In honour of Lawrence Hills’s historical novel The Book of Negroes being broadcast as a mini-series on CBC television, it’s worth noting that on this day, January 15, in 1792, almost 1,200 Black Loyalists who had earned their freedom from slavery by fighting for the British in the American war of independence, and had relocated to Canada, decided to strike out for Sierra Leone, in West Africa. They were offered land there after promises of land in Nova Scotia were broken, and prejudice drove them out of the country.
Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia
Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia
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