Slavery in Canada
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Slavery in Canada was first practised by some aboriginal nations, who routinely captured slaves from neighbouring tribes as part of their accepted laws of war. However, chattel slavery (where slaves were the private property of their owners and their children were born into slavery as well) started with the European settlements, appearing soon after the colonies were founded in the early 1600s. Most of their slaves were used as domestic house servants, although some performed agricultural labour. Some of the slaves held by Europeans in Canada were of African descent, while others were aboriginal (typically called "panis.")
The citizens of New France received slaves as gifts from their allies among native peoples. Many of these slaves were prisoners taken in raids against the villages of the Fox nation, a tribe that was an ancient rival of the Miami People and their Algonquian allies.[1]
[edit] Under French rule
The first recorded slave purchase occurred in New France in the region known today as Quebec in 1628. The purchase was of a young boy from Madagascar, who was given the name Olivier Le Jeune.
By the early 1700s, Africans began arriving in greater numbers to New France, mainly as slaves of the French aristocracy. When the British took over in 1759, there were more than 1,000 slaves living in Quebec.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Brett Rushforth, "Slavery, the Fox Wars, and the Limits of Alliance," William and Mary Quarterly 63 (January 2005), No.1, para. 32. Rushforth confuses the two Vincennes explorers. François-Marie was 12 years old during the First Fox War.
