2.8

Question 1

When was the first movement to abolish slavery in Canada?

Answer 1

late 1700s

Question 2

Which place was the first place in Canada, led by who, to move towards abolition in what year?

Answer 2

Upper Canada led by Governor John Graves Simcoe, a loyalist military officer, in the year 1793.

Question 3

What did the British parliament prohibite in 1807?

Answer 3

The buying and selling of slaves.

Question 4

In what year did the British Parliament abolish slavery in the empire, which included Canada?

Answer 4

1833

Question 5

Between___and___, before the American Civil War, African slaves followed the ___star on the Underground Railroad to find freedom in Canada.

Answer 5

1840 and 1860

Question 6

What was the Underground Railroad?

Answer 6

Not an actual railroad but a secret network of routes and safe houses that helped people escape slavery and reach free states or Canada.

Question 7

What were guides?

Answer 7

People who were available to help people find their way to the next stop along the way.

Question 8

When did the “railroad” begin operating?

Answer 8

1780s

Question 9

When did the “railroad” become known as the Underground Railroad?

Answer 9

1830s

Question 10

What were the people who helped people move from place to place called? What were the regufees called? What were the safe places to stop and rest called?

Answer 10

• Conductors
• Passengers or Cargo
• Stations

Question 11

What were abolitionists (many conductors were abolitionists)?

Answer 11

People who wanted slavery abolished. They were Blacks and Whites, men and women. Many of them were Quakers or Methodists.

Question 12

When was the first major immigration period to Canada for Blacks? Why?

Answer 12

During the war of 1812 as Canada captured several US forts, including Detroit and managed to burn the White House to the ground.

Question 13

Besides the First Nations and their own militia, who was Canada’s success in the War of 1812 due to?

Answer 13

The Black slaves that fought with the British troops.

Question 14

What were the Black slaves promised by Britiain if they fought with them?

Answer 14

Freedom, land, and provisions if they would leave their masters and support the English. However, Canada did not give all tha it promised making survivial difficult for the Black community and forcing dependence on the white settlements.

Question 15

How many Black slaves helped Canada in the War of 1812? Where were they eventually taken?

Answer 15

• Over 2000

- They were eventually taken to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

Question 16

Between what two years did tens of thousands of African-Americans seek refuge in Upper and Lower Canada via the Underground Railroad?

Answer 16

1815 and 1865

Question 17

What was Detroit known as? What was Detroit River called? What was it a refrence of?
Why did places need code names?

Answer 17

• Midnight (many of the slaves left from this point)/
• Jordan
• A biblical reference to the river tha led to the primised land
• They needed code names to keep the routes secret.

Question 18

What was the end of the journey known as?

Answer 18

• Dawn

- Take the railroad from Midnight to Dawn

Question 19

Where did most refugees come to?

Answer 19

Southwestern Ontario to places such as Windsor, Fort Erie, Chatham, and Owen Sound

Question 20

Why hasn’t there been much documentation of the Underground Railroad?

Answer 20

Because of how secret it was.

Question 21

How many slaves are estimated to have found freedom by way of the railraod?

Answer 21

It may have been as many as 30 000

Question 22

When did the railroads traffic reach its peak?

Answer 22

Between 1840 and 1860

Question 23

When did the US pass its Fugitive Slave Act?

Answer 23

1850

Question 24

What was the Fugitive Slave Act?

Answer 24

The new law allowed slave hunters to pursue and capture enslaved persons in places where they would legally be free. It resulted in several attempts to kidnap escapees in Canada and return them to former owners in the Southern States.

Question 25

In which year did some states consider abolishing slavery all together (more in the middle of which year actually)?

Answer 25

Middle of the 1800s

Question 26

In which year did the Southern staes of the US threaten to separate from the North because of the differences in the belief of slavery?

Answer 26

1862

Question 27

Why did the South need slaves?

Answer 27

Economic reasons.

Question 28

How long did the American Civil War last (what years)?

Answer 28

Four years, from 1861 to 1865

Question 29

What was the result of the American Civil War?

Answer 29

The North won and slavery was abolished.

Question 30

Did Canada have slaves?

Answer 30

Before the 19th century Canada did have slaves but not many. It’s economy did not need them. Also, more and more Canadians were cmpaigning to abolish slavery.

Question 31

What did the Abolition Act do?

Answer 31

The Abolition Act was passed by the British government. It acted to end slavery throughout the British Empire.

Question 32

What did Tubman use for a guide?

Answer 32

She used the North Star as a guide on clear nights, and on cloudy nights she would feel for moss frowing on the north side of trees.

Question 33

Who did Tubman believe talked to her to help her move more slaves?

Answer 33

She believed it was the voice of God who told her to escape salvery, and God who prompted her to return to free others.

Question 34

Why would slave owners want Harriet dead and what was the reward? How many trips did she make and how many people did she lead into Canada?

Answer 34

Slave owners would want her dead because of the many people that she helped escape slavery. In total, she made 11 trips south and led around 300 people into Canada. The slave owners offered up to $40 000 for her capture, dead or alive.

Question 35

Were the free slaves equal in Canada?

Answer 35

No, the free slaves were not equal in Canada. There was prejudice against the, even though many Canadians were willing to help.

Question 36

How did Tubman help in the American Civil War?

Answer 36

In the AMerican Civil WAr, she left Canada and joined the Union Army to serve as a nurse, scout, and spy. By 1863, she had organized her own band of spies that she chose from former slaves because they knew the countryside and could guide the Union forces. In a raid at Combahee River in South Carolina, these spies told the Union soldiers how to avoid mine traps set in the river. Harriet Tubman led former slaves who piloted gunboats down the river and burned crops and buildings. Together, they freed more than 750 slaves, and Harriet Tubman was given credit for planning the raid while becoming the first and only woman in American history to lead a military attack.

Question 37

Who was Harriet Tubman?

Answer 37

She was called “Black Moses”. She was based out of St. Catherine’s Ontario. She was a conductor along the Underground Railway. Even though she had a $40 000 bounty on her head, she travelled into the slave states more than a dozen times in disguise with forges paper to help more than 300 slaves escape, including her elderly parents and four of her brothers. During the US civil war, she joined the Northern Army as a nurse, scout, and spy.

Question 38

Who was Josiah Henson?

Answer 38

An excaped slave who helped found the free Black community of Dawn (near Dresden, Ontario). He is said to be the model for the lead character of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Henson’s own “cabin” is preserved as a museum outside of Dresden.

Question 39

Who was Mary Ann Shadd?

Answer 39

A freeborn Black who moved to Canada West in the 1850s and established a newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. This newspaper fought against discrimination and segregation. When the American Slave hunters chased an escaped Black into Canada and captured him, Shadd pulled the boy free and ran to the courthouse where she rang the bell and called out the town. The Americans fled. After the Civil WAr, Shadd studied law in the US.