Should Belleville change the name of Meyers Pier because the city’s founder, Capt. John Walden Meyers, was a 19th century slave owner?

That’s the question Bellevile city council has to ask itself following a deputation at Monday’s council meeting by Laura Hatt and Jay Gannon regarding Meyers Pier being named after a 19th century slave owner and asking it be renamed and a plaque erected commemorating the black family Meyers enslaved.

Hatt is the Belleville native attending Harvard University who, in 2018, presented the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board with information Meyers owned black slaves in the 19th century.

The school board then reopened the naming process and settled on Eastside Secondary.

Meyers was one of the first white settlers in the Quinte region and he played a very important role in the early history of the region. There is an Historical Society plaque honouring him on Station Street.

Meyers gained fame as a British spy during the American Revolution. He recruited soliders, gathered intelligence and carried dispatches through enemy lines to the British army in the State of New York.

In 1790, he settled in Thurlow Township where he built a gristmill near the mouth of Meyer’s Creek, now the Moira River. The community that sprung up there, first known as Meyer’s Creek, was renamed Belleville in 1816. Meyers also built a sawmill, distillery and brick kiln and established a trading post at Meyer’s Creek. He built boats and provided transportation between the area and Kingston and Montreal. Meyers later helped prepare a report for the township in response to the questionnaires distributed by Robert Gourlay and his son attended Gourlay’s convention in York in 1818.

Gannon said the history of Meyers leaves out “a very important part of his legacy. He enslaved four black people, including two children, for at least 11 years. The father’s name was Obadiah Levi, the mother’s name has been lost to history and the children’s names were Joseph and Betty Levi.

“Some biographers like to claim that Canadian slavery wasn’t so bad compared to the experience in the south, that Meyers might have been a nice slave owner, that the Levis might have liked being enslaved. We need to recognize this rhetoric as a racist fantasy that it is. There is no such thing as nice slavery. Canadian slavery was just as dehumanizing. It was characterized by terrible violence, sexual exploitation, families were separated, mothers and their young children, sold separately against their will. Now, in response to all this horror, slaves tried to escape as you can see from local advertisements calling for their recapture. It is impossible to overstate the horror,” Gannon said.

“We don’t know exactly when Meyers started to enslave the Levis, but we know that by 1776 they were enslaved on his family farm in New York,” said Hatt. “After the Revolutionary War Meyers took the Levis on a forced march north arriving in a Quebec town known as St. Armand around 1784. The stop is important as St. Armand later became one of Canada’s first free black communities. After 1784 they continued on their journey, now heading west and ended up in the Quinte region by 1787 where they were forced into labour on Meyers’ infrastructure projects including, according to one biographer, his piers.

“Your first question may be, are we sure Meyers was a slave owner and the answer is yes. About 40 years after Meyers’ death a local biographer named William Canniff interviewed people in the area and published a history book which states Meyers enslaved a black family named Levi,” Hatt said.

She said, in light of this historical reality, we should ask ourselves two questions: Does it accurately depict how our town’s first piers were built or does it cover up the truth? Second, does the pier’s current name accurately represent our values?

“What does it say about us and our values, is that the kind of message we want to send?” Hatt said.

“In light of this history and these questions, we purpose that we rename Meyers Pier.

“Does the pier’s name accurrately represent history? Context matters and this name isn’t just anywhere, it’s on one of town’s more recognizeable landmarks and a city’s choice in name is symbolic on an important part of the city’s infrastructure and indicates that person’s name is worth remembering. So I would say the name Meyers Pier is implictedly celebratory.

“I will absolutely acknowledge that Meyers did some important things. However, did his accomplishments completely outweigh that he was a slave owner of black people, which is one of the worst things a human being can do?” Hatt said.

“I think these things do matter and should be discussed. A celebratory monument in town only acknowledges his accomplishments and completely leaves out his crimes against humanity. In telling this one-sided version of history we think the pier’s current name misrepresents white history and a racist black history.

“In addition to the name change we propose we put up a plaque at the pier commemorating the contributions of the Levi family.

“This family was an important part of this town’s history. They arrived here at the same time as Meyers, making them among the very first non-indigenous settlers to the area,” Hatt said.

“We’re not at risk of forgetting John Meyers,” said Gannon. “Unfortunately, the popular history of Meyers is a whitewashed one that does erase history because it leaves out his slave ownership and it erases the contributions of his enslaved black people. In service to telling the full truth about John Meyers, let’s balance out the many monuments to Meyers with acknowledgement of his enslavement of the Levis. We can do that by giving the pier a new name that’s just as historical as the current one. Might we suggest Levi Pier. We can also do that by putting up a plaque that will educate passersby about the Levis and their enslavement. Rather than erase history, let’s tell a full an honest version of it.”

Councillors made no comments on the presentation and just voted to receive it.