The truth about slavery
Done with Slavery reminds Montrealers of our colonial history
by Christopher Olson
Frank Mackey recalls Montreal’s history of slavery in Done With Slavery. GRAPHIC VIVIEN LEUNG
“The idea of a shipload of slaves who have been crammed like sardines under the decks of ships, sick and dying, it’s alien, it’s not part of the package. The slaves who came here, it’s like they’re wrapped in cellophane, like food in the grocery store.”
Every so often, a book with an astonishing breadth of research comes along and becomes the archetype for its field for decades to come.
Historian Frank Mackey, author of Done With Slavery: The Black Fact in Montreal, hopes he hasn’t written one of them.
“I don’t want anyone to come out and say [Done With Slavery] is the definitive book on the subject,” said Mackey, “That’s not what I want. I want it to spark some kind of debate.”
The book, whose provocative title recalls the “French fact in Quebec” or even the “English fact,” arrives in time for this year’s Black History Month.
“I didn’t write the book for Black History Month,” insisted Mackey, even though he’s inundated with requests for guest lectures and interviews each February due to his previous research into the history of blacks in Montreal, to which he’s happy to oblige.
“I think a lot of people today, black and white, are not aware that slavery existed here,” he said.
The problem is that when people think of Canada, says Mackey, they think of a country founded in 1867. But from the middle of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, slavery was common in Montreal and pre-Confederate Canada, if not exactly enshrined in law.
Without a law condoning slavery, there was no need to abolish slavery either. And yet, for decades, authorities didn’t intervene in the purchase and selling of slaves. Even James McGill, after whom McGill University is named, is recorded to have purchased and sold slaves while conducting errands on behalf of the government.
The lack of laws supporting the rights of slave owners also meant that there were fewer repercussions for owners who misbehaved.
“You might find that soldiers were whipped a hell of a lot more than slaves here,” said Mackey. “The big thing is not the physical brutality, but the psychological hell of ‘you’re obviously inferior, you’re shit, that’s why you’re a slave. Let’s face it, you’re not going to get out of it because you’re black and you can be bought and sold.’”
Even if slaves weren’t as victimized as their cousins south of the border, this doesn’t mean we should blind ourselves to the fact that slavery existed here, he maintained.
“It’s more a history of mentalities than anything. The historic importance of slavery outweighs the demographic importance. Even had there been just one, and it was accepted that you could have a slave, that says something important about the mentality of people at the time and their values.”
Mackey fears the knowledge of Quebec’s past dalliances with slavery isn’t “sexy” enough to make a lasting impression due to the overwhelming role of slavery in the United States.
“You wouldn’t have Gone With the Wind or Roots happening here,” he said. “There were no imports straight from Africa. The idea of a shipload of slaves who have been crammed like sardines under the decks of ships, sick and dying, it’s alien, it’s not part of the package. The slaves who came here, it’s like they were wrapped in cellophane, like food in the grocery store. You get your meat and there’s hardly any blood there.”
Unlike the pervasiveness of slavery in the U.S., where uprisings were a genuine concern and where slaves sometimes outnumbered whites, “here, slaves were kind of a convenience, and to a large extent they were servants, except that they were bought instead of being hired,” he said.
Nearly half of the book is made up of appendices and reproductions of newspaper ads, including some that ran in The Gazette, which clearly show the open and honest exchange of slaves, which Mackey hopes others will look up and verify for themselves.
Mackey, who is white, dedicated the book to his black grandson. In 1974, he adopted a girl from Haiti.
“He has to know someday what it was like for blacks here, according to his grandfather who is white and not black,” he said.
“I’m not speaking for blacks in writing this book,” continued Mackey. “It’s just that [this history] is not being told.”
Done With Slavery
Frank Mackey
McGill-Queen’s
University Press
604 pp
$49.95
The Link Volume 31 Issue 01