Ontario's African-Canadian Heritage by Karolyn Smardz Frost

Author:Karolyn Smardz Frost
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS000000, HIS006000
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2009-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

15

Canadian Negroes and the Rebellion of 1837

Journal of Negro History, vol. 7, no. 4 (October 1922), 377–79

There are a number of interesting references in the literature of the times to the part played by Negro refugees in defending the frontier of Canada during the troubles of 1837–38. The outbreaks of rebellion in both Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 were followed by a series of petty attacks along the border in which American sympathizers participated.

Sandwich, on the Detroit River, was one of the objectives of the attacking parties, and there were also threats on the Niagara River frontier. One of the parties of “rebels” had taken possession of Navy Island, in the Niagara River, and a small ship, the Caroline, was used for conveying supplies. A Canadian party under the command of Commander Andrew Drew crossed the river, seized the ship and, after setting it on fire, allowed it to drift over the falls. This gave rise to an international issue and was the occasion of much bluster on both sides of the border that happily ended as bluster. All along the border on the American side there were “Hunter’s Lodges”1 organized during 1838, and this movement, joined with the widespread political disaffection, made the times unhappy for the Canadian provinces.

Sir Francis Bond Head, who was governor of Upper Canada when the troubles of 1837–38 began, and whose conduct did not tend materially to quelling the unrest, wrote his “apologia” a couple of years later. In it, he speaks of the loyalty of the coloured people, almost all of whom were refugees from slavery. He says:

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