Nova Scotia (11 page)

   
Grand Pré, on Fundy’s Minas Basin, also became a prospering
farming community. This idyllic, rural, family-centred village
would one day become the site of one of history’s most notorious
deportation exercises.

   
The Acadians were never very good at playing by the rules,
especially when the rules were issued by distant, arrogant and
ill-informed government officials. So they saw the obvious
advantages of trading with whoever wanted to do business with them.
This meant New England, where grain and furs could be traded for
manufactured things like dishes, needles, knives, as well as rum
and sugar from the Caribbean. On paper, this trade was illegal, but
no one seemed to worry, since it was mutually rewarding. Slowly but
surely, Acadia became integrated into the New England
economy.

   
Because of their tiny population, they were not a threat to
anyone English, French or Mi’kmaq. They blended in, they adapted
and they carried out equitable trade. For a while, both the French
and the English were happy to simply ignore them. Yet New
Englanders, including many of the merchants who were profiting from
the deals that went down, never fully trusted the Acadians. They
were, after all, French and they had suspiciously good relations
with the Native people. It was also feared that the French
government would some day restrict fishing off the Nova Scotia
coast. Business was good with the Acadian neighbours, but paranoia
lurked in the shadows.

Easy Targets for Revenge

Compared to much of the history of
Nova Scotia – a story of power struggles, greed, exploitation and
even genocide – the Acadian legacy is fairly benign. An alternate
time-line may have allowed for this culture of farmers, edyke
builders, family men and women to have evolved into an agrarian
utopia. They wanted to be out of the French/English wranglings. And
if only they had been left alone, Nova Scotia would have evolved
very differently. But the politics of Europe hovered like a
dangerous thunderhead always above them.

   
In 1686 another treaty was signed, one of neutrality between
the French and English. England acknowledged France’s sole right to
the inshore fishing along Acadia. (“Inshore” implies fishing that
is coastal as opposed to fishing on the Grand Banks, which is much
further offshore.) So now the New Englanders had something tangible
to hate the Acadians for. Ships from Boston and the other New
England ports had been harvesting fish along Acadian shores for
years and turning great profits. But by 1689, problems in Europe
again intruded into their lives. Yet another war had broken out
between the English and the French. In America it was known as
“King William’s War” or, in Europe, the “Wars of the League of
Augsburg.” In a bizarre twist of logic, Quebec attacked New
Englanders and the New Englanders retaliated by attacking the
Acadians – presumably because they were French, nearby and easy to
whip. There was also the possibility of expanding the boundaries of
New England to include these lands to the north. Whatever good
trading relations had developed over the previous decades were
quickly dismissed by New Englanders, whose heightened hatred of the
French was driving them to retaliate against the wrong
“enemy.”

   
The raids from New England began in 1689 and continued into
1690 as Sir William Phipps attacked Port Royal and abducted
Governor de Meneval, taking him to Boston. When Joseph Villebon, a
military man from France, arrived later that year, he found Port
Royal had been plundered. The French soldiers there had been taken
away as prisoners. Villebon took control of Acadia – or at least he
decided that there was no one else available for the job, so it was
up to him. Described as “domineering but dissolute,” Villebon moved
the settlement to Jemseg, where the English tracked him down,
plundered his small community and took his men as prisoners.
Villebon went on to build good relations with the Native population
in New Brunswick and may have incited them to set off on raids of
New England. Although at least one peace treaty was signed between
the Natives of Maine and the New Englanders, Villebon used gifts of
brandy, tobacco and arms to help inspire French and Native attacks
on Maine and New Hampshire.

   
Villebon’s military ambitions were nothing but bad news for
the Acadians, the great majority of whom had remained home on the
farm, tending fields, fine-tuning their dykes and hoping for
further peace and tranquillity. William Phipps, now governor of
Massachusetts, ordered Benjamin Church and his soldiers to go to
Acadia and destroy everything they could find. This was presumably
easier than trying to track down Villebon or fight it out with
Natives who were now quite hostile to the New England cause. The
Chignecto community was not spared and Acadian villages elsewhere
were easy targets for revenge.

Handing Over the Keys

Soon after the turn of the century,
yet another power struggle in Europe erupted into a war. In 1702
the War of Spanish Succession had begun. By the end of that
conflict France would lose Acadia, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay.
King Louis XIV would be left holding onto Cape Breton, however, and
the right to dry fish along certain parts of Newfoundland
shores. 

   
Meanwhile, hostilities continued to heat up between the
French and the New Englanders. The year 1704 saw a legendary raid
by 200 Indians and fifty Frenchmen who trekked more than 300 miles
on snowshoes through the wilderness to attack the people of
Deerfield, Massachusetts. The governor, in response, mounted a
major expedition to get back at the French, but apparently it was
again of little concern which French would be punished. Benjamin
Church, famous as a ruthless Indian fighter and a veteran at
savaging near-defenceless communities, sailed with 500 men to
Acadia, burned twenty houses at Chignecto, broke down the dykes,
and killed most of the cattle and sheep. His troops despoiled the
village at Minas as well. Many families were forced to flee into
the forests, where they endured a harsh winter of cold and hunger.
Acadians were again scapegoats and victims, but back in France
these raids on the small communities seemed of minuscule concern in
the larger picture.

   
The fate of Acadia was not a high priority in France. In
1706, Daniel D’Auger de Subercasé was appointed as the new governor
and he would be the last. The French were losing the war in Europe
and were not prepared to send much military aid to protect the
Acadians. In Port Royal, Subercasé found it necessary to get
supplies from French West Indian privateers and the nervous
merchants of Boston were soon aware that Port Royal was a haven for
this illegal activity. Boston merchant Samuel Vetch travelled to
London to persuade the Board of Trade that something must be done
about the Acadians and their privateer friends. He hoped to
persuade the British to take over all of Acadia, and Vetch himself
had high hopes of winning the job as governor of those unruly
lands.

   
The arguments concerning loss of revenue to the French
privateers did not fall on deaf ears in London. Capturing Port
Royal, it was argued, just might help solve the French problem in
America and offset low morale over English military losses in
Europe, while at the same time giving the Scottish nationalists a
new focus to distract their energies. The board approved the plan,
but the all-out attack by General Francis Nicholson did not happen
until 1710. Subercasé was well aware it was coming, but there was
not much to be done. He had fewer than 300 men, some of whom
deserted before or during the invasion. After all, Nicholson had an
estimated 3,400 men on thirty-six vessels. The fort was besieged
for two weeks with bombardment from two sides.

   
On October 2nd the destitute and ragged French were permitted
to march out of Port Royal with some dignity, carrying their guns,
luggage, drums and flags. Acadians in the region would be allowed
to stay for two years as subjects of the British, although most
military men were deported to Rochelle, France. Subercasé handed
over the keys to the front door of the fort and Port Royal became
Fort Anne.

To Swear an Oath

The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in
1713, again turning over Acadia and Newfoundland to Britain, while
Île Saint-Jean (later to be known as Prince Edward Island) and Île
Royale (Cape Breton) stayed with France. Acadians would be
encouraged to move to Cape Breton, but they had heard the farming
wasn’t so great there and most preferred to stay put. Loyalty to
one monarch or another had never been a big issue, but food and
farming were a ldifferent matter.

   
Acadia would henceforward be known as Nova Scotia. France
could still have a strong fishing base, as it held on to Cape
Breton and their interest in the fish stocks remained strong. The
French had been fishing off this coast since the 1500s. Cod had
become a big part of French trade. To hang on to these fishing
rights, a major fortress would be built on Île Royale at
Louisbourg, fostering yet more English anxiety about the
French.

   
Acadians left in Nova Scotia would retain religious freedom
and their lands, but they would have to swear an oath of allegiance
to Britain and promise to fight against whatever enemy presented
itself – including the French, if need be. This was cause for some
obvious discomfort for the Acadians, and it wasn’t until much
later, in 1730, that the English governor, Richard Philipps, would
allow Acadians to simply swear obedience and neutrality, not armed
support. This oath may have sufficed had Britain and France been
able to forgo the habit of falling into war with one another. But
such was not to be the case.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

A Rough Passage but a “Pleasant
Prospect”

Sieur de Diereville was born in
France around 1670 and sailed for Acadia as a surgeon in 1699. When
he returned to France, he published an account of his voyage,
originally in verse, and later with additions in prose, which gives
us a unique glimpse of the Halifax area fifty years before the
British began to build the city. Like so many of his contemporaries
he had a rough passage. One gets the impression that no matter how
much plannsing went into an Atlantic crossing during this time, the
ships were never fully prepared. Perhaps an easy, uneventful
crossing was simply impossible.

   
Diereville’s ship met with bad weather and suffered a
shortage of water and supplies. The captain was off course and
decided to go with the wind that was driving him toward
“Chibouctou” – later known as Chebucto and now Halifax Harbour. He
figured there was a fishing outport there that might be of some
help. An English translation of part of Diereville’s verse
describing the harbour goes as follows:

• This Harbour is of great
  extent.
  

• And Nature has, herself, formed
  there
  

• A splendid Basin, and around
  about
  

• Green Fir-trees, which afford the
  eye
  

• A pleasant prospect; at the
  edge
  

• A Building used for drying
  Cod;
  

• That such construction is not
  known
  

• To Mansard, is quite
  possible.
  

   
Having had a chance to blast his rifle at small animals, he
begins to worry that he might stir up the Native inhabitants who
could “ambush” him. His fears are soon offset, however, and he
notes that “The Indians have not such cruel hearts.” He sees two
Mi’kmaq armed with “Musket & Hatchet,” but they are friendly to
the sailors they meet and to the others, once they learn that the
men are French. So the relations between the cod fishers and the
Mi’kmaq must have already been well-established and amicable.
Diereville is a little taken aback that they are so civilized but
unable to speak French. Europeans held stubbornly onto the notion
that if Native North Americans could not speak a European language
then they must still be barbaric. Ironically, it was the civility
of the Native population that was all too often met with the
barbarism of the so-called civilized.

   
Diereville and his shipmates, however, got along quite well
despite the language barrier “and parted as best of friends.” That
soft phrasing stands in sharp contrast to the attitude of the
military Englishmen who would one day found Nova Scotia’s largest
city upon the same grounds.

   
One day three Mi’kmaq chiefs in a birchbark canoe came to
visit. Diereville put on a friendly face, fed them and offered up
brandy, which they imbibed with “relish & less moderation than
we do; they have craving for it & I think that they would have
emptied my Cellar without becoming intoxicated.” While this seems a
trifle condescending, it’s interesting to note that the good
Frenchmen had sailed across the Atlantic with plenty of liquor left
in the “Cellar” but not quite enough water or food to meet other
needs of all aboard. I guess it was just a matter of
priorities.

   
The Mi’kmaq of that day appear to have already been converted
to Christianity. They said prayers and made the sign of the cross
before eating and they wore rosaries given to them by a priest who
had died on their shores.