Board 1 · 29 Lives
The Voyages
Where the twenty-nine went after they reached the British lines: by ship from New York in 1783 to Nova Scotia and the Saint John River, and for some, on to Sierra Leone in 1792.
Choose a date to move through the story. Use the buttons above the map to zoom, and tap any destination to see who went there, on which ship.
on foot to the British lines by ship, 1783 (line width shows how many) later moves
How this map was made. Each person’s ship and destination come from their entry in the British register of 1783 (“Book of Negroes”), compiled for this project from the transcription at blackloyalist.com and the Nova Scotia Archives database. The 1784 and 1787 traces are name matches in the Birchtown muster and the Shelburne land warrants, not proven identities. Routes are drawn to show direction, not the ships’ actual tracks. Settlement figures: Nova Scotia Museum, Black Loyalist Heritage; 1792 figures: Dalhousie University. Coastlines: Natural Earth.