In 1793, Cooley was held by
Loyalist Adam Vrooman, a white farmer and former sergeant with
Butler's Rangers who fled to Canada from New York after the
American Revolution. He had purchased her several months before from
Benjamin Hardison, another Loyalist who lived nearby at what is now
Fort Erie, Ontario.
The Crown had explicitly allowed Loyalists to bring their slaves to Canada under an imperial act of Parliament, the Settlers in American Colonies Act 1790 (
30 Geo. 3. c. 27). They brought an estimated 2,000 into Canada after the
American Revolutionary War, with an estimated 500 to 700 to Upper Canada, markedly increasing the number in the colonies. However, he petitioned against the charges, which were eventually dropped, because Chloe Cooley was considered property.
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe was outraged by the incident and decided to act to prohibit slavery. While at least 12 members of the 25-person government owned slaves or were members of slave-owning families, they offered little opposition to the bill. The Chloe Cooley incident was considered a catalyst in the passage of Canada's first and only anti-slavery legislation: the
Act Against Slavery (Its full name is "An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude (also known as the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada)"). Simcoe gave it Royal Assent on July 9, 1793. ==Provisions of the Act==