been transported there from the South were left behind as British forces pulled out of the region. Descendants Many descendants of Black loyalists have been able to track their ancestry by using General Carleton's Book of Negroes. The number of these descendants is unknown. Nova Scotia Between 1776 and 1785, around 3,500 Blacks were transported to Nova Scotia from the United States, part of a larger migration of about 34,000 Loyalist refugees. This massive influx of people increased the population by almost 60%, and led to the establishment of New Brunswick as its own colony in 1784. Most of the free Blacks settled at Birchtown, the largest Black township in North America at the time, next to the town of Shelburne, settled by whites. There are also a number of Black loyalists buried in unmarked graves in the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Among, the descendants of the Black Loyalists are noted figures such as Rose Fortune, a Black woman living in Nova Scotia who became a police officer and a businesswoman. Measha Brueggergosman (née Gosman), the Canadian opera and concert singer, is a New Brunswick native and descendant of a Black Loyalist through her father. In the closing days of the Revolution, along with British troops and other Black Loyalists, her paternal four-times-great-grandfather and grandmother left the colonies. They were resettled in Shelburne with their first child, who had been born free behind British lines in New York. Commemoration The Black Loyalist settlement of Birchtown, Nova Scotia was declared a National Historic Site in 1997. A seasonal museum commemorating the Black Loyalists was opened in that year by the Black Loyalist Heritage Society. A memorial has been established at the Black Loyalist Burying Ground. Built around the historic Birchtown school and church, the museum was badly damaged by an arson attack in 2008 but rebuilt. The Society began plans for a major expansion of the museum to tell the story of the Black Loyalists in America, Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone Some Black Loyalists were transported to London, where they struggled to create new lives. Sympathy for the black veterans who had fought for the British stimulated support for the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. This organization backed the resettlement of the black poor from London to a new British colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa. In addition, Black Loyalists in Nova