Black Loyalists is an attempt to present hard data about the lives of Nova Scotia Black Loyalists before they escaped slavery in early South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and after they settled in Nova Scotia—to bring back into our awareness the context for some very brave and enterprising men and women who survived the chaos of the American Revolution, people who found a way to pass through the heart, ironically, of a War for Liberty, to liberty and human dignity.

Ruth Holmes Whitehead, ethnologist and assistant curator at the Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, has worked with the Mi'kmaw people for 30 years, and her work is an important source of information about historic Mi'kmaw culture. Her meticulous analysis, attention to detail, creative genius, and sensitivity have earned her the respect of Mi'kmaw specialists such as linguist Bernie Francis, who lent his expertise to Tracking Doctor Lonecloud. Ruth Holmes Whitehead became aware of Jerry Lonecloud in 1972 when she began working with the collections and records of the Nova Scotia Museum, much of which had been acquired during the tenure of Harry Piers, curator from 1899 to 1940. She was also on hand when photos by Clara Dennis were donated to the museum in 1973, a collection of black and white images of Mi'kmaw people, including portraits of Lonecloud. Research on the book really began in 1992 when her colleague Trudy Sable took her to look at the Clara Dennis material in the Nova Scotia Archives. They spent months transcribing notebooks containing Lonecloud's memoir, recorded by Clara Dennis in pencil in children's scribblers. A consultant to the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Whitehead has curated numerous exhibitions and written many articles and monographs. Among her popular books are Micmac Quillwork, Stories from the Six Worlds: Micmac Legends, and The Old Man Told Us: Excerpts from Micmac History, 1500-1950.

Ruth Holmes Whitehead's profile page