Aminata Diallo

Solomon Lindo, a sympathetic indigo inspector, plucks Aminata out of Appleby’s enslavement and takes her to New York, where she escapes to British lines, as they control the city.

Lieutenant Clarkson’s charge in Nova Scotia was to find volunteers for this resettlement. He worked with Thomas Peters, among other Black Loyalists. Together they gathered a group of close to 1,200 who wanted to leave for what they hoped were better opportunities in Sierra Leone. After a harrowing transatlantic passage, the flotilla of 15 ships arrived at the colony's port in March 1792. This group, who became known as the Nova Scotian Settlers, established Freetown, the capital city.

The miniseries premiered on CBC in Canada on January 7, 2015 and on BET in the United States on February 16, 2015.

The international co-production began shooting in February 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa. Filming also took place in various locations around Nova Scotia, Canada. This included the Fortress of Louisbourg, used to portray 18th-century New York City and Canvas Town; Lunenburg harbour for the historic New York harbour, and Shelburne's Dock Street used as the scene of historic Shelburne. Filming was completed by the beginning of June 2014.

The series was adapted from Hill's novel, named the Book of Negroes after the historical document recording s names and descriptions of 3,000 African-American slaves who had escaped to the British lines during the American Revolution, were freed, and were to be evacuated by the British by ship to points in Nova Scotia. There they were to be granted land for new lives. Clement Virgo and series producer Damon D'Oliveira purchased the rights to Hill's novel in 2009 and began work on a feature film script. CBC and BET came on board in 2010 to develop the feature script as a six-part miniseries.

1.7 million Canadians tuned in to watch the first episode of The Book of Negroes, making it "the highest-rated original drama for the network since Road to Avonlea' s Jan. 7 1990 premiere."

The writers of the series based Aminata's first owner, Appleby, on a business partner of Henry Laurens, who headed one of the largest slave trading companies in the Thirteen Colonies. Solomon Lindo, the Jewish indigo inspector, was an ancestor of Chris Blackwell (born 1937), the British-Jamaican founder of Island Records. "Daddy Moses" was Moses Wilkinson. One of Aminata's supporters in New York Town is presented as Samuel Fraunces, owner of the historic Fraunces Tavern.

When the Patriots won the American Revolutionary War, many Loyalists, decided to leave the former Thirteen Colonies. Some had already lost property to rebel confiscation and been subject to persecution and attacks. The Crown promised them land grants in Nova Scotia and other British colonies; some Loyalists went to Jamaica. Tens of thousands of these refugees came through New York City, where their evacuation was processed by the British Army, leading up to Evacuation Day on 25 November 1783. The Book of Negroes was created to document the former slaves who were eligible to leave; it was assembled by Samuel Birch, the namesake of Birchtown, Nova Scotia, under the direction of Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester. (For more background, see Dunmore's Proclamation, a 1775 promise by the royal governor of the British Colony of Virginia to grant emancipation (freedom) to slaves who left rebel masters and joined the Crown's forces.)

In 1750, eleven-year-old Aminata Diallo is abducted and taken captive from her village in West Africa by agents of the V.O.C., a Dutch trading company. She is transported by ship to be sold into slavery in South Carolina, where she is forced to work on an indigo plantation. She later falls in love and marries a fellow West African slave named Chekura. Their baby is abducted and sold by a jealous slave master, Robinson Appleby. Aminata later tries to find her child and vows to return one day to her homeland.