{"id":40043,"date":"2021-02-18T14:01:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T19:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=40043"},"modified":"2021-02-18T16:20:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T21:20:43","slug":"museum-recognizes-wellington-countys-black-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/museum-recognizes-wellington-countys-black-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum recognizes Wellington County’s Black history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Heritage Month at the Wellington County Museum and Archives (WCMA)<\/a> looks a lot different than last year\u2019s big event but that doesn\u2019t mean the WCMA is letting the pandemic get in the way of them sharing stories about the Black settlers of Wellington County.<\/p>\n

Kyle Smith, WCMA activity programmer said for this year, they are refocusing on something that they\u2019ve already been doing, but they really wanted to put a push out to the public to get it done.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of those things is, we\u2019ve had a school program for a long time, which is called, Richard Pierpoint: Historical Survivor \u2014 Black Settlement in the Queen\u2019s Bush, which is originally designed as a Grade 7 program, but we\u2019ve done it for all ages,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd, again, because of the pandemic, we\u2019ve been doing virtual field trips, so we\u2019ve been zooming into classrooms and giving talks about you know, just about everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith said they\u2019ve really made a point to revamp that specific program, which also addresses other Black settlement in the 1800s that took place in\u00a0Wellington County that people often don\u2019t know about.<\/p>\n

Smith said there were lots of Black settlers in Wellington County in the 1800s, and based on the numbers, it was probably the second largest Black settlement of Black Canadians in the country, after Nova Scotia\/Halifax.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy about 1850, there was probably somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 people living in what they call the Queen\u2019s Bush settlement, which was pretty much Drayton, Glen Allan, Mapleton, that sort of area, basically anywhere north of Waterloo, [...] so a huge settlement,\u201d Smith explained.<\/p>\n

Smith said sometimes people don\u2019t know that in large parts of the county, the very first settlers to come to this area were not the Scots, the Irish, the English or the Germans \u2014 they were Black Canadians.<\/p>\n

This month, the museum has been sharing information about Black Heritage Month on its social media channels, and Smith said he created a short video<\/a> available on their website about the Queen\u2019s Bush settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat video also gives people an opportunity when the weather is a little bit nicer [\u2026], there\u2019s two places that I visit in the video, one is a Black cemetery that people can see, the other is where a plaque is in Glen Allan, [and] they can actually visit some of these places,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

He said if people are interested in a virtual presentation on the Black history in the area, the cost is $50 for an hour, and the presentation is interactive for groups of two up to 500.<\/p>\n

He added that for more information about virtual presentations\u00a0to call 519-846-0916, or to contact him directly by email at\u00a0kyles@wellington.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kyle Smith, WCMA activity programmer:<\/strong><\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Edited-Clip-KS.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Heritage Month at the Wellington County Museum and Archives (WCMA) looks a lot different than last year\u2019s big event but that doesn\u2019t mean the WCMA is letting the pandemic get in the way of them sharing stories about the Black settlers of Wellington County. Kyle Smith, WCMA activity programmer said for this year, they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":40048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,218,219,221],"tags":[5085,6235,5552,6239,6238,6224,6240,6237,1588,6236],"radio":[1376],"origine":[267,1369,269],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40043"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=40043"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=40043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}