Saga of Black Refugees who left N.S. 200 years ago shaped a Canadian trailblazer

When Rhonda McEwen received her authoritative royal missive of assignment arsenic an honorary skipper of the Canadian navy successful Halifax connected June 21, it marked the latest section successful her singular household history.

In 1820, her ancestors boarded a schooner successful Halifax harbour, fleeing sick attraction and favoritism for an uncertain aboriginal successful Trinidad.

"It blows your mind," McEwen said, reflecting connected however her naval honour connects to her ancestors' journey.

Honorary navy captains are distinguished Canadian leaders who service arsenic ambassadors for the Royal Canadian Navy.

McEwen is nary alien to achievements.

In 2022, she was made president and vice-chancellor of Victoria University successful the University of Toronto, making her the archetypal Black pistillate to pb a assemblage successful Canada.

Her family's Nova Scotia communicative begins during the War of 1812.

With the warfare raging, Sir Alexander Cochrane, past successful complaint of the British navy, issued a proclamation successful 1814 promising state and resettlement to enslaved Africans who reached areas nether British subject power oregon protection.

This committedness of liberty came from a antheral who himself owned enslaved radical connected his Good Hope plantation successful Trinidad.

The proclamation said they would beryllium settled successful British territories successful North America oregon the Caribbean.

Isaac Saney, an subordinate prof and historiographer astatine Dalhousie University, says it was a strategy that had antecedently worked for the British during the War of Independence and led to the accomplishment of the Black Loyalists successful the Maritimes.

While 800 mostly British assemblage marines went straight to Trinidad, others settled successful Nova Scotia with dreams of gathering caller lives.

Trinidad, the astir southerly land successful the Caribbean, was sparsely populated astatine the time.

They were granted 6.5 hectares of onshore each successful the undeveloped but fertile southbound of the land wherever they settled successful six "company villages."

This made them the archetypal Black large-scale landowners successful the colony.

About 2,000 different refugees went to Nova Scotia wherever the system was booming astatine the clip and determination was a request for labour to physique infrastructure.

The refugees were each given licences of occupation, not ownership, for four-hectare lots.

The tons were often located connected rocky, infertile soil, which made it astir intolerable for the refugees to turn crops to prolong themselves.

Conditions deteriorated further erstwhile Nova Scotia's economical roar collapsed into recession.

By 1815, attitudes had changed dramatically. The Nova Scotia Legislature, faced with mounting costs providing for the caller arrivals, passed a resolution stating that the fig of Africans successful the state was causing problems.

It said they were considered unsuitable for the section climate.

This sentiment was echoed by Lord Dalhousie, past governor, successful a December 1816 missive to Lord Bathurst, his superior successful London.

"Slaves by wont and education, nary longer moving nether the dread of the lash, their thought of state is idleness, and they are truthful rather incapable of industry," Dalhousie wrote.

He proposed returning recently freed Africans to their erstwhile owners successful the U.S.

This connection was rejected by the refugees, who were, unsurprisingly, unwilling to beryllium returned to slavery.

Officials turned to relocation to Trinidad arsenic an alternative. 

Trinidad had lone go a British colony successful 1802 and its governor, Ralph Woodford, was eager to bolster the population to marque usage of ample expanses of undeveloped land.

Nova Scotia officials offered the refugees the accidental to relocate to Trinidad arsenic escaped radical of colour.

Only astir 5 per cent accepted the offer, astir of them from Hammonds Plains and Beechville. 

"Only 95 much oregon little near … many of them, we think, were attempting to reunite with household members who had gone straight to Trinidad," Saney explained.

He said the information that the immense bulk of refugees chose not to spell to Trinidad speaks to the enactment of a consciousness of community, which would pb to the instauration of historical Black communities successful Nova Scotia.

In precocious 1820, the refugees boarded the schooner William for a month-long voyage to Port of Spain.

They did truthful contempt the uncertainty. Trinidad remained a enslaved colony, and determination were nary guarantees the British would honour their promises.

McEwen noted that her ancestors initially hoped to instrumentality to Africa, specifically the westbound coast, but were alternatively fixed the enactment of Trinidad.

The settlers joined the American refugees known arsenic Merikins, who arrived earlier them and became prosperous farmers successful Trinidad's interior.

According to the website for the National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, the settlers grew corn, potatoes, bananas, cassava and rice, which they sold successful adjacent communities.

The website cites figures that suggest by 1825, the Merikin settlers were producing 2,000 barrels of maize and implicit 400 barrels of rice. 

"They observe their uniqueness," Saney said. "They don't observe emancipation. They say, no, emancipation came earlier that.… We emancipated ourselves by escaping from the plantations."

McEwen's idiosyncratic transportation to this past emerged unexpectedly done her brother's enactment successful Trinidad's lipid industry.

When an elder successful Moruga examined her brother's look and insisted "your radical are from here," it began a travel of discovery.

"Lo and behold, the elder was right," McEwen said. Their probe revealed ancestors among the 1821 migrants, solving long-standing household mysteries.

McEwen said the find explains wherefore 2 of her cousins besides service successful naval forces — 1 successful the Royal Navy, different successful the U.S. marines — without antecedently knowing their ancestors had been British assemblage marines.

Assuming her honorary captaincy, she said, makes her reflect on the 200-year travel from exile to recognition.

Knowing that she is successful Canada and descended from Black Refugees and an all-Black assemblage portion is peculiar to her, McEwen said.

"Somewhere successful determination a way started forming," McEwen said of her family's journey, "and it benignant of leads to here. And who knows what volition hap 200 more years from now."

For much stories astir the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to occurrence stories wrong the Black assemblage — cheque out Being Black successful Canada, a CBC task Black Canadians tin beryllium arrogant of. You tin work much stories here.

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