black history- CANADA- Black Loyalist Soldier prominently depicted fighting on British side-Canadian side -John Singleton's Copley's 1782- heroes black loyalist copley

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Over 100 Black Canadians served in the Royal Canadian Air Force WWII Their Stories -

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Long history of black Canadians serving in the military

CTV Montreal
Last Updated Monday, February 29, 2016 10:09AM EST

For hundreds of years, as conflicts were waged across North America and overseas, the tradition of black soldiers on Canadian territory has endured.

It’s a legacy that has continued uninterrupted to the present day. Patrick Philippeaux, 41, has spent 20 years in the army, currently holding the rank of master corporal. He has served in Afghanistan and Haiti as a mobile support equipment operator. He said the armed forces have given him a purpose and sense of belonging.

“It was either that or a lifetime at Burger King,” he said. “The military has this kind of brotherhood, right? We look out for one another, we care for one another, we help out one another.”

Lynsaskia Clement, 21, has been in the military for 22 months. She is planning on making the army her career and is on her way to completing a nursing degree.

“I have a voice,” she said. “I’m respected. I have people that see you as an equal.”

Blacks fought for both the French and British in conflicts dating back to the 18^th century.

“It goes back at least to 1745 and the first siege of Louisbourg,” said military historian and major in the Canadian armed forces Mathias Joost.

In both World Wars, black Canadians encountered few obstacles in volunteering for service.

“Nobody cared about the colour of the skin,” said Joost. “It was the question: can you do the job? If we’re in combat, are you going to be able to protect my back just I’m going to protect yours?”

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/long-history-of-black-canadians-serving-in-the-military-1.2797087

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CANADA- Highlighting black leadership

African-Canadian political figures meet in historical N.S. community of Birchtown

Symbols, every politician knows by heart, have the power to unite, as well as inspire. And so when it came time for Canada’s growing list of black political leaders to have their inaugural gathering this week, one place made absolute sense: the brand-new Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Birchtown.

“Birchtown is sacred ground," Tony Ince, Nova Scotia’s minister of communities, culture and heritage, told his colleagues from across the country Monday at a luncheon in Halifax.

And not just for black Nova Scotians. Standing in the crowd as Ince spoke was Peter Flegel, who grew up in Montreal and is now director of communications and programs for the Michaelle Jean Foundation in Ottawa.

“This story," the 36-year-old said, “means a lot for African-Canadians and for all Canadians."

The saga of Birchtown, after all, touches universal themes and rides the great swell of history.

By now, thanks to Lawrence Hill’s novel The Book of Negroes and the TV miniseries, you probably know how, during the American Revolutionary War, a group of black slaves chose to fight with those loyal to Britain, which promised them land, rations and, most of all, freedom.

All told, nearly 3,000 free Black Loyalists left New York in 1783 bound for Nova Scotia, pursuing what filmmaker, educator and writer Sylvia Hamilton calls the “dream of freedom, basic human dignity and justice."

Visitors to the Black Heritage Centre will learn all about how hardship and disappointment were the hallmarks of the first settlement of free blacks outside Africa. Most of the newcomers never got the land they were promised. For many, the first Nova Scotia winter was spent living in huts hacked into the ground at Birchtown.

If they found work, it was as near-slaves for the white settlers in nearby Shelburne, which Port Roseway had been rechristened, where they were cheated out of their rations and whipped for minor crimes. When England’s King William IV visited Birchtown, he called it “beyond description wretched."

When the opportunity came to help establish a free colony of blacks in Africa, many Birchtowners took it. On Jan. 15, 1792, onethird of the Black Loyalists who arrived nine years earlier left for Sierra Leone. In time, most of those who stayed in Birchtown drifted away.

Now the traffic is moving the other way. Ince says that, for a change, “the stars seem to be lining up" for the province’s African- Nova Scotian community which, at 21,000 strong, makes up just a small slice of Canada’s one million black people.

If so, that would reflect a trend: the national unemployment rate is about the same for black and white Canadians, and African-Canadians are just as likely to be university educated.

As well, the smallish crowd of senators, members of Parliament and provincial legislatures attending the Birchtown conference are only part of the country’s growing black political leadership.

Ince, one of two African-Nova Scotians in the government caucus, conceded there’s still progress to be made in a province where the employment rate for African-Nova Scotians is 62 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 68 per cent.

Like anyone with a grasp of history, he knows how long and hard the journey has been for black Nova Scotians from the miseries of the settlers of Birchtown and, before that, the privations of the immigrants who arrived as slaves serving white masters.

Any of the honoured visitors needing enlightenment only had to take a short drive from the lunch venue to Seaview Park, once home to the struggling, close-knit community of Africville until its residents were evicted in the 1960s to make room for development.

A few blocks away stands the Citadel fortification, built in the late 1700s by freedom fighters from Jamaica before they asked to follow the Birchtown settlers to Sierra Leone.

Further west in the Camp Hill Cemetery lies buried Viola Desmond, whose courageous stand, nine year before Rosa Parks’s, was the beginning of the end of segregation in this province.

The vibe at Monday’s luncheon, though, was forward-looking. Don Meredith, a charismatic senator from Ontario, said that for too long the fragmented nature of Canada’s black community has hurt its progress.

Now, with politicians about to begin working together on issues that affect people everywhere, that’s changed.

“This conference is a first step in that direction," he said as his fellow politicos prepared to board the shuttle bus for Birchtown, where the past, hopefully, will help illuminate the future. This story means a lot for African-Canadians and for all Canadians.

Peter Flegel Michaelle Jean Foundation official

A typographical presentation of the 3,000 blacks documented in the Book of Negroes is displayed on the large windows at the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Birchtown. ERIC WYNNE • Staff ---------------------

The Coloured Corps: Black Canadians and the War of 1812

Blacks in Early Upper Canada

The first substantial settlement of African Canadians in Upper Canada occurred following the American Revolution. Some, such as Richard Pierpoint, a former slave from Africa and military veteran of Butler's Rangers, had gained their freedom under the British Crown during the late war. Most, however, were slaves, brought to the province as spoils of war or as the property of Loyalist refugees, amounting to 700 individuals by the time Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe arrived in 1792. Simcoe wished to abolish slavery entirely, but the Legislature, concerned over the possible economic impact, opposed many of his reforms. Therefore, his Act To Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, passed on 9 July 1793, was a severely limited version of his intentions; it banned the further importation of slaves into Upper Canada, but granted freedom automatically only to those born in the province. Consequently many African Canadians occupied an uneasy and caste-like status within early Upper Canadian society.

Raising the Coloured Corps

The increasingly real prospect of invasion by the United States — with its greater tolerance of slavery — toward 1812 represented a major threat to the comparatively broader liberties enjoyed by both free and enslaved Blacks under British law, leading many Blacks to join the Upper Canada Militia. Free Blacks had served in the militia since its organization in 1793, although the formation of an independent company composed entirely of African Canadians was not proposed until the eve of war, when Richard Pierpoint offered "to raise a Corps of Men of Colour on the Niagara Frontier." This offer was initially rejected as unnecessary by the government under Major-General Isaac Brock, but reconsidered following the invasion of Brigadier General William Hull's American army across the Detroit River on 12 July 1812.
By late August 1812, the nucleus of an all-Black company had formed at Niagara as part of the 1st Lincoln Militia. Yet instead of Richard Pierpoint, who enlisted as a private soldier in September, command was granted to a local white officer, Captain Robert Runchey. Characterised as a "black sheep" and a "worthless, troublesome malcontent," Runchey fulfilled his reputation for poor leadership by segregating "his nigros" from other militiamen, and in some cases hiring them out to officers as domestic servants. Not surprisingly, recruiting in the Niagara Peninsula proved difficult, and "Runchey's Company of Coloured Men" remained only a cadre until 14 Black soldiers voluntarily transferred to the unit from the 3rd York Militia in early October. Once raised to approximately 40 men, the company commenced drilling at Fort George.

The Battle of Queenston Heights

On the morning of 13 October 1812, an American army under Major General Solomon Van Rensselaer commenced its invasion of Upper Canada by crossing the Niagara River at Queenston. Initially left at Fort George, Runchey's Company soon marched with Major-General Roger Sheaffe's reinforcements for Queenston, arriving after Brock's death. There it joined Captain John Norton's First Nations fighters in sniping at the American position atop Queenston Heights, before forming part of Sheaffe's battle line. Alongside the British 41st Foot, Runchey's Company "fired a single volley with considerable execution, and then charged with a tremendous tumult," bringing about the Americans' surrender. Runchey having absented himself on the morning of the battle, he subsequently resigned and the company was commanded temporarily by Lieutenant James Cooper of the 2nd Lincoln Militia, who was cited in dispatches as having led his men "with great spirit."

The 1813 Campaigns

Re-titled the "Coloured" or "Black" Corps, the company was reorganized as an embodied militia unit fit for general service, and wintered at Fort George. There it was present on 27 May 1813, when a large American force launched an amphibious attack against the fort. Rushed to the beach to oppose the landing, the Coloured Corps and British troops "exchanged a destructive and rapid fire" with the enemy at short range, before being forced back by American naval gunfire, the small company losing four men wounded or captured. It retreated with Brigadier-General John Vincent's troops to Burlington Heights, and supported, but was not engaged with this force at the Battle of Stoney Creek on 6 June 1813. For the remainder of the year, the Coloured Corps participated in the blockade of the American army at Fort George, enduring the same privations as British troops amid the harsh conditions experienced during the campaign.

Construction of Fort Mississauga

After the British captured Fort Niagara on 19 December 1813, the Coloured Corps was attached to the Royal Engineers to help repair the fortifications at the mouth of the Niagara River. Whether race influenced the authorities' choice for this duty is not known, as one engineer later reported: "When I visited the Niagara Frontier ... I found that a corps of Free Men of Colour had been raised ... but had been turned over to that of the Engineers, any necessity for this I never could learn, but it seems to have been the fashion in Canada to heap all kinds of duties upon the latter."
Toward the spring of 1814 the company was ordered to construct a new fort on the Canadian shore, dubbed Fort Mississauga, materials for which were obtained from the ruins of the nearby town of Niagara. With the American navy now controlling Lake Ontario, this work was crucial to the security of British forces in the Niagara Peninsula, one British officer later noting "Mississauga ... is a pretty little Fort, and would prevent vessels coming up the river." These duties consequently precluded the Coloured Corps' participation in the Niagara campaign that summer, even during the subsequent siege of Fort Erie, where British forces desperately lacked trained engineer troops.

Disbandment and Legacy

The Engineer Department continued to employ the Coloured Corps in the Niagara Peninsula for the remainder of the War of 1812. Their zeal in these works duly impressed British engineers, one reporting in February 1815 that "no people could be better calculated to build temporary barracks than these Free Men of Colour, as they are in general expert axemen." Notwithstanding their usefulness, the company was disbanded on 24 March 1815 following the end of the war. In claiming rewards for their service many faced adversity and discrimination — Sergeant William Thompson was informed he "must go and look for his pay himself," while Richard Pierpoint, now in his seventies, was denied his request for passage home to Africa in lieu of a land grant. When grants were distributed in 1821, veterans of the Coloured Corps received only 100 acres, half that of their white counterparts. Yet despite these inequalities, the Coloured Corps defended Canada honourably, setting the precedent for the formation of Black units in future.

African Canadians in British Service

In addition to serving in militia units, other African Canadians enlisted in the regular British forces and served in Upper Canada. One of their most common roles was to act as percussionists in military bands. An officer of the 104th Foot recalled the regiment's bass drummer, Private Henry Grant, accompanying his regiment's epic winter march through the snow from New Brunswick to Upper Canada between February and April of 1813: "Our big black drummer straddled the big drum, which was lashed to a tobagan [sic] ... but it got off the track, shooting him off at high velocity, and the sable African came up some distance from where he disappeared, a white man exciting roars of laughter."
Although a musician, Grant endured the same adventures and dangers as his white comrades. After reaching Kingston, he and the band of the 104th Foot participated in the Battle of Sackets Harbor on 29 May 1813, where several bandsmen were killed during the amphibious landings. Other British regiments garrisoned in Canada for long periods recruited African Canadian musicians in a similar manner, including the 100th Foot, whose cymbal player was Black.
Some British regiments permitted individual African Canadians to enlist as combatant soldiers during the War of 1812. Several are known to have served in the ranks of the Glengarry Light Infantry fencibles: an anonymous "Negro with the Glengarry uniform" was noted by an American officer as having been killed in action during the stubborn but futile defence of Fort George in May 1813. More unusually, the entire pioneer squad (the equivalent of modern combat engineers) of the 104th Foot was comprised of African Canadians. One of them, Private John Baker, was wounded at Sackets Harbor, and recovered to fight in the battles of Chippawa and Lundy's Lane during the summer of 1814. In the Provincial Marine, and later the Royal Navy, segregation and prejudice were less common owing to the constant need for sailors to man ships, and therefore Black seamen served on the Great Lakes with little reference to race.

Links to other sites

War of 1812: We Stand On Guard For TheeThe Harriet Tubman Institute presents "We Stand on Guard for Thee: Teaching and Learning the African Canadian Experience in the War of 1812, a web-based educational project featuring new research on Black involvement in the War of 1812.
Richard PierpointA biography of Richard Pierpoint, soldier, militiaman, labourer, and farmer. From the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-coloured-corps-african-canadians-and-the-war-of-1812/

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Canada WWI

CANADIAN MILITARY MOTTOS
http://www.military-quotes.com/mottos/Canada.htm

CANADA- THE GREAT WAR- Please note newtimers…. Canada refused minorities 2 serve at the beginning of the Great War- WW1- this week we celebrate 100th Anniversary (and they tried so very hard over and over again) until the last veseges of the Great War…. many Canada Negros were shared 2 different alliance country units…. and their bravery was awesome and noted…. in journals and diaries….

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BLOGGED:

CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Jan 2014- Commemorating 100th Anniversary of WWI – The Great War- Canada
https://nova0000scotia.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/canada-military-news-jan-2014-commemorating-100th-anniversary-of-wwi-the-great-war-canada/

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BLOGSPOT:

NOVA SCOTIA'S BLACK LOYALISTS-Canada's Checkerboard Army- Segregated Schools Nova Scotia -telling the truth-CANADA'S MILITARY- the honour, dignity, intelligence, duty- Boer, WWI WWII , Korea, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, UN Peacekeepers- CANADA PURE

http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2013/07/nova-scotias-black-loyalists-canadas.html

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Canadian Army News
Today in Canadian Military History: Adjutant-General of Militia writes to Thomas Runchey of Niagara to raise a detachment of Blacks. By December 15th, about 50 men are under his command (1837). http://ow.ly/7U4NK

　

　

　

Black soldiers in the Rebellion of 1837

They fought valiantly on many of the War of 1812 battlefields, including Queenston Heights, Fort George, Niagara, Stoney Creek and Lundy's Lane, and in naval engagements on Lake Ontario. This history is presented at Fort George National Historic Site of Canada, in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

At the end of the hostilities, veterans were promised severance pay and land grants. Although not all black veterans obtained grants, a few did settle on land made available in Oro Township near present-day Barrie. Here, the government hoped they would serve as a defensive bulwark against potential American invasion via Georgian Bay. The Oro AME Church in Edgar is recognized as nationally significant because of its association with this early period of black settlement. The role of black military forces in the War of 1812 continued to inspire African Americans with the hope that a free life was possible if they could reach British territory. Following the war there was a steady movement of refugees into Upper Canada.

By the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1837, the black population in Upper Canada had grown considerably. To reformer and rebel William Lyon Mackenzie's frustration, African Canadians remained steadfastly loyal to the Crown. In December 1837, a request

was made to raise another regiment of black militia. Additional black units were raised under James H. Sears and Hugh Eccles in the Niagara area. Near Chatham, a First and a Second Coloured Company were mustered. Like many other communities close to the border, African Canadian communities did not always wait for formal military mustering and often formed volunteer units and drilled themselves. In Windsor, Underground Railroad community leader Josiah Henson commanded such a company of volunteers, which was associated with the Essex Militia.

The service records of the black militia units were impressive. Sears' company supported the attack on the American ship Caroline, which had been supplying Mackenzie's forces on Navy Island. Near Sandwich, the Essex Militia, including Josiah Henson's unit of volunteers, took possession of the rebel schooner Anne, which had been firing on the town from the Detroit River. Along with Capt. Caldwell's Coloured Corps (123 volunteers), Henson's men also helped defend Fort Malden from December 1837 through May 1838. Hastily re-mustered troops, including 50 black volunteers, defended Windsor from a late attack in 1838. The role of the black militia at Amherstburg is integral to the reasons for the designation of Fort Malden National Historic Site of Canada.

The System of National Historic Sites of Canada

Commemorating the Undergr ound Railroad in Canada
http://www.pc.gc.ca/canada/proj/cfc-ugrr/itm2-com/pg19_e.asp
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CANADA AT WAR- WW1 PHOTOGRAPHS
http://www.canadaatwar.ca/photographs/
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BLOGSPOT:

CANADA MILITARY NEWS- Black History Month Nova Scotia-Canada - these postings are from 2009 and some from 90s- WILLIAM HALL IS ONE OF MY GREATEST HEROES- VICTORIA CROSS and a true Canadian Military hero... Rocky Jones was another- blogged him- respect and honour /Viola Desmond honours women and Canada/Ike and Tina Turner/Bob Marley... and Gottingen St. 60s and 70s

http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/02/canada-military-news-black-history.html

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CANADA – EVERY MONTH IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

The Victoria Rifles – Black History Month
This is a 30-second Black History Month (BHM) Public Service Announcement (PSA) on The Victoria Rifles. It was formed in 1860 by Sir James Douglas, the first black Governor of British Columbia. The Rifles were one of British Columbia’s first military defense units comprised of Canadian black men only.
Canada’s Black-Negro Soldiers
Image: Black soldiers have had a long history of defending Canada. The Volunteer Military Company from Victoria, BC, active between 1860 and 1864, served during the American Civil War (photograph by Charles Gentile, courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-022626).What are the forgotten stories of African-Canadian history? There are several, and their absence has led to many misconceptions about the role of Black people in the development of Canada.
One fact is that the first African arrival took place over 400 years ago with interpreter Mathieu da Costa. Since that time, Black people have been constantly coming into Canada helping to build it. Another is the idea that Black people have not “paid their dues,” have not served in any military defense of Canada, that Black people are not pulling their weight or taking the level of responsibility that they should as good citizens of Canada.
However, the reality is that African-Canadians have volunteered in every case for active duty, and persisted even when they were not wanted. In order to help defend Canada, separate Black units were created, the first one, on the initiative of African-Canadian Richard Pierpoint. Black people have consistently defended the interests of Canada, or the British controlled territory of Canada from the time of the American Revolutionary War through to the Mackenzie Rebellions and the present.
Whether they were born in Canada, or newcomers supporting the direction that Canada was taking, African-Canadians have been ongoing defenders of this nation, allowing us all to experience the freedoms that we have today.
Rosemary Sadlier
Image: Black soldiers have had a long history of defending Canada. The Volunteer Military Company from Victoria, BC, active between 1860 and 1864, served during the American Civil War (photograph by Charles Gentile, courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-022626).
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JUNE 2015- BIRCHTOWN NOVA SCOTIA

Black Loyalist Heritage Centre: Shining light into a long-dark corner

ELISSA BARNARD ARTS REPORTER

Birchtown museum realizes 25-year dream to honour, research and teach the history of Nova Scotia’s Black Loyalists

Barbara Hartley-Falk can touch the name of her ancestor, Joseph Heartly, on a glass wall at the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre.
It is one of nearly 3,000 names from the Book of Negroes printed on glass in the $7-million centre at Birchtown, home in the late 1700s to the largest free settlement of people of African descent outside Africa, with a population of over 2,500.
The names of the former slaves seeking freedom are everywhere in Camus Productions Inc.’s design of the centre — on a wall of glass, in faces on glass doors and on banners under the glass floor beneath a ceiling of blue sky and clouds.
“I love it,” says Hartley-Falk, a Birchtown resident who has worked with the Black Loyalist Heritage Society since 1995.
“I think it’s exciting. It just makes you so proud. When you think of the hardships they went through, but they persevered, and this beautiful museum is the result of all that hard work.”
She, along with other board members and society founder-president Elizabeth Cromwell, are realizing a 25-year dream to honour, research and teach the history of Nova Scotia’s Black Loyalists with the centre’s gala opening June 6, preceded by a June 5 evening with The Book of Negroes novelist Lawrence Hill, who did his early research in Birchtown.
SEE ALSO: Birchtown to host historic summit of black government leaders in Canada
DEMONT: Story of Birchtown is one of resilience
BOOK OF NEGROES: Nova Scotia's role in series is celebrated
Nestled in the woods close to the shore of Birchtown Bay, the centre offers a powerful and moving experience into the dramatic and often tragic story of the Black Loyalists, who escaped slavery by fighting for the British in the American Revolutionary War.
They were evacuated from New York City, their names listed in the Book of Negroes, a register that American slave owners wanted in order to claim compensation. The two original books are in Washington, D.C., and London, England, but visitors to the centre can flip through its pages digitally. About 1,000 of the 3,000 people listed came to Nova Scotia.
Black Loyalists landed in Port Roseway — later Shelburne — in 1783 and 1784. Though some came as slaves living with their masters in Shelburne, most lived in their own community of Birchtown, outside Shelburne, on rocky, virtually unworkable land.
Most never received the land or provisions promised and had to earn paltry wages as farmhands or domestics.
People, particularly youth, need to know “the reality of what it was to be one of the original settlers in a place like this,” says Cromwell, who was born in Birchtown in the 1940s and whose Loyalist ancestor is John Stevenson.
“They struggled, they died, they starved, they were sold, they were beaten. Slavery was still in existence in British North America.
“Some of them had to reindenture themselves to survive, some of the supplies never reached them, people were left to starve in these little corners next to major towns and people were kidnapped and taken back to slavery. It wasn’t talked about. We didn’t learn about this in school. It should have been taught.”

The names in the Book of Negroes slave catalogue are turned into graphical portraits of a man and woman on one of the exterior doors of the new Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Birchtown. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

In 1791, over 1,000 went with abolitionist Lt. John Clarkson and Nova Scotia Black Loyalist leader Thomas Peters to Sierra Leone to establish Freetown.
“Those who left with Clarkson for Sierra Leone passed American sailing ships at the same time they were going back to Sierra Leone,” says Cromwell.
Those ships carried Africans to slavery in the United States.
“How they must have feared for their lives.”
The Black Loyalists who stayed worked in the woods and the lumber industry, says Cromwell.
“There are stories of hard winters and they had to buy food on credit and when spring came, if they didn’t have money to pay it, those who owned the stores would take a piece of the land.”
Sitting in the centre’s boardroom, she, Hartley-Falk and board member Marjorie Turner-Bailey recall going to school without learning their history.
Even in homes, the Black Loyalist experience, if known, “was not something that was discussed in detail,” says Cromwell.
“There was nothing taught about it, absolutely nothing, no history at all,” says Hartley-Falk. “Our reader had Little Sambo, and everybody would go, ‘Hee, hee.’”
“I remember when you were reading, you came across the N-word and they’d look at you. And somebody would snicker,” says Cromwell. “In the 1950s, you couldn’t go into a restaurant in Bridgewater.”
Hartley-Falk says she can remember her father saying, “You be proud of what you are; you be proud of your race.”
“When I went to school, there was nothing in there that would have been comparable to me and my family,” says Turner-Bailey, an Olympic athlete who grew up in Lockeport.
“A lot of the history we were taught was on the backs of people being killed and abused.
“Even today we would not know there were shackles in the basements of buildings. Mum told me.”

A set of shackles used by slave owners on their slaves is on display at the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

Cromwell says her brother and his friends played in old, vacant Shelburne houses.
“They said the shackles were there. When the houses were purchased by the Shelburne County Historical Society the shackles disappeared. We were looking for these shackles and they could not be found.”
Getting the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre open has been a journey of frustration, fire, financial hurdles and many roadblocks.
“Sometimes a roadblock was only one person in a department,” says Cromwell.
Elders in the black community were wary, she adds.
“Some of the older people would say things like, ‘I don’t know if it’s good if we start up with all that stuff.’”
She recalls saying to them, “We need to know. Your children need to know. Your grandchildren need to know.”
Outside the community, “we had to convince people our history was important,” she says.
“It took years to convince people we are firmly a part of the Canadian mosaic.”
In 2006, an arsonist set fire to the society’s Birchtown offices, which contained $50,000 worth of equipment, including computers, photos and heirlooms. Firefighters saved the computers; all the photos were lost.
“That was bad. It hurt at the time,” says Cromwell. “I remember lieutenant-governor Mayann Francis saying the fire, compared to our history, is nothing but a pimple.”
“You persevered; you never gave up,” says Hartley-Falk.
“It gave you more motivation,” adds Turner-Bailey, who can find her ancestor Turner on the wall.

The Black Loyalist Heritage Centre's gala opening is scheduled for June 6. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

In 2012, when it looked like federal funding was secured, the society was told it would have to raise half a million dollars.
“I thought I was finished,” says Cromwell. “I thought, ‘How are we going to do that?’”
It came down to a chance meeting. She was in a garage with her car one day in Shelburne and ran into Emera president and CEO Chris Huskilson’s father, Graham.
“We were talking and I said, ‘Graham, I wonder, do you think Chris would help us?’ and he gave me Chris’s number and said, ‘You can call this number and talk to Chris and he’ll know why you’re calling him.’”
Emera gave $500,000 toward the project as the presenting sponsor. A fundraising campaign co-chaired by Allen Shaw raised $2.3 million in corporate funding.
The Shaw Community Compass, a turret at the top of steel stairs on the exterior of the building, designed by Peter Henry Architects, has a large colour map of Nova Scotia showing all the Black Loyalist settlements from Digby to Cape Breton.
Genealogist Deborah Hill, who works with the centre, gets hundreds of calls annually from people trying to trace their ancestry. If someone finds an ancestor’s name, “for the most part” the history can be traced.
“Sometimes it’s a little difficult linking the first and second generations because they were just starting record-keeping. We’re talking about people who weren’t even considered people.”
The centre is working on a program to allow people to find their African heritage through a DNA test.
“It’s on our radar,” says Hill, who had her own DNA tested and is of Black Loyalist ancestry.
People who have seen The Book of Negroes miniseries in Canada and the U.S. are constantly calling the centre, which is expected to boost tourism in the Shelburne area.
Cromwell credits the novelist with bringing the story to life through his female character of Aminata, whose journey from Africa took her to Birchtown.
“By doing the novel, he put an individual face on the people. We see the names, we don’t know the faces. Because of the novel, we can see the faces.”
Cromwell wants people to leave the centre “with a feeling of hope and inspiration and encouragement. Even though the world is crazy, we have to treat people with respect and love and a sense of value and value everyone.”
THE BLACK LOYALIST HERITAGE CENTRE
Where: Located at 119 Birchtown Rd., 10 kilometres from Shelburne, at Exit 27 off Highway 103.
When: The centre’s opening events include an evening with Book of Negroes author Lawrence Hill, June 5, 7 p.m. (tickets $10, Whirligig Book Shop), and The Journey Back to Birchtown celebration June 6, with free tours starting at 9 a.m. and a free outdoor concert at 2 p.m. with performances by African-Nova Scotian artists including JRDN, Cyndi Cain and Jeremiah Sparks.
What: The site includes the Old School House, Saint Paul’s Church, an example of a pit house, the National Historic Monument and the Heritage Trail.
Hours: The centre, part of the Nova Scotia Museum network, is open now, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and June 1 to Aug. 31, daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8, $5 for seniors and youth, free for kids five and under, with $20 family passes.
Websites: blackloyalist.novascotia.ca; Nova Scotia Museum; and novascotia.ca for Black Loyalist names in Nova Scotia. http://thechronicleherald.ca/thenovascotian/1287408-black-loyalist-heritage-centre-shining-light-into-a-long-dark-corner

OLD- HISTORICAL- black loyalist history- who we are- NOVA SCOTIA BLACK LOYALISTS

NOVA SCOTIA – Black Loyalists Heritage Society

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af4OGbYBS7I

Shelburne, Nova Scotia

AND…

NEW-

NOVA SCOTIA- The New Black Cultural Centre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koDkf0KWsWQ

The newly renovated Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. For more information visit

http://www.bccns.com

AND…

NOVA SCOTIA PURE

CAMADOAM William Hall, V.C.: The Naval Veteran (2:44 min.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_va_OP2ba4

William Hall, V.C. was born in Summerville and was the first member of the Navy from British North America to receive the Victoria Cross, the most prestigious of military medals. William received the medal for a heroic rescue that he participated in during the Indian Uprising of 1758. The rescue mission captured the imagination of the Victorian public: the mission was known to every school boy in the Empire. While initially buried without military honours in an unmarked grave, William was later buried beneath a stone cairn on the lawn of the Baptist Church in Hantsport, Hants Co..

The Black Battalion- Canada

Juanita Pleasant Wilbur of Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada

They came two hundred to answer the call

But only to fall

Their way was not paved

For a country they wanted to save

The battle cry went out

But these men were ousted

Their colour was wrong

Their courage strong

From battle line to battle line they went

But no one wanted them

A checker-board army they were called

Their courage strong they still persisted

For the right to fight for a country they loved

For the right to live as all men

Free and strong

The march was on, their will was strong

From place to place they went

Rejected by all, their cry was heard

Let us do our best

Don’t let us be less

Give us a chance to build a life for our children

Let us make our mark

Give us a chance to stand proud and free

Rejected and tired of waiting

They finally saw the light

You’re on a flight

Over-seas you’re bound

At last you found your place

A checker-board army has been born

A remembrance to my Grand-dad, Private Wallace James Pleasant and all the black men who fought and became know as Canada’s best kept secret.

MY COMMENT:

We love you all so much…. to my Fannie (Clement) Brothers and to my Debbie Pleasant-Joseph ….. love you all so much….

Blacks

Young girl.
Africville, Nova Scotia
Source

Online Resources

Virtual Exhibition

The Kids’ Site of Canadian Settlement – Africans (Archived)

Genealogy and Family History

There has been a steady stream of migration of Blacks into Canada via Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States since the 17th century. The first recorded Black person to arrive in Canada was an African named Mathieu de Coste who arrived in 1608 to serve as interpreter of the Micmacs to the governor of Acadia. A few thousand Africans arrived in Canada in the 17th and 18th centuries as slaves. After the American Revolution, the British gave passage to over 3000 slaves and free Blacks who had remained loyal to the Crown. These Black loyalists joined the many other United Empire Loyalists in settlements across the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Other Black slaves joined their Loyalist slave owners when they migrated to Canada.

In 1793, the Upper Canada legislature passed an act that granted gradual abolition and any slave arriving in the province was automatically declared free. Fearing for their safety in the United States after the passage of the first Fugitive Slave Law in 1793, over 30,000 slaves came to Canada via the Underground Railroad until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. They settled mostly in southern Ontario but some also settled in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Many returned to the United States to fight in the Civil War and rejoin their families after its end.

Other migrations of Blacks from the United States occurred during the War of 1812 when over 2000 refugees came to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Another group of over 800 free Blacks from California migrated to Vancouver Island between 1858 and 1860. Many Blacks migrated to Canada in search of work and became porters with the railroad companies in Ontario, Quebec, and the Western provinces or worked in mines in the Maritimes. Between 1909 and 1911 over 1500 migrated from Oklahoma as farmers and moved to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

In 1910 the government of Canada implemented a new Immigration Act that barred immigrants into Canada from races deemed undesirable and very few Blacks entered Canada during the next few decades. In 1955, the West Indian Domestic Scheme permitted single women aged 18 to 35 and in good health to work in Canada as domestics for one year before being granted immigrant status. Over 2600 women were admitted under this scheme. In 1967, the government of Canada dropped the racially discriminatory immigration system; therefore Black immigration rose dramatically.

Research at Library and Archives Canada

Library and Archives Canada holds many fonds relating to Black people. The major documents and fonds are listed below.

Port Roseway Associates, Muster Book of Free Blacks, Settlement of Birchtown, 1784 (MG 9 B9-14)

During the American Revolution, the British and Loyalist forces evacuated New York in 1783. Hundreds of Loyalist refugees joined together to form the Port Roseway Associates with the intention of finding new homes and creating a new settlement in Nova Scotia. These Loyalists, with their families, servants and slaves, founded the community of Port Roseway, shortly thereafter renamed Shelburne. The free Blacks amongst the Loyalists formed a separate enclave known as Birchtown. The Muster Book of Free Blacks who settled in Birchtown has been digitized and is available online. The use of this digitized database is facilitated by a name index.

Port Roseway Associates, Muster Book of Free Blacks, Settlement of Birchtown, 1784

Ward Chipman, Muster Master's Office (1777-1785) (MG 23 D1)

Volumes 24 to 27 (microfilm reel C-9818) contain some muster rolls of Loyalists and their families belonging to regiments that were disbanded and settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Those volumes have been digitized and are available online. The use of this digitized database is facilitated by a name index. It also contains a list of Blacks, whether slave or free, who came with the Loyalist regiments.

Ward Chipman, Muster Master's Office (1777-1785)

Book of Negroes

The Sir Guy Carleton branch has indexed the Book of Negroes, contained within the British Headquarters Papers (MG 23 B1). It gives information such as:

names of the black Loyalists;
sex;
health;
distinguishing marks;
status (free or slave);
origins;
names of their white associates; and
names of ships used to carry them.

The full text of the Book of Negroes is presented on the Black Loyalist: Our History, Our People, Web site. Once on that site, click on Documents then on Official Documents and Proclamations.

The records of the British Treasury Office (MG 15 T28) contain the following references to Blacks in Nova Scotia:

A letter of 28 October 1818 from S.R. Lushington to the Storekeeper General stating that articles of clothing for Blacks stated to have shipped aboard the Britannica transport, had not arrived in Halifax (vol. 73, p. 335)
A letter of G. Harrison to the Storekeeper General of 10 July 1816 concerning the disposition of stores delivered at Halifax for the use of Black refugees at Melville Island (vol. 14, p. 222)
A letter from G. Harrison to the Commissioners of the Navy of 9 June 1821 concerning the removal of Black refugees from Halifax to Trinidad (vol. 19, p. 225)
A letter from G. Harrison to the Commissioners of the Navy of 4 July 1821 stating that plans for the removal of Black refugees from Halifax to Trinidad have been approved (vol. 19, p. 279).

William King Collection (MG 24 J14)

Born in Scotland, William King came to Canada as a Free Church missionary and was active in the abolition struggle. He established the Elgin Settlement, designed for escaped slaves from the United States. He also assisted with the organization of a Black community near Chatham, Ontario.

The Miscellaneous papers, 1836-1895, include his autobiography; correspondence, birth and death certificates, obituaries, wills, school records, copies of speeches, bills of sale for slaves; and other documents relating to the Buxton Mission and Elgin Association. (microfilm C-2223)

Research in Published Sources

Newspapers often contained advertisements for slaves. Library and Archives Canada has many Canadian newspapers on microform. Newspapers should be consulted for the period preceding abolition in 1834.

Search for books on Blacks in AMICUS, using authors, titles or subject terms such as:

Negro/Negroes
Colored
Slave/Slavery
African/African-Canadian
Black/Black Canadian

A Documentary Study of the Establishment of Negroes in Nova Scotia between the War of 1812 and the Winning of Responsible Government, by Nova Scotia Public Archives. (AMICUS 687369)
A genealogist's guide to discovering your African-American ancestor: how to find and record your unique heritage, by Franklin Carter Smith.
A safe haven: the story of the Black settlers of Oxford County, by Joyce A. Pettigrew. (AMICUS 33105321)
African American genealogy: a bibliography and guide to sources, by Curt Bryan Witcher.
Anglican Church records, Niagara Falls, coloured extractions, by the Ontario Genealogical Society, Niagara Peninsula Branch. (AMICUS 13426501)
Black Canadians: history, experiences, social conditions, by Joseph Mensah. (AMICUS 27457117)
Black genealogy, by Charles L. Blockson.
Black genesis: a resources book for African-American genealogy, by James Rose.
Black heritage in Bertie Township, Welland County, by the Ontario Genealogical Society, Niagara Peninsula Branch. (AMICUS 13426528)
Black heritage in Grantham Township, Lincoln County, by the Ontario Genealogical Society, Niagara Peninsula Branch. (AMICUS 13426512)
Black Roots: a Beginner's guide to tracing the African American Family Tree, by Tony Burroughs.
Blacks in Canada: In Search of the Promise, by Francine Govia and Helen Lewis. (AMICUS 8005778)
Blacks in deep snow: Black pioneers in Canada, by Colin A. Thomson. (AMICUS 587461)
Canada and its people of African descent, by Leo W. Bertley. (AMICUS 23169)
Deportation of Negroes from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leon, by A.G. Archibald.
Family pride: the complete guide to tracing African-American genealogy, by Donna Beasley. (AMICUS 15530720)
Family secrets: crossing the colour line, by Catherine Slaney.
Finding your African American ancestors: a beginner's guide, by David T. Thackery.
Jamaican Ancestry: how to find out more, by Madeleine E. Mitchell.
Les Noirs du Québec, 1629-1900, by Daniel Gay. (AMICUS 30851571)
The African Diaspora in Canada: negotiation identity & belonging, by Wisdom Tettey and Korbla P. Puplampu. (AMICUS 32097215)
The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile after the American Revolution, by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
The Black Loyalists: the search for the Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870, by James Walker. (AMICUS 17472)
The Blacks in Canada: A study Guide, by James Walker. (AMICUS 2106947)
Trials and Triumphs the story of African-Canadians, by Lawrence Hill. (AMICUS 11026001)

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