February 10, 2010:

The City of Ottawa celebrates Black History Month in February of each year.

The Black community has a web site at http://www.blackhistoryottawa.org/. There, you will
find relevant links to events, regarding Black History, occurring in our region.

This web site (Bytown or Bust), records the history of the Ottawa area of Ontario, Canada, by a co-operative effort of researchers and
contributors to the web site. Something which I think is important for future generations, is for us to record our past family
history and our origins outside of Canada. Some of our descendants will be interested in learning about their past.

The City of Ottawa was known as "Bytown" prior to the year 1855. 

The first black person in this area was London Oxford, a free black man who was part of the original pioneer group which
came with Philomen Wright in the year 1800. 
(Source: "The Famous Township of Hull": Image and Aspirations of a Pioneer Quebec Community, by Dr. Bruce Elliott.

The first documented black persons, whom I have found in Bytown was a man named Perry Adams and his wife, Henrietta Joyce. 

They were in Bytown in the year 1844. On March 10th of 1844, they baptized their child, Frances, at 
Notre Dame Cathedral on Sussex Drive, in downtown Ottawa. The Godmother at this baptism was Mary McHale, an Irish immigrant, who with her
husband and family, farmed on the Manotick Station Road in Osgoode Township. The McHale family were friends and
neighbours of my Great Great Grandparents, Lawrence Burns and Margaret Doyle.

Here is a copy of the baptism of Frances Adams: (Source: Drouin Records for Notre Dame Cathedral at ancestry.ca)



... Al

February 12, 2010:

An Ottawa Citizen article dated September 5, 1931, tells the story of some of the early blacks who served
in the War of 1812 for Canada. Some of them were given land grants in our area.



Read the complete article at http://news.google.ca/newspapers?id=2hUvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NNsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3737,6703365&dq=defenders&hl=en

January 9, 2010:

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the American South in about 1818. By 1845, he was a free man living in
New Bedford, Massachussetts. As part of a 2nd year American History course at Carleton University, the students were
required to write an article about slavery. See mine, here.


October 21, 2010:

In 1806, Philomen Wright took the first raft of timber from Hull, Quebec, to Quebec City for sale to the
export market. Among the first persons on this initial trip was London Oxford.
Source: Colonial Identities: Canada from 1760 to 1815, page 127



December 27, 2010:

The Ottawa Black Community celebrates Jaku Konbit. There is an article by Louisa Taylor in today's Ottawa Citizen 
relating the experience of two black women who came to Ottawa to work as domestics in the 1950's. They were
pioneers from Jamaica and other parts of the Carribean.

According to the Jaku Konbit web site, Jaku Konbit is a registered non-profit, educational community-based and 
family-oriented organization established in Ottawa in 2000. Our mandate is to support and ameliorate the lives of 
minority and disadvantaged youth, particularly Canadian children and youth of African and Caribbean descent 
in the Ottawa Region.

Visit their web site at http://www.jakukonbit.com/new/index.shtml

... Al


 February 24, 2011:

The Bytown or Bust Library now has a copy of The Blacks in Canada. Written in 1971, this
556 page book by Robin W. Winks at Yale University is the authoritative book describing the history of the Black 
community in Canada from 1628 to the 1960's, before the large scale immigration of the last 40 years. 
... Al