This Tract of Land: North Buxton, Ontario, 1873-1914

Acknowledging the continued concerns and calls for the education system to improve how it addresses the changing face of Canada in terms of race, gender, class, language and culture, this thesis focuses on the history and narratives of a single African-Canadian community as a starting point for educators who wish to learn about and make use of marginalized histories in their classroom practice. The information would also prove helpful to those educators who often have difficulty in finding material relating to African-Canadian history and as a result fail to add the stories of black Canadians to the national narrative shared in their classrooms. There is a wealth of knowledge that can be drawn from the material in each section of the thesis, beginning with an exploration of the theoretical frame, which introduces readers to the concepts underlying African-Canadian studies, and provides them with a means of better comprehending the lived experiences of people of African descent in the New World Diaspora. The study also provides a concise history of the first and second generations of the Buxton community, providing access to the evolution of the community from that of a planned refugee settlement, to becoming an active Canadian community. Additionally, the study explores the American South that awaited those who chose to return “home” after the American Civil War. The narratives and the process of restorying provide teachers with concrete examples of how to access and work with historical documents, or take single lives and events and discover connections, as they make sense of the experiences

A Glaring Silence: A Critical Reflection on Black Canada in the Pages of the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association

Through a close reading of article abstracts beginning in 1922, this article explores the first one hundred years of the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (JCHA), asking how this journal provides insight into the ways historians have researched and written about Black Canadian history. The author looks at the few published articles on Black Canada in the pages of the JCHA and concludes that the “glaring silence” is symptomatic of a systemic anti-Blackness, seen across institutions in Canada, from kindergarten to grade 12, and even within institutions like the CHA.Grâce à une lecture attentive des résumés d’articles à partir de 1922, cet article explore les cent premières années de la Revue de la Société historique du Canada (RSHC), en se demandant comment cette revue donne un aperçu de la façon dont les historien.ne.s ont fait des recherches et écrit sur l’histoire des Noirs du Canada. L’auteure examine les quelques articles publiés sur le Canada noir dans les pages de la RSHC et conclut que ce « silence flagrant » est symptomatique d’un sentiment anti-Noir systémique, observée dans toutes les institutions du Canada, de la maternelle à la douzième année, et même au sein d’institutions telles que la SHC

A Caribbean Community in the North Atlantic: DISCO, Labour Migration, and the Creation of Whitney Pier, Nova Scotia, c. 1900–1930

Over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company in Sydney, Nova Scotia (DISCO) hired thousands of migrant labourers. Many of the workers settled in the nearby Whitney Pier. Among them were hundreds of African American and Caribbean men attracted by the promise of good wages and living conditions. Other people, including women and children, followed afterward. A history of Whitney Pier’s Black community demonstrates not only how industry and urbanization changed in the area at the time but also how the community negotiated those changes and in so doing established a unique subculture around the areas where the Caribbean migrants lived and socialized.À la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle, la Dominion Iron and Steel Company (DISCO) de Sydney, en Nouvelle-Écosse, embaucha des milliers de travailleurs migrants. Plusieurs de ces travailleurs s’installèrent dans le quartier avoisinant de Whitney Pier. Parmi eux figuraient des centaines d’hommes afro-américains et caribéens séduits par la promesse de bons salaires et de bonnes conditions de vie. D’autres personnes, notamment des femmes et des enfants, vinrent les rejoindre par la suite. L’histoire de la communauté Noire de Whitney Pier démontre non seulement comment l’industrie et l’urbanisation ont évolué dans la région à cette époque, mais aussi comment la communauté a transigé avec ces changements et, ce faisant, a établi une sous-culture unique dans les environs où les migrants caribéens vivaient et socialisaient