Slavery in Canada — here in Niagara-on-the-Lake — was real.
In 1793, Chloe Cooley, a black woman who was owned by a Queenston man named Adam Vrooman, became the impetus for new legislation to limit slavery in Upper Canada.
Just over 230 years later, on Nov. 22, the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum became the recipient of the Ontario Museum Association’s Award of Excellence in Exhibitions for telling Cooley’s story.
“We are very proud of the exhibit and the topic it was highlighting for the community,” said museum curator Sarah Kaufman.
“A lot of Canadians don’t realize that there was any enslavement at all in Canada, and we thought this would be a great opportunity for us to highlight our community’s history and shed light on Chloe.”
The story of Cooley is, of course, a tragic one.
Fearing that abolition was coming to Canada, Vrooman — a United Empire Loyalist — decided to transport Cooley against her will across the Niagara River so she could be sold in the United States.
The violent struggle that ensued while transporting her to a waiting boat was witnessed by a black Loyalist named Peter Martin and a white employee of Vrooman’s.
Approximately a week later, on March 21, 1793, the two men — knowing that Lt. Gov. John Graves Simcoe was an abolitionist — testified to her violent abduction before Simcoe and two members of the Executive Council of Upper Canada.
Simcoe responded by leading the charge to pass An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves, and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province, also known as the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, into law later that year.
“This the first act in British North America of its kind, and it happened here in Niagara-on-Lake, which is really significant,” said Kaufman.
As the title of the act indicates, it did not abolish slavery in Upper Canada.
Those who were enslaved at the time of its passing remained enslaved for life.
“But if those individuals had children, they were free by the age of 25 and then the children of them were free at birth,” said assistant museum curator Shawna Butts.
“What it also stated was that those enslaved people that were brought to Upper Canada at the time, they were free when they were brought into the province.”
Cooley was never seen again and her whereabouts never known.
She was named a National Historic Person in 2022.
The abolishment of slavery in Canada became law on Aug. 1, 1834 — a day officially known in this country as Emancipation Day.
