Nova Scotia Archives

Looking Back, Moving Forward: Documenting the Heritage of African Nova Scotians

Appendix 19: Petition of the Reverend Robert Willis, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's Church on behalf of the Coloured People of Halifax
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in Geometry, Navigation, and the art of Surveying: — that this extended education has been followed by excellent effects ; — more especially as it will increase the qualifications of the people of colour as seamen; and their aptitude for the service of merchant — sailors can be attested by the mercantile community of Halifax.

      That your Petitioner feels great satisfaction in assuring your Honorable Assembly that adult persons of colour (many of whom had attained the middle stage of life) have been taught to read in the African School, and have thereby been enabled to acquire a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, which affords them profit and delight. That this good has been effected by the master devoting three evenings in the week to their instruction.

      That there are now on the Register of the day — school the names of sixty three children; and since the establishment of the African School two hundred and twenty five persons have been instructed within its walls.

      That your Petitioner will not further expatiate on the manifold advantages which the people of color derive from the Institution for which he pleads, — hoping that Members of your Honorable Assembly will, as heretofore, visit the seminary, and satisfy their own minds of the truth of your Petitioner's representations.

      That African Schools have been established at Preston, Hammond's Plains, and, in an humble way, even at Beech Hill, where there is a settlement of only ten families ; — that similar results have supervened, varying of course with the greater destitution which exists in these desolate places.

      That your Petitioner earnestly solicits a continuance of the stipend which has formerly been granted to the master and mistress of the African School, (the latter of whom has imparted practical instruction to the Girls in the most useful and profitable department of female work) ; — and that your Honorable Assembly will take into its most favorable consideration the peculiarity of the claims of the people of colour, and their utter inability to provide suitable instruction for themselves, under the circumstances in which they are at present situated.


Reference: Nova Scotia Archives RG 1 volume 296 number 48

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