"Advertisements"

"Advertisements"

This newspaper clipping from the Halifax Gazette lists a group on enslaved people for sale, including a couple of children, showing that Canadian slavery did not refrain from using minors as often as adults to carry out labour. As many historians note, children made up a significant part of the enslaved populations of New France and British North America, often being treated as property from the moment of their birth and being passed between owners as objects of heritage. Enslaved youth lived with the same strict, merciless restrictions as their adult counterparts.

This advertisement highlights the normalization of the presence of enslaved children in colonial Canada, and, as such, challenges the conception that Canadian slavery was less severe. It also shows how bondage crossed generations and touched entire family trees, both Black and white.

Halifax Gazette

Halifax Gazette. “Advertisements.” May 30, 1752. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANSARM_Halifax_Gazette_30_May_1752_p._2.png

Nova Scotia Archives

30 May 1752

Public Domain

English

Newspaper Clipping