History of Slavery in "Canada" (split from JT Popularity thread)

[Kirkhill]

While they certainly considered themselves as separate from the French, they were still not an independant geopolitcal entity. Cultural and racial identity is not the same as a legal entity in that sense. Do you hold the current Iraqi government responsible for the sins of the Saddam Hussein regime? No. No more than we hold the Italians culpable for the legal liability one would place on the Romans. While the cultural lineage can certainly be traced, the legal imposition we place cannot.

“Canadien” to be precise. It didn’t matter how either viewed themselves prior to 1867. They were legally British subjects.

I am well aware. That is the anthem I sang growing up and can assure you that it took a while before I learned the English version.

Which English version?

 

[Kirkhill]

Some commentary on slavery and Scotland

Barrowman - Slavery - Scottish Mining Website

History of Scottish Mining and mining areas of Scotland including housing, health, mining accidents and disasters.

www.scottishmining.co.uk

in the year 1606, an Act was passed, which ordained that no person should fee, hire, or conduce any salters, colliers, or coal-bearers without a sufficient testimonial from the master whom they had last served, and that any one hiring them without such testimonial was bound, upon challenge within a year and a day by their late master, to deliver them up to him, under a penalty of £100 for each person and each act of contravention, the colliers, bearers, and salters so transgressing and receiving wages to be held as thieves and punished accordingly.

Up till the year 1661, colliers and salters were the only workers to whom the Act applied, but in that year the Act of 1606 was ratified, and an addition made embracing other colliery workers - named watermen, windsmen, and gatesmen.

An Act passed in 1672, for the establishment of correction-houses for idle beggars and vagabonds, authorized "coal-masters, salt-masters, and others, who have manufactories in this kingdom, to seize upon any vagabonds or beggars wherever they can find them, and to put them to work in the coal-heughs or other manufactories, who are to have the same power of correcting them and the benefit of their work as the masters of the correction-houses."

It was customary also for the parents of a child to receive a gift from the master at the birth or baptism of the bairn in token of the child's being bound along with the parents.

It is useful to compare those dates and terms with the passage of the Virginia slavery laws of the same era.

History of slavery in Virginia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

....

Times changing and emancipation in sight - note the concurrency of the dates with the Somersett and Knight cases, the rise of the Boulton-Watt steam engine and the American Revolution

Even assuming that bound colliers were as fairly treated as if they had been free to serve whom they chose, the system was repugnant to the Scottish sentiment, and could not survive the industrial quickening that the country underwent consequent on the development of the use of steam. An Emancipation Act was passed in 1774, the preamble of which runs thus:- "Whereas by the statute law of Scotland as explained by the judges of the courts of law there, many colliers and coal-bearers and salters are in a state of slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries and salt-works where they work for life, transferable with the collieries and salt-works,"

The Act imposed so many conditions to be observed by those to be freed that little advantage was taken of it. Moreover, many of the masters were not disposed to give up their old rights without a struggle, and they sought to retain their hold on the workers by advancing money on bills which the colliers were too ready to accept, with no expectation on either side of repayment being made, the advances being kept up as debts against them. But the system was hastening to its overthrow, and an Act was passed in 1799 sweeping it away. The bill as first drafted retained some shreds of the old bonds; but the miners, especially those of the West of Scotland, had now awakened up to a sense of their responsibilities. The colliers of Lanarkshire resolved on resistance, collected a subscription of 2s. per man from 600 of their number, sent deputations to collieries in other districts of Scotland, and employed Mr. Wilson, of Cowglen, a law-agent in Glasgow, to conduct the opposition to the bill, with the result that the objectionable clauses were removed.

And thus it came about that the nineteenth century had dawned before it could be said in truth of Scotland, in the words of Cowper:— There are no slaves at home : then why abroad?

Again note the concurrency with Dundas's efforts to get an abolition law passed in Westminster, his final success in 1807 and the outlawing of slavery in British colonies in 1833.

Lots of Brits, north and south of the Anglo-Scots border, especially in the mines, felt much in common with the Blacks enslaved. Remember the Workhouses were nothing more than forced, unpaid labour.

...

Produced by Wedgwood in 1787 to promote the Abolitionist movement.

 

[Kirkhill]

White Slavery, what the Scots already know

Alexander Stewart was herded off the Gildart in July of 1747, bound with chains. Stewart was pushed onto the auction block in Wecomica, St Mary’s County, Maryland. Doctor Stewart and his brother William were attending the auction, aware of Alexander being on that slave ship coming from Liverpool England. Doctor Stewart and William were residents of Annapolis and brothers to David of Ballachalun in Montieth, Scotland. The two brothers paid nine pound six shillings sterling to Mr. Benedict Callvert of Annapolis for the purchase of Alexander. He was a slave. Alexander tells of the other 88 Scots sold into slavery that day in “THE LYON IN MOURNING” pages 242-243.

Jeremiah Howell was a lifetime-indentured servant by his uncle in Lewis County, Virginia in the early 1700’s. His son, Jeremiah, won his freedom by fighting in the Revolution. There were hundreds of thousands of Scots sold into slavery during Colonial America. White slavery to the American Colonies occurred as early as 1630 in Scotland.

The Journal of Negro History #52 pp.251-273 states, “The sources of racial thought in Colonial America pertaining to slave trade worked both directions with white merchandise as well as black.”

Thomas Burton recorded in his Parliament Diary 1656-1659 vol. 4 pp. 253-274 a debate in the English Parliament focusing on the selling of British whites into slavery in the New World. The debate refers to whites as slaves ‘whose enslavement threatened the liberties of all Englishmen.’

The British government had realized as early as the 1640’s how beneficial white slave labor was to the profiting colonial plantations. Slavery was instituted as early as 1627 in the British West Indies. The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series of 1701 records 25000 slaves in Barbados in which 21700 were white slaves.

George Downing wrote a letter to the honorable John Winthrop Colonial Governor of Massachusetts in 1645, “planters who want to make a fortune in the West Indies must procure white slave labor out of England if they wanted to succeed.” Lewis Cecil Gray’s History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 vol.1 pp 316, 318 records Sir George Sandys’ 1618 plan for Virginia, referring to bound whites assigned to the treasurer’s office. “To belong to said office forever. The service of whites bound to Berkeley Hundred was deemed perpetual.”

 

[Kirkhill]

The Killing Time - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And an "immigrants" view of the Covenanters

Introduction – The Covenanters: The Nithsdale Martyrs

Nearly two years ago we moved our lives 200 miles north (from Manchester to Dumfriesshire), and became immigrants in a new country. It was of course a dream come true in so many ways and for so ma…

thescottishdream.wordpress.com

....



Political prisoners and beggars make excellent slaves.

 

[ArmyRick]

I am holding my wife responsible! She is Italian and specifically Abruzzi, her ancestors have a good chance of being Roman. I am the grandchild of Welsh and Irish Immigrants and great grandchild of German immigrants. There is a strong possibility my ancestors were Gauls. We all know what the Romans did to the Gauls.

 

[Remius]

I am holding my wife responsible! She is Italian and specifically Abruzzi, her ancestors have a good chance of being Roman. I am the grandchild of Welsh and Irish Immigrants and great grandchild of German immigrants. There is a strong possibility my ancestors were Gauls. We all know what the Romans did to the Gauls.

Gauls had it coming. They created the monster that ultimately absorbed them.

 

[Kirkhill]

Gauls had it coming. They created the monster that ultimately absorbed them.

If only Brennus had done the job right .... Another failed effort at regime change.

Battle of the Allia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Kirkhill]

My favourite British slave story....

According to Patrick's autobiographical Confessio, when he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland. He writes that he lived there for six years as an animal herder before escaping and returning to his family.

Patrick was born at the end of Roman rule in Britain. His birthplace is not known with any certainty; some traditions place it in what is now England—one identifying it as Glannoventa (modern Ravenglass in Cumbria). In 1981, Thomas argued at length for the areas of Birdoswald, twenty miles (32 km) east of Carlisle on Hadrian's Wall. Thomas 1981, pp. 310–14. In 1993, Paor glossed it as "[probably near] Carlisle". There is a Roman town known as Bannaventa in Northamptonshire, which is phonically similar to the Bannavem Taburniae mentioned in Patrick's confession, but this is probably too far from the sea.

Claims have also been advanced for locations in present-day Scotland, with the Catholic Encyclopedia stating that Patrick was born in Kilpatrick, Scotland. In 1926 Eoin MacNeill also advanced a claim for Glamorgan in south Wales, possibly the village of Banwen, in the Upper Dulais Valley, which was the location of a Roman marching camp.

Saint Patrick - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

....

The Irish deserve everything they ever got from the Brits...

 

[CountDC]

So therefore Canada did not burn the White House like soooooo many say Canadians did.

Even my kids know this and is why I didn't wear the stupid pin. I did however enjoy watching the faces of american tourists at citadel hill while they were listening to the display on the event. It was always fun to see the shocked looks. Me and the wife still laugh at it after 20+ years.

Luckily for Canada, many of Scotland's best settled here...

and others say the opposite.

Again note the concurrency with Dundas's efforts to get an abolition law passed in Westminster, his final success in 1807 and the outlawing of slavery in British colonies in 1833.

We are not allowed to give him credit for that.

 

[Kirkhill]

Enlightenment - Seeing the world in a new licht

“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

Matters came to a head in 1719 when John Abernethy preached a sermon before the Belfast Society on Romans ch.14 v.5 – “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” This sermon was strongly influenced by the ideas of Bishop Benjamin Hoadly who had preached before King George I two years earlier the idea that Christ sanctioned no visible Church authority.

The Belfast Society

The Belfast Society began in 1705, the same year that subscription was introduced, but although it attracted much hostile criticism after the storm broke over the question of subscription, criticism which was often repeated and increased by later historians, its origins were not marked by controversy. It was a gathering not only of ministers but also of students for the ministry and some laypeople who met to study the Bible and discuss issues of theology and church practice together. At each meeting two members were appointed to study a certain passage of the Old and New Testaments and give a paper on their understanding of the passage.

What seems clear is that the template for this Society came from the experience of many of the members as students at Glasgow University. During the Professorship of James Wodrow, and under his more controversial successor John Simson at Glasgow, students were encouraged to meet together in just this way for informal discussion and consideration of the Scriptures. Particularly involved with the Belfast Society from the start were two of the most able ministers – who had both studied at Glasgow – John Abernethy and James Kirkpatrick.

In his account of the life of John Abernethy, often called ‘the father of non-subscription’

Abernethy entitled his sermon Religious Obedience founded on Personal Persuasion and it was to plunge Irish Presbyterianism into a struggle that was to last for seven years and end with the expulsion of the liberal wing of the church. The sermon was published in 1720 and it immediately caused a storm. Abernethy took his stand on the sufficiency of scripture but with it the right of private judgement and the individual’s responsibility to employ the God-given faculty of reason in their religious opinions.

Abernethy argued that it was the Christian’s duty to examine all the evidence carefully and to act it on the basis of their own conscientious conviction. He and his supporters saw themselves as following very directly in the reformation tradition by emphasing the right of each individual believer to search the scriptures for themselves.

So with this emphasis on individual decision went an increasing questioning of the place of creedal formularies and with them the authority of the ecclesiastical bodies that upheld them. For presbyterians it meant that the traditional criticisms that they had directed at the Papacy and episcopalian churches were now being directed at their own synods and the Westminster Confession of Faith.

1. The First Subscription Controversy

“The first great stride of common advance was that from Calvinism with its Gospel of God’s love for the elect, to Arminianism with its Gospel of God’s love for the world at large.”

nonsubscribingpresbyterian.wordpress.com

...

This is the proximate outcome of John Locke, and his student Shaftesbury, and their demand for Toleration. But this tolerant debating society in Belfast could not have been possible without the intolerance of Carstairs and Donlop at the University of Glasgow in 1690 when they converted that school from a madrassa where ministers were trained to enforce a catechism on the Scots to a trade school with a philosophy department.

The graduates learned how to enjoy the debate (lawyers and ministers).

Or they learned useful skills like surgery, making a better steam engine, clearing mines of gases, classifying rocks or building repeating rifles. The percussion cap was invented by a Scots minister with time on his hands who struggled to hunt in the rain.

...

Concurrency

- Carstairs-Donlop reforms at Glasgow and the appointment of Wodrow 1690

• Belfast Society 1705
• Grand Lodge of All England Meeting Since Time Immemorial in York 1705

- United Kingdom of Great Britain 1707

• Shaftesbury anonymously publishes "A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm" advocating religious toleration 1708
• Shaftesbury on civility and rubbing along together 1709

• The Hanoverian Whigs 1714
• First known Lodge of Freemasons in North America formed in Pennsylvania 1715
• 1st General Synod of Presbyterians in America sees representatives from all 13 Colonies (8 Presbyteries) gather in Philadelphia (60 years ahead of independence) - Topic of debate: "Why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?" 1 Corinthian 10:29 1716
• 'Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, Church of England preached before King George I that Christ sanctioned no visible Church authority - no popes, no kings, no confessional standards - individual conscience 1717
• Migration of Scots-Irish Presbyterians from Ulster to America 1717
• Grand Lodge of London - 24 June - Masons 1717

- Belfast Subscription Debate - Romans 14:5 "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" 1719

• Anderson's "Constitution of the Freemasons" 1723
• Grand Lodge of Ireland 1725
• Franklin's "Junto" or "Leather Apron Club" in Philadelphia 1727
• Grand Orient Francais 1728
• Wesleyan Methodism 1729
• Oglethorpe's Georgia Colony 1730
• The Great Awakening 1730
• The New Light Movement 1730
• The Royal Scots Lodge 1732
• First Italian Lodge 1733
• Franklin publishes Anderson's Constitutions -The first Masonic book printed in America 1734
• Grand Lodge of Scotland 1736
• Edinburgh Philosophical Society 1737

- In Eminenti - Papal Bull condemning "Liberi Muratori and Francs Massons" - harm to the peace of the temporal state - open to men of all religions - denied clerical authority 1738

• Anderson's Constitutions of Regular English Freemasonry revised, expanded and reprinted as a 2nd edition in London 1738
• Mason Lodge at Annapolis - 40th Foot and French Huguenot Paul Mascarene 1739

- War of Jenkin's Ear 1739

....

Why this digression during the discussion on slavery? Because this is the era where Britain started to openly support debate, toleration, freedom and happiness. And it happened in a Deist environment.

 

[YZT580]

Enlightenment - Seeing the world in a new licht

“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

1. The First Subscription Controversy

“The first great stride of common advance was that from Calvinism with its Gospel of God’s love for the elect, to Arminianism with its Gospel of God’s love for the world at large.”

nonsubscribingpresbyterian.wordpress.com

...

This is the proximate outcome of John Locke, and his student Shaftesbury, and their demand for Toleration. But this tolerant debating society in Belfast could not have been possible without the intolerance of Carstairs and Donlop at the University of Glasgow in 1690 when they converted that school from a madrassa where ministers were trained to enforce a catechism on the Scots to a trade school with a philosophy department.

The graduates learned how to enjoy the debate (lawyers and ministers).

Or they learned useful skills like surgery, making a better steam engine, clearing mines of gases, classifying rocks or building repeating rifles. The percussion cap was invented by a Scots minister with time on his hands who struggled to hunt in the rain.

...

Concurrency

- Carstairs-Donlop reforms at Glasgow and the appointment of Wodrow 1690

• Belfast Society 1705
• Grand Lodge of All England Meeting Since Time Immemorial in York 1705

- United Kingdom of Great Britain 1707

• Shaftesbury anonymously publishes "A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm" advocating religious toleration 1708
• Shaftesbury on civility and rubbing along together 1709

• The Hanoverian Whigs 1714
• First known Lodge of Freemasons in North America formed in Pennsylvania 1715
• 1st General Synod of Presbyterians in America sees representatives from all 13 Colonies (8 Presbyteries) gather in Philadelphia (60 years ahead of independence) - Topic of debate: "Why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?" 1 Corinthian 10:29 1716
• 'Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, Church of England preached before King George I that Christ sanctioned no visible Church authority - no popes, no kings, no confessional standards - individual conscience 1717
• Migration of Scots-Irish Presbyterians from Ulster to America 1717
• Grand Lodge of London - 24 June - Masons 1717

....

Why this digression during the discussion on slavery? Because this is the era where Britain started to openly support debate, toleration, freedom and happiness. And it happened in a Deist environment.

which in turn made Britain unique amongst nations

 

[Kilted]

I think that this thread has talked about almost everything but Slavery in Canada.