Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 201730

By Richard Sanders

For hundreds of years, most Cana-dians and their leaders — legal, re-ligious and political — valued the

institution of slavery as a norm of society.This ugly blot on Canada’s heritage con-tradicts the grand, self-congratulatorymyth that this country is a Peaceable King-dom, infused to its core with such blessedtraits as multiculturalism, human rights andsocial justice. To this day, although sup-posedly enlightened by these much-herald-ed “Canadian values,” this country remainshaunted by the spectre of its little-knownhistory of slavery.

Slavery is one of the abhorrent re-alities of Canadian heritage that is hiddenbehind grand national myths. Although forgenerations, Canadian laws and religiousmores enshrined and sanctified the busi-ness of human bondage, this reality is nowall but forgotten. When it comes to recog-nising this history, Canada is still enslavedby ignorance, amnesia and denial.

How was Canadian slavery justi-fied and legitimized for so long before be-ing buried and forgotten? Learning this his-tory may help emancipate us from the hy-pocrisies that continue to hold so many Ca-nadians hostage. By freeing ourselves fromthe blinding myth that Canada is built onsuch noble values as human rights andmulticulturalism, we may see through the

captivating veils of deception that still col-our the blissfully rosy image of our coun-try as a Peaceable Kingdom.

Uncovering our little-known histo-ry of slavery are academics such as AfuaCooper, the chair of Black Canadian Stud-ies at Dalhousie University in Halifax.“Slavery,” she says, “is Canada’s best-keptsecret, locked within the national closet.And because it is a secret it is written outof official history.”1 Cooper, a Jamaican-born Canadian, goes on to lament that

Scholars have painted a pristine pictureof Canada’s past. It is difficult to find ascholarly or popular publication on thecountry’s past in which images, stories,and analyses of slave life are depicted.... It is possible to complete a graduatedegree in Canadian studies and notknow that slavery existed in Canada.2

To explain why this history has been “sup-pressed or buried,” Cooper says “slaveryhas been erased from the collective uncon-sciousness” because this “ignoble and un-savoury past” serves to “cast Whites in a

Breaking the Bonds of Ignorance and Denial:

Slavery, Genocide, Historical Fiction & other Canadian Values

cultured” country that can act as “a guideto other peoples who seek a path to thepeaceable kingdom.”

Being a professor of Canadian his-tory at Toronto’s York University, Kil-bourn should have known better. Instead,he built grand fantasy-world castles in theclouds by suggesting that Canada wasready “to be a father to a few of the world’slost and abandoned children and a brotherto all mankind.”2

Like so many other scribbling Ca-nadian literati, beguiled by the illusion ofa “two-cultured” kingdom leading a trou-bled world toward sanity, Kilbourn alsowaxed on at length about the great impor-tance of nature and geography to Canadi-ans’ sense of national identity. Remarkably,Kilbourn did this without making even apassing reference to how the vast territoryof Canada was stolen, or from whom.

Realising that wholesale theft is theground upon which this country is built,

Oh say can you see?Canada’s Blindspot for Peaceable Racism

By Richard Sanders

Those enamoured and entrapped bythis country’s pervasive self-delu-sions of peaceableness need to un-

learn what they think they “know” aboutCanada. Only then might such citizens beable to see, let alone criticise, Canada’srole in supporting policies that promotethe whole gamut of depredations that weso gloatingly love to despise in our Ameri-can neighbours.

With an outsider’s eyes, Scott See,a history professor at the University ofMaine, has put Canada’s peaceability un-der the academic microscope:

Deserving of a rigorous inspection isthe ‘peaceable kingdom’ myth, a na-tionalistic legacy growing out of 19th-century convictions as Canadianssought to draw important distinctions

between themselves and their behemothneighbour. The idea flourishes and in-fuses the interpretations of Canada’smost esteemed scholars. In its extremeform, the ‘peaceable kingdom’ ideal rel-egates the malignancies of ethnic, cul-tural, or racial discrimination to the sta-tus of mere aberrations in Canadian his-tory.1 (Emphasis added.)

The “extreme form” of the “peace-able kingdom” myth is far worse than justseeing Canada’s “malignancies” as “aber-rations,” it’s not seeing them at all. A text-book example of this humble hubris is aclassic anthology, Canada: A Guide to thePeaceable Kingdom (1970), edited byWilliam Kilbourn. “I cannot help feeling,”he wrote in his intro, “that Canada, merelyby existing, does offer a way and a hope,an alternative to insanity … in an insaneworld.” Canada, Kilbourn said, is a “two-

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“Slavery is Canada’s best-kept secret”Afua Cooper

Fall 2017 (Issue # 69) Press for Conversion! 31

‘bad’ light.” As a result, she says, the“chroniclers of the country’s past, creatorsand keepers of its traditions and myths,banished this past into the dustbins of his-tory.”3

In whiting out this shameful histo-ry, Canadians like to contrast themselveswith Americans. “[W]e associate the word‘slavery’ with the United States,” saysCooper, “not Canada.”4

George Clarke, a Nova Scotianpoet and playwright, has also decried Can-ada’s naive, self-glorifying image:

The avoidance of Canada’s sorry his-tory of slavery and racism is natural. Itis how Canadians prefer to understandthemselves: we are a nation of good,Nordic, ‘pure,‘ mainly White folks, asopposed to the lawless, hot-tempered,impure mongrel Americans, with theirmessy history of slavery, civil war, seg-regation, assassinations, lynching, riots,and constant social turmoil. Key to thispropaganda — and that is what it is —is the Manichean portrayal of two na-tions: Canada, the land of ‘Peace, Or-der and Good Government’ … whereracism was not and is not tolerated,versus the United States of America, theland of guns, cockroaches, and garbage,of criminal sedition confronted by ag-gressive policing (and jailing), whereracism was and is the arbiter of class(im)mobility.5

But there is a “price” to be paid,Clarke says, for Canada’s “flattering self-portrait” and that “price … is public ly-ing, falsified history, and self-destructiveblindness.”6

Enslaved by Canada’sUnderground-Railroad Myth

A popular self-image held dear by manyCanadians is that this country was a safehaven for American slaves. “The Under-ground Railroad,” says Abigail Bakan, “iscommonly understood as a defining mo-ment in the ideology of the Canadian stateregarding the legacy of racism and anti-racism.” But as Bakan, the chair of Gen-der Studies at Queen’s University, haspointed out, Canada was “far from a Prom-ised Land.”7

Refrains from the sacred Canadi-an hymnal about the Underground Rail-road, repeat the cherished chord that fugi-tive slaves were warmly welcomed citizensof the “True North Strong and Free.” Un-fortunately, the Great White North’s his-tory has been coloured to match whatClarke has called Canada’s “flattering self-portrait.” As Bakan has noted:

popular understanding and retelling ofthe Underground Railroad story,Canada is presumed in its origins andearly history as a nation consistent withmodern notions of inclusiveness andmulticulturalism.8

However, this self image does notmatch historical reality. As Queen’s Uni-versity gender studies professor Kather-ine McKittrick has noted, Canada’s Un-derground Railroad history

is central to the nation’s legacy of ra-cial tolerance and benevolence .… In apost-slave context, this history has beenextremely significant in the production

of Canada’s self-image as a white set-tler nation that welcomes and acceptsnon-white subjects. It has been one ofthe more important narratives bolster-ing perceptions of Canadian generos-ity and goodwill…. This history of be-nevolence, conceals and/or skews co-lonial practices, Aboriginal genocidesand struggles, and Canada’s implicationin transatlantic slavery, racism, and ra-cial intolerance. That is, the Under-ground Railroad continuallyhistoricizes a national self-image thatobscures racism and colonialismthrough its ceaseless promotion of Ca-nadian helpfulness, generosity, andadorable impartiality.9

Afua Cooper has also tried to cor-rect Canada’s self-righteous anti-slaverymyths by saying

we associate Canada with ‘freedom’ or‘refuge,’ because … between 1830 and1860 … thousands of American runa-way slaves escaped to and found ref-uge in the British territories to the north.[T]he image of Canada as ‘freedom’sland’ has lodged itself in the nationalpsyche and become part of our nationalidentity. One result is the assumptionthat Canada is different from and mor-ally superior to that ‘slave-holding re-public,’ the U.S.10

The idea that Canada was “a prej-udice-free haven at the end of the Under-ground Railroad, ... waiting to receive slav-ery’s oppressed victims,” is a “popularmyth”11 said historian Allen Stouffer of St.Francis Xavier University. In truth, formore than a century after Britain outlawedslavery, racism was the law in Canada.

should pull the rug out from under the cher-ished notion that Canada is a “Just Soci-ety.” Without its long history of land plun-der, Canada simply could not exist. Butwhile our stolen landscape forms thephysical basis of Canada’s political geog-raphy, the widespread systemic racismagainst Indigenous peoples — which per-meates French and English heritage — ispart of the colonial mortar that unifies ourmythic Peaceable Kingdom.

Despite this reality, many persist inseeing Canadian history through rose-col-oured glasses that blind them to systemicracism. Constance Backhouse, a legalscholar and historian at the University ofOttawa, writes of “our national mythologythat Canada is not a racist country,” andsays our “ideology of racelessness” is “ahallmark of the Canadian historical tradi-tion.” She explains that, “however fictionalthe concept of ‘race’ may be”:

Canadian history is rooted in racial dis-

tinctions, assumptions, laws, and activi-ties…. To fail to scrutinize the recordsof our past to identify deeply implantedtenets of racist ideology and practiceis to acquiesce in the popular miscon-ception that depicts our country aslargely innocent of systemic racial ex-ploitation. Nothing could be more pat-ently erroneous.3

The ongoing reality of our coun-try’s blindspot for its own racism is clearlyvisible to some Canadians. For example,when Trinidad-born Canadian poet andhistorian, Dionne Brand, gets asked in in-terviews: ‘Is there racism in this country?’”her reply is that

Unlike the United States, where thereis at least an admission of the fact thatracism exists and has a history, in thiscountry [Canada] one is faced with astupefying innocence. We have adeeper problem.4

Backhouse also says that our national“‘mythology of racelessness’ and ‘stupe-fying innocence’… appear to be twin pil-

lars of the Canadian history of race.”5

Canada’s government, many cor-porations, mainstream media outlets andcivil society NGOs regularly reinforce ournaively self-satisfied mythology by pre-senting us with smiling images of a fictivecountry whose citizens are magically in-fused with such “Canadian values” as mul-ticulturalism, human rights and worldpeace.

References1. Scott See, “Nineteenth-Century Collective

Violence: Toward a North Ameri-can Context,” Labour, Spring 1997, p.35.tinyurl.com/yd7nzxdl

2. William Kilbourn (ed.), Canada: A Guideto the Peaceable Kingdom, 1970. p.xi.

3. Constance Backhouse, Colour-coded: ALegal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950, 1999, pp.14, 7.tinyurl.com/y86drmh2

4. Dionne Brand, Bread Out of Stone, 1974,p.178. Cited by Backhouse, p.14.

5. Ibid.

Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 201732

Blacks and Asians were all but bannedfrom entering Canada until 1967 when the“race” barrier was finally removed fromour immigration laws. Racial segregationin schools was legal in Ontario and NovaScotia until the 1960s. Segregation wasalso imposed in the military, and by vari-ous churches, orphanages, poor-houses,hospitals, hotels, restaurants, theatres,parks, pools, beaches, dance halls, rinksand bars.12

Despite this, “most Canadianscould deny to themselves that Canada hada ‘race’ problem,” said political scientistJill Vickers. In Canada, she noted, “the ma-jority of Whites supported segregation”and “Canada’s ‘dirty little secret’ enjoyedwidespread, if covert, support.”13

To derail the prevailing train ofthought about Canada’s underground-rail-way, we must put this popular myth intoreverse. Climb aboard as we look at slaveswho escaped bondage in Canada to gainfreedom in the US.

Canada’s ReverseUnderground Railroad?

During the final decades of the 1700s andthe first decades of the 1800s, some slavesin Canada dreamed of fleeing captivity byescaping to the US! The existence of this“reverse Underground Railroad” wouldsurprise those who cherish the notion thatCanada was always a sanctuary for runa-way slaves.

Although Britain, and hence Cana-da, did finally abolish slavery in 1834, ithad by then already been in remission in

parts of the American northeast for almost60 years. Vermont began to ban slavery in1777, followed by Pennsylvania in 1780and New Hampshire in 1783. Massachu-setts then completely outlawed slavery,while Connecticut and Rhode Island be-gan to follow suit in 1784. Within threeyears, slavery was abolished in Illinois, In-diana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and partof Minnesota. Lagging far behind wasNew York, which stalled until 1799 whenit began the process of abolition. But Ca-nada was much farther behind. Our gov-ernment lagged another 35 years until theorder to ban slavery finally came fromBritain in 1834.14

For years then, while Canada heldon to slavery, New England was a land ofrelative freedom.

Those enslaved by Canada’s ro-manticised legends of the UndergroundRailroad would be surprised to learn thatsome Canadian slaves escaped their bond-age here to find freedom in the US. Coop-er notes that “in Detroit, for example, agroup of former Upper Canadian slavesformed a militia in 1806 for the defenceof the city against the Canadians.” Someformer Canadian slaves soon took up armsto protect Detroit from attacks by Canadi-an forces during the War of 1812.15

Detroit, named after the Frenchword for strait (d’étroit), had previouslybeen within the bounds of New France.As part of the French Empire in North Am-erica, it too was deeply ensconced in thesystem of slavery that pervaded westernEuropean society.

Erasing Slaveryfrom Public Memory

Although slavery in New France, said his-torian Marcel Trudel, “had an official, le-gal existence over two centuries ... between1632 and 1834,”16 it is still practicallyunknown to Canadians. Throughout his ca-reer, Trudel tried to expose this lost histo-ry. “How can slavery in Canada have beenvirtually forgotten?” he asked in 2013.“Historians are surely to blame, whetherbecause they did not examine slavery orbecause they failed even to notice it.”17

Trudel pointed to an “ influentialnineteenth-century nationalist historian,”Francois-Xavier Garneau,18 who “com-pletely misinformed” readers” with an “ex-traordinary distortion of historical truth!”Trudel reveals that Garneau not only“claimed that slavery in Québec was large-ly a British institution,” he also “claimedthe clergy had consistently opposed slav-ery.” Finally, Trudel lambasts Garneau forhaving “left out all mention of ‘savage’slaves.” The result, said Trudel, was thatGarneau’s “erroneous description of slav-ery” helped “society forget the institutionhad ever existed here.”19

Trudel exposed three main fictionsabout Canadian slavery perpetuated byGarneau and others since. Firstly, amongthe documented slave owners, 85.5% wereFrancophone and 14.5% were Anglo-phone.20 Secondly, regarding allegedchurch opposition to slavery, Trudel“could not find any single instance wherethe clergy opposed introducing blacks intoCanada.” In fact, he noted that “in 1720,religious communities joined the rest ofthe population in petitioning IntendantBegon to allow them to import hundredsof blacks.”21 Finally, Trudel’s researchshowed that Indigenous slaves “far out-numbered black slaves.”22

But Canada’s ignorance of slaveryis not the fault of historians alone. As Tru-del’s publisher noted, his

research documents Canadian politi-cians, historians and ecclesiastics whodeliberately falsified the record, glori-fying their own colonial-era heroes, inorder to remove any trace of the thou-sands of Aboriginal and Black slavesheld in bondage for two centuries inCanada.23

In his book Canada’s ForgottenSlaves (2013), first published in 1960,Trudel observed that the history of slav-ery in Canada is “still relatively unknown”and that “we are still met with surprise”and “disbelief” that slavery ever existed

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here. Although the “version of Québec his-tory we have long been told was all aboutmissionaries and spiritualists,” he re-marked, “our colonial past can be likenedto the Thirteen Colonies of America.”24

This blissful ignorance is not new.Trudel noted that slavery left “few tracesin the collective memory and literature ofQuebec,” and only “scattered references”are found in 19th century Québec litera-ture. “Our novelists,” he lamented, “nev-er noticed the presence of slaves” and onlyone “ever bothered to mention slaves.”25

Trudel delved into historical doc-uments to expose lost details of Canadianslavery. He found data on 4,185 slaves,largely in the civil registries of Catholicand Protestant churches which notedslaves if they were baptized. These recordshowever are incomplete because “no lawcompelled owners to baptize their slavesand they were in no hurry to do so.”26

One of the significant but littleknown facts about slaves in New Franceis that most were Indigenous. Of the 4,124documented slaves whose race was record-ed, 35 percent were Black, while 64 per-cent, including 339 children, were Indi-genous.27 Most slaves died young. On av-erage, Indigenous slaves did not even sur-vive to age 18, while Black slaves usuallydied by the time they were 25 years old.28

Although “the institution of slav-ery in Canada was first recognized andamply protected by French law,” Trudelpoints out that slavery was “extended un-der the British regime” after the 1760 Con-quest of New France.29 The 47th Articleof Capitulation stated

Negroes and Panis of both Sexes shallremain in possession of the French andCanadians to whom they belong; theyshall be at liberty to keep them in theirservice in the Colony or sell them; andthey may also continue to bring themup in the Roman religion.30

While Francophones were morelikely to own Indigenous slaves, Anglo-phones favoured Black ones. During theAmerican Revolution (1765-1783), thenumber of Black slaves in Canada “rosesuddenly to well over 600.” This is becausewhen British Empire Loyalists fled northto be warmly welcomed into Canada, thegovernment was happy to let them bringall their property, including their slaves.31

Indigenous slaves were known aspanis because so many of them had beenkidnapped from the Pawnee nation in whatis now Nebraska, Oklahoma and Kansas.As Jacques Raudot, the intendant who ran

the civil administration of New France,wrote in 1709:

It is well known the advantage thiscolony would gain if its inhabitantscould securely purchase and import theIndians called Panis, whose country isfar distant from this one .... [T]he peo-ple of the Panis nation are needed bythe inhabitants of this country for agri-culture and other enterprises that mightbe undertaken, like Negroes in the [Car-ibbean] Islands.32

Over 85% of New France’s Indigenousslaves, whose origins are now known, weretaken captive in the Mississippi River ba-sin.33 Although not all these slaves werePawnee, the term panis was a generic termfor all Indigenous slaves.

The slaves of New France weremost visible in its large urban centres,where 61 percent of all known slaves wereheld.34 Research by Brett Rushforth, a his-torian at the University of Oregon, has re-vealed that by 1709 about 14 percent ofall Montreal households owned an Indianslave. Rushforth also found that panis weremost common in Montreal’s commercialzone. In this area of the city “half of allcolonists who owned a home in 1725 alsoowned an Indian slave.”35

While Québec City had 38 percentof known urban slaves, “Montreal led theway,” says Trudel, with 60 percent. Manywere “acquired from Amerindian nationsthrough the fur trade, Montreal’s economiclifeblood.”36

The Slave / Fur TradeA little-known reality of Canada’s Indige-nous slave trade is its close connection tothe fur trade. In fact, the trade in furs andthe trade in Indigenous slaves were notreally two separate businesses. They wereactually just two sides of the same verylucrative coin.

Trudel hinted at the link betweenthe trade in furs and slaves when remark-ing that slave owners were largely foundin four professions: “colonial officials, mil-itary officers, explorers and fur traders.”These “key groups,” he said, “defined theheyday of slave-owning” in Canada be-cause they were the “most intimately in-volved with native Amerindian nations.”37

Trudel found records showing thatat least 38 voyageurs had 73 slaves, while35 fur traders owned 112.38 Two of the lat-ter made it onto Trudel’s list of Canada’sthirty “leading slave owners”: Jacques-François Lacelle with 16 slaves, and Lou-is Campeau with 11.39

Documented slaves reached a peakof about 500 between 1740 and 1760. Tru-del attributed this

to the importance of the fur trade, whichmade it easier to acquire Amerindianslaves. With the decline of the fur trade,the number of Amerindian slaves thenquickly fell off.40

While Trudel did not delve into thelinks between fur trading and slavery,Rushforth gives many details. Before Eu-ropean contact, some First Nations had atradition of exchanging gifts — includingcaptured enemies — as a form of ritual-ised diplomacy to cement alliances. Rush-forth notes that Indian allies of New Franceinitially offered a few captives “from theirwestern enemies ... as symbolic gifts toFrench merchants associated with the furtrade.”41 While First Nations saw this as away to “negotiate peace” and “strengthenfriendships,” French traders were motivat-ed by strictly commercial goals. Seekingprofits, they encouraged their Indian al-lies to capture more and more slaves.42

Andre Penicaut, who lived inFrance’s American colonies from 1699 to1721, reported in his account of the year1710 that French-Canadians

living among the Kaskaskia Illinoiswere inciting the savage nations ... tomake war upon one another ... in orderto get slaves that they [the French] ...sold to the English.

Rushforth notes that French coureurs debois and their First Nations’ partners, spentmuch of the 1710s “working with Caroli-na traders to bring slaves and furs fromthe western Ohio Valley to southeasternEnglish ports.”43

The colonial administrators of NewFrance saw this movement of pelts andslaves to British markets on the Atlanticcoast as a threat not only to French busi-ness interests but to their strategic allianc-es with First Nations. These military tieswere vital to France’s ongoing war withthe Britain to control North America.

Rushforth cites an English map-maker and author, Jonathon Carver, whorecorded in his 1789 journal that theFrench colony’s increasing demand forIndigenous slaves “caused the dissensionsbetween the Indian nations to be carriedon with a greater degree of violence, andwith unremitted ardor.”44

“As French colonists demanded agrowing number of Indian slaves fromtheir allies,” said Rushforth, “NativeAmerican captive customs also evolved tomeet the new realities of New France’s

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Jobs, Slaves and PeltsIn 1744, La Vérendrye boasted in aletter to King Louis XVI’s minister

of state, that his activities inNew France provided

three main benefits:

“the great number of people myenterprise provides with a living,

the slaves it procures to the colonyand the pelts which had

previously gone to the English.”

his sons owned at least six.47 This howev-er is trivial compared to his overall role inthe acquisition and sale of Indigenousslaves through the fur trade. For example,in 1742, La Vérendrye acquired a particu-larly large number of slaves. Claude-Gode-froy Coquart, a Jesuit missionary who wasaccompanying La Vérendrye’s westernbusiness trip, wrote that their Cree andAssiniboine allies had killed 70 Sioux menplus an undisclosed number of women andchildren. During their four-day battle, theyalso captured so many slaves that Coquartsaid it formed a line four arpents long.48

(Since an arpent was 192 feet, the line ofcaptives from this battle measured 768feet!) When Governor of New France,Marquis de Beauharnois, reported this toLouis XVI’s chief minister, the ComteMaurepas, he said “this will not be goodfor La Vérendrye’s affairs for he will havemore slaves than bundles of fur.”49

But despite close ties to the hor-rors of the slave trade, La Vérendrye’sname can be found across the cultural land-scape on street signs, schools, a hospital,a river and provincial park in Ontario, anelectoral district in Manitoba, a mountainin B.C., and a 12,600 sq.km. wildlife pre-serve in Québec that contains two FirstNation communities.

La Vérendrye’s “memory is espe-cially honoured and celebrated” in Mani-toba, says the Encyclopedia of French Cul-tural Heritage in North America, during“commemorative festivities, cultural

events and the arts.” This onlinesource not only heralds La Véren-drye as “a symbol of courage andthe spirit of adventure,” but alsoas “the archetypal ideal of thevoyageur who ... discovered newwaterways and deftly ran a furtrade operation ....” It also false-ly conflates his brand with Cana-da’s mythology of multiculturalunity by saying that “La Véren-drye is alive and well in the shar-ed memories of a variety of cul-tures and communities — French,English, Métis and Nativealike.”50

La Vérendrye’s no-ble visage is also commemoratedin countless paintings, statues andcivic monuments, as well as on aCanadian postage stamp, and on1,000 solid gold coins producedby the Royal Canadian Mint in2016. Although marketing for

these $2,000 coins, in the “Great Cana-dian Explorers Series,” says that it“[h]ighlights the fundamental role of Ab-original people in Canada,”51 there is nohint that La Vérendrye’s line of work usedwarfare to capture Indigenous slaves.

La Vérendrye did not hide his in-volvement in the despicable business ofslavery. He was in fact proud of his worksupplying Indigenous slaves to the urbanmarkets of Montreal and Québec. LaVérendrye’s boastfulness about buildingthe empire for his French colonial mas-ters was expressed in his 1744 letter toLouis XVI’s minister of state, Maurepas.In describing his valuable contribution toking and colony, La Vérendrye braggedthat there were three main benefits to thevast commercial venture that he foundedand commanded. He listed these as:

the great number of people my enter-prise provides with a living, the slavesit procures to the colony and the peltswhich had previously gone to the Eng-lish ....52

To this, Trudel remarked that by listingjobs, slaves and furs, in that order, LaVérendrye was declaring that he “consid-ered slavery to be the second advantagein importance, ahead of furs.”53

Despite decades of research by afew leading scholars, the closely inter-twined history of fur trade with the tradein Indigenous slaves is still unknown tomost Canadians. Mainstream historysources must share the blame for this col-

slave market.” With the increasing demandfor slaves, “Indian nations increasinglyviewed captives as commodities of trade,”explained Rushforth, “rather than as sym-bols of alliance, power, or spiritual renew-al,” or as a means to “build union and fos-ter peace.” The slave trade was certainly adepraved and corrupting force. Becauseit “rewarded brutality with valuablegoods,” said Rushforth, the French appe-tite for more and more slaves “encouragedthe colony’s [Indigenous] allies to choosewarfare over peace.”45

La Vérendrye:Slave Trader Extraordinaire

A key to the hidden history of the slave/fur trade is a name that inspires romanticmyths of discovery and adventure. Acrossthe continent, Pierre Gaultier de VarennesLa Vérendrye is remembered as a soldier,fur trader and explorer. To finance the ex-pansion of New France, he received theFrench king’s blessings in the form of alucrative monopoly on the fur trade westof the Great Lakes.

While La Vérendrye is portrayedin countless sources as a heroic figure who“opened up” western Canada, little is eversaid — outside a few scholarly articles —about his pivotal role in “opening up”Canada’s slave trade.

Legends about La Vérendrye havebeen perpetuated in many popular fictions,including Canadian history textbooks. AsKarlee Sapoznik, a York University histo-rian, has said:

the historiographical literature whichfocuses on his travels and turbulent in-teractions with Aboriginal peoples is in-complete, for it is marked ... by a tradi-tion of denial and mythology surround-ing the French-Canadian slave trade.46

Trudel showed that La Vérendryehad three or more personal slaves, and that

Fall 2017 (Issue # 69) Press for Conversion! 35

nadian Biography. It notes that “Most his-torians ... for reasons which are not toodifficult to understand, have preferred toignore this aspect of his career.”59

It is however “difficult to under-stand” why Indigenous slavery and its linksto the fur trade, goes unmentioned on theweb sites of the Assembly of First Nations(AFN) and the Truth and ReconciliationCommission (TRC). The AFN websitedoes not reference Canada’s two-centuriesof trade in Indian slaves, or its ties to thefur trade.60

While the TRC website repeats two

general references to the African slavetrade,61 and an honorary witness mentionedslavery in Nazi arms factories,62 it givesno information about the slave trade in Ca-nada. Although the TRC’s final report doescite statements by the UN and the UnitedChurch of Canada which mention that Eu-ropeans enslaved Indigenous people, theTRC does not say that this happened inCanada, let alone provide any details.63

Exporting Slaves tothe War Galleys of France

The French regime in Canada not only al-lowed its subjects to capture Indigenouspeople for use as slaves, it commanded themilitary to seize Indigenous leaders andexport them as slaves to France. This evenpassed as a form of Canadian diplomacy!A good example of this, which took placein 1687, illustrates the double-dealing ofCanadian political authorities in theirpeace negotiations with First Nations. Italso demonstrates the key role played byreligion in the government’s deceitful re-lations with Indigenous peoples.

This story of treachery and intrigueopens with a letter written in 1684 by KingLouis XIV to Joseph-Antoine de La Barre,then Governor General of New France. Inhis letter, the king approved La Barre’splan to attack the so-called “Iroquois Sav-ages,” and agreed to send another ship with300 more soldiers. The king told La Barrethat he wanted to

furnish you means to fight advanta-geously, and to destroy utterly thosepeople, or at least to place them in astate after having punished them fortheir insolence, to receive peace on theconditions which you will impose onthem.64

His goal, the king said, was “to di-minish as much as possible the number ofthe Iroquois” in New France. “[T]hesesavages, who are stout and robust, will,”

Marcel Trudel’s groundbreaking re-search showed that slavery permeatedmost ranks of society in New France.

Government Officials: Some of thehighest ranking officials of New Francewere slave owners. They included at leastfour of the French Regime’s governorsgeneral. Two Intendants also ownedslaves. Intendants ruled the colony’s civiladministration, managing finances, settle-ment, infrastructure, justice and policing.They were also responsible for establish-ing the regulations which governed police,commerce, militia and seigneurial rights

The governors of Trois-Rivièresand Montreal were slave owners. So toowere many members of the ConseilSupérieur, or Supreme Court of Justice.Sixteen of its members — including sixjudges and four crown attorneys — owned43 slaves. Forty seven of the colony’s sen-ior administrators owned 260 slaves.

After the British Conquest in 1760,

the senior officials of the new regime alsoowned slaves. They included 23 membersof the Executive and Legislative Councils(including Francophone and Anglophonemembers), eight judges, and a solicitorgeneral. The colony’s House of Assemblyhad 17 members (including 10 Francoph-ones) who all owned slaves.

Merchants: Under both French and Brit-ish rule, it was merchants who owned themost slaves. About 315 merchants, trad-ers, entrepreneurs or bourgeois were foundto have owned over 830 slaves. Even af-ter the British conquest of 1760, 54 per-cent of this group were Francophone, andthey owned 58 percent of the slaves.

Military: Besides governors, king’s lieu-tenants, General de Levis, and many othertop ranking military men owned slaves.Documents reveal that at least 164 mili-tary officers owned 431 slaves. This meansthat 20 percent of all known slave-ownerswere officers in the military.

Who were the Slave Owners of New France?Professionals: Slaves were held by doc-tors, surgeons, notaries, surveyors, print-ers, interpreters, navigators, ship captainsand even a master sculptor.

Tradespeople: Carpenters, blacksmiths,woodworkers, tanners, tailors, a saddlerand toolmaker were also among the colo-ny’s slave-owning class.

Seigneurs: The feudal lords of NewFrance also owned many slaves. In fact,half of the colony’s 300 seigneurs owneda total of 442 slaves. This made slavery “aregular feature of life in seigneurial man-ors.”

Church leaders and communities:Bishops, priests, nuns and numerous reli-gious communities all owned slaves.

Source: This is a summary of data fromMarcel Trudel’s book Canada’s Forgot-ten Slaves, 2013, “Owners at All Levelsof Society,” pp.105-118.

Despite decades of research by afew leading scholars, the closelyintertwined history of the fur tradewith the trade in Indigenous slavesis still unknown to most Canadians.

Mainstream history sources must sharethe blame for this collective amnesia.

lective amnesia. Let’s look at three key ex-amples that completely whitewash this fac-et of history: The Canadian Encyclope-dia, the Canadian Museum of History, andthe Encyclopedia of French Cultural Her-itage in North America. None of thesesources even mention slavery in their ma-terial on the fur trade.54

The Canadian Encyclopediadownplays Indigenous slavery in Canada.While its main article on slavery, called“Black Enslavement in Canada,” does in-clude limited information on Indigenousslaves, it makes no mention of the furtrade.55 Likewise, the Muse-um of History’s webpage onslavery also neglects any ref-erence to the fur trade.56

While the Encyclopedia ofFrench Cultural Heritage inNorth America does not haveany articles on slavery, a fewof its entries do mention, inpassing, that slaves existed inNew France particularly those of Africanorigin held captive in Louisiana.57

Although these sources boost theLa Vérendrye’s image as a great “explor-er,” they say nothing of his complicity inthe business of seizing and selling Indige-nous people as slaves.58 The fact that Ca-nadian history generally overlooks LaVérendrye’s role in ‘opening up’ the slavetrade is mentioned in the Dictionary of Ca-

Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 201736

said the king, “serve with advantage in mygalleys.” He then urged La Barre “to doeverything in your power to make a greatnumber of them prisoners of war, and ...have them shipped by every opportunity... to France.”65 Being a galley slave aboardone of France’s ships of war was a fateworse than death. Galleys were then rowedby prisoners from French jails and fromthe religious war being fought against prot-estant Huguenots. Describing the 17th cen-tury as “the great age of the galleys,” andnoting that Louis XIV’s galleys had a “par-ticularly bad reputation,” historianW.H.Lewis (brother of novelist C.S.Lewis) said:

Until the coming of the concentrationcamp, the galley held an undisputedpre-eminence as the darkest blot onWestern civilization; a galley, said apoetic observer shudderingly, wouldcast a shadow in the blackest mid-night.66

Governor La Barre suffered defeatby the British-allied Iroquois, who callthemselves the Haudenosaunee. As a re-sult, he was promptly replaced by Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, a noblemarquis who had served France’s militaryfor 30 years. In January 1687, Denonvillesubmitted his plan for a war of terroragainst the Haudenosaunee. He said thatthis war was “absolutely necessary to avert... a General Rebellion of the Savageswhich would bring ruin on our trade andfinally the extirpation of our Colony.” Thiswar was also “necessary for the establish-ment of Religion which will never spreaditself there, except by the destruction ofthe Iroquois.” History, according to hisnarrative, hung in the balance. To avoid“the Ruin of the Country and of Religion,”the king was asked to supply 1,500 troops.This, said Denonville, would ensure “theEstablishment of Religion, Commerce andthe Kings’ Power over all North Ameri-ca.” So, “in the eyes of God, the Gloryand utility,” besides “the Salvation of thequantity of Souls in that vast Country ...,he will secure to himself an Empire ofmore than a thousand leagues.”67

France’s war against the Haudeno-saunee envisioned the destruction of “alltheir plantations of Indian corn.” He alsosaid their villages would be “burnt, theirwomen, their children and old men cap-tured and other warriors driven into thewoods where they will be pursued and an-nihilated by the ... savages” allied to theFrench.68 In March, the king approved De-nonville’s plan saying he looked forward

to “the entire destruction of the greater partof those savages” before year’s end. Tothis he added that “as a number of prison-ers may be made .... His Majesty thinks hecan make use of them in his Galleys.”Then, he asked Denonville to “send thosewhich have been captured,” noting thatthey would “be of great utility.”69

The governor launched his planwith a grand deception, not only of theHaudenosaunee but of Jesuits who hadbeen trying to convert them to Catholicism.The insidious scheme used the pretense ofpeace to entrap Haudenosaunee leadersand throw them into the hellish slavery ofFrance’s war galleys. Denonville used amissionary named Jean de Lamberville tolure Haudenosaunee chiefs into a trap atFort Frontenac in Cataracouy, now King-ston, Ontario. Lamberville, who had beenworking among the Haudenosaunee for 18years, had managed to win some confi-dence among them. Using the naive Jesu-it’s confidence, the governor’s deviousscam worked. Father Lamberville wascalled to Montreal from his mission amongthe Onondaga, a member nation of theHaudenosaunee Confederacy in present-day New York. He was then conned byGovernor Denonville into believing thatthe colonial authorities wanted peace andreconciliation.

Denonville provided him with numer-ous presents for the tribesmen, commis-sioned him to invite representativesfrom the Confederacy to a parley at FortFrontenac and seemed to accept Lam-berville’s conciliatory views. Denon-ville wrote, ‘This poor father does notsuspect our design. He is a clever man;but if I recalled him from his missionour purpose would be suspected and thestorm would burst on us.’70

Although his letter from Versaillessaid “His Majesty has approved ... callingthe Iroquois nations together at Catara-couy,” the king wanted to protect Lamber-ville from being “exposed to the fury ofthose Savages.”71 Denonville risked theJesuit’s life by keeping him in the dark.Lamberville survived thanks to his captor’sfaith that he had been duped into being anunwitting shill in this imperial con game.

While initiating this plan to enslaveunsuspecting Haudenosaunee chiefs, De-nonville was also secretly preparing a siz-able army to attack their villages. In June,he left Montreal with 830 soldiers fromFrance, over 1000 Canadian militia and300 Indians, “including a large contingentof Christian Iroquois from the mission

towns near Montreal.” Along the way,when joined by 160 coureur de bois andnearly 400 from the Ottawa nation, theirtotal reached about 2700.72 In describingthe unleashing of this force, U.S. histori-an Francis Parkman wrote in 1877 that the:

governor issued a proclamation, and thebishop a pastoral mandate. There weresermons, prayers, and exhortations inall the churches. ... The church showered blessings onthem as they went, and daily masseswere ordained for the downfall of thefoes of Heaven and of France.73

Meanwhile, Lamberville had con-vinced “forty-nine chiefs, numerous pinetree chiefs, and two hundred women in-cluding clan mothers” to attend the sup-posed peace conference in early July. Ex-pecting a festive negotiation with the gov-ernor and lavish gift exchanges to finalisetheir much-desired peace treaty, the Hau-denosaunee envoys were seized by troops.Denonville also “allowed his soldiers toloot the many gifts of furs and food thatthe Haudenosaunee were bringing to theconference to seal their goodwill.”74

Denonville’s violent breach of trustdid not end there. Some Haudenosauneevillagers living close to Fort Frontenac,who had long been friendly the French,were also invited to a “feast.” When “thir-ty men and ninety women and children”arrived to celebrate, Parkman says “theywere surrounded and captured by the in-tendant’s escort and the two hundred menof the garrison.” Then, “a strong party ofCanadians and Christian Indians,” weresent out to “secure” the villagers of near-by Ganneious [now Napanee, Ontario].They soon returned with 18 men and 60women and children captives. Other Hau-denosaunee were also “offered the hospi-talities” of the fort and some were “caughtby the troops.” These hostages included“Indian families” of men, women and chil-dren who Parkman surmised had also been“urged ... by the lips of Lamberville, tovisit ... and smoke the pipe of peace.”75

The treatment of these kidnap vic-tims was grisly. Using the first hand ac-count of Louis Lahontan, Parkman de-scribed the scene in Fort Frontenac:

A row of posts was planted across thearea ... and to each post an Iroquois wastied by the neck, hands, and feet.... Anumber of Indians attached to the ex-pedition, all of whom were Christianconverts from the mission villages,were amusing themselves by burningthe fingers of these unfortunates in thebowls of their pipes, while the suffer-

Fall 2017 (Issue # 69) Press for Conversion! 37

ers sang their death songs.76

Of the more than 150 capturedwomen and children, said Parkman, “manydied at the fort.” The survivors were “bap-tized, and ... distributed among the mis-sion villages in the colony.” The men weresent to Quebec City where

some of them were given up to theirChristian relatives in the missions whohad claimed them, and whom it was notexpedient to offend; and the rest, afterbeing baptized, were sent to France, toshare with convicts and Huguenots thehorrible slavery of the royal galleys.77

The success of this heinous crime,in which Father Lamberville “had beenused as an instrument to beguile,” “snare”and “entrap” Haudenosaunee envoys seek-

ing peace, was praised by Bishop of Que-bec, Jean-Baptiste de Saint-Vallier. Hejustified the capture of “almost 200” “sav-ages” as “hostages” and said their capture“pleased God” who had thus “favoured”Denonville for “his piety.”78

Bishop Saint-Vallier was nostranger to holding Indigenous people cap-tive. In fact, this bishop owned his ownpersonal panis, a young slave named Ber-nard, who he brought to the Hotel-Dieude Quebec in 1690.79 Ironically, Saint-Val-lier was later taken hostage himself. In1704, he was captured at sea and — thoughnot forced into slavery, let alone aboard aFrench war galley — he was put underhouse arrest for five years in England by

Queen Anne who used him as a bargain-ing chip to gain the release of Baron deMéan, the dean of Liège, France.80

After baptising and enslaving theHaudenosaunee’s peace envoys and “dis-tributing” hundreds of Indigenous wom-en and children to the already converted“mission villages,” Gov. Denonville con-tinued his brutal war against the Haude-nosaunee. His army went on a rampage,burning and looting Seneca towns and vil-lages of the Confederacy. They not onlydestroyed fields and what Denonville es-timated to be 1.2 million bushels of cachedcorn, they also desecrated Haudenosaun-ee cemeteries by destroying their religioussymbols and even pillaged the corpses for

By Richard Sanders

Comparing religion to a brand ofcultural captivity that — likechattel slavery — ties or binds

people in place, may seem a merely fig-urative use of language. But before dis-regarding tropes that link faith to hu-man bondage, it is worth examining theancient origins of the word “religion.”

“Religion” has its roots in theLatin verb ligare, which literally means“to bind” or “to tie.” The prefix re- sig-nifies “intensive force.” Religion, then,literally means to tie tightly or bind se-curely. In ProtoIndoEuropean (fromwhich Greek, Latin and Sanskrit evolv-ed) the root leig- also meant “to bind.”

Other English words containingthe root ligare also capture the sense ofbeing fastened, tied or bound. These in-clude allegiance, alloy, ally, lien, ligament,ligature, league, loyal and oblige.1 Thewords “law” and “legal” also stem fromligare. This etymological link was ex-plained by Thomas Aquinas in his theo-logical primer on Catholicism. Writing inthe 1260s, Aquinas explained that the word“‘lex’ [law] is derived from ‘ligare’ [tobind], because it binds one to act.”2 Thebinding and confining force of law can alsobe found in English expressions. We are‘bound by law,’ contracts are ‘legally bind-ing,’ and while some work ‘within the con-fines of law,’ others operate ‘outside legalframeworks’ and are said to be ‘outlaws.’

The verb “rely” grew from thesame Latin roots as religion, i.e., re- andligare. “Rely” came into Middle Englishfrom the Old French relier, which meant“to assemble, put together; fasten, attach,

or bind.” In English, “rely” came to mean“turn to” or “associate with,” but nowmeans to “trust, depend on, fall back on,or put confidence in.”3 (Emphasis added.)

Being tied or bound together byone’s confidence in a religious or politicalbelief system, means putting faith in cer-tain institutions and relying on the wordof leaders occupying positions of trust.Placing blind trust in authority figures maylead to abusive relationships in which con-fidence artists can truly prosper.

The leaders of political parties,movements and nations rely on their fol-lowers to have utter confidence in the nar-ratives and beliefs that tie them togetheras a group. Similarly, religions depend ontheir members to have faith in time-hon-oured stories, teachings and unifyingmyths that fundamentalists believe mustbe accepted as the literal truth.

Tied by Faith, Bound by Law, and Reliant on ‘The Word’

While confidence tricks are usual-ly seen as criminal acts committed bysmall-time flimflam artists, the complexoperations of huge political and religiousinstitutions rely on building bonds of con-fidence in a shared social identity or to aparticular understanding of reality.

As such, we must all be wary notto become shackled, like slaves, to elabo-rate political, religious or legal fictions,regardless of how widespread or popularthese institutionalised confidence racketshave become.

References1. Online Etymological Dictionary

www.etymonline.com2. Thomas Aquinas, “Question 90. The es-

sence of law,” Summa Theologiae.www.newadvent.org/summa/2090.htm

3. “Rely,” Oxford Dictionariesen.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rely

by Francisco de Zurbaran(circa 1635)

Agnus Dei(Lamb of God)

Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 201738

grave goods.81

The kidnappings at Fort Frontenac,the enslavement of peace envoys and thedevastation of Seneca communities, pro-voked the Haudenosaunee to respond.Counterattacks included assaults on Can-ada, including one against Lachine inMontreal where 24 were killed and 70-90taken prisoner. “The Governor of Canadahas started an unjust war against all the[five allied] nations,” a Mohawk oratorwas recorded as saying, and the Haude-nosaunee Confederacy have “desired to re-venge the unjust attacks.”82

In 1688, Denonville and his Attor-ney General Ruette d’Auteuil, asked Lou-is XIV to allow the colonists of NewFrance to import African slaves. The kinggranted this on May 1, 1689. Ironically,almost 200 years later, May 1 was first cel-ebrated as International Workers’ Day.May Day activists made radical demandssuch as an 8-hour work day and an end tochild labour. The epicentre of this move-ment was Chicago, Illinois, where 100,000went on strike in May 1886.83 Although“wage slavery” was central to their rheto-ric, they did not know that May 1 waswhen, two centuries earlier, it became le-gal to import African slaves to NewFrance, which then included Chicago.

Christianity and SlaveryWhenever European monarchs delegatedmilitary, political and economic agents tosally forth and extend their empires, thequest for profits from the slave trade wasrarely far behind. For many centuries, theholy institutions of Christendom aided thisgrand imperial enterprise by furnishing thefinest of rationales to promote slavery. Infact, for most of its 2,000-year history, theChurch supplied the key doctrines justify-ing the ethics of human bondage. As theencyclopedia Africana states:

It is a major irony of world history thatChristianity, which teaches the funda-mental equality of all souls before God,condoned for 1800 years the most un-equal of all institutions. The earlyChurch Fathers declared that slaverywas a punishment for original sin. Me-dieval theologians accepted enslave-ment of prisoners in what they classi-fied as ‘just’ wars. In the fifteenth cen-tury the pope denounced the enslave-ment of Christians, while explicitly of-fering up ‘pagans’ as fair game.84

With these Christian excuses in hand, andin mind, well-meaning churchgoing slaveowners and traders could rest easy in thecomforting faith that their complicity in

the business of buying, selling and own-ing slaves was condoned by the Churchand by god.

Besides validating the legitimacyof slavery for almost two millennia, theChurch also practised what it preached.Throughout this period, Christian leadersand their institutions were counted amongthe slave-owning elite.

In New France, “[s]lavery was aformally established institution,” ex-plained Trudel, “and as such the highestauthorities in the colony, both secular andreligious, owned slaves.” As for the colo-ny’s highest religious authorities, Trudel’sresearch “established that senior ecclesi-astics, bishops, priests, religious and mem-bers of religious communities all ownedslaves.”85 By examining the biographiesof the four Bishops named by Trudel, wecan see that they occupied Catholicism’shighest rank in Québec for almost ninedecades: Bishop Saint-Vallier (1685-1727), Bishop Dosquet (1733-1739),Bishop Pontbriand (1740-1760), and Bish-op Plessis (1806-1825).86

The slave-owning clergy listed byTrudel included two Sulpicians, a Recol-let and four secular priests from St-Augus-tin (Québec City), St-Cuthbert (Montréal),Detroit and Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu(near Montréal).87

Besides individual priests, reli-gious orders in New France also held atleast 100 slaves. These included Jesuitcommunities in Québec City, the Sei-gneury of Sault St. Louis (on land takenfrom the Mohawks of Kahnawá:ke southof Montreal), the parish of Saint-François-du-Lac near Trois Rivières, and severalmissions in what is now the US. TheseJesuits had at least 46 slaves. Other slave-owning religious communities were theSéminaire de Montréal and the Brothersof Charity at Louisbourg in Nova Scotia.88

Two religious communities are onTrudel’s list of the top slave-owninggroups in New France. His list of the col-ony’s thirty leading slave owners, includ-ed the Jesuits, and the Seminaire deQuébec which had 31 slaves.89

Canadian nuns also held slaves,including those who ran two hospitals: theHôpital-Général in Québec City which hadan Indigenous girl and a Black man inbondage, and the Hôtel-Dieu in Montréalwhich owned four female slaves: three In-digenous and one Black. Montréal’s con-vent of the Sisters of Notre Dame ownedan Indigenous girl and a Black man.”90

The Slaves of St. MargueriteIndian slaves were also owned by the Sis-ters of Charity (or “Grey Nuns”) which ranMontréal’s Hôpital Général. In fact, “thefoundation of the physical support” for thishospital, says Cambridge historian Wil-liam Foster, was an

impressive variety of unfree laborers:female and male convicts, Indianslaves, self-indentured Canadians, andat least 27 British soldiers taken pris-oner in the Seven Years’ War.91

Foster shows that the Grey Nunswho ran Montréal’s Hôpital Général“formed the apex of a pyramidal structureof over a hundred individuals, mostly men,in various states of dependency.” BesidesIndian slaves, the nuns had indenturedservants who were “bound ... to the com-munity for a specific term of service.”They also had servants called donnés who“obligated themselves legally to serve theGrey Sisters in perpetuity.” The donnés,mostly men, were “not free to leave” andwere the nuns’ “movable property.” Eng-lish prisoners of war, “held against theirwill,” were bought and sold for a profit.These working inmates were “as unfree asany slave on the sister’s property.”92

The Grey Nuns also “imprisonedyoung women of questionable virtue,” heldthem “confined in cells” “designed for thepurpose of correction” and forced theminto a “harsh” and “exhausting scheduleof domestic work.” When the Intendant ofNew France, François Bigot, tried unsuc-cessfully to close down the Grey Nuns’hospital in 1750, he cited complaints fromtheir female inmates.93

The Grey Nuns was founded andled by Marguerite d’Youville. She has beenrevered as a saint by the Catholic churchsince 1990. Foster contests her officialhagiographies by giving voice to thosesubordinated to the rigours of captivity bythe Grey Nuns. Using historical records,Foster constructs counternarratives to con-vey the long-silenced stories of slaves heldby these nuns. This “community of wom-en,” he concludes, “used the redemptionand coercion of captives as an instrumentto accomplish its earthly purposes.”94

As the nuns’ mother superior,d’Youville acquired at least two Indianslaves — a teen and an 11-year old. Theywere among properties given to the nunsby rich donors in the 1760s. The nuns alsohad a Sioux slave baptised in 1774.95

For decades, Mother d’Youvilleowned several slaves of her own, includ-

Fall 2017 (Issue # 69) Press for Conversion! 39

Saint Marguerite

rich

ard

collage

on.111 For 150 years, these nuns were onthe frontline in the genocidal mission toChristianise, Canadianise and “civilise”tens of thousands of Indigenous childrenwhose ties to family, community and cul-ture were tragically broken. This hauntinglegacy of the Grey Nuns still lives on in anation held captive and coerced by the self-deceptive myths of “Canadian values” likedevotion to multiculturalism, justice, free-dom and human rights.

The Laws of Ownership:Catholicism and EnslavementTrudel presents the slave-owning Catho-lic clergy and religious orders of NewFrance as but one segment of a whole so-ciety where human bondage was the norm.(See “Who were the Slave Owners of NewFrance?” p.35.) Other social groups —government officials, merchants, militaryofficers and fur traders — did own moreslaves than those religious professionalswere servants of the Church. While not-ing that “[b]ishops, priests, nuns and mem-bers of religious communities ... owned ahundred slaves,” Trudel called this “a rel-atively small number.” But what is impor-tant, he remarked, is “not the overall num-bers of slaves but the fact that religiousowned slaves at all.”112

While Trudel saw church officialsas a distinct social group that owned rela-tively few slaves, he saw this complicityas inevitable. The church, he suggested,was merely going along with a social sys-tem created by others:

In a society where slavery was sanc-tioned by law, practiced by the mostprominent people, and widely acceptedas a social fact, we do not see why theclergy would have acted differentlyfrom the rest of society: the Church,after all, had the same propertyrights.113 (Emphasis added.)

But the Catholic clergy was notseparate from “the rest of society” and didnot follow the lead of others. Catholicismwas the colony’s central organising force.In fact, it dominated almost all aspects oflife throughout the French empire, includ-ing the laws governing slave owners andtheir “property rights.” The Church wasleading, not following, the masses.

Slavery in the French empire wasgoverned by the Code Noir (1685). Issuedby King Louis XIV, this law regulated en-slavement in the West Indies. No specificCode was issued to deal with slavery inthe northern reaches of New France. Ifsuch a law had existed, said Trudel, it

san

der

s

ing two Indian women bap-tised in 1739 and 1766. Inaddition, she inheritedpersonal slaves fromher husband,96 Fran-çois, after his death in1730. A notarised listof his personal effectsended with these twopieces of property:“Panis by birth, aroundten or eleven years old,value about 150 livres. A sec-ond-calf cow, red undercoat, val-ue about thirty livres.”97 Margue-rite inherited three panis from herhusband’s estate, who Foster says hadprobably “been under her directionfor some time.” These Indian slaveswere “an eleven yearold boy name Pierre,a Patoca male alsocalled Pierre and an-other slave unnamed in the records.”98

On at least two occasions,Marguerite d’Youville fought in courtto gain ownership of a slave. Trudelsays her stepfather, Timothy Sullivan,“accused her in court of having seized”an Indian “slave from him during thenight.”99 Although Trudel says the out-come of this case was not recorded, thestory continues in another case. Fosterreveals how, when Sullivan died in1738, Marguerite was set to inherit hispanis. But Sullivan’s Indian slave wantedto stay with Marguerite’s mother and con-tested the transfer of his ownership to Mar-guerite. Upon defeating his court chal-lenge, d’Youville “took possession of theaudacious slave on the spot.”100

Timothy Sullivan (a.k.a. TimothéeSilvain) was a violent Irish con man andquack doctor who used fake credentialsto pretend that he was of noble stock. Eventhe Intendant of New France, Gilles Hoc-quart, said Sullivan was “a charlatan thatall sensible people ... have abandoned” and“in whom no one has confidence.”101

Marguerite’s husband, François,was another slave-owning scoundrel. Hag-iographic accounts regularly note thatFrançois peddled furs and alcohol. For ex-ample, the Jesuits of Winnipeg, in their2016 “Saint of the Week” biography ofMarguerite, call François “a fur trader andbootlegger who sold liquor illegally to in-digenous people.”102 Such narratives failto note his involvement — and hers — inthe more despicable business of slavery.

Foster called François “atrader in captured slaves”

and “a man plying theslave trade.” WhileFrançois was “official-ly a furrier,” Fostersaid he “made his liv-ing as a dealer in illicitliquor and occasional-ly slaves along the ex-

change routes runningfrom the Saint Lawrence to

the upper Great Lakes.”103

François came into the al-cohol, fur and slave trades

through his father Pierre You Youville.As a soldier, fur trader and voyageur,Pierre was with Robert Cavalier de LaSalle when he “discovered” the Mis-

sissippi, claimed its en-tire watershed forFrance, and named Lou-isiana for Louis XIV.104

Marguerite had even closer links tothe slave/fur trade because she “be-longed to one of the great families ofNew France.” Her mother’s father was

Governor of Trois-Rivières, René Gault-ier de Varennes. His son, Marguerite’s un-

cle, was none other than the infamousPierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye!105

While two of her brothers were priests,Marguerite’s little brother, Christophe,took up the family fur-trade businessand was La Vérendrye’s “second in

command” during expeditions beyondLake Superior in the 1730s.106

Marguerite’s father Christophe, asquire and lieutenant,107 owned a femalepanise from the Great Lakes region whowas born around 1706. After Christophedied in 1708, ownership of this slavepassed to Marguerite’s mother. Thispanise, who remained enslaved for herentire life, died at age 30.108

When John Paul II canonised herin 1990, she became the first Canadian-born female saint. Besides her supposed“miracle” cure of a leukemia patient, Mar-guerite’s main claim to fame was found-ing the Grey Nuns. Beginning operationswith Montréal’s Hôpital Général, they be-came one of Canada’s largest teaching andnursing orders.109

The Truth and Reconciliation Com-mission states that although the Grey Nunshad no credentials qualifying them asteachers,110 they were a dominant forcewithin Catholic-run Indian residentialschools across Canada from the 1840s

Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 201740

would more appropriatelyhave been called “CodeRouge since Amerindianslaves (called ‘rouges’ or red-skins) outnumbered blackslaves.” Although slave own-ers in what became Canadahad no law governing slavery,they “generally compliedwith provisions of the CodeNoir ... even when not re-quired to do so.”114

The Code began withthe king declaring that hereigned “by the grace of God”and “Divine Providence.”The law’s purpose, he de-creed, was not just “to regu-late the status and conditionof the slaves” “in our ameri-can islands,” it was issued to “maintain thediscipline” of the Church. The edict’s firsteight articles show just how closely Ca-tholicism and slavery were shackled to-gether within a single legal system:1. “[A]ll the Jews ... [and other] declared

enemies of the Christian name” mustbe “evicted” “or face confiscation ofbody and property.”

2. All slaves must be “baptized and in-structed” in the Catholic religion.

3. The “public exercise” of other faithswas forbidden and “offenders” were tobe “punished as rebels.”

4. Only Catholics could own slaves “onpain of confiscation of negres.”

5. Those of “the so-called reformed reli-gion” (i.e. Protestants) were forbiddento “disturb or prevent” Catholics, “eventheir slaves,” from “the free exercise”of their religion, “on pain of exempla-ry punishment.”

6. No one, including slaves, could workon Sundays or Catholic holidays “onpain of fine and discretionary punish-ment of the masters and confiscationof the ... slaves.”

7. Slave markets were forbidden fromoperating on Sundays or Catholic hol-idays on pain of fines and the “confis-cation of the merchandise.”

8. NonCatholics could not marry andchildren “born of such [invalid] un-ions” were declared “bastards.”115

A second Code Noire, issued byKing Louis XV in 1724, regulated slaveryin Louisiana. It retained all of the laws reg-ulating strict adherence to the Catholicfaith, not only by slaves but their by theirmasters as well.116

The Mass Captivity of Religion:Identity, Belonging, Education

While Trudel saw the church as one smallslave-owning segment of society in NewFrance, the fact is that — by law — all ofthis colony’s slaves and slave masters hadto be Catholic. Whether they were politi-cians, military officers, professionals,tradespeople or religious leaders, all slaveowners belonged to the Catholic Church.

This concept of social belongingreturns us to the issues of ownership andproperty rights. Just as religious adherentsare said to belong to a faith, their leadersoften possess the reciprocal belief that aschurch authorities they have a duty to con-trol their flocks. In the same way that shep-herds own and command their sheep, thechurch held near absolute dominion overits faithful flock in New France.

The idea that the church should ruleover those belonging to it has been slowto fade away. For example, in 1938, PopePius XI argued that the idea of totalitariangovernments was absurd. As he put it, “ifthere is a totalitarian regime — in fact andby right — it is the regime of the church,because man belongs totally to thechurch.”117 (Emphasis added.) During hisreign (1922-1939), this pope workedclosely with Mussolini’s fascist regime.The totalitarian systems of the Vatican andthe Italian state shared the twin pathologiesof anti-communism and antiSemitism.

For centuries, Catholicism held al-most total control over life in New France,Lower Canada and then Quebec. Citizens,leaders and institutions lived under thepowerful sway of religious authorities andtheir strict doctrines, codes and ideologies.

While the whole society was bound togeth-er by ties to the church, this cultural bond-age did not need to rely on physical con-straints such as fences, walls, bars, chainsor manacles. (See “Tied by Faith, Boundby Law, and Reliant on ‘The Word,’”p.37.) Nevertheless, the church exerted aform of social control that held individu-als, organisations and the governmentfirmly in place. So strong was the bond-age of this religious social order that it isnot unreasonable to liken the life of thiscolony’s subjects to the sorry lot of slaves.

The colonial subjects most tightlybound by the church were those belong-ing to religious orders. Among them weresuch nuns as Catherine de St. Augustin andMarie de l’Incarnation who took vows as“slaves of Mary.”118 The former was in-strumental in founding the Hôtel-Dieu deQuébec, while the latter was the mothersuperior of the first Ursuline Order. Bothorders owned slaves.119 The Ursulines, intheir fervour to convert “savages,” startedsome of Canada’s first residential schools.“We met many savages when we wentashore,” said Marie de l’Incarnation, uponarriving from France in 1639, and theywere “amazed when told that we had cometo teach their children.”120

While the subjects of New Francewere ritually bound together and to theirpriests by the liturgy of the mass, the cap-tivating beliefs which tied them tightly toCatholicism were imposed at an early ageby church control of all formal education.For centuries, the parish clergy and mis-sionaries — including Jesuits, Récolletsand Ursulines — provided religious in-doctrination as well as basic lessons in

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their families and home communities,”said the chair of Canada’s Truth and Re-conciliation Commission, “seven genera-tions of aboriginal children were deniedtheir identity through a systematic and con-certed effort.” The purpose, continued Jus-tice Murray Sinclair, was “to extinguishtheir culture, language and spirit.”121 Be-sides enforcing genocide and a slavish de-votion to religious beliefs, these Christianfacilities had another nefarious function.They were part of a Canada-wide schemeto exploit Indigenous children and youthas a valuable source of forced labour.

As such, these “schools’ kept Ca-nada’s vile institution of slavery alive andwell for 150 more years. While allegedlydedicated to civilising, Christianising andCanadianising inferior cultures, they pro-vided benevolent cover stories to justifyand legitimise the genocidal intent of co-lonial elites. And, by perpetuating the slav-ery of Indigenous people under the guiseof education, these “schools” protectedCanada’s duplicitous self-image as a lov-ing force for goodness and Godliness.

The institutionalised, nation-build-ing myth that Canada is a Peaceable King-dom is this country’s most potent and uni-fying political mass delusion. Functioningas a sacred truth within Canada’s officialstate religion, this mythology captures ad-herents within an ideological system akinto cultural slavery. These self-righteous be-liefs not only help to bind Canadians to-gether as a fictive nation, they provide animportant social-defence mechanism thatshields believers from the realisation thatin the fervour to help others, Canada hassometimes denigrated and abused them.

By examining historic truths abouthow Canadian churches and the state col-laborated to capture, enslave and assimi-late Indigenous peoples and others, wemay be able to free ourselves from the cap-tivating yet fictive myths that form thecultural foundation of Canada itself.

arithmetic, history, natural science, read-ing and writing. The inculcation into Cath-olic teachings helped ensure the absorp-tion of children into the body of the churchby securing their early commitment to the“true faith.” Church-run schools were aprimary means of ensuring the servility ofcolonial subjects to religious authoritiesthat dominated social life in New France.

Besides controlling all levels of thelimited schooling available to colonists,Catholics created the first schools for In-digenous children in what is now Canada.From 1620 to 1680, Catholic boardingschools oversaw the supposed civilisationof savages who were deemed inferior, ifnot evil. By cutting links between Indianchildren and their families, communitiesand cultures, these institutions were seenas the best way to compel obedience tochurch authorities and doctrines. In short,residential schools were tools of subjuga-tion and assimilation. This put Catholicsat the forefront of Canada’s centuries-long,genocidal mission to dominate and destroyIndigenous cultures.

In the early 1830s, just as slaverywas officially outlawed throughout theBritish empire, Indian residential schoolssprang up and were spread like a culturaldisease across the Canadian colonies.Catholic and Protestant churches alikespawned these facilities in order to sup-posedly “uplift” Indigenous people withthe advanced moral traditions and workhabits of Canada’s mainstream society.While the United Church and its Method-ist and Presbyterian forebears operated atenth of Canada’s Indian residentialschools, the Anglicans ran 30 percent, and60 percent were under Catholic control.

Before the last of these institutionsof genocide was finally closed in 1996,more than 150,000 First Nations, Métisand Inuit children had been forced intocaptivity within Canada’s 139 state-fund-ed residential schools. “Removed from

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Canada,” Gender and Women’s Studies inCanada: Critical Terrain, M.H.Hobbs andCarla Rice (eds.), 2013, p.254.books.google.ca/books?id=t5PlT9B4CM0C

2. Ibid., p.255.3. Afua Cooper, The Hanging of Angélique:

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4. Cooper 2013, ibid.5. George Elliott Clarke, “Foreword,” in

Cooper 2006, p.xii.6. Ibid.7. Abigail Bakan, “Reconsidering the Under-

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8. Ibid.9. Katherine McKittrick, “Freedom is a Secret:

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12. Constance Backhouse, Colour-coded: ALegal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950, 1999.books.google.ca/books?id=BZlsTAH7GWIC

13. Jill Vickers, The Politics of Race: Canada,Australia, the U.S., 2002, p.73.books.google.ca/books?id=AzQq-yiZ3k0C

14. Abolition of slavery timelinetinyurl.com/ytc6cm

15. Cooper 2013, op. cit., p.264.16. Marcel Trudel, Canada’s Forgotten Slaves:

Two Hundred Years of Bondage, 2013,p.254.

17. Ibid., p.268.18. Ibid., p.103.19. Ibid., pp.268-269.20. Ibid., p.103.21. Ibid., pp.111-112.22. Ibid., p.269.23. Ibid., back cover.24. Ibid., pp.270-271.25. Ibid., pp.266-267.26. Ibid., p.260.27. Ibid., p.63.

Preamble to the Constitution of Canada’s Charter ofRights and Freedoms (1982): “Whereas Canada is foundedupon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”

O Canada!Land of our ancestors

Glorious deeds circle your browFor your arm knows how to wield the sword

Your arm knows how to carry the cross;Your history is an epic

of brilliant deedsAnd your valour steeped in faith

Will protect our homes and our rights.(Translation of the

official French version.)

colla

ge: r

icha

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O Canada!Our home and native land!True patriot love in all thy sons command.With glowing hearts we see thee rise,The True North strong and free!From far and wide,O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.God keep our land glorious and free!O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.(Official English version.)

Press for Conversion! (Issue # 69) Fall 201742

28. Ibid., p.136.29. Ibid., p.57.30. William R. Riddell, “The Slave in Canada,”

The Journal of Negro History, July 1920,Vol.V, No.3, p.268.

31. Trudel, op. cit., p.76.32. In Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance: In-

digenous and Atlantic Slaveries in NewFrance, 2012, p.395.

33. Trudel, op. cit., p.70.34. Ibid., p.78.35. Brett Rushforth, “The Origins of Indian

Slavery in New France,” The William &Mary Quarterly, Oct.2003, pp.802, 777.www.jstor.org/stable/3491699

36. Trudel, ibid., p.84.37. Ibid., p.27.38. Ibid., pp.107-108.39. Ibid., p.117.40. Ibid., p.76.41. Rushforth, op. cit., p.793.42. Ibid., p.798.43. Ibid., p.799 .44. Three Years Travels through the Interior

Parts of North America, 1798, p.177. InRushforth, op. cit., p. 808.

45. Ibid.46. Karlee Sapoznik, “Where the Historiogra-

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47. Trudel, op. cit., p.108.48. Yves F. Zoltvany, “Gaultier de Varennes et

de La Vérendrye, Pierre,” Dictionary ofCanadian Biography, 1974.tinyurl.com/y8tpn89p

49. Ibid.50. Denis Combet, “La Vérendrye: Archetypal

Ideal of the Voyageur.”tinyurl.com/y8p6lj6a

51. Pure Gold Coin – Great Canadian ExplorersSeries: Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendryetinyurl.com/y827xnda

52. Zoltvany, op. cit.53. Trudel, op. cit., p.58.54. Fur Trade, Canadian Encyclopedia

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Economic Activities: Fur Trade, HistoryMuseumtinyurl.com/y82hkrvm

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55. Black Enslavement in Canada.tinyurl.com/yc2trvqx

56. Population: Slavery, History Museumtinyurl.com/jc92tew

57. Key word search within this sourcetinyurl.com/ydhdgsgo

58. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de LaVérendrye, Canadian Encyclopediatinyurl.com/yazbcopr

The Explorers: Pierre Gaultier de Varenneset de La Vérendrye, History Museumtinyurl.com/ycjozemz

Combet, op. cit.59. Zoltvany, op. cit.60. Keyword search of the AFN website

tinyurl.com/yakhepfq61. What We Have Learned: Principles of

Truth and Reconciliation, 2015, p.15.tinyurl.com/zln9dsj

Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for theFuture, 2015, p.47.books.google.ca/books?id=-rA9CgAAQBAJ

62. Honourary Witness, Robert Waisman, Jew-ish Holocaust Survivor, p.331tinyurl.com/ybpqvcj3

63. Honouring the... Op. cit., pp.193-194.64. “Extract of a letter addressed by Louis XIV

to Monsieur de la Barre, July 21, 1684,”The Documentary History of the State ofNew-York, Vol.1, E.B. O’Callaghan (ed.),1850, p.72.books.google.ca/books?id=nEtSAAAAcAAJ

65. Ibid., p.7366. W.H. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Life

in the France of Louis XIV, 1957, p.214.tinyurl.com/ychn4k3g

67. “Memoir of the Marquis of Seignelay,”O’Callaghan, op. cit., pp.320-321.books.google.ca/books?id=rixTAAAAcAAJ

68. Ibid., p.321.69. “Extracts from a Memoir of the King,”

Versailles, Mar. 30, 1687, O’Callaghan, op.cit., p.322.

70. C.J.Jaenen, “Lamberville, Jean de,” Dic-tionary of Canadian Biography, 1969.tinyurl.com/y9cpcfnv

71. “Extracts from a Memoir...” ibid.72. Daniel P. Barr, Unconquered: The Iroquois

League at War in Colonial America, 2006,p.87.books.google.ca/books?id=vi1ROx0PmI4C

73. Francis Parkman, France and England inNorth America, Part 5, Count Frontenacand New France under Louis XIV, 1877,p.138.

74. Barbara Alice Mann, Native AmericanSpeakers of the Eastern Woodlands: Se-lected Speeches and Critical Analyses,2001, p.44.tinyurl.com/yc9vk3so

75. Parkman, op. cit., p.141.76. Ibid., pp.139, 14277. Ibid., p.139.78. Jean Baptiste de La Croix de Chevriers De

Saint-Valier, Estat present de l’Eglise et dela Colonie Françoise dans la NouvelleFrance, 1856, pp.91-92.books.google.ca/books?id=OTlfAAAAcAAJ

79. Trudel, op. cit., pp.27, 112.80. Alfred Rambaud, “Jean-Baptiste de La

Croix de Chevrières de St-Vallier,” Diction-ary of Canadian Biography, 1969.tinyurl.com/ybnzf3vq

81. Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of theLonghouse: The Peoples of the IroquoisLeague in the Era of European Coloniza-tion, 1992, p.158.

82. Ibid., pp.159-160.83. Eric Chase, The Brief Origins of May Day,

1993.tinyurl.com/y9vgsk2l

84. John Burdick, “Catholic Church in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean,” Africana:Encyclopedia of the African and AfricanAmerican Experience, Anthony Appiah and

Henry Gates, Jr. (eds.), 2004, p.772.tinyurl.com/ya3z33fb

85. Trudel, op. cit., pp.104, 26986. See separate entries for these bishops in

Dictionary of Canadian Biographywww.biographi.ca

87. Trudel, op. cit., pp.112-113.88. Ibid., pp.112-113, 115.89. Ibid., p.11790. Ibid., pp.114-115.91. William Henry Foster, The Captors’ Nar-

rative: Catholic Women and Their PuritanMen on the Early American Frontier, 2003,p.91.tinyurl.com/yctxncpq

92. Ibid., pp.91-100.93. Ibid., pp.97-98.94. Foster, op. cit., p.106.95. Trudel, op. cit., pp.114, 258.96. Ibid., pp.114-115.97. Ibid., pp.85-86.98. Foster, op. cit., p.96.99. Trudel, op. cit., p.99.100. Foster, op. cit., p97.101. Peter Moogk, “Timothy Sullivan,” Dic-

tionary of Canadian Biography, Vol.3,1974.tinyurl.com/y925mgqf

102. “Saint of the Week,” Community of St.Ignatius, Winnipeg, Oct. 16, 2016.tinyurl.com/y9j3g3pk

103. Foster, op. cit., p.95.104. Person Sheet, Pierre You

tinyurl.com/y8q2yun5105. Claudette Lacelle, “Dufrost de

Lajemmerais, Marie-Marguerite,” Diction-ary of Canadian Biography, 1979.

tinyurl.com/ydyrjymc106. Antoine Champagne, “Dufrost De La

Jemerais, Christophe,” Dictionary of Ca-nadian Biography, Vol.2, 1969.

tinyurl.com/ybept8sc107. Person Sheet, Christophe Dufrost

tinyurl.com/ydf69p6l108. Foster, op. cit., p.76.109. Canada’s Residential Schools: History,

Origins to 1939, Vol.1, 2015, p.90.tinyurl.com/yb3zgbhj

110. Ibid., p.96.111. Ibid., p.89.112. Trudel, op. cit., p.115.113. Ibid., pp.111-112.114. Ibid., p.122.115. The “Code Noir” (1685)

tinyurl.com/ybxurtak116. Louisiana’s Code Noir (1724)

tinyurl.com/y6uzupyh117. David Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini:

Secret History of Pius XI & the Rise ofFascism in Europe, 2014, p.153.tinyurl.com/ybdmnn2y

118. Cornelius John Jaenen, The RelationsBetween Church and State in New France,1647-1685, 1962, p.578.

119. Trudel, p.115.120. Robert Carney, “Aboriginal Residential

Schools before Confederation: The EarlyExperience,” Historical Studies (Canada),61, 1995, p.13.

121. Canada’s Residential..., op. cit., p.vii.