Beyond the Antislavery Haven

Beyond the antislavery haven challenges the dominant narrative that Canada was a benevolent antislavery haven for self-liberated people from the United States. Instead, it explores how this idealised image developed, despite the historical reality that slavery was practiced within Canada itself.

The book examines the framing context of fugitive slave advertisements and abolitionist debates in newspapers. Bird considers how Black settlers depicted their lives in Canada after crossing the Canada-US border and how slave narratives circulated and were read in Canada. Canada was connected to Britain, France, the Caribbean and United States in its early print culture of slavery and this was central to how Canadians and Canadian readers fashioned their self-image in relation to slavery. Early Canadian newspapers reveal that Canadian enslavers and readers may not have recognised their own complicity in slavery even as they knew that slavery was practiced in Canada.

In getting beyond the reductive and idealised image of Canada-as-haven, this book makes a significant contribution not only to our understanding of Canada and its relationship with slavery, but to slavery and abolition print cultures in the Black Atlantic World.