Could the first black in Canada have been the interpreter of Champlain? Did you know that there was slavery in Quebec? That the largest free Afro-descendant community in North America in the 18e century was in Nova Scotia? The documentary series African Canadaby director Henri Pardo, recounts the presence of blacks in the country by offering another vision of our collective history.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
We don’t usually think of Canada and Quebec when we talk about slavery. With a neighbor like the United States, it is probably easy to ease your conscience. However, between 1629 and 1800, there were more than 4,000 slaves on the territory of what is now Quebec, reminds Aly Ndiaye to a small assembly of children in African Canada.
This “class of the future”, as director Henri Pardo calls it, is one of the common threads of his documentary series presented from August 13 on ICI Télé. It is in front of these young people that the “teacher”, Aly Ndiaye, better known as a rapper under the pseudonym Webster, traces the presence of Afro-descendants in Canada.
He speaks of a certain Mathieu Da Costa, who came to Port-Royal in 1605 with Champlain as an interpreter, after having probably already set foot in New France. He also talks about Olivier Lejeune, the first registered slave in Quebec. He talks about resistance, systemic racism, but he also talks about family, culture and living together, themes that the director deepens by going to meet intellectuals and activists.
The project is both simple and delicate: to tell another version of the history of Canada, which includes the lived experiences of its Afro-descendant citizens and their ancestors. “Documentaries like this are not easy because they can be re-traumatizing in a way,” explains the director. Our history is fraught with wounds and trauma from the slavery and oppression that existed for hundreds of years in Canada. It’s important for us to appropriate it and tell it in our own way. »
PHOTO MORGANE SHOCK, THE PRESS
Henri Pardo, director of the series African Canada
We love this land, we participate in it, we greatly participated in it, we forged this country in the same way as the famous native Quebecers, the first settlers or anyone else. Our imprint here is there, indelible, and we must recognize it.
Henri Pardo, director of the series
Series African Canada tackles all subjects head-on, but with tact and a sensitive approach. Henri Pardo mixes cinematographic languages: to interviews and scenes from the “class of the future” are added animated sequences, reconstructions, dance scenes and musical interludes. Beautiful segments notably feature singers Pierre Kwenders and Dominique Fils-Aimé.
This mixture of approaches imposed itself, says the director, and constitutes a way of remaining close to his culture. “If I take Haiti as an example, we are very much in what is called creolization. The Africans used what was around them on this island to forge a culture, a religion, a language, borrowing from African countries and European countries — even if they were colonizers — and putting it all together. This is something that we find a lot in Afro-descendant culture. »
“Discover other ways of doing things”
African Canada delves into many less than rosy aspects of Canadian history, such as the more or less institutionalized segregation that also existed here. “It has repercussions until today: it’s not easy to find an apartment in certain neighborhoods when you are of Afro-descendant”, underlines Henri Pardo.
These structures are still present. When we talk about systemic racism, it is really 500 years of history that must be analyzed and understood.
Henri Pardo, director of the series
His series also dwells on the light that springs, speaking in particular of resistance, which, notes Aly Ndiaye, is inseparable from the experience of slavery. “It was important in our approach to find something that does us honor,” says the director. Yes, there is this resistance, but there is also this desire to take care of one’s family, to found a home, to live. A survival instinct that will be expressed in particular through dance, music and other arts.
He believes that the public is open to receiving this other vision of Canadian history. “People are paying attention and I think they’re eager to find a different way of behaving — I’m talking about white people in general. I think they’re starting to realize that you don’t just have to avoid certain words, he says. This is what we mean by “decolonizing minds and History”: discovering other ways of doing things, other ways of expressing yourself to go elsewhere and include everyone. »
On ICI Télé, Saturdays, 9 p.m., starting August 13