Act Against Slavery

The Act Against Slavery was an anti-slavery law passed on July 9, 1793, in the first legislative session of Upper Canada, the colonial division of British North America that would eventually become Ontario.

John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of the colony, had been a supporter of abolition before coming to Upper Canada; as a British Member of Parliament, he had described slavery as an offence against Christianity. At the time, Upper Canada had about three hundred slaves.

At the inaugural meeting of the Executive Council of Upper Canada in March 1793, Simcoe heard from a witness the story of Chloe Cooley, a female slave who had been violently removed from Canada for sale in the United States. Simcoe's desire to abolish slavery in Upper Canada was resisted by members of the Legislative Assembly who owned slaves, and therefore the resulting act was a compromise. Of the sixteen members of the assembly, at least six owned slaves.

The law, titled An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province, stated that while all slaves in the province would remain enslaved until death, no new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada, and children born to female slaves after passage of the act would be freed at age 25.

This law made Upper Canada "the first British colony to abolish slavery." The Act remained in force until 1833 when the British Parliament's Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery in most parts of the British Empire.