During our visit to eastern Canada in 2025, Christiane and I visited the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier at Pier 21. We learned a lot including a fine display of artifacts about slavery in Canada.
Many people think the only way Canada was connected to slavery was through the underground railway where many slaves from America escaped their brutal conditions and came to Canada. Although that happened, the story is more complex than that.
I remember a few years ago when I listened to a very interesting story about slavery in Canada on CBC radio. By coincidence, when the show was recorded, the CBC crew encountered former Prime Minister Paul Martin in Halifax where they were recording the show and the interviewer asked him a few questions about slavery in Canada, and he proudly mentioned how Canadians had protected slaves as part of the underground railway in his former riding of Windsor. When questioned, it became obvious, that he was not aware of slavery in Canada. He just remembered the good parts. Canada has certainly not emphasized this dark side of its history. American conservatives are not the only ones who try to ignore their past except for the glorious aspects of their history. At least Canadians are not, to my knowledge at least, trying to hide those unsavory aspects.
First, slavery was practiced in Canada for over 2 centuries. It was abolished by a statute of Britain in 1834. Only after that was the stage set for Canada to become a safe haven for escaping slaves. Until then, often slavery was just as brutal in Canada as it was in the United States. In fact, there are cases where slaves in Canada escaped from their masters and fled to the United States.
40 years earlier Upper Canada (before it was Ontario) abolished the importation of new slaves, but it did not ban slavery. However many northern states abolished slavery before Canada did.
Even after slavery was abolished, many survivors of slavery had a very hard time finding jobs and often could only find jobs that had been established during slavery such as nannies to white families.
Slavery left a profound legacy throughout the Americas, including Canada. Enslaved black people and their descendants had powerful influences on culture in Canada, as well as sports, science, the Humanities, food, and agriculture and much more. Yet slavery devastated the people and robbed Africa of many of its people. Canada was also home to much anti-black racism that has left a strong residue of disproportionate rates of incarceration of black people as well as income disparities, unequal access to health care, and higher rates of diabetes.
Through their unpaid labour, black slaves made enormous contributions to the economy of Canada. As the Museum made clear, “Under the cruel conditions of slavery, enslaved Black people tried as much as possible to keep their families together—an almost impossible feat as family members were regularly sold, bequeathed in wills, and even given away as bridal gifts.”
A fact that always astonishes me, is the fact that slave owners were compensated for the loss of their property when slavery was abolished, but no compensation was ever paid to the blacks or their descendants. There is a growing movement of people who are advocating that descendants of enslaved black people be paid reparations as some compensation for those losses..
Many black people challenged their enslavements by participating in slave rebellions or escaping. Some even managed to successfully dispute their enslavement in court proceedings.
Some of the more moving things we saw in the display at the museum in Halifax, were actual copies of advertisements published in local newspapers for advertisements for the proposed sale of slaves. There were also advertisements seeking assistance for the return of their slaves. Even in Canada.
Slaves were sold at auctions in warehouse, markets, and wharfs, often alongside fruits and vegetables. This was all part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that brought about 15 million Africans forcibly against their will to North and South America. We learned that the West Indies slave trade was Atlantic Canada’s most financially rewarding commercial activity until the 1830s. Many Canadians were upset when such activities became illegal thanks to the British Parliament. We must remember that all the colonies that joined together to form Canada in 1967 had a history of slavery.
New France began in Nova Scotia in 1605 and Quebec in 1608 and with came slavery. The first known slave in Canada was a 9-year-old boy Olivier Le Jeune in 1629. He got his first name his owner and his last name from the priest who baptized him. He remained a slave for his entire life.
By the end of the 1600s the majority of black people that came to Canada, came as slaves, and this continued for 2 centuries.
According to the museum, slavery was no more humane in Canada than it was in the United States. Slaveholders assaulted and killed enslaved people in Canada often without legal consequences and regularly stole black children from their parents and sold them as property. The Museum had some gruesome photos of slaves with backs covered in scars from lashings they had received.
Enslavers came from all walks of life and levels of society: wealthy people, government workers, military and religious organizations, merchants, widows, housewives, and nuns and priests.
During both the French and British periods of administration in Canada, ownership of slaves was seen by many as a way to deal with labour shortages. While at times indigenous people were also enslaved, colonial leaders preferred black slaves. Naturally, racist ideas were used to justify such actions. When Halifax was founded in 1749 13% of its population was enslaved. Over 2,000 black slaves arrived in Canada with the United Empire loyalists.
The uncomfortable fact is that the Canadian economy, like American economy, benefited enormously from slavery while their societies were poisoned by it.