Following the abolition of slavery in the British empire in 1834, any black man born a British subject or who became a British subject was allowed to vote and run for office, provided that they owned taxable property. The property requirement on voting in Canada was not ended until 1920. Black Canadian women like all other Canadian women were not granted the right to vote until partially in 1917 ( when wives, daughters, sisters and mothers of servicemen were granted the right to vote) and fully in 1918 (when all women were granted the right to vote). In 1850, Canadian black women together with all other women were granted the right to vote for school trustees, which was the limit of female voting rights in Canada West. In 1848, in Colchester county in Canada West, white men prevented black men from voting in the municipal elections, but following complaints in the courts, a judge ruled that black voters could not be prevented from voting. Ward, writing about the Colchester case in the "Voice of the Fugitive" newspaper, declared that the right to vote was the "most sacred" of all rights, and that even if white men took away everything from the black farmers in Colchester county, that would still be a lesser crime compared with losing the "right of a British vote". In 1840, Wilson Ruffin Abbott became the first black elected to any office in what became Canada when he was elected to the city council in Toronto. In 1851, James Douglas became the governor of Vancouver Island, but that was not an elective one. Unlike in the United States, in Canada after the abolition of slavery in 1834, black Canadians were never stripped of their right to vote and hold office.