Africville’s lack of sewerage services as a contributor to relocation  

Insights from:  

D. Clairmont and D. Magill, Africville Relocation Report Halifax: Dalhousie University Institute of Public Affairs, 1971  

• “Sewerage, lighting and other public services were conspicuously absent. 

• “Residents had to do without paved roads (or even dust deterrent), convenient public transportation, sewerage, water or garbage collection.  (Electronic copy).  

• “That Africville was a Black community is important in explaining how part of a city could develop with the particular characteristics of Africville and in understanding the changes in social structure that took place during the last thirty years of its existence.  Although Africville was always physically part of Halifax, socially it was an appendage.  In this respect it was similar to most of the other Black settlements in Nova Scotian towns and cities, and as we have indicated elsewhere, this general pattern reflects the underlying racism that has characterized Nova Scotian society since the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. 

• Especially during the last thirty to forty years of its existence, Africville underwent profound change.  From what was described in 1895 as ‘a community of intelligent young people, much is expected of them’ (MacKerrow, op, cit. P. 65 in Clairmont and Magill, 73) it became identified increasingly as ‘national blot on the city of Halifax.   

• Africville residents were always poor. […]  Africville residents had been petitioning the City for services available to other residents of Halifax since the middle of the nineteenth century, but successes were few.  Although many delegations met with City officials concerning water and sewerage, Africville was never linked to the City mains.  Residents had to make do with makeshift wells that ran dry in the summer months and were a constant threat to health. 

• “The water supply is from shallow wells which show more contamination than is desirable.  The proximity of privies to these wells is particularly bad with the rocky soil conditions.  The City of Halifax has been fortunate that no serious health conditions have resulted from this situation.” 

• “ ‘[W]e have all tried up here to get a proper water supply.  Two houses have burned in the last five years.  But it’s hopeless; they won’t do anything for us.’  The house was not insured.” 

• “All Africville needed was water and sewerage, and it would have been a self-sufficient community.  But they never got either.  Some day the City planned to take over the area.”  Interview, August 1969.   

• The City of Halifax owned sizable property close to the community and was in a favourable position to bargain with industries seeking land.  Minutes of the Halifax City Council show that the eventual industrial use of the Africville land was a matter of long-standing implicit intent.  This ‘policy’ was a reason for the Council’s neglect of Africville residents.  The expropriation and eventual industrial use of the land would require relocation of Africville residents; therefore, it was not necessary to supply the community with water, sewerage, paved roads, garbage collection, or adequate fire protection. Clairmont and Magill pg. 100 (Electronic copy).  [this confirms the conclusion that i have made that Africville was always – or long – a community destined for destruction].  

• A City official, associated since 1942 since Africville, explained why the community was not served by a City water line:  

• On one occasion, this must have been in the late war years, I think that money was actually appropriated for the extension of a water line from the end of Gottingen Street to the central part of the village to give a City water source.   

But the argument always was that it was so expensive to blast through rock to put down a water line down there and that the days of the settlement were numbered.  It was also felt that the people should be relocated somewhere, and it wasn’t worth the cost of putting in water for the time they were to be there.  This seemed to be the thinking all the time I knew Africville. 

in the correspondence between the City Council and the Public Service Commission, (1948) cost was indeed a problem!!