Jennifer Blair, associate professor at the uOttawa Department of English, was on hand at the Nova Scotia Archives for the announcement.
As project co-ordinator, Blair worked with other academics, archivists and descendants on the application to list the original Black Loyalists’ records on the Canada Memory of the World Register. Managed by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the register seeks to preserve and improve access to historical records of national significance.
According to Blair, the induction of Black Loyalist archival materials — including petitions, legal testimonies, freedom certificates, land allotment maps and property transfer records — is an important step in her larger research project. Her goal: to reconcile the previously suppressed history of early Black communities in Canada.
“This inscription will draw more attention to Black Loyalist stories and create more opportunities for researchers, including Black Loyalist descendants, to access the materials,” she says. “It also provides another opportunity for those of us in Canada to contend with Canada’s participation in slavery and its legacies, including the legacies of anti-Black racism, which continue in Canada today in myriad ways.”
Blair says that besides highlighting the self-advocacy, autonomy and political organization of the original Black Loyalists, the collection underscores the ongoing activism of Black Loyalist descendants in the Maritimes, who are “committed to preserving the legacy of their ancestors and continuing to strengthen their communities.”
The collection — titled Black Loyalists in Canada: Autonomy, Advocacy, Community, Legacy — has archival materials hosted by four partner organizations: the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre, the Nova Scotia Archives, the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick and the Shelburne County Museum.
The uOttawa connection
Blair’s project received support from the Faculty of Arts, which funded activities ranging from conferences bringing together Black Loyalist descendants and Black Canadian studies experts to the purchase of scanners for digitizing archives.
She’s grateful for the research support from the Faculty, adding that uOttawa student researchers have been instrumental to the project.
The archives in the Black Loyalists in Canada collection are connected to two rare 1700s memoirs by Black Loyalist authors Boston King and David George. They’re held in uOttawa’s Archives and Special Collections.
“I’ve been working in conjunction with the amazing archivists and staff at [Archives and Special Collections] not just to gain recognition for these important texts, but also to think about the contemporary significance of them for people within and beyond the University community,” Blair says.
According to Blair, work by Archives and Special Collections to get another collection, the Canadian Women’s Movement Archives, on the Canada Memory of the World Register motivated her to get the Black Loyalists collection designated.
“Yet to be properly reckoned with”: Black Loyalist collection part of contending with Canadian history of racial oppression
According to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Black Loyalists in Canada collection features first-person accounts of Black Loyalists voicing concerns about unfulfilled promises of freedom and land, as well as egregious living conditions.
Court records in the collection reveal the life stories of Black Loyalists captured by white settlers attempting to re-enslave them, and assault or harassment cases documenting the social policing of inter-racial couples.
Blair says when researchers go beyond studying early Black published literature in isolation, they find a vast amount of life stories from Canadian Black Loyalists, records of Black political organizations and petitions.
“The fact that there are so many documented voices of Black people in Canada in the 18th century is remarkable, and it comes as a surprise to those familiar only with the traditional canons of early Black writing in North America, where the names of just a few authors tend to be recognized,” she says.
In accessing and sharing these first-hand historical testimonies of Black experiences in Canada, Blair says, we can better understand and reshape their existing impacts.
“We know that Canada’s legacy of slavery has yet to be properly reckoned with, as is Canada’s long-standing and ongoing history of anti-Black racism, much of which persists today in our social institutions, including universities, and in our everyday social environments,” she says. “This Black Loyalist collection offers much to all of us engaged in our shared responsibility to better contend with this history and present-day injustices.”
However, Blair insists the project and collection wouldn’t have been possible without the archivists and Black Loyalist descendants that protect the legacies of Black community-building, political advocacy, resilience and determination in Canada.
“My work depends on the support of archivists as well as the ongoing work of Black Loyalist descendants, who have been preserving the memory of their ancestors for centuries,” Blair says. “I’m grateful and look forward to continued collaboration with them.”