By Doug Nesbitt
Slavery was legally abolished in most of the British Empire and what is now Canada on August 1, 1834, although exemptions were made for the British East India Company until 1838.
Emancipation Day, August 1, has been celebrated among black communities in Canada since the 19th century. Emancipation Day was officially recognized by the Canadian government in 2021.
Slavery was opposed by a growing international movement in the 19th century and it was spearheaded above all by slave revolts, such as the 1816 revolt on Barbados led by Bussa, represented in the famous Barbadian statue.
The most immediate cause of slavery’s abolition in the British Empire was the Great Jamaican Slave Rebellion of 1831-32. Also known as the Baptist War, the slave revolt began as a strike by 60,000 slaves. It turned into an uprising when the slaveowners attacked. Over 200 striking slaves were killed in the uprising and over 300 were murdered as retribution after the ruling class put down the revolt by force. The burning of a slaveowners’ estate is captured in the image below, a lithograph created by Adolphe Duperly in 1833.
Upper Canada’s 1793 legislation against slavery was largely useless in curtailing slavery in present-day Ontario. The legislation was not in fact against slavery and otherwise known as The Act to Limit Slavery. For example, what the historical plaque below leaves out is that two years earlier in 1791, the slaves on St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) had rebelled against the slaveowning classes. The massive revolt struck fear into the slaveholders in the Americas and Europe.
Repeated French, British and Spanish invasions of Haiti were defeated. The image below is of a battle between the Haitian rebels and European invaders in 1802. Haiti declared independence in 1804 – and has been punished and invaded by imperial powers ever since, including Canada.
La lutte continue…
“…we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that Capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor both black and white, both here and abroad…We must also realize that the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”
Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Three Evils” speech, August 31 1967