Uncovering Nova Scotia’s Hidden History

Katie Cottreau-Robins wonders what it must have been like when their eyes met — when the newly freed black Loyalists and the black slaves of white Loyalists encountered each other on the same ship bound for Nova Scotia.

“There must have been an interaction between the freed and the enslaved — what would they have said to each other?” she asks. “Gosh, it must have been tough.”

There’s a lot to learn about slavery in post-revolutionary Nova Scotia. Ms. Cottreau-Robins, who has a Master of Environmental Design Studies from Dalhousie, is delving into the subject for her PhD, an interdisciplinary degree that combines social history, landscape studies, and archaeology. She’s got a team of advisers to help her: history professor Jerry Bannister, architecture profs Christine Macy and Sarah Bonnemaison and the chair of Anthropology Department at Saint Mary’s University, Steve Davis.