| Summary: |
This introduction, in the first Osgoode Society collection and reader
on the history of Blacks and the law in Canada, makes two main arguments.
First, the social history of Blacks in Canada is inextricably
bound to the question of law – more so than any other historically
disenfranchised group in Canada, save for its First Nations peoples.
Second, the profoundly legal dimension of Black Canadian social history
is a consequence of the era of European empire and slavery where
questions of Blacks’ legal and citizenship status, the nature and quality
of their freedom, and even their very humanity often hinged upon
questions of law. The law had a central role in defining Black Canadian
life in the slavery and the post-slavery eras, but this role was often
ambiguous and changed over time. Slavery was legally supported in
one of two ways: through positive law, and more passively through
the recognition of the customary use of slaves (including the recognition
of the property right that slave-owners held in their slaves). In the
post-emancipation period (after 1833) Blacks enjoyed legal freedom;
and yet, during this period the law’s role in their lives was ambiguous
and the quality of the freedoms they enjoyed was limited. While
anti-Black discrimination was not supported by positive law in Canada,
throughout Canadian history the law tended to passively support
white supremacy by accepting the conditions that allowed it to thrive.
Ambiguity thus lies at the heart of the Black Canadian legal odyssey,and this introduction explores the elements and the implications of
this ambiguity.
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