Black Loyalist in Canada archives added to UNESCO project

Award recipients are pictured reviewing documents from the collection titled Black Loyalists in Canada: Autonomy, Advocacy, Community, Legacy, recognized Saturday by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. (Courtesy: Susan McKeage)

The Canada Memory of the World Register will add the Black Loyalists in Canada archival collection as part of its mission to recognize “documentary heritage of national significance.”

The Black Loyalist Heritage Centre, the Nova Scotia Archives, the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, the Shelburne County Museum, and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO announced the addition on Saturday to align with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, said a news release from the commission.

“We see the perseverance and dedication that the Black Loyalists brought to building communities despite the immense challenges,” said David Schimpky, Director of Secretariat, Canadian Commission for UNESCO. “Archival holdings such as these are central to building understanding of the experiences and impacts of the Black Loyalists in Canada, a story that is important to recognize through inscription on the Canada Memory of the World Register.”

The collection, “Black Loyalists in Canada: Autonomy, Advocacy, Community, Legacy,” documents the history of Black Loyalists who arrived in Nova Scotia from the United States in the 1780s and their descendants.

The archival materials, held at the separate sites of the four partner institutions, include:

• petitions
• legal testimonies
• freedom certificates
• land allotment maps
• property transfer records

“In a moment when Black Canadian history is often limited to a few notable heroes, the items in this collection showcase the fact that from the moment of their arrival in Canada onwards, numerous Black Loyalists told their own stories and advocated for their rights in written petitions, recorded testimonies, and other remarkable social and legal documents,” said Andrea Davis, Executive Director of the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre and a Black Loyalist Descendant.

The collection also includes community records from churches, schools and general stores. They tell the story of Black Loyalist settlements near Indigenous people and settlers during a racially charged period, said the release.

“The significance of this collection lies not just in the fact that the Black Loyalist story is such a key component of world history but also because it offers lessons in self-advocacy, political strategy, community organizing, and institution building - lessons that are set down in the words of our ancestors,” said Davis. “The Black Loyalists were not meant to survive, but they did, and we are here to carry on their legacy. This inscription is part of our work as Black Loyalist descendants.”

The collection is an important historical record of anti-Black racism in Canada, said the release. It includes first-person accounts from Black Loyalists who were promised land and freedom they never received and endured terrible living conditions. It features court records with narrative accounts from Black Loyalists who were captured by settlers who tried to re-enslave them. Later court records document contested indenture agreements and harassment, assault and social policing cases involving racially mixed couples.

The Looking Back, Moving Forward, and the African Nova Scotian Teaching and Learning Resources webpages of the Nova Scotia Archives provide access to digitized content from the collection.

Some petitions are available on the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick’s Legislative Assembly: Sessional Records website and in property documents from the Shelburne County Museum that can be found on NovaMuse.

Other records are in the process of being digitized.

UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme safeguards and promotes access to the documentary heritage of universal value.

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