Thread by @sandela

Extremely annoyed by David Onley's either dishonest or ignorant statements. Not only is the statement "but Canada was good to slaves" irrelevant to anti-Blackness and the monarchy, it's also a bullshit lie that Canadians tell in the act of nationalist mythmaking. /1 #cdnpoli

https://twitter.com/wickdchiq/status/1369117604900605954

If this guy is gonna try to use an ad hominem about how many history courses the brilliant @wickdchiq has taken to try to win a debate about racism...which he clearly has no qualifications to argue...let me just undo the "history" the man was spouting. /2

The Act Onley references didn't free a single enslaved person in Upper Canada. It did spark a mass movement of enslaved people frm the US to Canada seeking to liberate themselves (Underground Railroad) & A TWIN MASS MOVEMENT FROM of enslaved people frm Upper Canada to the US. /3

Yes, the reverse underground railroad we never hear about because Canada sucks and doesn't want to admit that some Northern states prohibited enslavement (and at least the importation of enslaved people) before Canada did. The Act Onley is talking about /4

prohibited the import of enslaved people. But it also required that any enslaved person *remain enslaved for life* and that their children *remain enslaved until 25* and had other provisions discouraging manumission. And since I know a bunch of you will say prove it, here.../5

From Afua Cooper's "Act's of Resistance: Black Men and Women Engage Slavery in Upper Canada, 1793-1803" (2007) /6

From "Reciprocity of slaves between
Michigan and Upper Canada" by W.R. Riddell (1932) in the Journal of Negro History /7

Anyway. I'm sick of people not knowing this and looking at me like I'm making stuff up when I teach about it in workshops and stuff. Robin Winks has also written about it. For sOmE rEaSoN it has never reached the psyche of the Canadian mainstream.

Either way, fuck the monarchy.

AND ANOTHER THING since I'm still pissed...are we really gonna give credence to the intellectual dishonesty on display here by Onley??? This magical version of history where a benevolent Crown just bestows the gift of freedom to the enslaved w/ nary a consideration for /9

the waning economic value of slavery, the impact of the US Revolutionary War & the rebellions across the British empire making slavery untenable? This Act became law just after/at the same time as Maroon revolts in Jamaica, Fedon's revolution in Grenada & the Haitian Revolution!

IN CONCLUSION: Canada is fake. #LandBack
#AbolishTheMonarchy