The Underground Railroad to Canada Essay by Research Group

The escaped slaves who fled through the Underground Railroad to Canada hardly found the promised land they might have sought or expected, but their experience in Canada was invariably better than they had had as slaves in the South or as frightened and endangered fugitives in the North. The paper shows that, at its worst, Canada offered a more free and humane life than did the South under the horrors of slavery. Canada itself was never a major player in the slave trade, although slavery was legal in the nation until well into the 19th century. The paper shows that Canada outlawed slavery more than twenty-five years before it was declared illegal in the United States, and its outlawing did not cause the national division it caused in the United States. The paper discusses how the "promised land" of Canada was still marked by racism and resistance to the influx of slaves fleeing the United States. While some blacks returned to the United States after the Civil War and the end of slavery, many remained in Canada and both benefited from the better conditions in that country (even after the end of slavery in the United States) and contributed to the culture and society of their new nation, Canada. The paper includes an annotated bibliography.