Tom hosts Tuesday's Treasures.
James Mink and the Centuries Long Lie
When I took this photo of this heritage sign, I had no idea about the story behind it!
James Mink was born in 1797 in Upper Canada, now Southern Ontario, near Kingston. Very little is known about his early life except that his father was enslaved. His wife was an Irish woman and they had one daughter named Mary. In 1849, Mink opened his own livery stable business at what is now Queen and Bay Streets. In 1850, he ran the Mansion House Inn and Livery Stable in this area. He also started a public bus service and obtained transportation contracts with the City of Toronto and the provincial government.
At a time when the Black population in Toronto was at a minimum and most Black men worked as labourers, a successful Black businessman like Mink was sure to catch a lot of negative attention and become the target of attack. This attack was not exactly made to Mink himself but to his daughter who became the focus on a made up story that would be reproduced over the next two centuries.
The Lie Begins: 1860 to 1880
The lie began in Edinburgh, Scotland 1860 when the Blackwood’s Magazine (which supported the Confederate states during the Civil War) published a story by the Scottish attorney, author, and poet William Edmounstoune Aytoun. In his pro-slavery narrative, Aytoun never mentioned him or his daughter by name but it was clear that the Black livery stable owner he was referring to could only have been James Mink.
In 1880, Aytoun’s story was repeated in the Chicago Times, this time mentioning Mink specifically and emphasizing his wealth and Mary’s supposed fall from grace. The article claimed that James offered $30,000 for Mary to marry a respectable white man and that someone named James Andrews accepted the offer, married Mary, received the payment and went to Richmond, Virginia where he sold her into slavery. After managing to escape she made her way back home but ended up living recklessly and dying miserably. This version of the story was widely reproduced, usually word for word.
The Lie Continues: 1894 and 1996
The lie would be retold in 1894 when John Ross Robertson, a publisher of the Toronto Evening Telegram newspaper, included the made up story about Mary Mink in the first volume of this book series called Landmarks of Toronto. The series had a total of six volumes that were published between 1894 and 1914. What makes this even worse is that these books were used by historians in the 20th century as a reliable source of information about Toronto’s history and as a result the lie about Mary Mink was accepted as the truth.
In 1996, the lie was replicated again but this time in the form of a movie titled Captive Heart: The James Mink Story directed by Bruce Pittman. The film was broadcast in Canada and the United States and was heavily inspired by the article that was published about Mary in 1880.
The Truth and Legacy of the Lie
Despite what the lies say, James Mink never sent out an offer for someone to marry his daughter. In fact, Mary was already married to a man named William Johnson in 1852. She was never sold into slavery, but instead lived in Toronto until her and her family moved to Milwaukee in 1868. Instead of living recklessly and dying miserably, Mary Mink died in 1876 surrounded by her friends and family.
While the story about James and Mary Mink has finally been exposed as a lie, the reason why it was able to endure for such a long time is because it supported racial stereotypes and prejudices. As a successful Black businessman James Mink challenged the existing racial stereotypes and expectations. By constructing this lie William Aytoun and all the other supported and reproducers of the lie, hoped to humiliate and diminish his success and reputation. What happened to James and Mary Mink is just one of many examples of the racism and discrimination that Black people have experienced in Toronto and throughout Canada.
