Amherstburg
Contains a population of more than two thousand. The colored portion is variously estimated at from four hundred to five hundred,—the latter number probably being nearer exactness. Some of these, who had resided in the free States, before emigrating to Canada, assured me that here the colored people are “doing rather better than the same class in the United States.”
A separate school has been established here, at their own request: their request was given them, but leanness went with it. I visited the school. There was an attendance of twenty-four,—number on the list, thirty. The school-house is a small, low building, and contains neither blackboard nor chair. Long benches extend on the sides of the room, close to the walls, with desks of corresponding length in front of them. The whole interior is comfortless and repulsive. The teacher, a colored lady, is much troubled by the frequent absences of the pupils, and the miserably tattered and worn-out condition of the books. Two inkstands were in use, which, on being nearly inverted, yielded a very little bad ink. The teacher appeared to be one of the working sort, disposed to bear up as well as she could under her many discouragements: but the whole school adds one more dreary chapter to “the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.” But there is a better time coming. Malden (Amherstburg) is one of the stations at which the Colonial Church and School Society propose to establish schools, “expressly for the benefit of the colored race, but open to all.”
The colored people are engaged in the various mechanic arts, and as shopkeepers, etc. One of the best hotels is kept by a very intelligent colored man. In an evening walk about the town, his was the only house from which I heard the cheerful sound of vocal and instrumental music: and this was occasionally interrupted by some “saucy” white boy shouting, as he passed, a stave of our national, Union-saving air; the same which was played in State street, Boston, by a full band, when Massachusetts swallowed so bitter a dose, that the whole world made up faces: when, with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, it sent one poor “fugitive black man” “to old Virginia’s shore.” It was all right, no doubt,—for on examining the Scriptures, a “passage” from the Constitution, “No person held to service or labor,” etc., was found so snugly pasted over Deut. 23:15, that if it were possible, it might deceive the very elect. Therefore, said the people, Burns must be sent back: and the poor fellow was marched off, surrounded by beings who differed mainly from Southern “negro dogs,” in not being worth, morally speaking, the remotest approximation to “$100 apiece.” It is said that pepper was thrown at them: this was in bad taste,—it had been better to offer them salt—Turks Island—as a very useful antiseptic for men who could scarcely boast soul enough to prevent the action of decomposing chemical forces. The reader is requested to pardon this digression, the only one we have made hitherto. It is difficult to speak with calmness when reminded of so disgraceful an action as the surrender of Anthony Burns. The time has come for Americans to adopt the motto of De Witt Clinton—”Patria cara, carior libertas.” [Dear is my country, liberty is dearer.]
