Black Canadians in New Brunswick facts for kids
Black Canadians have been a part of New Brunswick's history for a very long time, since at least the 1690s. In 2016, about 7,000 Black people lived in New Brunswick. This made them the largest visible minority group in the province.
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History
Early Arrivals and New Beginnings
Many Black Canadians came to New Brunswick after the American Revolutionary War in the 1780s. About 3,300 people known as Black Loyalists arrived. They had fought for the British army and were promised land. However, many received poor land or no land at all. Because of this, most of them later moved to Sierra Leone in Africa.
Another group of 371 African-American refugees arrived in 1815. This was after the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain.
Fighting for Rights
The first human rights protest in New Brunswick happened in 1916. Most of the Black community in Saint John protested against a controversial American movie called The Birth of a Nation. This movie showed Black people in a very negative way.
The St. Philips African Methodist Episcopalian Church was a very important place for Saint John's Black community. It was sadly taken down in 1942.
In 1935, Eldridge "Gus" Eatman, a Black man from Saint John, tried to create a group called the Ethiopian Foreign Legion. He wanted them to fight for Ethiopia, an African country that Italy was threatening to invade. Many Black people, like lawyer Joseph Spencer-Pitt, were excited to defend Ethiopia. They saw it as "the last sovereign state belonging to the coloured race." However, it seems no volunteers actually made it to Ethiopia.
New Immigrants and Communities
Since the 1970s, immigration rules changed. This led to more people from the Caribbean and Africa joining New Brunswick's long-standing Black community. Some of these groups include Jamaicans, people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haitians, and Nigerians.
At the same time, many people from New Brunswick's older Black communities have moved away. For example, the lumber industry in Bangor, Maine in the United States attracted Black people from New Brunswick for many years. They formed a large community there throughout the 1900s.
In the 1990s, a writer named George Elliott Clarke created the term Africadia. This word refers to the shared identity of African Canadian communities in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
21st Century Milestones
In May 2021, Kassim Doumbia was elected mayor of Shippagan, New Brunswick. This made him the first Black mayor in the history of the province.
In June 2021, the first permanent display about New Brunswick's Black history opened in Saint John. It is called the New Brunswick Black Heritage Centre. Similar centers exist in other places, like the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia and the Amherstburg Freedom Museum in Ontario.
Settlements
Historic Black Communities
Like in many Canadian provinces, independent rural settlements for Black people existed in New Brunswick since the 1800s. Two well-known settlements were Willow Grove and Elm Hill. As of 2022, only Elm Hill still remains.
The people of Willow Grove lived on land that was very hard to farm. It was also far from major cities. This made it difficult for them to buy and sell goods, especially since most people didn't have cars or public transportation. By the 1970s, most young people moved to Saint John to find better opportunities. This caused Willow Grove to become mostly empty.
Until the 1970s, Woodstock and Kingsclear also had important Black communities.
Modern Urban Centers
Today, more than 60% of New Brunswick's Black population lives in one of three main cities. These cities are Moncton, Saint John, or Fredericton. These cities have attracted both the long-standing Black Canadian population and a growing number of African immigrants.
Notable people
- Measha Brueggergosman, an opera singer
- Lawrence Costello, a police officer
- Anna Minerva Henderson, a teacher, civil servant, and poet
- Manny McIntyre, a professional baseball and ice hockey player
- Willie O'Ree, the first Black player in the National Hockey League (NHL)
See also
