How formerly enslaved people found freedom and built community in Ontario
In 1849, the Reverend William King and fifteen once-enslaved people he had inherited founded the Canadian settlement of Buxton on Ontario land set aside for sale to Blacks. Though initially opposed by some neighboring whites, Buxton grew into a 700-person agricultural community that supported three schools, four churches, a hotel, a lumber mill, and a post office.
Sharon A. Roger Hepburn tells the story of the settlers from Buxton’s founding of through its first decades of existence. Buxton welcomed Black men, woman, and children from all backgrounds to live in a rural setting that offered benefits of urban life like social contact and collective security. Hepburn’s focus on social history takes readers inside the lives of the people who built Buxton and the hundreds of settlers drawn to the community by the chance to shape new lives in a country that had long represented freedom from enslavement.
A story of freedom and flourishing in a community of refugees
Albert B. Corey Prize, the American Historical Association and the Canadian Historical Association, 2008.
"The book is a treasure trove of information. . . .Crossing the Borderis recommended for students at both the high school and college levels, and the general reading public."--Multicultural Review
"Hepburn's book joins the ranks of the very best accounts of how thirty thousand runaway slaves fled Southern U.S. plantations in search of new lives in Canada, and once there, built viable settlements despite overwhelming odds against them. We are immensely grateful for this well-researched and well-written account."--H-Canada
"Crossing the Border is essential reading for all serious students of African American history."--Journal of American HistlN
![Crossing the Border: A Free Black Community in Canada [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/2/0/0/2_5182800.jpg "Crossing the Border: A Free Black Community in Canada [Hardcover]")