Canadians have a lot to learn about this country's history of slavery, experts say

[Spazito]

Emancipation Day is being marked nationwide for the first time

As Sharon Robart-Johnson walks around the Black history room at the Yarmouth County Museum, she points out paintings of Black educators, the first Black Nova Scotian to join the RCMP, and even a painting of herself, as the first person to write a book about Black people in the area.

But she saves the one most dear to her for last.

It's a wooden carving of an enslaved woman named Jude being beaten by her owner's son.

Court records show Jude died of her injuries on Dec. 28, 1800. She was 28.

snip

Emancipation Day recognizes Aug. 1, 1834, when the British Empire abolished slavery, freeing around 800,000 people of African descent throughout the British colonies, including what's now known as Canada.

more

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/emancipation-day-slavery-canada-nova-scotia-1.6102969


Edited to add another article on the same subject:

Emancipation Day celebrations predate Canada's official proclamation by decades

Emancipation Day is being recognized by the federal government this year for the first time, but at least one Canadian community has celebrated it since before Confederation.

On March 24, members of Parliament voted unanimously to designate Aug. 1 as Emancipation Day in Canada. The date marks Aug. 1, 1834, when slavery was abolished in the British colonies, including Canada.

The motion was introduced by Liberal MP Majid Jowhari, who represents the riding of Richmond Hill, Ont. It was seconded by Conservative MP Alex Ruff of Owen Sound, Ont., where Emancipation Day has been celebrated since 1862.

Owen Sound was the farthest-north end point for the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses for Black people to escape slavery in the United States, according to the area's Emancipation Festival website.

more

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/emancipation-day-celebrations-canada-1.6124826

[abqtommy]

1. I read the CBC news every day and one of the daily features is "The Black Experience In

Canada". History isn't always pleasant but it's necessary that we know it. Thanks for this op.

[Spazito]

2. You're welcome!

Slavery in Canada wasn't taught in school while I was growing up. We did learn all about the Underground Railway and Canada's part in that but, not unlike the real Indigenous history being missing from our education system, the truth about slavery having been practiced in Canada was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

We need to know the facts, all the facts instead of only those that put Canada and all other countries in the best light and cover up the shameful parts as well.

[NotANeocon]

3. I really get so fed up with this bullshit version of "history".

The idea that Canada and Britain were just as evil as the USA where slavery is concerned is nothing but codswollop.

YES there was slavery in former societies and there still is slavery in some societies outside the Americas. However Canada and Britain did NOT build an economic system based on the possession of slaves to act as free labour and cause the collapse of the economy by insisting that slaves be treated as people. Just name some of the "famous" plantations in Canada or Britain.

Canadians WERE NOT and ARE NOT the same as those south of 49 no matter how you attempt to rewrite history. The difference in the history of the two nations is similar to the treatment of slaves on the island of Hispanola and this is the reason that racism is still an essential part of US society - both historic AND contemporary.

[Spazito]

4. The only difference between the US and Canada during the slave holding days of both...

were the number of slaves. The same cruelty, selling of children, breaking up of families occurred in both countries.

At the time of slavery in Canada, we were the same. Racism still exists in Canada today as does the US.

To believe we were better is to deny the full truth just as our education system did for decades.

[NotANeocon]

6. SO name one of those Canadian Plantations"

And perhaps demonstrate how the Canadian economy was grounded in slavery.

Yes Canadian (and ALL) school history is indeed selective - the Beothuk would know this if there were still any extant. However just as there is a legal and ethical difference between assault causing bodily harm and genocide so there is a major difference between Canadian/British slavery and US slavery even if people give them the same name. To attempt to equate the two commits the fallacy of false equivalence: is an extremely intellectually dishonest tactic, and actually trivialises the atrocity of US slavery

Yes - slavery in all its forms (which includes bonded servitude and uncompensated plantation prisoners) is an abomination but this does not make Canadian or British slavery equivalent. Context is always an essential factor in the comparisons of evil.

[Spazito]

9. In Canada, it was farming...

From the article in my OP:

"People often associate slavery with thousands of people working on a plantation.

It did not happen in Canada in the same way because of the climate and seasonal shifts that could not sustain year-round agriculture.

Nelson said enslaved people in Canada might well have harvested apples or corn, but they were also forced to milk cows, groom horses, and in the case of women, breastfeed the children of their white owners, to the detriment of their own children."

As to the economic benefits, well, again it was farms with slaves that benefitted economically just as it was the cotton plantations in the Southern US that benefitted economically.

[NotANeocon]

11. My argument is also withthe CBC at this point.

Bonded servitude and the use of "wet-nurses" was common in Victorian Britain. As for the farm labour do a little reading on the Barnardo children their lives in the colonies. The examples given are not too different from this but are very different from the form of slavery used in the USA. Canada (and Britain) DID NOT have an economic system based on slavery no matter how apologists would like to do penance by pretending Canadians were just USA Light.They were - and still are - totally different societies .

[Spazito]

12. You must have missed the part in the article about the beating of the young female...

slave which resulted in her death, hardly bonded servitude. History tried to mitigate the actions of slavery in Canada and some prefer the rose-coloured glasses view rather than admitting the facts, no surprise there, sadly.

[NotANeocon]

13. This is also anecdotal -

I personally know one of the Barnardo children (male) who was taking too long to milk the cow and bring cream to the breakfast table . The owner's wife clobbered him across the skull with a cast iron frying pan and he lay unconscious for a day before he was then put back to work. Didn't kill him but near as dammit. Many of the Barnardos and other cheap labourers were killed back then by the bosses. They didn't have to be slaves.

[Spazito]

14. Wow...

I think this conversation is at an end.

[applegrove]

5. Learnt not a bit about slavery in Canada in French immersion in the 1970s. Indigenous

People were called "sauvages" in history class. In 1970s. We did see a film of indigenous people getting mowed down by white people. Women too. That horror stuck. Don't know where the footage was from.

[NotANeocon]

7. I would suspect that was the Beothuk.

The incident is indeed a genocide but since it happened in 1500 Newfoundland - which was not at the time a part of Canada it would be fine to teach it as incidental history in 1970s Upper Canada despite the atrocity.

[applegrove]

8. No there was film and cannons. I don't know if it was a docudrama.

It was not Beothuck. Women wore scarves over there heads. It was pretty modern. They were killed.

[NotANeocon]

10. Probably a National Film Board film

They had lots of savage treatment of indigenous people by the invaders to choose from. In this Canada did not need lessons from other colonies or continents. The Brits. Franks. Italians, and Spaniards etc taught that lesson well.

[applegrove]

15. Something like that.