Backgrounder - Black History Month 2010

The theme of Black History Month 2010 is "Proud of our History" and will focus on the contributions to Canada of William Edward Hall, Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, and Harriet Tubman.

William Edward Hall, V.C.

Victoria Cross recipient Hall was born in 1827 in Horton, Nova Scotia, the youngest of seven children. His parents, Jacob and Lucy Hall, were former enslaved Americans who had come to Nova Scotia as a result of the War of 1812. Hall launched his seafaring career at the age of seventeen, and in 1857, while serving on the HMS Shannon, Hall volunteered with a relief force sent to Lucknow, India, where a British garrison was besieged. Two survived the attack, Seaman Hall and Lieutenant Thomas Young, but only Hall was left standing, and he continued to fight until the relief of the garrison was assured. For this outstanding display of bravery, he was awarded the Victoria Cross. With this award, he became the first black person, the first Nova Scotian and the first Canadian sailor to receive this outstanding honour.

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

Born into a free black family in Philadelphia, Gibbs moved to San Francisco in 1850 and became one of that city’s most prosperous black merchants. Concern about the racial climate in the United States prompted him and other African Americans to head north and seek the protection of British law in Victoria. As a politician, businessman, and defender of human rights, Gibbs was the recognized leader of the black community on Vancouver Island during its early years between 1858 and 1870, and is still a revered historical figure in the black community of British Columbia. Through his political abilities, Gibbs made black residents a force in colonial politics and was elected to Victoria City Council. He acted as a spokesperson for the West Coast’s African Canadian community, encouraging their integration into Vancouver Island society and intervening repeatedly when efforts were made to segregate them in the churches and theatres of Victoria. In 1870, Gibbs returned to the United States and enjoyed an equally significant political and business career in the American South before his death in 1915.  Gibbs was recently deemed by Parks Canada as a person of National Historic Significance.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave from Maryland, became known as the "Moses" of her people and the "conductor" who led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. In 1850, when the far-reaching United States Fugitive Law was passed, she guided fugitive slaves further north into Canada. When angry slave owners posted rewards for her capture, she continued her work despite great personal risk. From 1851 to 1857, Tubman lived in St. Catharines, Ontario, where she rescued many relatives of those already in St. Catharines including her own parents, brothers and sisters and their families. Later, Tubman became a leader in the Abolitionist movement. During the Civil war she worked as a nurse and served as a spy for the Union forces in South Carolina.