Canada’s History with Slavery
Slavery in Canada
A true and comprehensive Canadian history includes the history of Black, Indigenous and other people of colour on this land, and not just the stories of white colonizers.
If a lot of this content was new information to you, we wouldn't be surprised. We didn't learn about this in school. That is largely because our education system didn't prioritize teaching this, which is why we wanted to bring you, our community, a non-revisionist look at slavery in Canada.
Taking the time to learn about Canada's true history is important. It helped us understand how our country's foundation is rooted in white supremacy and that fixing pieces of it by changing some laws won't change the fact that our foundation is fucked. Unless we systematically dismantle white supremacy, all the people on this land will not be able to have an equitable chance at success.
*This is not a complete and comprehensive look at Slavery in Canada, as that would take several textbooks to cover accurately.
**The British North America act passed on July 1st, 1867. Any references in this post to Canada before this date refers to British North America.
Slavery in North America
There are only about 30 years between when Canada abolished slavery and when America did.
What is chattle slavery?
Slavery on Turtle Island actually existed before European colonizers arrived, with some Indigenous peoples enslaving prisoners of war.
However, Europeans brought an entirely different type of slavery, which is likely the slavery that comes to mind when you think of the topic: Chattel Slavery.
This form of slavery treats an enslaved person as a commodity and a slave owner's legal property, denying them any human rights.
Being a commodity meant people were traded, sold and inherited like property or objects.
This was because European colonizers viewed the people they enslaved as less than human.
These slaves were Black people kidnapped or purchased from Africa and/or the Indigenous people they stole land from.
So what did slavery look like in Canada?
Slave ownership was found at every level of colonial Canadian society, "whether French or English, working on farms, in bakery shops, working in leather tanning, slave orderlies working in hospitals, working for merchants, working in the fur trade as slave canoe paddlers for Scottish and French Canadian fur traders crisscrossing the country."
During the American Revolution, many of the enslaved escaped to fight on the British side and were allowed to move to Canada as free people.
They would still face broken promises from the government and discrimination and violence from the colonists.
The Underground Railroad began helping escaped enslaved people in 1815, but it didn’t really take off until well after Canadian slavery came to a close in 1834 when Britain banned it across the empire.
But slavery in Canada wasn't as bad as it was in America, right?
Well, it really depends on your perspective here.
If you learned about slavery in America and felt disgusted and angry at how Americans treated Black people, then you should feel just as disgusted, angry, and ashamed about Canada's history with slavery.
If you think slavery is wrong, then there is no situation in which better conditions make it okay. Slavery happened in Canada, meaning Indigenous and Black people were treated as property; they were traded, sold, and inherited, on the very land you read this from.
In short, there is no such thing as "good" or "better" slavery.
But all of this is in the past, right?
The end of slavery doesn't mean the end of white supremacy.
White supremacy is the belief that white people are inherently superior to other races; it is the belief that made slavery and colonization possible.
It is also the belief system that our current systems were founded on. So while slavery has been abolished, white supremacy continues to persist in Canadian systems, laws, structures, governments today.
And while we can't change what Canadians did in the past, we can decide what Canadians do next.
Just because our systems are founded in white supremacy does not mean they must continue to be. That is the beauty of a nation like ours; if we know better, we can do better.
So will you?
Sources: The Huffington Post, The Canadian Encylopedia, Canadian Museum of Human Rights
