6 - Black Loyalist Diaspora

These people were determined to quit a country, at the peril of their lives, whose inhabitants treated them with so much barbarity… 

(Lt John Clarkson, 1791) 

Fredericton Region Museum;
Artist: Claire Vautour, 2020

Several individuals from the York-Sunbury area were part of the Sierra Leone expedition that was organised by Lt John Clarkson and Thomas Peters. Three individuals in particular were Bob Stafford (one of the “Blacks of Maugerville” who were denied land in 1783), as well as Samuel Wright and Nathaniel Lad (who along with others were denied land in Kingsclear in 1791). Nathaniel Lad was actually one of four individuals who were denied passage to Halifax, and was thus forced to walk the entire distance (in the December cold), arriving in Halifax on December 9, in order to join the resettlement fleet. As Lt John Clarkson reported in 1791:

… we were surprised by the unexpected visit of four Blacks just arrived from the Province of New Brunswick… These people were determined to quit a country, at the peril of their lives, whose inhabitants treated them with so much barbarity; they had the temerity to undertake a journey over land from St. John to Halifax, which according to the route they must have taken could not be less than 340 miles; they set out for this Purpose the 24th last month, went round the head of the Bay of Fundy, & notwithstanding they had to combat with difficulties, that might appear insuperable to a considerate mind principally arising from the extreme closeness of woods, and the river they would be under the necessity of fording, they arrived safe & in good health, fifteen days after their departure from St. Johns-[sic] 

Declaration of Thomas Peters,
representative of
The Free Blacks of New Brunswick,
1790; Provincial
Archives of New Brunswick, F1037

Many Black settlers, however, chose to remain in the Fredericton region, and, for more than half a century, built communities on the margins of a thriving Loyalist society. Their family names are still widely recognised in the community as McCarthy, Leek, Dymond, Nash, Carty, Lawrence, Gosman, and O’Ree—to name only a few.

From the beginnings of outmigration in 1791, to the emerging economic power of the American northeast in the nineteenth century, the trickle of Fredericton’s Black diaspora became a flood after the American Civil War. Drawn by the currents of an imagined prosperity, York-Sunbury Black Loyalist descendants now sprinkle the civic records of urban centers of Bangor, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York.

Learn more about Nathaniel Lad's experience:
The Long Walk to Sierra Leone: Halifax, December 1791

Or read on about A Catalyst for Freedom...