The African Movement: The Back To Africa Movement

In the early 19th century, Blacks lived as slaves in Canada. New France was home to an estimated 1000 slaves who (due to the Canadian climate that prevented large scale plantation crops) worked as household servants. In addition, an estimated 2000 enslaved blacks were brought to Canada along with their Anglophonic United Empire Loyalist owners who migrated north, after the American Revolution that freed the thirteen colonies from British power. The British, during the American Revolutionary War had a real need for soldiers to fight the rebelling patriot forces. After the ban on Black soldiers was lifted, Lord Dunmore, a Virginian governor was eager to invite male slaves who were owned by rebels against the British to join the British. This promoted freedom in exchange for
Some had to wait years to receive their land and others never received any. The White Loyalists who were also disappointed with their new lives returned to the United States. But Blacks weren't able to follow suite with the risk of becoming slaves. As a solution, the Back to Africa movement was sparked, encouraging those with African descent to return the African homeland. The British government offered the settlers in mainly Nova Scotia, a free passage from Halifax to Sierra Leone, and almost half of the only substantial Black community in Canada left. It wasn't until after the abolishment of slavery in 1833 and the passing of the Act of to limit slavery (the British colony's first legislation to restrict the slave trade) in 1793. That Canada began to be seen as a safe haven for escaping African-American slaves in the United States. The act stated that any enslaved person who reached Upper Canada would be deemed a free man upon arrival. Later, American officers stationed near the Canadian border during the war of 1812 brought back tales of a place where fugitive slaves were