This web site tells the story of "how Canada became the home of the first settlements of free blacks outside Africa. As Revolution began in the thirteen American colonies in the late 1770s, the British were badly outnumbered. When in desperation they promised freedom to any slave of a rebel who fought the Americans on their behalf, the response was greater than they could have imagined; as many as 30000 slaves escaped to British lines. Working as soldiers, labourers, pilots, cooks, and musicians,they were a major part of the unsucessful British war effort. As defeat became inevitable, these free blacks were evacuated to Nova Scotia with the other Loyalists. But their hoped-for promised land never arrived. Their land was never granted, and most were reduced to a position not so different from slavery, where they were dependent on the meagre wages they could earn from manual labour. In the end most chose to seek a new life in Sierra Leone, away from the cold lands where they had experienced so much prejudice. This is the story of those Black Loyalists." Apart from the story section the site offers a timeline, short biographies, descriptions and maps of Black Loyalist communities, and a number of transcribed historical documents, such as letters, memoirs, journals, and official documents.