In the shadow of slavery

Black history in Ottawa from 1784 to 1832

BY THE REV. CANON HILARY ANNE MURRAY

The diocesan Archives marked Black History Month 2023 by researching the presence of black people in the diocese during the period of 1784 to 1832. A challenge? Definitely. In part due to the fact that Black persons were often not counted because they were enslaved and not viewed as having the same rights or value as white people.

According to Anne Milan and Kelly Tran’s article “Blacks in Canada: A long history” published by Statistics Canada: The first Black person in Canada, who served as an interpreter under Governor de Monts in Nova Scotia, was reported in 1605. From 1628 until the early 1800s, Black slavery existed, particularly in Eastern Canada, where Loyalists immigrating from the United States would often bring slaves with them. In the late 1700s, Canada also became home to some Black Loyalists who had been promised land grants for supporting the British during the American Revolution. Many early Blacks chose to remain in Canada and founded settlements in Nova Scotia and Ontario, and, later, in Western Canada with the opening of the frontier in the mid-1800s.

In the course of our research, we learned of Isaac Johnson, who wrote a memoir titled, “Slavery Days in Old Kentucky: a true story of a father who sold his wife and four children by one of the children.” His story intersects with some of the history of our diocese.

Isaac Johnson was born in Kentucky. His father was white, and his mother was an enslaved woman. She was born in Madagascar, where she was captured and taken into slavery. When she was brought to the United States, she “became the servant to a slave trader until his death. She was then the inherited property of the slave trader’s eldest son Richard Yeager. Johnson’s mother and father lived together on his tobacco farm in Nelson County, Kentucky as husband and wife. They had four

 Black History Month, from p. 12

Each of us has a right to be interested in one’s own community. It is in our own communities that we feel at ease. We know the values, the culture, and the language. But if we agree that Canada is ‘a work in progress’ and if we want to build a society in which everyone can feel free and included, then I think it is imperative to learn something about the history of those around us.” He added: “I do not think I can put it better than Mark Starowicz when he wrote the foreword to Canada: A People’s History: ‘I children. Johnson was born in 1844. In his memoirs, Johnson said up to the age of seven years old, his life was relatively normal. It is believed that his father began having financial difficulties and experienced issues with “neighbouring farmers,” who shunned him. Richard Yeager decided to sell his wife and children into slavery for a total of $3,300, earning him quite a bit of money in those days. Johnson was purchased by William Madinglay for $700, a very high price for an enslaved child in 1851.

Johnson laboured on the Madinglay’s farm for 12 years, during the American Civil War. At the age of 19, he escaped, joining the Union Army when they “swept through Kentucky.” He became an enlisted man in the 102nd US Coloured Regiment on Feb. 3, 1864. He remained in the Union Army until the Civil War ended. Johnson then returned to Kentucky to search for his family members at the end of the war. Unfortunately, he did not succeed in finding any of them. Most likely his mother and siblings were spread far and wide as a result of being sold into slavery and the chaos caused by the Civil War. Johnson eventually migrated up the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River on various cargo ships. In 1867, he made it to Morrisburg, Ontario. Why Johnson chose to settle in Morrisburg is unknown. Most likely this is where he found more promising work opportunities. It was here that Johnson learned the trade of stone masonry. He started his trade as a mason when he was employed with “Baker Limestone quarry in Winchester for eight years. It was in this job that he worked on construction projects, building churches, stone houses and municipal buildings in the Winchester and Russell regions. Isaac Johnson is associated with project to build St. James Anglican Church in Morrisburg.

As Johnson continued to develop in his trade and his reputation grew as a mason, his career expanded to contracts on the New York side of the St Lawrence, leading him to Waddington and Ogdensburg where he was involved in the building of many more churches, homes, government buildings and hospitals. Isaac Johnson ended his career in 1897 after being injured from falling from a derrick, (a pivoting construction crane), when lifting and cutting large stones in Cornwall, Ontario. descend not from the filles du roi, nor the Loyalists, nor the Aboriginal Nations, yet their stories are my story. Since I am Canadian, they are my ancestors. They are also the ancestors of the Sudanese, Haitians, and Chinese. And remember also the stories of those who came here from the famines of Africa, from the gas chambers of Central Europe, from rafts tossed on South China Sea, from the refugee camps of the world. These now belong to Canada, to the Native Peoples, to the French and to the English. Their history has become our history and our history belongs to them. All our children are in the same school yards.’”

Following his injury, Johnson wrote his memoir as a means of raising funds to provide for his children’s education and in the hope that it might also help him find his siblings again. His is a remarkable story — from his beginnings as an enslaved person, a boy with no rights, experiencing the trauma of brutal separation, witnessing his mother and siblings being sold to new slave owners, fighting his way to freedom, and then making a new life in Canada and upstate New York. Johnson learned and mastered the trade of masonry, leaving us a legacy in the form of many building constructions from Morrisburg to Ogdensburg and back to Cornwall, where families were raised, faith communities were built and people were healed, but the story of his life and courage may be his most important legacy.

Harewood added that Black history is a part of all history, that Black people, with all of us, make up what we call the Canadian mosaic. We are all living an experience which is our experience wherever we happen to come from, wherever we happen to be born, we are our own Canadian narrative.”

Although these topics are difficult, as a church, it is important that we learn to tell the history of any people in a way that is truthful, ensuring proper treatment of the history and experience of Black people. My friends, Black people continue to experience racism in their everyday lives. Let us pray for an end of racism. Let us do what we can in our churches and communities to combat racism.

My sincere thanks to John Harewood for his courage to share with us his wisdom. Thank you to Dr. Shirley Brathwaite, coordinator of Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, who invited our guest speaker. Many thanks to St. Stephen’s parishioners for their openness to learn about Black people’s history and who continue to walk the journey of truth and reconciliation with Black people. To God be the Glory.