Abolishing Slavery In Canada

Stephen Harper's statement on the 200th Anniversary of the British Abolition of Slavery. Once again engaging in historical revisionism.

On this day we should also recall the important role that Canadians played in the struggle against slavery, most notably the leadership of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe who persuaded the Legislature of Upper Canada to adopt the first meaningful restrictions on slavery within the British Empire in 1793; and those who made Canada the North Star of the Underground Railroad for thousands of escaped slaves.

Slaves were freed in Quebec, 1736, these included blacks, Irish, French and native slaves as well as indentured servants. Slaves in British/Tory controlled Canada were not freed until 1799.

In fact despite the degree of 1793, the Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia who had been promised freedom by the British found the conditions so bad that many had already left for Sierra Leone in 1792, see below.

While slavery was in effect abolished its function was replaced with indentured servitude for debt.

References:

JSTOR: The Slave in Upper Canada 1

JSTOR: The Slave in Upper Canada 2

Who were the Black Loyalists?

he Black Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia between 1783 and 1785, as a result of the American Revolution. They were the largest group of people of African birth and of African descent to come to Nova Scotia at any one time.

	Regimental buttons for military uniforms Photo by Richard Plander, Learning Resources & Technology. Nova Scotia Museum.

In 1775, some people in the British North American colonies were arguing with the British government about how much control Great Britain should have over taxes and life in the colonies. The colonists wanted to influence decisions about laws and taxes but had no representation in the British Parliament. They declared themselves independent of Britain when they weren't able to come to an agreement. The American Revolution, also called the American War of Independence, was the result.

People of African birth, who were brought forcibly to the colonies to provide slave labour, and their descendants, were caught in this war. In the late 1600s and 1700s, the British had established rice, indigo, and tobacco plantations in the southern part of North America. Plantation owners required lots of labourers to do field work and other jobs. To reduce costs, they used slaves. At first they enslaved the native Indians but then used mostly African slaves.

In the northern colonies, slaves worked as farm hands or at various jobs as domestic workers or at semi-specialized trades, such as lumbering, mining, road-making, black smithing, shoemaking, weaving and spinning.

When Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, lost control of that colony to the rebels in the summer of 1775, the economy of Virginia was based on slave labor. Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation that any slave or indentured person would be given their freedom if they took up arms with the British against the rebels. As a result, 2,000 slaves and indentured persons joined his forces. Later, other British supporters in the colonies issued similar proclamations.

Then the British Commander-in-chief at New York, Sir Henry Clinton, issued the Philipsburg proclamation when the British realized they were losing the war. It stated that any Negro to desert the rebel cause would receive full protection, freedom, and land. It is estimated that many thousands of people of African descent joined the British and became British supporters.

When the Americans won the war and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, British forces and their supporters had to leave the new United States. They gathered at New York, waiting to be evacuated. In the meantime, the Americans wanted their lost property returned. Sir Guy Carleton, the new British Commander- in-chief, refused General George Washington's demand for the return of those slaves who had joined the British before November 30, 1782. The two men agreed that the Americans would receive money instead.

	Certificate of freedom, 1783 Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management.

The British-American Commission identified the Black people in New York who had joined the British before the surrender, and issued "certificates of freedom" signed by General Birch or General Musgrave. Those who chose to emigrate were evacuated by ship. To make sure no one attempted to leave who did not have a certificate of freedom, the name of any Black person on board a vessel, whether slave, indentured servant, or free, was recorded, along with the details of enslavement, escape, and military service, in a document called the Book of Negroes.

Between April and November, 1783, 114 ships were inspected in New York harbour. An unknown number of ships left New York and other ports before and after these dates. Over 3,000 Black Loyalists were enrolled in the Book of Negroes, but perhaps as many as 5,000 Black people left New York for Nova Scotia, the West Indies, Quebec, England, Germany, and Belgium.

A Difficult Life for Black Loyalists

Most Black Loyalists couldn't make a living from farming because either they had no land, or their land was unsuitable for growing crops. Black Loyalists with skills as blacksmiths, bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, teachers, ministers, coopers, boatbuilders, laundresses, seamstresses, tailors, military persons, midwives, domestics, cooks, waiters, sailors, a doctor, pilots of boats, and navigators were in a better position to make some kind of a living.

But Black workers were not paid as much as White workers. In July 1784, a group of disbanded White soldiers destroyed 20 houses of free Black Loyalists in Shelburne in what was Canada's first race riot, because the Black Loyalists who worked for a cheaper rate took work away from the White settlers.

Many of those who did not have a trade had to indenture themselves or their children to survive. Indentured Black Loyalists were treated no better than enslaved persons. Slavery was still legal and enforced in Nova Scotia at this time. People could still be bought and sold until 1834, when slavery was abolished in the British Empire. One of the biggest fears of Black Loyalists was to be kidnapped and sold in the United States or the West Indies by slave traders, who sometimes sailed along the coast of Nova Scotia. At the same time, since Nova Scotia did not have a climate to support the plantation system, many White Loyalists abandoned their slaves because they could not afford to feed them.

y 1791, Black Loyalists realized that the dream of a Promised Land, with freedom and security for their families, was not being fulfilled. Some of the Black Loyalists of Brindley Town, outside Digby, met and decided to send a representative to England with a petition asking the British government for the land they had been promised. While in England, their representative, Thomas Peters, a member of the Black Pioneers corps, was approached by a business group that had established a colony in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Peters was told that the Black Loyalists would receive free land if they were to settle there. He returned to Nova Scotia with Lieutenant John Clarkson of the Royal Navy, to convince Black Loyalists to leave Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

On January 15,1792, 1196 Black Loyalists, including the notable leaders David George, Boston King, and Moses Wilkinson, left Halifax in fifteen ships, for Sierra Leone. This was slightly less than one third of the number of Black Loyalists who had arrived in Nova Scotia in 1783. It seems that neither John Clarkson nor Thomas Peters recruited in northeastern Nova Scotia, so none of the Black Loyalists from Tracadie went to Sierra Leone.

See:

The Truth Shall Set Ye Free

Slavery

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The Truth Shall Set Ye Free

William Wilberforce was a classic liberal for his day who saw the abolition of the slave trade as producing 'free labour' and thus reducing costs for business. The end of slavery was required to end mercantilism and create the conditions for capitalism.

It is one of history’s enigmas that William Wilberforce, honoured in today’s bicentenary commemoration of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, did not share the same sense of outrage about the repression of British workers. The MP played a part in outlawing unions, introducing imprisonment without trial and reducing freedom of speech.

Wilberforce’s home town and political seat was Hull. Unlike many British ports, Hull was not dependent on slavery but on the Baltic trade that had made his family rich. So his campaign neither offended his family nor upset his constituents. And his wealth allowed him to follow his instincts as an independent Whig.

Wilberforce disarmingly argued that the owners of slave ships and plantations were not to blame for pursuing their lawful business, of which cruelty and inhumanity were the inevitable byproducts. Nation and parliament were to blame for making it lawful. Plantation owners had nothing to fear from abolition, he claimed, citing the death rate among slaves — and sailors — engaged in the trade.

After spending nearly £9,000 securing the goodwill of Hull, paying local merchants the standard 10 guineas each for their votes (other voters got £2), he was duly elected at the age of 21. Drink and the roulette tables began to pall and he fretted that he was wasting his life. Under the influence of Newton, now a rector in London, at 25 he became an evangelical, resolved to combat the evils of the day — sabbath-breaking, swearing, drunkenness and indecent books. The result was a Society for the Reformation of Manners that got books censored and moral reforms passed.

He was opposed to extending the vote to the working class, whose political aspirations he tried to curb through the Society for the Suppression of Vice and Encouragement of Religion.

This was the same reasoning used sixty years later to end slavery in America, by the Free Labour President; Lincoln.

"Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful. The slave-master himself has a conception of it; and hence the system of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you can not drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope, for the rod." Abraham Lincoln

Which is why to this day Free Labour is called wage slavery.

H/T to the Monarchist.

SEE

Slavery

Black History Month; P.B. Randolph

The Era Of The Common Man

Black Like Me

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Farmer John Exploits Mexican Workers

Back in the early days of the IWW, Wobblies organized farm workers, since many workers in Canada and the U.S. found interim work on the farm before finding work in mills, mines, in lumber and on the railroads. Their term for a farmer who exploited farm workers was Farmer John.

Farmers in the West in Canada and the U.S. relied upon itinerant workers, hobos, to bring in the grain. Paying them 'bum' wages, treating them like slaves, charging them for room and board, led to the I.W.W. to organize farmworkers on a large scale industrial basis.

Today Farmer John relies upon temporary workers from Mexico and in Alberta, over a century later nothing has changed. Farm workers brought in from Mexico and the Caribbean to work for Farmer John in Alberta remain indentured servants, slaves by any other name.

Farm workers cannot bargain collectively in Ontario and Alberta and there is no independent voice for the workers in the program. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that farmworkers enjoy the same rights as other workers to associate without intimidation, coercion or discrimination by their employers.

And for that reason Farmworkers need a union.

***

A Mexican farm worker who had a bad experience working on a farm near Provost has gone back home.

Armando Garcia flew back to his wife and two children Wednesday after parishioners at the Catholic Church in Provost raised money for his plane ticket.

His friend in Edmonton, Miguel Herrero, said he's appalled Alberta's labour code provides no protection for farm workers. He's trying to raise additional money for Garcia to help him get back on his feet after his bad experience in Canada.

Alberta Employment is investigating claims that the temporary foreign worker didn't get the medical coverage he was promised, wasn't paid extra for overtime and had so many deductions from his paycheque that he was getting paid less than $1 an hour.

***

Harvest War Song

(Tune: "Tipperary")

We are coming home, John Farmer, we are coming back
to stay.
For nigh on fifty years or more, we've gathered up your
hay.
We have slept out in your hayfields, we have heard your
morning shout;
We've heard you wondering where in hell's them pesky
go-abouts?
CHORUS
It's a long way, now understand me; it's a long way to
town;
It's a long way across the prairie, and to hell with Farmer
John.
Up goes machine or wages, and the hours must come
down;
For we're out for a winter's stake this summer, and we
want no scabs around.
You've paid the going wages, that's what kept us on the
bum,
You say you've done your duty, you chin-whiskered son
of a gun.
We have sent your kids to college, but still you must rave
and shout,
And call us tramps and hoboes, and pesky go-abouts.

But now the wintry breezes are a-shaking our poor frames,
And the long drawn days of hunger try to drive us boes
insane.
It is driving us to action--we are organized today;
Us pesky tramps and hoboes are coming back to stay.

IWW Little Red Song Book

The early Wobblies were above all famous for their Westerners: the part-Indians and the Yankees, sons and daughters of pony express drivers and gold prospectors whose families had kept going west but never escaped poverty. But even in these early years, many of the militants were fresh from Europe or the children of immigrants, radicalized on the other side of the ocean or in their first years of American life. They remained in the IWW when native-born “Americans” mostly came and left, published magazines and newspapers that lasted decades, and kept the Wobbly spirit alive for later generations.

The Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO) planted itself in the work-life culture of the mostly white, male, mobile harvest workers of the plains states. Like the Wobs in the mines and sawmills, they epitomized the Western (and “American”) spirit of the organization. Notoriously rebellious and restless, their effective control of box car-riding (“show your red card”) was legendary. The capability of Wobbly organizers to create miniature egalitarian communities among the transient workers testified to their adeptness but also their belief in the lowest ranks of workers.

The larger AWO could also grow strong in the face of repression, peaking in 1918, for a seemingly unlikely reason. The First World War created a labor shortage: it was easier to quit or get fired and move on, because more jobs were available everywhere. Not that AWO organizing drives necessarily succeeded. The racial diversity of many California farms was difficult to overcome (although they tried). The repression of labor during wartime meant suppression of Wob newspapers, arrests of organizers, and threats of vigilante violence. In the longer run, the mechanization of farming would dramatically reduce the numbers of agricultural workers and their bargaining power.

Wobblies also learned that organizing in fields was more complicated than in factories. They could not rely on family or ethnic ties, and so had to rely on sudden job actions, slowdowns, and similar tactics to attract and hold members. Thus in April 1915, Frank Little called a conference to organize casual workers (hoboes), creating a job delegate system within the IWW, with Wobs setting wage and hour demands before the harvest, selecting an individual or committee to negotiate with a farmer, and then having all the Wobs ratify the agreement. This way, the AWO built quickly and successfully. Dues were a two dollar initiation, then fifty cents per month. By 1915, many had won immediate Wob goals: the ten hour day, three dollar minimum, overtime, good board, clean beds; all realizable because war raised the price of wheat.

Thus, Wobs would arrive outside town, establish a “jungle” near a stream, then call a meeting and elect committees to keep the camp clean. A “spud and gump brigade” foraged or begged for food and did the cooking, while some got jobs in town to build up a common fund. This was the IWW world in miniature, a workers’ society run by itself—although organizing it and keeping it going sometimes distracted from actual organizing in the fields.

IWW strike leadership would naturally be blamed for causing deaths and injuries handed out by police and private thugs. Huge defense fights exposed terrible conditions while leaders were handed long sentences. Yet, the IWW’s reputation spread most amazingly. Japanese and Chinese workers had their own labor organizations that worked with the IWW, although not usually affiliating directly. The Fresno branch chartered the Japanese Labor League in 1908 with a thousand members. Mexicans formed their own Wobbly locals (especially in San Diego and Los Angeles) and published Wobbly pamphlets, leaflets, and papers in Spanish. All this activity was unknown and indeed unwanted by the mainstream AFL.

» Zane Grey » The Desert of Wheat

Hard? It sure is hard. But it'll be the makin' of a great country. It'll weed out the riffraff.... See here, Kurt, I'm goin' to give you a hunch. Have you had any dealin's with the I.W.W.?"

"Yes, last harvest we had trouble, but nothing serious. When I was in Spokane last month I heard a good deal. Strangers have approached us here, too--mostly aliens. I have no use for them, but they always get father's ear. And now!... To tell the truth, I'm worried."

"Boy, you need to be," replied Anderson, earnestly. "We're all worried. I'm goin' to let you read over the laws of that I.W.W. organization. You're to keep mum now, mind you. I belong to the Chamber of Commerce in Spokane. Somebody got hold of these by-laws of this so-called labor union. We've had copies made, an' every honest farmer in the Northwest is goin' to read them. But carryin' one around is dangerous, I reckon, these days. Here."

Anderson hesitated a moment, peered cautiously around, and then, slipping folded sheets of paper from his inside coat pocket, he evidently made ready to hand them to Kurt.

"Lenore, where's the driver?" he asked.

"He's under the car," replied the girl

Kurt thrilled at the soft sound of her voice. It was something to have been haunted by a girl's face for a year and then suddenly hear her voice.

"He's new to me--that driver--an' I ain't trustin' any new men these days," went on Anderson. "Here now, Dorn. Read that. An' if you don't get red-headed--"

Without finishing his last muttered remark, he opened the sheets of manuscript and spread them out to the young man.

Curiously, and with a little rush of excitement, Kurt began to read. The very first rule of the I.W.W. aimed to abolish capital. Kurt read on with slowly growing amaze, consternation, and anger. When he had finished, his look, without speech, was a question Anderson hastened to answer.

"It's straight goods," he declared. "Them's the sure-enough rules of that gang. We made certain before we acted. Now how do they strike you?"

"Why, that's no labor union!" replied Kurt, hotly. "They're outlaws, thieves, blackmailers, pirates. I--I don't know what!"

"Dorn, we're up against a bad outfit an' the Northwest will see hell this summer. There's trouble in Montana and Idaho. Strangers are driftin' into Washington from all over. We must organize to meet them--to prevent them gettin' a hold out here. It's a labor union, mostly aliens, with dishonest an' unscrupulous leaders, some of them Americans. They aim to take advantage of the war situation. In the newspapers they rave about shorter hours, more pay, acknowledgment of the union. But any fool would see, if he read them laws I showed you, that this I.W.W. is not straight."

"Mr. Anderson, what steps have you taken down in your country?" queried Kurt.

"So far all I've done was to hire my hands for a year, give them high wages, an' caution them when strangers come round to feed them an' be civil an' send them on."

"But we can't do that up here in the Bend," said Dorn, seriously. "We need, say, a hundred thousand men in harvest-time, and not ten thousand all the rest of the year."

"Sure you can't. But you'll have to organize somethin'. Up here in this desert you could have a heap of trouble if that outfit got here strong enough. You'd better tell every farmer you can trust about this I.W.W."

"I've only one American neighbor, and he lives six miles from here," replied Dorn. "Olsen over there is a Swede, and not a naturalized citizen, but I believe he's for the U.S. And there's--"

"Dad," interrupted the girl, "I believe our driver is listening to your very uninteresting conversation."

She spoke demurely, with laughter in her low voice. It made Dorn dare to look at her, and he met a blue blaze that was instantly averted.

Anderson growled, evidently some very hard names, under his breath; his look just then was full of characteristic Western spirit. Then he got up.

See:

Slavery in Canada

Monte Solberg

temporary workers


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