University of Ottawa researcher awarded one million dollars to study historical amnesia and black Canadian settlements
OTTAWA, December 5, 2007 — A one million dollar grant has been awarded to University of Ottawa Communication Assistant Professor Dr. Boulou Ebanda de B'béri by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council to study the freedom experience of blacks in the Chatham and Dawn Settlements of Southern Ontario.These settlements, often known as the “Promised Land” communities, were home to a significant group of people of African decent in the 1800s and are commonly linked to popularized stories about the underground railroad escape from slavery in the U.S. to Canada; which is only a part of a much larger story.
The "Promised Land" communities generated powerful ideologies of freedom, identity, and citizenship. From this ideological crucible, black Canadian women and men in the 19th century worked to abolish slavery in the United States, and to protect civil rights in Canada. Though the communities themselves were small, their influence stretched across Canada and to the farthest reaches of the Atlantic world. They were the vital center of a culture of justice that drew interracial support and forged links of freedom across the United States and Britain.
Despite the importance of these communities in creating and defining Canada's multicultural character over two centuries of our past, only fragments of this connected history have been explored. Much of it remains locked in rich but fragile primary sources, and little has found its way into Canada's national memory.
The Promised Land project will address this problem of "historical amnesia." The project brings together an organic, interdisciplinary team of community and university researchers whose goal is to recover the fullness, interconnectedness and significance of black history in these communities. The overall aim is to highlight the historical importance of the Promised Land as an unrecognized and central story in Canada's past, and to draw attention to its current relevance as a model of multiculturalism in a global age. It will preserve and make accessible primary sources, develop educational materials and create community projects in the arts and public history.