This year’s African Heritage Month provincial theme, Seas of struggle – African Peoples from Shore to Shore, outlines the struggles of people of African Descent faced from the shores of Africa to the shores of Nova Scotia. Recognizing that the one thing that has remained constant in our history is the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing history of people of African Descent in the development of Canada, the sea has played a vital role.
As a shipping hub in the early 1800s, the majority of Nova Scotia’s revenue came from taxes on trade goods. At this time, salt fish, beef, pork, timber and flour, were traded to West Indian slave plantations in exchange for slave-made rum, sugar, molasses, cocoa, coffee, etc. Not only would these traded goods be used by canal workers, when sold within the colony, the taxes the province collected from these imports were instrumental in funding the many industries in Dartmouth, including the canal .
Source: Report of Lord Dalhousie’s History on Slavery and Race.
