser, by the imperious orders of his Kerr-ship.—It was a cold, comfortless night, but Mrs. Ward and her children were ordered to sit upon deck the live-long night. There's a piece of Canadian negrophobia of the genus Kerr. But the Captain of the Maple Leaf,
when on the same route, instead of putting on these Kerrish airs, showed himself "superior to" Kerr's "conception of himself," as Emmett said to Lord Norbury. What nebrophobia there is here, has a two fold source of encouragement among the black people of Toronto.
In the first place, our people keep up separate "African" and other colored churches. In one of these, the Bethel Church, the most indecent, disgusting, ranting and stuff is voided every Sunday that ever an audience listened to. The meetings held there, are but little short of a perfect public nuisance.—The only conceivable effect of such a meeting is to increase and multiply prejudice. I deplore it as much as I deplore any one of the evil incidents of our former unhappy condition.
In the second place, certain of the colored inhabitants of this city of lighter complexion keep themselves aloof from the colored people generally, and show no sort of fellowship with them. They are just a little too white to be black, one would judge from their actions. Now, were they born in the British Empire, and had they never been identified with the cursed negro race of the United States, this snobism would seem natural and plausible. But they are like you and me, natives of the South, and some of them, like you and me, ex-slaves. The ridiculousness of this very, very small aping of aristocracy, is sufficiently disgusting besure, but its sanction and encouragement of negro-hate, makes it especially condemnable. Such folks ought to be reckoned among our enemies. They are not friends, surely.
I have had the pleasure of attending several anti-slavery meetings in this city and county. The first was in the later part of October, in the Congregational Church.—Rev. Mr. Roof presided, and speeches were made by Messrs. J. W. Loguen of Syracuse, Rev. Dr. Burns and Professor Lillie. The second and third were some twenty odd miles from here, in the country, among the farmers. The fourth was held night before last in the Free Presbyterian Church, Rev. Dr. Willis presiding. It was my privilege to speak at each of these meetings. The reception given me on each occasion, was every way gratifying.
We have had one meeting in Toronto among the colored people at the First Baptist Church, (Elder Derby's,) and we have another on Monday next. Many more will be held in other places during the winter.
Your obedient servant,
S. R. W.
Toronto, Nov. 27th, 1851.