Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada

Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe and Attorney General John White used the Chloe Cooley incident as the impetus to introduce a law to end enslavement in Upper Canada. On 19 June 1793, White proposed an abolition bill in the House of Assembly. It received opposition because at least 14 members of the government held Black or Indigenous slaves. A compromise was struck, and the legislature passed An act to prevent the further introduction of slaves, and to limit the term of contracts for servitude within this province, which received royal assent on 9 July.

The Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, as it became known, did not manumit any enslaved persons. First and foremost, it confirmed and authorized the lifelong subjugation of those enslaved at the time of its passage. Secondly, while it prohibited the importation of enslaved persons, it still allowed their sale and purchase within the colony or across the border. Thirdly, the act laid the foundation for gradual abolition: the children of enslaved mothers would be born into bondage but then freed upon reaching 25 years of age. Fourthly, the act outlined the obligations of former enslavers to those they had manumitted, and it encouraged former enslavers to employ freed individuals as indentured servants.

In 1798 Christopher Robinson sponsored a bill in the House of Assembly that would have extended slavery within the province, but the efforts of Richard Cartwright and Robert Hamilton in the Legislative Council prevented it from passing.