From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Clay, Henry (of Windsor, Canada) (formerly enslaved)
(born: about 1836 or 1826 - died: June 16, 1904)In 1904, Henry Clay died of cirrhosis of the liver at his home, 319 Goyeau Street in Windsor, Canada. Clay was said to be 79 years old, according to his death notice in the newspaper. His birth year is also given as the mid-1830s in the Canadian census schedules. Henry Clay was well-known in the Windsor vicinity for his many years as an advocate for Blacks in Canada to return to Africa.
Henry Clay was born enslaved in Kentucky, USA, and he had escaped to Canda having arrived in Windsor in 1849. He was the husband of Mary Ann Hunter Clay, who was also born in the United States. The couple had six children who were all born in Canada. Henry Clay was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Windsor. He was employed at several occupations, as a laborer, a farmer, and he worked at the RRE according to the 1897 Windsor Tax Assessment Records.
Henry Clay in Windsor did not return to Kentucky and he did not leave Canada for Africa. It is not known if he was acting on his own volition or if he was a member of an organization that was advocating for Blacks to leave Canada. Perhaps he felt an alignment with his namesake, Kentucky statesman Henry Clay and the American Colonization Society. Henry Clay in Windsor was not the first to advocate that Blacks leave Canada.
As early as 1792, approximately 1,200 dissatisfied Black Loyalists left Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone, Africa, a British Colony. Throughout the 1800s, both Canada and Liberia were viewed as options for free and self-emancipated Blacks leaving the United States. The two countries were sometimes presented as competing settlement locations. As early as 1830, there were letters and reports about life in Liberia that were published in Canadian newspapers. The correspondence and reports were both encouraging and discouraging. No data has been located at this time as to the number of Blacks who left Canada for Liberia.
At this time, no documentation has been found to determine whether there was ever an affiliation between Canadian organizations and the American Colonization Society. In 1832, Charles Stuart, an abolitionist, published a critique of the American Colonization Society's "anti-abolitionist movement" of directing American Blacks to Liberia, as compared to the more self-reliant settlement by American Blacks in Wilberforce, Canada.
Sources: The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870 by James W. St. G. Walker; "Africa for the Negro." The Evening Record (Windsor, Ontario, Canada), 17 June 1904, front page; "Canada, Ontario, Tax Assessment Rolls, 1827-1922", FamilySearch, Entry for Henry Clay, 1897; "Canada, Ontario, Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947", FamilySearch, Entry for Henry Clay, 16 Jun 1904; Canada Census schedules for 1871 and 1901, in FamilySearch.
Sources: Race, Racialization and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond editors Genevieve Fuji Johnson and Randy Enomoto; "From Liberia." Niagara Gleaner (Ontario, Canada), 18 December 1830, front page; "From the West Indies and Africa." Colonial Advocate (Ontario, Canada) 07 June 1832, p.2; Guyatt, Nicholas. "The American Colonization Society: 200 years of the "Colonizing Trick"." Black Perspectives, 22 December 2016, 1 (online); Remarks on the colony of Liberia and the American Colonization Society. With some account of the settlement of coloured people at Wilberforce, Upper Canada. By Charles Stuart, 1832 (online at Hathi Trust Digital Library).