“A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada
This tavern story about an 1832 Saturday night on the town in Brantford, Upper Canada, addresses the complexities of racialized relations in “public places” generally and the tavern’s bar room in particular. It juxtaposes tavern-goers who engaged in “heterogenous” sociability with the “‘high pressur...
Published in: | Canadian Historical Review |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2021
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 |
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crunivtoronpr:10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 2023-12-31T10:06:57+01:00 “A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada Roberts, Julia 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 en eng University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) Canadian Historical Review volume 102, issue s2, page s427-s450 ISSN 0008-3755 1710-1093 Religious studies History journal-article 2021 crunivtoronpr https://doi.org/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 2023-12-01T08:17:59Z This tavern story about an 1832 Saturday night on the town in Brantford, Upper Canada, addresses the complexities of racialized relations in “public places” generally and the tavern’s bar room in particular. It juxtaposes tavern-goers who engaged in “heterogenous” sociability with the “‘high pressure’ prejudice” of a “‘Yankee’” barkeeper. It challenges us to understand what such moments of multiracial public life meant in a society permeated by racialized thought and practice. There was a strange contradiction between White settlers’ marginalization of Black and First Nations peoples and the sometimes easy accommodation afforded them in the public houses. Although accommodation to people of colour was also illegally, and sometimes violently, denied, tavern stories complicate historical interpretations focusing on conflict. Without questioning these analyses, or the evidence supporting them, the stories suggest that something more subtle was also going on. They invite serious attention to the colony’s many taverns as sites where people chose to relax racial boundaries as often as they chose to enforce them. Maybe it was just the whiskey and the wine; without comparable work on other public spaces, the typicality of a tavern-based history will remain an open question. But because “Indians” as well as the “blacks and whites” all went there, the taverns show how race, as one socially constructed category, shaped ordinary, everyday human interactions. Article in Journal/Newspaper First Nations University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) Canadian Historical Review 102 s2 s427 s450 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) |
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crunivtoronpr |
language |
English |
topic |
Religious studies History |
spellingShingle |
Religious studies History Roberts, Julia “A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada |
topic_facet |
Religious studies History |
description |
This tavern story about an 1832 Saturday night on the town in Brantford, Upper Canada, addresses the complexities of racialized relations in “public places” generally and the tavern’s bar room in particular. It juxtaposes tavern-goers who engaged in “heterogenous” sociability with the “‘high pressure’ prejudice” of a “‘Yankee’” barkeeper. It challenges us to understand what such moments of multiracial public life meant in a society permeated by racialized thought and practice. There was a strange contradiction between White settlers’ marginalization of Black and First Nations peoples and the sometimes easy accommodation afforded them in the public houses. Although accommodation to people of colour was also illegally, and sometimes violently, denied, tavern stories complicate historical interpretations focusing on conflict. Without questioning these analyses, or the evidence supporting them, the stories suggest that something more subtle was also going on. They invite serious attention to the colony’s many taverns as sites where people chose to relax racial boundaries as often as they chose to enforce them. Maybe it was just the whiskey and the wine; without comparable work on other public spaces, the typicality of a tavern-based history will remain an open question. But because “Indians” as well as the “blacks and whites” all went there, the taverns show how race, as one socially constructed category, shaped ordinary, everyday human interactions. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Roberts, Julia |
author_facet |
Roberts, Julia |
author_sort |
Roberts, Julia |
title |
“A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada |
title_short |
“A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada |
title_full |
“A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada |
title_fullStr |
“A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada |
title_full_unstemmed |
“A Mixed Assemblage of Persons”: Race and Tavern Space in Upper Canada |
title_sort |
“a mixed assemblage of persons”: race and tavern space in upper canada |
publisher |
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 |
genre |
First Nations |
genre_facet |
First Nations |
op_source |
Canadian Historical Review volume 102, issue s2, page s427-s450 ISSN 0008-3755 1710-1093 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3138/chr-102-s2-006 |
container_title |
Canadian Historical Review |
container_volume |
102 |
container_issue |
s2 |
container_start_page |
s427 |
op_container_end_page |
s450 |
_version_ |
1786839155056050176 |