Who knew that in 1793 the British colony of Upper Canada was the first democracy ever ti pass a law abolishing slavery? Not I, and my parents even wrote books about the history of Upper Canada/Ontario - books in which John Graves Simcoe played a big role. I knew a lot about him and of him my whole life, but not that. My country has a serious “nothing exciting ever happened here!” inferiority complex.
If we learn that in 1791, John Graves Simcoe was Upper Canada’s first lieutenant-governor, that may not interest us very much unless we love history – and then we would have known it anyway. So why honour an 18th-century British soldier in 2009?
One very good reason. He was the first political leader to challenge slavery effectively. As an institution, slavery was then as old as Western civilization, and one that had already invaded this brand new colony. When the British lost the War of Independence to the newly formed United States, many of the Loyalists, who came north to start life over again, brought their slaves with them.
Nonetheless, when the first legislature of Upper Canada reputedly met under an oak tree in Newark (as Niagara-on-the-Lake was called then), Simcoe proposed that slavery be outlawed.
This vice-regal proposal, however, met a chilly reception from some of the legislators, especially those who were slave owners themselves. So government being the art of the possible, Simcoe proposed a more moderate action that would allow these colonists to keep their slaves, but also spell the end of slavery in this new colony.
The proposal was that while slave owners could keep their bond servants with them, no slaves could be imported, bought or sold in Upper Canada. Also, that all slave children born in the province would receive their freedom at 25 years of age.
As an institution, that legislation, passed in 1793, put slavery on borrowed time, its end coming inexorably in one generation. And compromising as Simcoe’s deal with his slave-owning legislators can seem to zealots now, it was a pioneering leap forward.
It would be decades before slavery would be abolished throughout the British Empire, and generations before the United States would fight a savage war to end the savagery of slavery. But the first step toward freedom from servitude was taken right here in Canada.
Be sure: Canada has this inferiority-complex only to the inside - if You’d make a poll about the most sympathetic country in the world, Canada would easily be within the top 3. And this is just another example what that reputation is deserved for…
Very interesting fact indeed! How do we define democracy here?. Certainly other communities and governments banned the practice earlier but were technically not democracies in the sense of being an autonomous country. Some American communities banned slavery in the late 17th century. These were usually religious communities of Quakers or Mennonites (part of my ancestry) that were self governing but still technically living in colonial Pennsylvania. Vermont banned slavery in 1777, if I recall correctly, when they wrote their first constitution but technically they were also still a colony at that time as well. They’ve been abolishing things regularly ever since. Regardless of who or when, it was the right thing to do and should be well noted.
In this case, I mean ‘place with a functioning legislature/parliament responsible for making law’. Upper Canada wasn’t sovereign at the time, but the governor (representing the crown) couldn’t simply decree new laws. He had to get them passed by the legislature.
For a different aspect of the Canadian (and British) record on slavery and abolition issues, see Simon Schama, Rough Crossings. Every nation has its skeletons, and heroes.
Yeah. The claim “first to ban” strongly implies a before as well as an after.
It’s also true that settlement to Canada, whether French or British, never really had the ‘plantation’ mentality that existed in the southern states, the west & east indies, etc., so slaves were never as large a part of the economy up here as they were elsewhere. Between the habitants, the highland clearances, the Irish potato famine, and various other European disasters there was a large enough labour pool here already, and the comparitively less wealthy settlers didn’t have the scratch to set up capital-intensive operations like a plantation.
It’s also well established that the fortunes earned from the english domination of the triangular atlantic trade (english manufactured goods to africa for slaves; slaves to the 13 colonies & Carribbean for crops like sugar, rum, cotton, etc and back to england) during the 18th century provided the capital that financed the industrial revolution.
I would point out that even “good” Quakers in Pennsylvania kept slaves during and after the colonial period. But Pennsylvania made numerous attempts to abolish slavery in stages immediately after the British Empire’s War of Human Rights Suppression.
Yes, that is my understanding too. Even when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania banned slavery in 1780(?) the emmancipation of the slave population was phased in, if I remember correctly. Imagine that. Politics
