"We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up": Essays in African Canadian Women's History [cloth bound ed.] 0802059430, 9780802059437

Citation preview

—

Were Rooted

Here

ana They

Cant Pull

mup

J

l

ftCPL

ITEM

JISCARDED African Canadian. Womens History

Peggy Bristow, coordinator Dionne Brand Linda Carty Afua P. Cooper Sylvia Hamilton Adrienne Shadd

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2016

https://archive.org/details/wererootedherethOObris

'We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up': 0

Essays in African Canadian

Women's History PEGGY BRISTOW,

Coordinator

DIONNE BRAND LINDA CARTY AFUA P. COOPER SYLVIA HAMILTON ADRIENNE SHADD

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

:

© The Authors 1994 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada

ISBN 0-8020-5943-0 ISBN 0-8020-6881-2

(cloth)

(paper)

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing

Main

entry under

in Publication

Data

title:

We're rooted here and they can't pull us up essays in African Canadian women's history Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8020-5943-0 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-6881-2 1.

Women,

Black - Canada - History.

I.

(pbk.)

Bristow,

Peggy

FC106.B6W4 1994 F1035.N3W4 1994

305.48'896071

C94-930606-1

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CONTRIBUTORS

vii

ix

Introduction 3 1

Naming Names, Naming Ourselves: Black Women in Nova Scotia 13 SYLVIA

A

Survey of Early

HAMILTON

2

'The Lord seemed to say "Go" ': Women and the Underground Railroad Movement 41

ADRIENNE SHADD 3

'Whatever you raise in the ground you can sell it in Chatham': Black Women in Buxton and Chatham, 1850-65 69

PEGGY BRISTOW 4 Black

Women

and

Work

Nineteenth-Century Canada West: Black Woman Teacher Mary Bibb 143

AFUA

P.

COOPER

in

vi

Contents

5

'We weren't allowed to go into factory work until started the war': The 1920s to the 1940s 171

Hitler

DIONNE BRAND 6 African Canadian please'

Women

and the

193

LINDA CARTY PICTURE CREDITS 230 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 231

State:

'Labour only,

Acknowledgments

Just as the slave

women who,

in the darkness of night, clan-

destinely taught slaves to read and write, this birth after hours, after

we

book was given

finished our paid work, after

we

put our children to bed and tended to our other roles in our families and communities. However, there are many individuals who supported and encouraged this endeavour through their assistance in providing information and leads, and in locating numerous documents and photographs. In particular, we acknowledge the efforts of Ruth Edmonds Hill, audiovisual coordinator of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Elise Harding Davis, curator of the North American Black Museum, Amherstburg, Ontario; Alice Newby, curator of the Raleigh Township Centennial Museum, North Buxton, Ontario; Gwendolyn Robinson, author and researcher, Chatham, Ontario; Everette Moore, Ontario Black History Society, Toronto; the staffs of the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, and the Archives of Ontario, Toronto (in particular Leon Warmski of the latter); and Gail Benjafield, Special Collections, St Catharines Public Library, St Catharines, Ontario. We are especially grateful to Pat Murphy for her sharp editorial skills

and expertise.

who

We

would

also like to

thank

and collaborated in the initial stages of the manuscript. Thanks also are due to our supportive friends Beulah Worrell and Lucy Tantalo, and

Annette Henry,

started out with us

viii

Acknowledgments

our families for their unending support of our work in the time spent away from them: to Marishana, Majorie, Alyson and family, Anthony, Terrence, Malcolm, Andrew and Aunt Lyla (Annie), Shani, Bev, mother Marie and sisters Ada and Janet, Akil, Lamarana, and Alpha. No work is without struggle and we have had our share. We are indebted to Peggy Bristow, who first had the idea for this book and was the glue that held the project together, coordinating it from its inception, and persevering with us through its various stages right to the end. Finally, we thank the University of Toronto Press, especially History Editor Gerald Hallowell, Laura Macleod, Agnes Ambrus, and John St James for their support.

Contributors

peggy bristow has given workshops on the integration of Black women's studies in the secondary-school curriculum. She is on the advisory board of Resources for Feminist Research / Documentation sur la recherche feministe. Her most recent writing on African Canadian women's organizations appears in in

And

Still

We

Rase: Feminist Political Mobilizing

Contemporary Canada edited by Linda Carty. ,

Centre for Women's Studies

A researcher

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, she is currently pursuing doctoral studies in the Department of History and Philosophy at OISE. at the

dionne brand

at the

Toronto writer. She was born in the Caribbean and has lived in Toronto for the past twenty years. She has an in Philosophy of Education and is working on is

a

MA

Ph.D. in Women's History. Brand has published five books of poetry. Her poems and other writing have appeared in several Canadian journals, including Poetry Canada Review, where her columns on Caribbean poetry have also appeared. Her poetry is included in various anthologies including the Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse and Poetry by Canadian Women (Oxford). Her book of poetry No Language Is Neutral was nominated for the Governor General's Award in 1991. Brand is the associate director and writer of the NFB Studio D documentaries Older, Stronger, Wiser and Sisters in the a

x

Contributors

Her most recent publication is No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario 1920s-1950s Struggle.

,

(1991).

linda carty is

who

teaches at the University of Michigan, Flint Campus. She has taught in women's studies programs at the University of Toronto and Oberlin College in Ohio. number of her publications address the structural location of women of Colour in advanced capitalist countries and Third World countries, the state and economic development in the Caribbean, and the historical significance of colonialism and imperialism to the international division of labour. Recent publications include And Still We Rise: Fema sociologist

A

Mobilizing in Contemporary Canada (Women's Press 1993), 'Women's Studies in Canada: A Discourse and Praxis of Exclusion,' in Resources for Feminist Research (1992), and 'Black Women in Academia: A Statement from the Periphery,' in Unsettling Relations (Women's Press/South inist Political

End).

afua cooper

Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Toronto, where she is doing research on Ontario Black women's history. As well, she has done extensive research on Black teachers and Black education in nineteenth-century Ontario. Afua lectures on a continuous basis on aspects of Canadian Black history throughout the province of Ontario. In addition, she has published three books of poetry, the last of which, Memories Have Tongue, was the first runner-up in the prestigious Casa de las Americas Award (1992). Her poetry has been published in several anthologies in Great Britain, North America, and the Caribbean. She has given numerous readings throughout Canada and beyond. is

a

Hamilton is a filmmaker and Nova Scotia. Her primary area

writer who lives in Halifax, of interest is the social and cultural history of people of African descent in Nova

Sylvia

Contributors

xi

with a focus on the history of African Nova Scotian women. She researched, wrote, and co-directed the awardwinning documentary Black Mother Black Daughter (1989), an exploration into the lives and experiences of Black women in Nova Scotia. She researched and directed Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia (1993), a documentary about issues facing African Nova Scotia youth. Both films were produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Her historical and literary writings have been published in anthologies, newspapers, and journals. She is pursuing a master's degree in education at Dalhousie University and continuing her work in film and video production. Scotia,

adrienne shadd was born

North Buxton, Ontario, a descendant of nineteenth-century abolitionist and newspaperwoman Mary Ann Shadd Cary. She obtained a BA from the University of Toronto and an MA in sociology from McGill in

University in Montreal. Shadd is a freelance researcher and writer whose work includes articles on the regional dynamics of racial inequality and the history of Black women in Canada. She is formerly research editor and contributor to Tiger Lily, a journal by women of Colour. In addition, she was recently the guest editor of a special issue of the International Review of African American Art, entitled 'Celebrating the African Canadian Identity' (Fall 1992). She is currently working on several book projects, including a history of Black women in Canada.

•v

—

TO BE SOLD, BLACK WOMAN,

named

PEGGY,

aged about forty years ; and a Black boy Her fon, named JUPITER* aged about fifteen years, both of them the property of the Subfcriber.

The Woman

a tolerable Cook and wafher woman and perfe&ly underftands making Soap and Candles. The Boy is tall and ftrong of his age, and has been employed in Country bufinefs, but brought up principally as a Houfe Servant They are each of them The Price for the Wowan is one Servants foT life. hundred and fifty Dollars for the Boy two hundred Dollars, payable in three years with I nte reft from the day of Sale and to be properly fecured by Bond &c. But one fourth lefs will be taken in ready Money* is

—

—

PETER RUSSELL. York, Feb. loth 1806. woman

and son advertised for auction sale by owner Peter Russell, member of Executive Council in Ontario Enslaved

Harriet to

Tubman

(

1

820?— 1 913)

is

the best-known 'conductor'

have worked on the Underground Railroad.

Maria

Weems

escaping in male

attire.

From William

Still's

Underground Rail Road Records

*

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

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