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Borders, Battles and Bigotry: The Trials of Dr. Alexander and Mary AugustaFrontières, combats et préjudice : les épreuves du docteur Alexandre Augusta et de Mary Augusta
It was the day before Independence Day, 1831. As his bride, Lucie, was about to be “sold down the river” to the slave markets of New Orleans, young Thornton Blackburn planned a daring—and successful—daylight escape from Louisville. But they were discovered by slave catchers in Michigan and slated to return to Kentucky in chains, until the black community rallied to their cause. The Blackburn Riots of 1833 was the first racial uprising in Detroit history.
The couple was spirited across the river to Canada, but their safety proved illusory. In June 1833, Michigan’s governor demanded their extradition. The Blackburn case was the first serious legal dispute between Canada and the United States regarding the Underground Railroad. The impassioned defense of the Blackburns by Canada’s lieutenant governor set precedents for all future fugitive-slave cases.
The Blackburns settled in Toronto and founded the city’s first taxi business. But they never forgot the millions who still suffered in slavery. Working with prominent abolitionists, Thornton and Lucie made their home a haven for runaways. The Blackburns died in the 1890s, and their fascinating tale was lost to history. Lost, that is, until a chance archaeological discovery in a downtown Toronto school yard brought the story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn again to light.
The young colonial city of Toronto was a landing place for many newcomers to Canada, and was a city of opportunity. The steady growth in population between 1834 and 1861 afforded women employment outside of the home, notably in the needle-trades (i.e. the roles involved in the manufacture of clothing). This article argues that the needle-trades were a significant source of employment for women in pre-industrial period Toronto and explores the social and professional distinctions between ‘dressmakers’ and ‘seamstresses’, by enumerating and aggregating women from the City Directories and 1861 census. Several biographical case studies are included to demonstrate the variety of women employed in the needle-trades, based on information from the primary source data.
As the major gateway into British North America for travelers on the Underground Railroad, the U.S./Canadian border along the Detroit River was a boundary that determined whether thousands of enslaved people of African descent could reach a place of freedom and opportunity. In A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland, editors Karolyn Smardz Frost and Veta Smith Tucker explore the experiences of the area’s freedom-seekers and advocates, both black and white, against the backdrop of the social forces-legal, political, social, religious, and economic-that shaped the meaning of race and management of slavery on both sides of the river.In five parts, contributors trace the beginnings of and necessity for transnational abolitionist activism in this unique borderland, and the legal and political pressures, coupled with African Americans’ irrepressible quest for freedom, that led to the growth of the Underground Railroad. A Fluid Frontier details the founding of African Canadian settlements in the Detroit River region in the first decades of the nineteenth century with a focus on the strong and enduring bonds of family, faith, and resistance that formed between communities in Michigan and what is now Ontario. New scholarship offers unique insight into the early history of slavery and resistance in the region and describes individual journeys: the perilous crossing into Canada of sixteen-year-old Caroline Quarlls, who was enslaved by her own aunt and uncle; the escape of the Crosswhite family, who eluded slave catchers in Marshall, Michigan, with the help of others in the town; and the international crisis sparked by the escape of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn and others.With a foreword by David W. Blight, A Fluid Frontier is a truly bi-national collection, with contributors and editors evenly split between specialists in Canadian and American history, representing both community and academic historians. Scholars of the Underground Railroad as well as those in borderland studies will appreciate the interdisciplinary mix and unique contributions of this volume. © 2016 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201.
The French named the body of water that connects the upper Great Lakes to the lower ones “the detroit,” meaning “strait.” As a main artery of the Great Lakes and the river system of that region, the Detroit River has come to exert a crucial influence on the land and people on both its banks and adjacent areas. From earliest times, this river served as a natural border between the various First Nations groups that first settled the region, including the Fox, the Ojibway, the Pottowatami, and the Ottawa, and the Europeans who came later.1 The first Europeans, the French, who settled and traded in the area under the lead of Lamothe Cadillac, founded the town of Detroit in 1701. This was on the side that would eventually become “American.” Soon, another settlement was established on the south bank of the river, the side that would become “Canadian.” Under the French regime, both sides were considered units of the same polity, the colony of New France.2
Commissioned surgeon of colored volunteers, April 4, 1863, with the rank of Major. Commissioned regimental surgeon on the 7th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, October 2, 1863. Brevet Lieutenant Colonel of Volunteers, March 13, 1865, for faithful and meritorious services--mustered out October 13, 1866. So reads the tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery of Alexander Thomas Augusta, the first black surgeon commissioned in the Union Army during the Civil War and the first black officer-rank soldier to be buried at Arlington Cemetery. He was also instrumental in founding the institutions that later became the hospital and medical college of Howard University and the National Medical Association.
Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the South of America
- Fergus M Bordewich
BORDEWICH, Fergus M. 2015. Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad
and the War for the South of America. New York: Harper-Collins.
The Promised Land: History and Historiography of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent's Settlements and Beyond
- Ebanda De B'beri
- Boulou
EBANDA DE B'BERI, Boulou et al. 2014. The Promised Land: History and
Historiography of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent's Settlements and
Beyond. Toronto: University of Toronto Press
Alexander T. Augusta (1825-1890)
- Jimmy B Fenison
- Nd
FENISON, Jimmy B. nd. "Alexander T. Augusta (1825-1890)." Black Past.
The Indomitable Dr. Augusta: The First Black Physician in the US Army
- Gerald Henig
HENIG, Gerald. 2013. "The Indomitable Dr. Augusta: The First Black Physician
in the US Army." Army History 87 (Spring): 22-31.
A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s-1960s
- Franca Iocovetta
IOCOVETTA, Franca, et al. 1998. A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers,
and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s-1960s. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press.
The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada
- Benjamin Drew
DREW, Benjamin. 2008. The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada.
Toronto: Dundurn Press. First edition 1856.
Black Refugees in Canada: Accounts of Escape during the Era of Slavery
- George Hendrick
HENDRICK, George and Willene HENDRICK. 2010. Black Refugees in
Canada: Accounts of Escape during the Era of Slavery. Jefferson: McFarlane &
Co., Inc.
The Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada
- Daniel Hill
HILL, Daniel. 1981. The Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada. Agincourt:
The Book Society of Canada, Ltd.
"Historic Narrative." 2018. St. Francis Academy. Accessed July 31, 2018.
https://www.sfacademy.org/about-us/history-tradition/historicnarrative.
My Brother's Keeper: African Canadians and the American Civil War
- Bryan Prince
PRINCE, Bryan. 2015. My Brother's Keeper: African Canadians and the
American Civil War. Toronto: Dundurn Press.
Toronto of Old, 1873
- Henry Scadding
SCADDING, Henry. 1966. Toronto of Old, 1873. Toronto: Oxford University
Press.
A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood
- Thomas Smallwood
SMALLWOOD, Thomas. 2000. A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood. Richard
Almont, ed. Toronto: The Mercury Press.
Canada's Forgotten Slaves: Two Hundred Years of Bondage
- Marcel Trudel
Unsung Heroes”. Shondaland. Accessed
- Beverly Jenkins