Thread by @jldundas

Toronto City Councillor Chris Moise is making up new facts about Henry Dundas, the man after whom Dundas Street is named.

His error-ridden presentation was recently made public on YouTube. 🧵

Moise’s first lie was saying that Henry Dundas was Britain’s “Minister of Immigration and Slavery.”

Fact: HD was Britain’s Home Secretary. After France declared war on Britain, he became the War Secretary.

Moise then said Dundas’s “proxies” in Canada caused harm to Black people.

Fact: HD’s appointees enacted the first anti-slavery legislation in the British Empire, laying the groundwork for the Underground Railroad.
Fact: Dundas ordered Canadian officials to give equal treatment to Black soldiers.
hdcommittee.medium.com/henry-dundas-a…

Fact: In a further effort to right past injustices against Black people, Dundas arranged for 1200 former Black soldiers and their families, who were disillusioned with life in Canada, to have free passage back to Africa.
search.app/sYTB7AwQugnaWj…

Moise then goes on to incorrectly define “sankofa,” indicating that it means learning from “pre-slavery” times. (This is an apparent effort to justify the new name chosen for the square.)

Fact: There is no “pre-slavery” aspect to the word “sankofa.”
masterclass.com/articles/sanko…

This is not the first time Moise has made up facts about Henry Dundas and/or the history of slavery.

He told City Council in 2023 that Dundas forced Haiti to pay reparations for independence.

It was France who forced reparations on Haiti, 14 years after Dundas died.

Last year, Moise accused my own family of benefiting personally from slavery.

He knew nothing of my ancestors, who founded the Banner Church near Ingersoll, one of the first anti-slavery churches of Wesleyan Methodists in Canada.
.bannerunitedchurch.com/about#:~:text=…

Moise’s misleading presentation can be found here:
youtube.com/shorts/R8PNqWj…