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Articles

Vol. 46 No. 1 (2017)

Maroons and Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, 1796-1800

Submitted
September 7, 2017
Published
2017-05-05

Abstract

Forcibly relocated by the Jamaican government, the Maroons of Trelawney Town, Jamaica, reached Halifax in July 1796. Lieutenant-Governor John Wentworth, former loyalist governor of New Hampshire, experimented with integrating and converting these 150 uprooted black families, refugees of war. His self-congratulatory benevolence created and extended the fractured relationships among black and Aboriginal communities in the region. This article helps demonstrate the limits of British paternalism and the far-reaching consequences of distinguishing people of African ancestry from Aboriginal people.