User:Geo Swan/Slavery in Upper Canada

John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, put restrictions on Slavery in Upper Canada. Under his administration the legislature passed an act that would did not allow slave-owners to bring slaves into the Province. Commentators sometimes characterize this law as marking Upper Canada as the first part of the British Empire where slavery was outlawed.

However, slave-owners who had already brought slaves into the Province could continue to hold those individuals in bondaage. Their children were born into slavery, but would be freed, when they were 25 years old. Further, the act included a disincentive for slave-owners to free their slaves, they would be under an obligation to make sure their former slaves were not a burden on the public.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed a law prohibiting slavery throughout the British Empire, in 1834.

According to some reports Amy Pompadour was the last person known to be legally enslaved, in Upper Canada.