and his great-great-great-granddaughter, Catherine Dawkins, is among his descendants in the congregation currently.
The 1800s were a time when Christianity was the religion practised by most of the non-Native peoples of North America, although attempts were also made to convert the Natives. Going to church was an activity that just about everyone would do. Even the slaves were encouraged to worship in their own way, often without too much interference from slave owners. Laws and social practices strongly reflected the importance of Christianity to the people in positions of power. No one worked on Sundays, for example, because it was viewed as a holy day and it was assumed that members of the community would be attending church services, which could last most of the day.
The AME Zion Church on Parker Street in Auburn, New York. Tubman worshipped there during the last few decades of her life.
Photo courtesy the Cayuga Historical Society.
The Church dictated the spiritual and moral conduct of the era. Leaders in the various denominations of Protestant churches were often influential in the broader social, political, and cultural life of the community. Richard Allen was motivated to form a separate, black church because of his treatment in the “integrated” Philadelphia church he attended. Blacks were to remain in the balconies of the church, while whites could sit on the main floor. Enraged by this lack of true Christian spirit and a lack of being treated as an equal child of God, he decided to test this point by sitting on the main floor, but he was dragged from the church for this breach of conduct. By 1794, he formed the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which expanded and provided an example for others. In 1830 he led the first African-American convention, which was dedicated to anti-slavery. Later, freedom-seeking Africans arriving in Canada, especially in Ontario, would form AME churches that were familiar to them after their religious experiences during captivity.
For some American communities, blacks were only allowed to congregate for religious purposes, so many black community leaders were people who had received some religious instruction or were people, usually men, who had assumed a role in spiritual guidance. Sometimes a black minister was the only person in an area who could read so that he could read the Bible to others or keep people apprised of developments affecting the black community from his reading of the newspapers. In some parts of Ontario, African-American ministers of the AME convention served as itinerant ministers, having a circuit of several small congregations if a minister was sent from the American body and if the weather permitted regular travel to some smaller outposts. Over time, these smaller AME circuit churches that struggled to have a weekly service were absorbed by the British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church.
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
