Birchtown is a community and National Historic Site in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located near Shelburne in the Shelburne Municipal District of Shelburne County. (The two other significant Black Loyalist communities established in Nova Scotia were Brindley town and Tracadie.) Founded in 1783, it is famous as the largest settlement of Black Loyalists and was the largest free settlement of Africans in North America in the eighteenth century. The community was named after British Brigadier General Samuel Birch, an official who assisted in the evacuation of Black Loyalists from New York.