In the early 1830s, the U.S. anti-slavery movement was undergoing a profound radicalization as white anti-slavery proponents like William Lloyd Garrison joined black activists to demand the immediate, uncompensated emancipation of all slaves. This chapter illuminates the influence that two international free-soil havens had on the anti-slavery movement during this decade: Canada and Mexico. Following in the footsteps of newspaper editor Benjamin Lundy, it brings to life the critical debates that unfolded in the anti-slavery press about what meaningful freedom should look like for free African Americans and former slaves – and where they could go to find it.

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved people in Union-occupied territory during the American Civil War, three men were selected to determine how freed African Americans could assist in the war effort, what their needs were in the transition from slavery to freedom, and what the social effects of releasing so many men and women from bondage would likely be. This was the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission. The conclusion of this book explores how this wartime commission’s investigations leveraged the example of black freedom in free-soil havens abroad to develop its recommendations to the Lincoln administration. Their conclusions helped to structure advice that ultimately gave shape and substance to the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was active among freed slaves in the South throughout the Reconstruction era. As a conclusion to five decades of international free-soil investigation and inspiration, this commission embedded the complexities of black freedom experienced abroad into the foundation of freedom in the United States.

Thousands of free and self-emancipated African Americans crossed the international border in Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) in the 1830s and 1840s. But did they actually experience the legal equality and freedom from oppression they hoped to find? This chapter explores the reflections of migrants and observers on what life was actually like for African American emigrants under the British flag. It shows that while racism and educational inequity were pervasive enough in Upper Canada to slow the rate of free African American emigration to the province, the government’s ongoing commitment to protecting self-emancipated individuals and to ensuring the legal equality of black subjects ensured that Upper Canada’s reputation as a beacon of liberty steadily increased in the years preceding the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

This chapter explores and explains the origins of the Underground Railroad to Canada. In 1830, Ohio’s legislature decided to implement the state’s longstanding but disused Black Laws, barring African Americans from many of the rights enjoyed by their white neighbors. Shortly thereafter, anti-black rioting in Cincinnati forced thousands of black residents to flee their homes. In response, many black Cincinnatians gathered together to explore where they might go to start their lives anew. The U.S. North? Mexico? Haiti? Liberia? Situating their decision-making process in a landscape of expanding free-soil options abroad, this chapter argues that their ultimate decision – Upper Canada – was not a foregone conclusion. By reaching out to the province’s Lieutenant Governor, they secured a promise of legal equality that not only made Canada their most enticing option, it paved the way for Canada to become the foremost international destination for fugitive slaves and free people alike.

This chapter explores highly publicized episodes of international free-soil border crossing by land and by sea in the 1830s and 1840s. It was during these decades that the so-called Underground Railroad to Canada became a recognizable feature of the American anti-slavery landscape. Anti-slavery advocates publicly and volubly celebrated each instance of former slaves escaping the reach of slave-holders, and the publicity generated by border-crossing slaves inspired abolitionists to see Canada as a beacon of black freedom. Cumulatively, the successful escape of fugitive slaves to Canada, Mexico, and the British West Indies also catalyzed international diplomatic crises that permanently altered the geopolitical map of slavery and freedom. While millions remained enslaved during the antebellum era, the efforts of fugitive slaves to claim their freedom transformed international free-soil havens into powerful symbols of freedom and escape.