Labour, Enslavement, and Indigenous Space: Liverpool, Nova Scotia in the Atlantic World, 1759-1812

Abstract

This thesis reconceptualizes the Planter and Loyalist periods around Liverpool, Nova Scotia, from 1759 to 1812. Rather than privileging the American Revolutionary War, it emphasises Indigenous space and Black people to study this shared place. Drawing on the diaries of Simeon Perkins and Mi’kmaw concepts, Msit No’kmaq and Siawa’sik, it explores how the space was re-formed with the arrival of the Planters. It also examines the development of enslavement and abolition in Liverpool through biographies to show how power imbalances informed lived experiences. This thesis argues that by de-emphasising the American Revolutionary War and loyalism narratives in the Northeast, it reveals the region was marked by power imbalances and labour relations continually being formed and re-formed. It suggests that the American Revolutionary War was not the defining moment of slaveholding in Nova Scotia, but part of a multi-phased process that grew incrementally and was sustained by settlers throughout this period.