slavery through the building and sale of slave ships, the sale and purchase of slaves to and from the Caribbean, and the exchange of timber, cod, and other food items from the Maritimes for West-Indian slave-produced goods such as rum, tobacco, cotton, coffee, molasses, and sugar.
However, in 1793, the wheels for the abolition of slavery in British possessions starting turning in Upper Canada with the passage of the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery. Lieutenant-Governor John Grave Simcoe, an ardent abolitionist, introduced a bill to end the practice of slavery, but was met by resistance from his slave-holding cabinet members who instead opted for a compromise of a gradual end to this inhumane institution.6 This first piece of abolition legislation titled, “an Act to prevent the further introduction of slaves, and to limit the term of contract for servitude within this province,” outlined that the importation of slaves into Upper Canada was banned immediately, but those who were enslaved at the time this law was passed would remain the property of their owners for life. Children born after 1793 would be slaves until the age of twenty-five and their children would be free at birth.7 There were two opposing, simultaneous effects of the Limitation Act. First, enslaved Africans, whose slave status was reinforced by this law, began fleeing Canada for northern American territories such as Michigan, and secondly, Canada became a haven for American slaves who wanted to secure their own freedom. Consequently, a wave of fugitives immigrated to Canada, the new symbol of freedom, especially following the passage of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law.8
Forty years later, abolitionists world-wide claimed victory when the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was made law, completely abolishing African slavery in all British colonies and granting freedom to almost one million enslaved Blacks in sixteen British colonies, most in the West Indies but also in South Africa and Britain. As of Friday, August 1, 1834, all enslaved children under six years old and any born after the effective date were free and no longer legally slaves. Celebrations and observances were held in all of the affected areas. For many though, this meant only partial liberation because all charges seven years old and over were to become apprentices of their former owners. Field labourers would have to serve a six-year term and all other former slaves would serve a four-year apprenticeship, after which they would obtain complete emancipation. Former slave masters were to be compensated for the loss of their free labourers from a £20 million fund, but none was allocated to Canadian slaveowners.9
Islands such as Bermuda, Trinidad, and Antigua did not implement apprenticeships and instead freed slaves from August 1, 1834. In fact, Trinidad became the first country to declare a national holiday to commemorate the ending of slavery. Although the Act did not mention Upper Canada, it immediately liberated approximately fifty Africans who remained enslaved, including young slaves like Hank and Sukey who were owned by a Mrs. Deborah O’Reilly of Halton County and still considered chattel property. In 1834, they requested and received their freedom.10 These colonies were the sites of inaugural Emancipation Day celebrations as newly liberated Africans rejoiced, parading through streets, attending church services, and engaging in other festive cultural activities.
Within four years, slaves in the colonies of Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, and South Africa received their full freedom because the limited apprenticeship system of the Emancipation Act they adopted was brought to an early end. On August 1, 1838, these islands officially ended apprenticeships, granting total emancipation to approximately four hundred thousand indentured servants. This, of course, was an occasion for joyous celebration, because now complete abolition had been achieved in all British colonies. On August 1, 1838 in Spanish Town, then the capital of Jamaica, a hearse containing chains and shackles often used to restrain slaves was driven through the streets and then symbolically buried followed by bonfires and feasts. It was also noted that the soon-to-be ex-slaves climbed the hills and waited for the sun to rise, the dawn of the first day of freedom.11 Early Emancipation Day celebrations in the British Caribbean began to take place as part of Carnival and integrated numerous elements of other African-influenced cultural rituals such as jonkunnu in Jamaica and canboulay in Trinidad. These festivities involved the playing of musical instruments, singing and dancing, parading, theatrical acts/shows, and feasts. Over a century later, Caribana, a carnival festival in Toronto, would originate from these roots.
During the next twenty-seven years, Emancipation Day celebrations in the free northern American states, the West Indies, and Canada were used as a platform to petition for the end of American slavery. Participants hoped that the spirit and the momentum towards freedom would continue to spread to the southern United States to free almost ten million still in bondage. Finally, in 1865 the Emancipation Proclamation legislated the manumission of enslaved African Americans. The various slave laws and abolition legislation enacted between 1793 and 1865 heavily impacted the transcontinental and global freedom movements. Likewise, they influenced the tone and the goals of Emancipation Day celebrations in the 1800s. The hard-earned success of the abolition movement culminated in an upsurge of freedom festivals up and down the Atlantic shore and gave birth to a significant African-Canadian tradition. August 1, 1838, was a true Emancipation Day, one that would continue to be celebrated for years to come.
The Route to Celebrations in Ontario
Freedom is the most precious of our treasures, and it will not be allowed to vanish so long as men survive who offered their lives for it.
— Paul Robeson, valedictory speech, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1919.
Amherstburg, along the Detroit River, and Malden are two towns in Essex County that were the sites of large Black communities. Both locales are adjacent and were part of Malden Township until Amherstburg separated from the township in 1851. The earliest African settlers in the area were the slaves owned by French colonists and British Loyalists, such as Colonel Matthew Elliot who owned sixty slaves in 1784 when he arrived in Fort Malden (now part of Amherstburg) to settle on his land grant of eight hundred hectares. Other early Black pioneers included Loyalists like James Fry and James Robertson, who settled on land grants in the area.1
The early nineteenth century witnessed an exploding fugitive population in Amherstburg, the most accessible town in Essex County for the fleeing slaves. Situated along the Canadian side of the Detroit River, it was located at the narrowest point that refugee slaves could use to cross the river from the American side. Not surprisingly, at that time Amherstburg was one of the principal terminals on the Underground Railroad. In the 1820s, Black fugitives living in Amherstburg introduced tobacco farming while others ran small businesses such as grocery stores, barbershops, hotels, taverns, and livery stables, or worked various occupations like mechanics and carriage drivers. By 1859 the Amherstburg’s Black community numbered about eight hundred while the neighbouring Malden Township’s total population was nine hundred.
Blacks
