Emancipation Day

In 2021, the House of Commons unanimously designated August 1 Emancipation Day, an occasion to reflect on the history and legacy of slavery in North America. Unlike the United States, Canada does not have a history of industrial-scale slavery. But slavery did exist in what’s now Canada, and it was not abolished until the early nineteenth century.

15

The approximate number, in millions, of Africans who were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade.

1833

The year the British parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which banned slavery throughout the British Empire. It took effect on August 1, 1834.

1793

The year Upper Canada introduced a statute — the first of its kind in the British Empire — imposing limits on slavery. The law banned the importation of slaves.

800,000

The approximate number of slaves in the British Empire at the time of slavery’s abolition.