Black Loyalists: Birchtown, Broken Promises and the Voyage to Sierra Leone

Remember from Grade 3

In Grade 3 you learned that about 3 000 Black Loyalists sailed to Nova Scotia in 1783, founded Birchtown, faced racism and unfair treatment, and that about 1 200 later left for Sierra Leone. Now you will look at the evidence, the people, and why these events are significant.

Freedom, written down

In 1783 the war was over. In New York, the last big British base, thousands of Black people who had escaped slavery to join the British were waiting to leave. American enslavers demanded their "property" back.

The British commander, Sir Guy Carleton, refused to hand back people who had been promised freedom. He ordered officials to write down every Black person leaving on British ships: name, age, a short description, and how they came to the British. This record, made under Brigadier General Samuel Birch, is called the Book of Negroes. It lists about 3 000 people.

For many, that line in the book was proof of their freedom.

Arrival in Nova Scotia

About 3 000 Black Loyalists sailed from New York to Nova Scotia between April and November 1783. (More than 1 200 enslaved Black people also arrived, brought by white Loyalists.)

Many Black Loyalists settled at Birchtown, near Shelburne, named after Samuel Birch. Birchtown became one of the largest free Black communities outside Africa at that time. Others settled near Halifax (Preston), Digby (Brindley Town) and Annapolis Royal, and in New Brunswick around Saint John. Smaller numbers came to what became Upper Canada and Quebec.

Broken promises and barriers

• Land: white Loyalists were promised land, and Black Loyalists were promised it too. But Black Loyalists waited years. At Birchtown, the first residents got land only in 1787, four years after arriving, and it was smaller and poorer than white Loyalists' land. Many got none.
• Work: without land, many had to work for low pay for white settlers, or as sharecroppers or servants. Some had to sign long work contracts.
• The Shelburne riot: on 26 July 1784, disbanded white soldiers in Shelburne, angry that Black workers were hired for lower wages, attacked Black residents and destroyed their homes in Shelburne and around Birchtown. The violence lasted about 10 days.
• Unequal rights: Black Loyalists faced discrimination in courts, churches and daily life. Some were even kidnapped and sold back into slavery.

Building community

Despite all this, Black Loyalists built strong communities.

• David George, who had been enslaved in Virginia, was a Baptist preacher. He founded Baptist churches across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
• Boston King, who had escaped slavery in South Carolina, was a carpenter and Methodist preacher. Later he wrote an account of his life, a valuable primary source.
• Churches and schools became the centres of Black community life.

Thomas Peters, a former sergeant in the Black Pioneers, spent years petitioning for the land Black Loyalists had been promised. In 1790 to 1791 he travelled to London to present their complaints. There he met people from the Sierra Leone Company, who offered Black Nova Scotians free land in West Africa.

The voyage to Sierra Leone (1792)

On 15 January 1792, 15 ships left Halifax carrying 1 196 Black Nova Scotians. The abolitionist John Clarkson led the mission; Thomas Peters was a key organizer. David George and Boston King went too.

In Sierra Leone, they helped found Freetown, today the capital of Sierra Leone. Life there was also hard: disease, conflict over land promises, and Peters himself died of fever in June 1792. But their descendants are part of Sierra Leone today.

Many Black Loyalists stayed in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Their descendants are part of today's African Nova Scotian and Black Canadian communities, among the oldest Black communities in Canada.

In 1796, more than 500 Maroons, free Black people from Jamaica who had fought the British there, were sent to Nova Scotia against their will. They worked on the Halifax Citadel fortifications and lived in the Preston area. After years of petitioning, most were moved to Sierra Leone in 1800.