Serendipitous Discovery: "Slave Days in Canada"

*Images of the Canadian Churchman taken from Anglican General Synod Archives, Toronto.

One of the exciting aspects of being an historian is finding documents that you never expected to find.

The above two images of an article on slavery in Canada are taken from the Anglican weekly periodical ​Canadian Churchman from 1919. I was looking through the periodical for something else - but I had to make a copy of this surprise finding.

The article was on slavery in Canada, and is noteworthy for a number of reasons:

• The author - W. T. Hallam - was a woman, and a well educated one with a B.A.

• The history of slavery in Canada was no secret - its history was published for all to see over 100 years ago.

• The article only deals with European slavery, not the slavery in the Americas that predated the arrival of Europeans.
• The author provides a very detailed summary of those who owned slaves, as well as provides the names and experiences of some enslaved individuals. The province-by-province summaries are especially effective at providing a sense of the nature and extent of slavery in what would become Canada.​ We are left wondering how she knew what she knew - for the details are extensive, but, alas, no footnotes.
• The author provides a contrast with the system of slavery in the US.

In conclusion, some of the language used by the author is not how we today would write, nor are some of her assumptions what we would assume today, but that is to be expected since the author lived and wrote 100 years ago. The article, however, provides a fascinating glimpse not only of the past, but also how that past was understood in the past.

For further reading on the subject of slavery in Canada, see Robin W. Winks, The Blacks In Canada: A History (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press & New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1971).