Heroes and Rebellions
Josiah Henson was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, helping others escape enslavement as he had done. His life’s story inspired the main character in the pivotal anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Who was Josiah Henson? Watch to find out.
As an anti-slavery and women’s rights activist, writer, teacher, newspaper publisher, and lawyer, Mary Ann Shadd Cary lived by her words “do more, talk less”. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Antislavery Activist. Watch this summary of her accomplishments.
Why do we learn about some people and events and not others?
When Europeans colonized North America, they decided they needed a labour force to work the land so that they could profit from its natural resources and make the land livable. Since Europeans were already colonizing Africa and stealing the natural resources found there, they decided that African people would be the labour force in the Americas. Africans were captured and brought to the Americas to be enslaved workers. Often when we study this history, we forget three important facts:
- In what we know as Canada today, there was slavery. Both Indigenous and African people were enslaved.
- The form of slavery that existed across North America and South and Central America/Caribbean was known as chattel slavery. This meant an enslaved person and their children were property that could be bought, sold, and forced to work.
- In big and small ways, African people resisted their enslavement.
Why do you think heroes and rebellions of this period are seldom talked about or taught?