Celebrate Black History Month with this booklet of 6 Permanent™ domestic rate stamps honouring Chloe Cooley – a young Black woman whose brave protests against her enslavement added momentum to the abolitionist movement in Upper Canada in the late 1700s.

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Booklet of 6 Permanent™ domestic stamps
Issued to celebrate Black History Month
In honour of Chloe Cooley, who had a profound impact on the history of enslavement in Canada
Permanent™ stamps are always worth the going postage rate. Buy today and use anytime in the future

About Chloe Cooley and her impact

Chloe Cooley was a young Black woman enslaved as a domestic near Queenston, Upper Canada. She had faced punishment for defiance in the past. In March 1793, amid rumours of abolition, her enslaver arranged to sell her in neighbouring New York State. Cooley put up such a fight that it took several men to restrain her and forcibly transport her across the Niagara River by boat. She was never heard from again.

Cooley’s brave protests did not go unnoticed. Just months later, an act was passed prohibiting the importation of enslaved Black people into Upper Canada. Although it didn’t end slavery, the law paved the path to freedom for at least 30,000 Black Americans, eventually leading to abolition throughout the British Empire in 1833.

About slavery in Canada

The road to freedom was a long one for the thousands of people of African descent enslaved in pre-Confederation Canada. First brought to New France in the early 1600s to be sold for forced labour, enslaved Black people were legally classified as property and denied fundamental rights. Over their 200 years of servitude, generations of voices gave momentum to a movement that continues today in the struggle to end racism.

About the design

The stamp features an illustration by Rick Jacobson. Chloe Cooley stands proudly in the foreground, wearing a gold-hued shawl over a navy-blue dress. Behind her, under a dusky horizon, is a depiction of her being forcibly taken across the Niagara River from Queenston, Upper Canada, to be sold in New York state. With no photographs of Chloe Cooley, the illustration was painstakingly created through extensive consultation with experts in local and regional history, Black history and period fashion, as well as through archival maps, paintings, illustrations and other documents. The booklet cover features an enlargement of the illustration.

Product # 414218111

Chloe Cooley: PermanentTM domestic rate stamps - booklet of 6

Chloe Cooley: Permanent^TM domestic rate stamps - booklet of 6