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What Is Emancipation Day in Canada and How Is the Day Celebrated?

August 01, 2024 | 7 minute read

Editor’s note: Why is Tangible Words posting about the legacy of slavery in Canada and Emancipation Day? Isn’t Tangible Words a growth agency? How is learning about Emancipation Day helping me to grow my company? Why would I want to learn about social causes from Tangible Words?

These are all relevant questions and questions the Tangible Words team has discussed among ourselves. Tangible Words is a company with a strong conscience and with an aim to support social causes we care about. Because of this, we felt that we wanted to post about days of importance and causes we care about to spread awareness of events we feel deserve more attention than they often receive. Companies in the 21st century have become more vocal about championing social causes, and we feel overall this is a positive trend: social change often happens when adults discuss topics at workplaces. However, we all know examples of companies that post cringe-worthy content that attempts to signal that they are supportive of certain causes, while transparently doing nothing to actually support those causes. In other words, virtue signaling.

We started to feel that some of our posts on social media about causes we care about were not doing enough. It is a bit of a tricky line to navigate, as what does it mean to do enough? What is expected of a modern company? We’re learning along with everyone else, but it’s a change in the direction and leadership of companies that we find refreshing.

In any case, we felt that one way we could add value to our followers and show our values was to use our content company to research and present blog posts about days that are important to us. We do not claim to be experts on these subjects, and these posts should not be used in the same way that scholarly research is, but we present this series of posts as a starting point for curious readers. These posts have already benefited Tangible Words’ copywriters in that doing the research for the post has already added to our understanding of days like Emancipation Day and the movements and history these days represent.

Emancipation Day is a commemorative day observed in many countries that were once former British colonies. The first of these former colonies to officially celebrate the day were Trinidad and Tobago in 1985, although unofficial celebrations existed since the 19th century. The day celebrates the anniversary of the British Empire’s Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, although in that initial act the law didn’t come into effect until 1834 and only children aged six and under were freed. Anyone older than six became so-called “apprentices” and were still required to work full-time with their pay still going to their former enslavers. It was only five years later in 1838 that full abolition for those over six was achieved.

When Is Emancipation Day in Canada?

Emancipation Day is celebrated every year in Canada on August 1st, as it is in other nations that were formerly colonized by the British. It wasn’t until 2021 that the government of Canada officially recognized August 1st as Emancipation Day nationwide, adding it to the list of awareness days in Canada, thirty-six years after Trinidad and Tobago.

Presenting the Truth of Our History

Until recently the Canadian education system focused on the success of the Underground Railroad and tended to gloss over the history of slavery in Canada. Before 1838, the slave trade was very much present in Canada as it was across the rest of the British empire. At one point, two thirds of those enslaved were of Indigenous descent and approximately one third was of African descent, and half of enslaved Indigenous people were women and young girls. Enslaved people were subjected to hard, backbreaking labour without pay or rights, as well as all manner of abuse, torture, and violence.

The government of Canada has acknowledged that the legacy of slavery in Canada has contributed to ongoing systemic discrimination against Indigenous people and African-Canadians almost two hundred years later to the present day.

The History of Emancipation Day in Canada

Though the day wasn’t officially recognized by the Canadian government until 2021, African-Canadian communities had been celebrating the anniversary of the day since the 1800s. Black settlers who fled the American Revolution and then escaped slavery on the Underground Railroad largely settled in communities in Ontario, such as Owen Sound, Windsor, Sandwich, and Amherstburg, as well as in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These were the places where the first Emancipation Day celebrations in Canada were held and many have continued to the present day.