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The Shelburne riots were a series of mob attacks in July 1784 by landless British Loyalist veterans of the American Revolution against Black Loyalists and government officials in the town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Canada and the nearby village of Birchtown. They are considered the first race riots in Canada and one of the first recorded race riots in North America.^[1]

Origins

A Black Loyalist wood cutter at Shelburne, Nova Scotia in 1788.

The town of Shelburne was created in 1783 as a settlement for United Empire Loyalists, British soldiers, supporters and families who fought for the British in the American Revolution. Briefly the fourth largest city in North America and the largest British city in the continent, the city of 10,000 people included over 1,500 African Americans known as Black Loyalists who had escaped slavery during the American Revolution and joined the British side.^[2] Black Loyalists were given land in Birchtown six miles outside town but many also worked and lived in Shelburne. Tensions rose in Shelburne in the spring of 1784. Delays in awarding land grants created anger and frustration among many disbanded soldiers who sought jobs while they waited for grants promised for their military service. They found many Black Loyalists, who received even fewer land grants and smaller rations, were willing to work for smaller wages.

A popular Black clergyman David George became a lightning rod for racist anger. He founded a Baptist church in Shelburne and attracted many followers, both black and white. In the spring of 1784, as David George prepared to baptize a white couple, William and Deborah Holmes, a small mob of Deborah Holmes's relatives disrupted the service to stop her baptism. Shelburne magistrates were called and ruled that the couple were free to be baptised in a church of their choosing. The baptism went ahead but racial tension grew among landless white Loyalists.^[3]

The Riot

On the night of July 25, the riot began as a large group of men attacked David George and the Black Loyalists in Shelburne.

David George's home and 20 other homes of free Blacks in Shelburne were destroyed in the first night of rioting.^[5] Many of the free Blacks fled to Birchtown for safety. George stayed and continued to preach in Shelburne but at his next service a number of white rioters stormed into the church and threatened him. The next day they attacked him, beating him with sticks until he escaped into swampy area outside of Shelburne. He returned at night to rescue his wife and children and they sought shelter in Birchtown along with most of the free Blacks who had formerly lived and worked in Shelburne.

The Loyalist land agent in Shelburne Benjamin Marston wrote after the first day of rioting, "Great Riot today. The disbanded soldiers have risen against the free negroes to drive them out of town because they labour more cheaply." The next day the rioters attacked Marston's house. He escaped to the military barracks across the harbour and that afternoon was able to board a coastal schooner headed for Halifax shortly before rioters arrived at the barracks reportedly planning to hang him.^[6] Attacks by rioters continued in town for ten days targeting some white Loyalists, such as Thomas and James Courtney who had received large land grants on the Roseway River to set up a sawmill. The Courtneys were wealthy enough to hire armed guards to protect their homes.^[7]

Attacks continued for another month against Black Loyalists as rioters made incursions against the Black settlement at Birchtown.^[8] Black Loyalists, many of whom were army veterans organized into militia companies, were able to defend themselves in Birchtown initially, but as the riots continued the militias were no longer able to quell the violence. Attacks on Blacks traveling along the road between Birchtown and Shelburne for work and supplies continued for a month. Reports of the attacks spread around Nova Scotia with Simeon Perkins in the town of Liverpool to the east writing, "An extraordinary mob or riot has happened at Shelburne. Some thousands of people assembled Clubs and Drove the Negroes out of the Town."^[9] The mob was stopped by the arrival of troops from the 17th Regiment of Foot, later assisted by a frigate.^[10]

Aftermath

Dozens of homes, mostly of Black Loyalists, had been destroyed in the riots while others were looted. An unknown number of people were injured. No deaths were recorded. Most rioters limited themselves to injuring and terrifying their victims and few rioters had access to firearms.^[11] Free Blacks had essentially been driven out of the town of Shelburne, firmly establishing the two as a segregated white community aside from Blacks slaves and indentured servants. Black Loyalists were forced to seek a livelihood in the poor lands and overcrowded settlement of Birchtown.

The Governor of Nova Scotia, John Parr also traveled to Shelburne on August 23 to attempt to settle the disputes and delays in land grants. Parr blamed the riot on delays in awarding land. He blamed Martson, calling him "a shark trying to prey on helpless settlers". Marston was dismissed from his post. None of the rioters who attacked the Black Loyalists or Marston were identified or brought to justice.^[12] However, when a fresh round of attacks led to assaults against some Mi'kmaq people at Shelburne in November, the ringleader Edward Cavan was put in the stocks and sentenced to six months in prison.^[13]

Despite the eventual settlement of Loyalist land grants in 1785, the economy of Shelburne collapsed in the late 1780s as a lack of agricultural land, a collapse of the whale fishery and poor inland trade routes led four fifths of the population to leave.^[14] This included David George and many of the Black Loyalists who fled the racism and poverty of Shelburne in 1792 to settle in Freetown, Sierra Leone where they became known as The Nova Scotian Settlers.

Scholars such as James Walker have interpreted the riots as caused by the economic predicaments of the Loyalists which aggravated racial hostility.^[15] Marston is regarded by many scholars as a scapegoat for the larger problems of Loyalist land settlements and racism.^[16]

Depictions in popular culture

The Shelburne riots were dramatized in the BBC docudrama series Rough Crossings based on the book by Simon Schama. The riots are also depicted in fiction in the novel The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and the television miniseries of the same name, although the date of the riot is changed in both works to fit the fictional narrative and the riots are depicted as a mass lynching with hangings, multiple murders and a church burning.

References

External links

• Black Loyalists: Our History, Our People “Shelburne Riot”


• "The Shelburne Race Riots", The Canadian Encyclopedia
  


• "David George", Black Loyalist.com