35. Black Americans in Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia’s British Freedom was not the sole black person eking a living in that out-of-the-way corner of North America. Hundreds of other black men, women, and children, pursued and went about their lives nearby. It was an inhospitable, cold, and wind-whipped coastal region sandwiched between spruce forests and an often-angry ocean.
Harsh and semi-barren Nova Scotia was quite different from the warmer regions and climes to the south, where most of British Freedom’s black neighbors were born and grew up. Still, he and they were fortunate to be where they were: nearly all of them were former slaves who had fled a life of bondage in America, and were resettled by the British beyond the reach of their erstwhile masters.