1. Slavery in British North
America
The Maritimes and Upper Canada
1776 - 1833

2. Overview
• What was ‘British North America’ during this period?
• The Baptism of Slaves Act, 1781
• An Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, 1793
• Slavery and Servitude in Halifax, Nova Scotia

5. Background
• There was a growing abolitionist movement in the colonies, but many
wealthy loyalists and elected government officials owned slaves in
each of the colonies.
• The Imperial Act of 1790 – passed by British Parliament – encouraged
settlers to bring the Black people they enslaved into the colony duty-
free – even after slavery was outlawed in Britain by Somerset’s case
• The local governments of the colonies had a considerable degree of
legislative autonomy when it came to slavery – and adopted different
approaches.

6. The Baptism of Slaves Act, 1781
• Three sections:
• The first provision stated that enslaved persons can be baptized, but are not freed by
baptism
• The second provision secured the property right – protected slavery in perpetuity
and stipulated that slaves could only be freed by the slave owner
• The third provision stipulated that slavehood descended matrilineally: the children of
an enslaved woman were themselves slaves.
• Enacted to attract slaveowning loyalists to PEI
• The economics of the absentee landholding (neo-feudal) system
• Enforced as recently as 1802 – Sam’s Case
• Repealed in 1825 – Historical Revisionism?

7. An Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, 1793
• Acknowledged that slavery was ’socially and legally accepted’ in
Upper Canada
• Prohibited the importation of enslaved persons into Upper Canada
• Did not prevent the sale of enslaved persons within the province or
across the border into the US
• Provided that enslaved persons who were in the province already
would remain property of their enslavers for life, unless freed
• Children born to enslaved women after 1793 would be freed when
they reached 25 years of age and children born to these children
would be free at birth

8. Trelawney Moors in Halifax, 1796
• No statute in Nova Scotia either limiting or protecting slavery
• Habeas corpus strategy was successful
• In 1796, a group of slaves in Jamaica rebelled and were relocated to
Nova Scotia – they were called the ‘Trelawney Moors’
• Forced to work on Citadel Hill
• Not enslaved, not free
• Later relocated to Sierra Leone, then to Jamaica

9. Legacies
• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/search/