National Designations from the Black Canadian Community

There are currently 12 National Historic Persons, 12 National Historic Sites and 7 National Historic Events related to Canada's Black community.

National Historic Persons

British Columbia

Mifflin Gibbs National Historic Person
1823-1913
Victoria, B.C.
Designated: 2009
Plaque: Pending

Significance: Mifflin Gibbs was a prime mover in the 1858 migration of some 800 free African Americans from California to British Columbia. He represented a group of well educated, ambitious and prosperous Black businessmen who came north armed with capital and eager to make a contribution as loyal British citizens. In youth, the Pennsylvania-born Gibbs had been an abolitionist activist. Moving to California in 1849, he established a successful business and continued to fight for civil rights. He came to Victoria in 1858 eager to escape discrimation in San Francisco laden with goods to sell to gold prospectors. He also invested in resource extraction, railway construction and trade in the province. Even more importantly, he acted as spokesman for the Black community, writing eloquently in the newspaper and defending his community from racial attacks. In 1866, he was elected town councilor and, in 1868, was sent as a delegate to discuss B.C.'s entry into Canada. Disappointed with the racial politics of Victoria, he returned to the United States in 1870, studied law and eventually became the first Black municipal court judge in America.

Nova Scotia

William Neilson Hall, V.C. National Historic Person
1827-1904
Summerville, Nova Scotia
Designated: 2008
Plaque: Pending

Significance: William Hall was the first Black person (and the first Nova Scotian regardless of background) to receive the Victoria Cross. His nomination helped to establish the race-free eligibility for the award. As a sailor with the British Navy, Hall served as a model of loyalty to the Crown. Today, he continues to illustrate the respect that persons of colour could achieve through military service in the mid-19^th century. Born to former slaves in rural Nova Scotia, Hall joined the merchant navy at a young age and later enlisted in the Royal Navy. In a 21-year career, he was known for his steady good conduct and was ultimately promoted to the highest rank open to an ordinary seaman. Hall had his first taste of combat during the Crimean War (1853-1856). It was during the Indian Mutiny, however, in 1857 that he won renown for gallantry under fire, when he volunteered to help relieve the siege of Lucknow. Retiring eventually to Nova Scotia, Hall bought a farm, and there he lived quietly and modestly for the rest of his life.

Sam Langford National Historic Person
1886-1956
Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia
Designated: 1987
Plaque: 1992

Significance: Sam Langford is recognized both as a hero of Canadian boxing and as a tragic symbol of discrimination in sport. Though barred by race from ever fighting for a title, Langford achieved almost legendary status. Running away in youth from a brutal father, Sam went to Boston where he began his professional career at age 16. He was a small man – just 5 foot 7 – and he weighed only 151 pounds when he was pitted against the legendary Jack Johnson, 6 foot tall, 187 pounds and the most feared fighter in history. Far from dispatching his young opponent in minutes, Johnson was forced to fight for 15 rounds before a decision was called in his favour. He refused to fight Langford ever again. Langford's colour kept him out of the championship ring, but he went on to a long career of fighting (and defeating) larger, heavier men for small purses. He retired in 1923, almost completely blind and destitute, until admirers donated money to support him during his last years.

Reverend Richard Preston National Historic Person
c.1791-1861
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Designated: 2005
Plaque: Pending

Significance: Richard Preston was a man of enormous influence in the Black community in early 19^th-century Nova Scotia. He is revered to this day as the architect of Black identity in that province. Preston notably founded the African (United) Baptist Association which worked to consolidate Black congregations, to build new churches and – by extension – to strengthen Black communities. Born in Virginia, the son of a slave mother and white father, Preston bought his freedom in 1816 and came north. In Halifax, he built on his experience as a plantation preacher by apprenticing to the white minister of the Black Baptist congregation. He was nominated as the first Black delegate to the Nova Scotia Baptist Association and sent to study in England from 1831 to 1832. There he encountered the Abolition Movement. Returning to Halifax, he founded the African Abolition Society.

Marie Marguerite Rose National Historic Person
1717-1757
Louisbourg, Nova Scotia
Designated: 2008
Plaque: Pending

Significance: Marie Marguerite Rose represents one of several hundred slaves, both African and Aboriginal, who lived at Louisbourg between 1715 and 1758. More significantly, she was one of those rare women who, after years of servitude, obtained her freedom and some measure of independence by running a small tavern. Many details of her life are known, beginning with her birth in Guinea, Africa, continuing with the birth of her son (probably the son of her owner, Jean Loppinot) and the boy's death at the age of 13. After obtaining her freedom in 1755, Marie Marguerite married a Mi'kmaq man and opened a tavern next door to her former owners. She died just two years later, and the inventory taken after her death gives rare insight into the life of a former slave of the period: her clothes, the simple furniture in her bedroom and tavern, the ingredients in her kitchen and the half-completed sewing and knitting in her workbasket.

Portia May White National Historic Person
1911-1968
Truro, Nova Scotia
Designated: 1995
Plaque: 1997

Significance: Portia White was the first African Canadian woman to win national acclaim as a vocalist and to sing on North American concert stages. In her brief career, she became an icon for the Black community in Nova Scotia and a positive symbol of Black culture in Canada at large. The daughter of a Baptist minister in Halifax, she began singing in church choirs at the age of six. Working as a teacher in Africville, a Black community on the edge of Halifax, in the 1930s, she began to study part-time at the Halifax Conservatory. In 1941, after she sang at a breakthrough concert in the Eaton Auditorium in Toronto, critics raved, and a national and international career was launched. Nova Scotia proudly established a trust fund in her name to support touring. In 1950, Portia White retired to teach music, and she died young in 1968. She is still a source of pride to the Black community in Nova Scotia, where the trust fund established in her name continues to support young artists.

Ontario

Mary and Henry Bibb National Historic Persons
c.1820-1877 and 1815-1854
Windsor, Ontario
Designated: 2002
Plaque: 2005

Significance: Mary and Henry Bibb were influential figures in the Abolition Movement in the middle years of the 19^th century, and they worked tirelessly for the eradication of slavery. They promoted development of a Black community in British North America (later Canada) and championed racial understanding through their newspaper, The Voice of the Fugitive. Mary was the privileged daughter of free Black Americans, the first African American woman to attend teachers' college in the United States and an active supporter of the Abolition Movement. Henry was an escaped slave with little formal education. In Detroit, however, he actively engaged in the anti-slavery movement and became a popular writer and speaker. He and Mary married in 1848 and came to British North America in 1850. In Windsor, they founded a school for Black children, an influential newspaper and the Refugee Home Society to promote Black settlement on the land. They also organized the hugely important North American Convention of Colored Freemen in Toronto in 1851. Henry died suddenly of a fever in 1854. Mary continued to teach, remarried and, in the 1870s, returned to the United States.

Thornton and Lucie Blackburn National Historic Persons
c.1805-1895 and 1813-1890 respectively
Toronto, Ontario
Designated: 1999
Plaque: 2002

Significance: In 1833, the case of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn established a precedent that protected fugitives from American slavery from extradition and helped establish Canada as a haven for escaped slaves. After escaping from Kentucky in 1831, the Thorntons found temporary refuge in the free Black community of Detroit. In 1833, they were arrested and a race riot erupted in city streets. Friends in the community spirited Lucie across the river into British North America, but Thornton remained in custody. As he was brought out of jail on his way to the harbour, an angry crowd seized him and sent him on his way to Upper Canada. Canadian officials denied American requests to extradite the Thorntons for having incited a riot because their return would mean renewed enslavement, which was a punishment disproportionate to the crime. The principle is still in place in Canada that a person should not be extradited to face punishment for a crime in excess of that deemed appropriate in Canadian courts. The Blackburns moved to Toronto, where they founded the first cab company in Upper Canada. Thornton was a delegate at the 1851 North American Convention of Colored Freemen, an investor in the Elgin Settlement at Buxton and a collaborator of publisher George Brown on behalf of the Abolition Movement.

Reverend Josiah Henson National Historic Person
1789-1883
Dresden, Ontario
Designated: 1995
Plaque: 1999

Significance: Josiah Henson may be the most famous African Canadian in history. A former slave who escaped to Canada in 1830, he led other refugees north and helped them adapt to their new country. The author of a famous autobiography, Henson is often linked to the fictional character at the centre of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a hugely influential novel in the years leading up to the Civil War. More importantly, however, he participated in the Underground Railroad, recruited for the Union cause during the Civil War and used his celebrity to raise the profile of Black Canadians. He was an energetic fundraiser and co-founder of a school and settlement in Dawn, Ontario, where Black immigrants came to learn farming and trades. Though his later career was marred by criticism and scandal, he managed to emerge personally unscathed and to retain his good reputation in Canada, Britain and in Abolition circles in the United States. In old age, Henson was honoured by introductions to both Queen Victoria and the President of the United States.

Reverend William King National Historic Person
1812-1895
Buxton, Ontario
Designated: 2005
Plaque: Pending

Significance: William King, who personally experienced and rejected the institution of slavery, brought to British North America (later Canada) attitudes and principles derived from Scottish Presbyterian religious and intellectual life. He played a leadership role in the creation of the most successful Black settlement in Canada West. He helped to create an inspiring model of inter-racial cooperation and humanitarian ideals and won international attention for the Abolition Movement in Canada. As a young man, the Scottish-born King married into a slave-holding family in the southern United States. When his wife died, he found himself the embarrassed owner of 14 slaves. In 1849, he brought those slaves to British North America, where they were free and, with them and other settlers, he established a model farming and industrial community at Buxton, Canada West (Ontario). Together, the settlers cleared much of the 9,000-acre property, established farms, built factories, churches and integrated schools that were so good that whites in the neighbourhood clamoured to send their children there. The settlement, though initially successful, dwindled in the wake of American emancipation. However, thousands of descendants of the original settlers continue to meet annually at the surviving African Canadian community of North Buxton to celebrate the settlement's honourable place in Black heritage.

Mary Ann Shadd National Historic Person
1823-1893
Chatham, Ontario
Designated: 1994
Plaque: 2000

Significance: In her day, Mary Ann Shadd was one of the most accomplished women in North America. She was the first woman ever to publish, edit and write a periodical in British North America and, as teacher, writer, lecturer and promoter of racial integration, she played a leadership role in Canada West (later Ontario) in the 1850s. Born in the United States to a free Black family, Shadd was educated to promote the values of individualism and self-reliance. She crossed the border in 1850, after the passing of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act deprived African American of legal protection. Her belief that Black immigrants should integrate as quickly as possible into mainstream society in British North America brought her into conflict with the promoters of separate Black communities and schools. She founded an enormously influential journal called the Provincial Freeman (1853 to 1859). Returning to the United States after emancipation in 1863, she went back to teaching, continued her studies and later became the first woman ever to gain a law degree in that country.

Harriet Tubman National Historic Person
1820-1913
St. Catharines, Ontario
Designated: 2005
Plaque: Pending

Significance: Harriet Tubman was a hero of the Underground Railroad and a leader in the fight for Black freedom. Born a slave in Maryland, Tubman escaped to the Northern United States in 1849. She thereafter risked her life to return again and again into slave territory, ultimately leading some 300 slaves to freedom. In St. Catharines, Canada West (later Ontario), which became her base of operations, she played a leadership role in the abolition community and worked with church groups to help former slaves adapt to life in Canada. Such was her prestige that major luminaries in the Abolition Movement – men such as John Brown and Frederick Douglass – were drawn to St. Catharines while she lived there. When the Civil War began in 1861, Tubman joined the Union Army as a cook, nurse and spy. With the return of peace, she settled in New York State, where she continued to work for Black welfare, also engaging in the struggle for women's rights. She died at age 93 in a home for aged Black women that she had helped to found.

National Historic Events

Alberta

Black Pioneer Immigration to Alberta and Saskatchewan National Historic Event
Designated: 2007
Plaque: Pending

Significance: The 1,300 or so Black pioneers who came to Canada's West from Oklahoma and surrounding area between 1908 and 1911 surmounted many obstacles – both natural and human – as they helped to settle the new Canadian frontier. They persisted. They carved their farms out of the grasslands. They established schools, churches and community life. At the same time, their arrival resulted in a backlash that led the federal government to discourage the further settlement of African Americans. Barriers were erected that were not fully dismantled until the 1960s. The Black immigrants of the early 1900s had come north in response to an international marketing campaign on the part of the Canadian government, which was eager to populate the newly established provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Most of these people were escaping an increasingly violent racial climate in the United States. Those who managed to cross the border settled in isolated areas where they hoped to live free from attack. By the Second World War, the younger generation had largely left these isolated farms and moved into cities.

British Columbia

Black Pioneers in British Columbia National Historic Event
Saanichton, British Columbia
Designated: 1997
Plaque: 2000

Significance: The 1858 migration to British Columbia of some 800 free African Americans helped shape religious, military and social institutions in the young colony. These immigrants were mostly literate, energetic business people who had lived with increasingly limited civil rights in California. James Douglas, the mixed race governor of British Columbia, invited them to consider Vancouver Island as an alternative since he understood that they would form a community loyal to the Crown in the face of a flood of white Americans drawn by the Gold Rush. The Black community responded to the prospect of cheap land, business opportunities and laws that promised political equality. Settling mostly in Victoria, they established vigorous businesses, built churches and houses. Elsewhere, they established farms and invested in resource development and trade. They were loyal and determined to integrate and, as a symbol of proud citizenship, they formed and financed the only lasting militia force in the colony before 1864. As white immigration increased, they faced real and growing prejudice. Their children were forced into separate rooms at school, their presence on volunteer fire brigades was refused and their militia was barred from public parades.

Nova Scotia

Black Loyalist Experience National Historic Event
Birchtown, Nova Scotia
Designated: 1993
Plaque: 1996

Significance: In the 1780s, Birchtown harboured the largest concentration of free Black settlers anywhere in British North America. Though the story is a painful catalogue of broken promises and lost hope, it also represents the years of trial from which emerged the strong African Canadian community of today's Nova Scotia. After the American War of Independence the area of Shelburne and nearby Birchtown was a major centre of Loyalist settlement. Britain had promised freedom and land to Blacks who supported the British cause in America, and 3,550 former slaves had taken them up on the offer. The land grants were slow in coming, however, and proved to be small, poor and isolated. Many of the Black Loyalists starved while waiting. And, when these Black settlers offered labour to White settlers, violence erupted among white competitors for work. Some desperate Blacks sold themselves into indentureship ─ virtual slavery. In 1795, over half of Birchtown's Black inhabitants left for Sierra Leone in Africa. Many of those who remained gradually drifted away in search of work. Today, Birchtown survives as a small hamlet where descendents of the original Black Loyalists operate a museum presenting the experiences of this historic community.

Nº 2 Construction Battalion, C. E. F. National Historic Event
Pictou, Nova Scotia
Designated: 1992
Plaque: 1993

Significance: The history of the No. 2 Construction Battalion reflects in microcosm the lives of people of African descent in the 19^th and early 20th centuries, when they were subject to discrimination and largely confined to menial jobs. The Battalion was formed in 1917 at the insistence of members of the Black community and in the face of official opposition. African Canadians of the day were determined to serve their country in war and to disprove slurs that characterized them as “lacking in valour, discipline and intelligence.” Though the Battalion was largely confined to a non-combat role in France, its record was exemplary. Returning home in 1918, members of the Battalion brought with them a new consciousness of their position in society, along with new determination to enter the mainstream on an equal footing with whites. The organization and activism of the 1920s drew inspiration from the example of the No. 2 Construction Battalion.

Ontario

Abolition Movement in British North America National Historic Event
Designated: 2004
Plaque: Pending (recommended for Chatham, Ontario)

Significance: North America developed into a major battleground of the Abolition Movement from the late 18^th century on. Events in Canada from 1783 to 1860 not only helped bring an end to slavery; they also supported the development of strong Black communities and a distinctive Canadian identity. The Abolition Movement, partly led by members of the Black community, fell into three periods. During the first, from 1783 to 1814, promises of freedom lured the first slave refugees from America to the Maritimes while a historic Upper Canadian law of 1793 limited slavery in that colony. From 1815 to 1849, refugees continued to arrive in Upper Canada and legal precedents were established to protect them from extradition. Finally, in 1850, harsh new legislation in the United States was introduced, and the flood of emigration to the north intensified. From 1850 to 1860, a well organized campaign took root in Canada West to raise funds, provide relief to newly arrived Black immigrants and heighten awareness of the Abolition Movement.

Underground Railroad National Historic Event
Windsor, Ontario
Designated: 1925
Plaque: 1928 and 2001

Significance: The Underground Railroad is an enduring source of pride for Canadians, just as it was a source of hope for slaves before emancipation in the United States. The Railroad continues to be perceived today as a symbol of the laws and principles that once made Canada a haven for Black refugees. This clandestine route from the American South was lined with safe houses run by Black and white abolitionists willing to risk life and liberty to shelter and guide fugitives on their journeys north. These abolitionists were the “station masters” and “conductors” on a system that helped many thousands of slaves to escape to British North America over a period of some 45 years. The Underground Railroad served another purpose, as an inspiring myth and powerful propaganda in the war on slavery.

Upper Canadian Act of 1793 Against Slavery National Historic Event
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
Designated: 1992
Plaque: 1993

Significance: The 1793 anti-slavery legislation in Upper Canada was the first law of its kind in the British Empire. It emerged against the larger backdrop of growing international opposition to slavery. England and Scotland had both outlawed slavery by this time, and similar acts had been introduced in most of the northern United States. The law in Upper Canada came at the instigation of the first Lieutenant Governor, John Graves Simcoe, who believed that slavery was incompatible both with Christianity and British traditions. Simcoe wanted to abolish slavery outright, but since many of the more wealthy white Loyalists owned slaves, he faced powerful opposition in his government. He compromised, therefore, with a bill that outlawed the importation of slaves and limited the term of enslavement of those enslaved persons already in Upper Canada. The act contributed to the gradual elimination of slavery in Upper Canada and to its decline in other provinces. It represented an early, modest victory in the ongoing battle for racial equality.

Quebec

Black Railway Porters and their Union Activity National Historic Event
Montréal, Québec
Designated: 1994
Plaque: 1999

Significance: Black porters played a key role in the development of human rights in Canada from the 1880s into the 1960s. In the absence of other employment opportunities, Blacks tended to gravitate to work on the railways. Though wages were low, hours long and working conditions bad, there was at least a measure of job security. However, porters were subjected to increasing discrimination over time, including job segregation that effectively blocked promotion. Porters eventually joined one of two unions (the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters). The CBRE was principally a white union and the battle against discrimination was fought within the organization itself. The BSCP, however, was a Black union based in the United States that made great strides in gaining recognition and improved conditions for its members. With new anti-discrimination laws emerging in the wake of the Second World War, Black porters lodged federal complaints against job segregation and set important precedents, urged reforms in immigration policy in the fight for human rights in Canada.

Saskatchewan

Black Pioneer Immigration to Alberta and Saskatchewan National Historic Event
Designated: 2007
Plaque: Pending

Significance: The 1,300 or so Black pioneers who came to Canada's West from Oklahoma and surrounding area between 1908 and 1911 surmounted many obstacles – both natural and human – as they helped to settle the new Canadian frontier. They persisted. They carved their farms out of the grasslands. They established schools, churches and community life. At the same time, their arrival resulted in a backlash that led the federal government to discourage the further settlement of African Americans. Barriers were erected that were not fully dismantled until the 1960s. The Black immigrants of the early 1900s had come north in response to an international marketing campaign on the part of the Canadian government, which was eager to populate the newly established provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Most of these people were escaping an increasingly violent racial climate in the United States. Those who managed to cross the border settled in isolated areas where they hoped to live free from attack. By the Second World War, the younger generation had largely left these isolated farms and moved into cities.

National Historic Sites

Nova Scotia

Africville National Historic Site of Canada
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Designated: 1996
Plaque: 2002

Significance: Africville as a community disappeared in the 1960s, but its name remains as an enduring symbol to African Canadians of the need to defend their communities against the neglect and intolerance of mainstream society. The community was founded in the 1840s by Blacks whose families had come to Nova Scotia after the War of 1812. Failing to thrive in the rural hinterland of Halifax, they drifted into the margins of the city in search of work. A tight-knit community was established on vacant land on the outskirts of Halifax, with life centering on a church and school (run by the community from 1872 to 1883, when the first public school was built). Over the years, Africville was subject to various encroachments by railways, industry and government, but still the city refused to install urban services, such as light, sewers and water. Finally, in the 1960s, Halifax targeted the area for slum clearance. Despite protests from local residents, the houses were bulldozed and the community forcibly scattered. The City of Halifax turned the area into a public park and today descendents of the community meet there annually in a homecoming pilgrimage.

Ontario

Buxton Settlement National Historic Site of Canada
Buxton, Ontario
Designated: 1999
Plaque: 1999

Significance: The former Elgin Settlement, near Chatham in Southwestern Ontario, survives as a cohesive cultural landscape that commemorates the heroic efforts of African American refugees to form planned farming communities in 19^th-century Ontario. The settlement, also known as Buxton, was established in 1849 under the leadership of a white philanthropist, the Reverend William King. It was the most successful one of four model settlements established by and for refugees from American slavery in the mid-1800s. The success or failure of these settlements played a central role in the propaganda war between those who argued for Black integration and those who believed that segregation would best serve the Black community. Buxton was seen as a shining example of what people of African descent could achieve on their own. By 1859, the community boasted three inter-racial schools, two hotels, a general store, a post office and a range of factories. The American Civil War was a turning point for Buxton. Many settlers returned to the United States to fight for emancipation but the community has survived in attenuated form.

George Brown House National Historic Site of Canada
Toronto, Ontario
Designated: 1976
Plaque: Pending

Significance: The grand old house where newspaperman and politician George Brown (1818-1880) lived the last years of his productive life is related to the staunch support that the Toronto publisher threw behind the Abolition Movement in the 1850s. Born in Scotland, Brown immigrated to Toronto in 1843, and there he founded The Globe newspaper (ancestor of today's Globe & Mail and, in its time, the largest circulating newspaper in North America). Throughout his years in British North America (later Canada), Brown waged a vigorous campaign for political reform and social justice rooted in liberal ideas of equality and the rights of the individual. He was a member of the Anti-Slavery Society, and The Globe became the virtual mouthpiece of the movement in British North America. Brown often led the charge in the argument against extradition, separate schooling for Blacks and slavery as an institution. In 1880, a disgruntled employee shot Brown, and he died in this house a few days later.

Griffin House National Historic Site of Canada
Hamilton, Ontario
Date of designation: 2008
Plaque: Pending

Significance: The Griffin House – built on land originally granted to a United Empire Loyalist – is a rare surviving example of domestic architecture from the early 19^th century. Owned for most of its history by a Black immigrant family – the Griffins – it exemplifies African Canadian history in the area of Hamilton, where employment opportunities attracted Black immigrants from earliest days. The house is a modest one-and-a-half-storey frame cottage, inspired by the Georgian model typical of so many Upper Canadian farmhouses of the period. Indeed, the quality of the house – unusual for Black immigrants who often arrived poor – reflects the determination of the Griffins to establish themselves firmly in British North America. The house was built in 1827 and, in 1834, was sold along with 50 acres of land to Enerals Griffin of Virginia and his white wife. Family tradition says that he was an escaped slave who stole his master's horse, forged his own letter of passage and arrived with enough capital to purchase this house outright. The house remained in the Griffin family until 1988, when it was sold to the Hamilton Conservation Authority and restored to the period of the 1830s to 1850s.

Nazrey African Methodist Episcopal Church National Historic Site of Canada
Amherstburg, Ontario
Designated: 1999
Plaque: 2000

Significance: Amherstburg was once the busiest gateway for escaping slaves on the American-Canadian border, and the Nazrey AME Church acted as a receiving centre for many of those new arrivals. It is an excellent physical example of the institutions that served as focal points for the development of new, free communities. Such churches were also a mechanism by which relief and educational services were delivered. This church is unusual in that it was constructed of stone, a relatively expensive building material that suggests great commitment and optimism among those who built it. The church is otherwise typical in its stark simplicity. The present building dates to 1848, and it replaced an earlier structure (1828). In 1856, the arrival of the Reverend Willis Nazery – the first bishop of the British Methodist Episcopalian Church in British North America – marked the church's movement away from its American roots and the founding of an African Canadian church community.

Oro African Methodist Episcopal Church National Historic Site of Canada
Edgar, Ontario
Designated: 2000
Plaque: 2003

Significance: Oro AME Church is the last remnant of a government-sponsored Black settlement that grew up in the early 19^th century near the shores of Georgian Bay. It evokes the poignant struggles of Black settlers as they tried to carve farms out of the wilderness. The church was built by Blacks veterans of the War of 1812 who had been encouraged by the government to settle in the area in order to guard against a possible attack coming from Georgian Bay. After the war, veterans were rewarded with 40-acre grants. In such a remote location, however, they faced almost insurmountable isolation, hard work and privation. At the settlement's peak in 1861, it had 101 residents, after which people began to move off in search of work. The Oro AME Church and a stone cairn are the only monuments remaining to mark the struggle of this valiant little community.

Osgoode Hall National Historic Site of Canada
Toronto, Ontario
Designated: 1979
Plaque: 1984

Significance: From 1832, Osgoode Hall was the site of the provincial law courts and headquarters of the Law Society of Upper Canada. It was here that judicial decisions were made that eventually helped turn Canada into a haven for escaped slaves. In 1861, for example, the famous case of John Anderson was heard in the courts of Queen's Bench and of Common Pleas in this building. Anderson was a former slave who, in escaping from the United States, had killed a pursuer. He made it through to Canada, where he lived quietly from 1854 to 1860. Then he was arrested and bound over for trial. Political uproar ensued, as Canadians took to the street in support of Anderson. A sympathetic government paid for the accused man's defence and, when the Court of King's Bench initially ruled in favour of extradition, it set a precedent by stating that it would offer no opposition to an appeal. The Court of Common Pleas then released Anderson on a technicality.

R. Nathaniel Dett British Methodist Episcopal Church National Historic Site of Canada
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Designated: 2000
Plaque: 2001

Significance: The Nathaniel Dett Chapel houses one of the oldest British Methodist Episcopal congregations in Canada and, although the congregation has dwindled sharply since the Second World War, the building has a long history of use. The church was founded by former American slaves who responded to offers of freedom after the American Revolution and the War of 1812. It is thus associated with early expressions of Black loyalty to the British Crown. In 1814, the first annual celebration of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe's “emancipation” act of 1793 was held at Drummond Hill (now Niagara Falls), and this resulted in the creation of a mission and later an American Methodist Episcopal church. The congregation grew as Black refugees continued to cross the border. The present building was erected in 1836 and moved to land donated by Oliver Parnall, a successful refugee from slavery, when the congregation became one of the founding members of the British Methodist Episcopal conference in 1856. The simple frame building, typcial of this era, has remained virtually intact since it was originally constructed. The chapel was renamed in the 20th century in honour of R. Nathaniel Dett, a composer from the local African Canadian community who emerged from this congregation to forge an international reputation.

Salem Chapel, British Methodist Episcopal Church National Historic Site of Canada
St. Catharines, Ontario
Designated: 2000
Plaque: 2002

Significance: Salem Chapel in St. Catharines is strongly associated with the Abolitionist hero, Harriet Tubman, famous for her work on the Underground Railroad. It is also a precious example of refugee building traditions. Tubman lived in a house just around the corner, where she brought and cared for arriving refugees. As the congregation swelled in the mid-19^th century, some of those newcomers helped to design and construct a larger building (1855) on the site of an earlier chapel. This church was also a focus of activity for the Fugitive Aid Society. Originally a member of the American Episcopal Methodist convention, the congregation joined the new British Methodist Episcopalian organization in 1856, thus distancing itself from its American roots. Like other churches of its kind, Salem delivered both religious and social services to the congregation.

Sandwich First Baptist Church National Historic Site of Canada
Windsor, Ontario
Designated: 2000
Plaque: 2003

Significance: Sandwich First Baptist Church, one of the oldest Baptist churches in Ontario, is strongly associated with refugees from American slavery who poured across the Detroit River near this point in the first half of the 19^th century. The church survives as an example of the many Baptist churches that once served the refugee community. This church acted as a receiving centre at an important crossing point on the Canadian-American frontier, as a settlement node for refugees and as a focal point in the life of the early Black community. As the number of arriving refugees grew, many of them joined the Baptist congregation (founded in 1840 and meeting at a variety of sites). The group eventually applied for and received a government land grant and set about raising a church, much of it with contributed labour. The resulting building, completed in 1851, was a fine brick church with an unusual degree of visual sophistication. It is handcrafted in a way that emphasizes the commitment of the congregation to their church and community.

St. Lawrence Hall National Historic Site of Canada
Toronto, Ontario
Designated: 1967
Plaque: 1969

Significance: St. Lawrence Hall was built by the City of Toronto in 1850. Designed by architect William Thomas in the Italianate style, it provided an elegant meeting place for Toronto's 19^th-century elite. The ground floor was designed as commercial space, the second as offices and the third to house a 1000-seat assembly room. The building was a major cultural venue for lectures, concerts, balls and receptions attended by the city's most notable citizens. These events included several important Abolition meetings in the years when Canada was receiving thousands of Underground Railroad refugees from American slavery. The very first lecture delivered in the new building, on 1 April 1851, dealt with the subject of “Slavery” and was presented by a British Member of Parliament. Later that year, St. Lawrence Hall hosted hundreds for the historic North American Convention of Colored Freemen, where abolitionist luminaries such as Frederick Douglass and Henry Bibb met with counterparts to discuss the permanent resettlement of refugees from American slavery in British territory.