Rose Fortune

This watercolor, painted around 1830, depicts a well-known Black resident of Nova Scotia named Rose Fortune. Fortune was born around 1774 in Pennsylvania. Her mother, Aminta, had self-emancipated from the Virginia plantation of William Bradley in 1773 and moved to Philadelphia with her husband, Fortune. Perhaps to ensure legal protections for his and his wife’s freedom, Fortune took the British up on their offer of freedom in exchange for service during the American Revolution. Rose Fortune’s family were among the 3,000 Black refugees who sailed for Novia Scotia in 1783, and Rose eventually settled in Annapolis Royal. She became a local celebrity through her baggage-carting and wake-up call business along the waterfront, easily recognizable from her larger-than-life personality and her tendency to wear a man’s overcoat.