Presence and perseverance : Blacks in Hants County, Nova Scotia, 1871-1914

Abstract

During the early nineteenth century, Black refugees from the Southern United States immigrated to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as a result of being offered freedom and a chance to own property if they fought for the British or escaped from their owners' plantations or farms and managed to get behind British lines. The majority of these escaped refugees settled in Nova Scotia in the communities of Preston and Hammonds Plains, although a few small groups settled in other more remote communities throughout the province. At no time were the circumstances of the refugees less than dire. In most cases the residents in the areas where the government chose to settle them looked upon them as an intrusion and treated them as a separate and inferior segment of the population. As a consequence, the refugees found it necessary at all turns to adopt approaches that might help them combat their differential treatment.

In Hants County, Nova Scotia, the Black families adapted to these circumstances during the nineteenth century and the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, albeit with great effort. There was employment for them but usually at the lower end of the economic scale, and the land that they were settled upon was of limited agricultural value. Nevertheless, these families actively participated in issues that affected them directly, or had a large impact on the welfare and future success of their offspring. The agency shown by these people would result in the generations following them achieving a level of competency not thought attainable by the immigrant generation.