Elizabeth Russell
| Elizabeth Russell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1754-12-26 Gibraltar |
| Died | 1822-02-19 York, Upper Canada |
| Known for | notable diarist |
Elizabeth Russell was an United Empire Loyalist, who settled in Upper Canada, with her half-brother, Peter Russell, the Province's first Inspector General.[1][2]
Russell was born into a disrupted family. Her father Richard Russell was cashiered over a scandal, and, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the stress drove her mother "violently insane".[1] While he was able to secure employment with the Royal Navy in Harwich, the Dictionary reported "Elizabeth grew up with little education, in an atmosphere darkened by her mother’s insanity and her father’s debts, extravagance, ill health, and lawsuits."
Russell's father was alienated from her much older half=brother Peter, so she didn't meet him until she was 17 years-old, and he was 38.[1] Russell cared for her elderly parents until her father died in 1786, when she moved in with Peter, at 31 years-old. Neither ever married. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography described them as a "devoted couple for the rest of their lives."
In 1791 Peter was appointed Inspector General of Upper Canada.[1] When his superior John Graves Simcoe fell ill, Russell was appointed the temporary administrator of Upper Canada, when Simcoe returned to England for medical treatment. Peter had hoped to be appointed Simcoe's replacement, but he continued to be merely the administrator for three years. Peter continued to be part of the Provincial administration when Peter Hunter was appointed the second Lieutenant Governor in 1799.
While Peter's role in the Provincial administration faded, he had acquired ownership of 45,000 acres, making him wealthy, on paper.[1] He would have liked to have liquidated his landholdings, and retired to England, as his age caught up with him, and his health failed, but there was no one wealthy enough to buy him out.
Peter died in 1808.[1] He left his entire estate to Elizabeth.
Peter and Elizabeth were slave owners, owning Peggy Pompadour, and her children Amy, Milly and Jupiter, from prior to their arrival in Upper Canada.[3][4] Simcoe's act to limit slavery prohibited importing new slaves, it did not affect the slavery of individuals in captivity from prior to its imposition. They tried, for years, to sell the Pompadour family, due to their troubled relations with them, without success. Amy is known to have been given to John Denison's wife.[1][5][6]
According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, after Peter's death, Elizabeth relied on William Warren Baldwin, a cousin.[1] She found the War of 1812 troubling, and she began to show signs of mental instability. By 1814 members of the Baldwin family moved in with her, to help care for her. She would leave her considerable estate to Baldwin.
In the fall of 2018 Afua Cooper published excerpts from Russell's diary, as she described Peggy and her children.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Template:Cite DCB
- ↑ Elizabeth Jane Errington. Wives and Mothers, School Mistresses and Scullery Maids: Working Women in Upper Canada, 1790-1840, McGill-Queen's Press, pp. 131-132, 255. Retrieved on 2019-06-14.
- ↑ Peggy: Difficult Property, Archives of Ontario. Retrieved on 2019-06-14. “Elizabeth Russell’s diary describes the “insolent”, “pilfering”, and “lying” behaviour of the Russells’ slaves – Peggy and her children. Peter Russell’s letters and newspaper ads reveal the extent of his efforts to get rid of them.”
- ↑ FREEDOM-SEEKERS, Toronto Public Library. Retrieved on 2019-08-10. “The Pompadour family courageously resisted their enslaved condition. On more than one occasion, Peter Russell sought to sell Peggy and her son, Jupiter, in order to punish her by separating her from her family. In 1808, Russell bequeathed his property, including Peggy and her children, to his sister, Elizabeth Russell.”
- ↑ William Renwick Riddell. Upper Canada-Early Period, July 1920, p. 324. Retrieved on 2021-02-20.
- ↑ (1994) Peggy Bristow: We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802068811. Retrieved on 2021-02-20.
- ↑ Afua Cooper. Elizabeth Russell Speaks of her Slave Peggy Pompadour*, Atlantic Books Today, Fall 2018. Retrieved on 2019-08-10. “Peter really wishes to be rid of Peggy I for one do not want her ever again in this house I hate the very sight of her after she smashed the fine China I crossed the sea with from Ireland.”