Saga of Black Refugees who left N.S. 200 years ago shaped a Canadian trailblazer

When Rhonda McEwen received her official royal letter of appointment as an honorary captain of the Canadian navy in Halifax on June 21, it marked the latest chapter in her remarkable family history.

In 1820, her ancestors boarded a schooner in Halifax harbour, fleeing ill treatment and discrimination for an uncertain future in Trinidad.

"It blows your mind," McEwen said, reflecting on how her naval honour connects to her ancestors' journey.

Honorary navy captains are distinguished Canadian leaders who serve as ambassadors for the Royal Canadian Navy.

McEwen is no stranger to achievements.

In 2022, she was made president and vice-chancellor of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, making her the first Black woman to lead a university in Canada.

Her family's Nova Scotia story begins during the War of 1812.

With the war raging, Sir Alexander Cochrane, then in charge of the British navy, issued a proclamation in 1814 promising freedom and resettlement to enslaved Africans who reached areas under British military control or protection.

This promise of liberty came from a man who himself owned enslaved people on his Good Hope plantation in Trinidad.

The proclamation said they would be settled in British territories in North America or the Caribbean.

Isaac Saney, an associate professor and historian at Dalhousie University, says it was a strategy that had previously worked for the British during the War of Independence and led to the arrival of the Black Loyalists in the Maritimes.

While 800 mostly British colonial marines went directly to Trinidad, others settled in Nova Scotia with dreams of building new lives.

Trinidad, the most southerly island in the Caribbean, was sparsely populated at the time.

They were granted 6.5 hectares of land each in the undeveloped but fertile south of the island where they settled in six "company villages."

This made them the first Black large-scale landowners in the colony.

About 2,000 other refugees went to Nova Scotia where the economy was booming at the time and there was a need for labour to build infrastructure.

The refugees were each given licences of occupation, not ownership, for four-hectare lots.

The lots were frequently located on rocky, infertile soil, which made it almost impossible for the refugees to grow crops to sustain themselves.

Conditions deteriorated further when Nova Scotia's economic boom collapsed into recession.

By 1815, attitudes had changed dramatically. The Nova Scotia Legislature, faced with mounting costs providing for the new arrivals, passed a resolution stating that the number of Africans in the province was causing problems.

It said they were considered unsuitable for the local climate.

This sentiment was echoed by Lord Dalhousie, then governor, in a December 1816 letter to Lord Bathurst, his superior in London.

"Slaves by habit and education, no longer working under the dread of the lash, their idea of freedom is idleness, and they are therefore quite incapable of industry," Dalhousie wrote.

He proposed returning newly freed Africans to their former owners in the U.S.

This proposal was rejected by the refugees, who were, unsurprisingly, unwilling to be returned to slavery.

Officials turned to relocation to Trinidad as an alternative. 

Trinidad had only become a British colony in 1802 and its governor, Ralph Woodford, was eager to bolster the population to make use of large expanses of undeveloped land.

Nova Scotia officials offered the refugees the chance to relocate to Trinidad as free people of colour.

Only about five per cent accepted the offer, most of them from Hammonds Plains and Beechville. 

"Only 95 more or less left … many of them, we think, were attempting to reunite with family members who had gone directly to Trinidad," Saney explained.

He said the fact that the vast majority of refugees chose not to go to Trinidad speaks to the formation of a sense of community, which would lead to the creation of historic Black communities in Nova Scotia.

In late 1820, the refugees boarded the schooner William for a month-long voyage to Port of Spain.

They did so despite the uncertainty. Trinidad remained a slave colony, and there were no guarantees the British would honour their promises.

McEwen noted that her ancestors initially hoped to return to Africa, specifically the west coast, but were instead given the option of Trinidad.

The settlers joined the American refugees known as Merikins, who arrived before them and became prosperous farmers in Trinidad's interior.

According to the website for the National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, the settlers grew corn, potatoes, bananas, cassava and rice, which they sold in nearby communities.

The website cites figures that suggest by 1825, the Merikin settlers were producing 2,000 barrels of corn and over 400 barrels of rice. 

"They celebrate their uniqueness," Saney said. "They don't celebrate emancipation. They say, no, emancipation came before that.… We emancipated ourselves by escaping from the plantations."

McEwen's personal connection to this history emerged unexpectedly through her brother's work in Trinidad's oil industry.

When an elder in Moruga examined her brother's face and insisted "your people are from here," it began a journey of discovery.

"Lo and behold, the elder was right," McEwen said. Their research revealed ancestors among the 1821 migrants, solving long-standing family mysteries.

McEwen said the discovery explains why two of her cousins also serve in naval forces — one in the Royal Navy, another in the U.S. marines — without previously knowing their ancestors had been British colonial marines.

Assuming her honorary captaincy, she said, makes her reflect on the 200-year journey from refugee to recognition.

Knowing that she is in Canada and descended from Black Refugees and an all-Black colonial unit is special to her, McEwen said.

"Somewhere in there a path started forming," McEwen said of her family's journey, "and it kind of leads to here. And who knows what will happen 200 more years from now."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

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