Canada". History isn't always pleasant but it's necessary that we know it. Thanks for this op.

Slavery in Canada wasn't taught in school while I was growing up. We did learn all about the Underground Railway and Canada's part in that but, not unlike the real Indigenous history being missing from our education system, the truth about slavery having been practiced in Canada was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

We need to know the facts, all the facts instead of only those that put Canada and all other countries in the best light and cover up the shameful parts as well.

The idea that Canada and Britain were just as evil as the USA where slavery is concerned is nothing but codswollop.

YES there was slavery in former societies and there still is slavery in some societies outside the Americas. However Canada and Britain did NOT build an economic system based on the possession of slaves to act as free labour and cause the collapse of the economy by insisting that slaves be treated as people. Just name some of the "famous" plantations in Canada or Britain.

Canadians WERE NOT and ARE NOT the same as those south of 49 no matter how you attempt to rewrite history. The difference in the history of the two nations is similar to the treatment of slaves on the island of Hispanola and this is the reason that racism is still an essential part of US society - both historic AND contemporary.

were the number of slaves. The same cruelty, selling of children, breaking up of families occurred in both countries.

At the time of slavery in Canada, we were the same. Racism still exists in Canada today as does the US.

To believe we were better is to deny the full truth just as our education system did for decades.

And perhaps demonstrate how the Canadian economy was grounded in slavery.

Yes Canadian (and ALL) school history is indeed selective - the Beothuk would know this if there were still any extant. However just as there is a legal and ethical difference between assault causing bodily harm and genocide so there is a major difference between Canadian/British slavery and US slavery even if people give them the same name. To attempt to equate the two commits the fallacy of false equivalence: is an extremely intellectually dishonest tactic, and actually trivialises the atrocity of US slavery

Yes - slavery in all its forms (which includes bonded servitude and uncompensated plantation prisoners) is an abomination but this does not make Canadian or British slavery equivalent. Context is always an essential factor in the comparisons of evil.

From the article in my OP:

"People often associate slavery with thousands of people working on a plantation.

It did not happen in Canada in the same way because of the climate and seasonal shifts that could not sustain year-round agriculture.

Nelson said enslaved people in Canada might well have harvested apples or corn, but they were also forced to milk cows, groom horses, and in the case of women, breastfeed the children of their white owners, to the detriment of their own children."

As to the economic benefits, well, again it was farms with slaves that benefitted economically just as it was the cotton plantations in the Southern US that benefitted economically.

Bonded servitude and the use of "wet-nurses" was common in Victorian Britain. As for the farm labour do a little reading on the Barnardo children their lives in the colonies. The examples given are not too different from this but are very different from the form of slavery used in the USA. Canada (and Britain) DID NOT have an economic system based on slavery no matter how apologists would like to do penance by pretending Canadians were just USA Light.They were - and still are - totally different societies .

slave which resulted in her death, hardly bonded servitude. History tried to mitigate the actions of slavery in Canada and some prefer the rose-coloured glasses view rather than admitting the facts, no surprise there, sadly.

I personally know one of the Barnardo children (male) who was taking too long to milk the cow and bring cream to the breakfast table . The owner's wife clobbered him across the skull with a cast iron frying pan and he lay unconscious for a day before he was then put back to work. Didn't kill him but near as dammit. Many of the Barnardos and other cheap labourers were killed back then by the bosses. They didn't have to be slaves.

I think this conversation is at an end.

People were called "sauvages" in history class. In 1970s. We did see a film of indigenous people getting mowed down by white people. Women too. That horror stuck. Don't know where the footage was from.

The incident is indeed a genocide but since it happened in 1500 Newfoundland - which was not at the time a part of Canada it would be fine to teach it as incidental history in 1970s Upper Canada despite the atrocity.

It was not Beothuck. Women wore scarves over there heads. It was pretty modern. They were killed.

They had lots of savage treatment of indigenous people by the invaders to choose from. In this Canada did not need lessons from other colonies or continents. The Brits. Franks. Italians, and Spaniards etc taught that lesson well.