In Upper Canada however, a limited, gradual abolition was implemented in response to the case of Chloe Cooley, a so-called 'Negro Wench' who came to the attention of the authorities when she loudly resisted the actions of her enslaver, Mr Vrooman, to sell her to an enslaver in the United States of America. When Vrooman was prosecuted, not for selling Cooley - which he had the right to do - but for 'violent breaches of the Public Peace', the charges against him were dropped; however, in May 1793, the Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude, ${ }^{7}$ also known as the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, was adopted unanimously. Winks notes, importantly, that 'Upper Canada's act to abolish slavery freed not one slave', since those who were enslaved were not freed; children born to enslaved mothers would thenceforth become apprentices until the age of 25 years, and any children born to these apprentices were to be born free (Winks, 2000, p. 97). The population of enslaved persons in the provinces would be freed only by the British Emancipation Act of 1833, which was enacted on 1 August 1834.  
These developments in abolition and emancipation had an impact on African Americans. In 1793, the same year in which Upper Canada adopted its Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, the Congress of the United States adopted the Fugitive Slave Act, which endorsed the rights of slaveholders to recover enslaved persons who had escaped their bondage. When Upper Canada's limited freedom for enslaved persons was expanded by the British Emancipation Act, the British provinces became even more attractive as a destination for the enslaved in the  
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[^0]:    7 Statutes of Upper Canada, 33 George III, Cap. 7.