Nova Scotia Loyalists

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Nova Scotia

Loyalists

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Online Records

• Genealogy/biography card index to materials in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia collection, ca. 1650-1990
• 1777-1785 - Loyalists in the Maritimes — Ward Chipman Muster Master's Office, 1777–1785
• 1772-1784 - Carleton Papers – Loyalists and British Soldiers, 1772-1784, index.
• 1776-1835 - UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835, index
• 1783 - Carleton Papers – Book of Negroes, 1783, index.
• UELAC Loyalist Directory
• The Old United Empire Loyalists List, index
• Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution Lorenzo Sabine, Kennikat Press, Port Washington, 1966. Included in PANB's Biography Database.
• Miscellaneous histories and diaries of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
• Loyalists and land settlement in Nova Scotia, e-book.

History

After the Thirteen Colonies and their French allies forced the British forces to surrender (1781), approximately 33,000 Loyalists (the King's Loyal Americans, allowed to place "United Empire Loyalist" after their names) settled in Nova Scotia (14,000 of them in what became New Brunswick) on lands granted by the Crown as some compensation for their losses. (The British administration divided Nova Scotia and hived off Cape Breton and New Brunswick in 1784). The Loyalist exodus created new communities across Nova Scotia, including Shelburne, which briefly became one of the larger British settlements in North America, and infused Nova Scotia with additional capital and skills. There are also a number of Black loyalists buried in unmarked graves in the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia).

However the migration also caused political tensions between Loyalist leaders and the leaders of the existing New England Planters settlement. The Loyalist influx also pushed Nova Scotia's 2000 Mi'kmaq People to the margins as Loyalist land grants encroached on ill-defined native lands. As part of the Loyalist migration, about 3,000 Black Loyalists arrived; they founded the largest free Black settlement in North America at Birchtown, near Shelburne. Many Nova Scotian communities were settled by British regiments that fought in the war.