The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #94726   Message #1836200
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
16-Sep-06 - 04:37 PM
Thread Name: Songs of Canadian slavery?
Subject: RE: Songs of Canadian slavery?
Found nothing in the Canadian songbooks that I have.

The Canadian Encyclopedia has a few mentions of pre-1833 Black musicians in Canada. The earliest is a notice in the Quebec Gazette Nov. 30 1775 for a runaway slave named Lowcanes who spoke French but little English who (tr. from Fr.) 'plays the violin very well'. A watercolor from 1807 shows a black tambourine player, playing for a group of dancers. A survey of 159 Blacks in Toronto listed two musicians.
The Encyclopedia says "Few folk songs are known to have survived in the older Black communities in Canada." These probably are spirituals and other songs brought from the United States escapees from slavery, well after 1833.

Again, no songs mentioned, but some information might be found by researching these statements- 1783-84. A Colonel Bluck commanded an African Corps known as the Black Pioneers- date? The corps consisted of runaway slaves.
"In the majority of Loyalist Corps, there were men of African descent serving as buglers, musicians and servants. These people settled in the Shelburne and Birchtown areas in January 1784 with the white settlers."
Both of the statements found in http://www.bccns.com/history_slavery.html