Birchtown, Nova Scotia

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Coordinates: 43°44′40″N 65°22′57″W / 43.74444°N 65.38250°W / 43.74444; -65.38250
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Birchtown
Community
902
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Birchtown is a community and National Historic Site in the

Samuel Birch, an official who helped lead the evacuation of Black Loyalists from New York.[a]

Creation

Further information: Black Nova Scotians § Birchtown

Birchtown was first settled by

American South
.

Birchtown was acknowledged as being the largest settlement of free

Shelburne Riots. Many blacks, such as the clergyman David George
, fled to Birchtown for safety.

The departure for Sierra Leone

Further information: Nova Scotian Settlers

Poor land, inadequate supplies, harsh climate, discrimination and broken promises of assistance led many Birchtown residents ( led by

Sierra Leone Creole ethnicity.[6]

Later history

Although the population of Birchtown was greatly reduced by the migration to Sierra Leone, many settlers remained. They formed the ancestral basis of the Black Nova Scotian population of Shelburne County today. Employment opportunities in the nearby town of Shelburne attracted many families to move to Shelburne in later years.

Birchtown stayed as a small rural community of a few hundred based on farming, fishing and forestry. A two-room schoolhouse was built in 1829. A new eight-room school was built in 1959.[7]

Birchtown was declared a National Historic Site in 1997. A seasonal museum complex commemorating the Black Loyalists was opened in that year by the Black Loyalist Heritage Society; it included the historic Birchtown school and church. The offices and archives of the museum were largely destroyed by an arson attack in 2006.[8] The remaining archives were moved to temporary quarters on the site.

A new facility, the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre, opened its doors in June 2015; it tells the story of the Black Loyalists in America, Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone through their staff and interactive digital displays.[9][10]

In literature

The community's history of being given freedom by the British was the subject to British historian Simon Schama's non-fiction book Rough Crossings, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Lawrence Hill wrote a novel, The Book of Negroes, whose fictional narrator, Aminata Diallo, resides in Birchtown and describes its founding.

Notable residents

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Also named after the general was a much smaller settlement of Black Loyalists in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia called Birchtown.[3]

References

  1. ^ Nova Scotia Geographical Names: Birchtown[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ Government of Nova Scotia website: Community Counts
  3. ^ "Birchtown", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, p. 67
  4. ^ Barry Cahill. "Stephen Blucke: The Perils of Being a "White Negro" in Loyalist Nova Scotia", Nova Scotia Historical Review, p. 129
  5. ISBN 978-0-80705-514-4
    )
  6. ISBN 978-0-8020-7402-7
    . Originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).
  7. ^ "Birchtown", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, p. 67
  8. ^ "Black Loyalist museum rising from ashes in Birchtown".
  9. ^ "The Black Loyalist Heritage Society". Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  10. ^ "Journey Back to Birchtown". Transcontinental Media. Archived from the original on 28 June 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2015.

External links


43°44′40″N 65°22′57″W / 43.74444°N 65.38250°W / 43.74444; -65.38250

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