About 900 Black Loyalists from Virginia escaped slavery and went to Nova Scotia

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When David George got on a boat heading for Canada from New York in 1783, he’d already lived many lives: one of an enslaved man in Virginia, one of a preacher in Georgia, and one of a food broker for British troops during the American Revolution.

George was one of about 10,000 Black Loyalists to the British crown, the majority of whom were enslaved. During the war, they were guaranteed freedom if they sided with the British either by fighting alongside their troops or supporting in non-military roles. The Loyalists came from New York, New Jersey, Virginia and other states, and were viewed strategically by the British. They represented both a way to weaken Patriots, who relied on their free labor, and to bolster British troops, which were comparatively weak in numbers.

Lord Dunmore’s proclamation that freed Virginia’s slaves

In November 1775, as the revolution grew, Virginia’s royal governor issued this proclamation that offered freedom to enslaved people if they would support the British:

I do require every Person capable of bearing Arms, to resort to His MAJESTY’S STANDARD, or be looked upon as Traitors to His MAJESTY’S Crown and Government, and thereby become liable to the Penalty the Law inflicts upon such Offences; such as forfeiture of Life, confiscation of Lands, &c. &c. And I do hereby further declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY’S Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to His MAJESTY’S Crown and Dignity.

Dunmore’s proclamation was the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America. Politically, the move backfired, writes historian Woody Holton from the University of South Carolina. Only 1% of Virginia’s enslaved population joined the British and Dunmore’s proclamation further enraged white Virginians against the crown. Virginia later changed the name of Dunmore County to Shenandoah County.

The Black Loyalists responded significantly to the call from the British, which was issued through a proclamation by Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore. About 30,000 Black Loyalists successfully escaped to aid the British, many viewing the war as an opportunity for a much broader freedom: the chance to abolish slavery in the American South.

Throughout the war, there were entire military units composed of Black Loyalists, such as the Ethiopian Regiment, some of whom donned uniforms embroidered with “liberty to slaves.” They supported in many other ways: Black Loyalists built the majority of accommodations for troops, and worked as musicians.

At the end of the war, the Loyalists — defeated and stuck in the last British stronghold in New York — were transported outside of the newly formed United States to start yet another chapter in places across the world such as Germany, England, and the Caribbean. The largest population — nearly 3,000 — ended up in a small easterly province in Canada.

Black Loyalists were promised land and support by the British to establish themselves, and settled across Nova Scotia and modern-day New Brunswick.

The 1,500 people who stayed in the Shelburne County and Birchtown area of Nova Scotia became the largest group of free Black people outside of Africa at that time. Many of those were Black Virginians: approximately 900 left from New York and the majority went to Nova Scotia.

Nearly 250 years later, Shelburne — a coastal town in the southwestern part of Nova Scotia — is home to the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre. Open since 2015, the museum holds artifacts and tells the story of the Black Loyalists. Its walls are adorned with the names of Black Loyalists, glass cases hold broken plates recovered from Birchtown, and its grounds contain historic buildings, such as an old schoolhouse.

Andrea Davis, who is both a Black Loyalist descendant and the executive director of the centre, says the building serves as an important touchstone for descendants to connect with their ancestors, and for the public at large to learn about a vital piece of Canadian history.

Davis wants people to understand that Black Loyalists are “still here.”

Davis explains that the very presence of their descendants in the province tells a story of resilience. When Black Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia, it was anything but smooth sailing: Britain didn’t follow through on the promises it put forward before transporting the Loyalists to the province. Land and work were both hard to come by, and land grants were prioritized for white people.

Upon arriving in Nova Scotia, many Loyalists had no home or land waiting for them and were left to fend for themselves through cold and brutal winters. The Mi’kmaq, the Indigenous peoples of the area who had lived on the land for thousands of years, taught Loyalists how to hunt and fish and provided advice on building structures to make it through the winter. Many built pit houses, which are sunken shelters that are constructed above a hole dug into the ground: tree trunks are placed on top of the hole to create a roof. Some Black Loyalists received land grants after four years of living in the province, when they were originally promised land upon their arrival.

“It’s not fair that when you think about how our families lived, it’s unimaginable. It’s unfathomable,” says Davis.

The struggles were so abundant that when an opportunity was presented in 1790 to leave their new home by a British anti-slavery organization, many took it. About 1,200 Loyalists, including David George and many others from the Shelburne area, traveled across the North Atlantic Ocean to modern-day Sierra Leone, where they helped found Freetown. Dalhousie University Professor Isaac Saney calls the move a “reverse exodus” and writes that it “has resulted in distant but poignant family links. Family names such as Hamilton, Wright and Wyse reside on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The experiences of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia are littered with “continued failed promises,” explains Davis.

“If you could just take a branch of a tree and trace just the pain, it would go deep into the roots in the ground because that’s exactly what our history is all about,” she says.

Davis grew up in Shelburne but left the town for Ontario, partly due to prejudice in the province, before eventually returning to head the centre. Growing up, Davis said the history of Black Loyalists “was never told to us in school.” She says awareness is slowly growing, but that back then, “it was never told to us by our parents. It was never told to us by the community.”

Although Davis knows she has at least two Black Loyalist relatives who entered Nova Scotia by way of New York, she is still working on parsing through her family history.

“We didn’t go, our families stayed here. So we have a homage here that we’re just so eager to learn about and to say, ‘Why didn’t they go back?’ Did they know something that nobody else did? Did they decide to keep at it, as to say, and keep going with it?”

Expanding knowledge

While the center continues to educate within its walls and through outreach programs, another key effort is focused on expanding the information and knowledge the organization currently has. A huge gap, explains Black Loyalist Society board member Kelley Bruce, is the lack of information about Black Loyalists before they came to Nova Scotia.

Bruce knows that her family line can be traced back to Black Loyalist Joseph Heartlie, who originally came from Virginia, but the history before he left for Canada is opaque. In November, Bruce traveled to Virginia and the Carolinas with her husband John Nowlan, a volunteer with the society, to research Black Loyalist connections in the states.

“The people that we spoke to in Virginia and the Southern states have no idea what happened to their folks once they left. So there’s that disconnect and it ends at the American border,” explains Bruce, who also grew up in Shelburne.

“So what we’re trying to do is make these linkages happen so that we can start to exchange information and set up partnerships to kind of go back and forth.”

Bruce and Nowlan note that two names popped up more than once during their research in Virginia: Jupiter Farmer and Venus Farmer, Davis’ Black Loyalist relatives.

Eventually, the hope is to have a research arm of the center that will also include a genealogy component. This could eventually help descendants in Nova Scotia trace their family lines back to before the American Revolution, explained Bruce. It would also serve as a landing place for Americans who may have family linkages to Black Loyalists.

“An intrinsic part of why the center came to be is to preserve and to share our history and certainly tell the story of the Black Loyalists,” said Bruce, who notes they are at the “inception” of this project.

“And we can’t tell the story if we don’t have those records and we don’t have a place for descendants to come back and actually look for what they’re looking for. So it’s a big project. It’s going to need big funding.”

Bruce wants people in Virginia to know that “we are looking. We’re looking for our ancestors back there and it’s hard.” Anyone in the state who thinks they might have a familial connection to the Black Loyalists is encouraged to reach out to the center.

“Myself, [a] French Canadian white man, sees the center … as a shining beacon to that population,” adds Nowlan. “Locally, provincially, nationally and internationally. There’s a story to tell. We have not, so far, begun to tell the story on the scale that it needs to be told.”

Looking forward

While the heritage center is a huge accomplishment, both Bruce and Davis note that it is relatively early days: There’s a lot the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre and Society still wants to do.

Creating a research center is one goal — which will also include digitizing documents, especially top of mind following a horrific wildfire season in the region — as are efforts to search for unmarked Black Loyalist graves. They’re launching a project next year focusing on the historical stories of Black fishers in the province, in collaboration with the Fisheries Museum and the Black Cultural Centre.

The legacy of the Black Loyalists

1. One of the Black Loyalists from Virginia who fled to Nova Scotia was Henry Washington , a slave owned by George Washington. He fled in 1776 to join Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment. After the revolution, he was among those who the British evacuated from New York.
2. In the 2016 remake of “Roots,” the protagonist Kunta Kinte is portrayed as a Black Loyalist who served in Lord Dunmore’s regiment.

Another, which Davis describes as “quite a feat,” is a hope to repatriate the Book of Negroes , which the Nova Scotia Archives describes as the “single most important document relating to the immigration of African Americans to Nova Scotia following the War of Independence.” The names and descriptions of Black Loyalists who came to Nova Scotia are listed in the two copies that still exist today, which are housed in the United Kingdom and Washington, D.C. at the National Archives.

The legacy of Black Loyalists extends throughout the province and beyond. There are 52 distinct communities in Nova Scotia with roots to the Black Loyalists, explains Davis.

“I think there’s a lot of people in the United States alone that don’t think we exist. They think that, ‘oh, there’s a fairy tale or a fable. Did you hear about the Black Loyalists?’” said Davis.

“There are a lot of us that are here … and I think that is something alone that we should be extremely proud about. The fact that we are still here, and that we’re thriving.”

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