Black History in Toronto and the Underground Railroad

Toronto became a leading destination for Black people escaping slavery in the United States after the U.S. Fugitive Slave Act of September 18, 1850, but the city’s Black community was older than that law. Black congregations were meeting in Toronto by the 1820s and 1830s, and Thornton and Lucie Blackburn had settled here by 1834. This article follows the people, churches, meetings, and newspapers of that community through documents held in archives. The wider story of arrivals is told in the article on immigration and communities in Toronto, so the focus here is on the institutions and individuals it only touches.

Why Toronto, and why after 1850

The Upper Canada act of 1793 banned bringing enslaved people into the colony but did not free those already held, and slavery ended across the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act of 1834. An exhibit by the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library states that the American law of 1850 sharply increased the number of people entering Canada, and gives an estimate of 30,000 to 40,000 African Americans who fled to Canada between 1793 and 1865. The term Underground Railroad, the same exhibit explains, described the network of Black and white Americans and Canadians who helped people reach Canada. Estimates of the total vary by source, and no census recorded who arrived as a refugee.

Thornton and Lucie Blackburn

Parks Canada, which designated the couple National Historic Persons on May 4, 1999, records that they fled slavery in Kentucky, were arrested in Detroit in 1833, and escaped to Upper Canada during the riots that their capture set off. The government twice defended them against extradition, and by 1834 they were living in Toronto. They founded the city’s first cab company, worked for abolition, and supported their community. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives Thornton’s birth as about 1812 in Kentucky and dates the cab, painted yellow and red, to 1837 according to several sources. A plaque stands at 19 Sackville Street. Thornton Blackburn also attended the 1851 convention described below.

The Blackburn property later became an archaeological site. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, excavations in 1985 found the foundations of a small house, a barn, and a root cellar in what had become a school yard.

Churches of St. John’s Ward

The City of Toronto Archives summarizes the histories of several congregations. The First Baptist Church was founded in 1826 by twelve formerly enslaved people led by Washington Christian, and had its own building at Queen and Victoria Streets by 1841. The Grant African Methodist Episcopal Church was established by 1833 and had a permanent site on Richmond Street West in the 1840s. The British Methodist Episcopal Church built its first Toronto church in 1845 at 94 Chestnut Street. A city map of 1857 shows four Black churches close together in St. John’s Ward, where many residents were refugees from slavery.

1851: a society and a convention

The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada was formed in Toronto on February 26, 1851, in direct response to the Fugitive Slave Act. The Fisher Library exhibit names Wilson Ruffin Abbott, Henry Bibb, and Albert Beckford Jones among Black members of its executive, and George Brown, publisher of the Globe, the Reverend Michael Willis, and Oliver Mowat among white members. In 1852 the society estimated the Black population of Upper Canada at 30,000. The society later commissioned Benjamin Drew to collect narratives, which he published in Boston in 1856 as A North-Side View of Slavery; the book draws on visits to 14 communities, Toronto among them.

In September 1851, a North American Convention of Colored Freemen met at St. Lawrence Hall, opening at 10 a.m. on September 11. The organizers’ call brought 53 delegates, and Henry Bibb was named president. Toronto was chosen as the safest of the meeting places considered. Delegates debated education, temperance, and farming, and the final resolution advised refugees to settle in Canada or the British Caribbean. One recommendation urged giving up separate Black churches and schools, yet the congregations listed above still appear in the city’s records, including on the 1857 map. The schemes for farming leagues were largely unrealized.

A newspaper in Toronto

The Provincial Freeman, edited chiefly by Mary Ann Shadd, first appeared in Windsor in March 1853. According to the Ontario Heritage Trust, it relaunched in Toronto in March 1854 with backing, and after nearly a year and a half in the city the operation moved to Chatham. The Canadian Encyclopedia dates the Toronto weekly to March 25, 1854, with an office on King Street East. The biography of Mary Ann Shadd covers her life in more detail.

Business and civic life

Wilson Ruffin Abbott, born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1801, came to Toronto in late 1835 or early 1836 after leaving Mobile, Alabama. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says he became a dealer in real estate and by 1871 owned 42 houses, five vacant lots, and a warehouse. It also corrects an older claim: he ran for city council in 1847 and lost. He died in Toronto on November 6, 1876. His son Anderson Ruffin Abbott became the first Canadian-born Black person licensed to practice medicine in Canada.

City records show Black residents acting as a political body. On October 14, 1841, James Johnson and 28 others petitioned the mayor to stop a touring American circus from staging demeaning acts, according to a petition kept in the City of Toronto Archives. In 1902 Alderman William Peyton Hubbard, born near Bloor and Bathurst Streets in 1842 to parents who had been enslaved in Virginia, moved the amendment that replaced a proposed laundry license fee of $50 CAD with a scale of $5 to $20. The Archives lists him as the city’s first Black elected politician, and the Canadian Encyclopedia dates his first election to 1894.

Timeline of documented events

1826: First Baptist Church founded, according to the Archives summary of the church’s history.
1833: The Blackburns are arrested in Detroit.
1834: The Blackburns are living in Toronto. Slavery ends across the British Empire.
1841: The circus petition of October 14 is submitted to the mayor.
1845: The British Methodist Episcopal Church opens at 94 Chestnut Street.
1850: The Fugitive Slave Act is passed on September 18.
1851: The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada is formed on February 26. The Colored Freemen convention opens at St. Lawrence Hall on September 11.
1854: The Provincial Freeman relaunches in Toronto.
1857: A city map shows four Black churches in St. John’s Ward.

Disputed and uncertain points

Start of the Blackburn cab: several sources say 1837, and the sources consulted do not give a primary record for the date.
End of the Provincial Freeman: the Ontario Heritage Trust says it collapsed in 1860, with a last surviving copy from June 1859; other catalogs give 1857.
Abbott’s property holdings: the Dictionary of Canadian Biography gives 42 houses in 1871, while some web sources repeat a figure of 48 properties.
Number of refugees: the estimate of 30,000 to 40,000 covers all of Canada from 1793 to 1865, and no source consulted gives a verified count for Toronto alone.

Frequently asked questions

When did Black people first settle in Toronto?

Records of the City of Toronto Archives place the First Baptist Church’s founding by twelve formerly enslaved people in 1826 and the Grant African Methodist Episcopal Church by 1833. The Blackburns were living in the city by 1834.

Where was the 1851 convention held?

At St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto, from September 11, 1851. The organizers’ call drew 53 delegates.

Who founded the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada?

The society was formed at Toronto on February 26, 1851. Its executive included Black and white members, among them Wilson Ruffin Abbott, Henry Bibb, George Brown, and Michael Willis.

Where can the records be read?

The City of Toronto Archives publishes a research guide on Black history in Toronto, and the Archives of Ontario issues a Research Guide to Black Histories. Both note that period records can contain offensive language.

Last verified: October 2026

Sources

Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations: Blackburn, Thornton and Lucie
City of Toronto Archives, research guide on Black history in Toronto
University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, online exhibit on Black history in the nineteenth century (abolition and Canadian communities)
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, entry on Wilson Ruffin Abbott
Ontario Heritage Trust, background paper on the Provincial Freeman
The Canadian Encyclopedia, entries on Thornton and Lucie Blackburn and The Provincial Freeman
Archives of Ontario, Research Guide to Black Histories

Cite this page

APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). Black Torontonians and the Underground Railroad, 1826 to 1860. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/black-history-toronto-underground-railroad

MLA: “Black Torontonians and the Underground Railroad, 1826 to 1860.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/black-history-toronto-underground-railroad. Accessed .

Chicago: History of Toronto. “Black Torontonians and the Underground Railroad, 1826 to 1860.” Last modified October 23, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/black-history-toronto-underground-railroad.

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