Southern slave-owners tried to discourage flight by telling slaves that the Detroit River was 3,000 miles wide and that the abolitionists (people who opposed slavery) were cannibals: 'they get you darkies up there, fatten you up and then boil you.'īut others countered the slave-owners' propaganda and encouraged slaves to take flight. In Upper Canada (officially called Canada West), slavery had been illegal since the end of the 1700s. (As portrayed by Barbara Barnes- Hopkins in Canada: A People's History)Ĭanada was viewed as a safe haven, where a black person could be free. She became known as the Moses of her people. Harriet Tubman helped hundreds of slaves safely across the Canadian border. In all 30,000 slaves fled to Canada, many with the help of the underground railroad - a secret network of free blacks and white sympathizers who helped runaways. In the 1850s and 1860s, British North America became a popular refuge for slaves fleeing the horrors of plantation life in the American South.
