Slavery Accusations: Dundas Relative on Mission to Clear Name of 18th-Century Statesman

Pedestrians wait to cross an intersection on Dundas Street West in Toronto on June 10, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini)

The pushback against renaming Toronto’s Dundas Street gained momentum recently after three former mayors spoke out in opposition to it, and a distant relative of Henry Dundas has renewed hope the proposal will be scrapped.

Jennifer Dundas, a retired crown prosecutor and former CBC reporter, has spent years reading through scholarly articles, books, official records, and journal entries related to the prominent British politician Henry Dundas (1742–1811).

Mr. Dundas’s role in the abolition of slavery has been the subject of debate since a 2020 petition said he delayed abolition, and therefore the street should be renamed. In 2021, a city staff report came to the same conclusion and councillors voted in favour of the proposal.

But Ms. Dundas contests the city’s report with her own research. She says Mr. Dundas was against slavery—it’s only that he differed from prominent abolitionists of the time on how to go about ending it.

“One of the things that motivates me is that it has caused distress to my family, especially to those with children who have been subjected to some teasing and abuse from classmates over this,” Ms. Dundas told The Epoch Times.

She’s expecting her first grandchild this fall and wants to be sure that child can carry the Dundas name without “an undeserved cloud hanging over the family name.”

Jennifer Dundas is a distant relative of 18th century British statesman Henry Dundas. (Courtesy of Jennifer Dundas)

Ms. Dundas said the debate over renaming the street is coming to a head.

Among the challenges city officials face is the cost, she said, which a city estimate puts at $8.6 million. The city is expecting a $1.5 billion budget shortfall. Ms. Dundas says that $8.6 million doesn’t include additional costs to help businesses on the street rebrand or change signage as needed.

“They’re in a very difficult situation now with the budget, and frankly I think that anything that helps them find a defensible off-ramp would be welcome,” she said. She thinks the historical evidence exonerates Mr. Dundas and truly removes any question about needing to rename the street.

Earlier this month, former mayors David Crombie, John Sewell, and Art Eggleton sent a letter to Mayor Olivia Chow, urging her to abandon the plan to change the street name. “[Henry Dundas was], according to a considerable amount of historic evidence, a committed abolitionist of slavery,” the letter said.

Ending Slavery in Scotland

In looking at Mr. Dundas’s actions related to slavery chronologically, Ms. Dundas starts with his decision to represent a black man named Joseph Knight in court in the 1770s to prove he was a free man.

Mr. Dundas was serving as the lord advocate of Scotland at the time, the highest law officer. He chose to represent Mr. Knight not in this capacity, but rather “pro bono, in his personal capacity as a member of the bar in Scotland,” Ms. Dundas said. She shared archived documentation to that effect on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He not only succeeded in convincing the court that Mr. Knight was a free man, he also convinced it to declare that no person could be a slave on Scottish soil, Ms. Dundas said.

“Henry Dundas literally ended slavery in Scotland,” she said. “This was the perspective that he came into politics with.”

She added that this wasn’t something he would have done out of self-interest; it wouldn’t have bolstered his political career.

“There was no groundswell of support against slavery at that time,” Ms. Dundas said. “The abolition movement really didn’t happen until 10 years later with any great force. So he didn’t do this in order to capture support and public opinion. He did this out of personal principles.”

Throughout his life, she said, he consistently spoke against both slavery and the slave trade as being contrary to justice and humanity.

However, his relationship with prominent abolitionists of the time, such as William Wilberforce, was push and pull. They both stood against slavery in essence, but disagreed on how to go about ending it, Ms. Dundas said.

“It was like a power struggle over who was going to control the agenda.”

Mr. Dundas said that abolition legislation would be more likely to pass the House of Lords if it made abolition gradual, implemented over the course of several years. But Mr. Wilberforce and others focused an immediate halt to the slave trade. They thought that to tolerate it for one day was a sin, she said.

“Henry Dundas kept asking them to be realistic,” she said, adding that in some ways, “the same spirit animates today’s debate” over renaming the street.

“It does appear to me that that those who denounce Henry Dundas don’t appreciate the complexities and the enormous obstacles that he was facing.”

In the meantime, behind the scenes, Mr. Dundas was working with Mr. Wilberforce toward an international convention for abolition. Mr. Wilberforce mentions in his journals at the time how Mr. Dundas was supportive and gave him good advice, Ms. Dundas said.

City Report

Ms. Dundas gave examples of how the city staff report that informed the decision to rename Dundas Street was inaccurate. For example, it said Mr. Dundas supported the purchase of thousands of slaves for the military as secretary of state for war in 1793. He opposed and rejected that decision, she said, but was eventually overruled by cabinet.

The Epoch Times asked the city to respond to discrepancies in the report highlighted by Ms. Dundas. In an emailed statement, the city responded that staff consulted with dozens of scholars and considered peer-reviewed academic research. An advisory committee is due to release a shortlist of new names for Dundas Street this fall for public feedback.