Gender Matters Speaker Series

November 2022 Gender Matters Speaker Series

Natasha Henry Dixon: 'One Too Many: The Lives and Experiences of the Enslaved in Upper Canada'

Natasha Henry-Dixon will discuss her current research, One Too Many: The Enslavement of African People in Early Ontario, 1760 – 1834, which draws on Black Digital Humanities (BDH) as method to centre enslaved people as historical subjects and uncovers their lives. In so doing, this work intentionally disrupts the silences of the history of racial enslavement and destabilizes the fragmentation of enslaved Africans that is persistent in colonial archival practices. This talk will highlight aspects of her research which explores the lives and experiences of the enslaved, and the role of chattel slavery in Upper Canada.

Natasha Henry-Dixon is an assistant professor of African Canadian History at York University. The 2018 Vanier Scholar is researching the enslavement of African people in early Ontario. Natasha is the president of the Ontario Black History Society. Her publications include Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada (June 2010), Talking about Freedom: Celebrating Freedom in Canada (2012), a number of youth-focused titles, and several entries for the Canadian Encyclopedia on African Canadian history. Through her various professional, academic, and community roles, Natasha’s work is grounded in her commitment to research, collect, preserve, and disseminate the histories Black Canadians.