PAUL CHERRY, "'THEY ARRIVED AND DIED IN BONDAGE': HANK AVERY'S SIX-YEAR CRUSADE TO GET OFFICIAL RECOGNITION FOR CANADA'S ONLY SLAVE CEMETERY HAS BEEN REWARDED," OTTAWA CITIZEN  (MAY 13, 2002).

Copyright Ottawa Citizen 2002

Hank Avery's six-year struggle to get official recognition of a slaves' cemetery in the Eastern Townships is over. Last night, he was honoured for his work -- and got some good news.

The Centre for Research Action on Race Relations paid tribute to Mr. Avery for his efforts to protect an unmarked burial ground, believed to be Canada's only slaves' cemetery, in Saint-Armand -- an Eastern Townships town near the U.S. border, 50 kilometres south of Montreal.

The elementary school teacher first visited the burial ground in 1996 and was outraged when he realized there were no markers on it.

During a ceremony last night, Mr. Avery was presented with the Frederick Johnson award, named for the black Montrealer who won an 1898 court challenge against racial discrimination in public establishments. The dinner was attended by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre and U.S. Congressman John Conyers.

Mr. Avery campaigned to have the burial ground protected as a historical site and, as he learned yesterday, his efforts have finally produced results. Saint-Armand council passed a resolution that amounts to a commitment to thoroughly examine the history of blacks who lived in the area during the 18th and 19th centuries.

"It is an official start," said Dominic Soulie of the Centre Historique des Frontieres, a committee of people who share an interest in the burial ground and other points of historical interest. Mr. Soulie lobbied six months for the resolution and described it as a first step toward a historical marker.

He presented Mr. Avery with a framed copy of the resolution.

"He said he wouldn't believe it until he saw a signed document, and we got it," Mr. Soulie said before the ceremony. Mr. Avery seemed touched when presented with the document. Tears came to his eyes and he made a gesture toward Mance Bacon, a member of the Centre Historique group.

The owners of the farm on which the burial ground is located have been unreceptive to the idea of an archeological dig, a required step in having the province protect it.

The land was once owned by Philip Luke, a United Empire Loyalist who moved from Albany, New York to Lower Canada in 1784. It is believed Mr. Luke brought with him six black slaves and that they, and as many as 19 others, were eventually buried next to a 60-metre- long black slab of limestone referenced in provincial topographic records by the derogatory name "Nigger Rock." Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833.

The cemetery is mentioned in historical essays and newspaper articles published during the early 1900s. Recent research, commissioned by the provincial government after Mr. Avery voiced his outrage, produced convincing arguments that slaves are buried there.

"I am here as a speaker for the dead. I am here to speak for those who no longer have a voice," Mr. Avery said last night. "These people truly lived lives of quiet desperation. They arrived and died in bondage. This small piece of soil in Saint-Armand, is the most unique discovered so far in all of Canada."

Anthropologist Roland Viau researched the burial site for the provincial government in 1998 and remains very interested in its historical value. Mr. Viau just completed a French-language book on the subject that will be published in the fall.

Mr. Viau said he was disappointed to learn a crucial piece of proof -- a legal record of Philip Luke inheriting slaves from his mother -- was probably destroyed by a flood in Albany near the end of the 19th century. But the anthropologist said his research uncovered an interesting 1851 census of the Missisquoi region.

"There were more blacks (about 280) living in the region than Abenaki natives (260) at the time," Mr. Viau said. "Many of them must be descendants of those slaves."