Blood and Daring Read online

  The Anti-Slavery Society’s connections led to visits to Canada by influential abolitionists. In April 1851, Frederick Douglass was the keynote speaker before a crowd of two thousand at St. Lawrence Hall. British abolitionist George Thompson and American abolitionist Samuel May also spoke. May brought the crowd to its feet when he exclaimed, “I ask you, members of another nation, to assist in our over throwing one of the institutions of my country.”17

  Many important Americans were already in Canada doing what May advocated. Harriet Tubman, for instance, had been born a Maryland slave, but in 1849 had fled to freedom in Canada. In 1850, she had begun a courageous campaign of risking her life to travel back over the border again and again, eventually rescuing about seventy people.* In 1851, Tubman took up residence in St. Catharines, where she continued her efforts until moving back to the United States to serve in the Civil War. In 1850, Henry Bibb founded a paper called the Voice of the Fugitive and became an important member of the Canadian abolitionist movement. Mary Ann Shadd was born a freewoman and was running a successful school for freed Blacks in Wilmington, Delaware, when the fallout from the Fugitive Slave Law led her and her brother Isaac to move to Canada. She also took a home in Windsor. With her founding of the Provincial Freeman in March 1853, she became North America’s first female newspaper publisher. While neither Bibb’s nor Shadd’s paper was as influential as the Globe, they, along with others who came and went, added voice to the abolitionist cause and, in so doing, added to the friction dividing the American North and South.

  The growing links between the American and Canadian abolitionist movements were demonstrated in September 1851, when fifty-three delegates from the United States and Canada gathered at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Hall for the inauguration of the North American Convention of Colored Freemen. While Boston had been considered as a site for the first meeting, members determined that Toronto was safer. The three goals established were that American Blacks should continue to be encouraged to escape to Canada, that Canada must continue to be a comfortable asylum for those fleeing slavery or threats of kidnapping, and that assistance in resettlement must be offered to all who came. It was also determined that Toronto would be headquarters for the cross-border abolitionist efforts, with branch offices in major American cities. This effort and others resulted in even more correspondence between Canadian and American abolitionists, and more influential Americans such as William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, and Arthur and Lewis Tappan began Canadian speaking and fundraising tours.

  JOHN BROWN’S RAID

  In October 1859, passionate and perhaps unstable American white abolitionist John Brown shook the movement on both sides of the border and sent tremors through the American body politic with a raid on the federal armoury and arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, fifty miles northwest of Washington. His goal was to capture weapons and ammunition as the first step in instigating a widespread slave insurrection, which he believed would lead to the creation of an African-American state for freed slaves in western Virginia. The year before the raid, John Brown had come to Canada.

  In the spring of 1858, Brown spoke at a number of towns in Canada West. In April he took a room in Chatham at the home of Isaac Shadd, Mary Ann’s brother. He organized a convention that was held in Chatham on May 8 and 10, designed to further publicize his bold plan while raising money and recruits. Twelve white and thirty-three Black men attended. The convention wrote a constitution and appointed people to positions that created the trappings of a provisional government, with Brown as commander-in-chief. In the end, only one former slave, Osborne Anderson, accompanied Brown back across the border.

  The Harper’s Ferry Raid turned to fiasco, as Brown and many of his compatriots were captured by marines led by a young colonel named Robert E. Lee. Three of Brown’s men escaped to Canada. One of them, physician Samuel Gridley Howe, summarized the role he believed Canada would play in the fight against slavery in a letter to a fellow American abolitionist: “I look with the more interest upon Canada, because it seems to me she is to be the great and reliable ally of the Northern States, in the coming struggle with slavery.”18

  Meanwhile, Brown’s case intrigued both Canadians and Americans. The documents created in Chatham the year before played a significant role in his trial and his conviction for treason, conspiracy with slaves to rebel, and murder in the first degree.19 When Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, a martyr was created. While vilified in the American south, Brown was celebrated in many Canadian quarters. The Globe called Brown “the hero of Harper’s Ferry.”20 In another article it posited that Brown would be fondly remembered “as a brave man who periled property, family, life itself for an alien race.”21 On the day of his funeral, bells tolled in many Windsor, Chatham, Hamilton, Montreal and Toronto churches, and many held memorial services and collected money for his widow.

  Southern leaders knew of the raid’s Canadian connection and that association further poisoned thoughts about Canada, its abolitionist movement, and its opposition to Southern beliefs and goals. Virginia’s governor Henry Wise, for instance, addressed his legislature shortly after Brown’s hanging and spoke stingingly of Canada’s role in the raid. Wise reported: “It was an extraordinary and actual invasion, by a sectional organization specially upon slaveholders and upon their property in negro slaves … a provisional government was attempted in a British province, by our own countrymen, united to us in the faith of confederacy, combined with Canadians to invade the slave holding states.”22

  The New York Herald, always ready to stir up trouble between the United States, Britain and its North American colonies, was among many newspapers that spoke of the Canadian connection to the raid, and noted the widespread popular ire directed toward Canadians who were now apparently not only hurting and insulting the South by providing refuge to runaway slaves, but also serving as a base for invasion and insurrection. A Herald editorial that was reprinted in the December 28, 1859, edition of the Globe demanded that the president take action to end Canada’s ability to serve as a sanctuary for fugitive slaves and headquarters for those plotting treason. It quoted Governor Wise as suggesting that Canada’s role in condoning the Harper’s Ferry raid was sufficient to provoke war with Britain and promising, “The war will be carried into Canada.”23

  Perhaps most vehement in its opinion of Canada was the Southern Review. It condemned Canada for its years of providing a terminus for the Underground Railroad, and now for its complicity in the Brown Raid, and spoke of “the vile, sensuous, animal, brutal, infidel, superstitious, Democracy of Canada.”24

  This was the charged environment—and the Canada—in which John Anderson found himself. Canada was the mystical Canaan of inspirational Negro spirituals, a place where slavery was but a memory. Yet it seethed with many of the same moral, political, economic and social debates concerning racial equality that for generations had divided America.

  A HUNTED MAN

  While happy with the beginnings of a new life as a free man, Anderson missed his wife terribly. One evening in the early spring of 1854, four months after arriving in Canada, he broke down in tears and told one of his sympathetic teachers, an American social reformer named Laura Haviland, of how separation from his wife and family was breaking his heart. With Haviland’s help, he composed a letter to Marie telling proudly of his adventures. Guessing that Missouri authorities were likely still after him, Haviland offered to have the letter mailed from a friend in Michigan to Lewis Tomlin in Missouri, who would, in turn, forward it to Marie.

  Within weeks it looked as if the letter had succeeded in reaching its destination, for a reply arrived saying that Tomlin had arranged to steal Marie away from her owner, and that he and a man named Warren would bring her and the children north. The family could be reunited in Detroit. It sounded good, but Anderson and Haviland were suspicious. It seemed too easy.

  In late April, Haviland travelled to Michigan and met with Warren. She became wary of the man with the southern accent. After the meeting
she immediately sent word to Anderson that Warren was most certainly a slave catcher. Anderson was instantly on the run again.

  Swallowing the pain of dashed dreams, Anderson told friends he was going north to Sault Ste. Marie, but then he took the train to Chatham. He introduced himself as James Hamilton to the first African-Canadian men he saw and was immediately welcomed into the town’s eight-hundred-member community of fugitive slaves and freemen.25 In a couple of days a group of white men with southern accents arrived in town asking about a slave named Jack who had escaped from Missouri and killed a man. No one betrayed him. On the contrary, one evening a group of Black men cornered and surrounded a particularly aggressive slave catcher named Brown. They taunted the entrapped man, producing a rope and threatening to lynch him. Brown drew a pistol and barely escaped with his life.

  Anderson had no way of knowing that Missouri authorities had posted a thousand-dollar bond for his return after his love-torn letter was intercepted by the Howard County police. Tomlin, to whom Haviland had forwarded the letter, was wrongfully convicted of having helped Anderson to escape. He had been ruthlessly whipped and banished from the county, and Warren and Brown had been hired to bring Anderson back to Missouri.

  With reports of Anderson’s new disappearance, the authorities of Howard County took the case to Missouri governor Robert Stewart. He wrote to Canada’s governor general, Lord Elgin, asking for his assistance. Haviland later wrote that a New Orleans attorney told her that, by that point, Anderson had become known across the South. He had become the symbol of all that was wrong with the lenient Northerners and Canadians who attracted and harboured criminals. He had told her: “We are going to have Anderson by hook or by crook; we will have him by fair means or foul; the South is determined to have that man.”26

  Anderson fled again. He moved to Brantford and learned to be a mason and plasterer. With his work ethic, intelligence and new vocational skills, and ability to read, write and keep ledgers, he quickly set out on his own as a successful independent contractor. After four years, in 1858, he had saved enough to purchase a house. Those chasing him seemed to have forgotten him. But it would not last.

  While Anderson was hiding in plain sight, American slave interests became even more convinced that abolitionists and their Canadian accomplices were dangerous threats to their way of life. As the abolitionist movement grew more powerful on both sides of the border, more incidents of violence were sparked by slave catchers attempting to capture and return alleged fugitive slaves. A Democratic Mississippi congressman summed up Southern rage at the increasingly frustrating situation in a speech to the House of Representatives:

  Men cannot afford to own slaves when, by crossing an imaginary line, they fall into the hands of our enemies and friends who aid them in their flight.… Do you think, gentlemen, that we will remain quiet while this is being done? The south will never submit to that state of things. It matters not what evils come upon us; it matters not how deep we may have to wade through blood; we are bound to keep our slaves and their present condition.27

  Letters from angry Southern governors demanding the return of slaves had been sent to Canadian political leaders as far back as the 1820s. Canadian replies were blunt. In an 1829 response to Illinois governor Ninian Edwards, for instance, Sir James Kemp of the Canadian Executive Council explained that the slave under discussion would not be returned: “The state of slavery is not recognized in the law of Canada nor does the law admit that any Man can be the proprietor of another.”28 The case was closed.

  In 1833, the Canadian government had attempted to bring order to the cross-border problems with the passage of the Fugitive Offenders Act. It did little to placate Southern governors, however, for it stated in law what had long been common practice; that is, a person would be returned to the United States only if it was clear that he or she had committed a crime for which an arrest could be made in Canada. Stealing oneself was clearly not a Canadian crime, so the law promised that no escaped slaves would be returned simply because they had once been slaves in America.

  Abraham Johnson escaped from a Virginia plantation on a stolen horse in 1834. He eventually found his way to Detroit and Windsor, but was captured by a slave catcher. Canadian authorities intervened and refused to allow Johnson to be returned to the United States. Michigan’s territorial governor Stevens Mason involved himself in the case, arguing that he wanted Johnson back not because he was a slave but because he had committed a capital crime: horse theft. Mason was told that while Johnson had indeed stolen the horse, he had done so in order to escape slavery and so the crime was justifiable. A precedent was set. It appeared that anyone could do just about anything as long as it was part of an effort to escape slavery.

  American authorities were not surprisingly displeased by the Canadian laws and the way they were being interpreted and enforced. In 1842, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty had been negotiated between Britain’s privy councillor Alexander Baring, First Baron of Ashburton, and American secretary of state Daniel Webster. Their primary goal was to settle the boundary disputes on the Maine–New Brunswick border and on Lake Superior’s northwest shore. Tangential to the negotiations were questions arising from the Creole Affair. In 1841, a ship called the Creole was transporting 135 American slaves from Virginia to New Orleans when the slaves took control of the ship. Several of the nineteen crew members were killed. The ship was forced to shore at British-controlled Nassau, where authorities freed the slaves. Despite President Tyler’s pleas and threats, the slaves were not returned. Eager to alleviate the tension that had developed from the incident and to avoid future misunderstandings, Ashburton and Webster wrote up extradition procedures and tacked them on to the agreement in a tenth article of the treaty. They would leave it to others to establish a more complete extradition agreement later.* By 1859, however, later had yet to arrive. Consequently, Anderson’s life was to be decided by an interpretation of the treaty’s hastily devised tenth article.

  Anderson had a friend named Wynne, whom he had known for some time. The two had shared stories of escape and for years Wynne had known Anderson’s true identity, of his having stabbed a man while fleeing, and of the Missouri officials probably still on his trail. As sometimes happens with friends, a trivial disagreement in the spring of 1860 turned into a falling out. But Wynne took it further. He reported Anderson to a local magistrate named William Matthews, who did as his duty implied. The next day, while Anderson was tapping a maple tree, a sheriff approached and without incident arrested him.

  While Anderson languished in the Brantford jail, Matthews sent a message to police in Detroit. They dispatched Samuel Port with the original Missouri warrant for Anderson’s arrest for having killed Digges. At a brief hearing, despite never having seen Anderson before, Port identified him as Digges’s slayer. Matthews then informed Port that Anderson would be held until the proper extradition papers were received. American detective James Gunning took charge of the case and directed cables to Missouri and Washington asking for help. American secretary of state Lewis Cass became personally involved in expediting the matter.

  While waiting for the American response, Matthews interviewed Anderson, who was forthright about his escape and about having stabbed a man who was trying to stop him. Until that conversation, Anderson did not know Digges’s name or the fact that he had died of his wounds.

  Influential British abolitionist John Scoble, who in 1851 had moved to Canada and become involved in the Canadian abolitionist movement, understood the importance of the case and found a lawyer to represent Anderson. He hired successful Hamilton attorney Samuel Black Freeman who, eight years previously, had been a founding member of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. Freeman had read of the Anderson case and it had moved him.

  Freeman met with Anderson, then Matthews. He argued that according to British and Canadian law, there was no Canadian charge pending against Anderson and so no reason to keep him jailed. The persuasive lawyer threatened that if Anderson were not immediatel
y freed, he would take the case to a higher court.

  While Matthews considered his options, Scoble saw to it that Canadian newspapers brought Anderson’s story to the largely anti-slavery public. In an April 9 editorial, the Globe, like most others, took a protective stance: “Every care will be taken that he is not delivered to the United States authorities for such a crime.”29 Meanwhile, a number of abolitionist sympathizers and members of the Anti-Slavery Society sent letters to Canadian government officials, all demanding that Matthews free Anderson.

  Detective Gunning finally arrived on April 30 with extradition papers, but he was too late. Anderson was gone. Matthews had ordered him released just two days earlier, and Freeman and Scoble had helped him disappear.

  Anderson settled this time in the small town of Simcoe, where he found lodging within the town’s community of fugitive ex-slaves. Undeterred, however, Gunning, a Detroit detective named Julius Blodgett, and a hired tracker set after their man. Anderson was protected and the hunters misdirected, but they were pugnaciously persistent. On August 27 Anderson was discovered and after a brief struggle hauled to Simcoe’s Norfolk County jail.

  Having had an apparent change of heart, brought on, some said, by a promise to share in Missouri’s thousand-dollar bounty, Magistrate Matthews petitioned to have Anderson returned to Brantford, and sent a group of police officers to carry out his orders. But Crown lawyers and Simcoe magistrates would not give him up. Meanwhile, newspapers told the tale of Anderson’s arrest and the stories brought abolitionists and Simcoe’s Black community out in force, demanding that the prisoner be set free.

  Matthews eventually won the day and Anderson was returned to Brantford. He was accompanied along the entire route by white abolitionists and Black friends and supporters. They camped outside the Brantford jail to ensure that the Americans did not simply whisk their prisoner back over the border without Canadian due process. Inside, Anderson lay handcuffed and alone in a small cell. He was allowed to see only his lawyer.