Calgary & Southern Alberta

John Ware and Family
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

Amongst southern Alberta's early ranchers was a Black American immigrant named John Ware. Born in 1845 in South Carolina, Ware spent his youth in slavery. Freed at the end of the American Civil War, he drifted to Texas, where he had become an experienced cowhand by 1870. In 1882, he was hired to drive 3,000 cattle from Montana to the North West Cattle Company ranch, located southwest of Calgary.

Deciding to stay on in the region, Ware spent several years working on various southern Alberta ranches, eventually starting his own operation in 1890. In 1900, he moved to a new ranch east of Brooks on the Red Deer River, where he died in a riding accident in 1905. The large crowd that gathered to pay their last respects at his funeral testified to the fact that Ware was a highly respected member of the ranching community.

The nickname by which he was known to his friends and neighbours – "Nigger John" – reflected feelings of affection rather than prejudice. Unfortunately, the decades following Ware's death saw terms such as "nigger", "coon", and "darkie" become standard terms of derision reflecting deep-seated racist sentiments amongst Euro-Canadians in southern Alberta. Thankfully, times have changed, and in 1968 the city honoured this early rancher by naming a new school after him – John Ware Junior High – in southwest Calgary. John Ware's daughter, Nettie Ware, visited the school in 1988. She died later that year at the age of 96.

The small number of Black people who settled in the province early in the century is itself a reflection of mainstream prejudice. When 1,000 Blacks largely from Oklahoma decided to move to the Edmonton area in 1910 and 1911, boards of trade and women's groups throughout the province protested vehemently. Lethbridge Conservative C. E. Simmons urged against importing "Dark Spots" into Alberta. The federal government responded with an Order-in-Council barring Black immigration for one year. Although Ottawa soon rescinded the Order for fear of tarnishing Canada's public image, it immediately hired immigration agents to travel to the United States with the object of dissuading American Blacks from moving north. Their message that the climate was insufferably cold and the soil poor proved successful. Black interest in Canada had almost disappeared by 1912.

The majority of Alberta's Black immigrants who settled in isolated rural towns in the northern part of the province between 1908 and 1911 encountered little prejudice. By contrast, those who gravitated to large urban centres faced numerous barriers of bias. Calgary's small community faced informal but highly effective housing and job discrimination. Black Calgarians were often refused admission to swimming pools and dance halls. Most worked in servile occupations. For want of other alternatives, most males became railroad porters. Most females worked as domestic servants. In 1920, 472 Victoria Park residents submitted a petition to City Council asking that Blacks be banned from living in Victoria Park on the grounds that the presence of "coloured people" reduced property values. The petitioners represented three-fifths of the district's population and included people of several ethnic backgrounds. City Council rejected the plea only after determining that segregation was not the norm in other Canadian cities.

Vancouver's African Rifles, 1858
Courtesy of the Black Historical and Cultural Society of British Columbia

Throughout the period between the two World Wars, Black stereotypes imported from the United States were an accepted feature of the "entertainment scene" in Calgary. Minstrel shows featuring Caucasian actors mimicking "darkies" who shuffled about the stage were popular. From 1918 to 1921, skits performed by a group called the "Crazy Coons," composed of members of the business community, were a favourite entertainment feature at the Calgary Rotary Club.

African Americans continued to come to Canada hoping to build a life in a more tolerant nation than racist America. Many fled the race violence that characterised White America's response to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Others fled the United States' Vietnam War draft in the 1970s. The Black community argued that the draft disproportionately targeted low-income African American males in an attempt to weaken the community's political activism. The 1970s also saw the arrival of immigrants from other British Commonwealth nations, most notably from the Caribbean.