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The gravestone of Lawrence Hartshorne, a Quaker who was the chief assistant of John Clarkson. [1] [2]The Nova Scotian Settlers, or Sierra Leone Settlers (also known as the Nova Scotians or more commonly as the Settlers), were African Americans and Black Canadians of African-American descent who founded the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone and the Colony of Sierra Leone, on March 11, 1792.
In 1792, the British government offered Black Loyalists the chance to resettle in a new colony in Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Company was established to manage its development. Half of the Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, nearly 1200, departed the country and moved permanently to Sierra Leone. They set up the community of "Freetown". [25]
A Black Loyalist wood cutter in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, 1788. The government settled numerous Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, but they faced inadequate support on arrival. The government was slow to survey their land (which meant they could not settle) and awarded them smaller grants in less convenient locations than those of white settlers in ...
The Petition of Free Negroes was a document created by a group of freed slaves who had fought for the British in the American Revolutionary War, and been rewarded with land grants in Upper Canada for their service to the Crown.
Many Black Loyalists in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia migrate to Sierra Leone in West Africa, mainly because the promises of land in Canada were not kept by the British. May 7 – Lower Canada is divided into 21 counties. August – the 1st Parliament of Upper Canada is elected. [2] October 15 – The law of England is introduced in Upper Canada.
Thomas Peters, born Thomas Potters (1738 – 25 June 1792), [1] was a veteran of the Black Pioneers, fighting for the British in the American Revolutionary War. A Black Loyalist, he was resettled in Nova Scotia, where he became a politician and one of the "Founding Fathers" of the nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa.
As a result, 1,196 Black settlers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia left for Sierra Leone, following planning from Thomas Peters. [11] An additional wave of 371 African-American refugees arrived in 1815, following the War of 1812. [10] In the early 1800s, one of Canada's first Black settlements, Elm Hill, was founded by Black loyalists. [12]
The Black refugees were the third group of African Americans, after the Black Loyalists, to flee American enslavement in wartime and settle in Canada. They make up the most significant single immigration source for today's African Nova Scotian communities.