Activity & Information

Notable dates in Black History

1600 –1749

1603– Samuel de Champlain exploration and founding of New France

1608– Pierre du Gua de Monts exploration of Nova Scotia

1749– Governor Edward Cornwallis founded the City of Halifax

1749– British military diary explains fusion of shinny and Mi’kmaq hockey

1750–1784

November 7, 1775: John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, British Governor of Virginia, issues a proclamation of freedom for Loyalist slaves

December 9, 1775 – Ethiopian Regiment & the Battle of Great Bridge, Virginia

September 1776: the British capture New York City

1783: the end of the American Revolution & the first large influx of free Blacks to Canada. Colonel Stephen Blucke, Est. Birchtown

1785–1799

1791 – establishment of Upper and Lower Canada as provinces of the British Crown

1791 – British Government offers free passage to Blacks willing to relocate to the British colony of Sierra Leone

1793 – John Graves Simcoe lobbies to have a law passed forbidding the import of slaves into Upper Canada

1796 – second influx of Blacks, with the arrival of the Maroons from Jamaica, in Halifax; Africville established

1800–1824

War of 1812 & mass exodus of runaway Blacks from America into the Canadian borderlands

1815 – The Year-of-the-Mice First accounts of hockey on the Northwest Arm

1816 – The Year-of-No-Summer. Halifax Green Market Riots

By 1820 – the Underground Railroad, a secret network of anti-slavery, comes into existence

1825–1849

1820’s-1840’s – first black Canadians begin playing early form of ice hockey in Nova Scotia

June 9, 1844 – founding of the African Baptist Church in Dartmouth, N.S.

1848 – land records show the first property to be purchased in Africville by William Brown Sr.

The Campbell Road Church (Africville Baptist Church) established

18505–1899

July 29, 1870 – Boxer George “Little Chocolate” Dixon born in Africville

1892 – Lord Stanley purchases trophy as annual challenge to Canadian Amateur Champions

1893 – Henry Sylvester Williams enrolls at Dalhousie University in Halifax

1895 – Acadian Recorder Newspaper reports on the first official Black hockey league

1900–1910

1900 – West End Rangers of Charlottetown, played their first official game on New Year’s Day

1900 – Pan-African Conference held in London, England

1904 – last year the Colored Hockey League as a major entity

From 1901 to 1905 Mackenzie, Mann & Company worked to buy up all the independent railroads across Nova Scotia

1911–1920

March 25, 1911 – Henry Sylvester Williams dies at age 42

1915 – James Robinson Johnston murdered by his brother-in-law

December 6, 1917 – at 8:45 am, the Imo collides with the French munitions ship, Mont Blanc, in Halifax Harbour creating the largest man-made explosion prior to Hiroshima

January 12, 1912 – the Herald Newspaper Building, the Cragg Building & the Barnstead and the Sutherland Buildings go up in flames

1921–1925

1916 – WWI Black Battalion

1921 – Orphanage for Colored Children opened by James Kinney

1921 – sparse coverage of the colored teams would once again appear in the local newspapers

1922 – last recorded game of the Africville Sea-Sides (v. Halifax All-Stars)

1926–1940

1929 – Stock Market Crash signaling the Great Depression

1933 – Gordon T.C. Jemmott, former star and coach of the Africville Brown Bombers, became the new headmaster at the Africville School

1939 – Outbreak of World War II; Canada declares War on Germany

October 1940 – Kinney dies at age 61

1941–1958

1947 – former West End Rangers star Jack Mills dies

1953 – Africville School closes

1956 – report recommending the annex of Africville land by City of Halifax

1958 – Willie O’Ree becomes first Black hockey player in the National Hockey League

1959–1970

1962 – Jamaica given its independence

1968 – Portia White dies at the age of 57

1969 – City of Halifax begins to bulldoze Africville

January 2, 1970 – aron “Pa” Carvery last man standing at Africville