Fugitive Slaves In Canada Summary

The author of The Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada is Benjamin Drew who was also a Boston abolitionist. He interviewed a large amount of ex-slaves who had escaped into Canada from northern America, so the document is considered as a primary source. After he collected all the information that the ex-slaves offered, he compiled and published this book. The author wanted to change northern slaveholders’ perspectives to slaves through demonstrating that the slaves in southern were treated better and happier than northern slaves. Since the document was composed of many true stories from ex-slaves, it should be considered as a credible and accurate source.
Both Mrs. Steward and Mrs. Howard shared some similar experience when they were slaves
I think most of the slaves at that time experienced similar mistreatment. First, in our textbook we found out slaves were the main labor at the point in time in history, and the masters heavily relied on the slaves to work on the farm to make money, so the masters could not allow them to escape from the farm. They ruled the slaves with violence to keep them work in the farm quietly. Second, back in the day, the social structure showed that the man had dominant position no matter at home or community, so the masters wanted to show they were powerful and stayed on a dominance status. Therefore, they did not allow their slaves resisted or escaped. Moreover, as we can see in the book Celia, A Slave, the author also referred that it is possible that the reason of raping Celia, Robert Newsom thought he bought Celia, so he owned Celia, which means that he could do whatever he wanted to do to Celia including treating her as a sex partner whether she liked or not. Robert Newsom did not treat Celia as a person since he did not respect her and used her as a tool to satisfy his sexual desire. In conclusion, slaves were commonly mistreated in physical and psychological, which urged them to escape or did something to protect themselves including