… the Smith sisters descended from a famous Mandingo/Bambara re-captive woman, the feisty, flamboyant, wealthy, illiterate merchant Betsy Carew, rescued from a westbound slave ship and set free in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Her husband, Thomas Carew, the Smith’s great grandfather, was a Maroon whose ancestors were exiled to Nova Scotia from Jamaica, then shipped to Sierra Leone. The marriage caused much controversy in the emerging bourgeoisie settler community which was made up of African-American Nova Scotians (that had fought on the British side during the American war of independence) and Maroon Nova Scotians who did not take kindly to illiterate re-captives (liberated slaves) marrying into their community.