The Importance Of The Black Loyalists

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A Loyalist is described by one historian as someone “whose head is in England, and its body in America.” The American Revolution introduced many new ideas and to the Loyalists these were things they could not agree with from the American side. Britain was seen as a fresh new place with promise and most importantly freedom and to the Loyalists, this was something of great importance. The American Revolution began in 1775 when the people of the thirteen colonies decided they were going to fight for independence from Britain. This meant, if they were to succeed, the creation of a brand new nation completely separate from any British rule. For some, this idea was unforeseen and for those who felt strongly about staying loyal to Britain, they felt …show more content…
Among the Black Loyalists was an approximate 27,000 White Loyalists already living there. With such a large population and not much space to hold everyone, a system had to be created in order to ensure some sort of order among the people. They decided that priority would be given to those who had sacrificed the most property during the American revolution. As one would expect, the Black Loyalists were slaves and therefore had never owned any sort of property, so land was divided up among the Whites first. With 27,000 Whites living in Nova Scotia, they clearly outnumbered the Blacks and with so little available land, they were the lowest of importance. Many of them were not given land at all and those who were had been given small spots with bad soil and was located far away from major settlements. Though White Loyalists suffered in many ways in Nova Scotia, the Blacks suffered far worse and were not treated with the equality they had expected when …show more content…
They created this in order to show their people that there was still a sense of hope no matter how hard their lives had become and to be able to turn to it in times of struggle. They had decided that slavery was not the life for them and they would find a way to work themselves out of it even when others had labeled them as such. After several years of struggling in Nova Scotia and beyond, about one-third of the slaves made the decision to create a new colony in Africa with the name Sierra Leone and returned to their native land. Some continued to live in British North America, scattered among the nation and managed to move