In windswept and cold Atlantic Canada, slavery found fertile ground that produced multiple generations of enslaved people. Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes  sheds light on more than 1,400 brief life histories of mostly enslaved Black people, with the goal of recovering their individual lives.

In this important book, Harvey Amani Whitfield unearths the stories of men, women, and children who would not otherwise have found their way into written history. The individual lives mentioned come from various points of origin, including Africa, the West Indies, the Carolinas, the Chesapeake, and the northern states, showcasing the remarkable range of the African experience in the Atlantic world. Whitfield makes it clear that these enslaved Black people had likes, dislikes, various personality traits, and different levels of physical, spiritual, and intellectual talent. In doing so, he affirms the notion that all of these slaves were unique individuals, despite the efforts of their owners and the wider Atlantic world to dehumanize and erase them.

With a Foreward by Donald A. Wright, Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes helps us understand the challenges of race in our own time by telling a new story about Canadian history – one rooted in the difficulties of slavery and the actions taken to fight for dignity.

Harvey Amani Whitfield is a professor of Black North American History at the University of Calgary.

Donald A. Wright is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick.