CANADA 150: BEYOND THE DUCK

Forget huge rubber ducks. For Canada’s 150th, the National Post asked thinkers across Canada what they’d rather our sesquicentennial celebrated. Today: Fighting George Washington over slavery.

THERE IS SO MUCH LINCOLNIANA IT BORDERS ON THE COMIC — COLBY COSH CARLETON DECLARED ALL FREED LOYALIST SLAVES ENJOYED THE KING’S PROTECTION.

There’s a lot more to celebrate on Canada’s 150th birthday than gargantuan rubber ducks. That’s why the National Post asked some of Canada’s most interesting personalities and writers to tell us what they would rather celebrate about Canada on the sesquicentennial — that is, if the government actually gave a duck what they thought.

No one’s demanding his name be scrubbed from maps or buildings in the manner of other figures from Canada’s colonial past. But the legacy of Sir Guy Carleton has nonetheless suffered greatly in recent decades. If Carleton, the first Lord Dorchester, is remembered at all today, it’s as an imperious administrator and indifferent military leader.

He deserves far better. Carleton ought to be celebrated as a courageous defender of slaves during a period of extraordinary chaos and conflict. Carleton is, in many ways, a heroic precursor to Canada’s modern self-image as a defender of universal human rights.

Carleton receives obligatory mention in Canadian history books as the colonial governor who created the Quebec Act in 1774, which protected French legal, religious and political rights in the newly conquered colony. Carleton hoped such protections would secure the habitants’ loyalty in the event of an American uprising. While the act remains a crucial event in the creation of bicultural Canada, Carleton’s aristocratic mien and tendency to ignore direct orders leaves many presentday historians with a dim view of the man. It’s an unfair rap.

In 1782, Carleton was named commander-in-chief of North American forces during the waning days of the American Revolution. Having conceded the fight by this point, the British government simply wanted quit of America. The preliminary peace treaty notably stated the defeated British army would leave “with all convenient speed and without causing any Destruction or carrying away any Negroes or other property.”

In keeping with the obstinate streak that marked his entire career, Carleton decided it would be “dishonourable” to hand over escaped slaves who’d made their way to New York City, where the British remained in control at the end of the war. Despite the explicit instructions of the peace treaty, Carleton instead declared that all freed loyalist slaves enjoyed the King’s protection — the same as white refugees.

At a famous shipboard meeting off Tappan Zee, New York, in May 1783, Carleton and United States commander-in-chief George Washington argued heatedly over this issue. (Washington believed some of the wayward slaves were from his own plantation.) Carleton refused to budge. To counter Washington’s complaints that Carleton’s intention to protect the slaves amounted to theft of American property, Carleton created a joint military commission to investigate: former slaves who could prove they were British subjects would be given safe passage out of New York. More than 3,000 slaves ultimately came to Canada as a result of this process.

The resulting documentation — a fascinating piece of historical record — was originally known as “Carleton’s Book of Negroes.” Today, it’s more familiar to Canadians as the title of Lawrence Hill’s acclaimed novel The Book of Negroes, which later became a CBC mini-series.

Yet, Hill curiously ignores Carleton’s crucial role in his novel’s titular plot device, as well as the fact that Carleton’s Book of Negroes once bore his name. (Although the Tappan Zee meeting does make an appearance in Hill’s script for the miniseries.)

Given Carleton’s close connection to Canada, plus the fact that many of those former slaves ended up in Halifax, his bold defence of their human rights in the aftermath of war seems deserving of a far more prominent place in the Canadian pantheon. What respect he garners today, however, comes largely from the U.S. rather than Canada. William Fowler, a noted historian at Northeastern University in Boston, calls Carleton’s defence of the slaves “an extraordinary moment in history” delivered by “a man of great integrity.” Harvard’s Maya Jasanoff similarly praises his “clarity of conviction” in a time of crisis.

By defiantly rescuing 3,000 souls from slavery, Carleton took a brave stand on moral grounds. Every Canadian should know his story. In fact, it’s not that far from Carleton’s Book of Negroes to Schindler’s List, if we ever decide to go looking for heroes.