London
Alfred T. Jones
I keep an apothecary shop on Ridout street. I belonged in Madison Co., Ky. I have made an arrangement with my master to purchase my freedom for $350. This was in 1833, when I was twenty-three years old. But before the business was completed, I learned that my master was negotiating with another party to sell me for $400. Upon this, I wrote for myself a pass—it was not spelled correctly, but nobody there supposed that a slave could write at all. I had to exhibit it but once on my way.
I stopped a month at St. Catharines, then came to London, and have remained here ever since.
The people from the old country, being many of them unaccustomed to colored people, have some strange ideas respecting us: a sort of “second-hand prejudice,” as Ward calls it. The majority of the people of color who come over here are not such as give a very good idea of what the people of color really are. They are not refined and educated. But as some years are passed since the colored men began to come in, there is an improvement perceptible.
There are colored people employed in this city in almost all the mechanic arts; also in grocery and provision stores, etc. Many are succeeding well, are buying houses, speculating in lands, and some are living on the interest of their money.
I expect to go to England shortly on a suit at law involving my title to a large property on Dundas street, valued at $45,000. The case has been through chancery in the provincial court, and I have now appealed to the House of Lords. I am winding up my business preparatory to leaving.