4:38am March 23, 2014

➸ Black History Month: Canada Had Slavery?

fycanadianpolitics:

queennubian:

locsgirl:

evayna:

Canada’s slave-owning history is being ignored, says expert, as Black History Month kicks off.

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ALL THIS!?!?!?!

‘Cause history involving black people is always erased, that’s why.

Because a lot of us were taught that once you got to north you were free, but if you could get the Canada you were safe from being dragged back into slavery by hunters. It was like Canada was best place you could be if you were trying escape slavery (per US history classes)

‘Author and historian Afua Cooper has described slavery in the Great White North as “Canada’s best kept secret.” She says that between 1628 and 1833, Canada had approximately 8,000 slaves, but it’s a part of the country’s history that is not well known.

“Canada conveniently forgot its own history of slave-holding, because that would make the country look immoral, indecent,” says Cooper […]

Before the British conquest of 1760 when Canada was still a French colony, nearly 60 percent of slaves were aboriginal and 40 percent were of African descent, Cooper estimates. After Britain took over, the ratio of aboriginal slaves declined as the British brought in more slaves from Africa, the West Indies, and the Caribbean, as well as from its 13 American colonies. 

Slave-owners in the American South were largely plantation owners, but in Canada they ran the gamut, from merchants and fur traders to farmers and even religious institutions.

“The slave owners were everybody, in every social class,” says Cooper. “Members of the clergy owned large amounts of slaves.”’

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