There's an image of Nova Scotia—promoted and peddled across the world—of a bagpipe playing, kilt-wearing figure on green hills. Or of a Victorian-esque bartender, swilling beer and singing Barrett's Privateer with some rowdy sailors.
Certainly, there's truth to those images. But as Black History Month gets underway across the continent, here in Halifax there will be retellings of our other important stories---inspiring tales like that of Portia White, and shameful events like the destruction of Africville. What can sometimes be glossed over in those stories are the smaller events. The people who maybe weren't heroes, who weren't able to have their sufferings documented for history, but who nevertheless were citizens of our province, and our city.
Black residents have been an integral part of Halifax's history for as long as there has been a Halifax.
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| A list of settlers given "victuals" (food) in mid-1750, including Cato and Jack, two free blacks. (image courtesy Nova Scotia Archives) |
The first major wave of black settlers arrived at our shores in 1782, and consisted of Loyalists emigrating from the United States. Of the 1,500 who arrived, only around 300 stayed. The vast majority, unimpressed with Nova Scotia's harsh conditions and hostile treatment, left for Sierra Leone after only a few years.
Some 500 Maroons—a community of escaped slaves—were sent from Jamaica by the British government for Halifax in 1796. Entirely disenchanted with the hard life and poor land they'd received, they emigrated four years later to Sierra Leone and the Caribbean.
The largest permanent wave of settlers came from the War of 1812. British admirals and captains offered passage, sometimes even military service, to escaping slaves. Between 1813 and 1815, nearly 2,000 black refugees came to Nova Scotia. That number included Richard Preston (who, it's said, was so moved to find his mother alive in the community of Preston, that he took the town's name as his own).
Out of a total population of just over 11,000, Halifax had 745 black citizens in 1816. They were hard workers, mainly employed as day labour on farms, while others worked on ships, or as carpenters building the town.
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| Vendors, likely from the Preston area, are selling ferns, cucumbers, squash, and other produce, in baskets. (Photo courtesy Nova Scotia Archives) |
Many more black Haligonians could be seen at the weekend markets—particularly Halifax's Green Market, which existed on what's now Bedford Row. There, the lower-classes, including many black and First Nations vendors, would sell produce and wares. The more well off residents of the town apparently objected to the masses hawking their goods, which often led to complaints and the occasional riot. But the Green Market survived for over a century, before being eventually shut down in 1907 when it was claimed to be in violation of health codes.
Other visible members of Halifax's black community at the time were the “African Rangers.” An unofficial military company, the Rangers were at their height in 1815 as commanded by Captain Cappel Hines. Hines owned a butcher shop on the waterfront where the group would assemble in their uniforms; long blue coats with yellow facing, red and white feathered caps, and black or white pants (depending on the season).
The outfits were likely discarded by other military units; either disbanded British forces or captured American soldiers. Often, those uniforms would be donated to the communities of Preston and Hammonds Plains.
The African Rangers fell off after the death of Hines in the 1830s, but a writer for the Acadian Recorder remembered their discipline fondly in an 1880 article; commenting that he regularly watched them on guard at Government House, and in full strength running drills on the Grand Parade.
“I have no doubt if the services of this company had been required in actual warfare, they would have given a good account of themselves,” the author writes.
Another well-dressed black citizen of Halifax was also one of the first police constables in the city.
In 1818, the Legislature passed an act providing a day and night watch for the “better protection” of the people. Before that, it had been customary to let the military handle major problems, while “a few old men armed with a staff” would deal with minor disturbances.
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| Was Septemus Hawkins nicknamed after Jack Ketch, the notorious 17th-century London executioner? |
Of the handful of constables hired for the night watch was the impressively-named Septemus Hawkins. A Chesapeake refugee from the War of 1812, Hawkins was commonly known as Jack Ketch. And according to the Acadian Recorder, he was a “popular individual” who was “well known and feared in ye olden time.”
Hawkins was most often seen around town wearing a modified version of the uniform previously worn by the disbanded York Rangers. This included a green coat, with red facings, a cocked hat (“worn the reversed way”) and a long feather, “surmounting the whole.”
“He looked very big when he was fully equipped with cap, epaulet and sword,” writes the Recorder, “coming down George Street with his long black constable's staff over his should, escorting rowdies from the top street to the police office.”
Though the reporter notes Hawkins was known for a “very bad countenance,” another report, from Thomas Akin's 1939 History of Halifax, states the constable was often accompanied on his patrols by a “mob” of young boys.
The rowdy kids were probably interested in seeing Constable Hawkins at work at his other job as public whipper. He would thrash thieves tied to Halifax's whipping post with his cat-of nine-tails; earning a dollar for every prisoner.
Such cruel punishment was thankfully abandoned in 1819, and Hawkins (“our hero,” as the Acadian Recorder calls him) retired to the “quiet shades of Preston,” where he could often be seen spending his evening down by the shores of Lake Loon.
Those are just a few of the many lives of black Nova Scotians, both great and small, that have lived in our city and played a part in our history. More information on all these individuals, and the history of African-Nova Scotians, can be found both at the Nova Scotia Archives, as well as the Black Cultural Centre.
