Notes
Chapter 1
1. Public General Act, 3&4 William IV, c.73, Abolition of Slavery Act, Parliament Archives, United Kingdom. The act is accessible online at www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm.
Chapter 2
1. An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves, Public General Act, Citation 3 & 4 Will IV, c.73. This legislation received the official short name of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1896.
2. LaBrew, Arthur R., 300th Year Celebration, 256.
Chapter 3
1. St. Catharines Journal, October 15, 1835.
2. African Canadians were not welcome in all public establishments. Some businesses refused to serve Blacks because of their race.
3. Chatham Daily Planet, August 2, 1899.
4. The Nazrey Institute was changed to Wilberforce Educational Institute in 1873.
5. Daniel was not a legally qualified doctor, but this was common for all doctors in the mid-1800s until medicine became a governed profession. He died in June 1894 and was honoured at that year’s Emancipation Day observance.
Chapter 4
1. Hamilton, James Clelland. “Slavery in Canada.” Transactions. Volume 1, (1889–1890), 105.
2. Ibid., 106.; Riddell, William Renwick. “The Slave in Canada.” Journal of Negro History. Volume 5, July 1920, 332.
3. Ibid.
4. McKnight, Alanna. “John Lindsay Report.” Breaking the Chains: Presenting a New Narrative of Canada’s Role in the Underground Railroad; St. Catharines Journal, November 12, 1835.
5. Shadd, Adrienne, Afua Cooper, and Karolyn Smardz Frost. The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!, (Toronto: Natural Heritage Books, 2005), 73.
6. Hill, Daniel. Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada, (Book Society of Canada, 1981), 183.
7. James Llewellyn Dunn sued the Windsor Board of Education in 1883 because his daughter Jane Ann was barred from attending the local public school because of her race. The court ruled in favour of the school board. He was elected as a school trustee for four terms.
8. In recognition of their achievements, the city council of Windsor declared February 21 to 27, 2010, “James and Robert Dunn Week.”
9. Hamilton Spectator, August 2, 1888.
Chapter 5
1. Provincial Freeman, July 29, 1854.
2. Gordon, Robert. A Sermon on the Morning of the 1st of August, 1859, 5.
3. Ibid., 10.
4. Ibid., 23.
5. Minutes of the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the AME for the Canada District, July 16, 1853, 10.
6. Peter C. Ripley and others, eds., The Black Abolitionist Papers, Volume II: Canada 1830-1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 77.
7. The conflict between the North and the South ended with the South surrendering and all enslaved African Americans being freed.
Chapter 6
1. Adrienne Shadd, email to author, January 2011.
2. Beth Allen, email to author, October 2010.
3. Dresden Times, August 6, 1891.
4. Hamilton Spectator, August 3, 1857.
5. Toronto World, August 2, 1884.
6. Chatham Weekly Planet, August 3, 1871.
7. As of May 2011, the official name of Caribana has been changed to the Scotiabank Caribbean Carnival Toronto after the Caribana Arts Group (formerly the Caribbean Cultural Committee), who are the owners of the trademarked festival Caribana, won a court decision to keep the name because it belonged to them. The CAG lost control of Caribana in 2006 and management of the festival was transferred to the festival management committee.
8. Hamilton Spectator, August 2, 1859.
9. Ingersoll Chronicle, August 21, 1907.
10. Brantford Expositor, February 10, 2007.
11. Brantford Weekly Expositor, August 5, 1859.
Chapter 7
1. Dorothy Turcotte. Greetings from Grimsby Park: the Chautauqua of Canada (Grimsby Historical Society, 1985), 40.
2. Nerene Virgin, email to author, June 2011; Toronto Star, July 27, 1964.
3. Nerene Virgin, email to author, June 2011.
4. Chatham Daily Planet, August 2, 1905.
5. Owen Sound Sun Times, August 4, 1905.
6. Owen Sound Sun Times, August 3, 1899.
7. Dresden Times, August 8, 1889.
8. Joanna McEwan. The Story of Oro (Oro: Township of Oro, 1987).
9. Owen Sound Times, August 3, 1899.
10. Western Herald, August 11, 1842.
Chapter 8
1. Mechanic’s institutes were the predecessors of the public library.
2. Windsor Daily Star, July 25, 1952.
3. “Notes of a Speech Delivered at Chatham August 2, 1858,” Fred Landon Papers, box 4220, William King File, University of Western Ontario Archives.
4. Black Then: Blacks and Montreal 1780s–1880s (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), 199.
5. Emancipator, August 11, 1847.
6. St. Catharines Standard, August 5, 1938.
7. Windsor Star, August 7, 1956.
8. Breaking Loose: A History of African-Canadian Dance in Southwestern Ontario 1900-1955, 118, 119.
9. Windsor Star, August 3, 1954.
10. Windsor Star, August 4, 1954.
11. Isaac Holden was the captain of the Victoria Company No. 3, Chatham’s all-Black fire brigade that formed in 1857, and the first African-Canadian city councillor in Chatham. Isaac Holden was the brother of Robert L. Holden.
12. Toronto World, August 2, 1882.
13. Chatham Daily News, August 8, 2006.
14. Provincial Freeman, August 5, 1854.
15. British Colonist, August 4, 1855.
16. London Free Press, August 4, 1896.
17. The Fourteenth Amendment was designed to guarantee full citizenship for Blacks and was intended to protect the legal rights of freed slaves and their descendants. It was passed by Congress in June of 1866 and was adopted by the states on July 9, 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment protected African-American men’s right to vote. The legal bill was ratified on February 3, 1870. The 1964 Civil Rights Act made discrimination on the basis of race and gender in public places such as schools and workplaces illegal. Finally, the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, outlawed the discriminatory voting practices in many southern states after the Civil War, such as requiring African Americans to take and pass a literacy test before being allowed to vote.
Chapter 9
1. Women of any race could not vote in Ontario provincial elections until 1917 and in Federal elections in 1920.
2. The children of Daniel G. Hill and Donna Hill are prominent in the arts world today. Their second son, Lawrence Hill, is a world-renowned author on the African-Canadian experience. Their first son, Dan Hill, is a well-known song writer and musician, and their daughter, Karen Hill, is a poet. For an overview of Daniel Hill’s life, see the online exhibit, The Freedom Seeker: the Life and Times of Daniel G. Hill, on the Archives of Ontario website.
3. Chatham Tri-Weekly Planet, August 5, 1891.
4. Toronto Star, August 2, 1946.
5. Chatham Daily News, August 2, 2005.
6. Leamington Post and News, August 7, 1930; Essex Free Press August 8, 1930; Erica Bajer, “Not on the Books but True: Official Discrimination Hard to Nail Down in Chatham-Kent,” Chatham Daily News, 2008.
7. Jim Crow Laws in the Southern United States required Blacks and Whites to be segregated in public places.
8. Border Cities Star, August 7, 1930.
9. Ibid.
10. Powell, Ted. Interview with Lawrence Hill. African Canadian Collection, Multicultural Historical Society of Ontario.
Chapter 10
1. Blaine Courtney, email to author, January 2011. Blaine’s great grandfather, Abraham Courtney, was a fugitive slave from North Carolina. When he arrived in Owen Sound, Abraham worked as a farm hand.
2. Dennis Scott, email to author, April 2011. Dennis’s great grandmother was originally from North Carolina.
Chapter 12
1. “Neighbourhood Basketball Association,” www.nbacanada.org/about.html, accessed May 2011.
2. “Native Youth Sexual Health Network,” www.nativeyouthsexualhealth.com/aboutourfounder.html, accessed May 2011.
3. Sadly, Shannen died in a car accident in May 2010 at the age of fifteen. Before June 2011, First Nations peoples could not have filed a human rights complaint because of discrimination under the application of the Indian Act by the federal government. They now have complete access to Canadian human rights law.
4. We Day was created by Free the Children in 2007 as an initiative aimed at educating and rallying Canadian public school children to raise funds and get involved in making a difference in the lives of other young people.
5. “For Youth Initiative,” http://foryouth.ca, accessed on February 16, 2011.