Slavery, Genocide, Historical Fiction & Other Canadian Values
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Breaking the Bonds of Ignorance and Denial: Slavery, Genocide, Historical Fiction & other Canadian Values By Richard Sanders or hundreds of years, most Cana- dians and their leaders — legal, re- Fligious and political — valued the institution of slavery as a norm of society. This ugly blot on Canada’s heritage con- tradicts the grand, self-congratulatory myth that this country is a Peaceable King- dom, infused to its core with such blessed traits as multiculturalism, human rights and social justice. To this day, although sup- posedly enlightened by these much-herald- ed “Canadian values,” this country remains , May 2014 haunted by the spectre of its little-known history of slavery. Slavery is one of the abhorrent re- alities of Canadian heritage that is hidden behind grand national myths. Although for generations, Canadian laws and religious mores enshrined and sanctified the busi- “Slavery is Canada’s best-kept secret” ness of human bondage, this reality is now Afua Cooper Lindsay Campbell, Literary Review of Canada all but forgotten. When it comes to recog- captivating veils of deception that still col- Scholars have painted a pristine picture nising this history, Canada is still enslaved our the blissfully rosy image of our coun- of Canada’s past. It is difficult to find a by ignorance, amnesia and denial. try as a Peaceable Kingdom. scholarly or popular publication on the country’s past in which images, stories, How was Canadian slavery justi- Uncovering our little-known histo- and analyses of slave life are depicted fied and legitimized for so long before be- ry of slavery are academics such as Afua ing buried and forgotten? Learning this his- .... It is possible to complete a graduate Cooper, the chair of Black Canadian Stud- degree in Canadian studies and not tory may help emancipate us from the hy- ies at Dalhousie University in Halifax. know that slavery existed in Canada.2 pocrisies that continue to hold so many Ca- “Slavery,” she says, “is Canada’s best-kept To explain why this history has been “sup- nadians hostage. By freeing ourselves from secret, locked within the national closet. pressed or buried,” Cooper says “slavery the blinding myth that Canada is built on And because it is a secret it is written out has been erased from the collective uncon- such noble values as human rights and of official history.”1 Cooper, a Jamaican- sciousness” because this “ignoble and un- multiculturalism, we may see through the born Canadian, goes on to lament that savoury past” serves to “cast Whites in a Oh say can you see? cultured” country that can act as “a guide to other peoples who seek a path to the Canada’s Blindspot for Peaceable Racism peaceable kingdom.” By Richard Sanders between themselves and their behemoth Being a professor of Canadian his- neighbour. The idea flourishes and in- hose enamoured and entrapped by tory at Toronto’s York University, Kil- fuses the interpretations of Canada’s bourn should have known better. Instead, this country’s pervasive self-delu- most esteemed scholars. In its extreme Tsions of peaceableness need to un- form, the ‘peaceable kingdom’ ideal rel- he built grand fantasy-world castles in the learn what they think they “know” about egates the malignancies of ethnic, cul- clouds by suggesting that Canada was Canada. Only then might such citizens be tural, or racial discrimination to the sta- ready “to be a father to a few of the world’s able to see, let alone criticise, Canada’s tus of mere aberrations in Canadian his- lost and abandoned children and a brother tory.1 (Emphasis added.) 2 role in supporting policies that promote to all mankind.” The “extreme form” of the “peace- the whole gamut of depredations that we Like so many other scribbling Ca- able kingdom” myth is far worse than just so gloatingly love to despise in our Ameri- nadian literati, beguiled by the illusion of seeing Canada’s “malignancies” as “aber- can neighbours. a “two-cultured” kingdom leading a trou- rations,” it’s not seeing them at all. A text- With an outsider’s eyes, Scott See, bled world toward sanity, Kilbourn also book example of this humble hubris is a a history professor at the University of waxed on at length about the great impor- classic anthology, Canada: A Guide to the Maine, has put Canada’s peaceability un- tance of nature and geography to Canadi- Peaceable Kingdom (1970), edited by der the academic microscope: ans’ sense of national identity. Remarkably, Deserving of a rigorous inspection is William Kilbourn. “I cannot help feeling,” Kilbourn did this without making even a the ‘peaceable kingdom’ myth, a na- he wrote in his intro, “that Canada, merely passing reference to how the vast territory tionalistic legacy growing out of 19th- by existing, does offer a way and a hope, of Canada was stolen, or from whom. century convictions as Canadians an alternative to insanity … in an insane Realising that wholesale theft is the sought to draw important distinctions world.” Canada, Kilbourn said, is a “two- ground upon which this country is built, 30 Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 2017 ‘bad’ light.” As a result, she says, the Enslaved by Canada’s of Canada’s self-image as a white set- “chroniclers of the country’s past, creators Underground-Railroad Myth tler nation that welcomes and accepts non-white subjects. It has been one of and keepers of its traditions and myths, A popular self-image held dear by many the more important narratives bolster- banished this past into the dustbins of his- Canadians is that this country was a safe 3 ing perceptions of Canadian generos- tory.” haven for American slaves. “The Under- ity and goodwill…. This history of be- In whiting out this shameful histo- ground Railroad,” says Abigail Bakan, “is nevolence, conceals and/or skews co- ry, Canadians like to contrast themselves commonly understood as a defining mo- lonial practices, Aboriginal genocides with Americans. “[W]e associate the word ment in the ideology of the Canadian state and struggles, and Canada’s implication ‘slavery’ with the United States,” says regarding the legacy of racism and anti- in transatlantic slavery, racism, and ra- 4 cial intolerance. That is, the Under- Cooper, “not Canada.” racism.” But as Bakan, the chair of Gen- George Clarke, a Nova Scotian ground Railroad continually der Studies at Queen’s University, has historicizes a national self-image that poet and playwright, has also decried Can- pointed out, Canada was “far from a Prom- obscures racism and colonialism ada’s naive, self-glorifying image: ised Land.”7 through its ceaseless promotion of Ca- The avoidance of Canada’s sorry his- Refrains from the sacred Canadi- nadian helpfulness, generosity, and tory of slavery and racism is natural. It an hymnal about the Underground Rail- adorable impartiality.9 is how Canadians prefer to understand road, repeat the cherished chord that fugi- Afua Cooper has also tried to cor- themselves: we are a nation of good, rect Canada’s self-righteous anti-slavery Nordic, ‘pure,‘ mainly White folks, as tive slaves were warmly welcomed citizens opposed to the lawless, hot-tempered, of the “True North Strong and Free.” Un- myths by saying impure mongrel Americans, with their fortunately, the Great White North’s his- we associate Canada with ‘freedom’ or ‘refuge,’ because … between 1830 and messy history of slavery, civil war, seg- tory has been coloured to match what regation, assassinations, lynching, riots, 1860 … thousands of American runa- Clarke has called Canada’s “flattering self- way slaves escaped to and found ref- and constant social turmoil. Key to this portrait.” As Bakan has noted: propaganda — and that is what it is — uge in the British territories to the north. popular understanding and retelling of is the Manichean portrayal of two na- [T]he image of Canada as ‘freedom’s the Underground Railroad story, tions: Canada, the land of ‘Peace, Or- land’ has lodged itself in the national Canada is presumed in its origins and der and Good Government’ … where psyche and become part of our national early history as a nation consistent with racism was not and is not tolerated, identity. One result is the assumption modern notions of inclusiveness and versus the United States of America, the that Canada is different from and mor- multiculturalism.8 ally superior to that ‘slave-holding re- land of guns, cockroaches, and garbage, 10 of criminal sedition confronted by ag- However, this self image does not public,’ the U.S. gressive policing (and jailing), where match historical reality. As Queen’s Uni- The idea that Canada was “a prej- racism was and is the arbiter of class versity gender studies professor Kather- udice-free haven at the end of the Under- (im)mobility.5 ine McKittrick has noted, Canada’s Un- ground Railroad, ... waiting to receive slav- But there is a “price” to be paid, derground Railroad history ery’s oppressed victims,” is a “popular Clarke says, for Canada’s “flattering self- is central to the nation’s legacy of ra- myth”11 said historian Allen Stouffer of St. portrait” and that “price … is public ly- cial tolerance and benevolence .… In a Francis Xavier University. In truth, for ing, falsified history, and self-destructive post-slave context, this history has been more than a century after Britain outlawed extremely significant in the production blindness.”6 slavery, racism was the law in Canada. should pull the rug out from under the cher- tinctions, assumptions, laws, and activi- lars of the Canadian history of race.”5 ished notion that Canada is a “Just Soci- ties…. To fail to scrutinize the records Canada’s government, many cor- ety.” Without its long history of land plun- of our past to identify deeply implanted porations, mainstream media outlets and tenets of racist ideology and practice der, Canada simply could not exist.