Who Was The Last Slave In Ontario Or Kingston?
Right: Levi Veney, ex-slave who lived in Amherstburg, taken at J. D. Burkes’ store, 1898. Archives of Ontario. Click for large view. I am not one of those anti-MSM, “the boogiemen are just round that corner now that Democrats are here” sorts of persons that have been so tediously active in the blogosphere in the last 24 hours…but when I heard a self-congratulatory reference in a CBC radio piece suggesting Canada not having a history of race issues as had the USA, it did grate on the ears. Reminded me to switch stations. But it got me thinking…there must have been a last slave in Canada. We traded in human souls with the best of them before a certain date, before the long path to today began. Google Books to the rescue with the 1869 book History of the Settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario), with Special Reference to the Bay of Quinté by Wm. Canniff. where we read at page 574:…when the British Act of Emancipation was passed, in 1833, setting free the slaves in all parts of the Empir
