Explore the crucial role of kitchen gardens for Freedom Seekers in 19th-century St. Catharines, as they overcame myths about Canada.
They Said Canada Was…Part 3: Everything They Had There Was Imported
Explore the culinary history of Freedom Seekers in St. Catharines, focusing on the significance of sweet potatoes in their diet.
They Said Canada Was… Part 2: That’s How It Came to Grow There
Explore the role of corn in 19th-century St. Catharines as culinary historian Abbey Stansfield uncovers the truths for Freedom Seekers.
They Said Canada Was… Part 1: No Hogs, No Cows, and All Such Stuff
Celebrate Black History Month by exploring important dishes that link together food, celebration, and history for Freedom Seekers in 19th century St. Catharines.
Hiding in Plain Sight Part 4: Hiding Our History
In part four of our annual Black History Month blog series we explore the persistence of myths and their contribution to our national identity.
Hiding in Plain Sight Part 3: Living in Plain Sight
In part three of our annual Black History Month blog series, we explore the experiences of life for those Freedom Seekers who publicly settled in St. Catharines.
Hiding in Plain Sight Part 2: Extradition
In part two of our annual Black History Month blog series, we explore the history of extradition in Upper Canada/Canada West and the legal protections afforded to Freedom Seekers once they “crossed that line.”
Hiding in Plain Sight Part 1: The Rumour Mill
In part one of our annual Black History Month blog series, we explore the root of the myth that Freedom Seekers remained in hiding even after arriving in St. Catharines on the Underground Railroad.
Grab a Plate: Food Traditions in the St. Catharines Black Community
This year’s four-part Black History Month blog series is all about community. In previous blogs we have often focused on […]
The Sound of a Community II: Blues and Jazz in St. Catharines
This year’s four-part Black History Month blog series is all about community. In previous blogs we have often focused on […]
The Sound of a Community: Plantation Songs and Spiritual Music in St. Catharines
This year’s four-part Black History Month blog series is all about community. In previous blogs we have often focused on […]
Who Can Play? A History of Sports in St. Catharines’ Black Community
This year’s four-part Black History Month blog series is all about community. In previous blogs we have often focused on […]
Filling in the Gaps: Historical Records After the Underground Railroad
The stories told over this blog series highlight moments of success, aspiration, challenge, pride, joy, and determination in the lives of Black individuals. These are universal concepts we all feel and experience. These are stories of everyday people, People of Colour who lived, went to school, worked, made friends, and pursued a full life in St. Catharines. These were the lives Freedom Seekers aspired to for themselves and their families when they arrived in St. Catharines more than 170 years ago.
Life in the City Directories: Historical Records After the Underground Railroad
One brief line in a city directory can offer endless possibility in delving into the working experiences of the people who lived and worked in St. Catharines throughout our past. By tracing the names of Black community members from the earliest editions of our directories in the 1850s through to today, we can trace the legacies first sowed by Freedom Seekers, as well as the continuity of determination and hard work within the community.
Life in the Year Books: Historical Records After the Underground Railroad
As a source, high school yearbooks certainly bring light to the achievements of Black students through the decades of the 20th century, but beyond this, they also offer unique insight into how these students navigated such a formative period of their lives. Though the Black student population in St. Catharines’ high school was small through most of the 20th century, students of colour made considerable impact in their school communities, from their academic successes to contributing their talents to clubs and sports teams. Black experiences, visible on the pages of local yearbooks, shows us all aspects of student life: friendship, school spirit, team participation, and aspirations.
Life in the News: Historical Records After the Underground Railroad
Newspapers are an important source of information in finding the historical pulse of a community. While the documentation isn’t perfect, and there are always gaps of subjects that didn’t receive coverage, the news stories and photographs can tell us a lot about the tangible history of the subject of news and the history of the community’s intangible biases and interests.
Who Stayed? Historical Records After the Underground Railroad
There is no information available as to why this population change, although the historical record might help shed some light on some of the reasons, such as difficulty finding work due to discriminatory hiring practices, people moving to be closer to family or support groups in other communities, people moving back to the United States after the Civil War, etc. We can only speculate based on the historical information available. The numbers don’t illustrate motivations.
Should I Stay? Historical Records After the Underground Railroad
Our series this year will look at the lives of those of the Black community left behind – those few Freedom Seekers who stayed to build a new life and those, along with their descendants, who had been the backbone of the community’s efforts to help during the Underground Railroad.
St. Catharines Museum Black History Resources
With over thirty different resources centred on Black History there is plenty of content to catch up on this Black History Month. The St. Catharines Museum has created this resource to help navigate our content by detailing where it can be accessed and what it is on. Included are Black History Blog Posts, Lectures, Presentations and Podcasts detailing Black History in St. Catharines.
VMLS via Podcast: Myths of the Underground Railroad
Today’s lecture, originally presented in February 2021, features public programmer Sara Nixon with a lecture about the most prevalent and persistent myths about the Underground Railroad.
VMLS vis Podcast – Visiting Abolitionists
Today’s lecture features very special guest, local historian, and trustee of the Salem Chapel, BME Church Rochelle Bush. Rochelle discusses how St. Catharines became a hub of abolitionist activity in the 1850s and 60s, and the famous names to visited St. Catharines to do their important work.
BHM Series Part Four- Prioritizing Education
Imagining a world where everyone isn’t guaranteed an opportunity to read and write is strange to us. While studying history, […]
VMLS via Podcast – Ontario’s Racially Segregated Schools
Today’s lecture features a very special guest. We were thrilled to welcome Natasha Henry, PhD candidate at York University and President of the Ontario Black History Society. Natasha’s lecture on racially segregated schools in Ontario was fascinating and we think you’ll really enjoy it. This lecture was originally produced on October 13, 2020.
BHM Series Part Three: Letters From St. Catharines
Abolitionist William Still aided some eight-hundred Freedom Seekers in their journey to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Still, a clerk from Philadelphia, kept meticulous records regarding the part he played in the Underground Railroad. Still’s book: The Underground Railroad contains correspondence written by St. Catharines Freedom Seekers that he had aided. The contents of these letters vary in subject matter on everything from where to forward material goods from their old lives to the details of helping loved ones escape. Examination of these letters gives a better understanding of the transition period Freedom Seekers experienced when they reached St. Catharines and provides perspective on what they needed most to start their new life.
Museum Classroom: Welcome to St. Catharines – Freedom Seekers and the Power of Information
This lesson will focus on understanding the challenges Freedom Seekers faced with the decision on whether to attempt the Underground Railroad to Canada.
BHM Series Part Two: Abolitionist Activities in St. Catharines
The wealth of abolitionist activity that took place in St. Catharines during the Underground Railroad Era tells a story of a community of people committed to aiding in the escape of Freedom Seekers.
BHM Series Part One: Welcome to St. Catharines, Canada West
Mary Shadd wrote a thirty-six-page book called A Plea for Emigration to share information on Canada. Shadd came to Canada after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as a means of helping Freedom Seekers who had managed to make it across the border.
General Tubman: St. Catharines 1858 – Part III
Enslaved African Americans would continue to escape from the Eastern Shore in the summer and the fall of that year. Some were caught and were forced to return to a life of enslavement while many others made their way to St. Catharines.
General Tubman: St. Catharines, 1858 – Part II
We do know that on April 7th,1858, Tubman was in St. Catharines at the boarding house she rented. The boarding house, which no longer stands, was located in the “Colored Village” on North Street behind the British Methodist Episcopal Church (BMEC) which she attended. The Black settlement was located on the outskirts of the town. It was at this boarding house where she received and met, John Brown, a notorious, radical abolitionist, for the first time.
History from Here: Richard Pierpoint at Centennial Gardens
We are so pleased to introduce the newest virtual series presented by the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre: […]
General Tubman: St. Catharines, 1858 – Part I
At the start of 1858 Tubman was living in the boarding house she rented in St. Catharines, Canada West (now Ontario) with her elderly parents; Benjamin Ross Sr. and Ritta ‘Rit’ Green Ross. The town of St. Catharines was a hub for abolitionist activity. With a population of about 6,500 in 1857, around 600 were people of African descent, and the majority of them were self-liberated African Americans.
Museum Chat Live! E607 – The Howe Report Revisited
On this episode of Museum Chat Live! Sara and Adrian revisit their lecture on the Howe Report presented as a part of the Museum’s Virtual Museum Lecture Series in November of 2020. The lecture focussed on the Howe Report, or using it’s proper name, “The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West: a Report to the Freedman’s Inquiry Commission,” written by Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe after his visit to St. Catharines in 1863 to report on the condition of refugee Freedom Seekers to Congress. Howe’s interviews were transcribed and reveal a lot about our community in 1863.
BHM: The Howe Report Part 4
The picture of Canada and of St. Catharines I had in my head was one that was a ‘safe haven’ for Freedom Seekers. Technically true: legal freedom was available to Freedom Seekers. But St. Catharines wasn’t much of a ‘promised land’ afterall. Understandably, it is difficult to reconcile this information found in the testimonies of the Howe Commission, into the established picture we have of St. Catharines.
BHM: The Howe Report Part 3
St. Catharines in this period was truly the industrial hub of Niagara. Agriculture and shipbuilding – the largest employers – dominated the landscape. The Welland Canal brought innovation, wealth, technology, and tourists to St. Catharines. It was dirty – animals had the run of downtown, but it was also clean – Victorian tourists swept into the city at this time to take advantage of all the recreational opportunities available.
BMH: The Howe Report Part 2
I have seen hundreds of cases where families were separated. I have seen them in droves 150-200 together – men, women, and children – linked side by side. There used to be two drivers to a drove, one driver in front and one behind. I have seen them from eight or nine years old up to 45 and 50; and when the mothers were sold, I have seen young babes, torn from the cradle in these gangs. I have seen this, many and many a time, and heard them cry fit to break their hearts.
BHM: The Howe Report Part 1
Black history is a part of Canadian history and that history includes racism. It’s difficult to come to terms with, I know. I love sharing the exciting story of Harriet Tubman and others who found freedom and refuge in St. Catharines. I have difficulty coming to terms with the idea that even though Freedom Seekers were welcome and supported in the community, they (and other minority or immigrant groups) were treated poorly, were openly disrespected, and experienced racism.
BHM Part 4: How to Reconcile the Good and Bad Parts of Our History
Stories like the establishment of the Refugee Slaves Friends Society here in St. Catharines, or the popular Emancipation Day Picnic, held at Lakeside Park from the 1920s to the 1950s to celebrate the 1833 Act for the Abolition of Slavery, are enjoyable to share and to consume because they can help us to feel better about ourselves and our past while living in troubling times. Unfortunately, history is messy. We love organization and labels as much as you do, but history is complex and accurately telling stories includes acknowledging the bad parts too. Recognizing messy histories can actually help to clean up and heal the impacts that history has on our community today. Reconciling the good with the bad parts of our history can help us to move forward.
BHM Part 3: What Can We Learn From a Toy Doll?
The St. Catharines Museum recently catalogued an artifact that offers a unique perspective to Black History and the legacy of […]
BMH Part 2: Family Legacies – The Nicholson-Smith Family
With Family Day around the corner, we chose to use the second installment of our Black History Month blog series […]
BHM Part 1: Using Our Past to Inspire Us to Compassion and Action
Black History Month is an incredibly important time to recognize, reflect, and commemorate the history of the Black community in St. Catharines, and indeed, throughout Canada. It does not start on February 1, nor stop on February 29.
More over, Black History should never be recognized, reflected, or commemorated as a silo of history. Black History is as important and vital a part of the Canadian story as any other.
I’ve found myself searching for ways to make our history relevant to our current human experience. To be honest, it can be difficult to connect to the past with the news the way it is these days. Things move so fast that it’s hard to figure it all out.
Yet parallels exist. Our community has a strong history of responding to injustice with compassion and action. And so my goal, with this first post in our series of four is to reveal how our history can inspire compassion and action in our daily lives and in our community.