The Missing Pages in Canadian History Research

The Black Loyalists

·      Located in Birchtown, Nova Scotia

·      Started out with the founding of the neighboring town “Shelburne” in may, 1783

·      The group that founded Shelburne consisted of 936 freed slaves, followed by a lager group of black loyalist emigrants on August 27, 1783

·      The loyalists were runaway slaves who were in search of protection from the British that served the loyalist cause

·      by the fall of 1784 the population of Birchtown grew to 1,521

·      and was the largest settlement of free blacks

·      Birchtown was said to have been 13 acres but was probably more like 400

·      Birchtown was home to many people that are famous to Nova Scotian history, like colonel Stephen Blucke, who was the leader of the black loyalists

The Maroons (fugitive runaway)

·      As early as 1512, black slaves escaped from Spanish and Portuguese captors, and joined indigenous, or made a living on their own

·      the runaway slaves formed their own communities in Jamaica, and nanny town

·      when the slaves came together to fight for their independence they were called Maroons

The coal mine workers

·      the earliest coal mining in America with any commercial significance involved slaves working in the coal pits, in Richmond, Virginia. in the mid 1700’s

·      mining companies such as the black heath company, and  Chesterfield coal , employed hundreds of slaves and free blacks

The black car porters

-   in 1925, was the first labor organization led by blacks to receive a charter in the American federation of labor
-in 1978 they joined with the brotherhood of airline and railway clerks, and are now know as the Transportation Communications International Union

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