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Africadian
DCHP-3 (Mar 2024)
Spelling variants:"Africadian"
n. — Ethnicities
a Black Canadian from Nova Scotia.
Type: 1. Origin — Coined by George Elliott Clarke in the early 1990s, Africadian has since been used primarily by Clarke himself, though some uptake by other writers can be seen (see, e.g., the 2025 quotation).
Quotations
1992
Volume Two consists of the writings of contemporary "Africadian" writers (those born between 1936 and 1971) who are part of the current "black cultural renaissance" of the Maritimes.
1997
Africadian - a black Nova Scotian
2006
University of Toronto scholar George Elliott Clarke refers to himself as an Africadian of Africadian Black Nova Scotian descent.
2008
Clarke's poetry, prose, drama and criticism document the history and culture of Black people in Canada, especially Nova Scotia, by interfacing the archival with the personal. George Elliott Clarke calls himself "Africadian," a term he coined to describe the descendants of Black United Empire Loyalists who came to the Maritime provinces in the late 18th century.
2021
“One of the great things about being Africadian,” Clarke says, “is no matter the oppression, and the racism and the apartheid, what made our communities special is that we had communities, we had land, we had homes, we had neighbours who had the same struggles you had, who could share their resources with you, who shared your faith, and all of a sudden you’ve got this distinct lifestyle that is linked to where you actually live.”
2022
Clarke is a sought-after conference speaker and is active in poetry circles throughout Canada, the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. He is also a founding member of the music collective Afro-Métis Nation, which put out its first album, Constitution, in May 2019. The group derives its name from the artists' mixed Africadian and Mi'kmaq descent. Clarke has described the group's sound as "a mash-up of southern-fried blues and saltwater spirituals, with Nashville guitars, Mi’kmaw-and-“African” drums, Highland bagpipes and Acadien fiddles."