Celebrating Black History Month in Nova Scotia3
February 25, 2010 9:00 AM
Each February, Canadians mark the legacy and achievements of the African diaspora in Canada during Black History Month.
Martha Walls, a history professor at StFX whose research interest is in Maritime history, explains that African Nova Scotians in particular share “a history in the region that is as long as it is diverse.”
“‘Africadians,’ to use poet George Elliott Clark’s term for African Nova Scotians, have probably been part of the fabric on non-Aboriginal settlement in Nova Scotia since French arrival at Port Royal in 1605. Rumoured to have been among the French colonists was a well-educated African born translator named Mathieu Da Costa,” she details.
Walls describes the first Black emigration to Nova Scotia as occurring in three distinct waves. After the American Revolution ended in 1783, Black soldiers who fought for Britain journeyed to the northern colonies of British North America along with other American loyalists. Many of the Black Loyalists had been enslaved.
Approximately 3,500 Black Loyalists from this exodus came to Nova Scotia. While they were promised freedom, land and support like other Loyalists, Walls explains that this promise did not come to fruition.
“Black Loyalists faced huge impediments, particularly Britain’s failure to provide promised farm land. Racism created further obstacles. Fed up with their treatment in Nova Scotia, in 1792, 1,200 Black Loyalists left Nova Scotia for life in Sierra Leone.”
Following the departure of the Loyalists, over 500 Maroons, or Jamaicans, landed in Halifax. Facing similar impediments of racism that denied them paid labour or land, most of the Maroons left for Sierra Leone in 1800.
Finally, during the War of 1812, enslaved and free African Americans who supported Britain during the conflict with the United States fled to British North America. Approximately 1,600 of these supporters came to Nova Scotia.
“Here they felt the familiar sting of racism and faced government plans to oust them from the colony. Approximately 95 [of the] War of 1812 refugees relocated to Trinidad, but, unlike the first two waves of Black settlers, most of the Black refugees opted to stay in Nova Scotia,” says Walls.
At this early period in their settlement, she describes that the identity of African Nova Scotia was in place. It was defined by several common factors, most notably the shared reality of slavery. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807. However, in practice, slavery remained legal in Nova Scotia and throughout the British Empire until 1834.
“Nova Scotia’s status as a slave-holding society helped to create in the province a set of shared beliefs that belittled the essential humanity of Africadian people. This slave-holding legacy was also reflected in a climate of racism that denied to Africadian people equal educational economic, political and social opportunities,” says Walls.
However, in spite of these obstacles - or perhaps because of them - African Nova Scotian culture was shaped by a sense of solidarity. The role of the African Baptist Church was also instrumental in community-building.
“Founded in 1782 by David George, a former slave and Loyalist, the African Baptist Church congregations became the heart of Africadian communities. From their pulpits, early community leaders called for greater social, economic and political rights for Africadians,” she elaborates.
Together, these factors provided the strong foundations of the Nova Scotian African diaspora that shape the community to this day.
