Important note: Certain parts of this collection contain historical language and content that includes racist, stereotypical, or negative portrayals of Black individuals and groups. Content and historical language in this collection reflect perspectives during the time periods when they occurred. Original content and historical language remains intact to ensure that attitudes and perspectives about Black arrivants and citizens are not erased from the historical record in New Brunswick. Learning about historical perspectives supports the understanding of prejudice and inequities that shaped conditions in the past and continue today. Teachers must be mindful that for Black and other racialized students, experiences of prejudice are ongoing. Preparing the class to engage thoughtfully with the past must include consideration of how to address racist, stereotypical or otherwise offensive language in historical documents.

Student Tasks

Was the Loyalist Period one of significant, moderate, or minimal progress for Black people in New Brunswick?

• Which three pieces of archival evidence are the most useful for showing how Black people were viewed by others in New Brunswick at this time?
• What plausible inferences can you draw from the archival evidence about the quality of life for Black people in New Brunswick at this time? (think about access to rights, living conditions, working conditions)
• How would the quality of life for Black people in New Brunswick in this time period compare to other time periods: better, worse, or the same?
• How can you tell a story about life for Black people in New Brunswick society during the Loyalist period using no more than 10 words?

Historical Context for Teachers

• Black Loyalists arrived in the Maritime Provinces in 1776 with General Howe after Boston fell to Patriot forces. This group belonged to Howe’s Company of Negroes. They returned with Howe for the invasion of New York.
• Black troops joined the British in Virginia, North Carolina, and East Florida and fought along the coast of North Carolina and Virginia before joining Howe in New York City. This led to the formation of what was the largest free Black settlement in North America at the time until Blacks arrived in Birchtown and other Nova Scotian settlements after the war.
• Black Loyalists served as guides, spies, and soldiers wherever the British went, but mostly as a labour force. In return, Britain promised them freedom after the war was over. The basis of this agreement varied over time, but only applied to Blacks fleeing from rebel enslavers and not to Loyalist slaves.
• The British defeat at Yorktown in 1781 led to many problems for Black Loyalists. Cornwallis drove Black soldiers who did not die of the smallpox epidemic out of the British encampment back to their former captors. He also took a select few Black Loyalists to New York City, but most remained behind.
• Through 1782-83, Black Loyalists evacuated with British forces from Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah. Meanwhile, some 60 000 to 100 000 Black people were forcibly transported to the Caribbean. In the spring of 1783 through to 1785 Loyalist Refugees left New York City and East Florida to the east coast of British North America.
• Though slavery was not illegal in the British Empire, the Mansfield Ruling in 1772 had set the legal precedent that slavery was not legal unless a law positively enforced it. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, this was not the case. This placed these colonies in a unique position compared to other British colonies where positive law supported slavery. This led to the Maritime region becoming one of few viable options for migrating free Black people.
• Almost a thousand Black people, both free and enslaved, migrated to Saint John. Notable among these were people from the Black Pioneer Company and the Black Cavalry. After arriving in Saint John, many Black people moved upriver as far as Saint Anne’s Point.
• The early years of Loyalist New Brunswick, which separated from peninsular Nova Scotia in 1784, were unstable. There was conflict over governance of the province. The new society was similar to the old for Black people, who had to endure marginal existences.
• Black people became increasingly dissatisfied with the slow and unfair allocation of land and resources and the precarious state of their freedom. Out of financial necessity they indentured themselves into figurative enslavement. Others found themselves literally whisked away to the Caribbean and miserable lives on the Sugar Islands.
• Under the leadership of the Black Pioneer Thomas Peters, over a thousand Black people chose to leave Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to join Black settlers from London in the founding of Sierra Leone. A small number of others joined the British army and left for garrisons in the Caribbean.
• One historically significant impact of the American Revolution was that the pattern of Black agency had taken root. In Sierra Leone and in the Caribbean, Black veterans of the war took part in uprisings against the British government. In places like New Brunswick, Black resistance took the form of self-emancipation and a pattern of challenging the legality of slavery.
• In 1985 R. Wallace Hale began the work of writing abstracts of all case files registered with the various County Probates Court for the period from 1785 to 1835. Four years later, in 1989, his Early New Brunswick, Probate Records, 1785-1835, ISBN 1-55613-240-9, was published by Heritage Books, Inc.

The book was well received and deemed useful by genealogists and family historians. However it has been out of print for many years thus preventing many researchers from having access to this valuable source of information on early New Brunswick history. This searchable database will allow researchers to locate records through one main index searchable by family names. To provide more in-depth access three other indexes are provided: a) Black, Freeman, Servant, and Slave b); Women and c) Vessel.

The Database contains abstracts for 2,371 Probates files from every County Probate Court in existence in that period (1785-1835). Records for the period covered are missing or incomplete for some areas of the Province. From the surviving records, a breakdown of probate files by county was compiled. The numbers serve to show, to a degree, the more populous areas of New Brunswick.

This valuable research tool can be found here: Wallace Hale's Early New Brunswick Probate, 1785-1835