Timothy Epp sees the history of Wellington County’s Mennonite and black communities intertwine and connect in surprising ways.
Epp’s April 14 talk at the county museum was the first lecture of the year presented by the Wellington County Historical Society. Society president Ron Hattle noted this was the first of six lectures for the year.
It was nearly a full house for the event, as 50 to 60 participants from across Wellington County and from as far away as the Niagara Region took part.
Epp is an associate professor of sociology at Redeemer University College where he has taught for the past 11 years.
His current research is on the social history of the interaction between the Anabaptists [Mennonites] and blacks in Ontario.
Hattle noted that last year Epp spoke at Drayton’s Underground Railroad Music Festival in August. Epp commented on other publications including Black and Mennonite by Hubert L. Brown which attempted to wrestle with the black experience in North America with Mennonite theology and the implications of black and white relations and their implications to Christian faith.
To Epp, Brown’s comments “means that in order to understand our history we need to see how our stories intertwine with those of other peoples.”
The main message behind his research “is that these connections can appear in surprising places.”
Epp also referenced comments by Martin Luther King Jr., following the Montgomery Bus Strike in Alabama, saying this was not just a victory for blacks in the United States, but a victory for every freedom loving individual.
“These stories of black history, of Mennonite history intertwine and intersect.”
His research focuses on those intersections between the stories of Anabaptists in southern Ontario which includes Wellington County and the blacks in this area.
Though he did not claim to have all the answers, “What I can do is tell you a few stories of the Mennonites and the black who settled here.”
Epp said it was interesting that when he started this research, he was told there was nothing to find.
And, following his publication of a short piece in the Canadian Mennonite, a News magazine for the Mennonite church, one person responded to say that Epp was “completely out to lunch because Mennonites and blacks had never been in the same area at the same time.”
The same individual also suggested that Epp stop what he was doing.
“That was fuel for the fire – to keep looking.”
He added that in the United States, there is a history of black and Mennonite relations.
Epp said that Mennonites and African Americans lived in the same areas of Pennsylvania and there were similar migration paths to Canada.
“There are some stories of Mennonites who were involved in the Underground Railroad, and some stories of Mennonites who were slave owners.
“This goes against a common assumption that by their very nature, Mennonites were opposed to slavery. It is not quite so clear cut,” Epp said.
“There were Mennonites who did own slaves and there were Mennonites who helped people fleeing slavery to come to Canada.
“My task is to try to understand the relationship of those people here.”
He said some Mennonites in their journey to find land, were influenced by the Underground Railroad to come to Canada.
He spoke about the context of the settlement of Upper Canada, later Ontario, in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Epp said there was a Mennonite migration to this area in part to seek land as things were becoming crowded in Pennsylvania.
There was also the search for religious and political freedom. At the same time, there was a migration of African Americans to Canada.
Epp added that while both groups were arriving, it was in a time of the gradual abolition of slavery. But when the Mennonites first arrived, there still would have been slaves here.
He said “as Mennonites settled and developed agricultural lands … so did blacks.”
Epp added he’s found several accounts of Mennonites who provided safe haven for those travelling along the Underground Railroad.
He said that for those reading about black history, one will note a string of black settlements from Windsor or the Niagara area forming a pattern – travelling up Highway 6 towards Owen Sound.
He noted that in the Queen’s Bush west of Elmira, was the largest black settlement in Upper Canada with almost 2,000 people between 1830 and 1860.
He pointed to the path of Highway 6 and one comes along the Rocky Saugeen, Negro Creek, Owen Sound (considered the northern terminus of the Underground Railroad), Priceville, and Little Africa in Hamilton and Little Africa in the Niagara region.
Epp noted there are numerous stories of tensions between the black settlement in Priceville with other people living in the area – one of which being a graveyard being broken up and potato crops grown on top.
“Sometimes we assume black history belongs to the United States. We have both the history of slavery in Canada and also a rich history of black settlement.”
He also spoke of Mennonites and blacks working side by side in the community with fairly congenial relations, beginning in 1806 with the arrival of Abraham Erb and a person referred to as a coloured boy by the name of Issac Jones in Waterloo. Erb is often referred to as the founder of Waterloo, Epp said.
“It suggests that blacks worked for Mennonites and that the Mennonites may have brought black youths with them.”
By the 1830s, the area surrounding Glen Allan had become the largest black community in Upper Canada.
“There are records of emancipation days in the area. This was a vibrant community where people came to farm land, to clear land.
“Unfortunately others were coming into the area as well and many of the areas where they had settled (squatted) was in fact, designated as clergy reserve.”
As a result, they were either required to purchase the land after it was surveyed – or leave.
“Many of them were forced to leave.”
Epp said some have claimed the blacks simply were not good farmers, but “it’s not true.”
He spoke of John and Eliza Little, who purchased land near Wallenstein. The couple eventually moved to Haiti.
“There are all kinds of stories about the interactions,” said Epp.
He spoke of the work of Linda Brown-Kubisch in the Queen’s Bush and Black Pioneer Settlement.
In that book, there is mention of a Mennonite merchant who lent seed to black farmers.
Epp also pointed to the plaque at the Glen Allan park, where he will be speaking in June to members of the Ontario Historical Society.
