Canada and Diaspora 1

1
Canada and Diaspora 1

• (Re)Defining Diaspora
• Diasporas in Canada
• African Diasporas and Canada
• - slavery and Canada
• - black Loyalists, Maroons, Refugees
• - fugitive slaves
• - western Canada

2
Diaspora

• Diaspora may be defined as the
• migration of a community through
• forced or self-willed exile and the
• efforts of that community to
• recreate home in new geographic
• spaces.

3
Brian Ray

• Canada is one of only a handful of
• nations where social and cultural
• change fueled by immigration is
• perhaps the only enduring societal
• constant. (Canada Policy
• Changes)

4
Immigrant Flows Into Canada

• 1956-1976
• UK and Europe 64
• Asia 12

• 2000
• UK and Europe 19
• Asia 53
• Africa/Middle East 18
• LA/Caribbean 7.5

5
Slavery in Canada

• Absence of large-scale plantation production
• Use of indigenous and African labour
• Between 1689-1709, slavery institutionalized in
  New France (Code Noir)
• 1759 4000 slaves in New France
• 1776 2000 African slaves in Nova Scotia.

6
Loyalists, Maroons and Fugitives

• 1783 3000 black Loyalists entered
• British North America
• 1796 550 Maroons are relocated from
• Jamaica
• War of 1812 4000 blacks voluntarily
• relocate from the United States

7
Fugitive Slaves

• 1815-1860 80,000 slaves escaped via the UGR
• UGR as symbol of Canadian innocence and liberalism

8
Western Canada

• 1850s 700 free blacks moved from San
• Francisco to Victoria, BC
• 1909-1912 1300 blacks from Oklahoma
• Chicago entered Saskatchewan and
• Alberta