Borderland Blacks

Winner of the OHS Fred Landon Award In the early nineteenth century, Rochester, New York, and St. Catharines, Canada West, were the last stops on the Niagara branch of the Underground Railroad. Both cities handled substantial fugitive slave traffic and were logical destinations for the settlement of runaways because of their progressive stance on social issues including abolition of slavery, women’s rights, and temperance. Moreover, these urban centers were home to sizable free Black communities