American Freedmen Dbq

Without a doubt, it can be said that the beginning of abolishing slavery in the United States of America through the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was a big event for the coloured population living in North America at the time. Of these freed slaves, now called Freedmen, many chose to move north to Canada West, a country where their rights were protected by law. While this proved to be a good move for many who got to restart their lives away from the shadow of slavery, it was also quite a difficult one, as the prejudice they faced in their new home was far greater than it was below the border. Soon after the Proclamation had been issued, the American Freedmen Inquiry commission was established , and among two others, Samuel Howe was commissioned …show more content…
Samuel Howe was at the time of this report a 62-year-old Caucasian male. He was a doctor and an educator, famous for his work with blind people and for the organization of the New England Asylum for the blind. Together with his wife Julia Howe he was an activist as well, and “a strong vocal opponent of slavery”. It would seem then, that as Howe was writing and collecting information for this report, he was a little biased towards seeing the good in the situation of the Freedmen. This is made obvious at one point in the report, on page 399, when Howe insists that although he has travelled through Canada West three times he did not see any coloured people who were beggars. The testimonials that he cites however, see things a little differently. Out of the four white men he asked, two stated that they believed the coloured folks begged more, and received more assistance from the Council than anyone else. Perhaps though, the word bias is an overstatement. Howe may have just been enthusiastic to see that after many years of activism, finally coloured people were able to start up their own lives without fear of slavery and this had him to see the situation in a more positive light. This positive view does not distort the situation though. While he does present some situations in a positive light, he is overall impartial and portrays things the way they were. This is unusual for …show more content…
This prejudice was reflected very much in their behaviour towards the coloured people who moved into their towns - if they were allowed, that is. Some coloured people either started their own towns or were, as Mayor Cross of Chatham put it “confined to a particular locality of the town.” As Howe states, when there was a small number of coloured people in one area, they were accepted by the larger white population. However, as soon as the coloured population began to rise, they started to compete with the white people and sought to be treated as social equals, they were scorned. In some cases, the prejudice turned into violence, like in Hamilton. Mr. McCallum, the High school principal of Hamilton told of a time when the coloured population competed with the white townspeople over sawing wood, so a mob of white people went and set all houses belonging to coloured population in that area on fire. This same prejudice was also very obvious in the church and school lives of the