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9. Mapping New Boundaries: Discourses of Blackness in Rude
- Wayne State University Press
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Black Canadians have a long and varied history in Canada that is almost as lengthy as that of African Americans (Winks 1997, ix). The cultural differences between the United States and Canada, however, have led to very different experiences of blackness in Canada, where “spaces and places speak to each other in ways that gesture to various historical, political, and social geographies inside and outside the Canadian nation-state, and inside and outside multiple black Canadian geographical locales” (McKittrick 2002, 31; also see Mensah 2002, 38). What is truly astounding about these black communities and histories is that “Canadian historians have generally attempted to black out the Black experience in Canada” by frequently glossing over, or simply ignoring , them in official or conventional histories of Canada (Mensah 2002, 43). Joseph Mensah argues, for example, that many Canadians do not believe that slavery existed in their country, considering it to be an American phenomenon (43). This is a troubling position because it seems to suggest that mainstream Canadian histories are deliberately refusing to acknowledge Canadian responsibility for participation in the global slave trade. Previous chapters have dealt with slavery as a black diasporic phenomenon , and chapter 1, in particular, focused on the role of the Midnine Mapping New Boundaries Discourses of Blackness in Rude Discourses of Blackness in Rude 225 dle Passage in establishing New World economies, specifically in the United States. Canada is no different: the nation’s backbone, in part, was established through the exploitation of black slave labor (Mensah 2002, 44). The first black slave arrived in 1628 as “property of David Kirke, an English privateer conducting raids on the French colony of the St. Lawrence River” (Alexander and Glaze 1996, 37).1 Slavery expanded slowly until labor shortages resulted in the importation of a considerable number of slaves by the end of the seventeenth century (Mensah 2002, 44). Had plantation-style agriculture developed in Canada to the extent that it did in the southern United States and Caribbean, it is speculated that “thousands more slaves would have been imported” to Canada (Alexander and Glaze 1996, 37). Although some slaves were forced into agricultural labor, shipbuilding, or mining, most were relegated to the domestic realm of upper- and middle-class homes (Mensah 2002, 45). The result was that many African slaves found themselves in cultural and geographic isolation without ready access to community (Alexander and Glaze 1996, 38). Hence, the absence of plantation culture and the isolated pattern of settlement meant that a community-based concept of black identity did not develop, a difference that distinguishes black Canadian experiences from those in the American or Caribbean context. As slavery became more firmly established as a practice, the Code Noir, established in 1685 in the West Indies to protect the rights of slave owners, was adopted in New France to regulate the status of slaves (Mensah 2002, 45). Although some protection and privileges were afforded to slaves under the code, these virtually disappeared by the time slavery was legalized in New France in 1709 (Winks 1997, 23). When New France was ceded to the British in 1763, the status of black slaves was not transformed, as they continued to be “non-persons under the law” (Alexander and Glaze 1996, 40). Slaves were sold and traded at will, especially in the Maritimes, where black slaves contributed to the building of Halifax. At the close of the American War of Independence in 1783, Canada developed a reputation as a refuge for blacks, and some three thousand, who earned their emancipation by supporting the British cause, relocated to Nova Scotia, where they were known as Black Loyalists (Mensah 2002, 46). Although the Black Loyalists were important to the British war effort and joined it on the basis of receiving land [44.222.129.73] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:17 GMT) chapter 9 226 and full and equal status as citizens, these promises were never fulfilled (Alexander and Glaze 1996, 41; Mensah 2002, 46). As a result, most Black Loyalists were forced into sharecropping, casual labor, or domestic service (46). Completely disillusioned with perpetual servitude and racism, some twelve hundred Nova Scotian blacks set sail for Sierra Leone in 1792 under the sponsorship of the Sierra Leone Company who needed black settlers to assist in the founding of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone (Mensah 2002, 47; Alexander and Glaze 1996, 49). Four years following this exodus, the British government decided to transport approximately six hundred Jamaican Maroons to Nova Scotia...