Nova Scotia (9 page)

   
Despite the fact that the English were not all that excited
about inhabiting Acadia, there was money and hostility enough for
the Virginia Company to launch a raid far northward from their
southern colony to destroy thec tiny French encampment of St.
Sauveur in Maine. Under Samuel Argall, the English ships then
sailed on to the empty fort at Port Royal and rather than occupying
it, they ruthlessly demolished it.

   
Monsieur Poutrincourt had hoped to return to Port Royal and
re-establish trade there. He heard the bad news in France and
returned to see the ruins, which discouraged him sufficiently to
give up on the idea of revitalizing Port Royal. However, he did
leave Charles Biencourt behind to maintain a fur trade. The French
occupation of Acadia would remain just a string of small
fur-trading outposts for years to come.

   
Renewed interest in this land, however, came from a Scotsman
this time. William Alexander was a titled Scot, a friend of James I
and a tutor of his son. He was also a prolific poet, although never
a very popular one. As secretary of state for Scotland, he was a
powerful and influential man who had visions of establishing his
own colony, independent of that in Virginia or Newfoundland. He
persuaded his friend King James, also a Scot, that there should be
a “New Scotland,” just as there was already a New England, New
France, etc.

   
The king liked the idea and granted a charter in 1621 to Sir
William. In Latin, the land would be called Nova Scotia. It
included mainland Nova Scotia, what would later become New
Brunswick and parts of Quebec. Both the king and Alexander simply
ignored the fact that this was the same land that the French had
already claimed and called Acadia. It also meant taking land away
from the grant given to the Council of New England. Obviously,
Alexander was highly thought of at court, because he moved things
even further along and successfully lobbied for a second grant of
land – Cape Breton Island – for his friend Sir Robert
Gorden.

   
Alexander himself was too comfortable in his own country to
consider shipping off across the Atlantic to see his new property.
In fact, it was a tough sell even to find volunteers to go across
the sea for whatever opportunities might await them. Everyone knew
of the inherent danger of territorial fighting that might break out
at any time with the French. Nonetheless, a hesitant first
expedition of farmhands, a minister and a blacksmit*h left Scotland
in June of 1622. They ran into a raging storm just as they sighted
Cape Breton in the early fall. This persuaded them to go ashore at
St. John’s, where many of them died during the bitter winter that
they were not prepared for.

   
Another ship was sent across in 1623 and took on the ten
survivors in Newfoundland. They sailed to Nova Scotia, all the
while wrestling with difficult winds and impertinent fog. They
explored much of the coast and then returned to England with a
cargo of Newfoundland fish. Oddly enough, these hearty souls must
have decided to put a positive spin onto the tale of their misery
and woe, for they told Alexander enthusiastic stories of fertile
land, rivers, abundant wood, furs and, of course, lots of
fish.

   
Undoubtedly, Sir William was being told what he wanted to
hear and the news was enough to continue his efforts to settle Nova
Scotia. The only problem was that the first two voyages had used up
what available money he had. It would not be the last time in
history that Nova Scotia would encounter financial hardship.
Alexander decided to put his poetic skills to work to muster
interest from the Scottish landholders for his endeavours. He
penned a neat little bit of propaganda that he called “An
Encouragement to Colonization,” and spread the good tidings of this
already precarious business venture.

   
Conspiring with King James, Sir William came up with a
sure-fire gimmick to raise the needed cash. For three thousand
“merks” a gentleman could become a “Knight Baronet of Nova Scotia,”
complete with a whopping 30,000 *acres of land. The gentlemen
would, however, be obliged to send settlers west to occupy the
foreign estate. Land to Sir William was cheap and disposable, even
though it’s hard to figure exactly how he had any moral ownership
to any of it – he’d never even been there.

A Conflict of Claims

In 1625 James died and his son,
Charles I, took the throne and continued to support the idea of
baronets. By May of that year, there were eight baronets in all;
the order kept going until 1638 and it earned a lot of money for
Sir William. One sticky part of the deal was that you could not
fully become a baronet until you actually stood on Nova Scotia
soil. The would-be buyers complained that Nova Scotia was simply
too far away, that the journey would be uncomfortable and dangerous
and they shouldn’t have to put up with such inconveniences. Before
he died, King James and Sir William fine-tuned the agreement by
declaring part of the castle yard in Edinburgh as Nova Scotian
soil, which it remains to this day. So all you had to do was pay
the cash, get touched on the shoulder with the sword of the king in
downtown Edinburgh and receive your credentials as a knight. Even
at that, it was a tough sell.

   
Nonetheless, enough money was raised to send ships and men
for another attempt at settlement. Two groups were sent off.
William Alexander the Younger (Sir William’s son) was in command of
one and Lord Ochiltree was in charge of another. Along with the
less-than-enthusiastic colonists, Ochiltree’s group arrived at
Baleine, near Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. They started to
clear some land and build a fort for protection from the French.
Lord Ochiltree, however, anxious to see some profit from his
charter as baronet of this new territory, set about collecting a
tax of one-tenth of all the fish caught by foreign vessels off
these shores. This turned out to be a decidedly bad move on his
part.

   
The French, of course, had also laid claim to Cape Breton.
One day, a French captain by the name of Daniel became separated
from his fleet and was sailing off the coast of Cape Breton. From
the fishermen he met, he heard of the tariff imposed by Ochiltree
and was incensed by the audacity of this less-than-diplomatic
Scottish lord. His ship assaulted the fort at Baleine, destroying
it and taking all of the settlers as prisoners. They were carried
to St. Ann’s, and treated to hard labour but finally put on ships
and sent back to Scotland. Lord Ochiltree and a few others were put
in prison in France and then released two years
later.

   
William the Younger had gone on to settle at the vacated site
of Port Royal, where his group actually did quite well for a couple
of years.

Chapter 9
 

Chapter 9
 

One Hundred Associates

Despite the pull-out from Port
Royal, the French had not entirely given up interest in Acadia. If
there was profit yet to be made there, then someone was sure to
take up the cause for control and colonization. After the death of
Biencourt, the lands under his control were passed on to his friend
Charles de La Tour. Charles and his father, Claude, had spent some
time at Port Royal and Charles was in charge of the fort at Cape
Sable, as well as other Acadian lands. Charles ended up in control
of almost all of Acadia by 1631.

   
It was an age of paranoia as well as mercantile expansion.
Had the English not been worrying about the French and vice versa,
it’s probable that the colonization of Nova Scotia would have
slowed to a snail’s pace. Weathaer, starvation and fears of a
potentially hostile Native population discouraged many from setting
out across the sea. In the 1620s the population of New France was
minuscule and spread thin. French businessmen relied matinly on
Mi’kmaq labour to trap furs and, in effect, there was little need
for a significant French population to keep up the trade on that
front. It was apparent, however, that the French were falling
behind in the busieness of exploiting the potential for wealth
across the Atlantic. The English and the Dutch both had “companies”
to expand colonization and trade in the New
World.

   
In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu, perhaps more intrigued by
commerce than God at this point in his life, created something
called the Company of One Hundred Associates to get serious about
economic growth in French territorises. The lucky one hundred would
have a virtual monopoly over land and trade in New
France.

   
Competition in the New World may have fuelled apprehension
and hostility between the European powers, but there was some
attempt to establish peace and define boundaries to ease tensions
r– at least on paper. On April 29, 1629, a peace treaty was signed
between France and England. All former colonies, including Port
Royal, were supposed to revert to France. William Alexander was
flabbergasted. Of course, what was written in ink was not
necessarily binding. England had agreed to return Quebec, but
partly because of Sir William’s New World interest, the English
weren’t really all that keen about giving up Acadia. There were
also some ill feelings here over a marriage that somehow
complicated the territorial ownership issue. The King of France had
not yet paid England for Charles’s marriage to his daughter,
Henrietta. A deal was a deal and, marital bliss notwithstanding, an
English king felt a certain right to see the cash as well as the
bride. On top of such grief, Charles was embroiled with various
battles in his own Parliament and would rather not concern himself
with peripheral interests in the New World if at all possible.
Another treaty in 1632 saw England agreeing again to pull out of
Acadia altogether.

   
Treaties, I suppose, establish some sort of historical fact –
a document at least that can be read, fondled and referred to. Yet
they don’t always reveal intention, nor do they necessarily reflect
action. News travelled slowly, as well, across the
seventeenth-century Atlantic and what a king says or does one day
may have no effect at all for many months.

   
The King of France chose Commander Isaac de Razilly to take
charge of recolonizing Acadia after the 1632 treaty, replacing
Charles de La Tour, who had been the king’s lieutenant-governor
there. Razilly was a military man; La Tour was a businessman. It
was obvious that Acadia was vulnerable to New England, with its
ever-growing English population, and the king wanted a soldier
there to hang onto the returned territories. So Razilly set sail
for Port Royal in a well-armed warship, ready to blast the current
Scottish settlers out of there if they were not ready to abide by
the new treaty.

   
The ship first stopped at La Have to establish some new
settlers in that rather comfortable spot and then went on to Port
Royal, then under the command of the English captain Andrew
Forrester, whose men had only recently sacked and burned La Tour’s
fort on the Saint John River across the Bay of Fundy. Forrester did
give up Port Royal and his people were put on a French ship that
returned them to Europe, although reports indicate that some of the
Scots settlers were so happy in Acadia that they stayed on and
blended in with the French.

Acadia Divided

As of 1635, French Acadia was
divided roughly into two halves. Razilly had control over Sable
Island, La Have, Port Royal and the St. Croix River area. La Tour
controlled Cape Sable on the South Shore of Nova Scotia and Fort La
Tour on the Saint John River. Both held titles as
lieutenant-governors and were supposed to report to the One Hundred
Associates. There was no great conflict here because Razilly’s
business interests were in lumber, fishing and farming, while La
Tour was concentrating on the fur trade.

   
When Razilly died, his authority went to his cousin, Charles
d’Aulnay, who decided to move the La Have settlers to Port Royal
and to bring new blood from France. He built a new improved fort on
the other side of the Annapolis Basin on what is now the site of
Annapolis Royal. With the English and Scots temporarily out of the
picture, rivalry flared between Charles de La Tour and d’Aulnay. La
Tour, after all, had been given a grant from the king and so had
d’Aulnay. There was supposed to be a clear division of lands, but
each was jealous of the other. D’Aulnay had also become more
interested in the fur trade. It seems that he wanted it all. In
1638, th*e king elevated d’Aulnay to La Tour’s rank and declared
that the potentially lucrative fur trade should be divided equally.
The king failed to have a good grasp of the geography of Acadia and
ended up creating an overlap of ownership between the two men,
escalating the problem.

   
Across the Bay of Fundy from Port Royal, La Tour had built a
trading post and fort. On a visit to Port Royal in 1639, there was
a quarrel over the rights to trading furs. It led to one of La
Tour’s men being killed. Back at his own fort, La Tour then
imprisoned some of d’Aulnay’s men. La Tour also personally went to
Port Royal and attacked d’Aulnay. De’Aulnay wanted to get rid of La
Tour and sailed to France to air his grievances, stating that La
Tour had become an enemy of France. D’Aulnay was persuasive and he
had been instructed by the king to seize La Tour and then take over
all of Acadia. La Tour refused to submit and left with his family
for Fort La Tour. Out of spite, d’Aulnay attacked the Cape Sable
settlement that had been under La Tour’s control and burned La
Tour’s family home to the ground.