Past and Present African Canadians and Natives in Canada

Past and Present African Canadians and Natives in Canada

Cindy Jones

June 18, 2009

Canada is extremely ethnically diverse and these ethnicities have made great strides towards equality. There are two minority groups however, who have been living in Canada the longest yet they are still having to battle for everything. Native Canadians and African Canadians have been in Canada the longest out of all minority groups yet everyday they face adversity. They struggle to advance in society because of prejudice and racism that may not be blatant, but is there in the undertones of the way people act. History shows us what has happened to the Natives and Africans that resulted in prejudice and society shows that there are obvious differences between these two groups and other minority groups, and finally, today, these issues are starting to be addressed and combatted.

The Africans that arrived in Canada centuries ago were not willing participants in their immigration. They were brought to Canada and the United States as slaves for the European society. There is evidence that there were black slaves present in Canada since at least 1632 but the abundance of slavery didn’t start until after that (Shepard, 1997, p.10). The Black people were deemed suitable slaves because the European society thought that they were better than them. Fundamentally, black and white are opposites. Black tended to represent evil and white represented good. For white people to own black slaves was a physical representation of the domination of good over evil (Shepard, 1997, p.8).

Throughout the age of slavery there were numerous anti-slavery protests that occurred among European society. One would think that these anti-slavery protests were a good thing; that the Africans were finally getting the support that they needed and that people started to think of them more as equals. This was sadly, untrue. The reason why European society protested slavery was simply because they no longer wanted...