Book of Negroes

In 1782, Great Britain and its American colonies ended their armed conflict by signing a preliminary peace treaty. These articles stipulated that the British were not to carry away black people or any other American property at the time of their final withdrawal from American soil.

Guy Carleton

Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, Sir Guy Carleton, who was responsible for the orderly evacuation of New York, the last British port, issued an order to the masters of all British vessels to respect the articles about the transport of black people.

At the same time, a fleet of transports was ready to set sail for Nova Scotia. On board were many former slaves who had come within the British lines under proclamations of freedom issued by Carleton’s predecessors. Carleton allowed the fleet to sail, but took the precaution of directing the commissioners to keep an accurate account of each black person who embarked.

This register, called the Book of Negroes, is a complete record of each person’s name, the master he formerly belonged to, and such other details as would help to “denote his value”; it was to be used to compensate slave owners in the event that the evacuation was later found to contravene the treaty. The British completed their evacuation of New York on November 30, 1782. At the end, almost 3,000 names had been recorded and only a handful of disputed cases were heard.

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This data is downloaded from the Nova Scotia Open Data site. It has 3009 records, but unaccountably omits details of slavery and freedom.  See below

This is  not the expected distribution.  In a typical slave population,

It should look more like this:

there are 88 children of unspecified gender, all 19 and under.  Still, that would only have a minor effecr on the shape of the pyramid.  It points to a deliberate decision to leave younger people behind.

The search function at Open Data is primitive.  Searching for 'slave' gives people who are currently slaves or formerly slaves.  Given the purpose of the Book, it's not clear why there are current slaves at all.

What the Province doesn't share:

Variable	In database	In Open Data
name	Y	Y
age	Y	Y
gender	Y	Y
physical characteristics	Y
occupation	Y
an indication of whether the person had any family or had served in the military	Y
place of origin	Y
previous and current legal status	Y
the names of former owners, claimants, and persons in whose possession the person was at the time of embarkation	Y
destination	Y	Y
the ship of passage and the name of its master.	Y	Y
Records	2831	3009
Slaves	?	?