Background
In the mid-nineteenth century, black slaves were fleeing the United States by the thousands and coming north to Canada via the Underground Railroad, the vast majority of these fugitive slaves arriving in Southwestern Ontario, crossing mainly over the Detroit River and to a lesser extent the Niagara River. After Emancipation in the British Empire in 1833, the number of slaves coming to Canada grew, and local leaders in the region became concerned that the influx of refugee slaves, estimated to be around 30,000 in 1852, made it more difficult for Blacks to find jobs in Canada. As early as 1846, meetings were held by local church leaders to help remedy the situation, and later that year, the Refugee Home Society was founded. The Society was a community-based organization that gathered funds to purchase land in Southwestern Ontario in order to sell it to refugee slaves at a fair price. Their philosophy was to assist any and all refugees from American slavery in obtaining permanent homes and to promote their moral, social, physical, economic and intellectual elevation. The first properties bought and sold by the Refugee Home Society were fifteen kilometers southeast of Windsor, Ontario, in the Townships of Maidstone and Sandwich. These were followed by communities in Puce River, Belle River, Sruce River, Pine Creek and Pelet. The main families that ran these communities were John and Jane Walls, Jacob Cummings, Emanuel Eaton, Leonard Harrod and Thomas Jones. The Refugee Home Society was dissolved in 1864. Some families migrated to Haiti and others to various parts of Canada. The American Missionary Association withdrew its support of the Society. Its failure was likely due to its narrow and paternalistic land policies that unfortunately excluded a great deal of potentially capable settlers. This was combined with the failure to obtain any significant leadership among the settlers which resulted in corruption and discredited its reputation, but not before aiding thousands of other refugees.
Read more about this topic: John Freeman Walls Historic Site
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