Labour Colonies in North America

• Main Author: Arneil, Barbara
• Format: Book
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2017
• Subjects: Canada; Freed; Metis
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198803423.003.0004

In Chapter 4, the author analyses the introduction of domestic labour colonies in the United States and Canada. Unlike Europe, permanent labour colonies for the general population of ‘idle poor’ were rejected. Instead they were either implemented temporarily at moments of crisis (post-WWI and the Depression) or, more importantly, for racialized minorities over a longer period of time. The bulk of the chapter is thus spent on two case studies: colonies for freed African-American slaves in the United States viewed as the necessary corollary of emancipation and colonies for Metis and indigenous peoples of Canada as important tools in the assimilation of such populations. Racialized colonies were justified by many of the leading thinkers in both countries, including two of the most iconic and celebrated figures in American and Canadian history, Abraham Lincoln and Tommy Douglas, who make the case for colonies for freed slaves and Metis people, respectively, in their jurisdictions, nearly a century apart.