Chapter Four
The Celebrants:
Come One, Come All
When every heart joins every heart and together yearns for liberty,
that’s when we’ll be free.
— “Hymn to Freedom,” Oscar Peterson, Night Train, 1962
In Canada all kinds of people observed the abolition of British slavery: Canadian-born Blacks, some the descendants of local slaves; Black Loyalists and their descendants; free Blacks; and fugitive slaves from the United States. They were uneducated or professionals, small-town residents and urban dwellers, and were from all facets of society and all ages. Emancipation Day was also celebrated by people from diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Hundreds of these individuals, out-of-town guests from surrounding towns and nearby American centres, along with Native and White community members, celebrated African liberation throughout Ontario. They travelled by foot, horse and wagon, train, passenger steamboats, electric streetcars, and automobiles.
What They Were Saying
“By automobile, bus, train, and even horse and buggy colored residents from different parts of Canada and the United States drifted into Windsor today to celebrate the 97th anniversary of Emancipation. Farmers from colored communities in Essex County used the horse and buggy as their means of transportation.”
— Owen Sound Daily Sun Times, August 1, 1935.
“The ferry boats and incoming trains brought in the usual representation of the colored race.”
— Windsor Evening Record, August 1, 1912.
“Hundreds of men and women of color went to the park in automobiles, gaudy with streamers and driven by white chauffeurs.”
— Windsor Evening Record, August 2, 1913.
“They came by steamboats, by rail and in buggies and wagons.”
— Windsor Evening Record, August 1, 1893.
“By automobile, bus, train and horse and buggy negroes from many sections of Canada and the United States came here to-day to celebrate the anniversary of emancipation.”
— Toronto Star, August 1, 1935.
Descendants of Enslaved African Canadians
Contrary to what many believe, slavery was practised right here in Canada for over two hundred years! People of African descent were enslaved in Canada as early as 1628 in the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, historically known as Acadia. Other French settlements where Africans were enslaved included Île Royale (Cape Breton Island), Montreal, and various Quebec towns. Natives were also enslaved by the French in New France.
Enslaved Africans came to Canada as the property of their United Empire Loyalist masters, starting in 1783. This was after the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War saw the Patriots succeed in breaking away from Britain to form their own country, the United States of America. These slaves were used to fill the labour shortage in the developing colonies.
Enslaved Africans were imported from the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States into Canada as the personal property of Whites coming to live in Canada or as investment goods to be sold for profit. They were auctioned off in regular markets in many Canadian towns, in the same places where people would go to buy bread, fruits, and vegetables. Slaves were also sold privately, bequeathed in wills, and given as gifts. European settlers from all levels of society — church clergy, military officers, farmers, merchants, and government officials — owned enslaved Africans.
Generations of people of African origin were enslaved in Canada. They settled in many villages, towns, and urban centres in the Maritimes, Quebec, and Ontario, and were held in bondage until the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada became law. It gradually abolished slavery in Upper Canada (now Ontario). Those enslaved in 1793 would remain in bondage until death or until they were freed by their owners. Their children would be freed at the age of twenty-five, and any children born to them would be free at birth.
What They Were Saying
John baker, a colored man, died at Cornwall on the 18th inst. He celebrated his one hundred and fifth birth-day on last Christmas Day. Baker came to Cornwall a Slave to the late Colonel Grey in 1792: he Had then seen service in the Revolutionary War. He subsequently served through the war of 1812 and was wounded at Lundy's Lane. He has drawn a pension for 57 years. Baker retained his faculties till the last and was walking in the street less than three weeks ago. He took particular delight in naming over the British Sovereigns whom he had served under and spinning yarns. he was buried with military honors.
— Freeholder
In the 1780s, John Baker was born enslaved in Montreal. He was the son of an enslaved woman named Dorinda (or Dorine) Baker. Dorinda, John, and his brother Simon were the property of Robert Isaac Dey Gray, solicitor general of Upper Canada. However, his sisters — one we know was named Elizabeth — seemed to have been born free due to the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada. They eventually settled in York, now known as the city of Toronto. The enslaved family members were freed by Mr. Gray’s will in 1804. John enlisted in the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot of the British Army. He fought in the War of 1812 in the battle at Sackets Harbor, New York, in May 1813; the Battle of Lundy’s Lane in Niagara on July 25, 1814; and the two-month Siege of Fort Erie during the summer of 1814. He then went overseas and fought in the Battle of Waterloo, which is now Belgium. When, in 1817, John was discharged in Montreal, he moved to Oshawa, Ontario, to live on the 200 acres of land given to him by his former master. John Baker was in his nineties when he died, on January 18, 1871. Prior to being freed, he was the last surviving enslaved Black person in Ontario and Quebec.
Also enslaved were Peggy and her children, Jupiter, Milly, and Amy. They were owned by Peter Russell, the receiver general of Upper Canada, and his sister, Elizabeth Russell. Peggy worked as the cook and washerwoman. Peggy’s husband, Pompadour, was a free Black who worked on the Russell farm in Toronto. Jupiter was employed as a house servant and farmhand. In February 1806, Peggy and Jupiter were advertised for sale in a newspaper by the Russells because they found them to be quite unmanageable. In several instances, Peggy ran away for short periods of times, and Jupiter was described as defiant — he was jailed for a number of offences. This level of “disobedience” was common for slaves as a form of resistance. Miss Russell inherited her brother’s property, including the slaves, when he died in 1808. Shortly after, Elizabeth Russell gave Amy to her goddaughter, Elizabeth Denison, as a gift. The only known descendant of the Pompadour family is Amy’s son, Duke Denison, who was born in 1811 and was said to have lived until the mid-1800s.[1] Nothing further is known about the Pompadour family.
Hank and Sukey appear to be two of the last of enslaved Africans in Canada. Prominent lawyer Sir Adam Wilson saw the young boy and young girl working in the home of Mrs. Deborah O’Reilly — mother of Queen’s Council and lawyer Miles O’Reilly — in Halton County, Ontario, just before the Slavery Abolition Act came in to effect in 1834. They were subsequently freed.[2]
Nancy Morton, Marie-Joseph Angélique, Marie Marguerite Rose, Sam Martin, and Henry Lewis are just a handful of the known names of the approximately 1,500 of Black people enslaved in eastern Canadian provinces for over two centuries. The practice was completely eradicated in the British colonies in 1834 by the British Parliament’s passage of the Slavery Abolition Act. In the United States, however, slavery was alive and well.
Spotlight on ...
Richard Preston escaped from slavery as a young boy and settled in Nova Scotia. He was an anti-slavery activist and a community leader. In 1846 Preston founded the African Abolition Society, which organized Emancipation Day celebrations in Halifax for at least twelve years. He established eleven Baptist churches in Nova Scotia and organized the African Baptist Association of Nova Scotia.
Fugitive American Slaves
In their quest for freedom, enslaved African Americans began migrating to Canada immediately after the War of 1812. British legislation made Canada attractive to runaways because the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery automatically freed any fugitives coming in to Upper Canada, and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act ended the practice of slavery on Canadian soil. That meant that all Blacks were free north of the American border. The first wave came mainly from the Chesapeake area to Nova Scotia and other Maritime provinces. Ex-slave Reverend Richard Preston, for example, settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1816. Robert Whetsel, also a fugitive slave, settled in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1852.
After the War of 1812, word spread from American soldiers that they had fought free “Black men in red coats” in Upper Canada, beginning the northward migration of African-American fugitives. The majority settled in Canada West (Ontario). In the 1820s, fugitives continued to escape from southern states to communities in Ontario with large Black populations. Some who fled used the secret escape network of anti-slavery sympathisers, called the Underground Railroad (UGRR). The UGRR operated on land and across waterways, helping escapees from southern states to reach northern free states, or to travel even farther north to freedom in Canada. “Stations” in Canada included Chatham, Dresden, Buxton, Sandwich, Amherstburg, and Owen Sound, which was the most northerly terminal on the UGRR.
Those who used the UGRR escaped from the United States with the assistance of Black and White abolitionists, which including Quakers of the Society of Friends, clergymen from various Christian denominations, and Native Americans. Freedom seekers used secret routes through Detroit, Niagara, or Ohio after passing through states such as Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Maine, and Indiana. Once they arrived at the Canada-United States border — after an arduous and frightening journey — many made the final escape to free Canadian soil on cargo vessels, steamers, or small boats crossing Lake Erie, the Detroit River, and the Lower Niagara River. Others walked across frozen rivers to free land, or were transported by horse-drawn wagons, ferry boats, and trains.
Former escapees risked their lives and newfound liberty to help lead fellow fugitives to Canada. For example, Harriet Tubman, known as “the Moses of her people,” was a famous conductor of the UGRR who worked out of St. Catharines for eight years, and James Wesley Hill, nicknamed “Canada Jim,” operated an Oakville depot for runaways. Both made secret trips into the United States to bring fugitives into Canada. However, many enslaved African Americans escaped without any help.
Spotlight on ...
Virginia fugitive Robert Whetsel settled in Saint John, New Brunswick, around 1852. He operated several businesses, including a barbershop, an oyster saloon, and the only ice business in the city. Whetsel was very involved in Saint John’s Black community. He delivered a speech and was the chairman for the 1863 Emancipation Day observance that was attended by Blacks and Whites.
Several instances of slaves escaping from the United States to Canada raised legal challenges. Slave owners often asked for the return of their “property” — fugitives who sought freedom in Canada. In Upper Canada’s response to an 1819 extradition request, John Beverley Johnson declared, “... whatever may have been the condition of the Negroes in the Country to which they formerly belonged, here they are free — For the enjoyment of all civil rights and ... and among them the right to personal freedom as acknowledged and protected by the Laws of England ...”[3] Subsequent fugitive extradition cases included Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, 1833; Jesse Happy and Solomon Moseby, 1837; Nelson Hackett, 1841; and John Anderson, 1860. The freedom of all but one of these fugitives who escaped to Canada was upheld by the courts. Solomon Moseby was ordered to be returned to his master in Kentucky, but he was able to escape when a riot over his transfer took place.
When the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act became law in America, a flood of runaways arrived in Canada. Under this regulation, which was harsher than the 1793 version, fugitives slaves could be caught and sent back into slavery from northern states. It enforced the rights of slave owners, making it mandatory for those even in free northern states to assist in the recapture of escapees, with harsh punishment such as large fines or jail time for those who helped slaves run away. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act also gave slave owners and the bounty hunters who worked for them the power to track and capture fugitives anywhere in America. It also required local law enforcers to assist in returning such people to bondage by arresting and taking them into custody. Rewards were offered to encourage others to aid in recapturing fugitives. The result of this law was that some runaways and free Blacks were captured and sent into slavery down south. Therefore, no Black person, either free or enslaved, was safe. The situation triggered a mass flight of American refugees to Canada. By the end of the 1850s, approximately 50,000 freedom seekers had made Canada their new home.
Tracing the Underground Railroad
In 2012 Owen Sound will recognize 150 years of continuous commemoration of Emancipation Day. Plans are well underway with the return of the “Adventure Cyclists,” who ride their bicycles through the United States, tracing one of the Underground Railroad routes taken by fugitives on their way to Canada. An Ancestor’s Breakfast will be hosted at Harrison Park and an interactive Underground Railroad journey for youth. There will also be a parade from Harrison Park to Kelso Beach for the Emancipation festival’s Saturday afternoon activities, which will be capped with their largest musical presentation ever.
Once in Canada, many fugitives received support from the communities they were starting their new lives in. Churches of all denominations established missions to help refugees settle. These missions offered places of worship, food, clothing, temporary shelter, employment assistance, and schooling. Some settlements were created specifically for fugitives. The Dawn Settlement, located near Dresden, Ontario, was founded in 1842 by Reverends Josiah Henson and Hiram Wilson. The Wilberforce settlement in Lucan, just north of London, Ontario, was the first planned settlement for Blacks in the 1830s. It was organized by a group of African Americans in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the help of Quakers in Ohio and Indiana. Oro was the only government-sponsored settlement for Blacks, and it was set up by the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine Maitland, in 1819. The community was situated northwest of Barrie in Simcoe County. The Elgin Settlement was in present-day Buxton, which is just south of Chatham, in southwestern Ontario. It was started by Reverend William King in 1849. They cleared land, built homes, and established many important community institutions. The freedom, opportunity, and prospects that Canada represented to runaways were grounds for joyous celebration.
Descendants of Fugitives
The early descendants of fugitives either arrived from the United States at a very young age with their escaping family or were born in Canada. They continued homesteading, obtained an education, and many relocated to other parts of the province in search of better opportunities. Collectively, they have contributed to the historical, economic, and cultural development of Canada.
Spotlight on ...
The Aylestock family were descendants of early Blacks who settled in Wellington and Waterloo Counties along the Conestogo River, an area known as the Queen’s Bush settlement. Addie Aylestock was the first Black woman to be ordained in the BME church and as a church minister in Canada. Her sister Rella Braithwaite (née Aylestock) authored several books on African-Canadian history. Rella’s daughter is Diana Braithwaite, a renowned jazz and blues singer.
First generation descendants celebrated Emancipation Day with as much enthusiasm as their older family members. Peter Gallego, who attended Upper Canada College and graduated from the University of Toronto, was very active in Toronto’s Black community in the 1830s and 1840s. He was the son of a former slave from Richmond, Virginia, who wanted to travel to Africa to do missionary work. In Toronto he collected statistics on the number of African Canadians in the city. Gallego was also an officer of the British-American Anti-Slavery Society. William Henry Smallwood also attended Upper Canada College in the 1850s. His father was a fugitive slave from Maryland who operated a saw factory on Front Street in Toronto and played a role in organizing Emancipation Day.
Amherstburg school principal John Henry Alexander regularly participated in the special occasion. John Henry’s father, Thomas Alexander, was a fugitive slave who escaped from a plantation in Kentucky and settled in Anderdon Township, north of Amherstburg, in the 1840s. John and his wife had six children. He was a town councillor from 1923 to 1926 and was later appointed as Amherstburg’s Town Assessor in 1930. Another first generation descendent, church minister Josephus O’Banyoun, was born and raised in Brantford, Ontario. His father, Peter Simeon O’Banyoun, was a runaway slave from Kentucky. Josephus was involved in many aspects of community life, including Emancipation Day.
In a unique story, John Lindsay was born free in 1806, but was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of seven. The experienced blacksmith remained enslaved until he ran away to Canada in 1835 and decided to live in St. Catharines. John immediately began to participate in his new community and even offered a celebratory toast at that year’s Emancipation Day gathering, held at the AME church. He went on to have a family and expanded his career into teaching, gardening, and operating a brewery.[4]
Second, third, fourth, and fifth generation Canadians continued to recognize August First:
- The Alexander and Johnson families in Amherstburg
- The Allen family in Windsor
- The Aylestock family in Glen Allan, formerly part of the Queen’s Bush area
- Descendants of Josiah Henson
- The Prince family in Chatham-Kent County
- The Perrys of Windsor
- The Bell and Harper families in St. Catharines
- The Duncan family in Oakville
- The Green, Scott, and Miller families in Owen Sound.
- The Walls family of Puce (now Lakeshore, Ontario, near Windsor)
Descendants of these families assisted in the organization of the commemoration and were part of the programmes. They marked the anniversary of the abolition of slavery with family, friends, and visitors. To this day, members of the Scott and Allen families are involved in the celebration.
Free Blacks
Free Blacks were people who were not born into slavery. They were free persons who had some rights, but by the 1840s, their everyday lives were becoming more restricted and their freedom was in jeopardy. This was especially true after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Free Blacks were required to carry papers, familiarly known as freedom papers, to prove they were “free persons of colour” and not slaves. This important piece of paper recorded personal information of the carrier. It served as a guarantee of the free persons’ status in the event that bounty hunters tried to pick them up. Sometimes they had to put up a large amount of money as security for their freedom. Some free Blacks could not vote or own property in certain northern towns. As a result of the Fugitive Slave Act bringing more bounty hunters to the north, many free Blacks were kidnapped and returned to slavery in the South. So, in the mid-nineteenth century, large numbers of free African Americans migrated mainly from the northern United States like New York and Ohio and settled across Ontario and eastern Canada, where they lived productive lives and assisted in the development of Black communities.
Newly arrived immigrants included members of the Shadd clan, which consisted of Abraham Doras Shadd, his wife Harriet, and his children Mary Ann Shadd (later Cary), Garrison Shadd, and Isaac Shadd. They all came from Delaware and Pennsylvania and settled in Windsor, Buxton, and Chatham. While living in the United States, the abolitionist family helped runaways find their way to freedom. Abraham and Harriet opened a school on their property in North Buxton to provide an education to fugitives young and old. Abraham, who was a shoemaker by profession, became the first Black politician in Canada when he was elected to the Raleigh Township city council in 1859.
The Cary brothers — George W., Thomas F. (Mary Ann Shadd’s husband), and Isaac N. — were “... strong abolitionists. They campaigned against racial prejudice, led Black self-help organizations, organized Black conventions, and urged the city’s Blacks to abandon the Conservative Party and support George Brown’s Reform Party or the Liberals.”[5]
Wilson Ruffin Abbott and his wife, Ellen Toyer Abbott, were both born free. Wilson was born in Richmond, Virginia, and Ellen in Boston, Massachusetts. They were forced to leave a successful grocery business in Mobile, Alabama, because of the increasing discrimination against African Americans. The Abbotts and their three surviving children, including doctor Anderson Ruffin Abbott, lived in Toronto — Anderson was the first Canadian-born Black to become a medical doctor.
In Toronto Wilson became a wealthy real estate holder, owning properties in Toronto, Hamilton, and Owen Sound. Wilson and Ellen were committed to the growth and improvement of the Black community. Through various benevolent organizations, they provided assistance to fugitive slaves in Toronto. Ellen was the president of the Queen Victoria Benevolent Society. Wilson was a founding member of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada and the Coloured Wesleyan Methodist Church. He served in the militia that protected Toronto during the Rebellions of 1837–38 and was elected to the Toronto city council in 1840.
Prominent doctor and abolitionist Martin R. Delany was one of the featured speakers at Emancipation Day commemorations in Chatham in 1857. The physician and his wife Catherine moved to Chatham in 1856 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Immediately after his arrival, Martin helped to mobilize Black voters in the county to vote for reformer and member of Parliament Archibald McKellar in the 1856 provincial election. As an abolitionist, he travelled to speak out against American slavery and wrote articles in various publications to express his views. Martin returned to the United States in 1865 as a recruitment officer for the Civil War, and one month after his return was made a major and army doctor in the Union Army.
Branson Johnson, his wife Amanda, and their three children emigrated from Maryland and settled Oakville in the early 1860s. Their family grew to seven children. Branson was an active member of the AME church and worked as a railway porter.
Canadian-born descendants of free Blacks who migrated to Canada maintained the annual commemoration August First in the twentieth century and continue to do so in the twenty-first. Anderson Ruffin Abbott’s memory of attending an Emancipation Day as a young man in the 1850s was recorded:
On one occasion within my memory they provided a banquet which was held under a pavilion erected on a vacant lot running from Elizabeth Street to Sayre Street opposite Osgoode Hall, which was then a barracks for the [32nd] West India Regiment. The procession was headed by the band of the Regiment. The tallest man in this Regiment was a Black man, a drummer, known as Black Charlie. The procession carried a Union Jack and a blue silk banner on which was inscribed in glit letters “The Abolition Society, Organized 1844.” The mayor of the city, Mr. Metcalfe, made a speech … followed by several other speeches of prominent citizens. These celebrations were carried on yearly amid much enthusiasm, because it gave the refugee colonists an opportunity to express their gratitude and appreciation of the privileges they enjoyed under British rule.[6]
His recollection provides valuable historical insight into early celebrations.
Robert Leonard Dunn delivered several speeches. Brothers Robert and James Llewlyn Dunn were born in St. Thomas, Ontario, south of London and moved to Windsor, where they became well-known and successful. James and Robert co-owned and operated the Standard Paint and Varnish Company. Robert also owned a theatre in Detroit, Michigan, with other business partners. In 1887 James became the first African-Canadian city councillor of Windsor and was voted into office again in 1888.[7] Robert also entered local politics as an alderman in 1893 and served seven terms. Both men were members of the BME church and the Windsor lodge of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows.[8]
Historian, author, curator Adrienne Shadd is a descendant of the original Shadd settlers. As a young girl she participated in the festival in Windsor, and has more recently shared her wealth of knowledge on African-Canadian history at Emancipation Day events as a guest speaker. In 2009 she received the Toronto Equity and Human Rights Award.
Robert L. Dunn (right) and James L. Dunn (left).
Courtesy of the E. Andrea Shreve Moore Collection, Essex County Black Historical Research Society.
All of these people are still just a few of those who preserved the tradition of celebrating freedom.
African Canadian Soldiers
Spotlight on ...
“Black Charlie” was also known as “Big Charlie.” His real name was John Charles and he was a free black from Trinidad. John was a soldier in the 32nd Regiment of Foot and a member of the Ethiopian musical band of his regiment. His regiment relocated to Toronto and was stationed at Fort York to provide assistance during the Rebellions of 1837–38. While here, John and his regiment lived at the barracks at Osgoode Hall. John was also a skilled fencing master and boxer, so much so that he was hired to train many young boys, including the sons of Chief Justice Beverley Robinson
Black men have served in every major British war in North America. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Black Loyalists included free Blacks and former slaves who fought for Britain. Behind British lines they worked as soldiers, cooks, laundry workers, general labourers, shoemakers, musicians, tailors, construction workers, and ship advisors to the ship master, who helped to navigate ships in and out of harbours and through congested or dangerous waters. After the war, the Black Loyalists who were declared free were transported to Canada, mainly to Nova Scotia, while the Black Loyalists who came to Upper and Lower Canada were generally enslaved, property of their White Loyalist masters. They fought alongside their owners. With few exceptions, they were not granted freedom or land for their military service to the British crown as was promised. Loyalists began arriving in Canada in 1783, once British defeat was inevitable. Butler’s Rangers, a militia including men such as Richard Pierpoint, John Vanpatten, James Robertson, and Robert Jupiter, fought under Loyalist Lieutenant Colonel John Butler in several battles in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and Kentucky. They were based at Fort Niagara in northern New York, which is located on the shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River. The names of three thousand Black Loyalists are recorded in the Book of Negroes.
Book of Negroes
The Book of Negroes is a 150-page military ledger that included the names of 3,000 Black Loyalists. It was the first major record of people of African descent in North America. In 1783 these Black passengers were leaving the port of Manhattan, New York, sailing on the Hudson River to eastern Canada. Some were free, some were indentured servants, and some were the enslaved property of British officers. The handwritten entries of each person included name, age, a brief description of their physical appearance, life circumstances, and their status — free or slave. The people in this document were some of the thousands of Blacks, the majority enslaved, who responded to the British call for Blacks to leave their slave masters and take up arms in support of the British offence in the American Revolution. In return for their service they were promised freedom and protection by the British. Black men and women served as soldiers, labourers, cooks, and in other roles. In the end, as part of the peace accord with the Americans that was signed in Paris in 1782, Britain agreed not to take “any Negroes or other property of the American Inhabitants.” So, unfortunately, some African Americans did not escape bondage in the United States, because the British had to determine the eligibility of freedom based on those who joined the British prior to the signing of the treaty and those who served behind British lines for at least one year. After being registered in the ledger and receiving a passenger ticket aboard a ship, some were transported overseas to England and Germany. Most were transported to Canada, where some landed in Quebec, but the majority settled in Nova Scotia in towns like Halifax, Shelburne, and Annapolis Royal.
Black soldiers also protected British and Canadian interests in other conflicts. Coloured corps, which were racially segregated military units, were formed by men of African descent during the War of 1812, the Rebellions of 1837–38, and the First World War. For example, Runchey’s Coloured Corps under the command of Captain Robert Runchey, based at Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake, fought in the War of 1812. During the rebellions of 1837–38, several coloured corps were raised to secure the borders, including the 1st and 2nd Coloured Corps from Chatham and Windsor area, under Captain Caldwell and Josiah Henson; the Coloured Corps of Upper Canada in the Niagara region; and the Toronto Coloured Corps, led by Colonel Samuel Jarvis, son of William Jarvis.
African-Canadian men from across Canada enlisted and served in the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Courtesy of the Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia.
During the middle of the First World War, Black volunteer militiamen were allowed to serve as non-combat troops in the No. 2 Construction Battalion, raised in 1916. The construction unit’s duties included building roads and bridges, defusing land mines, logging, shipping, and milling. Later, Black men were able to enlist in racially integrated units in the Second World War. They fought to preserve the freedom guaranteed to them and other African Canadians under the British flag. The Toronto Veterans Colour Guard honoured the lives and contributions of Black soldiers at Emancipation Day observances in Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s. Wreaths were laid on the memorial cenotaph at Victoria Memorial Park. However, their own country was another battleground in the fight for freedom. These brave war veterans and their courageous sons, who followed in their footsteps, marched proudly in Emancipation Day parades and the attendees rightfully paid homage to them.
West Indian Immigrants and their Descendants
West Indians entered Canada in different waves of immigration. Approximately six hundred Jamaican Maroons came to Nova Scotia in 1796. They were deported from Jamaica because of their rebellion against the ruling British colonial government. The Maroons were provided with settlement land in the Preston area of Nova Scotia, and a number of today’s Black population in Nova Scotia are their descendants. The Maroons were instrumental in constructing one of the defence walls on Citadel Hill in Halifax and helped to build Government House, home of the lieutenant-governor and the first official government residence in Canada. Aside from these high-profile projects, they worked in other jobs as manual labourers.
Between 1800 and 1920, men from Jamaica and Barbados came to work in the mines in Cape Breton and Sydney, Nova Scotia. Gold prospectors like Jamaican John Robert Giscome and Bahamian Henry McDame arrived in British Columbia in 1858 during the gold rush.
This trend in immigration continued, with hundreds of West Indian men and women coming to Canada to attend universities and later deciding not to return to the West Indies. A good example of this is Jamaican-born Robert Sutherland, the first Black lawyer in Canada. He practised law in Kitchener (then called Berlin) and Walkerton, Ontario, south of Owen Sound area. Robert came to Canada in 1849 to study classical studies and mathematics at Queen’s University. After graduating, Sutherland went to Toronto to study law at Osgoode Hall and was called to the bar in 1855. When he died of pneumonia in 1878, he left his entire estate worth $12,000 to Queen’s University, which was the largest donation to the university up to that time.
Bertrand Joseph Spencer Pitt, another man who immigrated to study, was from Grenada. He arrived in Nova Scotia in the early 1920s to attend the law program at Dalhousie University. Pitt was the fifth Black lawyer of Ontario. He played a leading role in the organization of St. Catharine’s “Big Picnic” Emancipation Day celebrations from 1924 to 1951 in his capacity as president and lawyer for the Toronto branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
In the 1950s and 1960s, more Blacks continued to arrive from Commonwealth Caribbean countries — former British colonies — as university students, entrepreneurs, and job seekers. Donald Moore emigrated from Barbados in 1913. He started a tailoring business in Toronto and was a specialist in the local textile industry. Donald was very active in the Black community and tirelessly advocated for the fair treatment of African Canadians and other minorities. He was also the head of the Toronto Emancipation Committee, the organization that sponsored Emancipation Day commemorations in the 1950s and 1960s.
The West Indian Domestic Scheme, a government immigration program that ran from 1955 to 1960, recruited Black women from the Caribbean to move to Canada to work as domestic servants in White households. In their native islands, these women were mainly teachers, office workers, and nurses. By 1965 almost three thousand women were admitted to work as household maids for a minimum of one year, after which they received landed immigrant status and could sponsor family members.
The Honourable Jean Augustine came to Canada from Grenada in 1960 under the Domestic Scheme. Although she was a trained teacher, Jean worked as a domestic, as required by the program, in various jobs while pursuing a university degree. She became an elementary school teacher and principal in Toronto before entering federal politics. In 1993 she was elected as a Liberal member of Parliament — the first Black woman in Canadian history to achieve this. Jean introduced a bill in the House of Commons in 1995 to have Black History Month declared an official commemoration, provincially and nationally. It was approved by all political parties. Jean accomplished another first: her appointment as the first fairness commissioner for Ontario, in 2007, and in 2009 was the first Grenadian-born to be a recipient of the Order of Canada. In 2009 Jean was the keynote speaker for the opening gala of the Emancipation Day celebrations, revived by the Windsor Emancipation Celebration Corporation.
Another notable achiever was Ovid Jackson, Owen Sound’s first Black mayor — in office from 1983 to 1993 — and Order of Canada recipient. He was born in Guyana and emigrated to Canada in 1966, initially working as a mechanic and later a teacher. Jackson was elected as a city councillor, an office he held from 1974 to 1982. He was then voted as mayor of Owen Sound in 1983 and held this position until 1993, when he entered federal politics. Ovid was the member of Parliament for the Liberal Party of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, from 1994 to 2004. He was the featured speaker when Emancipation Day commemorations returned to Amherstburg in 1983, and in 2010 Ovid was honoured at the Emancipation Festival in Owen Sound for his contributions to and accomplishments in the region’s Black history.
Like the men and women mentioned, many more newly-arrived made the cities of Toronto, Hamilton, London, Montreal, and Windsor their home and contributed immensely to the development of various Black communities and the country.
West Indians were coming from countries where thousands of enslaved Africans were freed by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 and commemorated Emancipation Day. The incoming residents carried on the tradition in the customary way, but also brought with them a manner of celebration new to Canadians. Caribana was established in 1967 by a group of West Indian immigrants who settled in Toronto. With its beginnings in the carnival of Trinidad, the forty-three year old festival includes a big, colourful street parade and illustrates a Caribbean style of celebrating Emancipation Day. Today, Caribana attracts over one million people every year and is one of the largest street festivals in North America. The grand procession and associated events generate an estimated five hundred million dollars for the local economy of Toronto every year.
Descendants of West Indian immigrants continued to lead productive lives and make invaluable contributions to their communities in Canada. Countless descendants went on to achieve extraordinary success. One notable case is the Honourable Lincoln Alexander, born in Toronto in 1922. His mother was Jamaican and his father was from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Respectively, they worked as a domestic helper and a railway porter to support their family. Lincoln served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. After the war, he became a respected lawyer and politician. Lincoln made history by earning the distinctions of Canada’s first Black member of Parliament, first Black federal cabinet minister, and Ontario’s first Black lieutenant governor.
Stanley Grizzle was born in Toronto in 1918 to Jamaican parents. He served in the Second World War. When he returned to Canada, he was employed as a train porter and active in the labour and human rights movement through his extensive involvement with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. In 1978 Stanley became the first African-Canadian Citizenship Court judge. He was awarded the Order of Canada for his extraordinary community work. Stanley attended Emancipation Day observances in Toronto with his family during the 1950s and 1960s and also addressed the audiences there.
The outstanding achievements of West Indian expatriates and their descendants have been important to the development of Canada. They played a vital role in affecting social change, especially during the civil rights and labour movements. Their involvement in Emancipation Day — or West India Day, as it was popularly known — in Canada continues to hold historical significance for them. Their participation helped to maintain its significance as an international public observance, while influencing the evolution of the commemoration.
Whites
Numerous Emancipation Day celebrants were European Canadians. During the first fifty years of commemorations, the Whites that attended August First commemorations were sympathetic Whites — people who supported the cause of freedom and equality for those of African descent. White abolitionists believed slavery was wrong, and some assisted in bringing fugitives to freedom in Canada. For the first three decades until the end of American slavery, White abolitionists were active in pushing for human rights for Blacks and the end of slavery. They believed that no human being should own the life of another and that Blacks were entitled to the same rights as all other Canadians. They worked together with Black leaders and organizations to raise money meant to help fugitives and provide settlement support such as shelter, food, clothing, education, and jobs to entering refugees. They also formed and joined anti-slavery societies to influence the public’s view on slavery and push for American and Canadian legislation against it.
The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada (ASSC) was created in 1851, with its headquarters in Toronto. It was established by George Brown, a Father of Confederation and the publisher of the Globe newspaper, along with both Black and White associates in Ontario and Quebec. White members included Dr. Michael Willis, principal of Knox College, University of Toronto; Reverend William McClure of London, Ontario; Captain Charles Stuart, former army major who worked with fugitives in Amherstburg; Oliver Mowat, politician and third premier of Ontario; and newspaper editor John Dougall of Montreal. Black members of the ASSC included African-American abolitionist and short-term Upper Canada resident Samuel Ringgold Ward, who was a fugitive from Maryland; businessman Wilson Ruffin Abbott of Toronto; and entrepreneur Aby Beckford Jones of London, Ontario.
George Brown and John Dougall, publisher of the Montreal Gazette, used their papers to criticize the practice of slavery in the South, discuss issues facing arriving fugitives, and share accounts of annual Emancipation Day celebrations across the country. For their part, the wives of the White members of the ASSC formed the Ladies Association for the Relief of Colored Destitute Fugitives to also assist in providing help to Black refugees.
Many of the White participants in the early years were church ministers of various denominations. They delivered sermons or speeches at Emancipation Day events, and some even played a role in the overall organization of the festivities:
William King was a Presbyterian minister who founded the Elgin Settlement in Buxton for fugitive slaves. He spoke at several gatherings in Chatham.
Marmaduke Martin Dillon, an Anglican priest in London, worked as a missionary to the fugitive slaves in the city and conducted an Emancipation Day service in 1855 at St. Paul’s Church.
John Gamble Geddes delivered a sermon at Christ’s Church Cathedral in Hamilton in 1846 and again in 1857.
Charles Henry Drinkwater, also in Hamilton, opened the doors of St. Thomas Church to celebrants in 1864. His sermon and the proceedings of the day were published, quite likely to be sold to raise money for local organizations that supported fugitive slaves.
Henry James Grasett, the rector of St. James Cathedral from 1842 to 1847, addressed numerous crowds for over twenty years, beginning in 1839. This church was a regular meeting place in Toronto.
Thomas Hughes, of Christ’s Church Anglican, went to Dresden in 1859 to work with fugitive slaves. Thomas supervised the mission school that was established by the Anglican Church. Once summer exams were finished in 1861, he hosted an Emancipation Day assembly for students in a field on his property. In an entry in his diary dated August 1, 1861, Thomas describes how local African Canadians came to enjoy the picnic.
The Fraser River Gold Rush in British Columbia saw many Black settlers arrive in the hopes of building a new life, and William F. Clarke was very active in assisting incoming African Americans to settle in their new country. The Congregationalist minister had originally worked with fugitive slaves in Norwich and London in Canada West before going to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1857 to assist the large wave of settlers that the promise of gold had brought. The wave included approximately eight hundred Black men and women from San Francisco, California, and Clarke welcomed them into the church, refusing to establish a segregated section. William was also a founder of the London branch of the ASSC, along with William McClure, minister of the Irish New Connexion Methodist Chapel, and Black businessman and resident Aby Beckford Jones. Both Williams delivered speeches at the 1852 celebration in London.
Reverend William F. Clarke.
Courtesy of the University of Guelph Library, Archival and Special Collections.
White politicians — mayors, city councillors, members of Parliament (MPs), and members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) — regularly attended August First events, officially welcoming guests and delivering speeches. Participating in Emancipation Day was a way to keep in touch with Black constituents, to hear their concerns, and to solicit votes. White politicians also sent letters of acknowledgement and messages to organizers in recognition of the special occasion. In 1935 Conservative prime minister Richard B. Bennett and Ontario premier Mitch Hepburn both sent official greetings to Walter Perry and the BAACB in Windsor. Some also issued official public announcements in support of the annual affair.
Reverend William McClure was referred to by African-American abolitionist Samuel Ringgold Ward “as true a friend to the negro as ever drew breath.”
From theLife and Labours of the Reverend William McClure.
Canadians of European origin took part in August First street processions. All-White marching bands of fraternal orders and other community organizations participated in Emancipation Day parades. In 1896 two White women rode on one of the dozens of carriage floats in London that were filled with Black women and children. Some Whites also participated in cakewalk dance competitions, picnics, baseball games, races, and other leisure activities. White participation was occasionally limited because some Emancipation Day activities were restricted to Blacks only. For example, when the cakewalk competition began at the gala in Hamilton in 1888, the chairman announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the first quadrille will be danced exclusively by colored people. After that you may use your own judgement. The implied invitation was largely accepted later in the evening.”[9]
The Honourable Isaac Buchanan, MPP for Hamilton, Canada West (1857–1865), lent the grounds of his Clairmont Park estate on Hamilton Mountain for annual Emancipation Day celebrations in that city. He also supported efforts that improved the rights and opportunities for local African Canadians.
Courtesy of Local History & Archives, Hamilton Public Library.
After the abolition of American slavery in 1865, there was a decrease in White involvement, largely because many believed that the goals of Emancipation Day had been reached. Nonetheless, Whites continued to participate to some degree and were always welcome. During the early 1900s, Whites, for the most part, were observers. White speakers still gave addresses and Whites attended as family members of interracial marriages.
In 2006 the City of Ottawa issued its proclamation declaring August 1st Emancipation Day.
Courtesy of the City of Ottawa.
First Nations
What They Said
“There was a large number of white folks in the gathering.”
— Toronto World, August 2, 1883.
Blacks and Natives had sometimes contradictory relationships in early Canada. People of African descent were enslaved by Natives in Upper Canada, and Blacks first came to the Grand River reserve area in Brantford, Ontario, as slaves. Sophia Pooley, for example, was owned by Joseph Brant as a young girl. Natives also traded enslaved Africans between Canada and the United States. In more positive interactions, Aboriginals provided directions, food, clothing, money, and transportation to runaways like Josiah Henson and his family, who received assistance from Natives in Ohio on their way to Canada from Kentucky. In addition, Black and Native men fought together in the War of 1812 to defend British interests against the United States.
Mohawk Loyalists like Joseph Brant’s three sons and other Iroquois militiamen received land grants at Grand River. Former slaves, including Black Loyalist Peter Long’s son-in-law Aaron Eyres, who fought in the War of 1812, took refuge on the Grand River Reserve and received land plots from Joseph Brant. Fugitive slaves who immigrated in the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century were welcomed to settle on reserve land on the Six Nations Reserve. African Canadians and Aboriginals lived among each other in Brantford, in Nova Scotia, and in other parts of Canada. They became family through marriage. In one such instance, Brant’s daughter Elizabeth married an ex-slave named John Morey and lived in Brantford. Their daughter Catherine Morey married escaped slave John H. Henderson from Maryland and also lived in Brantford. In Nova Scotia, formerly enslaved Black men and Mi’kmaq women married.
Ethel Alexander (back, left) and Nina Mae Alexander (back, right), circa 1919. They taught at the No. 2 Six Nations School in Grand River south of Brantford, Ontario, between 1914 and 1920. Their brother Arthur Alexander taught at the No. 7 Six Nations School from 1916 to 1920.
Courtesy of the Spencer Alexander Collection.
Black teachers taught Six Nations children on the Grand River Reserve south of Brantford. Between 1914 and 1922, Nina Mae, Ethel Lanonia, and Arthur Alexander were employed by the Six Nations School Board. The Alexander family of Anderdon Township, near Amherstburg, contained a long line of educators. They were second generation descendants of an escaped slave. Their father, John Henry Alexander, was the principal of the King Street School in Amherstburg from 1880 to1917.
Natives and Blacks also shared similar social experiences in early Canada. Both First Nations people and individuals of African descent were enslaved by the French and British. The treatment that both groups endured was inhumane; although in different ways, African Canadians and Natives experienced racism and marginalization in mainstream Canadian society. In the 1950s through to the 1970s, both groups fought to bring public awareness to the human rights violations they faced, including discrimination in employment, education, and housing, as well as the problems of police violence and segregation. At times Blacks and Natives joined forces through social organizations to address systemic racism and push for anti-discrimination laws.
Blacks and Natives developed social relationships as neighbours, friends, family, activists, and colleagues. Therefore, it is not surprising that Natives participated in Emancipation Day commemorations. Native brass bands, such as the 37th Haldimand Rifles, the Grand River Indian Brass Band, the Osheweken Indian Cornet Band, the Victoria Brass Band of the Six Nations, and the Muncey Indian Band, marched in parades in Woodstock, Brantford, Hamilton, and London. The earliest known recorded Emancipation Day celebration in Brantford was on August 1, 1856, and took place at a grove on the site of the Mohawk Institute on the Six Nations Reserve, the current location of the Woodland Cultural Centre. It is likely that First Nations people would have also taken part in other aspects of the yearly observance, as it would have been an extension of their similarly oppressed history and their pursuit of liberty.
The 37th Haldimand Rifles Brass Band taken at the Niagara Camp, Niagara-on-the-Lake, June 1910. They were members of a regiment of active Six Nations militia men that was originally formed in 1866 to protect Upper Canada from Fenian attacks. Many of the men enlisted to fight in the First World War.
Courtesy of the Woodland Cultural Centre.