Black Canadians, 1890–1914: Contributions and Obstacles

Let's start with a question

What would it take for a family to sell their farm, pack everything onto a train, and move more than 2,000 kilometres north to a land of long winters?

Between about 1909 and 1911, around a thousand Black Americans, mostly from Oklahoma, did exactly that. They came to Alberta and Saskatchewan to homestead. Their story, along with stories of a famous Black cowboy and of Black railway workers, is part of how Western Canada was built. It is also a story of how the Canadian government tried to keep them out.

Black communities already in Canada

Remember from Grade 7: by 1850 Black communities were well established in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario (such as Buxton, Chatham, Toronto and Amherstburg). By 1890, these communities had churches, schools, businesses and families going back generations. There were also Black communities in Montreal and in British Columbia.

In the years 1890–1914, Black Canadians kept building, while facing segregation in some schools, hotels, theatres and jobs.

John Ware: rancher and cowboy

John Ware was probably born enslaved in the United States, around 1845 to 1850, and gained his freedom after the American Civil War ended in 1865. He became a skilled cowboy, driving cattle north from Texas.

• In 1882, he helped bring 3,000 head of cattle from Montana to a large ranch southwest of Calgary. He worked on ranches including the famous Bar U.
• He became known across the region for his skill with horses and cattle and his great strength.
• In 1887 he started his own ranch near Millarville. In 1892 he married Mildred Lewis, who had moved west from Toronto. They had six children; one died as a baby.
• In 1902 they moved to a new ranch on the Red Deer River near Brooks.
• Mildred died in March 1905. John died in September 1905 when his horse tripped in a badger hole and fell on him, the same month Alberta became a province.

Together John and Mildred Ware built ranches and raised a family in a time when ranching shaped what became Alberta. In 2022 the Government of Canada named John Ware a person of national historic significance. Mount Ware and John Ware Ridge near Millarville, and a school in Calgary, carry his name.

Black homesteaders from Oklahoma

Push factors: After Oklahoma became a state in 1907, its government passed Jim Crow laws that forced segregation and took away Black citizens' voting rights. Racist violence was a real danger.

Pull factors: Canadian advertising promised free homesteads to farmers, and many of these families were experienced farmers.

Between about 1909 and 1911, around 1,000 Black Americans moved north (estimates for 1905–1912 are about 1,500). They settled in:

• Amber Valley, Alberta, about 170 km north of Edmonton, founded in 1910 under the name Pine Creek (it was renamed in 1931). Families included the Bowen, Sneed, Murphy and Edwards families.
• Junkins (now Wildwood), Keystone (now Breton) and Campsie in Alberta.
• The Eldon district north of Maidstone, Saskatchewan. The Mayes family came there from Oklahoma in 1910. In 1912 the community built Shiloh Baptist Church, which became the centre of community life. Mattie Mayes, who with her husband Joseph raised thirteen children, was a midwife who used her knowledge of herbal medicine to help neighbours when a doctor could not come in time.

Building on hard land

Many Black homesteaders received poor land: bush, swamps and uncleared ground. At Amber Valley, clearing a farm often took two to three years. The communities were isolated, far from towns and railways.

The settlers relied on each other and on neighbours, including nearby Ukrainian settlers. Many men earned extra money hauling freight, working in lumber camps or taking seasonal jobs. They built churches, schools and community halls. At Amber Valley, Toles School opened in 1913. In 2021, Canada Post issued a stamp honouring Amber Valley's settlers, and in 2019 Shiloh Baptist Church became a Provincial Heritage Property in Saskatchewan.

Keeping Black Americans out: 1910–1911

The government advertised free land to American farmers. Hundreds of thousands of white Americans came. But when Black American farmers began to arrive, officials and some Canadians reacted with racism.

• Petitions: In March 1911, the Edmonton chapter of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire wrote that they viewed "with alarm" the arrival of Black settlers. In April 1911, the Edmonton Board of Trade sent a petition calling Black settlers a "serious menace". Boards of trade across the West echoed it.
• Quiet barriers: Black applicants faced strict medical exams at the border and tests of their money and literacy. They were often refused the certificates that gave cheaper train fares. The government even sent two agents to Oklahoma, one a doctor, to warn Black families that Canada's climate was harsh and that they would face racism there too.
• The order-in-council: On 12 August 1911, Laurier's Cabinet approved Order-in-Council P.C. 1911-1324. For one year, it would have banned "any immigrants belonging to the Negro race, which race is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada."

The order was never used. On 5 October 1911, Cabinet cancelled it, giving the excuse that the Minister of the Interior had not been present when it was approved. But the other barriers worked: Black immigration from the United States slowed to a trickle. Historian R. Bruce Shepard called this "diplomatic racism".

Sleeping-car porters

On long train trips, passengers slept in sleeping cars. The railways hired Black men as porters to serve them. It was one of the few steady jobs open to Black men, and railways recruited porters from communities such as Africville in Halifax, Little Burgundy in Montreal and Toronto, and later from the United States and the Caribbean. By 1909, there were 76 porters working out of Winnipeg alone.

• The work: very long hours, on call day and night, often sleeping only a few hours in the smoking room, away from home for days.
• The obstacles: low pay and a reliance on tips, harsh discipline, and disrespect: passengers often called every porter "George" instead of his own name. Black porters were not promoted to jobs like conductor. In 1908, the main railway workers' union in Canada allowed only white members.
• The response and contribution: porters' wages supported families and helped Black neighbourhoods grow in Montreal, Winnipeg, Toronto and Vancouver. In 1917, just after this unit's period, Black porters in Winnipeg founded the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black railway union in North America. Porters later became leaders in the fight against discrimination in Canada.