Bibb Transcription
Across the River to Freedom: Mary and Henry Bibb
A film written and produced by Irene Moore Davis and Heidi LM Jacobs (2022)
Teajai Travis, Poet
Their love bled red lines over whitewashed cotton.
They were stitched to stars, waving cautiously
their identity fraying at the seams.
They dreamed of a long road
paved in gold, but in reality, they were bought and sold.
Worked to the edge of their breath and mindlessly sold.
He was born to a Kentucky farm,
Mildred raised a young slave destined to go far.
Far from the farm Henry would go.
Sadly, he'd have to journey alone.
Behind he left Melinda and Mary Frances, too.
His lonely heart broke, but he had to push through.
His mission was freedom and justice for all.
He had a mountain to climb with no chance to fall.
He lifted his voice and bled truth to the page,
intellectually refined despite his trauma and rage.
He'd speak to a nation violently torn,
a generation of creation he'd silently warn,
"The great storm is brewing and boil it must.
Freedom and liberty, a birthright to us.
The roots of this nation are wet with our blood,
yet it's we who live our lives on the run."
She was born free, or at least it seemed.
Dedicated to justice, she fought against slavery.
She and Henry would meet and soon jump the broom,
but not before long the two had to move.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 would pass.
Black bodies were being stolen and sold for cold cash.
No one was safe, born free or enslaved.
A bounty for bodies, handsomely paid.
The two had a plan to launch a Black press.
So they journeyed until they hit Canada West.
They settled in Sandwich, legally free,
but racism didn't fall far from the tree.
Bounty hunters would cross into so-called freedom land.
Still, the Bibbs vigilantly kept to their plan.
Henry escorted freedom seekers out of harm's way.
Mary received travelers providing a safe place to stay.
The Voice of the Fugitive moved hot off the press,
providing a voice and a platform
for the hopelessly voiceless.
The first major news publication entirely Black,
provided some code and some soul to an Underground Railroad track.
Irene Moore Davis, Historian
Recognized today as persons of national historic significance in Canada, Henry Bibb and Mary Miles Bibb once lived, worked and made their mark in Sandwich. Born in 1815, Henry Bibb had lived in slavery in Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas. The life he endured was difficult.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
As a child, Henry Bibb endured a lot of trauma, a lot of brutality. In his autobiography, Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave, he talks about as a young child, walking without shoes in the winter and how his feet were cracked and bleeding. He began running away as a young child when he was about ten years old. He started running off into the woods when he was beaten. When a slave holder, a master or mistress, would beat him, he would just run and go down to a river and he would be gone for days, and he talks about eating berries until someone eventually found him and returned him to the enslaver. He escaped from slavery, finally, at the bottom of 1841. He arrived in Detroit in January 1842 a free -- he escaped from slavery in Texas.
Dr Veta Tucker, Historian
He learned to read and write at Second Baptist Church in the Sabbath school. But they didn't teach him how to think. He already knew how to do that. Once he had mastered literacy, he was a force to be reckoned with. He wrote articles for Michigan's abolitionist paper, The Signal of Liberty, and he traveled throughout the state of Michigan, giving lectures.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
And he began immediately engaging in anti-slavery activism. People were fascinated with his story. Here was a person who endured slavery. He was seen as a real deal. He had an authentic experience of slavery. He started speaking. Several abolitionist societies, like the Detroit Association, the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society, the Liberated Party of Michigan, they contracted him to serve as a speaker, as a lecturer for the cause.
He became the glue that united all these factions within Michigan. Soon enough, he was speaking in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, other places in the Midwest, and also in New York and New England.
He became this really prominent speaker. In 1847 he went to the American Anti-Slavery Society's meeting in New York City, 1847. And there he met Mary Miles.
Dr Veta Tucker, Historian
His wife was herself a very luminous figure. She was from Rhode Island, and she had been involved in anti-slavery work in the Northeast.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
She was at this conference too. She was known as an abolitionist in her own right. She was a schoolteacher. She graduated from the Lexington Normal School just outside of Boston.
The first Black woman to graduate from this, which is a teacher training college. She was raised as a Quaker. She had the mannerisms of a Quaker, very reserved. She only spoke when she had to and her words were very profound. And so she and Bibb corresponded for a year and then in 1848, they got married in Ohio.
Dr Veta Tucker, Historian
So as a couple, they had lots of connections. And their connections extended well into abolitionist United States and of course, throughout Canada.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
In 1849, a year later, Bibb publishes his autobiography. And, you know, we speculate that his wife
Mary Miles (now Bibb) helped him in the editing of the book because she was she was very educated, she was very literate. Bibb wasn't as formally educated as she was. Nonetheless, since his book came out, his autobiography, or we call it slave narrative, in which really he talks about his life in slavery.
Irene Moore Davis, Historian
Then in 1850, the United States Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. Like many other people of African descent, both formerly enslaved and free, the Bibbs felt compelled to leave the United States.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
The law empowered slaveholders to find and capture their runaway slaves. People who had been living in freedom for many, many years in the North, sometimes for decades, the federal government said, "Yeah, they can be hunted down." And the federal government would pay
for the enslavers to find these people and capture them. We know that thousands of people who had been living in freedom crossed the border.
Irene Moore Davis, Historian
The Bibbs chose Sandwich as their new base of operations, bringing along with them Mildred Jackson, Henry's mother, whom he had previously assisted north to freedom. In Sandwich, they could carry on their anti-slavery activism and assist refugees while remaining in close proximity to abolitionist networks and Underground Railroad operatives on the other side of the border.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
It really wasn't a sort of rigid separation between, you know, Canada, West and Detroit. It was almost like one culture zone. People were moving back and forth. Before the Bibbs made Sandwich, Canada West their permanent address, they were living in Detroit. But they were they were coming over all the time.
Henry Bibb was coming over to Canada, was lecturing, speaking...he and his wife came over. One, they wanted to protest the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. And two, they wanted to lead the Black community. We know that because Bibb talks about that in a letter that he wrote to one of his colleagues. He said, "The Friends of Freedom in the United States encouraged me to go to Canada West because there are so many fugitives coming there on a daily basis and they need help and support."
It really spoke to the emergency at the border, at this particular border town, and just the destitution and the White Canadians on the Canadian side of the border were not welcoming. They really didn't want them.
Also, in July of 1850, the Canada West government, you know the Ontario government, what it did was to disenfranchise Black children from getting an education because they basically said, "you cannot go to the common schools, you have to go to your separate Black school." In many instances there were no physical schools for these children. They were chased out of the white schools. It meant that Black children, in most places in the province, were now denied an education.
Irene Moore Davis, Historian
Observing immediately that the Black community had no access to the public schools in Sandwich, Mary Miles Bibb opened her own school where she taught day and evening classes without pay for over a year. She worked to secure donations from philanthropists so that books and supplies could be purchased.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
One of the first things she did was to establish a school in her house in Sandwich. Mary Bibb throughout, we know she founded at least three schools. When Benjamin Drew arrived in 1855/56, Benjamin Drew the Boston journalist, he was interviewing people in various Black communities across the province.
And he interviewed Mary Bibb. By now she was living in Windsor proper and she had a beautiful school, but it was after years of struggle.
I think I read three letters that she wrote to somebody and she always signed it, she said, "In haste, Mary Bibb," or something. I mean, that says it all.
Irene Moore Davis, Historian
Henry and Mary Bibb offered emergency settlement services to newly arrived freedom seekers, providing food, clothing, shelter and guidance about housing and employment. Concern for the well-being of refugees led the Bibbs to become involved in the Refugee Home Society. While they were not the founders, the Bibbs were administrators, and among its most vocal proponents.
The society's fundraising efforts in Canada and the U.S. facilitated the purchase of land which could be resold to the formerly enslaved families with discounted rates and favorable conditions. The society also provided refugees with tools, supplies, training, and protection from slave catchers.
Settlements were formed in Sandwich and Maidstone townships totaling approximately 2,000 acres.
During his time in Sandwich, Henry Bibb organized a series of conventions and important meetings where members of the American and Canadian abolitionist communities could organize and strategize around survival in a hostile environment and ultimately towards progress.
These conventions included the Sandwich Colored Convention of November 1850, where he convinced the delegates to pass a resolution to establish a militant abolitionist newspaper, and the North American Convention of Colored Freemen, held at St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto over three days in September. 1851.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
The Voice of The Fugitive, which is the newspaper that the Bibbs founded, was hugely, hugely significant. The White press was an enemy of Black people. White editors used their power and their influence to disparage the Black community. "We don't want them here, they are not good settlers..." You see all this type of writing in editorials and articles in White newspapers. And so Black people really had no defense.
One of the objectives of the Voice of the Fugitive, when Henry Bibb began publishing it,
January 1st, 1851 was the date that the first issue rolled off the press, one of the objectives was really to be a defender of Black people.
In addition to campaigning for the end of slavery in the United States and for equality in in Canada, it was to defend Black people from these traducers. The first sustained Black newspaper in what, all of Canada. It also showed Black people in all our humanity.
The newspaper was widely circulated throughout Canada West and Canada East, which is Quebec,in the American free states especially in the Midwest, and in the UK. It founded the Black press in Canada. The Voice of the Fugitive founded the Black press in Canada.
Mary Bibb's role at the paper was hugely important. When Henry Bibb was away, and he was often away on his lecture tours, she ran the paper. She oversaw its production, she made sure it came off the press, she helped to put it together, to typeset it. As importantly, she wrote articles for the paper, even when Bibb was at home. She was one of the journalists, so I see her as Canada's first female Black journalist.
She was also important in getting subscribers for the newspaper. She was writing articles for the paper, she was holding fundraisers. Very, very important to the paper. And I think under-recognized for her work as a pioneering Black journalist and Black newspaper founder in Canada.
The office was right beside the House of the Bibbs, which was right beside First Baptist Church. Now, the office was torched in 1854, so everything was lost.The papers, the Bibbs’ writings, the typesetting device, all that was lost. And the paper, I mean Bibb did publish a one sheet paper, The Voice of the Fugitive and the Canadian Independent.
The Bibbs were very much involved in the Refugee Home Society. So many freedom seekers had arrived in Canada West and they didn't have a place to live.
In order to vote, you had to be a freeholder. Now if they had the vote then that was power, the ballot was power. It's so interesting that, you know, over maybe 150 years, 140, 30 years down the line, you had Malcolm X talking about the same thing, the importance of the ballot. So here they were saying for one, Black people need to be freeholders. They also need to have a place to lay their head at night, where no one is going to chase them away. They need that security for themselves and for their children. A family would have access to 25 acres of land.
They bought the land from the Canada Land Company, which was a Crown Corporation. It was an organization, the Refugee Home Society, with abolitionists in in Essex County and across the river in Detroit. Henry and Mary Bibb were officers of the society.
Some of the names that we know who were involved in the abolitionist movement in this Detroit River zone, you're going to find them as part, as officials or officers in the Refugee Home Society. They purchased property in what we now know in the Puce area.
We know by the time that Henry Bibb died in 1854 on Emancipation Day August 1st, at least 100 families had been settled on Refugee Home Society. He died after an illness. He had a high fever.
Two years after the death of Henry Bibb she remarried, she married Isaac Carey and was living in Windsor now. She was teaching school, but she had started her own entrepreneurial activity in the form of a dress shop. So, it tells me that she's really fashion minded and she, you know, she has this dress shop in Windsor and she imports the latest fashion from Paris and London.
She was a seamstress. She eventually left school teaching and devoted herself 100% to her seamstressing, and to her dressmaking.
We often think of The Voice of the Fugitive as the sort of crowning achievement of the Bibbs but you know, when you think of the Refugee Home Society and thinking, well, people had a home, people could grow their own food, people were freeholders or the schools that Mary Bibb established.
The two of them really dedicated their lives, he and Mary Miles, to the Black freedom struggle. She through teaching, he through anti-slavery activism, anti-slavery lecturing and through his writing and his involvement in so many other activities.
Dr Veta Tucker, Historian
He's a very rich example of people who are enslaved who are absolutely genius. Because his work with The Signal of Liberty, The Voice of the Fugitive and the Refugee Home Society were well, well beyond the thinking of most people at that time.
Dr Afua Cooper, Historian
They were such a formidable couple. They had a vision. They were in a marriage. They were in a love story, an abolitionist love story, a Black freedom love story.
Teajai Travis, Poet
Unfortunately, the press would burn down mysteriously,
but the Bibbs continued their work with the Refugee Home Society.
They helped newcomers to settle providing land and education.
Mary reignited her beloved vocation. An educator by trade, Mary taught
newcomers to read.
She opened a school, often teaching for free.
Henry suddenly passed in the summer of 1854,
far from the farm from which he was born.
Mildred's boy broke
free from his chains a freedom fighting hero,
his legacy remains.
His narrative will live on in history,
but often forgotten
his partner, Mary.
She continued to teach
and married once more.
Later in life, she opened a store.
she sold women's apparel and had a great run.
Then she returned to the U.S. in '71
she lived in Brooklyn, New York until 1877.
There she finally rested her eyes,
and ascended to heaven.
Their love bled red lines over whitewashed cotton.
But Mary and Henry won't soon be forgotten.
Sandwich First Baptist Church Lighthouse Choir
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ I looked over Jordan and what do I see ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ A band of angels coming after me ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪If you get there before I do
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Tell all my friends I'm coming too ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ I'm sometimes up and sometimes down♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ But still my soul feels heavenly bound♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪♪