by the Port Roseway Associates, who had formed while still in New York and petitioned Governor Parr for the land. The Black Loyalists, a large group of African-American slaves who escaped their masters to British lines and were promised freedom, were evacuated and transported by British forces to Shelburne Harbour at the same time. They founded Birchtown to the west of Shelburne. It became North America's largest free Black settlement. But, the Black Loyalists had to endure long waits before receiving land, were granted less than the whites, and faced discrimination from other colonists, including some who had even taken their slaves with them to Canada. In July 1784 some of the white Loyalists conducted the Shelburne Riots against the African Americans. In the fall of 1783, a second wave of settlers arrived in Shelburne. The community was settled by Loyalists soldiers of the Duke of Cumberland's Regiment. By 1784, the population of this new community is estimated to have been 17,000, making it the fourth-largest city in North America. But, initial hopes were short-lived; the settlement suffered from a lack of viable agricultural land, poor inland transportation links, and too few pioneers who knew how to develop frontier property. These problems curtailed its economic growth. The population fell sharply by the 1790s, leaving many abandoned buildings. However, the remaining residents gradually developed the harbour potential as a fishing and shipbuilding centre. In 1792 more than 1,000 Black Loyalists from across Nova Scotia accepted a British offer to resettle in Freetown (current Sierra Leone), a newly founded British colony in West Africa. They became the core of an ethnic group that became known as Krios (for Creoles), which included numerous Black Poor of London (many of them also African Americans resettled after the American Revolution), former slaves resettled from Jamaica, and slaves liberated from illegal trading ships after Britain and the United States prohibited the Atlantic slave trade. Shipbuilding Shipbuilding is a historically significant industry in the area. The first vessel launched at Shelburne was the 181-ton Roseway, built for MacLean and Bogle in 1786. Commissary Island, now a peninsula, was the area from which supplies of flour, pork, and salt were dispensed to the Loyalists by the Commissary General, Mr. Brinley. Later, this area became the shipyard of Joseph McGill. The Cox family also built their own ships and conducted extensive international trade. The former MacKay shipyard was located