The Foundational Black Americans in Novia Scotia In the Book of Negroes

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]disease hospitals, and prisons were all put near or in Africville. This caused people there to have serious health problems. And by the 1960s They were dealing with environmental toxins and everything.

[00:00:10]>> government had labeled it a slum and ordered it to be destroyed and the families displaced in [music] the name of urban renewal.

[00:00:18]They got they got urban renewed.

[00:00:21]They got re-gentrified. Isn't that something? Look Look at that. Let's keep listening. Maybe there's more.

[00:00:26]Let's listen to this fellow. He has a bomb to drop. a black Nova Scotian and black Canadian history. And I'm going to have anybody talk about it with So I'm going to talk about it with y'all. Y'all who don't know what a black Nova Scotian is, a black Nova Scotian is a descendant of a freed African-American that went A freed African-American It's I'm just asking. Lineage, right? Lineage. We talk about FBA lineage.

[00:00:45]>> from the US to Canada. Specifically to the province of Nova Scotia. Now, there were quite a few waves of these African-Americans leaving the US going to Canada, but most of those people have been there for at least 200 years. I've been So you got these people who've been here for 200 years.

[00:01:00]These people are clearly descendants of the American slave system even before it was called America.

[00:01:08]All right. So how do we deal with this?

[00:01:10]Is I mean Is If FBA is lineage-based, clearly they have clear lineage. They just live in Canada.

[00:01:17]That's what I'm trying >> to do is find a video of these black Nova Scotians talking about being a black Nova Scotian and their story and their history whatever, right? Because I feel like I can kind of put a face to the ethnicity in the background, right?

[00:01:28]From what I've heard, there are conversations of people saying that there is no black history at all, which is crazy cuz they didn't race this this group, right? Also, something that has become really fascinating to me is that a lot of Canadians do not know about black Nova Scotians. I remember a while ago I was watching one of those street So we get his point. Let's move on.

[00:01:45]Maybe there's somebody else who's been shed some more light on the subject.

[00:01:50]Nova Scotia. It's important to keep in mind a lot of the descendants here have been here for over 200 years and their ancestors originally came from the Americas, right? I want to remind people that a lot of our ancestors' records go through Canada and I want to show y'all. Let's kick this off with the Amherstburg Freedom Museum. This is a crucial Amherstburg that these people are up there because they fought for our freedom. Their ancestors are in Canada because they fought to try to free black people from slavery during the Revolutionary War. So, these are These are the descendants of of freedom fighters that put it all on the line for foundational black Americans and their ans- I want you to keep that in mind now. So, you telling me these people don't have these these people that and their ethnogenesis was here in in what we call the United States.

[00:02:43]So, I I need y'all to understand. I need help me help me.

[00:02:48]Help me understand. I I need to know.

[00:02:50]Okay, I need I need to know. Amherstburg sits across the river from Detroit, one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad. This museum's digital collection includes oral histories >> those people who left the United States and went up on the Underground Railroad and went to Canada, some of them are up there, too.

[00:03:06]So, you telling me that those people who literally escaped the plantations of of of the mid-Atlantic and the South and ended up in Canada, you tell them I mean, they were on the rail. They were on the railroad. Front row seats, first class seats on the Underground Railroad.

[00:03:24]They got their they got their peanuts and they and they and their Bacardi rum and rolled up and you telling me that I mean, y'all let me know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just asking questions.

[00:03:35]Let's keep it >> Photos and documents from families who crossed that water into freedom. Another source is African Nova Scotians in the age of slavery and abolition. Nova Scotia received thousands of black loyalists and black refugees during and after the American Revolution. This archive documents their manumissions, petitions, and community records prove that freedom seekers built entire towns there. They got documents. Pay attention to locations like Halifax, Shelburne, Birchtown, cuz those towns are major genealogy clues. Cross those names Somebody You mad? Y'all mad? I love y'all. You know I love y'all, but Uncle Dee's going to hit you in the mouth.

[00:04:09]I'm going to hit you in the mouth and make you think about it cuz these are the questions that we have to answer.

[00:04:13]Cuz the minute you start passing out reparations, people going to say, "Well, yeah, my ancestors were slaves in Virginia." We want to read it for them.

[00:04:20]I got my papers. Where you live? I live in Halifax. I live in Nova Scotia. Oh, damn, his paperwork is legit. How we going to deal with that?

[00:04:29]I'm just asking questions. Don't be mad at me. You going to be mad at me? I'm just asking you some lawyer questions.

[00:04:34]This is like a deposition. I'm just asking y'all these questions. Give me the answer you want.

[00:04:39]What I did? I'm just asking. Y'all brought this to me. I didn't invent FBA.

[00:04:45]I'm just looking at it from a legal perspective. I didn't already told y'all I'm going to sue Africa for you if you give me enough signature.

[00:04:51]So, don't be mad at me just asking the questions.

[00:04:54]Okay? That's what I'm here to do.

[00:04:57]I'm just the lawyer. Okay? And this is the court of public opinion. Let's keep listening. means with the Book of Negroes or the the shipment papers for earlier traces, which we have those. I don't have the Book of Eli, but I got the Book of Negroes. The Book of Negroes.

[00:05:13]>> [laughter] >> And none of y'all better not call it anything but Negroes. That's close enough.

[00:05:18]I'll see you all in the chat from you itching closer.

[00:05:22]And see them laughing right there?

[00:05:25]Book of Negroes. That's close enough.

[00:05:31]We won't have any disrespect about our ancestral records. It's called the Book of Negroes.

[00:05:40]Go ahead and you see them laughing. I better not see none of y'all laughing.

[00:05:44]Talking about the book.

[00:05:45]I I'm not going to say it. I'm going to keep going. This record lists over 3,000 black loyalists evacuated from the US to British territories in 1783. Each entry has a name, age, former owner, and destination.

[00:05:57]>> Mhm. Next we're looking at the Library and Archives Canada.

[00:06:00]>> the white people that owned them. You can look at the book. Yeah, yeah, I'm down here in uh North Carolina. Is your name Is your name Jeffrey uh uh Oldenbaum?

[00:06:13]Yeah, man. Your your people owned my great-great-great-grandmother.

[00:06:17]I'm your great-great-great-grandnephew.

[00:06:19]I'm going to need that. But they literally have book They got records.

[00:06:21]Shout out to Nona Nina Nona Jones. Don't get uncomfortable now. Y'all wanted to talk about it. Let's talk about it.

[00:06:26]This is how things happen. You need to talk about it. and uh census index. By the mid-1800s, you start seeing US-born black families in Canadian censuses, physical proof of migration. Use this database to search for United States under birthplace. Focus on um Ontario, uh again, Nova Scotia countries first.

[00:06:46]Then connect those censuses to the households back to older records like marriage, church registers in the same region. Yeah. Don't forget I mean, we've always heard about black people going to Canada, but we never think about it, do we? This is not something we discuss.

[00:06:59]Yeah, black people went to Canada, but you never knew that they actually went up there and they were apparently up there and still up there and doing a lot and they have records and you can find you We never talked about that, did The ethnogenesis was here in what we call the United States now.

[00:07:13]And they left. Okay? And some of y'all might say, "Well, that was before America was can't be America, so that don't really count." I'm okay with that.

[00:07:20]I'm going to deal with that argument, too. This is going to be a very uncomfortable conversation for most of you all who think you got this figured out. I'm just letting you know that. And you know I love you, but it's going to be very uncomfortable by the time I get through. You're going to be confused and maybe a little upset and rethinking some definitions. But listen >> As I mentioned earlier, the War of 1812 papers. Now, these are early New Brunswick court records where freedom was literally argued in front of a judge. Lastly, uh we have the Windsor Public Library digital archive.

[00:07:48]Windsor's collection tells the next chapter of the communities built by freedom seekers who settled along the Detroit River. And that's where you're going to trace the descendants, right?

[00:07:56]You're going to use their digitized newspaper. Now, again, these black people fought for freedom. They They wanted Britain to win because Britain was going to free black people, okay?

[00:08:07]So, uh you know, as you guys may or may not be aware at that time, slavery had been outlawed. The blacks are a bit more prosperous.

[00:08:15]And the uh the the British uh jurisprudence had already outlawed slavery. And so, the American colonists knew that was coming.

[00:08:23]And so, they knew if unless we fight this revolutionary war and get out from under the thumb of the king, slavery's going to be old over and we're going to have to do our own work. We're going to have to let our nigriths go, okay? And that's probably what the Book of Nigriths probably not the Book of Negroes. They probably call it the Book of Nigriths.

[00:08:40]Okay?

[00:08:41]So, you know, don't say that. I know that's a little closer. The Book of Nigriths.

[00:08:46]All right, that's old English, but we'll continue. Many of them left as young people, worked in the United States, and then came back with their savings.

[00:08:56]Mrs. Belle Barnes is a widow who looks after two homeless boys.

[00:09:01]Years ago, she used to work as a domestic for Loretta Young, Paul Newman, Carol Channing.

[00:09:08]Then she retired and came home to a community that had changed a great deal.

[00:09:13]Now, that look just like somebody's grandma house in North Carolina, right?

[00:09:17]Same custom, same clothes.

[00:09:19]>> Well, the community in some ways, I think it was better than today because uh everyone seemed to do things more for themselves. Mhm.

[00:09:30]You had to supply your food for the winter.

[00:09:34]And people worked very hard. And I think the seasons would melt. Somebody said the pamphlets of [ __ ] >> [laughter] >> I hate all y'all.

[00:09:46]>> [laughter] >> Let's move on to the next video.

[00:09:50]Pamphlet of [ __ ] >> [laughter] >> Y'all are something else, man.

[00:09:54]Uh