Matching Bodies and Environments: Black Bodies in Atlantic Canada

• In Event: Global Perspectives on Crisis and Space in Preindustrial Environmental Histories

Abstract

This paper explores how the eighteenth-century British empire moved people based on assumptions about their agricultural/physical "fit" for certain regions and not others. During the late eighteenth-century, the British government in the Canadian Maritimes welcomed black migration; they constructed the black body as hardy and fit for agricultural work in any environment. Yet, by the early nineteenth century – just five decades later – this same administration rejected the same bodies because they announced that these bodies were not hardy enough to survive the harsh winters. Indeed, some warned that black bodies would die within weeks of entering a cold climate. This environmental argument, however, made it difficult for Canadians to attract Europeans as well. If the environment of origin determined the environment of relocation, who would qualify as ideal settlers for Atlantic Canada? My paper - like the rest of the panel - studies how environment became an independent factor in imperial decision-making.

Author

• Ruma Chopra, San José State University