Black Then

Frank Mackey is the author of Steamboat Connections: Montreal to Upper Canada, 1816-1843, and Black Then: Blacks and Montreal, 1780s-1880s.

"Beautifully researched and masterfully told. Mackey has turned up arresting tales of slavery, liberation, skullduggery, licentiousness, and, thus, of a particularly rich parade of characters, heroes, heroines, and scoundrels (white and black) that prove the abiding presence of blacks in Montreal and the persistent but not indefatigable racism to which they have been subjected. What is unique about Mackey's work is his 'novelization' of more than one hundred years of relatively obscure but absolutely fascinating history." George Elliott Clarke, author of Whylah Falls and Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature