In Canada, there developed a split between those who were comfortable in continuing to use the AME name with its American affiliation, while another group felt it important to be distinct from the Americans and to align themselves more fully with the British under whose protection they had found security. By 1854, a motion was passed at the AME Annual Conference to form a separate church. In September 1856, the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada was first formed in Chatham, Ontario, under the guidance of Reverend Willis Nazrey, a former AME bishop. BME churches sprang up across Canada, as well as Bermuda, although BME churches are currently only operating in Ontario. The BME Church of Canada is now the oldest continually black Canadian owned and black Canadian operated organization in Canada.
5
Leading Others to Freedom
Because of the relatively large free black population and the supportive atmosphere that blacks experienced due to the strong anti-slavery community spirit, freedom seekers came to Philadelphia by water and land after reaching Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland. Enslaved blacks knew that freedom was possible in the northern United States because they had listened to dinnertime conversations about events off the plantation while pretending not to be paying attention. They also knew about freedom in the north because the affluence that the labour of so many slaves provided the master also allowed the master to travel around the northern United States and Canada, taking trusted slaves with them. Slave owners had the luxury of time and money, so they could indulge their passions for hunting, fishing, or visits to rustic spas or retreats.
Enslaved people were told many exaggerated stories about life in the north to discourage them from trying to leave. Even when slaves were told by their masters that all abolitionists spoke French and would make them worship idols or would boil them and eat them, or that nothing grows in the north except perhaps black-eyed peas, that blacks were executed, or that rivers and lakes were thousands of miles wide, that the climate was too cold and severe for a descendent of Africa, their own eyes, their own experiences, and their own connections told them something quite different. One freedom seeker, Lewis Clarke, reported after his determined escape that he was advised that he would have his head skinned, that Canadians would eat his children, poke out their eyes, and have the hair of his children made into collars for their coats. Still they came, despite this horrendous propaganda, because they detested slavery and they knew the truth.
Sometimes enslaved Africans travelling with their masters would be secretly advised by the free black people they would encounter that they could also achieve their freedom by crossing the river at a particular point into a “free” state, a state that had abolished slavery, or by following the North Star just a little further to Canada. If these newly educated slaves did not seek their freedom immediately because of concerns for their family still in bondage, they kept this information for future reference and passed it on to others. When these travelled slaves would return to the plantation, they would convey this knowledge to others. Even though slaves were not supposed to congregate in groups larger than five, there were ways of surreptitiously conveying information from one to another, from one plantation to another, sometimes through religious songs, hymns, spirituals, or messages with double meanings. Slave owners tried to scare slaves into remaining in bondage through misinformation to avoid the time and expense of a search party or bounty hunters, but their efforts were futile, as thousands took their chances on seeking their freedom in the north.
Every enslaved African who made it into free territory did not have to encounter Harriet Tubman to get the “directions” — they were shared by many Africans, First Nations, and abolitionists. However, not all were successful at running away and remaining clear of recapture or settlement in a secret maroon enclave. Harriet had proven success at making her way from the Maryland area into Philadelphia. Harriet was self-reliant — readily able to find work, accommodation, and advice while feeling relatively secure in this setting. However, after a time of taking jobs and quitting jobs to ensure that no one would have the opportunity to identify her as a runaway and to experience the meaning of freedom and personal choice, Harriet began to feel lonely. She compared herself to an incarcerated man who returns home after twenty-five years to discover his home, family, and friends are gone and forgotten.
I had crossed de line (of freedom) of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welcome me to de land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all was down in de old cabin quarter, wid de ole folks, and my brudders and sisters. But to dis solemn resolution I came; I was free, and dey should be free also; I would make a home for dem in the North, and de Lord helping me, I would bring dem all dere….
During the early part of 1850, Harriet saved all her money earned from her positions as cook, seamstress, housekeeper, laundress, and scrubwoman in the hotels and private homes of Philadelphia and Cape May, New Jersey. She had initially resolved to free her family, for she did not think that they would leave on their own, but later she began to think of making a return trip, going back into slave-holding areas on her own to free other slaves. She would not be content until all of her people were free.
Harriet tried to stay informed about her relatives in the south. To do this she made contacts with free black and white abolitionists. Because they could read newspapers describing events or pending slave auction, and because they could write coded letters to individuals that Harriet identified, or to other abolitionists in the south, or through word of mouth, Harriet was able to keep tabs on her family. This is how Harriet was able to learn that her niece (some reports refer to her as a sister) was near Baltimore.
Harriet devised a plan to rescue her niece, Mary Ann Bowley. She asked someone to write a letter to Mary Ann’s husband, John Bowley, a free man. Harriet advised him that she would conduct Mary Ann to Philadelphia if he could get her to Baltimore. In December 1850, the rescue plan was almost thwarted by the sudden intent of Mary Ann’s master to sell her at an auction in Cambridge. Harriet quickly developed an alternative plan that involved hiding Mary Ann in Cambridge even while the bidding was taking place on her and later spiriting her out of the area to freedom in a six-horse wagon. Harriet’s first rescue was successful. Mary Ann was later reunited with her husband and children in Chatham, Ontario.
Harriet may have borrowed passports, called “freedoms,” from the free black residents of Philadelphia to assist her with Mary Ann’s rescue and other rescues. A freedom was like a passport that free blacks were required to carry at all times that verified their freedom to anyone who demanded to know their status. She may have identified government workers who were willing to look the other way and allow rescues to occur or who would accept bribes for their silence. Harriet extended her connection to William Still, who would have been able to assist her. William Still was the executive director of the General Vigilance Committee.
Clearly, Harriet’s desire to see her family free, her knowledge of who could help her and how, and her success in freeing Mary Ann, likely with the assistance of her brothers, prompted her to attempt another rescue. But with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Harriet said, “After that, I wouldn’t trust Uncle Sam wid my people no longer, but I brought ’em all clar off to Canada.”
This time Harriet targeted her brother John Ross and his sons, Harriet’s nephews, who were in Talbot County, north of Dorchester County. John started out with two other slaves, but he had to leave his sons behind because they could not be isolated from their owner. Because John Bowley had authentic free-freedom papers, it was decided that he should return for John Ross’s sons. Bowley was able to kidnap the boys in 1851 and send them back to their self-emancipated father with the assistance of Harriet’s planning and contacts.
The third rescue that Harriet attempted was to bring her husband, John Tubman, to Philadelphia to join her in the home that she had made for them. Even though Tubman had not been supportive of Harriet’s dream of also being free, and even though he told her master that she had run away, Harriet still loved him. She was bitterly disappointed to find that