Telling times
First African Cape Bretoners had plenty of struggles when they first arrived
The first people of African descent to come to the Sydney area are revealed in the records of St. George’s church.
There were 58 slaves in Cape Breton from 1758 to 1833. The church recorded their racial designation along with their marriages, deaths and baptisms. They did not tend to stay in Sydney. Often they left when their owners left.
The largest groups of people of African descent arrived with the establishment of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company. When the steel plant opened in 1901 there was an influx of workers from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.
There were two groups of African men to arrive. There were the blacks who were brought from Alabama because they were experts in certain aspects of steel making. The other group were from the West Indies and they tended to stay permanently.
In 1900 the blast furnace managers were searching for skilled workers as the “labor her [Sydney] is poor, not having had any experience in this work.”
They sought iron workers from the southern US to cover the gap until the “skilled workmen from Germany arrived.”
They promised steady work and fair treatment. The only stipulation was that the men hired be competent in their field. The company offered to pay the transportation for these men to Sydney and back to Alabama. Iron carriers would be paid $3 per 12-hour day, provided four men carried the iron instead of six. They would be paid $2.50 a day if five men carried the iron and $2 if they used 7 men. Other men came from Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Many men did come from the south to work at the blast furnace. There is an account of the meals these men and their wives ate while in transit. It lists 32 men, including Ike Kennedy, Arch Droke, Thomas Cadenhead and his wife, William Davis, and Isiah Robinson. Combined they purchased $44.50 in meals. Their transportation and meals were paid for by the company.
Most of these men did not stay in Cape Breton. The two main reasons they did not stay are both climate related. The men arrived with inadequate clothing for the cold temperatures. The men from the south found the climate particularly cold. The manager of the blast furnace offered to loan these men the money to cover the expense of appropriate clothing, but the money had to be repaid in time.
The other climate issue was housing. Sydney was a small community when the steel plant started and as a result there was not enough housing available to the large influx of steel workers. What housing that was available was very expensive. Some workers paid $25 a month in rent for housing on Whitney Avenue. That was a lot to expect from men who earned less than $100 a month.
As a result, the plant built temporary housing on the plant property for the black workers. They called it Cokeville. This was a small community located behind the rolling mill, close to the number five gate. It included several numbered buildings that the company referred to as shacks. A short time later there was a school on the property.
The temporary nature of their housing, however, was problematic in the winter months. These houses did not have heating systems or running water.
“There are three room in those houses occupied by the coloured labourers from Alabama that have got no heater in them. Please see if some arrangement cannot be made by which these rooms can be heated.”
“In reference to the negroes… no house, in my mind, is complete without a fire-place or some other heating apparatus in it.”
On 25 January 1903, the superintendent of the Blast Furnaces wrote to the general manager.
“I would like to call your attention to the condition of the last lot of houses built in the Negro Quarters. I have had the most serious complaints from my men all through this bitter weather. … In the first place, these houses are open underneath -not boarded up at all. In the second place, you can see right through them in a great many places, and the snow and wind blow into the rooms. I do wish you would see if something cannot be done for the comfort of these people. The first houses built are fairly comfortable, but the last lot are not fit to live in during the cold weather.”
By August 23,1901, the managers feared that the men from the South would be “unable to stand this climate,” but they still were requesting more men. No matter the cold climate, attempts were made to accommodate the American workers, but by 1904 most of them had returned to warmer climates and to the steel plants in the south. The African men from the West Indies had little steel experience and tended to be labourers at the plant. They tended to stay and fight the climate and the conditions at the plant.