Thread by @TODreamsProject

1. This is the Queen's Hotel. It once stood on Front Street in Toronto. During the American Civil War, it was filled with Confederate soldiers and spies — from there, they plotted to win the war & preserve slavery.

Here's a thread about Torontonian support for the Confederacy.

2. When the Civil War began, slavery in Toronto had been over for just 27 years. The city was built with the help of slave labour. Families like the Jarvises & the Russells enslaved families like the Pompadours.

3. Since then, Toronto had become a relatively safe haven for those fleeing slavery along the Underground Railroad, thanks to people like Thornton & Lucie Blackburn — along with White allies like George Brown & his Globe newspaper.

4. Anti-slavery activists used Toronto as a meeting place; it played a helpful role as a largely abolitionist city just across the lake from the U.S.

The new St. Lawrence Hall on King Street hosted anti-slavery lectures & conferences. Frederick Douglass once spoke there.

5. When the war broke out, tens of thousands of Canadians joined the Union Army. There wasn't a major battlefield in the entire war where Canadians didn't fight.

Thousands of them were Black — as many as 13% of all the Black residents of Canada West (Ontario) joined the cause.

6. Anderson Ruffin Abbott, for instance, was the first Black Canadian to graduate from medical school. He left Toronto for Washington D.C., where he ran a hospital in a refugee camp & became friends with Abraham Lincoln.

7. But Dr. Abbott — and every other Canadian who joined the Union war effort, fighting to end slavery — was breaking the law.

8. The British Empire was officially neutral during the war, refusing to the support the Union against the Confederacy. That meant the Canadian colonies were neutral too. Canadians were banned from supporting either side.

9. As the war dragged on, the Confederacy saw Canada's neutrality as an opportunity to open a second front — a base from which they could launch attacks against the North.

The grey coats of Confederate soldiers soon became a familiar sight on Toronto's streets.

10. The Queen's Hotel — which stood where the Royal York does today — became the Confederates' Toronto HQ.

They rented out the entire place, more than a hundred of them, plotting against the Union from the lobby & the hotel bar.

11. Confederates based out of Toronto launched raids across the Great Lakes, attacked Union ships & firebombed targets in New York City. They plotted to kidnap the vice president & spent spies across the border carrying secret messages sewn into the linings of boots and collars.

12. Some Toronto Confederates were even involved in biological warfare, sending trunks full of clothes infected with yellow fever into major cities of the North, planning to give one to Abraham Lincoln — only to discover yellow fever can't be transmitted that way.

13. Many Canadians supported the South. Most of Toronto's leading citizens were on the side of the Confederacy, along with the vast majority of Canada's newspapers, including the Toronto Leader.

14. When the South won a big, Canadian parliament broke out in cheers. A visiting Union soldier was jeered in the streets of Toronto. When he walked into a saloon, he was met by the mocking strains of "Dixie". A Torontonian made the Greek fire used to bomb targets in New York.

15. Toronto wasn't alone. In Saint John, hundreds threw a parade to celebrate a Southern victory, flying Confederate flags. Haligonians helped capture a Union ship; a mob made sure they weren't arrested for it. Southern soldiers used Montreal as a base to rob banks in Vermont.

16. And while most Canadians who fought in the war fought for the Union, plenty joined the Confederate army, too.

17. Many Canadians worried that a strong & united United States would eventually invade Canada again, just like they did in the War of 1812. Others simply admired the Southern way of life. And some came from slave-owning families themselves.

Families like the Denisons.

18. The Denisons were one of the city's founding families, settlers who enslaved a woman named Amy Pompadour at their home on Front Street & their country manor — she was "given" to them as a "gift" from the Russells.

19. Decades later, their great-grandson became Toronto's most notorious Confederate supporter: George Denison III.

His uncle was a Southern secret agent. His parents hosted Confederate leaders at their country manor near Bloor & Dovercourt. And he would go even further.

20. Denison didn't just welcome Southern leaders into his home, he actively supported the Confederates: helped them buy a steamship to carry out their raids across the lakes, hid spies at his country manor, contributed to their plots & provided them with transport.

21. After the war, Denison was investigated for breaches of neutrality, but acquitted.

He even got to keep his seat on Toronto City Council — did I mention he was an alderman? — where he was the lone vote against a motion expressing sympathy after the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

22. When Jefferson Davis, president of the defeated Confederacy, came to live in Canada after being released from prison, Denison gathered thousands of Torontonians to give him a warm welcome. He scrambled up onto a coal heap to lead the cheers.

And that was just the beginning.

23. Soon, Toronto's most notorious Confederate was recruited as a police magistrate. For half a century, he presided over his fellow citizens with the powers of a judge. All the way into the 1920s.

24. Denison openly admitted that he often based his decisions on his gut — and that his gut didn't care much for the city's Black residents.

In one decade alone, he tried about 30,000 cases. Only one of those decisions was overturned on appeal.

25. He became a founder of the "Canada First" movement — as racist as it sounds — and when the Canadian government sent troops west to crush Louis Riel's North-West Rebellion, Denison was one of them.

There's still a memorial to those Toronto troops standing in Queen's Park.

26. And a century later, you'll still find traces of the Denisons all over the west end of Toronto.

The family name lives on in Denison Ave — it was their driveway.

Their country manors are remembered by Dovercourt Road & Rusholme Road, by Bellevue Avenue & Bellevue Square.

27. Brookfield Street remembers the country estate where Amy Pompadour was once enslaved.

George's own manor, Heydon Villa — where he plotted with his Confederate friends & hid Southern spies — is remembered in the names of Heydon Park Road & Heydon Park Secondary School.

28. And while Canada might not be the place you would expect to find memorials to Confederate soldiers, if you head down the 401 toward Cornwall, you'll find one there.

29. There at the entrance to the Lost Villages Museum in Auld Park stands a monument dedicated to the Canadians who fought for the Union *and* those who fought for the Confederacy.

It's not a long forgotten relic from the distant past.

It was erected in 2017.

(pic via Quartz)

30. Tens of thousands of Canadians fought to end slavery. Many Torontonians welcomed those who came to our city fleeing the hatred of the South.

But there's far, far more to the story of slavery & Toronto than tales of the Underground Railroad.

You can learn more about places in Toronto connected to the city's history of slavery thanks to @NHenryFundi & @myseumTO: myseumoftoronto.com/programming/bl…

You should really follow all of Natasha Henry's work.

If you can afford it, the Black Legal Action Centre (@BLAC_Ontario) provides free legal services for low or no income Black residents of Ontario, helping to counter the legacy of people like George Denison III.

They accept donations: blacklegalactioncentre.ca.

You can also write Mayor John Tory to demand he support @kristynwongtam & @JoshMatlow's upcoming motion to reduce the Toronto police budget by 10%:

mayor_tory [at] toronto [dot] ca

And your city councillor too: toronto.ca/city-governmen….

(pic via @BLM_TO)