1782-85 - About 3,500 Blacks fled to what is now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at the close of the American Revolution. They had fought for Britain in return for freedom. Once in the Maritimes, they were cheated of land, forced to work on public projects such as road building and denied equal status.

1792 - Exodus to Africa: 1,190 men, women and children left Halifax on 15 ships for the long voyage to Sierra Leone. Sixty-five died en route.

1796 - Nearly 600 Trelawney Maroons exiled from Jamaica arrived in the Maritimes. They faced miserable conditions and opted for Sierra Leone. They left Halifax in 1800.

1813-15 - Roughly 2,000 U.S. Blacks, refugees from the War of 1812, settled in the Maritimes.

1833 - Slavery officially abolished in the British Empire.

1920s - Hundreds of Caribbean immigrants, called the "later arrivals," flocked to Cape Breton to work in coal mines and the steel factory.