Saltwater Underground Railroad Experience

10/02/2026

10/02/2026

09/08/2026

September is International Underground Railroad Month!

Join the Amherstburg Freedom Museum on Tuesday, September 22nd at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time for the next event in our Virtual Black History Series. Dr. Carolyn G. Thomas will share insights from her research on the Underground Railroad to Nova Scotia. To join, visit 5801f5af-17a9-42cc-be30-27f990fb9f69@584fc4c6-8e41-4195-bfb1-da3230d60383" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/5801f5af-17a9-42cc-be30-27f990fb9f69@584fc4c6-8e41-4195-bfb1-da3230d60383

Canaan. Heaven. The Land of Freedom. During the height of the slave trade and the abolitionist movement, these were codewords for Canada. It was the promised land for thousands of freedom seekers who dared to dream of a life beyond bo***ge. With the help of the conductors of the Underground Railroad and the guidance of the drinking gourd in the night sky, the passengers found their way north. Nova Scotia, where Dr. Carolyn G. Thomas grew up, was a terminus of the Underground Railroad. Carolyn remembers her father pointing up at the North Star when she asked him how her family came to Nova Scotia. Many in the rural communities of Nova Scotia had ancestors who traveled the Underground Railroad. For the first time, Carolyn has collected stories and is sharing the fascinating history of formerly enslaved people who found the freedom they were looking for in Nova Scotia.

Dr. Carolyn G. Thomas is a lifelong resident of East Preston, Nova Scotia, Canada where generations of her family have lived. She is internationally recognized as an acclaimed historian, lecturer, human rights advocate/activist, and author of The Underground Railroad to Nova Scotia. Carolyn was a founding member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission whose life’s work has centered around championing justice as well as economic and community development as Chairperson of the Nova Scotia Advisory Committee on Race Relations, Governor of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Governor of the Canadian Centre on Police-Race Relations, past Moderator/President of the African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia, and more. Carolyn holds a BA from St. Mary's University as well as an honorary Doctor of Divinity conferred by Acadia University. She was invested into the Order of Nova Scotia in 2026. Carolyn is a mother of four and grandmother to two grandchildren.

Note: Dr. Thomas' book The Underground Railroad to Nova Scotia is available in the Museum Gift Shop. Supporters outside the Windsor-Essex area, please contact us for information about how to order it online.

09/07/2026

Honored to have had the opportunity to make a contribution to this digital humanities project and publication which challenges the erasure of Black history in American curriculum and uses Afrofuturism and Evocative Ethnography to unearth hidden narratives of Black life in the Southern United States.

My work on the Saltwater Underground Railroad, a lesser known Southern pathway through Florida to The Bahamas began in 2017 and earned inclusion into the National Park Service Network to Freedom Program in 2024. My dissertation builds on this effort and explores teacher engagement with science curriculum interwoven with historical narratives of this Underground Railroad route, documenting the scientific and technological expertise of the freedom seekers and enabling K-12 students to engage with science and history through the lens of a liberatory pedagogy.

Many thanks to Dr. Amanda Concha-Holmes (editor), Professor Magdalena Lamarre, Dr. U*i Baram and other authors who worked so hard on this project.

https://iopn.library.illinois.edu/2026/05/20/new-from-iopn-evoking-the-complexity-of-black-lives-in-the-us-south-excavating-the-untold-stories/

08/03/2026

On Emancipation Day, we pause to honour the resilience, strength, and enduring legacy of those who survived slavery and shaped The Bahamas.

This postcard from the NAGB's National Collection, featured in the recent Project Space exhibition Space for Message, bears the caption 'The Last African Slave, Nassau'. More than a historical image, it reveals how photography and postcards were used to sensationalise Black Bahamian lives for tourism while obscuring historical truth.

The man depicted is believed to possibly be Martin Sawyer, a formerly enslaved man who lived to the age of 105. Though slavery in The Bahamas ended in 1838, the postcard presents him as a "slave" in the present tense, reducing a man who had lived the majority of his life in freedom to a spectacle for visitors. It also ignores the fact that he was not the last surviving formerly enslaved Bahamian, erasing the lives and stories of others, including Sarah Taylor and Harriet Thatch.

As we commemorate Emancipation Day, this work reminds us of the importance of questioning historical narratives and preserving the stories that colonial imagery sought to simplify or erase.

To learn more about Space for Message, researched and curated by Emily Voges, visit the NAGB website.

08/03/2026

07/24/2026

Keeping our hearts on Angola!

Greater Bradenton explores Angola, a thriving colonial-era sanctuar...

07/23/2026