A Toronto court ruled 2-1 on Dec. 15, 1860, that John Anderson, a Black man who had escaped slavery in Missouri and made a life in Canada West, could be sent back to the United States to face a murder charge. Within weeks, a court in London ordered him freed, and the dispute became a test of who had the last word over Canadian courts.
The outline of the case comes from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and The Canadian Encyclopedia. Anderson was born around 1831 as Jack Burton and was enslaved in Missouri, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. It said his mother was sold when he was seven.
In 1853, the biography said, he was sold to a farmer in Glasgow, Missouri, and made an unauthorized visit to his wife. Seneca Digges, a man who pursued him, was killed in the encounter, and Anderson escaped. With help from abolitionists he reached Canada West and settled in Windsor around September 1853. He took the name John Anderson and later worked as a plasterer and labourer in Hamilton and Caledonia.
The U.S. government asked for his extradition in 1854, the biography said, but Governor General Lord Elgin refused to issue a warrant. The matter lay dormant for years.
It returned in 1860. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography said a Brantford magistrate jailed Anderson in April of that year on a murder charge, and he was released after a lawyer intervened. He was arrested again in the fall. The Canadian Encyclopedia gave the date of the Brantford arrest as Sept. 28, 1860.
The legal question was narrow but heavy. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 between Britain and the United States allowed extradition for murder, and the Canadian Encyclopedia said it required that the alleged crime be recognized in both jurisdictions. The Court of Queen’s Bench in Toronto, with Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson presiding, found that Anderson’s act amounted to murder under Missouri law and that he could be extradited. Justice McLean dissented, arguing that enslaved people had a natural right to freedom, the Canadian Encyclopedia said.
The decision set off public anger. The Canadian Encyclopedia said newspapers across the country opposed extradition and public meetings were held in cities, and that authorities added police because they feared a crowd might try to free Anderson.
The more consequential move came from Britain. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography said the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society obtained a writ of habeas corpus from the Court of Queen’s Bench at Westminster in January 1861. The Canadian Encyclopedia said that court ordered Anderson released on Jan. 14, 1861. Many in Canada West saw the writ as an imperial court reaching into a colonial one, which made the case a question of judicial authority as well as of one man’s freedom.
Anderson was freed in Canada. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography said Chief Justice William Henry Draper discharged him on Feb. 16, 1861, ruling that the magistrate’s warrant did not actually accuse him of murder. The Canadian Encyclopedia and Wikipedia describe the Toronto proceedings as a ruling by the Court of Common Pleas. Wikipedia said that court also treated the alleged crime as falling outside the treaty. Accounts differ on the exact grounds, and the full written judgment would be needed to settle them.
The legal fallout was lasting. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, Canada West made extradition cases the responsibility of its superior courts in 1861, and Britain restricted its ability to interfere in colonial judicial matters in 1862. Wikipedia said that law, the Habeas Corpus Act 1862, denied British courts the power to issue writs to colonies with their own independent judiciaries.
Anderson did not stay long in the public eye. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography said he went to England in June 1861 at the invitation of British anti-slavery campaigners and spoke at more than 25 meetings in London and southeastern England that summer. He enrolled at a training institution in Corby, Northamptonshire, that December and sailed for Liberia on Dec. 24, 1862. The biography said nothing more is known of him.
The case is often told as a story of Canada as a refuge, and it was one for Anderson in the end. The record also shows that a Canadian court first ruled he could be returned, and that the decision to keep him came after a fight over which court would decide.
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Sources: Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on John Anderson (biographi.ca); The Canadian Encyclopedia, John Anderson extradition case (thecanadianencyclopedia.ca); Wikipedia, Extradition case of John Anderson.
