Book of Negroes reconnects Nova Scotia to wrestling superstar The Rock

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As the successful CBC mini-series The Book of Negroes draws to an end and African Heritage Month begins, a Nova Scotia town is being reminded of one of its Black Nova Scotia descendants whose family went on to become wrestling royalty and one of Hollywood’s top-earners in the movie business.

According to Forbes magazine, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was the highest-grossing actor in 2013, bringing in $1.3 billion at the box office.

What Forbes doesn’t mention, however, is Johnson’s Nova Scotia roots. Author J.M Bowles outlines Johnson’s family roots from New York to Amherst before international stardom on the website ‘A Descendant From the Book’.

The son of Wayde Douglas Bowles, Johnson’s father was born here in Amherst in 1944.

Bowles wrestled under the name Rocky “Soulman” Johnson and would wrestle for the World Wrestling Federation [WWF] before retiring as his son’s career was taking flight, first in the WWF’s rebranding as World Wrestling Entertainment and later as a Hollywood actor in such films as Hercules, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and part of the Fast and Furious franchise.

Today, the Bowles family live in Toronto and the United States, but their Canadian family tree begins here in Nova Scotia, when Johnson’s great-great-great-grandfather James Bowles left New York for Annapolis Royal.

Born a free man, what little that is known of James is that he was born in 1755 – the same year the Acadians were expelled – and fought with the British Loyalists in 1778 as a member of the Black Pioneers during the American Revolution.

The British offered land to any black person – slave or free men – who fought alongside His Majesty’s men during the American Revolution and, despite losing the war, made good on their promise. Some 3,000 Black Loyalists boarded ships for Nova Scotia, and James departed New York aboard the ship Joseph in 1783.

James eventually settled in Amherst 10 years after his arrival in Annapolis Royal, having a son named Cornelius in 1793. To Cornelius, a son would be born in 1826 named Stephen. Stephen would have a son named John in 1856; and John would have a son named James – Dwayne’s grandfather – in 1888.

All were born, grew up, and ended their days in Amherst until Dwayne’s father became an internationally known wrestler.

As the television miniseries The Book of Negroes tells the story of Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia, we can turn to the history records of those Loyalists who made Nova Scotia home and find familiar last names like Gibson, Brown and Jackson that are still here today, and names like Bowles who were part of the community and part of something much more than first thought when the story of the Black Loyalist began.

http://metronews.ca/news/halifax/1279798/book-of-negroes-series-reconnects-nova-scotia-to-wrestling-superstar-the-rock/