Simon Baxter was the first, if not one of the first, Loyalists to arrive in what is now New Brunswick. His memorial to the Nova Scotia governor resulted in thousands of acres in land grants due to military service in both the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution. Baxter’s wealth was sufficient enough for him to fund the construction of Christ Church, but beneath this act of altruism is a dark truth.
According to the petition of William Sprague and others, Baxter was tasked with petitioning on their behalf as well, but Baxter did not do so, he claimed the improvements made by the Black Loyalist settlers as his own and left them with a brutal decision: abandon their land, or become tenant farmers.
Other than this petition, Sprague and others are lost to history. While Baxtor’s reputation has been sanitized by history.
Eighteenth-century relationships were fungible (exploited for capital gain) at the best of times, and often, powerful people have complex legacies. Baxtor is one of those people.
Question: What would New Brunswick look like today if land had been awarded in an unbiased way? What would a Black land-owning class look like?
Images:
Petition on behalf of William Sprague, 9th July 1785, [n.p.], “Black Loyalists in New Brunswick, 1783-1854,” Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives, digital image, document no. Sprague_William_1785_01, pp. 1, 4. RS 108: Index to Land Petitions: Original Series, 1783-1918, , is available at Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick.
