154-585: The Nova Scotian Settlers , or Sierra Leone Settlers (also known as the Nova Scotians or more commonly as the Settlers), were Black Canadians of African-American descent who founded the settlement of Freetown , Sierra Leone and the Colony of Sierra Leone , on March 11, 1792. The majority of these black American immigrants were among 3,000 African Americans, mostly former slaves, who had sought freedom and refuge with
308-514: A Black Loyalist named Richard Pierpoint , who was born about 1744 in Senegal and who had settled near present-day St. Catharines , Ontario, offered to organize a Corps of Men of Colour to support the British war effort. This was refused but a white officer raised a small black corps. This "Coloured Corps" fought at Queenston Heights and the siege of Fort George , defending what would become Canada from
462-501: A standard dialect , leading to widespread and long-standing misconceptions that it is a grammatically inferior form of English, which linguistics research of the twentieth century has debunked. However, educators and social commentators traditionally have advocated for eliminating AAVE usage through the public-education system for a variety of reasons, ranging from a continued belief that AAVE is intrinsically deficient to arguments that its use, by being stigmatized in certain social contexts,
616-461: A black woman was founded in North Buxton by the free Black Mary Ann Shadd which pressed for Black emigration to Canada as the best option for fleeing African Americans. The settlement of Elgin was formed in 1849 with the royal assent of Governor-General of the time James Bruce as a settlement for Black Canadians and escaped slaves based upon social welfare and the prevention of moral decay among
770-468: A body of writing) from isolated enclaves in Samaná and Nova Scotia peopled by descendants of migrations of early AAVE-speaking groups (see Samaná English ) that suggests that the grammar of early AAVE was closer to that of contemporary British dialects than modern urban AAVE is to other current American dialects, suggesting that the modern language is a result of divergence from mainstream varieties, rather than
924-447: A description which could only match Mink at the time. Aytoun used the trope of the tragic mulatto and others in his book to degrade the Mink family and successful free black Canadians in general. The myth of Mary Mink remains to this day, and was even made into 1996 TV movie called Captive Heart: The James Mink Story , which bills itself as "based on a true story". In 1858, James Douglas ,
1078-500: A distinct cultural group, some of whom can trace their Canadian ancestry back to the 1700s, use both "African Canadian" and "Black Canadian" to describe themselves. For example, there is an Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs and a Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia . Black Canadians often draw a distinction between those of Afro-Caribbean ancestry and those of other African roots. Many Black people of Caribbean origin in Canada reject
1232-537: A distinct dialect." Many Nova Scotians drank alcohol heavily and David George and David Edmonds kept alehouses in the 1790s. Settler women were independent and were employed as schoolteachers and in other roles. Some established schools and acted as schoolteachers. Extramarital affairs were also prominent in the community and some Settler men had mistresses and provided for their illegitimate children ; many times they left land and property for them in their wills. The majority of Nova Scotians were Methodist or members of
1386-464: A group of blacks working for a Pittsburgh hotel had armed themselves with handguns before heading for Canada saying they were "... determined to die rather be captured". The Toronto Colonist newspaper on 17 June 1852 noted that almost every ship or boat coming into Toronto harbour from the American side of Lake Ontario seemed to be carrying a run-away slave. One of the more active "conductors" on
1540-462: A minority of linguists argue that the vernacular shares so many characteristics with African creole languages spoken around the world that it could have originated as a creole or semi-creole language, distinct from the English language, before undergoing decreolization . African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) may be considered a dialect , ethnolect or sociolect . While it is clear that there
1694-553: A mixed union with a non-Black person. Black and non-Black couples represented 40.6% of pairings involving a Black person. Among native-born Black Canadians in couples, 63% of them were in a mixed union. About 17% of Black Canadians born in the Caribbean and in Bermuda were in a mixed relationship, compared to 13% of African-born Black Canadians. Furthermore, 30% of Black men in unions were in mixed unions, compared to 20% of Black women. There
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#17328441731371848-761: A result of usually working in the home rather than the fields or mines, enslaved Africans typically lived longer than Aboriginal enslaved people: an average 25.2 years instead of 17.7. As in France's colonies in the West Indies, slavery in New France was governed by the Code Noir ("Black Code") issued by King Louis XIV in 1685 which stated that only Catholics could own slaves; required that all slaves be converted to Roman Catholicism upon their purchase; recognized slave marriages as legal; and forbade masters from selling slave children under
2002-457: Is a strong historical relationship between AAVE and earlier Southern U.S. dialects , the origins of AAVE are still a matter of debate. The presiding theory among linguists is that AAVE has always been a dialect of English, meaning that it originated from earlier English dialects rather than from English-based creole languages that "decreolized" back into English. In the early 2000s, Shana Poplack provided corpus -based evidence (evidence from
2156-558: Is a uniquely wide-ranging intonation pattern or "melody", which characterizes even the most "neutral" or light African-American accent. A handful of multisyllabic words in AAVE differ from General American in their stress placement so that, for example, police , guitar , and Detroit are pronounced with initial stress instead of ultimate stress. The following are phonological differences in AAVE vowel and consonant sounds. Final consonant groups or clusters in AAVE have been examined as evidence of
2310-459: Is compared to 53.3%, 4.9%, and 34.6%, respectively, of Canadians as a whole. Among first-generation Black Canadian immigrants, 74.2% are Christian, 13.3% are Muslim, and 11.4% are irreligious. A small amount of Black Canadians (0.6%) also have some Indigenous heritage, due to historical intermarriage between Black and First Nations or Métis communities. Historically little known, this aspect of Black Canadian cultural history began to emerge in
2464-474: Is considered derogatory. Quebec film director Robert Morin faced controversy in 2002 when he chose the title Le Nèg' for a film about anti-Black racism, and in 2015 five placenames containing Nègre (as well as six that contained the English term nigger ) were changed after the Commission de toponymie du Québec ruled the terms no longer acceptable for use in geographic names. The Black presence in Canada
2618-431: Is intensifying with the grammatical features exemplified in these sentences: "He be the best" (intensified equative be ), "She be done had her baby" (resultative be done ), and "They come hollerin" (indignant come ). On the other hand, rural AAVE alone shows certain features too, such as: "I was a-huntin" ( a -prefixing); "It riz above us" (different irregular forms); and "I want for to eat it" ( for to complement). Using
2772-445: Is more common in speech than it is in writing. AAVE also has words that either are not part of most other American English dialects or have strikingly different meanings. For example, there are several words in AAVE referring to White people that are not part of mainstream American English; these include gray as an adjective for Whites (as in gray dude ), possibly from the color of Confederate uniforms; and paddy , an extension of
2926-589: Is no single generally-accepted name for Canadians of Black African descent. The term "African Canadian" is used by some Black Canadians who trace their heritage to enslaved peoples brought by British and French colonists to the North American mainland and to Black Loyalists . This group includes those who were promised freedom by the British during the American Revolutionary War ; thousands of Black Loyalists, including Thomas Peters , were resettled by
3080-719: Is now Sierra Leone , where they became the original settlers of Freetown . They, along with other groups of free transplanted people such as the Black Poor from England, became what is now the Sierra Leone Creole people , also known as the Krio . Although difficult to estimate due to the failure to differentiate enslaved African people and free Black populations, it is estimated that by 1784 there were around 40 enslaved Africans within Montreal, compared to around 304 enslaved Africans within
3234-542: Is often used by those of Caribbean ancestry, although the term is more of a cultural description than a racial one, and can equally be applied to groups of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds. More specific national terms such as Jamaican Canadian , Haitian Canadian , or Ghanaian Canadian are also used. No widely used alternative to "Black Canadian" is accepted by the Afro-Caribbean population, those of more recent African extraction, descendants of immigrants from
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#17328441731373388-601: Is rooted mostly in voluntary immigration. Despite the various dynamics that may complicate the personal and cultural interrelationships between descendants of the Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, descendants of former American slaves who viewed Canada as the promise of freedom at the end of the Underground Railroad, and more recent immigrants from the Caribbean or Africa, one common element that unites all of these groups
3542-402: Is socially limiting. Some of the harshest criticism of AAVE or its use has come from African Americans themselves. A conspicuous example was the " Pound Cake speech ", in which Bill Cosby criticized some African Americans for various social behaviors, including the way they talked. Educators traditionally have attempted to eliminate AAVE usage through the public education system, perceiving
3696-471: Is somewhat peculiar in many ways, anti-slavery is more popular there than in any city I know save Syracuse...I had good audiences in the towns of Vaughan, Markham, Pickering and in the village of Newmarket. Anti-slavery feeling is spreading and increasing in all these places. The public mind literally thirsts for the truth, and honest listeners and anxious inquirers will travel many miles, crowd our country chapels, and remain for hours eagerly and patiently seeking
3850-454: Is stressed and semantically distinct from the unstressed form: She BIN running ('She has been running for a long time') and She been running ('She has been running'). This aspect has been given several names, including perfect phase , remote past , and remote phase (this article uses the third). As shown above, been places action in the distant past. However, when been is used with stative verbs or gerund forms, been shows that
4004-474: Is that they are in Canada because they or their ancestors actively chose of their own free will to settle there. The first recorded Black person to have potentially entered Canadian waters was an unnamed Black man on board the Jonas , which was bound for Port-Royal (Acadia). He died of scurvy either at Port Royal, or along the journey, in 1606. The first recorded Black person to set foot on land now known as Canada
4158-503: Is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working - and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians . Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary and accent features, AAVE is employed by middle-class Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum. However, in formal speaking contexts, speakers tend to switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while retaining elements of
4312-474: Is the noun–noun combination. There is also the adjective–noun combination, which is the second most commonly occurring type of combination found in AAE slang. AAE also combines adjectives with other adjectives, less frequently, but more so than in standard American English. AAVE has also contributed slang expressions such as cool and hip . In many cases, the postulated etymologies are not recognized by linguists or
4466-497: Is unknown. Kitchen refers to the particularly curly or kinky hair at the nape of the neck, and siditty or seddity means "snobbish" or "bourgeois". AAVE has also contributed many words and phrases to other varieties of English, including chill out , main squeeze , soul , funky , and threads . African-American Vernacular English has influenced the development of other dialects of English. The AAVE accent, New York accent , and Spanish-language accents have together yielded
4620-496: Is used to emphasize the completed nature of the action. ^b I'ma , also commonly spelled Imma , is pronounced as / ˈ aɪ m ə / . Harvard professor Sunn m'Cheaux claims I'ma originated in the Gullah language (an English creole), which uses "a-" instead of "-ing" for this type of verb inflection. Other sources suggest it is a further shortening of I'm gonna . As phase auxiliary verbs, been and done must occur as
4774-652: The Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that black Americans were not and never could be U.S. citizens under any conditions, a ruling that appeared to suggest that laws prohibiting slavery in the northern states were unconstitutional. As a result of the Fugitive Slave Act and legal rulings to expand slavery in the United States, many free blacks living in the United States chose to seek sanctuary in Canada with one newspaper in 1850 mentioning that
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4928-603: The Elizabeth , a hired armed tender serving under the Royal Navy from 22 January 1808 to 27 April 1809, arrived from New York with 82 African Americans, the British did not permit them to land or settle in Freetown. These Novia Scotians, led by Daniel Coker , were offered land to settle in Sherbro by John Kizell , an African-born Nova Scotian Settler. Unhappy with terrible conditions of
5082-709: The Song of the Free had the lyrics: "I'm on my way to Canada, That cold and distant land, The dire effects of slavery, I can no longer stand, Farewell, old master, Don't come after me, I'm on my way to Canada, Where colored men are free!". In 1850, the United States Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act , which gave bounty hunters the right to recapture run-away slaves anywhere in the United States and ordered all federal, state and municipal law enforcement to co-operate with
5236-680: The 2016 census , the black population totalled 1,198,540, encompassing 3.5% of the country's population. The 10 largest sources of migration for Black Canadians are Jamaica (136,505), Haiti (110,920), Nigeria (109,240), Ethiopia (43,205), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (37,875), Cameroon (33,200), Somalia (32,285), Eritrea (31,500), Ghana (28,420), and the United States (27,055). 69.1% of Black Canadians are Christian , while 11.9% are Muslim and 18.2% are irreligious . This
5390-609: The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion ; a smaller minority were Baptist . One half to two thirds of the Nova Scotians were Methodist; the former Anglican settlers converted to Methodism and the Methodists incorporated Moses Wilkinson 's congregation, Boston King 's congregation, and Joseph Leonard 's Anglican congregation which was openly Methodist. Because of friction between the independent Nova Scotia settlers and British authorities, no further resettlement of Novia Scotians followed. When
5544-476: The French Army and Navy , though some were enslaved or indentured servants . About 1,000 enslaved people were brought to New France in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the time of the British conquest of New France in 1759–1760, about 3,604 enslaved people were in New France, of whom 1,132 were Black and the rest First Nations people. The majority of the slaves lived in Montreal, the largest city in New France and
5698-631: The New York accent , including its high THOUGHT vowel; meanwhile, conversely, Pittsburgh AAVE may merge this same vowel with the LOT vowel, matching the cot-caught merger of White Pittsburgh accents , though AAVE accents traditionally do not have the cot-caught merger. Memphis , Atlanta , and Research Triangle AAVE incorporates the DRESS vowel raising and FACE vowel lowering associated with White Southern accents . Memphis and St. Louis AAVE are developing, since
5852-482: The Oxford English Dictionary , such as to dig , jazz , tote , and bad-mouth , a calque from Mandinka . African American slang is formed by words and phrases that are regarded as informal. It involves combining, shifting, shortening, blending, borrowing, and creating new words. African American slang possess all of the same lexical qualities and linguistic mechanisms as any other language. AAVE slang
6006-476: The Province of Quebec . By 1799, vital records note 75 entries regarding Black Canadians, a number that doubled by 1809. On 26 June 1796, Jamaican Maroons , numbering 543 men, women and children, were deported on board the three ships Dover , Mary and Anne from Jamaica, after being defeated in an uprising against the British colonial government. Their initial destination was Lower Canada, but on 21 and 23 July,
6160-432: The Sierra Leone Creole people ) are related to both Black Nova Scotians and Black Americans. Black Canadians Black Canadians ( French : Canadiens Noirs ), also known as African Canadians (French: Canadiens Africains ) or Afro-Canadians (French: Afro-Canadiens ), are Canadians of full or partial sub-Saharan African descent. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean and African origin, though
6314-652: The Underground Railroad to flee from the United States, seeking refuge and freedom in Canada. From the late 1820s, through the time that the United Kingdom itself forbade slavery in 1833 , until the American Civil War began in 1861, the Underground Railroad brought tens of thousands of fugitive slaves to Canada. In 1819, Sir John Robinson , the Attorney-General of Upper Canada, ruled: "Since freedom of
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6468-577: The War of 1812 , primarily from the Chesapeake Bay and Georgia Sea Islands , fled the United States to settle in Hammonds Plains, Beechville, Lucasville , North Preston , East Preston , Africville and Elm Hill, New Brunswick . An April 1814 proclamation of Black freedom and settlement by British Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane led to an exodus of around 3,500 Black Americans by 1818. The settlement of
6622-595: The historical enslavement of African Americans primarily in that region. Mainstream linguists see only minor parallels between AAVE, West African languages , and English-based creole languages , instead most directly tracing back AAVE to diverse non-standard dialects of English as spoken by the English-speaking settlers in the Southern Colonies and later the Southern United States . However,
6776-524: The non-standard accent . AAVE is widespread throughout the United States, but is not the native dialect of all African Americans, nor are all of its speakers African American. As with most English varieties spoken by African Americans , African-American Vernacular English shares a large portion of its grammar and phonology with the regional dialects of the Southern United States , and especially older Southern American English , due to
6930-562: The "most sacred" of all rights, and that even if white men took away everything from the black farmers in Colchester county, that would still be a lesser crime compared with losing the "right of a British vote". In 1840, Wilson Ruffin Abbott became the first black elected to any office in what became Canada when he was elected to the city council in Toronto. Unlike in the United States, in Canada after
7084-869: The "slave pens" of New Orleans as extremely dehumanizing and stated he would rather die than return to living as a slave. Alexander described life in the "slave pens" as a regime of daily whippings, beatings and rapes designed to cow the slaves into a state of utter submission. The confrontation ended with Alexander being freed and the crowd marching Wells and James to the railroad station, warning them to never return to Chatham. The refugee slaves who settled in Canada did so primarily in South Western Ontario , with significant concentrations being found in Amherstburg, Colchester, Chatham, Windsor, and Sandwich. Run-away slaves tended to concentrate, partly to provide mutual support, partly because of prejudices, and partly out of
7238-873: The 1826 census, about half of the Nova Scotian males were skilled artisans and only three were listed as unskilled workers. Initially, the Nova Scotians were allowed to use the American currency, dollars and cents, by the Sierra Leone Company ; however, restrictions were later imposed when the company wanted reduced American economic influence. Trade was opened up with the United States in 1831 but grew only slowly, mainly through smuggling. The Settlers had dance nights called 'Koonking' or 'Koonken' or 'Konken,' where Settler maidens would sing songs they brought from Colonial America or songs originating in Sierra Leone satirizing Europeans. An analysis of extant letters written by
7392-538: The 1830s and 40s would be faced with the large-scale settlement of Africans freed from slave ships by the British Royal Navy 's anti-slave trade campaign. Some of the settlers bore children during their nine-year sojourn in Nova Scotia; these children were Black Nova Scotians but retained many cultural habits similar to Africans in North America and Britain. The descendants of the Nova Scotian settlers (who are
7546-409: The 1860s, a false story was spread in multiple newspapers across the United States and Canada about the suffering and death of Mary Mink, daughter of James Mink , a wealthy and well-respected African-Canadian business man in Toronto. The story, reproduced many times with slightly different details, claimed that James Mink offered a hefty sum for any white man who would marry his daughter, after which she
7700-731: The 1860s. Gibbs returned to the United States with his family in the late 1860s after slavery had been abolished following the war; he settled in Little Rock, Arkansas , the capital of the state. He became an attorney and was elected as the first black judge in the US. He became a wealthy businessman who was involved with the Republican Party; in 1897 he was appointed by the President of the US as consul to Madagascar. African-American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English ( AAVE )
7854-489: The 2010s, most notably through the musical and documentary film project The Afro-Métis Nation . At times, Black Canadians are claimed to have been significantly undercounted in census data. Writer George Elliott Clarke has cited a McGill University study which found that fully 43% of all Black Canadians were not counted as Black in the 1991 Canadian census, because they had identified on census forms as British, French, or other cultural identities, which were not included in
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#17328441731378008-541: The African American English (AAE) took place in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, to name a few. These studies concluded that the African American Language (AAL) was homogeneous, which means that AAE was spoken the same way everywhere around the country. Later, sociolinguists would realize that these cities lacked the influence of the rural south; the early studies had not considered
8162-616: The American Revolution, Britain outlawed the slave trade in the British Isles followed by the Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778. This decision, in turn, influenced the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1788, abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou published the first anti-slavery literature in Canada and began purchasing slaves' freedom and chastising his colleagues in
8316-660: The Black Canadian community is now named the African and Caribbean Council on HIV/AIDS in Ontario, the Toronto publication Pride bills itself as an "African-Canadian and Caribbean-Canadian news magazine", and G98.7 , a Black-oriented community radio station in Toronto, was initially branded as the Caribbean African Radio Network. In French , the terms Noirs canadiens or Afro-Canadiens are used. Nègre (" Negro ")
8470-423: The Black Canadian population also consists of African Americans in Canada and their descendants (including Black Nova Scotians ). Black Canadians have contributed to many areas of Canadian culture . Many of the first visible minorities to hold high public offices have been Black, including Michaëlle Jean , Donald Oliver , Stanley G. Grizzle , Rosemary Brown , and Lincoln Alexander . Black Canadians form
8624-585: The Black community there. Led by the Elgin Association and preacher William King, the settlement flourished as a model of a successful predominantly African settlement which held close to 200 families by 1859. Following the abolition of slavery in the British empire in 1834, any black man born a British subject or who became a British subject was allowed to vote and run for office, provided that they owned taxable property. The property requirement on voting in Canada
8778-614: The British during the American Revolutionary War , leaving rebel masters. They became known as the Black Loyalists . The Nova Scotian Settlers were jointly led by African American Thomas Peters , a former soldier, and English abolitionist John Clarkson . For most of the 19th century, the Settlers resided in Settler Town and remained a distinct ethnic group within the Freetown territory, tending to marry among themselves and with Europeans in
8932-518: The British wanted to encourage immigration, they included in law the right to free importation of "Negroes, household furniture, utensils of husbandary or clothing." Although enslaved African people were no longer legally allowed to be bought or sold in Canada, the practice remained legal, although it was increasingly unpopular and written against in local newspapers. By 1829, when the American Secretary of State requested Paul Vallard be extradited to
9086-505: The Caribbean. In 1792, approximately 1,192 Black Nova Scotian Settlers left Halifax, Nova Scotia and immigrated to Sierra Leone. The majority of free blacks did remain in Nova Scotia and made communities. Their descendants today comprise the Black Nova Scotians , one of the oldest communities of Black Canadians . The Nova Scotian Settlers to Sierra Leone tended to speak early forms of African-American Vernacular English ; some from
9240-482: The Crown in Canada after the war. In addition, an estimated 10,000-30,000 fugitive slaves reached freedom in Canada from the Southern United States during the years before the American Civil War , aided by people along the Underground Railroad . Starting in the 1970s, some persons with multi-generational Canadian ancestry began distinguishing themselves by identifying as Indigenous Black Canadians . Black Nova Scotians,
9394-539: The Halifax area, is the community with the highest percentage of Black people, with 69.4%; it was a settlement where the Crown provided land to Black Loyalists after the American Revolution. Brooks , a town in southeastern Alberta, is the census subdivision with the highest percentage of Black people, with 22.3%. The community there is mainly composed of East African immigrants. In the 2011 census , 945,665 Black Canadians were counted, making up 2.9% of Canada's population. In
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#17328441731379548-535: The Low Country of South Carolina spoke Gullah , a kind of creole more closely related to African languages. The Nova Scotians were the only mass group of former slaves to immigrate to Sierra Leone under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company . After its officials learned what democratic and 'American' ideals the Nova Scotians held and practised, the Company did not allow other former slaves to immigrate in large groups to
9702-442: The Nova Scotian Settlers were from Virginia . The second largest group of black settlers were from South Carolina , and a smaller number from Maryland , Georgia , and North Carolina . Thomas Jefferson referred to these people as "the fugitives from these States". The US appealed to have the slaves returned, but the British refused. As part of its compensation to Loyalists, the Crown also settled white Loyalists in Nova Scotia, and
9856-504: The Nova Scotians lived in Eastern Freetown and the Jamaican Maroons were situated in Western Freetown. The Maroons were still distinct but became a more solid group and adopted some Settler values and customs. The Maroons became a cohesive trading unit, they displaced the Nova Scotians as the main traders in Sierra Leone in the 1820s. Nova Scotian traders such as Cato Preston, Eli Ackim, William Easmon, and John Kizell were forced to give up their homes because of business ventures gone wrong. In
10010-612: The Presbyterian church who owned slaves. In 1790 John Burbidge , a member of Nova Scotia's House of Assembly , freed the African people he had enslaved, giving them two sets of clothes and arranging for their learning to read. Led by Richard John Uniacke , in 1787, 1789 and again on 11 January 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalize slavery. Two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) were instrumental in freeing enslaved Africans from their enslavers (owners) in Nova Scotia. These justices were held in high regard in
10164-468: The Prestons, the Snowballs, the Staffords, the Turners, the Willoughsby, the Williams, and the Goodings. Some descendants of James Wise and other settlers were able to keep their land in Settler Town. The Granville Town settlers were initially separate from the Nova Scotian community. After Methodist teaching to the Granville Town settlers, they were slowly incorporated into the society of the Nova Scotians. Nova Scotians like Boston King were schoolteachers to
10318-402: The Settlers has shown a majority of Settlers spoke a variant of English , typical of American English as spoken by people drawn from the lower classes, regardless of whether White or Black. James Walker noted that Settler pronunciation and grammar originated in the American South and was "perpetuated as the language of their preachers and teachers, and was regarded, in the nineteenth century, as
10472-507: The Sierra Leone Company in 1799 to send the Maroons to Sierra Leone . In 1796, the Jamaican government initially planned to send the Maroons to Sierra Leone but the Sierra Leone Company rejected the idea. The initial reaction in 1799 was the same, but the company was eventually persuaded to accept the Maroon settlers. On 6 August 1800, the Maroons departed Halifax, arriving on 1 October at Freetown, Sierra Leone. Upon their arrival in West Africa in 1800, they were used to quell an uprising among
10626-451: The Sierra Leone Company's managing an imperialistic colony. The Nova Scotians referred to themselves as the "Settlers" or "Nova Scotians" in Sierra Leone. Later scholars would describe them as "Afro-American", in reference to their ethnicity and particular historical origin in that culture of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1792, the Nova Scotians founded and established Free Town in Sierra Leone. They based its plan on what they were familiar with:
10780-457: The U.S. customs, which under the Fugitive Slave Act had to co-operate with the bounty hunters, the customs authorities on the Canadian side of the border were far more helpful and "looked the other way" when Tubman entered Canada with her "passengers". During the course of one week in June 1854, 23 run-away slaves evaded the U.S. border patrols to cross the Detroit river to freedom in Windsor while 43 free people also crossed over to Windsor out of
10934-403: The Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman , the "Black Moses" who made 11 trips to bring about 300 run-away slaves to Canada, most of whom settled in St. Catherines. Tubman guided her "passengers" on nocturnal journeys (travelling via day was too risky) through the forests and swamps, using as her compass the north-star and on cloudy nights seeing what side the moss was growing on trees, to find
11088-834: The United States for helping a slave to escape to Canada, the Executive Council of Lower Canada replied, "The state of slavery is not recognized by the Law of Canada. [...] Every Slave therefore who comes into the Province is immediately free whether he has been brought in by violence or has entered it of his own accord." The British formally outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. The descendants of Black slaves from New France and Lower Canada are white-passing French Canadians. Their family names are Carbonneau, Charest, Johnson, Lafleur, Lemire, Lepage, Marois, Paradis, etc. At
11242-431: The United States, and other Canadians of Black African descent as an umbrella term for the whole group. One increasingly common practice, seen in academic usage and in the names and mission statements of some Black Canadian cultural and social organizations, is to always make reference to both the African and Caribbean communities. For example, one key health organization dedicated to HIV/AIDS education and prevention in
11396-462: The abolition of slavery in 1834, black Canadians were never stripped of their right to vote and hold office. Though often ignored, from time to time, black Canadians did receive notice. In 1857, William Hall of Horton, Nova Scotia, serving as a sailor in the Royal Navy, became the first black man to win the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for valor in the British empire, for his actions at
11550-404: The action began in the distant past and that it is continuing now. Rickford (1999) suggests that a better translation when used with stative verbs is "for a long time". For instance, in response to "I like your new dress", one might hear Oh, I been had this dress , meaning that the speaker has had the dress for a long time and that it isn't new. To see the difference between the simple past and
11704-474: The age of 14. Black slaves could also serve as witnesses at religious ceremonies, file legal complaints against free persons and be tried by a jury. Marie-Joseph Angélique , a black enslaved African from the Madeira islands who arrived in New France in 1725, was accused of setting the fire that burned down most of Montreal on 10 April 1734, for which she was executed. Angélique confessed under torture to setting
11858-525: The authorities. In 1857, an attempt by two American bounty hunters, T.G. James and John Wells, to kidnap Joseph Alexander, a 20-year-old run-away slave from New Orleans living in Chatham, was foiled when a large crowd of black people surrounded the bounty hunters as they were leaving the Royal Exchange Hotel in Chatham with Alexander who had gone there to confront them. Found on one of the bounty hunters
12012-453: The best way to Canada. Such trips on the Underground Railroad involved much privation and suffering as Tubman and her "passengers" had to avoid both the bounty-hunters and law enforcement and could go for days without food as they travelled through the wilderness, always following the north-star. Tubman usually went to Rochester, New York, where Frederick Douglass would shelter the run-aways, and crossed over to Canada at Niagara Falls. Unlike
12166-659: The black settlers from Nova Scotia and London. After eight years, they were unhappy with their treatment by the Sierra Reynolds Company. The Canadian climate made it uneconomic to keep enslaved African people year-round, unlike the plantation agriculture practiced in the southern United States and Caribbean . Slavery within the colonial economy became increasingly rare. For example, the powerful Mohawk leader Joseph Brant purchased and enslaved an African American named Sophia Burthen Pooley, whom he kept for about 12 years before selling her for $ 100. In 1772, prior to
12320-432: The bounty hunters in seizing run-away slaves. Since the Fugitive Slave Act stripped accused fugitive slaves of any legal rights such as the right to testify in court that they were not run-away slaves, cases of freemen and freewomen being kidnapped off the streets to be sold into slavery became common. The U.S. justice system in the 1850s was hostile to black people, and little inclined to champion their rights. In 1857, in
12474-470: The census group of Black cultures. Although subsequent censuses have reported the population of Black Canadians to be much more consistent with the McGill study's revised 1991 estimate than with the official 1991 census data, no study has been conducted to determine whether some Black Canadians are still substantially missed by the self-identification method. In the 2006 census, 25.5% of Black Canadians were in
12628-509: The centre of the lucrative fur trade. The majority of the enslaved Africans in New France performed domestic work and were brought to New France to demonstrate the prestige of their wealthy owners, who viewed owning a "slave" as a way of showing off their status and wealth. The majority of the enslaved Africans brought to New France were female domestic servants, and were usually raped by their masters (enslavers), who tended to literally see their enslaved women and girls as their sex slaves. As
12782-700: The children of Granville Town settlers. However, up until 1800, the "Old Settlers" (as the Granville Towners were called) remained in their own town. During the War of the First Coalition (1792-1797) the French attacked and burned Freetown in September 1794. For over two weeks the settlement was subject to the depredations of the French Army over whom the French Commodore had little control. The Settlers offered
12936-573: The city. Funds had been provided by the Government of Jamaica to aid in the resettlement of the Maroons in Canada. Five thousand acres were purchased at Preston, Nova Scotia , at a cost of £3000. Small farm lots were provided to the Maroons and they attempted to farm the infertile land. Like the former tenants, they found the land at Preston to be unproductive; as a result they had little success. The Maroons also found farming in Nova Scotia difficult because
13090-516: The climate would not allow cultivation of familiar food crops, such as bananas , yams , pineapples , or cocoa . Small numbers of Maroons relocated from Preston to Boydville for better farming land. The British Lieutenant Governor Sir John Wentworth made an effort to change the Maroons' culture and beliefs by introducing them to Christianity . From the monies provided by the Jamaican Government, Wentworth procured an annual stipend of £240 for
13244-507: The colonies. They found the cold climate forbidding after living in more temperate areas. In the late eighteenth century, the black Nova Scotians were offered a choice to emigrate to a new colony being established by Great Britain in West Africa, intended for the resettlement of blacks from London (who were also mostly African Americans resettled after the Revolution), and some free blacks from
13398-531: The colony. The Settler descendants gradually developed as an ethnicity known as the Sierra Leone Creole people . Loan words in the Krio language and the "bod oses" of their modern-day descendants are some of their cultural imprints. Although the Jamaican Maroons and other transatlantic immigrants contributed toward the development of Freetown, the 1200 Nova Scotian Settlers were the single greatest Western black influence. The Nova Scotian Settlers have been
13552-471: The colony. In 1793, John Graves Simcoe , the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada , attempted to abolish slavery. That same year, the new Legislative Assembly became the first entity in the British Empire to restrict slavery, confirming existing ownership but allowing for anyone born to an enslaved woman or girl after that date to be freed at the age of 25. Slavery was all but abolished throughout
13706-468: The dialect as grammatically defective. In 1974, the teacher-led Conference on College Composition and Communication issued a position statement affirming students' rights to their own dialects and the validity of all dialects. Mainstream linguistics has long agreed with this view about dialects. In 1979, a judge ordered the Ann Arbor School District to find a way to identify AAVE speakers in
13860-551: The enslaved. Politically, the black Loyalist communities in both Nova Scotia and Upper Canada were characterized by what the historian James Walker called "a tradition of intense loyalty to Britain" for granting them freedom and Canadian Black people tended to be active in the militia, especially in Upper Canada during the War of 1812 as the possibility of an American victory would also mean the possibility of their re-enslavement. Militarily,
14014-460: The fear of American bounty hunters crossing the border. The run-away slaves usually arrived destitute and without any assets, had to work as labourers for others until they could save up enough money to buy their own farms. These settlements acted as centres of abolitionist thought, with Chatham being the location of abolitionist John Brown's constitutional convention which preceded the later raid on Harper's Ferry . The first newspaper published by
14168-633: The fear of the bounty hunters. The American-born Canadian sociologist Daniel G. Hill wrote this week in June 1854 appeared to be typical of the black exodus to Canada. Public opinion tended to be on the side of run-away slaves and against the slavers. On 26 February 1851, the Toronto chapter of the Anti-Slavery Society was founded with what was described by the Globe newspaper as "the largest and most enthusiastic meeting we have ever seen in Toronto" that issued
14322-398: The fire as a way of creating a diversion so she could escape as she did not wish to be separated from her lover, a white servant named Claude Thibault, as her master (enslaver) was going to sell her to the owner of a sugar plantation in the West Indies. Whether this confession was genuine or not continues to divide historians. Marie Marguerite Rose , a woman from what is now modern Guinea
14476-500: The first race riot in North America took place in Shelburne ; white veterans attacked African American settlers who were getting work that the former soldiers thought they should have. Due to the failure of the British government to support the settlement, the harsh weather, and discrimination on the part of white colonists, 1,192 Black Loyalist men, women and children left Nova Scotia for West Africa on 15 January 1792. They settled in what
14630-403: The first auxiliary; when they occur as the second, they carry additional aspects : The latter example shows one of the most distinctive features of AAVE: the use of be to indicate that performance of the verb is of a habitual nature. In most other American English dialects, this can only be expressed unambiguously by using adverbs such as usually . This aspect-marking form of been or BIN
14784-509: The gerund when used with been , consider the following expressions: Auxiliaries in African American Vernacular English are related in a typical pattern. They can be grouped into negative forms and affirmative forms for each of the words. For example, "had" is an affirmative form, while "hatn" is the corresponding negative form. These same auxiliaries can be used to mark sentences for the anterior aspect. As another example,
14938-514: The governor of the British colony of Vancouver Island , replied to an inquiry from a group of black people in San Francisco about the possibilities of settling in his jurisdiction. They were angered that the California legislature had passed discriminatory laws to restrict black people in the state, preventing them from owning property and requiring them to wear badges. Governor Douglas, whose mother
15092-914: The grid of a North American colonial town plan. When they learned the Sierra Leone Company had reserved the best waterfront land for its own use, tensions arose. Soon the British deported some Maroons from Jamaica and resettled them in this colony. They mixed with the Novia Scotians, and this Settler part of Freetown became known as Settler Town . The town was in close proximity to Cline Town (then Granville Town). Eighty percent of Nova Scotians lived on five streets: Rawdon, Wilberforce, Howe, East, and Charlotte street. Seventy percent of Maroons lived on five streets: Glouchester, George, Trelawney, Walpole, and Westmoreland street. The main Nova Scotian churches were in Settler Town; Rawdon Street Methodist Church
15246-421: The invading American army. Many of the refugees from America would later serve with distinction during the war in matters both strictly military, along with the use of freed African people in assisting in the further liberation of African Americans enslaved people. There is a sizeable community of Black Canadians in Nova Scotia and Southern Ontario who trace their ancestry to African-American slaves who used
15400-438: The language. For example, the word "tes" in AAVE originates from "test", with the final "t" of the "st" consonant cluster being deleted in word-final position. McWhorter discusses an accent continuum from "a 'deep' Black English through a 'light' Black English to standard English," saying the sounds on this continuum may vary from one African American speaker to the next or even in a single speaker from one situational context to
15554-555: The light". Ward himself had been forced to flee to Canada West in 1851 for his role in the Jerry Rescue , leading to his indictment for violating the Fugitive Slave Act. Despite the support to run-away slaves, blacks in Canada West, which become Ontario in 1867, were confined to segregated schools. American bounty-hunters who crossed into Canada to kidnap black people to sell into slavery were prosecuted for kidnapping if apprehended by
15708-462: The mid-twentieth century, an iconic merger of the vowels in SQUARE and NURSE , making there sound like thurr . Californian AAVE often lacks a cot-caught merger , especially before nasals. African-American Vernacular suffers from persistent stigma and negative social evaluation in American culture. By definition, as a vernacular dialect of English, AAVE has not received the social prestige of
15862-515: The most successful businesswomen on Île Royale, opening up a tavern that was famous for the quality of its food and brandy all over the island. When she died in 1757, her will and inventory of her possessions showed that she owned expensive clothing imported from France, and like many other women from 18th century west Africa had a fondness for brightly coloured dresses. When New France was ceded to England in 1763, French colonists were assured that they could retain their human property. In 1790, when
16016-517: The negro is as expert as the white man ". This article claimed to have received the story from papers in Toronto, but no mention of it can be found in any surviving Toronto papers of the time. The article was then used as inspiration for a section in Scottish poet William Edmondstoune Aytoun 's novel Norman Sinclair, which told the same story but made it about the mixed-race daughter of "a thriving horse-dealer, who had been located at Toronto some 30 years",
16170-440: The new colony. Fifteen ships, the first fleet to bring Free blacks to Africa, left Halifax Harbour on January 15, 1792, and arrived in Sierra Leone between February 28 and March 9, 1792. About 65 passengers died en route. One visitor to Sierra Leone distinguished the Settlers from other ethnic groups because of the "American tone" or accent, common to American slaves and perhaps lower-class American working-class people of
16324-412: The next. McWhorter regards the following as rarer features, characteristic only of a deep Black English but which speakers of light Black English may occasionally "dip into for humorous or emotive effect": Although AAVE does not necessarily have the simple past-tense marker of other English varieties (that is, the -ed of "work ed "), it does have an optional tense system with at least four aspects of
16478-404: The only resistance to the French during this time period. The Settlers assured the French that they were “Britons from North America” and were friends of the French. Despite showing they were Britons, the French still carried off two Nova Scotian boys as slaves. Zachary Macauley demanded all the supplies the Nova Scotians had managed to take from the French back. Many a Methodist preacher declared it
16632-704: The origins of AAVE "agree that the West African connection is quite minor." However, a creole theory, less accepted among linguists, posits that AAVE arose from one or more creole languages used by African captives of the Atlantic slave trade , due to the captives speaking many different native languages and therefore needing a new way to communicate among themselves and with their captors. According to this theory, these captives first developed what are called pidgins : simplified mixtures of languages. Since pidgins form from close contact between speakers of different languages,
16786-542: The other British North American colonies by 1800. The Slave Trade Act outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slave-holding altogether in the colonies (except for India). This made Canada an attractive destination for many African descendant refugees fleeing slavery in the United States, such as minister Boston King . The next major migration of Black people occurred between 1813 and 1815. Refugees from
16940-456: The past tense and two aspects of the future tense. The dialect uses several Tense-Aspect-Mood markers integrated into the predicate phrase, including gon or gonna (future tense), done (completive aspect), be (habitual aspect, state of being), and been (durative aspect). These can function separately or in conjunction. ^a Syntactically, I bought it is grammatical, but done (always unstressed, pronounced as / d ən / )
17094-484: The person is the most important civil right protected by the law of England...the negroes are entitled to personal freedom through residence in Upper Canada and any attempt to infringe their rights will be resisted in the courts". After Robinson's ruling in 1819, judges in Upper Canada refused American requests to extradite run-away slaves who reached Upper Canada under the grounds "every man is free who reaches British ground". One song popular with African Americans called
17248-459: The population movements during the Great Migration, resulting in a broadly South-to-North pattern, albeit with founder effects in cities that already had existing African American populations at the beginning of the Great Migration. There is no vowel for which the geographic variation in AAVE patterns with that of White American English. New York City AAVE incorporates some local features of
17402-485: The recordings of former slaves to demonstrate that negation was inherited from nonstandard colonial English. AAVE shares most of its lexicon with other varieties of English, particularly that of informal and Southern dialects; for example, the relatively recent use of y'all . As statistically shown by Algeo (1991: 3–14), the main sources for new words are combining, shifting, shortening, blending, borrowing, and creating. However, it has also been suggested that some of
17556-462: The refugees had been free black people prior to the war and fled with the other refugees to Nova Scotia, relying on British promises of equality. Under pressure of the new refugees, the city of Saint John amended its charter in 1785 specifically to exclude people of African descent from practicing a trade, selling goods, fishing in the harbour, or becoming freemen; these provisions stood until 1870, although by then they were largely ignored. In 1782,
17710-467: The refugees was initially seen as a means of creating prosperous agricultural communities; however, poor economic conditions following the war coupled with the granting of infertile farmland to refugees caused economic hardship. Social integration proved difficult in the early years, as the prevalence of enslaved Africans in the Maritimes caused the newly freed Black Canadians to be viewed on the same level of
17864-426: The representation of the south of America, which caused the AAE studies to change. To make those changes, the newer studies used the diversity of the country and took into consideration the rural south. African-American Vernacular English began as mostly rural and Southern, yet today is mostly urban and nationally widespread, and its more recent urban features are now even diffusing into rural areas. Urban AAVE alone
18018-565: The resolution: "slavery is an outrage on the laws of humanity and its continued practice demands the best exertions for its extinction". The same meeting committed its members to help the many "houseless and homeless victims of slavery flying to our soil". The Congregationalist minister, the Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward of New York, who had been born into slavery in Maryland, wrote about Canada West (modern Ontario) that: "Toronto
18172-619: The result of decreolization from a widespread American creole. Linguist John McWhorter maintains that the contribution of West African languages to AAVE is minimal. In an interview on National Public Radio 's Talk of the Nation , McWhorter characterized AAVE as a "hybrid of regional dialects of Great Britain that slaves in America were exposed to because they often worked alongside the indentured servants who spoke those dialects..." According to McWhorter, virtually all linguists who have carefully studied
18326-486: The schools and to "use that knowledge in teaching such students how to read standard English." In 1996, Oakland Unified School District made a controversial resolution for AAVE, which was later called "Ebonics". The Oakland School board approved that Ebonics be recognized as a language independent from English (though this particular view is not endorsed by linguists), that teachers would participate in recognizing this language, and that it would be used in theory to support
18480-576: The settlers at Sherbro, they moved to land in the Grain Coast ; the African Americans who moved thither in 1820 were the first settlers of what would become Liberia . In the War of 1812, the British considered Sierra Leone as a home for the Black Refugees , another group of Africans who escaped American slavery, but instead chose to settle them in Nova Scotia and the West Indies. The Nova Scotians in
18634-455: The ships arrived in Nova Scotia. At this time Halifax was undergoing a major construction boom initiated by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn 's efforts to modernize the city's defences. The many building projects had created a labour shortage. Edward was impressed by the Maroons and immediately put them to work at the Citadel in Halifax , Government House, and other defence works throughout
18788-535: The siege of Lucknow. Following the end of the American Civil War and subsequent emancipation of enslaved African Americans, a significant population remained, concentrated both within settlements established in the decades preceding the Civil War, and existing urban environments like Toronto. The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada estimated in its first report in 1852 that the "coloured population of Upper Canada"
18942-501: The slang use for "Irish". "Red bone" is another example of this, usually referring to light skinned African Americans. " Ofay ", which is pejorative , is another general term for a White person ; it might derive from the Ibibio word afia , which means "light-colored", from the Yoruba word ofe , spoken in hopes of disappearing from danger. However, most dictionaries simply say its etymology
19096-519: The slave trade would have been exactly such a situation. Creolist John Dillard quotes, for example, slave ship captain William Smith describing the sheer diversity of mutually unintelligible languages just in The Gambia . By 1715, an African pidgin was reproduced in novels by Daniel Defoe , in particular, The Life of Colonel Jacque . In 1721, Cotton Mather conducted the first attempt at recording
19250-658: The sound of New York Latino English , some of whose speakers use an accent indistinguishable from an AAVE one. AAVE has also influenced certain Chicano accents and Liberian Settler English , directly derived from the AAVE of the original 16,000 African Americans who migrated to Liberia in the 1800s. In the United States, urban youth participating in hip-hop culture or marginalized as ethnic minorities are also well-studied in adopting African-American Vernacular English, or prominent elements of it: for example, Southeast-Asian Americans embracing hip-hop identities. The first studies on
19404-562: The speech of slaves in his interviews regarding the practice of smallpox inoculation. By the time of the American Revolution, varieties among slave creoles were not quite mutually intelligible . Dillard quotes a recollection of "slave language" toward the latter part of the 18th century: "Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe; but me fall asleep, massa, and no wake 'til you come...." Not until
19558-407: The story of a black man who sold his black wife into slavery. The purpose of the article was to justify the actions of a prominent white Canadian, Harvey Smith, who was accused of selling two black Canadian youths into slavery. The Spectator article read, " when such acts are perpetrated by colored people themselves, we cease to wonder at Mr Harvey Smith attempting to make money by an operation in which
19712-432: The subject of many social science books, which have examined how they brought "America" to Africa, because they naturally carried their culture with them. They founded the first permanent ex-slave colony in West Africa, and it was influential throughout the region. During the American Revolutionary War , the British offered freedom to slaves who left rebel masters and joined their forces. Thousands of slaves escaped during
19866-410: The support of a school and religious education. After suffering through the harsh winter of 1796–1797, Wentworth reported the Maroons expressed a desire that "they wish to be sent to India or somewhere in the east, to be landed with arms in some country with a climate like that they left, where they may take possession with a strong hand". The British Government and Wentworth opened discussions with
20020-491: The systematic nature of this language variety, governed by specific rules. Additionally, such analyses have been utilized to bolster arguments concerning the historical origins of AAVE. Consonant cluster reduction is a phonological process where a final consonant group or cluster, consisting of two consonant sounds, is simplified or reduced to a single consonant sound. The analysis of consonant cluster reduction in AAVE assumes that, initially, final clusters are present and intact in
20174-451: The term "African Canadian" as an elision of the uniquely Caribbean aspects of their heritage, instead identifying as "Caribbean Canadian". However, this usage can be problematic because the Caribbean is not populated only by people of African origin, but also by large groups of Indo-Caribbean people , Chinese Caribbean people , European Caribbean people, Syrian or Lebanese Caribbean people, Latinos, and Amerindians . The term West Indian
20328-656: The third-largest visible minority group in Canada, after South Asian and Chinese Canadians . According to the 2021 census by Statistics Canada , 1,547,870 Canadians identified as Black, constituting 4.3% of the entire Canadian population. Of the black population, 10 per cent identified as mixed-race of "white and black". The five most black-populated provinces in 2021 were Ontario , Quebec , Alberta , British Columbia , and Manitoba . The 10 most black-populated census metropolitan areas were Toronto , Montreal , Ottawa , Edmonton , Calgary , Winnipeg , Vancouver , Hamilton , Oshawa , and Québec City . Preston , in
20482-673: The time of the American Civil War did the language of the slaves become familiar to a large number of educated Whites. The abolitionist papers before the war form a rich corpus of examples of plantation creole. In Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870), Thomas Wentworth Higginson detailed many features of his Black soldiers' language. Opponents of the creole theory suggest that such pidgins or creoles existed but simply died out without directly contributing to modern AAVE. Many pronunciation features distinctly set AAVE apart from other forms of American English (particularly, General American ). McWhorter argues that what truly unites all AAVE accents
20636-685: The time of the American Revolution , inhabitants of the British colonies in North America had to decide where their future lay. Those from the Thirteen Colonies loyal to the British Crown were called United Empire Loyalists and came north. Many White American Loyalists brought their enslaved African people with them, numbering between 1,500 and 2,500 individuals. During the war, the British had promised freedom and land to enslaved African people who left rebel masters and worked for them; this
20790-457: The time. As was common for North Americans of African descent, many had some Native American or European ancestry . Only fifty of the group had been born in Africa and more recently enslaved. After settling in Sierra Leone, many Nova Scotian blacks intermarried with Europeans as the colony developed. The Nova Scotians' political ideology of a democratic, representative government was at odds with
20944-439: The transition from Ebonics to Standard American English in schools. This program lasted three years and then died off. Although the distinction between AAVE and General American dialects is clear to most English speakers, some characteristics, notably double negatives and the omission of certain auxiliaries (see below) such as the has in has been are also characteristic of many colloquial dialects of American English. There
21098-534: The vocabulary unique to AAVE has its origin in West African languages, but etymology is often difficult to trace, and without a trail of recorded usage, the suggestions below cannot be considered proven. Early AAVE and Gullah contributed a number of words of African origin to the American English mainstream, including gumbo , goober , yam , and banjo . Compounding in AAVE is a very common method in creating new vocabulary. The most common type of compounding
21252-618: The war, disrupting some of the slave societies in the South, and many joined the British lines. After the British lost the American War of Independence , it kept its promise to the former slaves. Some freedmen were evacuated to the Caribbean or London. But its forces also evacuated 3,000 former slaves to Nova Scotia for resettlement, and their names were recorded in the Book of Negroes . Nearly two-thirds of
21406-499: The western frontier of Upper Canada (Ontario). It made land grants to households and offered supplies to help them get settled. Upon arrival in Nova Scotia, the Black Loyalist settlers faced many difficulties because of discrimination. They received less land, fewer provisions, and were paid lower wages than White Loyalists. Some fell into debt and had to sign terms of indentured servitude , which resembled their former enslavement in
21560-597: The whole thing ("Don't try to act as if you don't know what happened, because you started the whole thing"). The irrealis mood marker be , having no intrinsic tense refers to a current or future event that may be less than real. Modals The dialect uses double modals, such as might could , which can function in various ways, including as adverbs. Negatives are formed differently from most other varieties of English: While AAVE shares these with Creole languages, Howe & Walker (2000) use data from early recordings of African Nova Scotian English, Samaná English, and
21714-714: The word bees even in place of be to mean is or are in standard English, as in the sentence "That's the way it bees" is also one of the rarest of all deep AAVE features today, and most middle-class AAVE speakers would recognize the verb bees as part of only a deep "Southern" or "country" speaker's vocabulary. There are at least 10 distinct regional accents in AAVE, and regional patterns of pronunciation and word choice appear on social media. Regional variation in AAVE does not pattern with other regional variation in North American English, which broadly follows East-to-West migration patterns, but instead patterns with
21868-666: Was marks type 1 sentences, which by default are present tense, and transforms them to a time before the present. Take, for instance, "She at home": the word was can be inserted to mark this sentence, making the marked equivalent "She was at home". Auxiliaries such as these also have opposing negative and affirmative forms. In its negative form the auxiliary verb "wadn" is used to convey the opposing affirmative form. In addition to these, come (which may or may not be an auxiliary ) may be used to indicate speaker indignation, such as in Don't come acting like you don't know what happened and you started
22022-472: Was a " free coloured " person of mixed black and white ancestry from the Caribbean, replied favourably. Later that year, an estimated 600 to 800 black Americans migrated to Victoria , settling on Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island. At least two became successful merchants there: Peter Lester and Mifflin Wistar Gibbs . The latter also entered politics, being elected to the newly established City Council in
22176-461: Was a free man named Mathieu da Costa . Travelling with navigator Samuel de Champlain , da Costa arrived in Nova Scotia some time between 1603 and 1608 as a translator for the French explorer Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts . The first known Black person to live in what would become Canada was an enslaved man from Madagascar named Olivier Le Jeune , who may have been of partial Malay ancestry. He
22330-419: Was a letter from Alexander's former master describing him as a slave of "saucy" disposition who had smashed the master's carriage and freed a span of his horses before running away, adding that he was keen to get Alexander back so he could castrate him. Castration was the normal punishment for a male run-away slave. Alexander gave a speech to the assembled by-standers watching the confrontation denouncing life in
22484-424: Was about 30,000, of whom almost all adults were "fugitive slaves" from the United States. St. Catharines , Ontario had a population of 6,000 at that time; 800 of its residents were "of African descent". Many slaves sought refuge in Toronto which was known as a tolerant city. Black Canadians integrated in many areas of society, but the influence of slavery in the south still impacted these citizens. For example, in
22638-751: Was announced in Virginia through Lord Dunmore's Proclamation . Enslaved African people also escaped to British lines in New pork City and Charleston, and their forces evacuated thousands after the war. They transported 3,000 people to Nova Scotia. This latter group was largely made up of merchants and labourers, and many set up home in Birchtown near Shelburne . Some settled in New Brunswick . Both groups suffered from discriminatory treatment by white settlers and prominent landowners who still held enslaved African people. Some of
22792-492: Was first given to one of the Kirke brothers, likely David Kirke , before being sold as a young child to a French clerk and then later given to Guillaume Couillard, a friend of Champlain's. Le Jeune apparently was set free before his death in 1654, because his death certificate lists him as a domestique rather than a slave. As a group, Black people arrived in Canada in several waves. The first of these came as free persons serving in
22946-413: Was not ended until 1920. Black Canadian women like all other Canadian women were not granted the right to vote until partially in 1917 ( when wives, daughters, sisters and mothers of servicemen were granted the right to vote) and fully in 1918 (when all women were granted the right to vote). In 1850, Canadian black women together with all other women were granted the right to vote for school trustees, which
23100-878: Was one of the main churches. The modern day Ebenezer Methodist Church is an offshoot of Rawdon Methodist; it was founded by wealthy Nova Scotians. Many Settler families were forced to sell their land because of debt; families such as the Balls, the Burdens, the Chambers, the Dixons, the Georges (descendants of David George ), the Keelings, the Leighs, the Moores, the Peters (descendants of Thomas Peters or Stephen Peters),
23254-491: Was sold into slavery in 1736 when she was about 19 and arrived in Louisbourg on Île Royale (modern Cape Breton Island ) the same year as the property of Jean Chrysostome Loppinot, a French naval officer stationed at Louisbourg, who fathered a son by her in 1738. In 1755, she was freed and married a Miꞌkmaq Indian who upon his conversion to Roman Catholicism had taken the name Jean-Baptist Laurent. Rose, an excellent cook, became
23408-485: Was the judgment of God against their evil Caucasian oppressors. The aftermath of this was that Nathaniel Snowball and Luke Jordan established their own colony on Pirate's Bay to live as free men just as the Ezerlites. The Nova Scotians were exceptional traders and some of the houses they built in Settler Town, which were initially built of wood with stone foundations, were renovated or upgraded into stone houses. At this time,
23562-550: Was the limit of female voting rights in Canada West. In 1848, in Colchester county in Canada West, white men prevented black men from voting in the municipal elections, but following complaints in the courts, a judge ruled that black voters could not be prevented from voting. Ward, writing about the Colchester case in the Voice of the Fugitive newspaper, declared that the right to vote was
23716-554: Was wed to a white man named James Andrews, who sold her into slavery under the pre tense of a honeymoon in the Southern States. In reality, all records show that Mary Mink married a black man named William Johnson, had two children with him, and died peacefully in her home 25 years later, surrounded by friends and family. The origin of this myth was likely an 1853 article in the Hamilton Spectator, which conveyed (without names)
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