One group of Americans who did encounter difficulty in entering Canada were black immigrants. Although some such as John Ware, the famous cowboy-performer and hero of pre-rodeo days in Alberta, did demonstrate an ability to adapt successfully to the Canadian milieu; public opinion was uniformly unfavourable to black settlement proposals. Earlier, the Maritimes had received a few blacks along with the Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution, and southern Ontario had received a small number as the northern terminal of the underground railway. The experience of these black communities in the east did not encourage the government to experiment with non-white immigrants.
