page_title: History of Nova Scotia
section_title: Decline of slavery, 1787–1812
hierarchical_section_title: History of Nova Scotia / Eighteenth century / Loyalists / Decline of slavery, 1787–1812
caption_attribution_description: English: Sampson Salter Blowers, Chief Justice of Nova Scotia
context_page_description: Nova Scotia is a Canadian province located in Canada's Maritimes. In known history, the oldest known residents of the province are the Mi'kmaq people. During the first 150 years of European settlement, the region was claimed by France and a colony formed, primarily made up of Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq. This time period involved six wars in which the Mi'kmaq along with the French and some Acadians resisted the British invasion of the region. During Father Le Loutre's War, the capital was moved from Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, to the newly established Halifax, Nova Scotia. The warfare ended with the Burying the Hatchet ceremony. After the colonial wars, New England Planters and Foreign Protestants immigrated to Nova Scotia. After the American Revolution, Loyalists immigrated to the colony. During the nineteenth century, Nova Scotia became self-governing in 1848 and joined the Canadian Confederation in 1867.
  The colonial history of Nova Scotia includes the present-day Canadian Maritime provinces and northern Maine, all of which were at one time part of Nova Scotia. In 1763 Cape Breton Island and St. John's Island became part of Nova Scotia. In 1769, St.
context_section_description: While many blacks who arrived in Nova Scotia during the American Revolution were free, others were not. Black slaves also arrived in Nova Scotia as the property of White American Loyalists. In 1772, prior to 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 the Presbyterian church who owned slaves.  In 1790 John Burbidge freed his slaves.  Led by Richard John Uniacke, in 1787, 1789 and again on January 11, 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalise slavery. Two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) waged "judicial war" in their efforts to free slaves from their owners in Nova Scotia. They were held in high regard in the colony. By the end of the War of 1812 and the arrival of the Black Refugees, there were few slaves left in Nova Scotia. (The Slave Trade Act outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery altogether.)
caption: Chief Justice Sampson Salter Blowers – freed Black Nova Scotian slaves
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