Seaview Park (Africville)

Seaview Park is located at the very northern edge of the Halifax peninsula along the shores of Bedford Basin.  The Park offers a great vista of the Basin and its surrounding shores; one can view the Basin’s western shore where Duc D’Anville arrived with the remnants of his French invasion fleet and spent his last miserable days in the years just prior to Halifax’s founding.  A school bearing his name sits in the neighbourhood high on the hilltop overlooking Duc D’Anville’s ill-fated landing.

By the mid-1960s, about 370 Black Haligonians resided at this location, in a neighbourhood called Africville.  They were descendants of Blacks who were either Empire Loyalists, escaped American slaves, Maroons from Jamaica, or refugees from the United States following the War of 1812.  The families lived in this small, isolated community, at the centre of which was their Baptist Church.  While they didn't have much in the way of 'infrastructure', they cherished their own sense of community along these beautiful shores.  However, it was not to last.

The Stephenson Report, studying the economic base of the city, stated: "Despite the wishes of many of the residents, it would seem desirable on social grounds to offer alternative housing in other locations within the city."  Family by family accepted offers from the city to move to alternate housing elsewhere, particularly in the north end, and the houses of Africville disappeared by the end of 1967.  A sun dial styled monument stands in the centre of the Park to commemorate the names of the original Black families of Africville, family names which live on in Halifax today.

From the CBC Archives:  Africville - Expropriating Nova Scotia's Blacks

CBC New Backgrounder:  Africville - The Lost Town by Linda Ward

Africville - Urban Removal in Canada by Pamela Brown

Thanks to Lateef for the links.

Seaview Park	Monument to the original Black families of Africville