ely & not to
stay about any of the Indian Camps. Which Orders I obeyed.

(signed) DAVID TAIT.

Sworn before me at Detroit 4th August 1795.

GEO SHARP, J. P. W. D."
Indian Affairs, M. G. VII.

[15] I have found no reliable accounts of slaves in this region--some
traditions which I have investigated proved unreliable and illusory.

[16] I cannot trace many Panis slaves in Upper Canada proper; that
there were some at Detroit is certain and equally certain that some
were at one time on both shores of the Niagara River. I do not know of
an account of the numbers of slaves at the time; in Detroit, March 31,
1779, there were 60 male and 78 female slaves in a population of about
2,550 (_Mich. Hist. Coll._, X, p. 326); Nov. 1, 1780, 79 male and 96
female slaves in a somewhat smaller population (_Mich. Hist. Coll._,
XIII, p. 53); in 1778, 127 in a population of 2,144 (_Mich. Hist.
Coll._, IX, p. 469); 85 in 1773, 179 in 1782 (_Mich. Hist. Coll._,
VII, p. 524); 78 male and 101 female (_Mich. Hist. Coll._, XIII, p.
54). The Ordinance of Congress July 13, 1787, forbidding slavery
"northwest of the Ohio River" passed with but one dissenting voice,
that of a delegate from New York was quite disregarded in Detroit
(_Mich. Hist. Coll._, I, 415); and indeed as has been said, Detroit
and the neighboring country remained British (_de facto_) until
August, 1796, and part of Upper Canada from 1791 till that date.

[17] This is indicated by a number of facts none of much significance
and all together far from conclusive--but it is a mere estimate
perhaps not much more than a guess and I should not be astonished if
it were proved that the estimate was astray by 100 either way. Indeed
contemporary estimates gave for the Nassau District alone in 1791, 300
Negro slaves and a few Panis. Col. Mathew Elliott in 1784 brought more
than 50 slaves to his estate at Amherstburg.

[18] See letter of Sheriff Sherwood, _Papers &c, Ontario Historical
Society_ 1901, Vol. 3, p. 107. Justus Sherwood came from Vermont,
originally from Connecticut, joined Burgoyne's army in 1777 and came
to Canada in 1778, joined Rogers' Rangers and served during the war.
He came to Prescott in 1784. He had had a not unusual experience with
the Continentals. His "Negro wench and two negroe children" had been
seized and "sold to Wm. Drake." (Second _Ont. Arch. Rep._, 1904, p.
820.) Daniel Jon