Antislavery institutions had a
precarious existence, and the black press was no exception.
Of six attempts to establish black antislavery news papers
in Canada West, only two-the Voice of the Fugitive and the
Provincial Freeman-survived long enough to influence the antislavery
movement. In 1839 black abolitionists Peter Gallego and E.
L. de St. Remy of Toronto announced their intention to publish
The British American Journal of Liberty, but no evidence exists
that the paper was ever published.
The British American, published by fugitive slaves in Toronto
in March 1845, survived less than a month. Nothing ever came
of a resolution by the Drummondville Convention (1847) to
create a black antislavery paper in Toronto. Augustus R. Green's
True Royalist and Weekly Intelligencer (1860) was also short-lived.
Lack of financial support was the usual cause of failure.
The Voice and the Freeman worked to address that problem.
Both had regular subscribers and advertising income. The Voice
received a subsidy as the official organ of the Refugee Home
Society.
The Freeman created its own support organization, the Provincial
Union Association. In addition, editors Mary Ann Shadd Cary,
Isaac D. Shadd, and H. Ford Douglas made antislavery lecture
tours in Canada West and in the northern United States to
enlist subscribers to the paper. Even so, the Freeman engaged
in a persistent financial struggle. By early 1857, after three
years of continuous publication, the militant antislavery
paper was on the verge of closing down. Ironically, Cary,
Shadd, and Douglas-leading voices of black self reliance in
Canada West-responded with a plea for public assistance. "Slavery
and Humanity," their February 1857 circular, was an unabashed
appeal for funds.
Source:
The Black Abolitionist Papers: Volume II, University
of North Caronina Press Chapel Hill and London, 1986, pp.
367 |
