Slavery in Canada

Slavery in what now comprises Canada existed into the 1830s, when slavery was officially abolished. Some slaves were of African descent, while others were aboriginal (typically called panis, likely a corruption of Pawnee). Slavery which was practised within Canada's current geography, was practised primarily by Aboriginal groups. While there was never any significant Canadian trade in African slaves, native nations frequently enslaved their rivals and a very modest number (sometimes none in a number of years) were purchased by colonial administrators (rarely by settlers) until 1833, when the slave trade was abolished across the British Empire.

A few dozen African slaves were forcibly brought as chattel by Europeans to New France, Acadie and the later British North America (see Chattel slavery), during the 17th century. But Large-scale plantation slavery of the sort that existed in most European colonies in the Americas, from New York to Brazil, never existed in colonial Canada or Newfoundland because the economies were not based on plantation agriculture. The largest industries were based upon the exploitation of natural resources, such as the fur trade. So, while some Canadian slaves performed agricultural labour, most were domestic house servants.

Because early Canada's role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade was so minor, the history of slavery in Canada is often overshadowed by the more tumultuous slavery practiced elsewhere in the Americas - most famously in the American South, and infamously in the colonial Caribbean. Afua Cooper states that slavery is, "Canada's best kept secret, locked within the National closet.

Under British rule

Black slaves lived in the British regions of Canada in the 17th and 18th centuries — 104 were listed in a 1767 census of Nova Scotia, but their numbers were small until the United Empire Loyalist influx after 1783. As white Loyalists fled the new American Republic, they took with them about 2000 black slaves: 1200 to the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), 300 to Lower Canada (Quebec), and 500 to Upper Canada (Ontario). The Imperial Act of 1790 assured prospective immigrants that their slaves would remain their property. As under French rule, Loyalist slaves were held in small numbers and were employed as domestic servants, farm hands, and skilled artisans.

The 1763 Treaty of Paris made no reference to slavery in Canada, nor does the Quebec Act of 1774 or the Treaty of Paris of 1783 -- either to ban it or to permit it.

Canadian First Nations owned or traded in slaves. Shawnee, Potawatomi, and other western tribes imported slaves from Ohio and Kentucky and sold them to Canadian settlers. Thayendenaga (chief Joseph Brant) used blacks he had captured during the American Revolution to build Brant House at Burlington Beach and a second home near Brantford. In all, Brant owned about forty black slaves.

The system of gang labor, and its consequent institutions of control and brutality, did not develop in Canada as it did in the USA. Because they did not appear to pose a threat to their masters, slaves were permitted to learn to read and write, Christian conversion was encouraged, and their marriages were recognized by law.

Under French rule

In 1628 the first recorded slave in Canada was brought by a British Convoy to New France. Olivier le Jeune was the name given to the boy originally from Madagascar. His given name resonates with the Code Noir. Although loosely established, the Code Noir forced baptisms and decreed the conversion of all slaves to Catholicism.

By 1688, New France's population was 11,562 people, made up primarily of fur traders, missionaries, and farmers settled along the St. Lawrence Valley. To help overcome its severe shortage of servants and laborers, King Louis XIV granted New France's petition to import black slaves from West Africa. While slavery was prohibited in France, it was permitted in its colonies as a means of providing the massive labour force needed to clear land, construct buildings and (in the Caribbean colonies) work sugar plantation. New France soon established its own 'Code Noir,' defining the control and management of slaves. The Code in 1685 set the pattern for policing slavery. It required that all slaves be instructed as Catholics and not as Protestants. It concentrated on defining the condition of slavery, and established harsh controls. Slaves had virtually no rights, though the Code did enjoin masters to take care of the sick and old. The blacks were usually called "servants," and the harsh gang system was not used. Death rates among slaves was high.

Research

Historian Marcel Trudel has documented 4,092 recorded slaves throughout Canadian history, of which 2,692 were Aboriginal peoples, owned by the French, and 1,400 blacks owned by the British, together owned by approximately 1,400 masters. Trudel also noted 31 marriages took place between French colonists and Aboriginal slaves.