Blacks In Deep Snow

Blacks in Canada journeys from the introduction of slavery in 1628 to the first wave of Caribbean immigration in the 1950s and 1960s. Heralded in the Literary Review of Canada as one of the one hundred most important Canadian books, this enduring work by Yale University's Robin W. Winks offers a wealth of information for fresh interpretation. Now, fifty years from its original printing, this third edition includes a foreword by George Elliott Clarke, E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. Clarke's contribution adds a necessary critical lens through which twenty-first-century readers should view Winks's research. The longevity of Blacks in Canada is due to an impressive array of primary and secondary materials that illuminate the experiences of Black immigrants to Canada. These experiences include the forced migration of enslaved Black people brought to Nova Scotia and the Canadas by Loyalists at the end of the American Revolution, Black refugees who fled to Nova Scotia following the War of 1812, Jamaican Maroons, and fugitive slaves who fled to British North America. The book also highlights Black West Coast businessmen who helped found British Columbia, particularly Victoria, and Black settlement in the prairie provinces. Crucially, Blacks in Canada investigates the French and English periods of slavery, the abolitionist movement in Canada, and the role played by Canadians in the broader continental antislavery crusade, as well as Canadian adaptations to nineteenth- and twentieth-century racial mores.

The African Canadian Legal Odyssey explores the history of African Canadians and the law from the era of slavery until the early twenty-first century. This collection demonstrates that the social history of Blacks in Canada has always been inextricably bound to questions of law, and that the role of the law in shaping Black life was often ambiguous and shifted over time. Comprised of eleven engaging chapters, organized both thematically and chronologically, it includes a substantive introduction that provides a synthesis and overview of this complex history. This outstanding collection will appeal to both advanced specialists and undergraduate students and makes an important contribution to an emerging field of scholarly inquiry.

Several contributors deal with the quality of Canadian citizenship and the principle of distributive justice applied to all citizens. Others offer a "lament" for the Canadian nation, analysing and explaining why the vision of Canadian citizenship as an allegiance to the federation did not succeed in overcoming the varied loyalties pulling Canadians in different directions. Some authors celebrate this failure, arguing that maintaining dual alliance to the nation and province is more important. The essays reflect a consensus that Canada and Canadians have failed to give their citizenship meaning. One explanation for this, offered by the editor William Kaplan, is that Canadians are private about their patriotism, even if it is deeply felt. If Canadian citizenship is to endure, that patriotism will have to be more strongly and publicly expressed. Contributors to this volume are Daryl Bean, Neil Bissoondath, Robert Bothwell, Alan Cairns, Marc Cousineau, Robert Fulford, J.L. Granatstein, Darlene Johnston, William Kaplan, the late Paul Martin Sr, Rosella Melanson, Desmond Morton, Peter Neary, Maureen O'Neil, Robert J. Sharpe, Monique Simard, Glenda Simms, Daniel Turp, and Michael Walker. The essays by Simard and Turp are in French.

Thousands of black people sought refuge in Canada before the U.S. Civil War. While most refugees encountered at least some racism among Canadian citizens, many of those same refugees also thrived under the auspices of the Canadian government, which worked to protect blacks from the U.S. slaveowners who sought to re-enslave them. This work brings to light the life stories of several nineteenth-century black refugees who managed to survive in their new country by gaining work as barbers, postal carriers, washerwomen, waiters, cab owners, ministers, newspaper editors, and physicians. The book begins with a short historical account of blacks in Canada from 1629 until the early 1800s, when the first groups of escaped slaves began to enter the country.

Four cases in which the legal issue was “race” — that of a Chinese restaurant owner who was fined for employing a white woman; a black man who was refused service in a bar; a Jew who wanted to buy a cottage but was prevented by the property owners’ association; and a Trinidadian of East Indian descent who was acceptable to the Canadian army but was rejected for immigration on grounds of “race” — drawn from the period between 1914 and 1955, are intimately examined to explore the role of the Supreme Court of Canada and the law in the racialization of Canadian society. With painstaking research into contemporary attitudes and practices, Walker demonstrates that Supreme Court Justices were expressing the prevailing “common sense” about “race” in their legal decisions. He shows that injustice on the grounds of “race” has been chronic in Canadian history, and that the law itself was once instrumental in creating these circumstances. The book concludes with a controversial discussion of current directions in Canadian law and their potential impact on Canada’s future as a multicultural society.

This book addresses the conceptual difficulties and political contestations surrounding the applicability of the term "African-Canadian". In the midst of this contested terrain, the volume focuses on first generation, Black Continental Africans who have immigrated to Canada in the last four decades, and have traceable genealogical links to the continent.

To Know Our Many Selves profiles the history of Canadian studies, which began as early as the 1840s with the Study of Canada. In discussing this comprehensive examination of culture, Hoerder highlights its unique interdisciplinary approach, which included both sociological and political angles. Years later, as the study of other ethnicities was added to the cultural story of Canada, a solid foundation was formed for the nation's master narrative.