Captain Charles Stuart
Capt. Stuart betweenThomas Scales (left) andSir John Jeremie (right) shown in a detail fromThe Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840, byBenjamin Robert Haydon
Born	1783 Bermuda
Died	1865 Canada
Education	Belfast
Known for	Abolitionist

CaptainCharles Stuart (1783 – 26 May 1865) was a Bermudian-born military officer and abolitionist. After leaving the military, he was a writer, primarily on slavery.

Charles Stuart was born in 1783 inBermuda, as shown by Canadian census records (countering assertions that he was born inJamaica).^[1] His father was presumably aBritish army officer posted to theBermuda Garrison, possibly Lieutenant HughStewart^[2] of the detachment of invalid regular soldiers belonging to theRoyal Garrison Battalion, which was disbanded in 1784, following theTreaty of Paris, probably resulting in Stuart's emigration from the colony; the surviving parish registries for the period, compiled by AC Hollis-Hallett asEarly Bermuda Records, 1619-1826, list no birth of a Stuart, Stewart, or Steward in or about 1783 other than an unnamed child of Lieutenant Steward, baptised in St. George's on 8 December 1781.^[3]

Stuart was educated inBelfast and then pursued a military career as his first vocation.^[4]

He left the military in 1815 and, in 1817, emigrated toUpper Canada (Ontario) with a tidy pension.^[6] He settled inAmherstburg, Upper Canada, and began his pursuit of a cause both in Canada and England. By 1821, he was involved with the black refugees (fugitive slaves) who were beginning to arrive in the area from south of the border. He began a small black colony near Amherstburg, where he actively assisted the new arrivals to start new lives as farmers.

In 1822, Stuart took a position as the principal ofUtica Academy in New York State. There he met the youngTheodore Dwight Weld, who became one of the leaders of the Americanabolitionist movement during its formative years. By 1829, he returned to England for a time. There, Charles wrote some of the most influential anti-slavery pamphlets of the period.^[4]

In 1840 he attended theWorld Anti-Slavery Convention in June. One hundred and thirty of the more notable delegates were included in a large commemorative painting byBenjamin Haydon. This picture is now in theNational Portrait Gallery in London.

He retired to a farm nearThornbury, Ontario, in 1850 at Lora Bay onGeorgian Bay.^[7] Any product made from the use ofslave labour was forbidden in his home.

• The emigrant's guide to Upper Canada; or, sketches of the present state of that province, collected from a residence therein during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, interspersed with reflections (London, 1820)
• Is slavery defensible from Scripture? To the Rev. Dr. Hincks, Killileagh (Belfast, 1831)
• Remarks on the colony of Liberia and the American Colonization Society : with some account of the settlement of coloured people, at Wilberforce, Upper Canada (London, 1832)
• The West India question. Immediate emancipation would be safe for the masters;--profitable for the masters;--happy for the slaves;--right in the government;--advantageous to the nation;--would interfere with no feelings but such as are disgraceful and destructive;--cannot be postponed without continually increasing danger. An outline for immediate emancipation; and remarks on compensation (New Haven, Conn., 1833; originally London, 1832).
• Prejudice Vincible; or, The Practicability of Conquering Prejuduce by Better Means than by Slavery and Exile; in relation to the American Colonization Society (New York, "Re-Printed from an English edition", 1833)
• The American colonization scheme further unravelled, undated, but reviewed at length inThe Liberator of April 19, 1834.^[8]
• A memoir of Granville Sharp : to which is added Sharp's "Law of passive obedience," and an extract from his "Law of retribution" (New York:American Anti-Slavery Society, 1836;reprinted by The Negro Universities Press, a division of Greenwood Press, 1970,ISBN 0837146151)
• Stuart, Charles (1841).Oneida and Oberlin, or A Call, addressed to British Christians and philanthropists, affectionately inviting their sympathies, their prayers, and their assistance, in favour of the Christians and philanthropists of the United States of North America, for the extirpation, by our aid, of that slavery which we introduced into those states, while they were under our power.Bristol, England: Wright and Albright.JSTOR 60239226.
• A short history and description of the Ojibbeway Indians now on a visit to England : with correct likenesses, engraved from daguerreotype plates, taken by M. Claudet (London, 1844)

• 1783 births
• 1865 deaths
• Bermudian non-fiction writers
• Bermudian soldiers
• Bermudian abolitionists
• American abolitionists
• Canadian activists
• Canadian abolitionists
• Writers from Utica, New York
• American people of English descent
• Bermudian people of English descent
• Bermudian emigrants to the United States
• Bermudian emigrants to Canada
• Writers from Ontario
• People from The Blue Mountains, Ontario

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