cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
I CAME AS A STRANGER IS A WELCOMING BOOK
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
As we have noted on numerous occasions, we consider our area's black heritage to be one of our greatest strengths and a key building block for attracting tourism to our area. In addition, we envision the growing black theater scene (musicals, drama etc.) as a central component of Chatham's Capitol Theater.Possibly one of our area's greatest resources is the passionate, focused, insightful, dedicated and talented individuals that promote black history so well. People like Gwen Robinson at the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society, Chatham, Steve Cook at Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, and Bryan and Shannon Prince at the Buxton National Historic Site & Museum, North Buxton (and countless others) are, indeed, enthusiastic ambassadors and superb promoters for our area.
An excellent example of the kind of excellence, insight and knowledge that our areaís black heritage exudes is a book, that I finally got a chance to read this summer, by someone I have always admired – Bryan Prince.
The book's title is I CAME AS A STRANGER (Tundra Books, 2004) and it consists of a plethora of stories, photographs and drawings telling the sometimes joyful, and sometimes tragic, stories of those who sought freedom via the famous Underground Railroad.
Adding to the dramatic stories of these fugitive slaves is the fact that many of the stories are told in the compelling, heart wrenching words of the fugitives themselves.
Each page and each story is captivating and it is difficult to choose those that are the most interesting so I have chosen to refer to the ones that pertain to Chatham-Kent.
One rather gruesome account, early on in the publication, mentions that in the 1800s the Sandwich (Windsor) Gallows were replaced by "something even more diabolical" which was "a gibbet". A gibbet is a metal frame that enclosed the lynched person. Bryan refers to "two men from Chatham – one black and one white" who were hung by a gibbet and then their corpses were displayed along a main road, for all passersby to see, and remained there "as they decomposed".
Captain Matthew Elliot was a very prominent United Empire Loyalist who lived in what is now Amherstburg (there is an historical marker outside of Amherstburg to commemorate the site of impressive home to day).
Elliott is a character known in local history circles as a friend of Tecumseh who served as an Indian agent for the British government during the early 1800s. However, Bryan in his book depicts a Matthew Elliott not generally pictured.
Elliott, according, to Bryan Prince, was a slave-owner who possessed, by some accounts, "fifty or sixty" slaves that he had brought with him from his Virginia plantation. As late as the early twentieth century a whipping post that he used to punish his slaves still existed on his farm.
In a complete reversal of the usual path of the Underground Railroad, the slaves of Matthew Elliott "driven to escape by his cruel treatment" sought refuge by crossing the Detroit River and into the United States where they sought freedom in the Michigan Territory!
Escaping to the United States to avoid a life of slavery in Upper Canada is not what we commonly think of when we envision the Underground Railroad but that is the strength of Bryan's book. He tells us things we did not know and forces us to think about the plight of fugitive slaves in a different light. A light that illuminates this aspect of history in a unique manner.
In another, more cheerful, part of the book he describes the absolutely fascinating and compelling story of fifteen year old slave girl by the name of Anna Marie Weems.
Anna Marie was sold into slavery and separated from her family. The couple who owned her treated her badly and she vowed, with youthful fervor, to escape their evil grasp by whatever means necessary.
She arranged to meet an Underground Railroad conductor in front of the White House in Washington D.C. and, by dressing as a boy and pretending to be the conductor's coachman, she managed to elude slave-catchers seeking the $500.00 reward for her capture. Eventually, Anna Marie Weems reached the safety of her uncle's home in Dresden, Ontario.
I CAME AS A STRANGER is chock full of stories of fugitive slaves escaping to all parts of Canada. I have barely touched the surface of Bryan Prince's book this week, and I hope you will bear with me for one more week as I delve deeper into his wonderful accounts. I don't think you'll be disappointed!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
