Subject Guides: African/Black Nova Scotian Resources: Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia

Suggested Reading

Birchtown and the Black Loyalist Experience by Stephen Davidson; Peter Zwicker (Photographer)
The Black Loyalists were both freed and enslaved Black Americans who had joined the British side in the American Revolution. For their loyalty, they were evacuated by the British Navy to Nova Scotia, where they were to receive freedom, land, and provisions.
Chasing Freedom by Gloria Ann Wesley
With their Certificates of Freedom in hand, Lydia and Sarah wait anxiously, hoping beyond hope that their new life will bring acceptance and happiness. But once they reach Birchtown they find that their new home is barren, cold and isolated – and in a world slow to forget old fears and hate, their Certificates offer them freedom in name only.
If This Is Freedom by Gloria Ann Wesley
If This Is Freedom continues the story of struggle for Loyalist settlers in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. At once a stand-alone story and a companion to Gloria Ann Wesley’s previous novel, Chasing Freedom, this story about moral courage and the enduring strength of dreams shares history with us in a way that is both honest and emotional
The life of Boston King : Black loyalist, minister and master carpenter by Boston King, Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Carmelita Robertson, Nova Scotia Museum
King was born a slave on Beech Hill, an Ashley River plantation owned by Richard Waring III. He ran away to accept the British Army's offer of freedom in 1780. King travelled to New York and then to Nova Scotia at the end of the Revolution, finally to Sierra Leon.
From Slavery to Freetown by Mary L. Clifford
An American history book which concentrates on the lives of black loyalists during and after the American Revolution. It follows the stories of ten freed slaves to provide an account of the events leading up to the founding of Freetown in Sierra Leone.
Black Loyalists by Ruth Holmes Whitehead
More than 2,700 Blacks came to Nova Scotia with the fleet from New York City. Black Loyalists is an attempt to present hard data about the lives of Nova Scotia Black Loyalists before they escaped slavery in early South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and after they settled in Nova Scotia to bring back into our awareness the context for some very brave and enterprising men and women.
The Black Loyalists by James W. St. G. Walker
More than 10 per cent of the Loyalists who came to the Maritime provinces were black and had been slaves. The Black Loyalists tells the story of one such group who came to Nova Scotia, but didn't stay. James Walker documents their experience in Canada, following them across the Atlantic as they became part of a unique colonial experiment in Sierra Leone.

Podcast

Loyalist Connections: a podcast
Historic Black settlements in Nova Scotia tell a long-neglected story and through studying them we can unlock invaluable, under-represented knowledge. On a journey of rediscovery, Shawn Smith and Laurice Downey present Loyalist Connections: Est. 1783. They are determined to shed light on these lost and disappearing communities, discuss why these communities could not survive or are fading, and what these collapses tell us about the historic and modern systemic racism Black Nova Scotians face today.
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