Yonge Street

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The Street

Yonge St.

Famously known as "the longest street in the world" – until 1999, Yonge Street is Toronto's main artery, connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe.[1] The Guinness Book of World Records held Yonge Street as the longest road until 1998, but it was taken out in 1999. The possibility that Yonge was the longest road in the world came from what appeared to be a continuation of Yonge on Highway 11. If it happened to be the same road, the street would be over 1800 kilometers in length.[2]

Yonge Street was integral to the original planning and settlement of western Upper Canada in the 1790s, forming the concession roads in Ontario today. Once the southernmost leg of Highway 11, linking the provincial capital with northern Ontario, Yonge Street has been referred to as "Main Street Ontario." Ontario's first colonial administrator, John Graves Simcoe, named the road for his companion Sir George Yonge, an expert on ancient Roman roads.[3] However, the name has sparked controversies today because Sir George Yonge was a corrupt person and a slave trader.

The Namesake: George Yonge, public figure background

Portrait of Sir George Yonge

Sir George Yonge was a British Secretary at War (1782–1783 and 1783–1794). He was one of the experts on Roman Streets: “He was a man of letters, an F.R.S., and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, to which he communicated an excellent memoir on the subject of Roman roads and camps, in connection with some discoveries that had been made at Mansfied, in Nottinghamshire, and hence the peculiar fitness of naming Yonge Street after him, it being precisely such a road, and adapted to similar uses, as those he had been engaged in examining."[4]

He was a Parliament member for his family's Rotten Borough of Honiton, Devon, from 1754 to 1761 and again from 1763 to 1796. He was cited for acquiring £80,000 from his father, received another £80,000 when he married, and £80,000 from Parliament, yet Honiton had "swallowed it all."[5] Honiton was one of the most venal boroughs in the kingdom. He is said to have spent colossal sums upon his constituency and trying to set up a woolen factory at Ottery St. Mary, by which he was known as a great loser.[6]

George Yonge, the corrupt

Yonge had had a long career as a public servant. He arrived at the British colony in South Africa, Cape Town, on 9 December 1799 as he was nominated, governor. George Yonge’s experience had no bearing on his governorship assignment. At 68 years old, he was said to be too old to become governor. His administration was marked by want of tact and judgment. For instance, he argued with General Francis Dundas, the officer in command of the troops, whose power he tried to usurp; he outraged the old Dutch settlers by increasing taxes, contrary, it was alleged, to the Dutch capitulation; he left the administration of affairs mostly to Mr. Blake, his private secretary, and Lieutenant-colonel Cockburn, his principal aide-de-camp, who, because they were notoriously corrupt, were known to bend Yonge’s governorship decisions in favor of the highest bidders.[7]

Yonge accepted the governorship of Cape Town to get away from his creditors. His appointment surprised many people, including the King. Lord Bathurst, member of Parliament for Cirencester, commented that "it seems to promise so very ill," Macartney, the first governor of Cape Town, was said to be shocked by the decision of such a replacement and Addington, a member of Parliament for Devizes who later became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804, depicted it as a despicable job which he had tried to prevent.[8]

Within just ten months, Cape Town was a political catastrophe for the British Government and the colony. George Yonge found a formidable critique in Lady Anne Barnard.  Francis Dundas, former governor of Cape Town, told the King that Yonge’s governorship needed to be reviewed;

his conduct ... has in such a variety of particulars been so wild and extravagant as to render it impossible to continue him in that government without exposing this country to the imputation of being indifferent to the concerns of that most important settlement.[6]

At the same time Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington who by the time was a Lieutenant Colonel in the 33rd Regiment, wrote to Dundas from India:

My accounts from the Cape all concur in representing that government to be in a state of great confusion. The imbecility and ignorance of Sir George Yonge entirely disqualify him for his situation ... The importance of the Cape in its relation to India increases every hour ... Yonge is employed in founding theatres and masquerade rooms. He dances with more grace and perseverance than Lord Keeper Hatton; and the fame of his brawls has not only reached the kaffirs, and animated every kraal from the Cape to the desert of Sahara, but extended to the Indus and the Ganges.[6]

George Yonge was dismissed in September 1801. Lady Anne Barnard, a wife of Andrew Bernard, a colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope and a Cape resident, told Wellesley that:

the Lofty Twaddler has had the lofty tumble I foresaw ... [he] was petrified at the event. He is so conceited of his own abilities that nothing was farther from his expectation than being blamed for anything.[6]

She also mentioned that Yonge had taken an enormous bribe from a scandalous slave trader to land many slaves.[9] Lady Anne Barnard, wife of the colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope, Andrew Barnard, had lived in Cape Town for five years. She kept a diary with information about George Yonge. She describes how Yonge's leadership caused the colony's political life to degenerate into a state of corruption worse even than the one under the VOC regime. Yonge did his business through his private secretary, Richard Blake, rather than through the more formal Colonial Secretary's office because Andrew Barnard, the colonial secretary, was critical of the pervasive abuses and official indulgence. Yonge plotted bribery and jobbery at illicit slave trading and other questionable practices.[10]

George Yonge, the slave trader

© Iziko Museums of South Africa, Social History Collections

Despite being known as a corrupt individual, Yonge was known to abuse his power by illegally issuing slave trade licenses. In the late 18th century, the British established a restriction on new licenses to bring new slaves to the Cape of Good Hope. Slave Trade Act 1788, also known as Dolben’s Act, was an effort by the British government to eliminate the transatlantic slave trade slowly. The British parliament passed a law restricting the number of licenses to private slave trade companies. Without licenses, Slave Traders (which are private entities) – who replenished the states with (new) slaves – could not operate. However, George Yonge, as the governor of the Cape Colony, disregarded the restriction (on slave import licenses). Yonge illegally granted countless new licenses to notoriously infamous slave traders such as Michael Hogan.[11]

Adam Smith Institute Wilberforce Anti-Slavery Campaign

On Tuesday, 12 May 1789, William Wilberforce delivered a speech regarding slave trading in the House of Commons. Quoted from The Morning Star newspaper:

"This was a dreadful expedient; and till now, he could not believe that so much misery could be condensed in so little room. He could wish to rouse the feelings of every man on the occasion, and convince the people that their intention and aid were the were the result of consideration, which did awaken him."[12]

Wilberforce passed an Order in Council by the House of Commons in 1796. The Order in Council specified that slaves must arrive at British possessions with the metropolitan government's consent. In other words, slave importation to the Cape would need permission from the government in the form of licenses. Slave importation to the Cape Colony during the first and second British occupation was consequently firmly restricted and regulated.[13]

Slaves were constantly imported to the Cape from 1797-1808. The matter of provincial slave importation was a significant issue, considering the impact of the antislavery movement in London. As a slave society, the Cape depended on slave labor. Decisions related to slave importation to the Cape were left in the British Secretary for War and the colonies, Henry Dundas. Dundas allowed the Cape's governors to license slave importation only when they would deem it necessary. He permitted governors to utilize their discretion on his behalf since postal communications (by ship) were slow and because 'exceptional circumstances' constantly emerged. Slave importation was, subsequently, managed by the first British occupation's governors who kept up the VOC ruling that slaves must be landed with the governor's consent.[13]

Sir George Yonge was the only governor who abused this power of discretion. Before Yonge, licenses were extremely scarce. During George Yonge’s first week as governor of the colony, he issued Hogan licenses to import over 600 slaves into the colony.

George Yonge, the slave trader and his accomplice, Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan was an Irish-born shipowner, East India captain and slave runner.[14] He had been importing slaves to Cape town ever since Macartney's governorship. In May 1798, Macartney (the first British governor of the Cape) got a proposal from Hogan and Tennant to import 400 slaves from the west coast of Africa to the Cape. He approved the application and allowed the merchants to import more than 400 slaves between 1 June 1798 and 31 May 1799. Hogan acknowledged this restriction in writing while expressing his discontentment of the quota in these terms, writing:

"as it is an undertaking that no other person or persons would enter into, totally unknown, never has been attempted[15] and in consequence attended with great difficulty and much risk to the first adventurers, we humbly hope that Government will extend its indulgence as far as the existing laws will admit. Should the West African slave trade be successful, Hogan argued, 'many Applications [would] be poured in [to the governor's office] by persons less enterprizing who only wait the issue of our undertaking"

Michael Hogan used legitimate and sneaky techniques to carry slaves into the colony from La Rose, La Africano, the JoaQuim and Collector between November 1799 and April 1800. To evade slave prohibition, Hogan imported slaves under the guise of said slaves having been captured from enemy vessels and, in that capacity, obligated to being sold as prize cargoes at the Cape. During this time, barely in his first week as governor, Yonge allowed Hogan the importation of 600 slaves into the state.[13]

By 1790, slave trade boats, including The Collector, were licensed exclusively to capture slaves from French slave boats along the Mozambique channel; such slaves were known as prize slaves. Instead, Hogan's ship, The Collector, purchased slaves in Mozambique. This illegal trade went against the colonial administration's anti-slave trade policy. Slaves thus purchased were passed on as "prize slaves" and brought to the Cape by the Collector. In 1799, the Collector "captured" two French "prize" boat - La Rose and La Africano.

On November 1799, the Collector accompanied La Rose into Table Bay. The crew lied before Vice-Admiralty Court, alleging that the boat and its cargo had been taken in an abandoned state off the Mahle islands. Forty-eight (out of sixty-eight) of the vessel's "prize slaves" survived quarantine on Robben Island. In December 1799, the second "prize" vessel, La Africano, arrived at the Cape with 25 slaves. The crew lied again before the Vice-Admiralty Court, stating they had discovered the boat deserted close to Seychelles. The Court was told the vessels were sailing towards Mauritius. In March 1800, the JoaQuim arrived at the Cape with 422 slaves.

It happened that Hogan had submitted an appeal against the ban to import slaves to General Fraser (who was in command at the Cape between governorships) before Yonge's arrival. With Yonge's appointment as the new governor and knowing Yonge's corrupt reputation, Hogan requested that General Fraser leave his appeal to the then coming governor's decision. Seeing that General Fraser was abiding by the law by not granting him, Michael Hogan presented a second request through Yonge's own office (and private secretary, Mr. Blake) soon after Yonge landed in the Cape in mid-February 1800. Hogan told Yonge that JoaQuim's slaves would profit the state and be a meaningful response to the province's great demand for slaves. He had purchased the freight, and the captain of the ship had enabled him to sell the slaves wherever he wanted. Unlike General Fraser, Yonge allowed Hogan to land the slave cargo.[13]

Ship's log that was auctioned recently. Photo credit: NSW Government

On 9 March 1800, Lady Anne witnessed the landing of these slaves. In her diary she mentioned;

"I passed a sort of open coast which had a paling round and on looking in saw an immense number of black bowls fixed to etruscan looking figures all in one attitude. I never saw anything so strange. I stopd the carriage and on inquiring what it was, was told it was 300 slaves of Mr Hogan's, part of his cargo which were to be sold next day and that 300 more were to be landed the day after tommorow."[16]

Royal Navy captains (stationed in Table Bay) also received information that s that governor Yonge had ordered the cargo's landing with his 'Express Permission'. Andrew Barnard notified Macartney on this issue: I recollect right you declared a man should not be landed; however when your back was turned it proved otherwise. Hogan sold a lading of 'prize slaves' on commission for the navy. After this sale, Hogan ostensibly sent the JoaQuim to Rio de Janeiro, while in fact, it was sent to Mozambique.[13]

In April 1800, Donald Campbell (Port Captain of Table Bay at the time) received reports of foul play with respect to the Collector from Walker and Robertson (business rivals of Hogan and Tennant). Campbell wrote to governor Yonge and to W.S Van Ryneveldt stating that he had full proof to produce that the Prizes when taken had not a slave on board the Privateer. Yonge had made veiled threats to Campbell in the hope that he would drop the matter.

Captain Smit and the crew of the Danish boat, the Holger Dansche, testified before the Court of Justice that they had witnessed the occurrence of a transshipment of slaves on the Zambezi river mouth between the JoaQuim and the Collector (under the name Mountain). It was unusual for the Collector to have flown British flags over French flags (signifying the capture of French 'prize vessels') when it had arrived at Mozambique without slaves. In the beginning, the Collector's crew presented confusing evidences before the Court of Justice. However, one of the officers aboard the Collector eventually testified that two logbooks had been kept during the boat's voyage. Upon the investigation, the Court of Justice concluded that the Collector's 'prize slave' had not been seized from French vessels in the south-west Indian Ocean, but purchased illegally at Mozambique. Michael Hogan, therefore, was suspected of fraud.[13]

In March 1802 Commission of Inquiry was formed to investigate charges made against Yonge. Yonge was the alleged recipient of a bribe worth several thousand pounds for a license that permitted Michael Hogan to import 600 slaves into the colony. This business was transacted through Yonge's private office by his niece's husband and private secretary, Blake, and Yonge's aide-de-camp, Major Cockburn. Blake and Cockburn had bought shares in Hogan's projected slave trade. The Commissioners concluded that: A very strong degree of presumption appears in the several circumstances brought forward, that [Yonge] connived at and promoted the corrupt practices carried on in his family.

Yonge informed the Secretary of State that he had 'consented to the supply of slaves being completed' in March 1800. The Commission of Inquiry (1802) concluded that Hogan was to blame for the Collector's illicit activities. Slave importation to the Cape was 'in its Zenith' during Yonge's governorship.[13]

When Dundas replaced Yonge in 1801, he was adamant to follow Macartney's example of a 'limited importation' of slaves to the Cape. Dundas permitted only one importation of slaves into the colony from 1801-1803. This was the last 'permitted' admission of slaves of the first British occupation period.

The Yonge Street Riot

Yonge Street riot remembered - NOW Magazine

The Yonge Street riot was an act of dissent in response to police brutality and police racism. The trigger was the acquittal of four white police officers in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King. Furthermore, another black man, Raymond Constantine Lawrence, was shot four times in the chest by a police officer within the same time frame of the Rodney King beating (Lawton 1992).[17] The Yonge Street riot occurred on the night of May 4, 1992.

The Yonge Street Riot started with a rally, organized by the Black Action Defence Committee in protest of the acquittal of four white police officers videotaped beating Rodney King, a black man in Los Angeles. Two days earlier, another reason for taking to the streets emerged. A white, plain-clothed police officer, in Toronto, shot and killed a 22 year old black man, who police alleged was dealing crack. At the protest, speakers reminded the crowd that the victim, Raymond Constantine Lawrence, was the 14th black man shot by the Toronto Police Service since 1978, (an average of one a year), and the 4th to die. The crowd of about 1,000 people was full of anger. They marched from the US consulate to Yonge and Bloor, where they sat down to block traffic for 45 minutes.[18]

As the protest headed down Yonge Street toward City Hall, the crowd swelled with street youth and teens who, according to social workers and teachers interviewed later, heard via the grapevine that there was an opportunity to go wild as they had on New Year’s Eve and following the closure of the previous year’s CNE. They attempted to enter City Hall but was blocked by mounted police. The crowd headed back north along Yonge and spent the next few hours in a destructive mood, as a diverse crowd of youths tipped hot dog carts, smashed windows, and looted storefronts. Police were instructed not to intervene unless people appeared to be in danger of physical harm. Many of the original protesters either left the scene in disgust or urged rioters to go home. By 10 p.m., police formed a wall along St. Mary Street at Bay. A lingering group of rioters headed toward Yonge and Yorkville, where they were finally dispersed, but not before somebody tossed a Molotov cocktail into the middle of the crowd. When the night was over, 30 people were arrested, mostly on disorderly conduct charges. Around 37 police officers and three police horses were injured, and 100 storefronts were damaged.[19]

As a result of the Yonge Street Uprising, several reports were commissioned in order to examine the extent of systemic racism within the Ontario criminal justice system. Although Ontario Premiere, Bob Rae, originally insisted that the riots were not due to racism, he later acknowledged that racism is “a Canadian fact of life that we all have to wrestle with”[20]

References

  1. Yonge Street through the years. yongelove.ca. Retrieved Feb 14, 2021.
  2. mattsexsmith. WE ARE YONGE: EXPLORING 225 YEARS OF HISTORY ON ONTARIO'S OLDEST YONGE ST. Dec 4, 2018. gh360.ca. Retrieved Feb 14, 2021.
  3. Yonge Street. Wikipedia. Retrieved Feb 14, 2021.
  4. Engineering. Office for Advertisements and Publication. 1879. p. 389.
  5. Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet. Wikipedia. Retrieved Feb 14, 2021.
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 YONGE, Sir George, 5th Bt. (1732-1812), of Colyton and Escott House, Devon. historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved Feb 14, 2021.
  7. Laughton, John Knox. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 63: Yonge, George. Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.286. Retrieved Feb 14, 2021.
  8. Geo. III Corresp. iii. 1932; Wellesley Pprs. i. 89-90; Glenbervie Jnls. i. 148.
  9. Knowles, Rachel. The unconventional Lady Anne Barnard (1750-1825). Nov 8, 2016. regencyhistory.net. Retrieved Feb 15, 2021.
  10. Le Cordeur, Basil & Margaret Lenta. The Cape Diaries of Lady Anne Barnard, 1799-1800. ebook. p. xvii.
  11. JM Fuamba, Benéshé. YONGE STREET NAMED AFTER BRITAIN'S ABSOLUTE RACIST AND WORST HUMAN BEING: BRITISH GOV. RECORDS. HENCE, NO YONGE LANDMARKS ANYWHERE IN THE UK. Mar 2, 2020. LinkedIn article. Retrieved Feb 15, 2021.
  12. Carey, Brycchan. [https://brycchancarey.com/Carey_AOJ_2003.pdf WILLIAM WILBERFORCE'S SENTIMENTAL RHETORIC: PARLIAMENTARY REPORTAGE AND THE ABOLITION SPEECH OF 1789]. PDF. AMS Press, Inc. New York. Retrieved Feb 18, 2021.
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 Reidy, Michael Charles. THE ADMISSION OF SLAVES AND 'PRIZE SLAVES' INTO THE CAPE COLONY, 1797-1818. University of Cape Town. Retrieved Feb 17, 2021.
  14. The Amazing Story Of Michael Hogan, Founder Of Harlem’s Claremont Inn, 1807-1833. Sept 11, 2017. Harlem World Magazine. Retrieved Feb 18, 2021.
  15. A slave voyage to the west coast of Africa had not been attempted during the first British occupation of the Cape. The first slave trade expeditions to the Cape were from Angola, before the Dutch West India Company curtailed that trade. Michael Hogan would have been aware of this trade, however.
  16. 8Lady Anne Barnard's Cape Journal cited from, Margaret Lenta, 'Degrees of freedom: Lady Anne Barnard's Cape Diaries', in Mike Leighton (ed.), Eighteenth Century Studies: The Rights of Man, (HSRC, Pretoria, 1992), p.76.
  17. msingh29. The Yonge Street Riot: Significance of Criminalization and Dissent. Mar 28, 2013. criminalizingdissent.wordpress.com. A critical analysis. Retrieved Feb 15, 2021.
  18. The Yonge Street Riot. localwiki.org. Retrieved Feb 15, 2021
  19. Bradburn, Jamie. There’s a Riot Goin’ On Down Yonge Street. Aug 11, 2011. torontoist.com. Retrieved Feb 15, 2021.
  20. Kyres, Maria. From the Yonge Street Riot to the Carding Controversy:Policing and Surveilling the Black Community in Toronto, Canada, 1992-2016. Sept, 2017. Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. PDF. Retrieved Feb 15, 2021.