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History

The End of Slavery in British North America

By the end of the 1700s more and more people were against slavery. In 1793, John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, managed to get a law passed that stopped slaves from being brought to Upper Canada. It also made sure that any children born into slavery would be given their freedom at age 25. In this way, slavery gradually died out in Upper Canada.

Although other places did not pass the same law, slavery began to disappear in these places too. In Lower Canada, Chief Justice William Osgoode refused to convict runaway slaves. When Britain stopped slavery in 1834, there were only a few old slaves left in British North America. All the others had received their freedom.

War of 1812

	Source
	William Hall, born in 1825 in Summerville, Nova Scotia received the Victoria Cross, the highest British military award for bravery

In 1812, another war broke out between the United States and Britain. Much of the fighting took place in Upper Canada. Worried that the Americans might take over Upper and Lower Canada and return them to slavery, many Black Upper Canadians fought on the British side. Some became part of a military unit for Black soldiers called Captain Runchey's Company for Coloured Men. Once again, many slaves in the United States escaped from their owners to also fight for the British side, hoping to win their freedom. After the war, around 2 000 of them came to British North America, mostly to Nova Scotia. Others went to Upper Canada, near what is now Barrie, to accept the land offered to war veterans by Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.