📅 NS History — May 26 Before Harlem, before Liberia, before Freetown — Birchtown, Nova Scotia was the largest free Black settlement in the world outside of Africa. In 1784, over 1,500 Black Loyalists who had earned their freedom fighting for the British during the American Revolution arrived in NS and founded Birchtown (near Shelburne). They had been promised land and a new life. What they got: a community built entirely by their own hands in the wilderness. Schools. A church. A thriving society — on some of the hardest ground on Earth. Despite brutal conditions — and the Shelburne riots of July 1784, one of North America's first recorded race riots — they persevered. When many later chose to re-migrate and found Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1792, they didn't leave quietly. They left as architects of civilisation. Birchtown still stands today. And it remains one of the most remarkable chapters in Canadian history that most people have never heard. 📍 Birchtown, Shelburne County, NS #NSHistory #BlackLoyalist #NovaScotia #CanadianHistory #Birchtown