Enslaved Africans’ Resistance in Upper Canada Essay

Introduction

The author of the article is Afua Cooper, and she studies how enslaved black people fought for their freedom and contributed to gaining independence and ending slavery. The essay explores how Africans living as enslaved in Upper Canada at the start of the 19th century rebelled and fought their servitude¹. Additionally, it shows the repercussions of this resistance on attempts to outlaw slavery and lessen its negative impacts on the province. Chloe Cooley’s bravery in the face of attempts to sell her to a New York owner served as the impetus for the Upper Canadian government to implement its gradual liberation act almost forty years before anti-slavery legislation was passed elsewhere in the British Empire. This study focuses on Black Canadians, especially enslaved people, as actors and participants in creating their history and, as such, a significant component of Canada’s history.

Main body

The research on which this essay is based is a component of the continuous investigation of the historical contributions made by Black people to early Canadian history. The thesis presents how they fought for their freedom despite their status as slaves, racial and gender discrimination, and the initial North American abolitionist struggle. This bigger perspective centers Black people, especially the enslaved, as historical subjects and actors in shaping their own and a significant part of Canada’s history by focusing on slavery and resistance. This essay is dedicated to the countless Africans who were held as slaves in Upper Canada and British Latin America and who contributed to the abolition of slavery there by their deeds.

One of the major points is that resistance encompasses a spectrum that recognizes significant qualitative distinctions between specific acts and actions that were communal or could be collective. Individual acts frequently included in everyday resistance include breaking equipment, destroying animals and other movable property, stopping labor, responding to their masters, malingering, temporarily absenting oneself, and other similar behaviors². This kind of opposition temporarily slowed the slave system but did not represent a threat to it in the long run. Collective opposition, which is more radical in its direction and viewpoint and has a long-term effect on the slave system, lies at the other extreme of this conceptual continuum.

However, categorizing resistance in a binary way raises the possibility that short-term and long-term resistance is opposed to one another and that the magnetic poles never meet. Both categories frequently blend into one another. For instance, slaves’ small-scale acts of resistance gathered up and served as the basis for larger-scale plots of subversion that eventually developed into widespread political opposition or rebellion. To develop historical knowledge about Africans who were held in slavery in British North America and the struggle for freedom, the notion of resistance is helpful. Although Cooley and Martin opposed slavery on a personal level, their acts eventually sparked a liberation movement that had significant effects on society as a whole³. Many fugitive slaves from Upper Canada’s Western District reunited as a collectivity abroad. When Henry Lewis freed himself, he, too, made a modest hole in the slavery system.

However, Africans who were held as slaves never thought of themselves as property. They were forced into this status by their white owners and society. They also denied the status. They effectively refused to support slavery by doing this. Whether via modest acts or more egregious ones, enslaved Africans who rebelled were claiming their identity and dignity. They expressed their opposition to the system that treated them poorly through their acts.

The article is published in the Ontario History Journal, a credible and trustworthy publishing source. The Ontario Historical Society publishes Ontario History, an academic journal with peer review, twice a year. The leading history journal in Ontario, it covers a wide range of historical subjects. Over the last century, what started as a project to conserve significant documentary sources has developed into today’s scientific peer publication, publishing fresh research and education on subjects relevant to all facets of Ontario’s unique heritage.

By examining the lives of the enslaved, historians of slavery have made an effort to center the enslaved in a historical inquiry by demonstrating they were not the passive victims of exploitation that earlier historians had assumed they were but rather active participants in their liberation. According to historian David Barry Gaspar, resistance in the framework of New World slavery refers to slave behavior that cannot be associated with complicity with slavery⁴. He also points out that one of the main organizational principles of slavery was resistance. Considering resistance running to be a continuum, there must be reactions between these two extremes.

For instance, the use of arson by the slaves might be either a singular or communal act. Furthermore, Bernard Moitt has advocated for a gender-specific interpretation of resistance and points out that enslaved women’s resistance took many different forms⁵. He points out that gender gave women the power to control reproduction and limit fecundity through abstinence, infanticide, and other methods⁶. Women were also thought to be more susceptible to poisoning because of their tight ties to home and household duties. Resistance may occasionally take the form of a quiet scream, an eye injury, or tooth-sucking.

Conclusion

Overall, Afua Cooper researches enslaved Africans’ role in the fight for independence and abolition of slavery. The article investigates how Africans who were held as slaves in Upper Canada revolted and resisted their captivity. It demonstrates how efforts to prohibit slavery and decrease its harmful effects in the province have been affected by this opposition. The concept of resistance is important when learning about the history of Africans trapped in slavery in British North America and their fight for freedom.

Bibliography

Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance: Black Men and Women Engage Slavery in Upper Canada,1793-1803,” Ontario History 99, no. 1 (2007): 5-17.

Footnotes

1. Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance: Black Men and Women Engage Slavery in Upper Canada,1793-1803,” Ontario History 99, no. 1 (2007): 5-17.
2. Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance”, (2007): 5.
3. Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance”, (2007): 8.
4. Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance”, (2007): 7.
5. Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance”, (2007): 9.
6. Afua Cooper, “Acts of Resistance”, (2007): 9.