Black Women in Canada

People of African descent have lived in Canada for centuries. According to historical records, Mathieu da Costa was the first to arrive in the early 1600s to serve as a translator between the Mi’kmaq people and French colonizers. Thousands of more Black people would arrive in the following centuries, to labour alongside of Indigenous slaves, first in New France and then the British colonies of Upper and Lower Canada. Others fled north, escaping slavery in the United States.