Global Forum for Human Rights and Sustainable Development (GFHRSD), a Canadian incorporated, community-based, non-governmental outfit established to address core developmental challenges faced by Canadian citizens especially, the less-privileged members of the Canadian society, wishes to use this medium to join the rest of the global community in celebrating this year’s Black History in Canada.
GFRSD’s main thematic areas include poverty alleviation, human rights and democratic governance, climate change, anti-corruption crusade, youth empowerment (via vocational and technical education) and gender equality.
In a press statement made available to the media by its Executive Director, Prince Segun Akanni, he said, as an outfit whose mandate partly focuses on the challenges and solutions associated with Canadian citizens, especially African-Canadians, GFHRSD examines the trajectory of Black History in Canada by tracing its evolution to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade which began in the late 16th century and did not halt until early 19th century.
Black history in Canada is a historical narrative closely tied to slavery, racism and eventual emancipation of people of African descent who lived and still live in Canada today. Black history simply refers to the stories, experiences and sterling accomplishments of people of African origin in Canada.
The celebration of Black history did not actually begin in recent times in Canada, but in ancient times in Africa. It has been a history created by people connected by their common African history and ancestry.
The periods 1600s could be said to have marked the exodus or movement of Blacks or people of African descent into what has become known as Canada.
Interestingly, the first Black person of African heritage known to have come to Canada was Mathieu Da Costa. Da Costa is said to have arrived Canada over 400 years ago with the French explorers – Pierre-Du Gwa De Monts and Samuel De Champlain. Da Costa, a multilingual interpreter who spoke English, French, Dutch, Portuguese and pidgin Basque, provided an invaluable link with the Mik’Maq people encountered by the Europeans.
In 1628, Olivier Lejeune was recorded as the first enslaved African to live in Canada (i.e New France). Olivier Lejeune’s birth name is not known, as he was taken from Africa as a young child and eventually christened the last name of the priest who purchased him.
Between 1749 and 1782, most of the people of African descent brought to Nova Scotia were enslaved by English or American settlers. By 1750, there were about 400 enslaved and 17 free Black people living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And by 1767, there were also 104 free Black persons living in Nova Scotia (which included present-day Brunswick and Prince Edward Island).
A classic case in point of intelligent slaves who found themselves outside their ancestral shores or native territory was that of Aminata Diallo. Abducted as an 11-yearold child from her village in West Africa and compelled to walk for months to the sea in a coffle, Aminata, a trained bookkeeper, was enlisted to record the names of some 3,000 Black loyalists who left the United States for resettlement in Nova Scotia in search of land and a new way of life. Aminata was among the pioneers of Nova Scotia to settle Shelburne and the neighboring Black community of Birchtown. Indeed, Aminata Diallo’s journey from servitude to emancipation (like many others) and her struggle against a world hostile to her colour and her sex speaks volume to the experience of a founding generation of African-Canadians.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the Black history festival or celebration (holding every February) is a vivid reminder and a spectacular occasion for the appreciation and celebration of the legions of legendary accomplishments that Black or African-Canadians had and have continued to record in today’s vastly diverse and extremely multicultural Canadian society. For instance, some of the leading Black Canadian lights who had and have held critical public offices include Michaelle Jean, Donald Oliver, Stanley G. Grizzle, Rosemary Brown and Lincoln Alexander.
Precisely, in 1963, Leonard Braithwaite became the first black person in a provincial legislature to have been elected as the Liberal Member for Etobicok, Ontario and in 2005, Rt. Hon. Michaelle Jean became Canada’s first Black Governor-General. In a nutshell, despite their gory tales of slavery and dehumanization in the iniquitous hands of their slave masters, Black Canadians had and have continued to unlock their unlimited potentials and making tremendous impacts in the social, economic and political sectors of the Canadian federation.
GFHRSD, an organization which was recently accredited by the United Nations as a participant and observer at the just concluded COP15 Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada, is proud to be associated with Black Canadians blazing the trail in their various fields of human endeavours as it commemorates this month’s Black History in Canada, Prince Akanni stated.
