The issue of racial/ethnic subordination has usually been regarded as transitory, and therefore divorced from general theories of stratification. Popular explanations have usually deemed it the result of naked prejudice or defective characteristics of the groups concerned. The persistence of this line of cleavage under advanced capitalism, however, has seen an attempt by Marxists to incorporate it into a general class analysis. This thesis is an attempt to examine the experience of the Blacks in Nova Scotia from a class perspective. Using data gleaned mainly from library and archival research, it is argued that contrary to the popular explanations. Black subordination in Nova Scotia is related to the process which involved the development of capitalism in Nova Scotia.