– Amazingly, one of the passengers on the voyage to Sierra Leone was a 104 year-old woman. – Said Clarkson: “I know of no place where there is such universal hospitality shown to Strangers as at Halifax.” Could this menu have been much different from what other Nova Scotians were eating at the time? – Clarkson even lists the daily menu the Black Loyalists would have on their journey across the Atlantic: molasses and Indian meal for breakfast, salt fish or beef for dinner, and a repetition of breakfast for supper. Some of these left-behind slaves were mere children. – Clarkson often begged white Nova Scotians to give up their slaves to go to Sierra Leone with their loyalist families, but he was not always successful.
It is amazing to think that, even though they had no cultural or familial ties to Africa, these white loyalists’ conditions in Nova Scotia were so desperate that they were willing to cross the Atlantic to help found a new British colony in a tropical setting. – Many English and German soldiers with tears in their eyes asked to be allowed to go to Sierra Leone along with the Black Loyalists. – Clarkson’s comment on the Black Loyalists of Preston: “I would match them for strong sense, quick apprehension, clear reasoning, gratitude, affection for their wives & children, and friendship and good-will towards their neighbours….I have good grounds for having formed a favorable opinion of the whole.” Clarkson discourages him from leaving Nova Scotia. – Just fifteen miles outside of Halifax he meets a man he considers to be the richest Black Loyalist in the whole province. Clarkson was intrigued by its gypsum deposits and the Fundy tides. – There is a great description of the Windsor area as it was in 1791.
– Clarkson was fascinated by a Mi’kmaq canoe he saw in Halifax and gives a detailed description of the craft and its passengers. – A short conversation between Clarkson and a man born in Africa is recorded, giving a sense of the dialect spoken by the Black Loyalist. – On his return trip to Halifax from visiting Preston for the first time, Clarkson tries some maple sugar. One couple he met had to sell their property, clothing and beds to maintain themselves. – Clarkson was appalled by the conditions in which he found the Black Loyalists. Here, then, are just some of the fascinating details that can be found as one browses through his on-line journal Clarkson’s Mission to America: 1791-1792: John Clarkson, who was entrusted with organizing and overseeing the expedition of Black Loyalists to Sierra Leone, kept a daily journal that not only records the various letters and documents he produced, but also reveals the day to day drama of the first years of loyalist settlement in Nova Scotia. One such first-hand account is found on the Collections Canada – Black Loyalists website. In the diaries of old we find out what was had for dinner, what was thought of the current music, and who was an irritating neighbour. These handwritten documents reveal the human drama of the passing eras with an immediacy that compels their readers to recognize –yet again– that those who lived in the past were every bit as much alive as we are today. However, reading diaries, letters and journals from the past is unquestionably our greatest “guilty pleasure”. Poring over indecipherable census records and meandering through soggy graveyards are sometimes necessary evils for both professional and amateur historians. Reading Clarkson’s Journal: A Guilty Pleasure of the Loyalist Era, by Stephen Davidson + Reponses re Revolutionary War Era Novels Articles – Last Post: Malcolm Dalton Loucks, M.B.E., U.E.
– Died This Day, 13 October, 1812: Isaac Brock ( Globe and Mail) – Died This Day, 19 October 1868: Laura Secord ( Globe and Mail) – 2007 will mark the 400th Anniversary of the Jamestowne Colony – The Valiants Memorial to be Unveiled 5 Nov. – We Came We Saw We Surrendered (sort of): Yorktown 225th – Reading Clarkson’s Journal: A Guilty Pleasure of the Loyalist Era, by Stephen Davidson
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