Birchtown was named after British Brigadier General Samuel Birch, an official who helped lead the evacuation of Black Loyalists from New York.

[a] Birchtown was first settled by Stephen Blucke, who has been referred to as "the true founder of the Afro-Nova Scotian community".

The majority of Nova Scotian settlers who later immigrated to the new colony of Sierra Leone in 1792 were such African Americans who had lived first in Birchtown.

Most Birchtown blacks entered Nova Scotia through the nearby town of Port Roseway, soon renamed Shelburne.

Birchtown was acknowledged as being the largest settlement of free African Americans in the world by newspapers in New York City and in London.

As a result of these grievances, many Birchtown residents chose to accept Britain's offer and join a 1792 migration to found a free ethnic African settlement in Sierra Leone in West Africa.

Lawrence Hill wrote a novel, The Book of Negroes, whose fictional narrator, Aminata Diallo, resides in Birchtown and describes its founding.