Slavery in Canada includes historical practices of enslavement practised both by the First Nations until the latter half of the 19th century, and by colonists during the period of European colonization.
The practice of slavery in Canada by colonists effectively ended early in the 19th century, through local statutes and court decisions resulting from litigation on behalf of enslaved people seeking manumission. The courts, to varying degrees, rendered slavery unenforceable in both Lower Canada and Nova Scotia. In Lower Canada, for example, after court decisions in the late 1790s, the "slave could not be compelled to serve longer than he would, and ... might leave his master at will." Upper Canada passed the Act Against Slavery in 1793, one of the earliest anti-slavery acts in the world. These developments in Canada preceded Britain's decision to ban slavery through most of the British Empire by passing the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
As slavery in the United States continued until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, black people (free and enslaved) began immigrating to Canada from the United States after the American Revolution and again after the War of 1812, and later many by way of the Underground Railroad.
Because Canada's role in the Atlantic slave trade was comparatively limited, the history of Black slavery in Canada is often overshadowed by the more tumultuous slavery practised elsewhere in the Americas.
Under Indigenous rule
Slave-owning people of what became Canada were, for example, the fishing societies such as the Yurok, that lived along the Pacific coast from Alaska to California, on what is sometimes described as the Pacific or Northern Northwest Coast. Some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, such as the Haida and Tlingit, were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California. Slavery was hereditary, the slaves being prisoners of war and their descendants were slaves. In what became British Columbia, slavery was flourishing in the 1830s, gradually declining throughout the century. In the 1870s, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Israel Wood Powell, freed slaves on their appeal to him during his trips to the west coast of Vancouver Island. Slavery had virtually ended by the 1880s and 1890s. Some First Nations in British Columbia continued to segregate and ostracize the descendants of slaves as late as the 1970s. Among a few Pacific Northwest nations about a quarter of the population were slaves.
One slave narrative was composed by an Englishman, John R. Jewitt. He had been taken alive when his ship was captured in 1802 by the Nuu-chah-nulth people due to the ship's captain having insulted their chief, Maquinna, and other slights inflicted against their people by other American and European captains. Jewitt's memoir provides a detailed look at life as a slave.
Under European colonization The Maritimes saw 1,200 to 2,000 slaves arrive prior to abolition, with 300 accounted for in Lower Canada, and between 500 and 700 in Upper Canada. A small portion of Black Canadians today are descended from these slaves.
Africans were forcibly captured by local chiefs and kings as chattel slaves and sold to traders bound for southern areas of the Americas. Those in what is now called Canada typically came from the American colonies, as no shiploads of human chattel went to Canada directly from Africa. There were no large plantations in Canada, and therefore no demand for a large slave work force of the sort that existed in most European colonies in the Americas.
Under French rule
Under French rule, First Nations slaves outnumbered slaves of African descent. According to Afua Cooper, author of The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal, this was due to the relative ease with which New France could acquire First Nations slaves. She noted that the mortality of slaves was high, with the average age of First Nations slaves only 17, and the average age of slaves of African descent, 25. One of the first recorded black slaves in Canada was brought by a British convoy to New France in 1628. Olivier le Jeune was the name given to the boy, originally from Madagascar.
By 1688, New France's population was 11,562 people, made up primarily of fur traders, missionaries, and farmers settled in the St. Lawrence Valley. To help overcome its severe shortage of servants and laborers, King Louis XIV granted New France's petition to import black slaves from West Africa. Though no shipments ever arrived from Africa, colonists did acquire some black slaves from other French and British colonies. From the late 1600s, they also acquired Indigenous slaves, mostly from what is now the U.S. Midwestern states, through their western fur-trade networks. Slaves of Indigenous origin were called "Panis", but few came from the Pawnee tribe. More commonly, they were of Fox, Dakota, Iowa, and Apache origin, captives taken in war by Indigenous allies and trading partners of the French.
While slavery was prohibited in France, it was permitted in its colonies as a means of providing the massive labor force needed to clear land, construct buildings and (in the Caribbean colonies) work on sugar, indigo and tobacco plantations. The 1685 Code Noir set the pattern for policing slavery in the West Indies. It required that all slaves be instructed as Catholics and not as Protestants. It concentrated on defining the condition of slavery, and established harsh controls. Slaves had virtually no rights, though the Code did enjoin masters to take care of the sick and old. The Code Noir does not seem to have applied to Canada and so, in 1709, the intendant Jacques Raudot issued an ordinance officially recognizing slavery in New France; slavery existed before that date, but only as of 1709 was it instituted in law.
In total, by Marcel Trudel's count, 1,685 Native American slaves and 402 black slaves appeared in the records during French rule, for a total of 2087 slaves. After the Conquest of New France by the British, slave ownership remained dominated by the French. Trudel identified 1,509 slave owners, of which only 181 were English. Trudel also noted 31 marriages took place between French colonists and Indigenous slaves.
Under British rule
First Nations owned or traded in slaves, an institution that had existed for centuries or longer among certain groups. Shawnee, Potawatomi, and other western tribes imported slaves from Ohio and Kentucky and sold or gifted them to allies and Canadian settlers. Mohawk Chief Thayendenaga (Joseph Brant) used black people he had captured during the American Revolution to build Brant House at Burlington Beach and a second home near Brantford. In all, Brant owned about forty black slaves.
Black slaves lived in the British regions of Canada in the 18th century—104 were listed in a 1767 census of Nova Scotia, but their numbers were small until the Expulsion of the Loyalists. As white Loyalists fled the new American Republic, they took with them more than 2,000 black slaves: at least 1,500 to the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), 300 to Lower Canada (Quebec), and 500 to Upper Canada (Ontario). In Ontario, the Imperial act of Parliament of 1790 assured prospective immigrants that their slaves would remain their property. As under French rule, Loyalist slaves were held in small numbers and were used as domestic servants, farm hands, and skilled artisans after being educated and trained by their Masters.
Following the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the British conquest of New France, the subject of slavery in Canada is unmentioned—neither banned nor permitted—in both the Treaty of Paris of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774 or the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
The system of gang labor, and its consequent institutions of control and brutality, did not develop in Canada as it did in some parts of the United States. Because they did not appear to pose a threat to their masters, slaves were permitted to learn to read and write, Christian conversion was encouraged, and their marriages were recognized by law.
Lower Canada The end of slavery in Lower Canada cannot be precisely dated, and was a gradual process. Early as 1787, slave owners became anxious about the more or less imminent abolition of slavery.
Newspaper published on slavery starting in July 1790, with the anti-slavery campaign gaining strength on summer of 1791. This coverage, however, was temporary, and mainly focused on slavery as a foreign phenomenon.
On January 28, 1793, the question of whether slavery should be abolished or kept was brought up in the Legislative Assembly by Pierre-Louis Panet (as "a bill [...] to abolish slavery"). On March 8, there was the first reading of the bill; on April 19, there was the second reading of the bill and Panet moved for the creation of a Committee of the Whole House on the bill on the 25th. However, Pierre-Amable Debonne proposed adjourning debate on the subject in a destructive amendment and was seconded by George McBeath : the amendment passed by a wide margin (31 to 3). This failed bill revealed opponents of slavery in the House: Pierre-Louis Panet, Bonaventure Panet, Amable Berthelot and Louis Dunière.
A precedent was set in 1794 when a judge freed a slave brought to trial, claiming that slavery was unknown to the laws of England (a highly debatable statement). The Chief of Justice William Osgoode, appointed in 1794, did not recognize slavery and systematically freed all slaves that appeared in court sued as slaves. The Chief Justice's refusal to acknowledge slavery, alongside the Legislative Assembly's refusal to pronounce itself, led to the mass desertions of slaves.The Legislative Assembly's indecision also led to slaves deserting from other provinces and the United States, even before the legislature acted in Upper Canada to limit slavery. After a slave was freed in such a manner in 1798, the slave population apparently threatened a general revolt.
The Chief Justice Sir James Monk, not recognizing the legality of slavery based on a technicality regarding the absence of houses of correction, rendered a series of decisions undermining the ability to compel slaves to serve their masters in the late 1790s : the slave no longer had to obey his master and could leave at will. He systematically dismissed suits by owners against runaway slaves. Monk's interpretation held, even once houses of correction were established.
The last sale of a slave was in 1797. The next year, the last newspaper ad selling a slave appeared in the Montreal Gazette and the word "slave" last appeared in the civil registries.
Starting in 1799, slave owners petitioned the Legislative Assembly to legislate on the matters of slavery to remove all uncertainties regarding its status (by abolishing it, upholding it, regulating it and/or limiting it; depending on the petition). All attempts eventually stalled and failed (1799, 1800 and 1803), and no further attempts were made after 1803. The subject of slavery was never raised again in the Legislative Assembly after 1803.
After 1799, only nineteen slaves remained in the records; only one of those appeared after 1808 (in 1821).By the time the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into force, slavery had practically disappeared on its own in Lower Canada, with perhaps only a few old black slaves being freed by the legislation.
In 1829, the administrator of Lower Canada Sir James Kempt refused a request form the U.S. government to return an escaped slave, on the basis that fugitives must only be given up when the crime in question was also a crime in Lower Canada.
In total, 787 Native American slaves and 730 black slaves appeared in the records, for a total of 1527 slaves.
Upper Canada