Scholars of the needle: Halifax's African School, needlework and the recouping of identity

Abstract

This thesis examines the history of African Nova Scotian school children by investigating the instruction they received at segregated schools established by the British religious society The Associates of the Late Reverend Doctor Bray. Needlework, specifically sampler making, was commonly included as part of the curriculum for white settler girls in Nova Scotia, but the discovery of a remarkable sampler made in 1845, by Rachel Barrett, a student at Halifax’s African School, is material evidence this practice was also a part of the Black schoolgirl experience in Nova Scotia. As part of a colonial education system of racialized education, needlework instruction and sampler making were paradoxical activities that represented oppression or empowerment. A visual and material analysis of Barrett’s work, Nova Scotia samplers and those made elsewhere, in conjunction with archival research in local and British archives, recoups insights about the identities and experiences of Black schoolgirls in Nova Scotia.