Slavery in Canada (New France)

The issue of slavery in Canada has long been glossed-over by historians and by Canadian society in general. Substantive recognition of this past history of slavery did not begin until the 1960s. Slavery was actively practised in New France, both in the St. Lawrence Valley and in Louisiana. This institution, which endured for almost two centuries, affected the destiny of thousands of men, women, and children descended from Aboriginal and African peoples.

Slavery was practiced in New France between 1632 and 1834, but became common only from the 1680s onwards. Initially, slavery in the colony was complicated by France's ethical stance on the matter: slave ownership in New France was not legally recognized, but it could still be justified since only the act of enslaving people was deemed deplorable, and not simply buying or receiving slaves. Slavery operated along these lines in the Caribbean (Rushforth 2012, p. 134). Only when the administration gave in to pressure from slave-purchasing colonial officials and issued the Raudot Ordinance of 1709 did slavery in New France simultaneously become legalized and legitimized in a way that attempted to mimic the chattel slavery of the French Caribbean.

Although the majority of slaves in New France's history were natives, attempts to increase the number of black slaves began as early as the 1680s. In 1688, François Ruette d'Auteuil, the Attorney General of the colony's Sovereign Council, went to Paris in order to seek permission for the importation of black slaves from the Caribbean. His attempts were initially met with opposition: the king and Ruette d'Auteuil's political enemies alike believed the climate of New France was simply too cold to support such slaves. The king eventually capitulated, however, and authorized importation from France’s Caribbean colonies. Nevertheless, the amount of black slaves in New France remained low compared to the amount of Native slaves, especially in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Colonial records show that there were only eleven African slaves in New France between 1689 and 1709 (Rushforth 2012, pp. 152–153).

Even after the capitulation of Montreal to the British in 1760, the French government negotiated that black and native slaves remain the property of their masters. Slaves could be acquired on the public market, by donation or through inheritance but a slave rarely changed master. Prices varied with time and according to the age, health, gender and skills of the slave. Nonetheless, black slaves soon appeared to be an expensive commodity. While the price of a black slave varied from 200 to 2400 livres between 1737 and 1797, a native slave cost between 120 and 750 livres.

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