THE TRANSITION

From Birchtown to Birchtown

    In the years that followed, small Black communities began to evolve in places like Digby, Guysborough, North Preston and Annapolis.  As a result of the tension and impatience that was growing among both Blacks and whites in Shelburne and Birchtown, Lieutenant Governor Parr engaged Thomas Brownspriggs, an educated Black Loyalist (known as Chief of the Blacks), to establish a settlement for his people in Guysborough County.  Under his direction, a settlement was founded at Tracadie and was called Birchtown.  Each family eventually received 40 acres of their own land.  Because of its location in the northeastern part of the province, the Tracadie settlement was virtually untouched by the exodus of Blacks to Sierra Leone.  Slowly the settlers established small farms or became fishermen and the community survived.