Nancy's Story Teaching Resource

By Cynthia Wallace-Casey, PhD 
University of Ottawa
Honorary Research Associate
Fredericton Region Museum 

This Education Guide is intended to complement the short Heritage Fair video prepared by the Fredericton Region Museum, entitled “The Slavery Trial of Nancy, February 4-8, 1800”. The purpose of this material is to enhance your students’ learning experience, and to help create awareness that slavery really did happen here in New Brunswick. 

Nancy’s powerful story of human bondage is rarely shared in the classroom, due to the disturbing nature of the language of the time, and the cruel realizations that New Brunswick’s colonial past has been far less than ideal. Nancy’s story, however, gives us all reason to pause and reflect upon equality, liberty, justice, and freedom. 

Before viewing the video, please discuss the language and concepts students will encounter. Inside this guide you’ll find information to assist, as well as transcripts of the archival evidence presented in the video. You will also find guiding questions designed to lead your students in thinking about the Historical Significance of Nancy and her trial. Read more...

Remembering and Reconciliation: Teaching and Learning the Legacy of Residential Schools in Canada

By Cynthia Wallace-Casey, PhD 
University of Ottawa

History Education Research Journal, Volume 19, Number 1, 29 April 2022, pp. 1-18:

Abstract: In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released a Final Report containing 94 Calls to Action. Included were calls for reform in how history is taught in Canadian schools, so that students may learn to address such difficult topics in Canadian history as Indian Residential Schools, racism and cultural genocide. Operating somewhat in parallel to these reforms, social studies curricula across Canada have undergone substantial revisions. As a result, historical thinking is now firmly embedded within the curricula of most provinces and territories. Coupled with these developments are various academic debates regarding public pedagogy, difficult knowledge and student beliefs about Canada’s colonial past. Such debates require that researchers develop a better understanding of how knowledge related to Truth and Reconciliation is currently presented within Canadian classrooms, and how this may (or may not) relate to historical thinking. In this paper, I explore this debate as it relates to Indian Residential Schools. I then analyse a selection of classroom resources currently available in Canada for teaching about Truth and Reconciliation. In so doing, I consider how these relate to Peter Seixas’s six concepts of historical thinking (Seixas and Morton, 2013), as well as broader discussions within Canada about Indigenous world views, historical empathy and Reconciliation.  Read more...

Two-Volume Black History Special Edition Publication

Guest editor: Cynthia Wallace-Casey, PhD 

University of Ottawa 

It’s been an honour to participate in the development of this two-volume series of The Officers’ Quarters, devoted to Black history in New Brunswick. When I was first invited to embark on this journey in 2019, those of us at the Fredericton Region Museum were amazed at what little representation of Black history existed within the museum’s walls. Certainly, significant groundwork had already commenced in 2017, however, with the publication of a special Black History edition of The Officers’ Quarters. Thanks to guest editor Mary Louise McCarthy-Brandt, and the York-Sunbury Historical Society publication team, the stage was set to explore lesser-known aspects of Fredericton’s past. In that issue, readers were introduced to the historic slavery trial of Nancy; as well as descendants of Black Loyalist Solomon Kendall who lived on “The Hill” in Lower Queensbury. Readers were also reminded of the extraordinary significance of St Peter’s Church in Springhill, where there existed an “equality in Christ” rarely witnessed in Canadian history. This landmark publication left many of us wanting to learn more.