FERGUS – Peter Meyler helps to reveal the deep historic impact of Black presence in Canada in the next episode of BLK: An Origin Story, a limited series consisting of four 60-minute episodes.
PETER MEYLER
Born and raised in Fergus, Meyler is the consultant on the fourth and final episode of the mini-series, which made its debut on the History Channel on March 20.
The episode will air again on March 25 on Global TV. To watch the episode preview, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqRtFGqRi8.
The subject of the final episode of the documentary is the story of John “Daddy” Hall, an individual of Indigenous and African heritage born in the Windsor area.
Hall’s story is also included in the book Broken Shackles: Old Man Henson From Slavery to Freedom edited by Meyler, which is featured in the documentary.
After reading the 1889 edition of Broken Shackles, Meyler said he recognized its relevance to today and decided to update it to reflect a more accurate history of Hall’s story.
Due to his extensive research on Hall, Meyler was recruited early in 2021 by the production company to act as a consultant for the episode and is also interviewed in the documentary.
Meyler previously co-authored a novel with his brother David on Richard Pierpoint, A Stolen Life: Searching for Richard Pierpoint, which is how the former Fergus resident became interested in researching Black history.
Meyler said he enjoys discovering the hidden narratives in Black history that have been washed over. He said he was shocked most people in the Fergus area had never heard about Pierpoint or knew of a Black settler being there.
“Basically, it irked me that that was left out of our history, because that was part of our history,” Meyler said. “And I realized he was a very important person in Ontario’s earliest history.
“And that’s why my brother and I continued the research … because I didn’t want there ever to be an excuse to leave his story out of our history any longer.”
When they began the research, Meyler said he and his brother had no idea where Pierpoint’s land was, but later found out it was right across the street from their house.
“That’s how close that history was to us,” he said, adding “the history is so obvious, but it’s still so hidden and that’s what’s frustrating.”
Once he started doing the research, he began to find more interesting stories, Meyler explained, and Hall was one of them.
“Here you have a person who could have been up to 118 years old, had five or six lives and up to 21 children over his lifetime, and then had an Indigenous father and an African mother,” he said of Hall. “So that was interesting enough for me to keep researching him.
“You’ve got to look into that to see what’s the truth behind that,” he continued. “John Hall’s story was unique in Ontario’s History, because of his Indigenous and African heritage – that is even less researched than Black history.”
Meyler said he’s hoping to participate in another series and is looking to expand on Pierpoint’s story because his story is still so relevant.
“Pierpont came here so long ago, but his story is still relevant today,” he noted.
Asked why it’s important to highlight stories of individuals like Pierpoint and Hall, Meyler responded, “for one thing, it shows a real depth of history in our area, and it shows that our local history is tied to world events.”
He referred to the students that attend John Black Public School, which is located down the road from Pierpoint Park.
“The story of Pierpoint is important to them as children, because they know it,” he explained. “And so when they grow with that, Black history won’t be anything that’s unusual to them. It’ll be part of our history, as it always should have been.”
If people can connect to that personally, Meyler explained, it becomes part of their history.
“I think one of the important things from the series is that how interesting Canadian history is,” he said.
“Because these are things that once you hear the stories and you see it, it opens a whole world to people.”
