North America’s first race riot

On 26 July 1784, a mob of disbanded white soldiers stormed the home of a Black preacher in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. They were armed with hooks and chains seized from ships in the harbor. The confrontation ignited a wave of violence in Shelburne County that lasted over 10 days. The majority of the attacks targeted the county’s free Black population. The Shelburne Riots were the first race riot in North America.

This blog is dedicated to this important historical event.


Who were the Black Loyalists?

In 1783 more than 3,500 Black people arrived by ships in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick following the end of the American Revolution. They had been loyal to the British Crown for very a good reason: to escape slavery and become free people. Many of them had risk their lives to fight for the Brits against their savage oppressors, the American colonists.

In Nova Scotia, they established around 40 settlements. One of earliest and the largest by far was Birchtown with a population of 2,500 represented by 650 families. However, only 184 received the promised crown land.


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More witnesses

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  Jupiter Farmer, Black loyalist The government gave the negroes land here, but they had no houses, not even log cabins. They just dug a hole in the ground and put a little peaked roof over it. They chose a hill for their purpose because the ground was drier. And that was the black man’s home — a hole in the ground with a roof over the hole.   Benjamin Marston, Loyalist land agent in Shelburne Great Riot today. The disbanded soldiers have risen against the free negroes to drive them out of town because they labor more cheaply.   Simeon Perkins, white Loyalist from Liverpool, N.S. An extraordinary mob or riot has happened at Shelburne. Some thousands of people assembled Clubs and Drove the Negroes out of the Town.  
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Life in the country

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  In the first years, the communities suffered harsh climactic conditions, soil unsuitable for cultivation, high unemployment, and unfair treatment from authorities. The Black Loyalists were located in exclusively Black settlements with farms too small to ensure self-support, or they were scattered as landless members of the white Loyalist settlements. Many Blacks were day workers for Whites and exploited by them. Wage rates for blacks averaged one-quarter of what was acceptable for Whites. Tragically, this exploitation was the reason for the riots since the disbanded white soldiers from the American Revolution wanted to secure employment for themselves and didn’t intend to accept a similar small wage for themselves.
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