Slaves.

Slavery in Canada includes historical practices of enslavement practised by both the First Nations until the 19th century, and by colonists during the period of European colonization.

The practice of slavery in Canada 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 . Some 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 historian Marcel Trudel estimates that there were fewer than 4,200 slaves in the area of Canada (New France) and later the Canada's between 1671 and 1831 . Around two-thirds of these slaves were of Indigenous ancestry (2,700 typically called panis, from the French term for Pawnee) and one third were of African descent (1,443) .

They were house servants and farm workers .The number of Black slaves increased during British rule, especially with the arrival of United Empire Loyalists after 1783. 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.

People of African descent 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 . Nevertheless, slaves in Canada were subjected to the same physical, psychological, and sexual violence and punishments as their American counterparts.

Lower Canada (Quebec).

In Lower Canada, Sir James Monk, the Chief Justice, rendered a series of decisions in the late 1790s that undermined the ability to compel slaves to serve their masters; while "not technically abolishing slavery, [they] rendered it innocuous. The slave could not be compelled to serve longer than he would, and ... might leave his master at will." After declaring from the bench that slavery had 'unsupported in law,' he thereafter 'systematically dismissed all suits by owners against runaway slaves.

Although the legislature was petitioned several times to enact legislation clarifying the property rights of slaveholders and their protection ( imprisonment of slaves), there was insufficient appetite to either abolish slavery outright or enforce slavery. "As Lower Canada passed no legislation on the matter, the extradition of fugitives was made impossible and Canada became therefore an asylum for the oppressed."

As a result, slaves began to flee their masters within the province, but also from other provinces and from the United States. This occurred several years before the legislature acted in Upper Canada to limit slavery. While the decision was founded upon a technicality (the extant law allowing committal of slaves not to jails, but only to houses of correction, of which there were none in the province), Monk went on to say that "slavery did not exist in the province and to warn owners that he would apply this interpretation of the law to all subsequent cases."

In subsequent decisions, and in the absence of specific legislation, Monk's interpretation held (even once there had been houses of correction established). In a later test of this interpretation, the administrator of Lower Canada, Sir James Kempt, refused in 1829 a request from the U.S. government to return an escaped slave, informing that fugitives might be given up only when the crime in question was also a crime in Lower Canada: "The state of slavery is not recognized by the Law of Canada. ... Every Slave therefore who comes into the Province is immediately free whether he has been brought in by violence or has entered it of his own accord."

By 1800, the other provinces of British North America had effectively limited slavery through court decisions requiring the strictest proof of ownership, which was rarely available. In 1819, John Robinson, Attorney General of Upper Canada, declared that by residing in Canada, black residents were set free, and that Canadian courts would protect their freedom . Slavery remained legal, however, until the British Parliament's Slavery Abolition Act finally abolished slavery in most parts of the British Empire effective 1 August 1834.

Underground Railroad

International Underground Railroad Memorial in Windsor, Ontario
During the early to mid-19th century, the Underground Railroad network was established in the United States to free slaves, by bringing them to locations where the slaves would be free from being re-captured. British North America, now known as Canada, was a major destination of the Underground Railroad after 1850.

The Canadian public's awareness of slavery in Canada is typically limited to the Underground Railroad, which is the only education relating to the history of slavery that school children typically receive.

In Nova Scotia, former slave Richard Preston established the African Abolition Society in the fight to end slavery in America. Preston was trained as a minister in England and met many of the leading voices in the abolitionist movement that helped to get the Slavery Abolition Act passed by the British Parliament in 1833. When Preston returned to Nova Scotia, he became the president of the Abolitionist movement in Halifax. Preston stated:

The time will come when slavery will be just one of our many travails. Our children and their children’s children will mature to become indifferent toward climate and indifferent toward race. Then we will desire ... Nay!, we will demand and we will be able to obtain our fair share of wealth, status and prestige, including political power. Our time will have come, and we will be ready ... we must be.

There are slave cemeteries in parts of Canada, in various states of condition, some neglected and abandoned . They include cemeteries in St-Armand, Quebec; Shelburne, Nova Scotia; and Priceville and Dresden in Ontario.