Thomas Smallwood, author of A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood, was a leading member of the Black community in Southern Ontario in the mid-1800s.

Richard Almonte lives in Toronto, where he works in book publishing. He is also working on his doctorate in Canadian literature at McMaster University. Recent publications include work in FUSE magazine and a chapter in Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism (Insomniac, 2000). Research into Toronto’s nineteenth-century African-Canadian community led Almonte to Mary Shadd’s A Plea for Emigration and A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood.