Book of Negroes

1783 British document

This article is about the historical document. For the Lawrence Hill novel, see The Book of Negroes (novel). For the TV miniseries based on the novel, see The Book of Negroes (miniseries).

Certificate of Freedom, issued by Samuel Birch. Book of Negroes

* The National Archives, London
* Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax
* National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC

Date| 1783

The Book of Negroes is a document created by Brigadier General Samuel Birch, under the direction of Sir Guy Carleton, that records names and descriptions of 3,000 Black Loyalists, enslaved Africans who escaped to the British lines during the American Revolution and were evacuated to points in Nova Scotia as free people of colour.

## Background

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The first African person in Nova Scotia arrived with the founding of Port Royal in 1605.[1] African people were then brought as slaves to Nova Scotia during the founding of Louisbourg and Halifax. The first major migration of African people to Nova Scotia happened during the American Revolution. Enslaved Africans in America who escaped to the British during the American Revolutionary War became the first settlement of Black Nova Scotians and Black Canadians. Other Black Loyalists were transported to settlements in several islands in the West Indies and some to London. Recorded in 1783, this 150-page document is the only one to have recorded Black Canadians in a large, detailed scope of work.[2]

## Contents

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Fraunces Tavern, NYC – where Birch assembled the Book of Negroes.

The document contains records on 3000 Africans; the former slaves recorded in the Book of Negroes were evacuated to British North America, where they were settled in the newly established Birchtown and other places in the colony. According to the Treaty of Paris (1783), the United States argued for the return of all property, including slaves. The British refused to return the slaves, to whom they had promised freedom during the war for joining their cause. The detailed records were created to document the freed people whom the British resettled in Nova Scotia, along with other Loyalists. The book was assembled by Samuel Birch, the namesake of Birchtown, Nova Scotia, under the direction of Sir Guy Carleton.

Some freedmen later migrated from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, where they formed the original settlers of Freetown, under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company. They are among the ancestors of the Sierra Leone Creole ethnic group.

Notable people recorded in the Book of Negroes include Boston King, Henry Washington, Moses Wilkinson and Cato Perkins.

As the Book of Negroes was recorded separately by American and British officers, there are two versions of the document. The British version is held in The National Archives in Kew, London[3] The American version is held by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.[4] It was published under the title The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile After the American Revolution (1996), edited by Graham Russell Hodges, Susan Hawkes Cook, and Alan Edward Brown.[5]

## Representation in other media

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The Canadian novelist Lawrence Hill wrote The Book of Negroes (2007, published in the United States as Someone Knows My Name). It is inspired by the 3,000 former Black African Slaves from America, many of whom were owned by White slave owners. The Former Black African slaves were given free land and housing by the British, in a Nova Scotia town called Birchtown, named after the original author of "The Book of Negros" British Brigadier General Samuel Birch.

In 1792 1,200 residents of Birchtown chose to emigrate to another British Colony called Sierra Leone, which was founded by a British Lieutenant John Clarkson for freedmen in South Africa.

During the 1784 Shelburne riots that lasted 5 days - no fatalities. The American refugees were upset the free land and jobs were only being given to the former black African slaves who worked for less pay.

He features Aminata Diallo, a young African woman captured as a child; she is literate and acts as a scribe to record the information about the former slaves. The book won the top 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.[6]

Canadian director Clement Virgo adapted the book into a six-hour television mini-series of the same title. The series premiered on CBC in Canada on 7 January 2015 and on BET in the United States on 16 February 2015 and starred Aunjanue Ellis, Lyriq Bent, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Louis Gossett Jr.[7]

## See also

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* Black Nova Scotians
* Rough Crossings (subtitle: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution), a history book and television series by Simon Schama.

## Notes

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1. ^ "African Nova Scotian Community", African Nova Scotian Affairs, Nova Scotia, Canada.
2. ^ Nova Scotia Archives & Records Management - African Nova Scotians in the Age of Slavery and Abolition
3. ^ PRO 30/55 - C. Folios, no. 10427.
4. ^ "Record of the Week: The Book of Negroes", Rediscovering Black History (National Archives), 5 February 2015.
5. ^ "Review: The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile After the American Revolution, edited by Graham Russell Hodges, Susan Hawkes Cook, and Alan Edward Brown", William and Mary Quarterly, 1996, Third Series, Vol. 53, No. 4, accessed 27 September 2011
6. ^ Angela Hickman, "Merging history and fiction", The Journal, Volume 135, Issue 30 — 1 February 2008, Queens University, accessed 26 September 2011.
7. ^ Tambay A. Obenson, "First Trailer for Mini-Series Adaptation of Acclaimed 'The Book of Negroes' Surfaces" Archived 19 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, IndieWire, 24 June 2014.

## External links

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* "The Book of Negroes", African Nova Scotians: in the Age of Slavery and Abolition, Nova Scotia Archives
* "Book of Negroes", Remembering Black Loyalists, Black Communities in Nova Scotia, 2001, Noval Scotia Museum
* Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).
* Black Loyalists: Our History, Our People, Canadian Digital Collections, website includes link to Book of Negroes
* African Nova Scotians in the Age of Slavery and Abolition (Digitized version of the British copy)
* Inspection Roll of Negroes Book No. 2 (Digitized version of the American copy.)
* Carleton Papers – Book of Negroes, 1783 (Library and Archives Canada). Searchable database of the Book of Negroes.
* Hodges, Graham R. The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile After the American Revolution. New York: Garland Pub. in association with the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996. Print version of the American copy.

* v
* t
* e

Black Loyalists

* Slavery in the U.S.
* African Americans in the Revolutionary War
* Loyalists
* United Empire Loyalist
* Black Canadians

Proclamations|

* Dunmore's Proclamation (1775)
* Philipsburg Proclamation (1779)

American Revolutionary War|

* Black Loyalists
* Black Company of Pioneers
* Ethiopian Regiment

Post-war Emancipation|

* Treaty of Paris (1783)
* Book of Negroes
* Merikins
* Petition of Free Negroes (Niagara)

White Loyalists
involved in Emancipation|

* General Samuel Birch
* Stephen Skinner

Nova Scotia|

* Birchtown
* Halifax County
* Port Rosey (now Shelburne)
* Shelburne riots

Black Nova Scotians|

* Colonel Stephen Blucke
* Rose Fortune
* Rev. John Marrant
* Richard Pierpoint
* Deborah Squash
* See also Sierra Leone settlers below

Nova Scotian /
Sierra Leone Settlers (1792)|

* Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
* Settler Town
* Sierra Leone Company

Sierra Leone people|

* Davis family
* David George
* Abraham Hazeley
* John Kizell
* Boston King
* Cato Perkins
* Thomas Peters
* Harry Washington
* Moses Wilkinson

In media|

* The Book of Negroes
* miniseries

* v
* t
* e

Slave narratives

* Slave Narrative Collection

Individuals
by continent
of enslavement|

| Africa|

* Robert Adams (c. 1790–?)
* Marcus Berg (1714-1761)
* Francis Bok (b. 1979)
* Isaac Brassard (1620–1702)
* Felice Caronni  (1747–1815)
* James Leander Cathcart (1767–1843)
* Ólafur Egilsson (1564–1639)
* Petro Kilekwa (late 19th c.)
* Elizabeth Marsh (1735–1785)
* Maria ter Meetelen (1704–?)
* Mende Nazer (b. 1982)
* Hark Olufs (1708–1754)
* Thomas Pellow (1705–?)
* Joseph Pitts (1663 – c. 1735)
* Guðríður Símonardóttir (1598–1682)
* Antoine Qaurtier (1632–1702)
* Andreas Matthäus Wolfgang (1660–1736)
* Johann Georg Wolffgang (1644–1744)

|

Asia|

* Brigitta Scherzenfeldt (1684–1736)

Europe|

* Lovisa von Burghausen (1698–1733)
* Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 Nigeria – 31 March 1797 Eng)
* Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (c. 1705 Bornu – 1775 Eng)
* Jean Marteilhe (1684-1777)
* Roustam Raza (1783–1845)
* Nunzio Otello Francesco Gioacchino (1792 – fl. 1828)

Ottoman Empire|

* Johann Schiltberger
* Konstantin Mihailović
* George of Hungary

North America:
Canada|

* Marie-Joseph Angélique (c. 1710 Portugal – 1734 Montreal)
* John R. Jewitt (1783 England – 1821 United States)

North America:
Caribbean|

* Juan Francisco Manzano (1797–1854, Cuba)
* Esteban Montejo (1860–1965, Cuba)
* Mary Prince (c. 1788 Bermuda – after 1833)
* Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766 Saint-Dominque – June 30, 1853 NY)
* Marcos Xiorro (c. 1819 – ???, Puerto Rico)

North America:
United States|

* Sam Aleckson
* Jordan Anderson
* William J. Anderson
* Jared Maurice Arter
* Solomon Bayley
* Polly Berry
* Henry Bibb
* Leonard Black
* James Bradley (1834)
* Henry "Box" Brown
* John Brown
* William Wells Brown
* Peter Bruner (1845 KY – 1938 OH)
* Ellen and William Craft
* Hannah Crafts
* Lucinda Davis
* Noah Davis
* Lucy Delaney
* Ayuba Suleiman Diallo
* Frederick Douglass
* Kate Drumgoold
* Jordan Winston Early (1814 – after 1894)
* Sarah Jane Woodson Early
* Peter Fossett (1815 Monticello–1901)
* David George
* Moses Grandy
* William Green (19th century MD)
* William Grimes
* Josiah Henson
* Fountain Hughes (1848/1854 VA – 1957)
* Omar ibn Said
* John Andrew Jackson
* Harriet Jacobs
* Thomas James
* John Jea
* Paul Jennings (1799–1874)
* Elizabeth Keckley
* Boston King
* Lunsford Lane
* J. Vance Lewis
* Jermain Wesley Loguen
* James Mars (1790–1880)
* Solomon Northup
* Greensbury Washington Offley
* John Parker (1827 VA – 1900)
* William Parker
* James Roberts
* Moses Roper
* William Henry Singleton
* James Lindsay Smith
* Venture Smith
* Austin Steward (1793 VA – 1860)
* Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766 Saint-Dominque – 1853 NY)
* Harriet Tubman
* Wallace Turnage
* Bethany Veney
* Booker T. Washington
* Wallace Willis (19th century Indian Territory)
* Harriet E. Wilson
* Zamba Zembola (b. c. 1780 Congo)

South America|

* Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua (1845–1847, Brazil)
* Miguel de Buría (? Puerto Rico – 1555 Venezuela)
* Osifekunde (c. 1795 Nigeria – ? Brazil)

Non-fiction books|

* The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
* The Narrative of Robert Adams (1816)
* American Slavery as It Is (1839)
* Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
* The Life of Josiah Henson (1849)
* Twelve Years a Slave (1853)
* My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
* Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
* The Underground Railroad Records (1872)
* Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)
* Up from Slavery (1901)
* Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States (1936–38)
* The Peculiar Institution (1956)
* The Slave Community (1972)
* Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" (2018)

Fiction/novels|

* Oroonoko (1688)
* Sab (1841)
* Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
* The Heroic Slave (1852)
* Clotel (1853)
* The Bondwoman's Narrative (c. 1853 – c. 1861)
* Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856)
* Our Nig (1859)
* Jubilee (1966)
* The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
* Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976)
* Underground to Canada (1977)
* Kindred (1979)
* Dessa Rose (1986)
* Beloved (1987)
* Middle Passage (1990)
* Queen: The Story of an American Family (1993)
* Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (1996)
* Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2001)
* Walk Through Darkness (2002)
* The Known World (2003)
* Unburnable (2006)
* The Book of Negroes (2007)
* The Underground Railroad (2016)

Young adult books|

* Amos Fortune, Free Man (1951)
* I, Juan de Pareja (1965)
* Copper Sun (2006)

Essays|

* "To a Southern Slaveholder" (1848)
* A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853)

Plays|

* The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858)
* The Octoroon (1859)
* Omar (2022)

Documentaries|

* Unchained Memories (2003)
* Frederick Douglass and the White Negro (2008)

Related|

* Abolitionism in the United States
* African-American literature
* Anti-Tom novels
* Atlantic slave trade
* Captivity narrative
* Caribbean literature
* Films featuring slavery
* Slavery in the United States
* Songs of the Underground Railroad
* Treatment of slaves in the United States
* List of last surviving American enslaved people
* Book of Negroes (1783)
* Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book (1847)
* Slave-Trading in the Old South (1931)
* Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon (2008)
* Slave Songs of the United States (1867)
* Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery (2002)
* The Hemingses of Monticello (2008)

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