Like many of the enslaved people, much is unknown about Thursday. John Rock of Halifax placed a fugitive ad for an enslaved Black girl known as Thursday. The ad describes her as being four and a half feet tall, with a broad frame and a lump above her right eye. The ad also points to her attire in a red cloth petticoat and red baize bedgown. Nelson (2017) suggests that Rock’s ad crudely described “her self-care and beautification practices (the red ribbon worn about her head) with what was almost assuredly evidence of her physical abuse (the lump above her right eye…[which point to] the specific horrors of female enslavement” (para. 2). The dehumanizing slave ads also bring our attention to the beauty and individuality of enslaved people.

Thursday’s escape highlights her desperation but also her tenacious spirit of pushing back against her enslavement. The description of her appearance shows her resilience despite her bondage. Nelson (2017) invites us to re-imagine eighteenth-century freedom seekers as twenty-first-century freedom divas—to humanize their existence and spotlight their resilience. Doing so provokes discussions about the “stolen potential of our enslaved ancestors, and the resilience of Canada’s diverse African populations” (Nelson, 2017).

References

Nelson, C. (n.d.). Re-imagining the enslaved eighteenth-century freedom seekers as twenty-first-century sitters. AGO. https://ago.ca/wanted-essays