Heritage Minute: Chloe Cooley

OYA Media Group debuts the Chloe Cooley Heritage Minute, produced in partnership with Historica Canada. This first-ever Canadian heritage content, depicting and acknowledging slavery in Canada, tells the story of Chloe Cooley who was enslaved by the Vrooman family in former Upper Canada, now South Western Ontario. 

This important and under-known moment of Canadian history is based on witness accounts and recreates the heinous instance of Cooley’s violent, forcible sale by the Vrooman family, who, enlisting the help of friends, violently and brazenly took Cooley, physically confined and screaming, to New York State for sale, via the Niagara River. 

The legacy of Chloe Cooley’s experience contributed to the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada (1793).

In this inaugural Black woman directed Canadian Heritage Moment, OYA Media Group pays tribute to Chloe Cooley, and the many Black Canadians who suffered for years under Canada’s participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

CHLOE COOLEY OLIVIA BARRETT

PETER MARTIN TROY CROSSFIELD

ADAM VROOMAN PETER VALDRON

ENGLISH NARRATION THE HON. JEAN AUGUSTINE

FRENCH NARRATION MICHAËLLE JEAN

DIRECTOR ALISON DUKE

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY LUCAS JOSEPH

EDITOR SONIA GODDING TOGOBO

COMPOSER ORIN ISAACS

WRITTEN BY NALEDI JACKSON

STOREY EDITOR ALISON DUKE

CASTING JULIE J. FITZSIMMONS, CDC

PRODUCERS NGARDY CONTECH GEORGE & ALISON DUKE ​​​​​​​​

PRODUCED BY OYA MEDIA GROUP