Black Nova Scotians

The Nova Scotian Archives provides an excellent historical overview regarding the history of people of African descent in Nova Scotia from their arrival in the region as slaves in the 18th century to the later immigration of African-American refugees escaping slavery during the American Revolution to the War of 1812. What I didn’t know was that immigrants from New England settled in Nova Scotia with their slaves beginning in the 1750s and sold some of them on slave markets in places like Halifax. The website contains primary historical documents that the “Book of Negroes” which listed the names of 3,000 Black American Loyalists who escaped to British lines after the end of the American Revolution to settle in Canada. Many Black Canadians can trace their ancestry to this group. The website also contains lists of Black Americans refugees who fled to the British during the War of 1812 were also settled in different settlements throughout Nova Scotia. The website contains passenger lists of American slaves aboard ships sailing to Canada, too. Many of their descendants formed their own communities and founded religious institutions to adapt to their new life of freedom living in Canada.    Source: https://novascotia.ca/archives/africanns/default.asp 


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