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Timeline to Freedom

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1605 Interpreter Mathieu Da Costa, travelling with an expedition to the Atlantic Region, is the first documented person of African descent to set foot on Canadian soil.

1793 First parliament of the Province of Upper Canada passes legislation to contain slavery by providing that the children of slaves be set free at age 25.

1799 York, as Toronto was then called, enumerates 15 Blacks and for the first time makes no distinction between slaves and freedmen.

1812 The Coloured Corps of about 30 men is founded by Black Loyalist Richard Pierpoint and fights at Queenston Heights and the seige of Fort George against the Americans during the War of 1812.

1826 Elder Washington Christian establishes the first Black church in Toronto, the first Black institution of any kind in the city.

1833 Slavery is abolished in Canada. Upper Canada passes anti-slavery legislation preventing the extradition of fugitive Blacks back to the United States.

1837 Establishment of the first horse-drawn taxicab company in Toronto by former black slave Thornton Blackburn.

1850 Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in the U.S. threatens free Blacks in the Northern U.S., many of whom flee to southern Ontario.

1851 The first issue of Ontario’s first Black-owned newspaper, The Voice of the Fugitive, is published. Co-founder Henry Bibb organizes and chairs the famous Convention of Coloured People at St. Lawrence Hall. The speakers include famous Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

1851 The Anti-Slavery Society is founded in Toronto “to aid in the extinction of slavery all over the world.” Among those at the founding meeting are Globe publisher George Brown and later to be Ontario premier Oliver Mowat.

1856 Alfred Lafferty, the son of American Black immigrants William and Sarah becomes first black to attend prestigious Upper Canada College. He becomes a recipient of two of the colleges major awards: the Governor Generals’ Prize and the Mathematical Prize

1868 M.E. Lampert, the first female African-Canadian poet publishes Hymn of the New Year and My Dreams in the U.S.

1960 Myrtle Blackwood Smith is the first Black female called to the called to the Ontario Bar.

1978 City of Toronto proclaims Black History Month for the first time.

1984 Ann Cools becomes first Black woman appointed to the Senate of Canada.

1985 Lincoln Alexander becomes the first Black Lietenant Governor of Ontario.

1990 Zanana Akande becomes firat Black woman elected to Ontario legislature and first Black woman to serve as a cabinet minister.

1993 Jean Augustine becomes first Black woman elected as a federal Member of Parliament.

1995 The federal government officially recognizes February as Black History Month.

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