James Adams

Benjamin Drew was a Boston abolitionist whose book Testimony of the Canadian Fugitives (1850) became one of the richest sources of runaway slave accounts in antebellum America. Sponsored by the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society and abolitionist John P. Jewett, Drew's book was based on interviews he had conducted throughout Canada with more than a hundred former slaves who had successfully ridden the Underground Railroad to freedom. Canada had abolished slavery in 1833, and its shared border and accessible ports in Windsor and New Brunswick made it a natural destination for runaways, especially after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law rendered even liberal New England a less than secure haven. It has been estimated that around forty thousand fugitives had made their way to Canada by the time of the Civil War. The following selection, attributed by Drew to James Adams, describes the arduous...