Can I give you just some thoughts?

The best clue I could find in this picture is the little girl's body language in the front. Her pose is quite natural, and she is smiling. Both her face and her torso are not rigid. The boy at right is in a very natural pose, too. Photographing children was very difficult, because they moving a lot.

So, you probably couldn't get this in 1860s, because the photography technolgy at that time didn't allow it. In 1860s you should remain still for some time to get the picture. Because of that, is quite hard to find smiles, or natural poses in pictures of this decade.

But in this picture, there are a lot of people smiling (specially the girl) or almost smiling. Some of them are very relaxed, too. So, this picture was taken, at least, in the end of the XIX century, when the technology could get pictures of the people even if they were moving (not too much, though) or even later.

Were they poor people? It was necessary that this technology existed, but also that these people could afford it. The poorer, the more recent is the photograph - precisely because the photograph only becomes cheaper, and more accessible, with the development of its technology. And this requires time.

If they were poor people, they probably couldn't afford to pay for this technology 1890 - 1900s. Or even later (but this depends on local history).

There are good ways to try to date this picture with more accuracy. One good method is to know something about the photography history in Nova Scotia.

This is, usually, not difficult - local museums should have this information, and some local historians. So you gonna have a good idea about who were the first photographers, when they started to work there, who were their clients. With this information, you could compare this photograph with others, that some local museum, for example, has already dated.

Compare both the clothing style and their poses. More natural, more recent.

I know nothing about the clothing history of Nova Scotia. This is important, because each place has its own fashion history. Anyway, taking into account the details of their poses, the photography technology that allowed such smiles and natural body positions, and the clothing (specially the children), I would guess 1890-1920.

But, there are some extra hints you could provide:

• is this the original picture?
• are there any text in the back of the picture?
• where did you find it?

Oh, and don't go for the mulato thing. Its quite difficult to identify this kind of ethnicity detail in pictures like that.

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edit: clarification.