PelhamToday received the following letter to the editor from a reader regarding the too-little-known history of Black Canadians:
February is Black History Month. I have been getting an education from documentaries, social media and newspapers about how Black people have contributed to and helped shape Canada. I am also learning about the treatment that they have endured for hundreds of years.
I had always thought that slavery was an “American thing” There was no way it would be allowed here. Was Upper Canada not known for accepting slaves from the United States through the underground railroad and then they were free? I have learned that I was sadly mistaken.
I recently learned that the first documented slave in Canada was an 8-year-old boy from Madagascar. He lived in Quebec in 1628! The enslavement of Black people ranged from P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. Even after the Anti-Slavery Act was passed in Britain in 1793, the Province of Ontario was still allowed to keep slaves. Many of the upper class in Britain were reluctant to give up their slaves and because we were a colony, we followed suit. The history is very complicated and only now am I learning the truth.
Some of the earliest Black settlers came to Canada as soldiers who fought with British troops during the War of 1812. They were promised their freedom, and sometimes a plot of land, in exchange for their military service. Black Loyalists made notable contributions, including in the Battle of Queenston Heights in 1812.
Did you know this? Were you taught this at school?
What I learned was that Laura Secord and her cow helped win the war for the British. I think it’s about time we see our history through different eyes—not just white eyes.
As I have been getting my education during Black History Month, it got me thinking again about the name change of the former E.W. Farr Memorial School in Fenwick to Wellington Heights School.
The Duke of Wellington was one of the many British politicians who favoured slavery. Neither he nor the British government acknowledged the contributions of Black Canadians.
I wish that the students and staff of the former Pelham Centre School had known certain facts about Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington before they decided to rename the former E.W. Farr Memorial School to Wellington Heights.
We need to go forward and try to support each other as best we can. With that in mind, how can we celebrate an individual such as the Duke of Wellington? We can’t change history but we need to know the truth of the past so we can understand our present.
I don’t know what to do about of these facts I have now been shown. I wonder if we had been taught the truth in the beginning, would there be less racism and hate in this world?
Vilma Moretti
Fonthill
