Canada
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on August 1, 1834, and thus also in Canada. However, the first colony in the British Empire to actually abolish slavery was Upper Canada, now Ontario. A British army officer and later the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada (1791–1796), John Graves Simcoe, passed an Act Against Slavery in 1793, which led to the abolition of slavery in Upper Canada by 1810. It was then superseded by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
While the date of the First August Monday holiday in Canada is historically linked to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834; not all of provinces' commemorate the holiday as such.
Read more about this topic: Emancipation Day
Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“This universal exhibition in Canada of the tools and sinews of war reminded me of the keeper of a menagerie showing his animals’ claws. It was the English leopard showing his claws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)