An image depicts the Sierra Leone Colony after having left Nova Scotia in 1792. (Credit: Black Loyalist Heritage Centre via the Nova Scotia Archives Photographic Collection)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

"smear on the fabric of this country"

Red Deer proclaims 230th anniversary of Black Loyalist Exodus

Aug 25, 2022 | 10:38 AM

A City of Red Deer Mayoral Proclamation this month commemorates the 230th anniversary of the Black Loyalist Exodus.

This historical event that you likely haven’t heard of involved 15 ships bound for Sierra Leone. The proclamation recognizes that people of African descent have been part of Canadian society since the early 1600s, and that their enslavement wrongly occurred for centuries.

The #1792Project is an initiative taken up by students and staff at Auburn Drive High School in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, the province from which the 15 ships set sail that year.

While many stayed behind, their departure was linked to the failure, ‘1792‘ organizers say, of institutional, political and societal will to fulfill promises made to the communities that left.

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The departure is said to have been the largest single return of people of African descent to the continent of Africa. Auburn also laments that the Exodus, which followed what was for decades the largest concentration of Black residents in Canada, and the largest settlement of free Black people outside of Africa, isn’t taught in schools.

Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston learned of the Black Loyalist Exodus on a 2019 trip to Halifax for FCM, where he visited the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

He says Red Deerians should care about the anniversary because it is a regrettable “erasure” of part of our collective history.

“This is an opportunity for us as a society to look at part of our history which we’d ordinarily never encounter. We can reflect and say that we hope we’re better 230 years later; that we’re more inclusive and more understanding,” says Johnston, a St. John’s native.

“It’s an opportunity to view our humanity as the thing that we have in common, to examine that and ask ‘What difference can I make today, no matter the colour, philosophy, or whatever difference it is in the next person I encounter?'”

Jan. 15, 1792 is the date on which the 15 ships departed, though communities across Canada, such as Calgary, Kingston and Victoria, have proclaimed the anniversary throughout the year.

Aug. 1 is also Emancipation Day in Canada, as designated by the House of Commons in March 2021, marking the anniversary of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 coming into effect across the British Empire in 1834, freeing not just Black, but also Indigenous people who’d been enslaved.

2022 is also within the United Nations Decade of African Descent.

Andrea Davis is executive director at the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Shelburne, NS, less than 10 minutes from Birchtown, which is where the Black Loyalists were.

A direct descendant of the Black Loyalists, Davis says her organization is committed to discovering, interpreting, safeguarding and promoting the history and heritage of the Black Loyalists; and to advancing universal recognition of the Black Loyalists as a nascent Canadian heritage community.

“When I was growing up in Shelburne, I did not learn about my Black history in the educational institutes or at home. I was denied the opportunity to learn Black history, my history,” she says. “It took me leaving Shelburne for 32 years and coming back to know who I am and where I came from. I am proud of my heritage and will safeguard it so the story can continue to be accurately told. My long-term goal is to ensure that Black history is taught in schools here and across Canada, even if I must do it myself.”

Davis says Canadians from coast to coast to coast should care about the anniversary, because it can be useful to acknowledge, heal and apologize for the intentional breakdown, collapse and void of promises.

“The direct racism and blatant failure to not accept people of African descent is an embarrassment and smear on the fabric of this country,” she adds. “The time is now to acknowledge the histories, contributions and legacies of the African Nova Scotian people and communities. We survived. Let’s celebrate.”