Robert Nelson

I was born in Orange county, Va. My mother was sold away from me before I can remember. I was taken from Virginia at seven, and remained there in Kentucky, in Boone county, until forty-seven. While I was in slavery, I belonged to a man who used me as he did his children, except that he gave me no educacation. I cannot write or read.

My master got involved, and I was mortgaged. The mortgage was out and closed,—the sheriff got after me, and I ran to Canada. I was to have been taken to a cotton farm in Louisiana. This was in April, 1845. I left without money. I had heard about the abolitionists, but was afraid of them: I thought no white men would do what they said the abolitionists would do. I had been told that they would sell us. So I was afraid to trust them. The abolitionists wanted to have a meeting to raise money for me, but I slipped out of their hands. After I got here, I found they were all true.

Some persons who wanted to betray me, told me I could not live in Canada. I came in without a shilling. I now own a house and one hundred and one acres of land. I have averaged about fifteen acres of land a year that I cultivated, having myself two thirds of the crop. This enabled me to support myself and family, and buy land. My wife belonged to another man. I sent on and bought her for $400.

It is reported throughout the world, that colored people cannot live here: I have been here ten years, and have seen no one starving yet. Any man that will work can get $10 or $12 a month, cash, and more if he takes it in trade. I can raise corn sixty or seventy bushels to the acre, as good corn as ever was raised in the South. It has been stated that the colored population are lazy, and won’t work. The principal part all work. This report has been got out by begging agents, to fill their own pockets by raising money. The prejudice is higher here in this place than in any part of Canada. It arises from a wish to keep the colored people so that they can get their labor. They used to work for the whites, but they only received half price, and cases have been known where, for ten pounds of pork, the laborer received five. The fugitive, as ignorant of figures as a hog is of holiday, had cunning enough to go to another place and get it weighed. By these means, the colored people became unwilling to work for the whites, and tried to make themselves independent. They began to take up land and work for themselves: of course the whites could not hire them. They have consequently become freeholders, and are of some consequence at the polls.

The colored people have cleared up two thirds of what has been cleared in this township. Those who came first, bought lands of individuals and lost them again: but when they began to buy of the government, they began to have good claims on the land.

Some, when they first came, would take a lease of a few acres of wild land, for six or seven years. By the time they had got it cleared, and removed some of the stumps, the lease was out. Then the white man said, “you can’t have that piece any more,—you must go back in the bush.” They found they must do different from this. They began to work on the land for themselves, and to get farms of their own. Now because the white men cannot hire them, they say the colored people won’t work.

They say, too, that the colored people steal. It may be that a few are a little light-fingered, they take, perhaps, a few small articles, and the greatest mischief is, it scandalizes us. What two or three bad fellows do, prejudice lays to the whole of us. But some white men have stolen on the credit of the colored. It is very easy to say when a thing is missed,—”O, ‘t is some colored man stole it,”—although, it has, to my knowledge, been proved, that when theft was charged on a colored man, it turned out that a white man did it.

There is a settlement here called New Canaan, where was a large body of wild land. Colored people went in and took it up at one hundred acres apiece. I guess there may be now forty families. [In 1852, there were twenty families.] They paid the first instalment, and had ten years to pay in. But three quarters of them have already paid the whole price, and got the deeds, and are making good improvements on their lands, making enough to support their families. The preaching of the gospel is regularly kept up.

My wish to the people of the States is, to give no more money to the begging agencies. If they wish to give money to the fugitives and the sick, it should be given to the True Band societies, who can disburse it as it is wanted. The Band will attend to the fugitives.