Samuel L. Jackson’s Enslaved describes itself as a series that “sheds new light on 400 years of human trafficking from Africa to the New World,” but it’s far from the only recent project focusing on the transatlantic slave trade.
In fact, it’s not even the first this month.
The Ethan Hawke-led series The Good Lord Bird, which tells the story of abolitionist John Brown, premiered in early October. Filming wrapped on Barry Jenkins’s upcoming series The Underground Railroad a week earlier, and the plantation-set horror film Antebellum came out in late August.
Still, Enslaved director Simcha Jacobovici says the reason he started the project, which looks at how the slave trade affected countries and people around the world, is because that history still isn’t widely known. The population’s understanding of these events are simplified and skewed, he said, and television could be a good way to fix that.
Samuel L. Jackson explores his roots in Gabon and is welcomed as a lost son by the Benga people. Watch Enslaved, Oct. 18 at 9 p.m. (9:30 NT) on CBC and <a href=”https://twitter.com/cbcgem?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@cbcgem</a>: <a href=”https://t.co/SBk7PmvqMq”>https://t.co/SBk7PmvqMq</a> <a href=”https://t.co/rMLFsZeTYn”>pic.twitter.com/rMLFsZeTYn</a>
“People, when they think of slavery — especially in North America — they think of the American South plantations, the American Civil War,” Jacobovici said.
That’s an issue, he said, as the impacts extend far beyond the United States. But as popular culture tries more and more to address the international tragedy that is the slave trade, it is still far from accurately portraying that history onscreen — especially when it comes to Canada.
Slavery onscreen
Whether slavery is comprehensively shown on screen matters for more than just ratings. Charmaine Nelson, a historian and professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, says for most people, knowledge about slavery begins with movies like Amistad, Roots and 12 Years a Slave. And due to a lack of inclusion in schools, that’s usually where their education ends, Nelson says.
“Almost all of the big-budget Hollywood films that have been produced about slavery are about slavery in the tropics … or the American South,” she said.
And when such project do touch on Canada’s involvement, it’s almost always in one way: as the end of the Underground Railroad, Nelson says. 12 Years a Slave features Brad Pitt as the Canadian opponent to slavery; Harriet casts the country as a utopian land of freedom.
Charmaine Nelson, a history professor and Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement, believes that while movies and television are a good way for people to engage with the history of slavery, much is being missed. (Submitted by Charles Michael)
It is a trope that Enslaved follows: in the episode of the docuseries that takes place in Canada, the show features abolitionists, sympathizers and a ship that ferried enslaved Black Americans to freedom.
That ignores the previous centuries where slavery was legal — and practiced — here, Nelson said. Though those stories are important and true, the Underground Railroad lasted for a relatively short time compared to a much darker history of slavery in Canada. And the emphasis on that period over the other means the majority of Canadians have no idea it ever existed here, she said.
“We’ve enshrined 30 years and painted ourselves as only good abolitionists who saved Black Americans,” Nelson said. “And we’ve totally obliterated, ignored and tried to raze 200 years when we were also slaving.”
That was true for Tanisha Campbell, a Bishop’s University student who has pushed for more Black history in Canadian elementary and high school curricula. She said that she had never been taught about slavery in school, and so had to direct her learning herself as a teenager.
Even so, she only recently learned about the history of slavery in this country.
“I thought it was the place of sanctuary, salvation,” Campbell said. “People fled the States to come here and were safe. I had no idea that Canada had any part in it.”
Slavery in Canada
That 200-year history took place in a window prior to 1833, when the Slavery Abolition Act ended the practice in most British colonies, including Canada. Prior to that, the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery allowed any enslaved person who reached Upper Canada to gain their freedom.
Though that was the first legislation in a British colony to limit slavery, it recognized the practice as legal and socially acceptable. Britain had introduced legal protection to slavery in its colonies as a way to encourage settlement, and even those who were freed were often required to work as indentured servants.
Those are the stories Nelson said she is interested in studying. She was recently named Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement, and through that role is establishing the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery. Based in Halifax, it will be the first such research institute in the country.
Nelson is also one of the few academics to operate in that field. That, she explained, is part of the problem: due to so few researchers looking at slavery in Canada, very few detailed studies about it are on the books. She herself studies Canadian fugitive slave ads, which were advertisements printed by slave owners hunting for enslaved people who had escaped.
Nelson says she is one of only two people studying them, and began only a few years ago.
A fugitive slave ad that was posted in the Quebec Gazette on May 22, 1794. Charmaine Nelson is one of only two academics to focus her study on such ads in Canada. (Azariah Pretchard/Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec)
“This study of ads has been going on since the 1970s in the USA, Brazil and Jamaica,” Nelson said. “Do you get me? We are 50 years behind other nations in some of these types of study.”
That is important because, without the research, movies and shows like Enslaved won’t be able to accurately portray that history. And without that portrayal, Nelson said, Canadians will continue to see certain events — such as the death of George Floyd — as something they’re not.
“They think it’s a 21st century or 20th century anomaly, and it’s not,” Nelson said. “When I see that, I see slavery.”
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.)
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
