Dresden author’s book chosen to be first in Black Canadian studies series

Marie Carter’s curiosity about local Black history began as a Dresden-area farm girl whose family lived next door to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin site, known today as the Josiah Henson Museum of African-Canadian History.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Her curiosity grew during the decades leading to Carter to write the book, In The Light of Dawn: The History and Legacy of a Black Canadian Community, published by the University of Regina Press to be released in early February 2025.

Carter, who has done extensive research on the Dawn Settlement and Dresden through such projects at the Trillium Trail Historical Walk and the Promised Land: The Freedom and Experience of Blacks of the Chatham and Dawn Settlement project, said she originally intended to write her book for to a general audience.

However, that changed when Carter asked her friend, Afua Cooper, a leading expert on African Canadian and African diaspora history whom she met through The Promised Land project, if she would take a look at an early draft.

Article content

Carter was surprised when Cooper suggested she submit her book to the University of Regina Press, which has since been chosen as the first book in The Henry and Mary Bibb Series in Black Canadian Studies which Cooper is editing.

“It was very flattering that she thought it was worthwhile enough in that really raw form,” Carter said.

Having a high school education, she added, “I never thought I would publish academically.”

Carter said the process of having In The Light of Dawn be the first book the series included having it peer-reviewed, which was both daunting and reassuring, since she doesn’t have an academic background.

“I think the peer-review process was really good in terms of upping my game,” she said.

Carter said her involvement with the Trillium Trail and Promised Land history projects uncovered untold stories that are part of In The Light of Dawn.

Article content

The book “kind of came as a natural evolution of all these projects,” she said. “I thought, at some point, ‘I really do need to pull all this together, plus the stuff I’m still learning, and put it in one work that people could sit down and read the whole story.’”

While Josiah Henson, a well-known figure in Black history, played an important role in the Dawn Settlement, Carter’s book shows his story is just one part of the settlement’s rich history.

She views Henson as “part of an ensemble cast of historical figures that all have equal importance.”

Research into the Trillium Trail, established more than 20 years ago, telling the stories of several of Black people who had a tremendous impact on Dresden and the Dawn Settlement, was an eye-opener for Carter, showing not every Black person arrived to the area via the Underground Railroad.

Article content

She recalled looking through old land records and realized William Whipper, a Black man originally from Pennsylvania, owned 100 properties in Dresden.

Not knowing anything about Whipper when this was discovered, Carter said, “That was the first clue that there were these lost stories.”

In The Light of Dawn highlights many successful Black people, including some who arrived decades before Henson.

The Town of Dresden has received negative media coverage regarding racism in past decades.

Carter was struck by the words of Dresden-born Rev. Jennie Johnson, the first Black woman called to full ministry in Canada, when she spoke at a Dresden town council meeting in the late 1940s. Johnson stated the way in which we understand people’s histories impacts how we view people in the present.

Article content

“You really wonder, if people had recognized the contributions that Blacks had brought to the area, would we have had some of the racial difficulties that we did have?” Carter said.

Noting her book aims at discussing multiculturalism with stories of how Blacks, Indigenous and White people all helped build the Dawn Settlement, Carter said there is a discussion in the academic world that multiculturalism is a failure.

Her personal beliefs differ.

“I would like people to recognize that everybody’s history is community history, that we should be interested in all of it, because it’s all part of us,” Carter said.

“To me, it’s a really fascinating story of how we’ve evolved together.”

[email protected]

Article content