"That is why slavery has been erased from the collective consciousness. "In my engagement with African Canadian history, I have come to realize that Black history has less to do with Black people and more with White pride," writes Afua Cooper in The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal. Mentioned matter-of-factly, this fact can delegitimize the lie that this country differs greatly from its southern neighbour, in the face of a persistent campaign of sanctimonious, narcissism-of-small-differences, and finger-pointing at the United States. These slaves laboured and endured on lands we now call Canada. Legally owned by the Church, lawyers, business people, and merchants, they suffered indignities, loss of control over their lives, and a dimming view of their own and their families' futures that we can only imagine. They were miners and fishermen, blacksmiths and carpenters, and worked in hotels and bars and wherever else the burgeoning cities needed unpaid labour. In an economy propelled by the fur trade, as well as urban economies in some places, enslaved Africans worked as rat catchers, hangmen, and domestic servants.
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