In the mid-1840s, the docks of Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia could be a rough place.
With so much traffic coming and going from the harbour, there were a plethora of ne’er-do-wells passing through.
Like a gang of droogs from A Clockwork Orange, they looked for trouble once they left the confines of their ships.
But woe to the misfit who caused a ruckus there.
If you broke the law, be ready to pay the price…
From the ocean fog, a 19th century Batman would emerge.
This angel of the night wasn’t a shredded Christian Bale type, ready to drop in from the shadows.
No…this superhero was a short Black woman in her 60s wearing a man’s coat and felt hat and holding a walking stick to take on any rabble rousers.
Although in that outfit, perhaps it is apt to say she was more Darkwing Duck than Dark Knight.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx, and today we are shining a light on a champion who owned the night.
This is the story of…Rose Fortune!
February is Black History Month, so I’ve been sharing important stories over four weeks to celebrate.
Before I continue a note, this episode may contain dated language that is being used as examples of how people spoke at the time and does not reflect current views.
From approximately 1526 to 1867, about 12.5 million enslaved men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa. Only 10.7 million arrived in the Americas.
People were taken from their ancestral lands and away from friends and family. They were forced to walk to the coast on a difficult journey with little rest, food or water.
Then they were loaded onto a ship, likely the first they had ever seen, and crammed in brutal conditions in the hold along with hundreds of others.
In the 1690s the slave trade reached 30,000 people per year and grew to 85,000 per year a century later.
Crossing the Atlantic became known as the Middle Passage.
It was dangerous and horrific. The suffering was immense.
Men, women, and children were separated and kept naked, packed close together.
The men were chained for extended periods.
The sun became a distant memory, they were prisoners at sea for 80 days in disgusting conditions.
As you can imagine many didn’t survive…about 12 percent. Their bodies were simply thrown overboard.
Some were thrown overboard simply to collect insurance as humans were considered lost cargo.
Rose Fortune’s ancestors were some of the unlucky few who survived.
DNA tests on Rose’s descendants revealed that her parents, or possibly her grandparents, came from Africa, Madagascar and South America.
Her parents were named Fortune and Aminta, and we don’t know if they were born free.
We do know they spent their adult lives shuffled between plantations as property for a line of enslavers.
It is likely that they were separated from their parents and siblings and never saw them again.
At some point, Fortune and Aminta found themselves on the same plantation and met for the first time.
I don’t like to speculate as I prefer to keep my stories grounded in historical fact.
But if you will indulge me.
I like to think that Fortune and Aminta fell in love despite the situation they were forced into.
Fortune and Aminta knew that at any moment, they both could be sold too.
If they had children, they would become property that could be sold without warning.
So, they took a massive risk.
On April 20, 1773, Fortune and Aminta chose freedom.
In the dead of night, they ran away from the plantation of William Bradley.
The trees offered cover and Fortune’ warm clothing protected him from the early spring chill.
Aminta had a quilt she stole wrapped around her shoulders.
Running away wouldn’t ensure their freedom.
They had heard of countless others who escaped, only to be caught and taken back to the plantation where they were whipped, beaten, tortured and disfigured.
It was common for a hand, foot, or nose to be cut off as punishment.
Some didn’t survive.
It was a message to enslaved people that escaping wasn’t an option.
Even still… some like Fortune and Aminta would risk it all for a taste of freedom [BEAT]
Did they hear dogs barking in the distance as their enslavers were in pursuit? How far did they run that first night to stay ahead?
We will never know.
What we do know is that Aminta and Fortune’s enslaver William Bradley, put a notice in the Virginia Gazette on April 29, 1773, stating,
“I request it as a favour not to harbour or entertain them, as it will probably be attended with bad consequences. I will give a reward of three pounds of they are taken 50 miles from home and secured so that I may get them again and thirty shillings if within that distance.”
We don’t know if they were heading all the way to Rhode Island, as Bradley wrote, but along the way, a daughter named Rose was born in Philadelphia in 1774.
Heading north was their best option, but it was far from a sure thing.
Slavery was legal in Pennsylvania until 1780, same with other states in New England like Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Their only hope was the Vermont Republic, where slavery was abolished in 1770.
I know what you are thinking.
What about Canada? The land of freedom and the Underground Railroad.
Think again.
Slavery was very much in practice in Upper and Lower Canada at the time. In fact, this was a time when t enslaved people escaped from Canada to the United States, rather than the other way around because the Slavery Abolition Act in the British Colonies wasn’t passed until 1833.
I will be going into that in far more detail next week.
For now, all Rose’s parents could do was stay ahead of being captured.
It probably felt to them like they would have to run forever.
But then, in 1775, everything changed.
The American Revolutionary War began and a new path to freedom would soon be open.
Rose was still a baby when the war began and had no idea it would bring about a momentous shift in history.
As the Americans and British fought for control of the Thirteen Colonies along the east coast of North America, the family waited for the opportunity to use the chaos to their advantage.
It finally came in 1783 when the family pledged their allegiance to the British Crown and became one of the 3,000 Black Loyalists to sail from New York to Nova Scotia.
They loyalty would grant them their freedom.
As they sailed into Nova Scotia, they sensed the hand of their enslaver would be out of reach with each passing kilometer and the air smelled sweeter.
I wish I could say Rose’s parents lived out their lives in happiness, taking strolls along the ocean together.
Instead, shortly after they arrived, Rose’s father died of an unknown cause.
Then, her mother disappeared from history soon after, and quite likely may have died as well.
They may not have enjoyed freedom for long, but their choices ensured their daughter would never feel the shackles of slavery or know the evil of being property.
We know nearly nothing about the next few decades of Rose’s life.
At some point, she may have spent some time living in Brinley Town, a Black settlement at Digby.
Rose reappears in the late-1820s when she was working as an independent baggage handler in Annapolis Royal.
At the time, employment for Black women was severely limited. Most could only work in domestic service.
But Rose instead became a porter, hauling baggage from ships to carriages, ensuring belongings got to their destinations.
At first, she carried the luggage herself.
Once she had saved enough money, Rose used a wheelbarrow.
She became a familiar sight, as she pushed her wheelbarrow full of luggage along the docks and streets.
Often it was piled so high that bags teetered precariously to their final destination.
In 1841, her business became known as Lewis Transfer and the wheelbarrow was replaced by horse-drawn wagons and Rose became a trusted figure.
Travellers knew that not only would she find them fair accommodations, but she would also ensure their baggage made it safely.
Rose was also a brilliant entrepreneur who didn’t put all her eggs in one basket.
In her interactions she quickly realized there was an opportunity for a new side business by becoming a knocker-upper.
This job was replaced by alarm clocks long ago, but in the 19th century if you wanted to wake up at a certain time, you hired a knocker-upper.
The name comes from using a pole with a small ball on the end of it to wake up a person by going to their bedroom window and gently knocking on it. By all accounts, Rose was so good that if you hired her, she wouldn’t let you down and you would make your ship on time. One of her loyal customers was Thomas Chandler Haliburton, who served on the Supreme Court from 1841 to 1856.
He knew he could always rely on Rose to wake him to make it to court on time.
The mayor of the town, Dr. Augustus Robinson, wrote he often heard her urging the judge to quote…
“Come along Judge, come along!”
For his part, Judge Haliburton often tipped her a shilling. Today, that is about a $6 tip, and it was no small amount in the early-1800s.
Rose also knew that if people felt unsafe it would hurt business.
The main issue was that there were no police patrolling the docks, so Rose took matters into her own hands.
She stood over her mini kingdom wearing a man’s long coat, with a wide brim hat to keep out the cold.
Anyone who tried to intimidate her was very quickly taught the error of their ways.
She wielded her cane like Donatello’s bo-staff, and like a Ninja Turtle was ready to knock sense into anyone who didn’t keep the peace.
Rose imposed a strict curfew on the docks, and she made sure everyone followed it.
It didn’t matter that she was a short elderly woman.
If you crossed her, you would be nursing a goose egg on your head.
As unofficial dock security, Rose has earned the distinction by historians of being the first female police officer in Canada.
And on top of everything else, she also made sure that those who wanted to escape to freedom, could do so.
Rose was part of the Underground Railroad.
When escaped enslaved people reached the city, she ensured they were taken to safe locations.
She knew what slavery had done to her parents and she wanted to help others escape it.
Despite the respect she commanded in Annapolis Royal, there were some who were unhappy because they didn’t believe it was appropriate that a Black woman was becoming a prominent member of the community.
There was also anger that she refused to live in nearby Lequille which was a mostly Black community.
She may have been free from slavery but not racism.
On at least two occasions, she was accused of running a disorderly house.
Today, we would call it a brothel.
Back in 1836 and 1839, she had to defend herself against those charges t.
On the first occasion she was acquitted.
The records of the second instance are lost to history, but it is reasonable to assume she was acquitted once again.
These accusations were likely brought against her by those who resented her race and success.
Her businesses were on the right side of the law.
Rose continued to work well into her 70s.
In 1852, Lt. Colonel Burrows Willcocks Arthur Sleigh was leaving an inn in Annapolis Royal when he was met by an attendant. He wrote,
“I was aided by a curious old Negro woman, rather stunted in growth, as black as the ace of spades, and dressed in a man’s coat and felt hat.”
Rose Fortune was a woman who was hard to forget.
As time went on severe rheumatism set in and Rose had a tough time working.
Thankfully, her son John had taken over the family business and she could begin to live a retired life.
On Feb. 20, 1864, Rose died.
She was about 90 years old.
She was buried at Garrison Cemetery in Fort Anne in an unmarked location.
Thanks to the bravery of her parents nine decades earlier, Rose never knew a whip and was never sold as property.
She was free to build her own life, and she made the most of that opportunity.
And her legacy continued long after her death.
The baggage hauling business lived on for several generations, passed down to her family until the mid-part of the 20th century.
In 1999, a plaque in her honour was placed near her former home in Annapolis Royal.
The Rose Fortune Gate in Bedford, Nova Scotia was also named after her.
In 2017, sculptor Brad Hall created a stylized wheelbarrow made of iron and stone to honour Rose.
The wheelbarrow sculpture also serves as a bench and now marks her grave.
One year later, Rose was named a National Historic Person by the Government of Canada and a plaque was mounted on a boulder donated by Rose’s descendant Fred Bailey.
It sits at the Annapolis Royal waterfront, which Rose once patrolled.
The MV Fundy Rose, a ferry that runs between Digby, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick carries her name.
But perhaps most significantly, Rose’s direct descendant, Daurene Lewis, became the first Black woman to be elected mayor of a Canadian city.
She served as the mayor of Annapolis Royal for four years in the mid-1980s and then became the first Black woman to run for the Nova Scotia Legislature in 1988.
She would also go on to receive the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and the Order of Canada.
All this thanks to two enslaved people who risked it all in search for freedom.
And a woman who defended the docks of Annapolis Royal.
