Important note: Certain parts of this collection contain historical language and content that includes racist, stereotypical, or negative portrayals of Black individuals and groups. Content and historical language in this collection reflect perspectives during the time periods when they occurred. Original content and historical language remains intact to ensure that attitudes and perspectives about Black arrivants and citizens are not erased from the historical record in New Brunswick. Learning about historical perspectives supports the understanding of prejudice and inequities that shaped conditions in the past and continue today. Teachers must be mindful that for Black and other racialized students, experiences of prejudice are ongoing. Preparing the class to engage thoughtfully with the past must include consideration of how to address racist, stereotypical or otherwise offensive language in historical documents.

Student Tasks

What significant contributions were made by Black people to New Brunswick society during the Napoleonic Wars time period?

• Which three pieces of archival evidence are the most useful for showing how Black people were viewed by others at this time?
• What plausible inferences can you make from the archival evidence about the quality of life for Black people in New Brunswick at this time? (think about access to rights, living conditions, working conditions).
• What plausible inferences can you make about life for Black people in New Brunswick by “reading around the document”? (carefully examine characteristics of the documents such as the handwriting, the paper, the vocabulary)
• How would the quality of life for Black people in New Brunswick in this time period compare to other time periods: better, worse, or the same?
• Did Black children receive more opportunities during this time period?
• What plausible inferences could you draw about Black people’s progress towards full and equal participation in New Brunswick society during this time period?
• How can you tell a story about life for Black people in New Brunswick society during this time period using no more than 10 words?

Historical Context for Teachers

• One of the lasting legacies of the American Revolution was that the many Black soldiers who fought for all sides in that conflict later formed the main force of resistance to colonial rule. After the American Revolution, the spirit of rebellion spread to France in 1789 and its colonies. The Haitian Revolution (1791) followed closely on the heels of turmoil in the mother country.
• In 1792, Black Loyalists unhappy with their treatment in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick migrated to Sierra Leone or joined the military to serve in the Caribbean.
• The rise of Napoleon meant that British military forces needed Black recruits. In New Brunswick, Black recruits joined the New Brunswick Fencible regiment, though usually serving as musicians or pioneers. This regiment transferred into regular service as the 104th Regiment of Foot, famous for the long march to Upper Canada in 1812 to counter American invasion.
• During this time period Black communities developed in several locations in New Brunswick, notably in the Saint John, Fredericton, and Kingsclear regions and included settlements such as Loch Lomand, Elm Hill, Marysville, Keswick, Queensbury, and Woodstock. Other locations also appear to have had small Black populations, like Newcastle on the Miramichi River.
• This was a time of early challenges to slavery. In Britain, abolitionist William Wilberforce introduced a motion in parliament to abolish the trade, but it failed to pass. Throughout the 1790s similar motions unsuccessfully attempted to stop the flow of Africans into slavery in Britain. During this time in Nova Scotia, Mary Postell attempted to free herself from enslavement by challenging the validity of her enslavers' right to possess her.
• In New Brunswick in 1800, Nancy Morton challenged her enslavement to Caleb Jones. Morton lost her case, but in some ways the case was successful for it defined property law and not legislation as the basis of enslavement.
• By the turn of the nineteenth century, most northern states in the United States had started abolition. Ironically, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 expanded the slave economy into the newly acquired territory.
• Finally, in 1807 and 1808 Britain and the United States agreed to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This prevented the importation of slaves into the British Empire but preserved the legality of the institution.
• At the end of the War of 1812, a group called the Black Refugees settled in the Saint John area via Nova Scotia.
• By 1825, though still legal, chattel slavery had practically disappeared in New Brunswick. However, a positive step, the increase in immigration from Europe continued to relegate Black New Brunswickers to lower echelons of society, replacing enslavement with economic exploitation.
• The growing number of Europeans and economic stagnation in British North America after the Napoleonic Wars gave rise to white supremacist sentiment in many working class whites. This group felt resources directed towards Black domestic workers and colonial slaves would be better spent on the working class—meaning the white working class.
• As part of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812, Britain agreed to pay the United States for the Blacks soldiers who joined the British and fled to British North America.
• Black Americans started The African Methodist Episcopal Church, an organization that would be influential in the Maritime Provinces throughout the nineteenth century.
• By the end of this time period, general abolition across the British Empire required compensation to slave holders to compensate them for their losses and to counter moneyed resistance and general racist attitudes in working class whites. Some of these payments continued until 2015.
• In 1985 R. Wallace Hale began the work of writing abstracts of all case files registered with the various County Probates Court for the period from 1785 to 1835. Four years later, in 1989, his Early New Brunswick, Probate Records, 1785-1835, ISBN 1-55613-240-9, was published by Heritage Books, Inc.

The book was well received and deemed useful by genealogists and family historians. However it has been out of print for many years thus preventing many researchers from having access to this valuable source of information on early New Brunswick history. This searchable database will allow researchers to locate records through one main index searchable by family names. To provide more in-depth access three other indexes are provided: a) Black, Freeman, Servant, and Slave b); Women and c) Vessel.

The Database contains abstracts for 2,371 Probates files from every County Probate Court in existence in that period (1785-1835). Records for the period covered are missing or incomplete for some areas of the Province. From the surviving records, a breakdown of probate files by county was compiled. The numbers serve to show, to a degree, the more populous areas of New Brunswick.

This valuable research tool can be found here: Wallace Hale's Early New Brunswick Probate, 1785-1835