Advertisement for a Slave Auction (Halifax Gazette, 30 May, 1752).
The extent of the slave trade in Halifax is uncertain but it was an accepted part of eighteenth-century life in the town. Most slaves worked as domestic servants for the local gentry. Hostility from white labourers probably prevented them from being used in other forms of employment. It should be noted that at least a few free blacks lived in early Halifax. At least fifteen non-slave blacks are listed among the founders of 1749-1750.
Halifax's black population remained small until the end of the American Revolution when several thousand black Loyalists entered Nova Scotia both as slaves and freedmen. A few came to Halifax only to depart in the early 1790s as part of a general movement back to Africa. Although the institution of slavery largely collapsed at the end of the eighteeth century, a tradition of white racial prejudice persisted. That discrimination prompted a second migration to Africa by blacks who had been exiled from the Caribbean to Halifax in the mid 1790s. Almost all of the present black population in Halifax trace their origins to a group of ex-slaves brought to Nova Scotia during the War of 1812. While not thrust back into slavery, they became the victims of persistent and comprehensive racial discrimination. The negative stereotypes concerning blacks established during the era of slavery persist today in Halifax.
Courtesy: Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston
