Emancipation Day now in federal legislation as MPs unanimously designate Aug 1 montrealgazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from montrealgazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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They came in great, dusty columns trudging north; the persecuted refugees of a new country founded on freedom and liberty.
These were the United Empire Loyalists; the thousands of men, women and children loyal to the Crown who were forced into Canada by the victory of rebel forces in the American War of Independence. “Neither confiscation of their property, the pitiless persecution of their kinsmen in revolt, nor the galling chains of imprisonment could break their spirits,” reads a stirring monument to the loyalists in Hamilton, Ont.
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What slavery looked like in Canada windsorstar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from windsorstar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Develop and defend a position regarding gradual versus immediate emancipation
Analyze and learn more about the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery, the law that gradually ended slavery in Upper Canada (now Ontario)
Background Information
After the British were defeated in the American Revolution, the number of enslaved Africans in British North America increased significantly. To encourage white American settlers to immigrate north, the government passed the Imperial Statute of 1790, which allowed United Empire Loyalists to bring in “
negros [sic], household furniture, utensils of husbandry, or cloathing [sic]” duty-free. By law, such property could not be sold for one year after entering the colonies.
The Tower of Freedom monument features four life-size bronze figures on the south side of a granite monolith: Two women with a baby and a man standing behind with his arms outstretched in praise. On the north side of the monolith, a young girl holds a rag doll and looks back across the river (to Detroit).
The other monument in Detroit depicts the Gateway to Freedom, which features a bronze sculpture of six slaves awaiting transport to Canada. In a speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967, he mentioned that African-Americans in slavery often called Canada Heaven. It was a code name used by people who were part of the Underground Railroad.