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History Pre-confederation (to 1867)

Done with Slavery

The Black Fact in Montreal, 1760-1840

by (author) Frank Mackey

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2010
Category
Pre-Confederation (to 1867)
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773535787
    Publish Date
    Feb 2010
    List Price
    $55.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773583115
    Publish Date
    Feb 2010
    List Price
    $49.95

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Description

Did slavery exist in Montreal, and if so what did it look like? Frank Mackey grapples with this question in Done with Slavery, a study of black Montrealers in the eighty years between the British Conquest and the union of Lower and Upper Canada.

Through close examination of archival and contemporary sources, Mackey uncovers largely unknown aspects of the black transition from slavery to freedom. While he considers the changing legal status of slavery, much of the book provides a detailed and nuanced reconstruction of the circumstances of black Montrealers and their lived experience. The resulting picture is remarkably complex, showing the variety of occupations held by blacks, the relationships they had with those they served, their encounters with the judicial and political systems, and the racial mingling that came with intermarriage and apprenticeships. Done with Slavery casts the categories of blackness and slavery in a new light, showing that broad histories of the phenomenon must begin to take into account the specifics of the lives of "marginal" black populations.

Done with Slavery is an invitation to look at a colonial society through the prism of documented black experience, revealing that the roots of the present are neither as wholesome as some would hope nor as bitter as others might suppose.

About the author

Frank Mackey is the author of Steamboat Connections: Montreal to Upper Canada, 1816-1843, and Black Then: Blacks and Montreal, 1780s-1880s.

Frank Mackey's profile page