Austin Steward, Notes

I'm reading Austin Steward's autobiography, 22 Years a Slave, and 40 Years a Freeman, originally published in 1857 and available on the Internet. There's no reference to the banjo anywhere in this account, other than this description of the beginnings of a surreptitious party from p 29,

The shades of night soon closed over the plantation, and then could be heard the rude music and loud laugh of the unpolished slave...

but I became interested in this man even before I discovered his autobiography because of his connection to the short-lived settlement of Wilberforce, near London, Ontario. He was barred from buying enough land to establish a profitable farm, so among his other tasks (notably a courier service), he opted to open a small hotel. I'm writing a dramatic account of an evening, sometime in the early 1830's spent in Steward's hotel, by a pair Ethiopian Delineator types, who stop for the nacht en route from London to Goderich.

Steward, it turns out, is quite a principled man. The settlement at Wilberforce was mostly comprised of transplanted Ohioans who were fleeing the 500 dollar fee that a Black man had to pay in that state for the right to work. Steward himself had a profitable business going in Rochester NY, and joined the settlement in a gesture of altruism and solidarity.

Beech, maple, ash, elm, oak, whitewood, bass, balm of gilead, etc. The soil was good for corn, wheat, rye, oats, and most kinds of the grain and vegetables raised in New York, and was a superior grazing country, about fifteen miles from London. This was a village containing perhaps 30 dwellings, and 200 inhabitants; a court-house and jail all under one roof, built of stone and plastered; small doors and windows in the style of some of the old English castles. London was built in the forks, or between the east and west branches of the river Thames; hence, you would hear people speak of "going to the forks," instead of the village; it is about 200 miles from Buffalo, and the nearest port between the two is Port Stanley, 30 miles from London.

I returned from Canada, where I had seen an oppressed people struggling with the hardships and privations of a new settlement; I had seen wretchedness in some places, but by no means sufficient to justify the report made by Mr. Lewis, and I determined I would remove there with my family, and do all in my power to assist the colored people of Canada.

Just before his departure for Canada, however, he had a dream. It's interesting because the only other dream he relates in the book turns out to be the foreshadowing of real events. This one, however, is more surreal:

During the hours of slumber I was continually being startled by frightful dreams, - sometimes I thought I saw a monstrous serpent as large as a log stretched across the road between Rochester and the Genesee River; at another I thought myself in the air so high that I could have a full view of the shores of Lake Ontario, and they were alive with snakes; and then I saw a large bird like an eagle, rise up out of the water and fly toward the south.

Why toward the south, one wonders? I thought hope lay toward the north.

Notwithstanding these omens, I turned my steps toward Wilberforce. In May, 1831, we bid adieu to our friends in Rochester, and taking passage to Buffalo on a canal boat, we arrived in due time...