The BC Black History Timeline covers events in British Columbia as well as some significant events in Canada, the United States and globally that affected Black settlement and the experiences of Black people in BC. The first Black settlers arrived in BC in April 1858, 24 years after the Abolition of Slavery Act; however Black Canadian history dates back to the 1600s.
We’ve also published a 52-page illustrated booklet to purchase by donation. Find out more
Some events occurred on a specific date and others took place over a period of time.
Timelines can …
- Connect individual events and people and their relation to an era as a whole
- Demonstrate the overlapping or concurrency of seemingly unrelated events
- Highlight patterns played out in history
- Identify cause and effect relationships surrounding historical events
- Improve recollection of events, people and places and their relationship to each other
