Nova Scotian Settlers (Sierra Leone)

Nova Scotian Settlers (Sierra Leone)

The Nova Scotian Settlers or Sierra Leone Settlers, (also known as the Nova Scotians or more commonly as The 'Settlers) were African Americans who migrated from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone and founded the settlement of Freetown and the second colony of Sierra Leone on March,11, 1792. The majority of these black immigrants were among 3000 former slaves and free blacks known as Black Loyalists who sought refuge with the British during the American Revolutionary War. The Nova Scotian settlers were jointly led by former soldier Thomas Peters and John Clarkson, an English abolitionist and first governor of Freetown, who became a respected friend and patron of the Nova Scotian settlers.

Although the Maroons and other transatlantic immigrants contributed toward the development of Freetown, the Nova Scotian Settlers were the single greatest Western black influence on the making of Freetown, Sierra Leone and their legacy remains there till this day. For most of the 19th century the Settlers resided in Settler Town; today their descendants are found among the Sierra Leone Creole people. The Nova Scotian settlers have been the subject of many social science books which have examined how the Nova Scotians brought 'America' to Africa as the founders of the first permanent ex-slave colony in West Africa which proved quite influential throughout the region.

From 1792 to the late 19th century the Settlers remained a distinct ethnic group within Sierra Leone. Some loan words in the Krio language and the "bod oses" of their modern day descendants, the Creoles, are considered to be one of the cultural imprints still present in Creole culture that the Settlers brought from America.