Saskatchewan’s Mattie Mayes Continues to Leave Lasting Impression

February 17, 2021

2 minutes read

February is Black History Month, people in Canada celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Black Canadians and their communities who, throughout history, have done so much to make Canada the culturally diverse, compassionate, and prosperous nation it is today.

Black people and their communities have been a part of shaping Canada’s heritage and identity since the arrival of Mathieu Da Costa, a navigator and interpreter, whose presence in Canada dates back to the early 1600s. One such woman who helped shape the landscape for those coming to Saskatchewan was Mattie Mayes.

Mattie Mayes, born Martha Jane Warner, was born a slave in Georgia around 1846. Sadly, archival and census records show that she was separated from her mother when she was only around four-years-old.

Growing up, Mattie considered herself a ‘free slave’, as her owners weren’t ‘terrible’. Named after the master’s wife, she was favoured and given lighter duties in the master’s household; her main job was as a ‘shoo fly girl’, meaning it was her responsibility to keep flies off the table while the family was eating.

Later on in her life, and according to census records from after the American Civil War, Mattie worked for an optician and eventually made her way to Tennessee. During this time she was trained as a midwife and met her husband Joseph, who was a Baptist minister.

The couple eventually moved to Texas before making their way to Oklahoma, it’s assumed they moved to escape the racism that was prevalent in Texas.

Later on, Mattie and Joseph moved to Canada, it’s widely thought one of their reasons for immigrating across the border was that in 1905 Oklahoma became a state and the Jim Crow laws implemented, segregating Black people. It is also during this time Saskatchewan was offering free farmland, so in 1910 they moved to the Maidstone, Sask., area becoming some of the first Black settlers in the province.

During their time in Saskatchewan, the Mayes family left their mark. Many times, Mattie could be found walking for kilometres at a time to help deliver babies “regardless of the colour of their skin,” explained one of her great-granddaughters.

In addition to helping deliver many babies, Mattie helped settle the Shiloh community. The historic Shiloh Baptist Church near Maidstone was once the centre of a community of African American farmers who settled in Saskatchewan after fleeing racial segregation in the U.S., has become a provincial heritage site.

Mattie lived to see her children and grandchildren raised in freedom, and if often fondly referred to as “the matriarch — the mother of that part of Saskatchewan.”