Discussion Questions
- What, according to Cahill, is a historical “myth”?
- According to Cahill, how has historical work about “loyalists” and “Black loyalists” cultivated these myths?
- Walker disagrees with Cahill, upon what evidence is his argument based?
- Where do you fall in this debate, should we consider the people who came to Nova Scotia in the mid-1780s as freed slaves, refugees or loyalists? What are the historiographical implications of each choice?
- In what ways might the central point of debate – the identity of the “Black Loyalists” – be mirrored in our thinking about other peoples’ experiences of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century (i.e. the Acadians, Haudenosaunee, or immigration).
