Bringing Canada’s black history into the forefront, the Nile Valley Foundation is creating a resource library and capturing first-hand accounts of some of the first black settlers before they are gone forever.
“Our mission is sharing the African diaspora story with all Canadians, because we believe a story defines the character and the vision of a people,” said Nile Valley founder Nii Tawiah Okurajah Koney II.
The story of African diaspora — referring to descendants of those captured as slaves and dispersed during the Atlantic slave trade — is one of loss of identity, struggle and discrimination, the effects of which are still being felt by African-Canadians today.
“Only the truth shall set you free, and until the truth of people of African descent are heard, they cannot forgive,” said Koney. “This is part of our healing process.”
Between 1907 and 1911 — shortly after Alberta became a province — around a thousand African-Americans settled in Alberta and Saskatchewan, lured with the promise of cheap land and an escape from the discrimination faced in the United States to set roots in a new homeland.
“Many of them came, but when they got to Winnipeg, they discovered they were not wanted in Canada,” said Afua Cooper, the James Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University, who is researching the history of black settlers who made a home outside of Edmonton in Amber Valley.
That being said, the few settlers who made it Alberta — only about 200 families — were determined to make this new land their home in spite of the obstacles.
Overcoming discrimination, an unforgiving climate and poor farming conditions, 80% of Alberta’s black homesteaders were able to maintain their land long enough to earn homestead patents, compared to only half of all other prairie homesteaders.
“When you challenge people, when you dare people, they build strength, and it is that strength that has brought us this far because we had to face so many things,” said Koney.
These settlers were integral in forming the modern Alberta we see today, but their efforts and achievements have largely gone uncelebrated as Canadian history traditionally has been told from a Eurocentric perspective.
“It’s this unwillingness to tell another story,” said Cooper. “We just love to tell this mono-story, this one story. Fortunately, that’s changing now.”
The Nile Valley Foundation, founded in 2010, has worked to bring the history of African-Canadians to the forefront of public discourse, collecting literature in the hopes of establishing a library where those interested can gather and share this history.
Working to preserve the still living history of direct descendents of black settlers, Echoes of the Unheard is a new project where first-hand accounts of this history are recorded and preserved for future generations.
“When we are able to capture this, the knowledge of a generation will be shared,” said Koney.
David Ridley, executive director of the Edmonton Heritage Council, believes initiatives like the Nile Valley Foundation are helping to foster a true community spirit by painting a full picture of the Canadian story.
“It helps people feel that their experience, not just their personal experience but their cultural and community experience, is actually being appreciated and there is a place for it,” said Ridley.
For more information on the Nile Valley Foundation, including upcoming events and how to donate materials for their library, go to
nilevalleyfoundation.org.
