Nova Scotia Archives
African Nova Scotian Teaching and Learning
Land petition from black settlers of Manchester
In this petition, the free black settlers of Manchester complain that they have lived in the local area for two years but have "never got no lands not even town lotts." The petitioners also mention that they have never received any farming tools or boards to build houses. Nor have they received their allotment of clothes which other immigrants obtained.
This petition should be considered in light of the fact that the government of Nova Scotia was totally unprepared for the large numbers of refugees arriving in the colony after the American War of Independence. Yet black people always received less than other settlers. They sometimes, as was the case with the black settlers of Manchester, received little land and few rations.
Date: 7 October 1786
Reference Commissioner of Crown Lands Nova Scotia Archives RG 20 series A volume 17 (1786) (microfilm 15691)
Questions to Consider
- When do you think the document was written?
- Who do you think wrote the document?
- Why do you think the document was written
- Who do you think received the document?
- Who do you think this document was written for?
- What information do you think this document provides? What do you think it tells us about the past?
- How do you think the document reflects the attitudes and values of the time period in which it was written?
- What impact do you think the document had at the time it was written?
- Do you think those were different impacts for different people?