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The John Freeman Walls Historic Site and Underground Railroad Museum is a historical site located in Puce, now Lakeshore, Ontario, Canada, about 25 miles east of Windsor. To some the Underground Railroad is thought to be just that, a series of underground railroads that were built to hide and transport former slaves that were seeking to escape from the southern areas of the United States. In actuality it was a web of hidden, interconnected, man-made paths that were shrouded by forests and brush which assisted in the concealment of former slaves until they could reach a Refugee Terminal. These routes had two things in common. They all headed north and towards the free soil of the northern United States and Canada; and at various points along the way they all intersected with Refugee Terminals where runaway slaves could take shelter and would be given food and clothing. Despite the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which stated that “any federal marshal who did not arrest on demand any person believed to be a runaway slave could be fined $1000. As for the runaway slaves themselves, they would be arrested and stripped of any and all civil rights”.〔9. Walls, Winston (1991). “A Unit of Study on the Road That Lead to Somewhere And The Underground Railroad.”〕 During the era of the Underground Railroad, the site was among one of several major termini in Southwestern Ontario for fugitive slaves. These locations represented the end of a slaves long journey to freedom where he/she could receive shelter and support until they were ready to move on and begin their own new lives in Canada. As it developed, the site became an important nexus for both the local black community and newly arrived fugitive slaves from the southern United States. Today, many of the original buildings remain, and in 1985, the site was opened as an Underground Railroad Museum. The site forms part of the African-Canadian Heritage Tour in Southern Ontario. ==Background== In the mid-nineteenth century, black slaves were fleeing the United States by the thousands and coming north to Canada via the Underground Railroad, the vast majority of these fugitive slaves arriving in Southwestern Ontario, crossing mainly over the Detroit River and to a lesser extent the Niagara River. After Emancipation in the British Empire in 1833, the number of refugees from slavery coming to Canada grew, and local leaders in the region became concerned that the influx of refugees, estimated to be around 30,000 in 1852,〔. 〕 made it more difficult for Blacks to find jobs in Canada. As early as 1846, meetings were held by local church leaders to help remedy the situation, and later that year, the Refugee Home Society was founded. The Society was a community-based organization that gathered funds to purchase land in Southwestern Ontario in order to sell it to refugee slaves at a fair price. Their philosophy was to assist any and all refugees from American slavery in obtaining permanent homes and to promote their moral, social, physical, economic and intellectual elevation. The first properties bought and sold by the Refugee Home Society were fifteen kilometers southeast of Windsor, Ontario, in the Townships of Maidstone and Sandwich. These were followed by communities in Puce River, Belle River, Sruce River, Pine Creek and Pelet. The main families that ran these communities were John and Jane Walls, Jacob Cummings, Emanuel Eaton, Leonard Harrod and Thomas Jones. The Refugee Home Society was dissolved in 1864. Some families migrated to Haiti and others to various parts of Canada. The American Missionary Association withdrew its support of the Society. Its failure was likely due to its narrow and paternalistic land policies that unfortunately excluded a great deal of potentially capable settlers. This was combined with the failure to obtain any significant leadership among the settlers which resulted in corruption and discredited its reputation, but not before aiding thousands of other refugees.〔10. Bramble, Linda (1988). “Black Fugitive Slaves In Early Canada”, Vanwell History Project Series.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Freeman Walls Historic Site」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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