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(This forthcoming book to be published by the University of Toronto Press and the University
of Nebraska Press, is part of Da Costa 400: Celebrating 400 Years of Black Canadian Heritage
and Culture.)
Unlike their Caucasian
contemporaries, most African Canadians know about slavery. “No one knew
slavery better than the slave”, wrote historian Ira Berlin, “and few had
thought harder about what freedom could mean.” In the same manner, no one
today knows slavery better than the descendants of slaves. Of the 700
African-Canadians in Cape Breton approximately one half are descended
from slaves and freed slaves brought by American Loyalists to Cape Breton
in 1783-1784. The remaining half are descended from former slaves in the
West Indies, especiallyBarbados, who came to Cape Breton to work in
Sydney’s steel plant in the early 1900's. There are no known descendants
of French-regime slaves in Cape Breton since the slaves and their owners
were deported to France after the second siege of Louisbourg in 1758.
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| Louisbourg street scape. There were 266 slaves in Cape Breton from 1713 to 1758, most in Louisbourg. |
Slavery is not thought to be part of the Canadian tradition. The liberal principle of the
development of individual or human rights that emerged throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries has taken full root in much of the western world and Canada is no exception.
Canada takes great pride in being a multicultural nation welcoming people of all races
and creeds. The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedom in the 1982 Canadian
constitution has reinforced the commitment to human rights. Canada had opened its borders
to refugees from all over the world. Offering safe haven to refugees has a long history in
the territory that became Canada, especially since fugitive slaves came to the country from
the United States after the end of the War of Independence and again after the end of the
War of 1812, and as part of the Underground Railroad later in the nineteenth century.
Thousands of slaves fled from the southern United Sates to Canada. Canadian elementary
school children learn about the Underground Railway – the great secret northern migration
– in the school curriculum throughout much of the country. As if to reinforce this point,
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a national, televised program
entitled “Freedom’s Land: Canada and the Underground Railway” on 5 February 2004. Yet,
by 1861– the eve of the beginning of the American Civil War – there were 23,000 blacks
in Canada West (Ontario) and they were mainly free blacks, not runaway slaves. Fugitive
slaves have thus played an exaggerated role in the scholarly and popular histories of
Ontario and Canada in general. School children and Canadians in general learn about
fugitive slaves, not slavery in Canada.
Nova Scotia also has a history of offering sanctuary to people seeking freedom, especially
freedom from slavery. During the American Revolutionary War (1776-1783) black slaves in the
American colonies were offered refuge if they left their rebel owners. Given the history
of providing asylum to slaves and other refugees, the study of slavery in Canada goes
against the dominant image of Canada as a land of freedom. Yet there were slaves in the
territory that became New France\Quebec, at least 4,000 from 1685 to 1800. Recent scholarship
estimates that there were another 4,000 slaves in Canada after the French regime. Much
of the increase in slave numbers comes from Nova Scotia. Kenneth Donovan’s forthcoming
book -- Slaves in Cape Breton 1713-1815 -- to be published by the University of Toronto
press and the University of Nebraska press concentrates on the lives of 416 slaves in
Cape Breton.
Beginning in the fifteenth century some 11 million slaves were sent from Africa to the New
World on approximately forty thousand slave ships over four centuries. Sugar cane, first
introduced to the West Indies on the second voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1493, became
the cash crop of the slave trade. Portuguese vessels controlled the Atlantic slave trade
during the fifteenth century sending slaves to the Spanish colonies and their own colony
of Brazil. The Dutch overtook the Portuguese during the seventeenth century after they
conquered Brazilian sugar- production areas from 1630 to 1640. By 1660 the Dutch confirmed
their domination of the slave trade when they were awarded the exclusive contract to
supply slaves to Spain’s New World colonies. Britain entered the slave trade during the
seventeenth century seeking slaves for sugar production in their islands of Barbados
and later Jamaica, captured from Spain in 1665. The French joined the British in the
slave trade during the seventeenth century in order to supply their sugar islands of
Saint Domingue, Martinique and Guadeloupe. It was only during the eighteenth century,
however, that the French became a major participant in the slave trade when they brought
more than a million slaves to their New World colonies. The overwhelming majority of
slaves in the Atlantic slave trade were sent to the West Indies and Brazil and less
than four percent of the 11 million slaves came to North America. Slaves in Cape Breton
were thus part of a much larger picture.
The 416 slaves in Cape Breton represented the approximate human carrying capacity of only
one large slave ship. And yet the story of slaves in Cape Breton helps to complete the picture
since the slave trade was insidious and its tentacles were wide reaching. Why a study of
slavery in Cape Breton? Although a part of Nova Scotia since 1820, Cape Breton was known
as Ile Royale when it was a separate colony during the French regime,1713-1758. After the
first siege of Louisbourg in 1745, Cape Breton was returned to the British from 1745 to 1748
but even during this period the island remained a separate colony with its own governor.
After the second siege of Louisbourg in 1758, Cape Breton became part of the territory of
Nova Scotia from 1763 to 1784. With the arrival of the Loyalists during 1783-1784, Cape
Breton was made a separate colony once again from 1785 to 1820. Thus, Cape Breton was a
distinct colony with its own identity for most of the years of this book.
With the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, the French were forced to leave
Newfoundland and move to Cape Breton. By 1714 there were more than 300 refugees at Louisbourg,
including George, a black slave who had been purchased by Pastour De Costebelle, the
governor of the colony, prior to leaving Newfoundland. The African Diaspora ensured that
slaves such as George were separated from their families, their communities and thei
r heritage. The slaves of Cape Breton, like most slaves, were illiterate and neither named
nor counted as persons in the censuses that were conducted on the island. The slaves had
no names except those given by their masters and even then 62 of the 416 slaves in this
monograph had to be recorded as “anonymous”. Cape Breton slaves left few narratives of
their lives or traces of their identity. The study of the lives of the slaves is much like
looking through the wrong end of a telescope. As the evidence is gathered, however, the
telescope is turned around and the image becomes clearer. Relying on a cumulative
methodology, the lives of the 416 slaves have been rehabilitated from a mass of disparate
primary materials. The full story will be revealed in Donovan’s forthcoming book,
part of the Da Costa 400: Celebrating 400 Years of Black Canadian Heritage.
Contributed by Kenneth Donovan.
Kenneth Donovan is an historian with Parks Canada at the Fortress of Louisbourg National
Historic Site of Canada and teaches history at Cape Breton University. Widely published in
Cape Breton History from the eighteenth to the twenty first century, his most publications
have appeared in French Colonial History (Michigan State University Press) and Gerald
Hallowell, ed., The Oxford Companion to Canadian History ( Oxford University Press).
Kenneth Donovan’s Publications on Slavery
“Slaves in Ile Royale, 1713-1758" French Colonial History, Michigan State University Press,
vol. 5, (2004), pp. 25-42.
“Marie Marguerite Rose” in Gerald Hallowell, ed., The Oxford Companion to Canadian History
(Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 549.
“Slavery” in Gerald Hallowell, ed., The Oxford Companion to Canadian History,
(Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press), 2004, p. 585.
"A Nominal List of Slaves and Their Owners in Ile Royale, 1713-1760", Nova Scotia
Historical Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (June, 1996), pp. 151-62.
“Slaves and Their Owners in Ile Royale, 1713-1760", Acadiensis, vol. XXV, No. 1
(Autumn, 1995), pp. 3-32.
Photo courtesy of:
Parks Canada
Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
Photographer: Jamie Steeves
Image number: 5J-3-169s
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