The Black soldiers who supported the Union in the American Civil War were known as “the Contrabands.” The Fugitive Slave Act, which deemed people held as slaves as “property” to be returned to their owners, had been the law in effect prior to the commencement of the...
The Emancipation Proclamation issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln the previous September came into effect on January 1,1863. However it did not abolish slavery. The Proclamation declared free all enslaved people in the Confederate States who resided in territory...
Jacob Francis fought discrimination by suing two bar owners for refusing to serve him. While he was not successful against the first barkeeper in April 1860, in July 1862 he achieved a favorable outcome against the second barkeeper. The magistrate ruled that any...
John and Charlotte Dandridge arrived in Victoria in 1858. John was one of the men who applied for citizenship in 1858. In 1860 they were joined by their daughter Sydna, her husband Abner Hunt Francis and their grand-daughter Theodosia, age about 16. The house was...
Four candidates contended for two vacant Legislative Assembly seats in Victoria in an 1861 by-election. Joseph Trutch came in second in voting and Jacob Francis was third. There was public debate and support for Francis’s claim to the seat, in that Trutch was absent...
