On January 15, 1792, a convoy of 15 ships left Halifax harbour carrying 1,196 Black Loyalists, according to Dalhousie University and the Globe and Mail. They were not fleeing a war. They were leaving the British colony that had promised them freedom, land and equal rights, and had delivered little of any of it.
The departure is often told as a story of migration to Sierra Leone. It is also, on the documentary record, a mass protest: roughly one in three members of Nova Scotia’s Black Loyalist community, the Globe and Mail reports, chose to leave rather than keep waiting for the Crown to honour its word.
A promise made in war
After the American Revolution, at least 3,500 free Black Americans loyal to the Crown settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, according to Parks Canada’s designation of the Black Loyalist Experience as a national historic event. The Canadian Encyclopedia notes that those arriving in the early 1780s were promised land, and describes the terms as 100 acres for each head of household plus 50 acres for each family member, along with provisions.
The Globe and Mail summarizes the pledge as freedom, full rights as British subjects, land and provisions for up to three years. Colonial officials, it reports, reneged on those promises.
The delay was long. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the first Black settlers in Birchtown did not receive land grants until 1787, four years after their arrival, and the Crown did not provide land titles to Black settlers. Its editorial on the Black Loyalists adds that many who waited as long as six years received a quarter acre or less, or poorer plots across the harbour. Parks Canada records that Birchtown, established in August 1783, became the largest free Black settlement in North America at the time.
Violence and unequal pay
Land was not the only grievance. Dalhousie University reports that Black workers were paid at roughly a quarter of the wages of white labourers. The Canadian Encyclopedia says that on July 26, 1784, white Loyalists in Shelburne destroyed the homes of about 20 free Black residents, and that the rioting continued for about 10 days. It also reports that Baptist minister David George faced violence in Shelburne after baptizing white Loyalists, in defiance of the racial hierarchy of the town.
The Globe and Mail lists further conditions: geographic segregation, restrictions on voting, mob violence against homes and businesses, the risk of kidnapping, and bylaws banning “Negro Frolicks.” Nova Scotia was also not a place where slavery had ended. The Canadian Encyclopedia says a little more than 1,200 enslaved people arrived in the province with white Loyalist owners.
A petition, then a ship
The exodus was organized, not improvised. The Globe and Mail identifies Thomas Peters, a sergeant in the Black Pioneers, an all-Black military unit, as a leader of the Black communities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. He petitioned colonial governors repeatedly and then travelled to London to press the community’s case.
Dalhousie’s account of his complaints is specific. It says Peters described the Black population as the colony’s “principal source of labour” facing “degrading and unjust prejudice,” and being refused common rights and privileges, including voting and serving on juries. The Sierra Leone Company, according to the Globe, offered full rights as British subjects and “upward of 30 acres of land per family,” with the British government paying for transportation. Dalhousie identifies abolitionist John Clarkson as the company’s leader in the enterprise, and says Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger funded the passage.
Dr. Afua Cooper, a Dalhousie professor of Black studies, told CBC News that the emigrants “were in search of dignity.” She also said of Freetown, the settlement the Black Loyalists founded: “It did become a free town.”
What the record leaves open
Sources differ on some details, and readers should treat certain figures with care. Most accounts give 1,196 emigrants, while the Canadian Encyclopedia says “approximately 1,200.” Reports on the number of families that signed up vary between outlets, so this article does not give one. Many Black Loyalists stayed. The Parks Canada statement notes that the community persisted in Birchtown and elsewhere after 1792.
It is also worth being clear about what the emigrants were choosing. Sierra Leone was a British colony run by a company with its own commercial aims, not a place free of hardship, and this article does not claim otherwise. The documented point is narrower and firmer: faced with unkept promises at home, more than a thousand people judged an unfamiliar continent a better bet than waiting on the Crown.
Remembered, 230 years on
CBC News reported that Nova Scotia formally proclaimed January 15, 2022, the Day of the Black Loyalist Exodus, and that Grade 11 students at Auburn Drive High School took part in the tribute. The event marked the 230th anniversary of a departure that shaped both Nova Scotia and the founding of Freetown.
The story matters beyond the anniversary. It shows that Black Canadians’ demands for land, fair wages, jury service and the vote are not a recent development. They were made in writing, to governors and to London, in the 1780s and 1790s, and the answer they received helped prompt about a third of the Black Loyalist community to leave.
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Sources: Dalhousie University (Dal News, March 25, 2022); CBC News (Nova Scotia, January 2022); The Globe and Mail opinion, “The Black Loyalists are still teaching us, centuries later”; The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Black Loyalists in British North America” and “The Arrival of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia”; Parks Canada, Black Loyalist Experience National Historic Event.
