"Our Kind of Love": Black and White Interracial Relationships in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Ontario

Abstract

The subject of Black and White interracial relationships is one that has been neglected in the existing historiography of Black Canadian studies. Historically, scholars have treated these relationships as salacious stories or as footnotes in larger historical narratives. The omission of these relationships, which are present in the historical record, is perhaps best exemplified by the mythology surrounding the James Mink, his White wife Eliza, and the false story around their daughter Mary’s enslavement in the United States. None of the story is true, yet scholars have included the tale in the body and footnotes of their works for over a century. One such scholar was Daniel G. Hill, a Black man who was also married to a White woman, Donna Bender. This thesis explores the subject of Black and White interracial relationships in the context of nineteenth and twentieth century Ontario through an examination of the Mink and Hill families. While separated by over a century, these two partnerships are thematically linked by their experiences of interracial marriage, their connections to family, and the requisite negotiations of respectability in which both couples engaged. They are also connected through the historiography, as Daniel G. Hill is one of the crucial mythmakers who perpetuated the false story about the Mink family. I utilize the case studies found in the relationships of James and Eliza Mink and Daniel and Donna Hill as “historical snapshots”; this project does not claim to be indicative of all Black and White interracial relationships. Rather, by examining the stories of these two families, how their lives were misrepresented, and how they themselves participated in the curation of history, my thesis demonstrates the influence of broad historical trends on individual family units. I also argue that similar forces in Ontarian society- such as race, gender, or class- impacted the retelling of interracial narratives in academia and popular culture.