Note: Just my little phone camera - had to catch the moment:)
After my grandmother, DORIS PETER'S BARTON, on my MOTHER'S SIDE (SHIRLEY BARTON, MY MUM) passed away, i headed back to Litchfield, Nova Scotia to visit her house which is on Peter's Land. My Uncle Walter, first black pilot in the Royal Canadian Air forces and Snowbirds took me on a little tour of family. We discovered that it was originally given to Sgt. Thomas Peters of the England Royal Ethiopian Regiment which was found by Lord Dunmore in Virgina in the early 17th century. He fought along side Colonel Tye a New Jersey runaway slave bent on set all the slaves in America free before American Independence. The deal was he was promised freedom for fighting and holding down the rebel Americans. At this time. America was rebelling against England, it's first real foe.
From Wiki:
Thomas Peters, or Thomas Potters in the Book of Negroes (c. 1738 June 25, 1792), was one of four black Founding Fathers of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Peters, David George, Moses Wilkinson, Cato Perkins and Joseph Leonard, were some of the most influential blacks who recruited African Americans in Nova Scotia for the Sierra Leone venture. Peters himself was an African American slave who fled North Carolina with the British during the American Revolutionary War and later ended up as a leader in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Thomas Peters has been referred to as the first African American hero. Peters, like Elijah Johnson and Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Liberia, is considered the African American founding father of a nation.
end Wiki
When Thomas came to Nova Scotia, he petitioned the government for better land for the blacks and witnessed the birth of the Black Baptist Church and soon after, Canada's first race riot. He knew then that his people would never truly be free in Nova Scotia. He described living conditions as such" We are no better than slaves here toiling on barren land" At the same time, Americans were coming across the border hunting for these "runaway slaves". Thomas then went to New Brunswick, then to England to ask for the black loyalists to be returned home from whence they were stolen. England agreed, and with Thomas in the lead, with English Official, Thomas Clarkson, "these British Loyalists to settle Freetown in Sierra Leone, Africa."
Things in the new colony started off bad. It had not been prepared. The local white settlers refused to help the new blacks form Nova Scotia. Tensions rose over who was the leader of the colony. Thomas always assumed it would be him. Soon after, Thomas was accused of stealing from a dead slave, others have Thomas dying of a mysterious illness. It appears people cannot explain how he died and moreso do not want to. One thing is for certain, after returning home and seeing all he had known was gone, he realized his days were numbered. It has been revealed from archives in London that a power struggle with Clarkson was the reason for his demise - in short, Thomas wanted to lead his people and not be led:) His people appointed him "Speaker General" and the British accused him of mutiny. Ironic, since his mutinous acts were exactly what the British promised him for fighting - Freedom :)
Ruffly five years ago, people from England had called my Nanny Doris Peters Barton asking her if she knew of Thomas Peters.
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Beechville: Black Nova Scotia community fights urban sprawlby atafengi5,139 views
Is this in Canada?
CreoleCommando 1 year ago
@CreoleCommando - Yes in Nova Scotia - Northeast area near Annapolis Royal, Canada's first settlement
darchien 1 year ago
What happen to your video with reference to Joseph Jenkin Roberts? Do you have any other. JJ Roberts was a free slave from Norfolk Va and 1st president of Liberia (1822)
rmcjlive63 1 year ago
@rmcjlive63 - Sorry, I have never referred to J.J Joseph Jenkins - but interesting info, very interesting:) - thx
darchien 1 year ago