Unsettling the Great White North: Black Canadian History

627 Pages·2022·2.153 MB·English

by  Michele A. Johnson

Praise for Unsettling the Great White North :
“How did Canada become white? Dispossession, erasure, and a sham multicultur-
alism. This extraordinary volume of essays exposes settler violence and fraudulent
claims of ‘inclusion’ and offers instead a long, deep, and often hidden history of
Black struggles for freedom, power, and self-determination. It should be required
reading, not only for Canadians but for all of us on occupied Turtle Island and
around the world.”
Robin D. G. Kelley,
Author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
“This timely collection challenges any remaining conception of the Great White
North as a refuge from anti-Black violence and exclusion. Documenting the long
and varied histories of endurance, negotiation, and resistance against racism
among persons of African descent, this volume not only challenges any concep-
tion of the Black Canadian experience as ‘linear, unchanging, homogenous, and
recent,’ it also offers a vital corrective to the erasure of Black Canadians from the
national myths about who ‘we’ are, and who ‘we’ can become. Truly a must read!”
Beverley Mullings,
Professor of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University
“This collection, by locating the past as a force shadowing the present and
informing Black people’s ongoing search for freedom, overwrites narratives of
a redemptive Canadian multicultural citizenship to narrate the possibilities by
which Black people have survived, and continue to survive, conquest and sub-
jugation. This comprehensive cartography of Black life in Canada is a stunning
achievement and essential reading in Black Canadian history and thought.”
Andrea A. Davis, Associate Professor of Humanities,
York University, and co-editor of The Journal of Canadian Studies
“Unsettling the Great White North is a vital collection of historical scholarship fea-
turing bold and accomplished voices in the field of Black Canadian Studies, and
illuminating a striking diversity of periods, regions, communities, institutions,
art forms, and emergent frames of inquiry. Expertly curated, it offers precious
knowledge and critical insight to scholars and general readers alike.”
David Chariandy, Professor of English,
Simon Fraser University, and author of Brother
“This is an important and comprehensive contribution to Black Canadian historical
studies. It offers critical analyses regarding the diversity, complexity, and creativity of
Black Canadian lives and new understandings about the racialized history of African
Canadians as well as the ways in which Black communities have overcome systemic
barriers. Unsettling the Great White North indeed unsettles dominant historical practices
and centres the very people who have been left out of history.”
Annette Henry, David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education,
Professor of Language and Literacy Education, and Professor at the Institute
for Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia
“Unsettling the Great White North is a major contribution. Encompassing essays on
topics ranging from slavery to community studies about African immigrants, this
indispensable book should be read by all students of Canadian history.”
Harvey Amani Whitfield,
Professor of Black North American History, University of Calgary
“Unsettling the Great White North, the first volume of its kind, is an impressive collec-
tion in depth, scope, and quality. Twenty-one authors centre and make visible the
experiences of African Canadians, including recent migrants (Rwandans and other
continental Africans). Collectively, albeit with different emphases, these authors
bear witness to histories of exclusion and marginalization while simultaneously
underscoring African Canadians as agents of their own lives. Unsettling the Great White
North clears up any misconception regarding African Canadians’ contributions to
Canada’s nation-building enterprise. An authoritative text that is accessible to and
suitable for both academic and general audiences interested in Black Canadian
Studies and history.”
Karen Flynn, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of Moving beyond
Borders: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora
“This important collection of essays engages with the presence of Black people
(people of African descent) in this region colonially known as Canada. But more
than this, the compelling essays demonstrate the importance of Black Studies in
addressing the historical and current conditions and experiences of Black life.
This is a book for all interested in Black Studies!”
OmiSoore H. Dryden, James R. Johnston ( JRJ)
Chair in Black Canadian Studies, and Associate Professor,
Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University
“This is essential reading for all Canadians. Michele A. Johnson and Funké
Aladejebi, two formidable scholars, have collated and edited a perfect mix of
essays focused on Black Canadian history. These documented Black Canadian
stories can now be shared and debated, bringing about awareness of the Black
Canadian presence – indeed Unsettling the Great White North.”
Honourable Dr. Jean Augustine P.C., C.M., O.Ont., C.B.E.,
First Black Canadian woman elected to the Parliament of Canada,
Proposed the motion to designate February as Black History Month in Canada
“Unsettling the Great White North finds a path through the hazy four centuries of Black
history in Canada to elucidate the racial oppression of Blacks, and its attendant resis-
tance-resilience dialectic. The book paints an unpleasant, albeit truthful, portrait of
the procedures of Othering used to sustain the exclusion of Blacks in many spheres
of Canadian life. The enduring desire of the majority to extract racial subsidies from
Blacks in pursuit of profit is illuminated in a voice that is often deeply poetic. This is
an indispensable resource for scholars of Black Studies in Canada.”
Joseph Mensah, Professor,
Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University
Unsettling the Great
White North
Black Canadian History
EDITED BY MICHELE A. JOHNSON
AND FUNKÉ ALADEJEBI
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2022
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-4875-2916-1 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-2919-2 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-4875-2917-8 (paper) ISBN 978-1-4875-2918-5 (PDF)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Unsettling the Great White North : Black Canadian history /
edited by Michele A. Johnson and Funké Aladejebi.
Names: Johnson, Michele A., editor. | Aladejebi, Funké, 1983– editor.
Description: Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210321628 |
Canadiana (ebook) 20210321733 | ISBN 9781487529178 (softcover) |
ISBN 9781487529161 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781487529192 (EPUB) |
ISBN 9781487529185 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Blacks – Canada – History. | LCSH: Blacks – Canada –
Social conditions. | CSH: Black Canadians – History. |
CSH: Black Canadians – Social conditions.
Classification: LCC FC106.B6 U57 2022 | DDC 971/.00496–dc23
_____________________________________________________________________
We wish to acknowledge the land on which the University of Toronto Press
operates. This land is the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishnaabeg,
the Haudenosaunee, the Métis, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the
Government of Canada and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the
Government of Ontario, for its publishing activities.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
Contents
Redacted Text, 2019: Statement from the Artist ix
chantal gibson
Introduction 3
michele a. johnson and funké aladejebi
BOOKEND I. The Future Has a Past: Canadian History
and Black Modernity
1 Critical Histories of Blackness in Canada 31
barrington walker
Section One. Enslaving Blackness
2 Planting Slavery in Nova Scotia’s Promised Land,
1759–1775 53
karolyn smardz frost
3 Where, Oh Where, Is Bet? Locating Enslaved Black Women
on the Ontario Landscape 85
natasha henry
Section Two. Constructing Blackness across Borders
and Boundaries
4 A Forgotten Generation: African Canadian History between
Fugitive Slaves and World War I 115
adam arenson
vi Contents
5 Petitioning Power: Canadian Racial Consciousness
Meets Alabama Injustice, 1958 140
wendell nii laryea adjetey
Section Three. Building Black Communities
and Shaping Black Resilience
6 The Shiloh Baptist Church: The Pillar of Strength
in Edmonton’s African American Community 169
david este and jenna bailey
7 Establishing Communities 194
amoaba gooden
8 Montreal’s Black Renaissance 222
sean mills
Section Four. Controlling Black (Working) Bodies
9 “Likely to become a public charge”: Examining Black
Migration to Eastern Canada, 1900–1930 257
claudine bonner
10 “… not likely to do well or to be an asset to this country”:
Canadian Restrictions of Black Caribbean Female
Domestic Workers, 1910–1955 280
michele a. johnson
Section Five. “Schooling” Black Canadians
11 Stories from The Little Black School House 313
sylvia d. hamilton
12 Black Education: The Complexity of Segregation in Kent
County’s Nineteenth-Century Schools 333
deirdre mccorkindale
Contents vii
13 “We have to strive for the best”: The High Aspirations of Black
Caribbean Canadian Youth of the 1970s and 1980s 357
carl e. james
Section Six. Creating New Diasporic Communities:
Continental African Experiences
14 Creating Spaces of Belonging: Building a New African
Community in Vancouver 383
gillian creese
15 “The part of you that’s Rwanda”: Creating a Rwandan
Diaspora Community in the Greater Toronto Area
in the Early Twenty-First Century 402
anna ainsworth
Section Seven. Locating Historical Black Presences
in Cultural Artefacts
16 Race, Community, and the Picturing of Identities:
Photography and the Black Subject in Ontario,
1860–1900 433
cheryl thompson and julie crooks
17 Hogan’s Alley Remixed: Wayde Compton’s Performance
Bond and the New Black Can(aan) Lit 455
paul watkins
18 Jazz, Diaspora, and the History and Writing of Black
Anglophone Montreal 488
winfried siemerling
Section Eight. Black Women’s Orality and Knowings
19 “I don’t know if I should say this”: Black Women, Oral History,
and Contesting the Great White North 513
funké aladejebi
viii Contents
20 Re-thinking and Re-framing RDS: A Black Woman’s
Perspective 538
esmeralda m.a. thornhill
BOOKEND II. The Past Has a Future: Critical Intellectual
Histories of Blackness
21 Wrestling with Multicultural Snake Oil: A Newcomer’s
Introduction to Black Canada 585
daniel mcneil
Contributors 611
Redacted Text, 2019:
Statement from the Artist
The image on the cover is taken from Chantal Gibson’s Redacted Text,
2019 and is part of Gibson’s Historical In(ter)ventions series, a collection of
altered texts she began creating in 2010 that range from small handheld
books to large-scale installations.
Statement from the Artist
I am a/Historical In(ter)ventionist in the process of decolonizing my body
and mind. Using black braided thread and sticky liquid rubber, my altered
book sculptures (2010–21) challenge how we create knowledge and
construct nationhood. Presented as methods of communication, rather
than containers of fixed truth, these dismantled structures question what
is included and what is not. They scratch at ideology, undoing tropes and
myths, provoking viewers to consider other ways of knowing: What does
it mean to read texture over text? How do we mark the voices, the stories,
and the bodies that have been violently, systemically erased, silenced, or
excluded from dominant Canadian cultural narratives?
Chantal Gibson is an artist-educator living on the unceded ancestral lands
of the Coast Salish Peoples. Working in the overlap between literary and
visual art, she confronts colonialism head on, imagining BIPOC voices
silenced in the spaces left by systemic cultural and institutional erasure. Her
work has been exhibited in galleries across Canada and the United States,
most recently in the Senate of Canada. Gibson’s debut book of poetry, How
She Read (2019), uses text and image to address the m is/representation of
Black women across the Canadian cultural landscape. It was the winner
of the 2020 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry
Prize and a finalist for the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. A 2021 3M National
Teaching Fellow, Gibson facilitates decolonizing curriculum workshops in
classrooms and institutions across the country. She teaches in the School
of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University.