On Thu, 04 Jul 2013 16:02:59 -0600,David Johnston says...
Post by David JohnstonPost by AlleyCathttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Canada
I bet you I don't give a shit what you think about American slavery,
since Cuntnadada had slaves too, moron.
No it didn't. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire before
Confederation.
Slavery in Canada:
Slavery in what now comprises Canada existed INTO the 1830's,(that means
before the 1830's, igno) when slavery was officially abolished. Some
slaves were of African descent, while others were aboriginal (typically
called panis, likely a corruption of Pawnee). Slavery within Canada's
current geography was practised primarily by Aboriginal groups. While
there was never any significant Canadian trade in African slaves, native
nations frequently enslaved their rivals and a very modest number
(sometimes none in a number of years) were purchased by colonial
administrators (rarely by settlers) until 1833, when the slave trade was
abolished across the British Empire.
A few thousand African slaves were forcibly brought as chattel by
Europeans to New France, Acadia and the later British North America (see
chattel slavery) during the 17th century. They were house servants and
farm workers. There were no large-scale plantations in Canada, and
therefore no large-scale plantation slave work forces of the sort that
existed in most European colonies in the Americas, from Virginia to the
West Indies to Brazil.
Because early Canada's role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade was so
minor, the history of slavery in Canada is often overshadowed by the
more tumultuous slavery practised elsewhere in the Americas - most
famously in the American South, and infamously in the colonial
Caribbean. Afua Cooper states that slavery is, "Canada's best kept
secret, locked within the National closet."[1]
Under indigenous rule
Slave-owning people of what became Canada were, for example, the fishing
societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the Pacific coast from
Alaska to California.[2] Many of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific
Northwest Coast, such as the Haida and Tlingit, were traditionally known
as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California.
Slavery was hereditary, the slaves being prisoners of war and their
descendants were slaves.[3]
Among some Pacific Northwest tribes about a quarter of the population
were slaves.[4][5] One slave narrative was composed by an Englishman,
John R. Jewitt, who had been taken alive when his ship was captured in
1802; his memoir provides a detailed look at life as a slave, and
asserts that a large number were held.
Under French rule
Main article: Slavery in New France
In 1628 the first recorded slave in Canada was brought by a British
Convoy to New France. Olivier le Jeune was the name given to the boy
originally from Madagascar. His given name resonates with the Code Noir.
Although loosely established, the Code Noir forced baptisms and decreed
the conversion of all slaves to Catholicism.[6]
By 1688, New France's population was 11,562 people, made up primarily of
fur traders, missionaries, and farmers settled along the St. Lawrence
Valley. To help overcome its severe shortage of servants and labourers,
King Louis XIV granted New France's petition to import black slaves from
West Africa. While slavery was prohibited in France, it was permitted in
its colonies as a means of providing the massive labour force needed to
clear land, construct buildings and (in the Caribbean colonies) work
sugar plantation. New France soon established its own 'Code Noir,'
defining the control and management of slaves. The Code in 1685 set the
pattern for policing slavery. It required that all slaves be instructed
as Catholics and not as Protestants. It concentrated on defining the
condition of slavery, and established harsh controls. Slaves had
virtually no rights, though the Code did enjoin masters to take care of
the sick and old. The blacks were usually called "servants," and the
harsh gang system was not used. Death rates among slaves were high.[7]
Marie-Joseph Angélique was the black slave of a rich widow in Montreal.
According to a published account of her life[8] by Afua Cooper, in 1734,
after learning that she was going to be sold and separated from her
lover,[9] she set fire to her owner's house and escaped. The fire raged
out of control, destroying forty-six buildings. Captured two months
later, Marie-Joseph was paraded through the city, then tortured until
she confessed her crime. In the afternoon of the day of execution,
Angélique was taken one last time through the streets of Montreal and,
after the stop at the church for her amende honorable mounted a scaffold
facing the ruins of the buildings destroyed by the fire and there was
hanged, then strangled until dead, her body flung into the fire and the
ashes scattered in the wind.[10]
Under British rule
Black slaves lived in the British regions of Canada in the 17th and 18th
centuries ? 104 were listed in a 1767 census of Nova Scotia, but their
numbers were small until the United Empire Loyalist influx after 1783.
As white Loyalists fled the new American Republic, they took with them
about 2000 black slaves: 1200 to the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), 300 to Lower Canada (Quebec), and
500 to Upper Canada (Ontario). The Imperial Act of 1790[11] assured
prospective immigrants that their slaves would remain their property. As
under French rule, Loyalist slaves were held in small numbers and were
employed as domestic servants, farm hands, and skilled artisans.
The subject of slavery in Canada is unmentioned? neither banning nor
permitting? in both the 1763 Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act of 1774
or the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
Canadian First Nations owned or traded in slaves. Shawnee, Potawatomi,
and other western tribes imported slaves from Ohio and Kentucky and sold
them to Canadian settlers. Thayendenaga (chief Joseph Brant) used blacks
he had captured during the American Revolution to build Brant House at
Burlington Beach and a second home near Brantford. In all, Brant owned
about forty black slaves.[12]
The system of gang labour, and its consequent institutions of control
and brutality, did not develop in Canada as it did in the USA. Because
they did not appear to pose a threat to their masters, slaves were
permitted to learn to read and write, Christian conversion was
encouraged, and their marriages were recognized by law.
By 1790 the abolition movement was gaining credence in Canada and the
ill intent of slavery was evidenced by an incident involving a slave
woman being violently abused by her slave owner on her way to being sold
in the United States. In 1793 Chloe Clooey, in an act of defiance yelled
out screams of resistance. The abuse committed by her slave owner and
her violent resistance was witnessed by Peter Martin and William
Grisely.[13] Peter Martin, a former slave, brought the incident to the
attention of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe. Under the auspices
of Simcoe, The Slave Act of 1793 was legislated. The elected members of
the executive council, many of whom were merchants or farmers who
depended on slave labour, saw no need for emancipation. White later
wrote that there was "much opposition but little argument" to his
measure. Finally the Assembly passed the Act Against Slavery that
legislated the gradual abolition of slavery: no slaves could be
imported; slaves already in the province would remain enslaved until
death, no new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada, and children
born to female slaves would be slaves but must be freed at age 25. To
discourage manumission, the Act required the master to provide security
that the former slave would not become a public charge. The compromise
Slave Act of 1793 stands as the only attempt by any Canadian legislature
to act against slavery.[14] This legal rule ensured the eventual end of
slavery in Upper Canada, although as it diminished the sale value of
slaves within the province it also resulted in slaves being sold to the
United States. In 1798 there was an attempt by a lobby groups to rectify
the legislation and import more slaves.[15]
By 1800 the other provinces of British North America had effectively
limited slavery through court decisions requiring the strictest proof of
ownership, which was rarely available. Slavery remained legal, however,
until the British Parliament's Slavery Abolition Act finally abolished
slavery in all parts of the British Empire effective August 1, 1834.
The Sierra Leone Company was established to relocate groups of formerly
enslaved Africans, nearly 1,200 Black Nova Scotians, most of whom had
escaped enslavement in the United States. Given the most barren land in
Nova Scotia, many had died from the harsh winters there. They
established a settlement in the existing colony in Sierra Leone (already
established to home the 'poor blacks' of London) at Freetown in 1792.
Many of the "Black poor" were African Americans, who had been promised
their freedom for joining the British Army during the American
Revolution, but also included other African and Asian inhabitants of
London. The Freetown settlement was joined, particularly after 1834, by
other groups of freed Africans and became the first African-American
haven for formerly enslaved Africans.
Today there are four remaining slave cemeteries in Canada: in St.-
Armand, Quebec, Shelburne, Nova Scotia and Priceville and Dresden in
Ontario.
Around the time of the Emancipation, the Underground Railroad network
was established in the United States, particularly Ohio, where slaves
would cross into the Northern States over the Ohio River en route to
various settlements and towns in Upper Canada (known as Canada West from
1841 to 1867, now Ontario). This is Canada's only relationship to
slavery generally known to the public or acknowledged by the Canadian
government.
Research
Historian Marcel Trudel has documented 4,092 recorded slaves throughout
Canadian history, of which 2,692 were Aboriginal peoples, owned by the
French, and 1,400 blacks owned by the British. Those slaves were owned
by approximately 1,400 masters altogether.[16] Trudel also noted 31
marriages took place between French colonists and Aboriginal slaves.[16]