Читать книгу Benjamin Drew. The Refugee. Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada онлайн

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Accordingly, and though infused with an inevitable sense of belatedness, the critical revision of the history of slavery in Canada has brought to light the retrieval of slave narratives in the country as found in the “Book of Negroes” as well as in Black Nova Scotian accounts of slavery. Even if the “Book of Negroes” was an administrative documental account, it was equally a personal record that collected the individual transformation of Black people who signed up as Black Loyalists to fight against the United States in search of their freedom during the American Revolutionary War. The testimony of these individuals remains meaningful to this day in order to learn about the transit of Blacks up and down the US and British Canada frontier. Also, this removal of Black Loyalists from New York to Nova Scotia linked Upper Canada with slavery and, therefore, with the written and oral testimonies attached to it. As Siemerling states, “Nova Scotia is connected to several eighteenth-century slave and captivity narratives, written by black community leaders who described the province in their memoirs or took up residence there” (52).