Anderson Ruffin Abbott (7 April 1837 – 29 December 1913) was the first Black Canadian to be licensed as a physician.

The Abbotts were a prominent Black family in Toronto, who had left Alabama—as free people of colour[4]—after receiving a warning that their store was to be ransacked.

Although he did not graduate,[7][1] Abbott received a licence to practise from the Medical Board of Upper Canada, in 1861, thus becoming the first Canadian-born Black physician.

[9] Dr. Augusta was the first black surgeon commissioned in the Union Army during the American Civil War, serving with the 7th U.S.

After Lincoln's death, Abbott went to the viewing of the body in the East Room of the White House.

While he did not graduate, he established a medical practice and was admitted to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 1871.

In an Anglican wedding ceremony in Toronto on 9 August 1871, he married Mary Ann Casey, the 18-year-old daughter of a successful Black barber.

From 1873 to 1880, he fought against racially segregated schools as president of the Wilberforce Educational Institute and was appointed coroner for Kent County, Ontario, in 1874,[1] the first Black man to hold that office.

He was elected a member of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic and one of 273 Civil War veterans in Toronto to wear the badge of that fraternity.

A source of great pride for Abbott and his family, this was the highest military honour ever bestowed on a Black person in Canada or the United States.

Returning to Toronto, Abbott resumed his private practice and became more involved with writing for various publications including The Colored American Magazine of Boston and New York, the Anglo-American Magazine of London (for which he wrote "Some recollections of Lincoln's assassination"), and New York Age.

Siding with Du Bois, Abbott believed that Black access to higher education was essential and should not be compromised.

Believing that blacks would be culturally assimilated, Abbott wrote: "It is just as natural for two races living together on the same soil to blend as it is for the waters of two river tributaries to mingle."