Despite the increasing scope and authority of women's studies, the role of Black women in Canada's history has remained largely unwritten and unacknowledged. This silence supports the common belief that Black people have only recently arrived in Canada and that racism is also a fairly recent development. This book sets the record straight.
The six essays collected here explore three hundred years of Black women in Canada, from the seventeenth century to the immediate post-Second World War period. Sylvia Hamilton documents the experiences of Black women in Nova Scotia, from early slaves and Loyalists to modern immigrants. Adrienne Shadd looks at the gripping realities of the Underground Railroad, focusing on activities on this side of the border. Peggy Bristow examines the lives of Black women in Buxton and Chatham, Ontario, between 1850 and 1865. Afua Cooper describes the career of Mary Bibb, a nineteenth-century Black teacher in Ontario. Dionne Brand, through oral accounts, examines labourers between the wars and their recruitment as factory workers during the Second World War. And, finally, Linda Carty explores relations between Black women and the Canadian state.
This long overdue history will prove welcome reading for anyone interested in Black history and race relations. It provides a much-needed text for senior high school and university courses in Canadian history, women's history, and women's studies.
Winner of the Ontario Historical Society's 1996 Joesph Brant award.
Peggy Bristow is a researcher in the Centre for Women's Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto.
What People are Saying About This
Sheldon Taylor
'This book should serve as a watershed for Black Canadian feminist studies, and hopefully, feminist studies in Canada, because its contents sets it apart from much of the literature of a similar nature published before. By encompassing aspects of the Black women's historical experiences in Canada between the seventeenth and late twentieth centuries, Bristow's et al have produced a book that meets the requirements of being a university text, and a publication for the classroom, library and home.'
Frederick Case
'This is a highly significant collection of six essays on African Canadian women. The focus of the essays is primarily historical, they are well documented and interesting to read. This interpretation of Canadian history written from the perspectives of black women, permits us to have a much more balanced view of our institutions, academic studies of Canadian history in general and the history of Canadian women in particular. The authors of these essays apply an essentially antiracist approach to Canadian history and alert us to the fundamental racist sexism that pervades our systems of thought and legislation. This is ample proof that antiracist education is excellent education.'
Ruth Pierson
'This important book restores African Canadian women to Canadian women's history and explodes once and for all the misconception that blacks, in particular black women, have only recently arrived and have made no contribution to Canada's development.'
