The Queen's Bush was an area of what is now Southwestern Ontario, between Waterloo County and Lake Huron, that was set aside as clergy reserves by the colonial government.
[1]: 31 The land was acquired by Francis Bond Head on behalf of the Upper Canada in 1836 as part of the Manitowaning Treaty with the Ojibway of Manitoulin Island and the Saugeen Peninsula.
[2]: 4, 7 The terms of the treaty were later called into question as Bond Head had Indigenous leaders sign a copy of a speech rather than a negotiated agreement.
[6][5] The decision was prompted by a heavy influx of migrants from countries such as England, Scotland and Ireland seeking agricultural land.
[1]: 63 Recognizing their tenuous claim to land they had cleared and now lived on, existing inhabitants began efforts to secure their investments given that many were not in financial situations to purchase it outright.
[1]: 63 In the fall of 1842 a letter was sent to James Durand, then member of parliament for Canada West, by Queen's Bush inhabitants asking that parcels of land be divided into smaller, more affordable lots.
[1]: 64 The letter began with an acknowledgement of their "boldness of squatting into the Queens [sic] Bush the way we have," going on to explain that many arrived unable to support themselves or their families.
[1]: 66 A subsequent petition for assistance from government officials was sent to newly appointed Governor-General of the Province of Canada, Charles Metcalfe, asking that the land be granted to the existing inhabitants due to their unfavourable financial situations, who described themselves as: "being extremely poor having lately emigrated from England, and from the Southern states were we have suffered all the horrors of Slavery, and having no means of purchasing land".
[1]: 98 This time the petitioners had the added support of Hamilton's Black community, including Paolo Brown, Moses Crump and Peter Price who presented a petition objecting to what they viewed violations of property rights.
[citation needed] Black settlers who lost their farms began a mass migration out of Queen's Bush to other African-Canadian communities.
More than 1,500 free and formerly enslaved Blacks pioneered scattered farms along the Peel and Wellesley Township border, with Glen Allan, Hawkesville and Wallenstein as important centres.
[10]Benjamin Drew was commissioned in the early 1850s by the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society to interview former enslaved people who settled in Canada.