Nova Scotia (23 page)

   
The
Hector
arrived in the
destined harbour on September 15, 1773, where the beleaguered
passengers and crew put a good face on a bad voyage with a display
of plaids, broadswords and the playing of bagpipes. Unfortunately,
the Pictou settlers who greeted them said the new arrivals had
missed the harvest and that there wasn’t really much food to feed
the whole lot of them. Nonetheless, they would all make the best of
life ashore until the
Hector,
still rotting
but afloat, returned in the spring with more
supplies.

   
The new Scots were afraid of the Pectougwac and some Mi’kmaq
had themselves reason to fear the Scots after seeing them at
Louisbourg in battle as the enemy. Communication and relations
between the two peoples were not good. This was unfortunate, since
the Mi’kmaq could have been of great assistance. Instead, most in
the Pictou community were unwilling to ask for advice from those so
close by who had such masterful skills at surviving off the
land.

   
Apparently most new settlers had been given the
line that all the land was clear – a lie that must have become a
staple for anyone trying to lure farmers to Nova Scotia. Instead of
cleared land, the Scots saw forests with trees as tall as 200 feet.
This was a totally unfamiliar, and seemingly hostile, landscape.
They had no idea how to cut the trees to clear land or to build log
houses. They preferred to stay near the harbour where they could at
least fish and sustain themselves. In the fall of 1793, they were
still refusing to settle the lands further from the harbour and
squabbles were breaking out with the Yankee settlers who had
preceded them. The Highland men were forced to go to work as
labourers in Truro and the women and children became indentured
servants to those already established. Some moved on to Onslow and
Londonderry. The
Hector
returned in
the fall with more supplies, but the American agents argued that
the Scots were not living up to their end of the bargain. They
would be given no more food until they settled those properties
away from the harbour or paid cash. Timnses were desperate and some
people were forced to sell everything they owned in order to buy
food.

   
Unfortunately, the Scots had never warmed to the Pectougwac
people enough to learn the necessary skills of survival here
without dependence on food from outside. Certainly the Mi’kmaq had
a healthy diet, living off the land and sea around them. Once
again, a perverse and unyielding focus on dependency from a distant
provider created undue hardship for these settlers living in a
bountiful corner of Nova Scotia.

   
Two of the settlers, Colin Douglas and Donald MacDonald,
decided that they were tired of being pushed around by the
Americans. They seized the food they needed from the stores of the
Philadelphia Company but insisted on recording an account with the
agents for what they took. They would pay the company back when
they were able. Thus, urgency and decency were married in the
event. The agents, however, sent news off to Halifax that a
“rebellion” was underway. Halifax sent word to officers in Truro to
handle the situation, but the citizens of Truro knew the truth of
the matter and refused to intervene.

   
After that, most families abandoned Pictou to spend the
winter in Truro where they could at least count on some sympathy.
Those who stayed behind barely survived. The local Mi’kmaq again
took pity on their white neighbours and provided food, instructed
them in hunting and taught them to make snowshoes to get around in
the winter. But when local rations of wild meat were not enough to
sustain the fledgling hunters, they used their snowshoes to hike to
Truro to retrieve flour and other staples.

   
The Highlanders were not quick to adapt to the land or the
lifestyle of their new home. One newcomer, with a deathly fear of
bears, shot a porcupine at close range with nine bullets, thinking
it to be his dreaded nemesics. Other settlers who had tapped the
flowing sap of maple trees were discouraged to find the sap ceased
to flow and tied thick bands around the trees in an attempt to
squeeze out more of the nutritious fluid.

   
For those who stayed on and some who later returned, Pictou
would become home. Crops were planted and there were fish to be
landed. Dependence on outside providers diminished, but trade with
other towns increased until Pictou grew into a rather respectable
community.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

1776 and All That

By 1776 and the outbreak of the
American Revolution, the population of Nova Scotia was nearing
20,000. Along with the Mi’kmaq, and all the early European settlers
who had stayed on (or whose children had been able to survive
here), there had been the recent immigration of Ulstermen,
Yorkshiremen, Scottish Highlanders and an assortment of destitute
and persecuted Roman Catholics. Nonetheless, nearly half of the
Nova Scotian population h ad originated in New England. There were
still strong family, social and political ties to the Americans as
well as economic and religious links. Since these settlers had
moved north before the abrasive Stamp Act, the Nova Scotian New
Englanders had gripes and grudges against the British Empire, but
they didn’t have the revolutionary fervour that had been fomented
in the south after they left.

   
Massachusetts still had certain economic powers over Nova
Scotia, controlling much of the fishing business here. But almost
no one in New England thought of Nova Scotia as any kind of
competition in the race to develop  and prosper. Compared to
other settlements along the seaboard, Halifax was a still a tiny
seaport.

The Fourteenth Colony

If we go back and look at the
Halifax census of 1767 (nine years before the American Revolution)
we find 302 English, 52 Scots, 853 Irish, 264 “Foreign
Protestants,” 200 Acadians and 1,351 Americans. With only a short
stretch of the imagination you could almost have called Halifax
just another American seaport. Trade was increasing with New
England, helping somewhat to diminish commerce with and dependency
on England. The Assembly whicth purported to be democratic was made
up mostly of upper-class merchants who were looking out for their
own interests. Laws were decreed and enforced by the military. The
Stamp Act of 1765, for example, enforced taxation on the colonies
and boiled the blood of many an American. Haligonians, as well,
were not without concern.

   
The
Halifax Gazette
was
so bold as to publish editorials against the act as well as a
political cartoon from
The
Pennsylvania Journal
.
The
Gazette
became even more brazen when a
printer’s apprentice refused to include the required taxation
“stamps.” This act of protest was, of course, an outright crime
under the act. Nor was the protest condoned by the paper’s editor,
Richard Bulkeley, who fired the printer and his apprentice. The
apprentice was asked to leave Halifax.

   
Other forms of protest, too, were visible in Halifax. An
effigy of the stamp master was burned at Citadel Hill and an old
boot was hung from a gallows as an intended insult against King
George’s unpopular cohort, Lord Bute. The governor at this time was
Lord William Campbell, a Loyalist. Nervous about these signs of
discontent, he stationed guards around the stamp master’s house.
The governor and his high-society wife were less intereswted in
politics than personal social activities. Horse-racing, for
example, was high on the good governor’s agenda and so he was
instrumental in the promotion of gambling in the colonial
capital.

   
The ever-unpopular Stamp Act was repealed in 1768, but
unwilling to let the colonies off the hook, the English demanded a
new form of revenue from a tax on tea. Nothing could possibly have
been more insulting to colonists. In America, the Boston Tea Party
resulted in elevating new levels of animosity toward the Crown.
General Gage in Boston called for help, and soldiers from
throughout Nova Scotia were summoned to the scene. Outposts were
abandoned and Halifax was suddenly left with only a handful of
soldiers. u

   
Pamphlets and propaganda from the Americans began to flow
into Halifax. In 1773, Campbell was transferred to become governor
of South Carolina and replaced by Major Francis Legge, who was
jealous of the well-liked merchant-politician Michael Francklin.
Legge also was troubled with fears of conspiracies and espionage.
i

   
Legge had good reason to worry. Most Nova Scotians had no
great love for the king. After all, two-thirds of the population
was from New England or had parents from there. The foot soldiers
and the sailors were, however, under the employ of the king and
most weren’t about to question which side they should be on. A plan
evolved in 1775 in Machias, Maine, to invade Nova Scotia and, with
the assistance of disgruntled Halifax residents, overthrow the
British. George Washington, chief of the Rievolutionary Army,
however, called it off. He saw it as an offensive move likely to
cause more harm than good. On the practical side, he was also
afraid the Americans didn’t have enough ammunition to successfully
pull off the invasion. Thomas Raddall suggests that the attack, if
it had gone ahead, might well have succeeded. Nova Scotia would
have become the fourteenth colony at that point. And Canada might
never have become Canada.

Rebels Without a Roar

Jonathan Eddy was one of those
unsettled New Englanders who had moved north to Nova Scotia. John
Allan was a Scotsman who had been educated in New England and later
settled here as well. They both felt it unfair when they learned
that there would be yet another new tax levied to pay for the
militia to defend Nova Scotia against the American Revolution. Eddy
and Allan found it easy to muster support from the angry citizenry
around the Cumberland area, but Governor Legge, who got wind of the
potential uprising, decided to defuse it by calling off the
tax. 

   
Eddy and Allan were so fired up that they tried to get a good
revolution going anyway in January of 1776. The only problem was
that almost nobody was much interested any more now that the tax
was gone. The two rabble-rousrers also discovered it was impossible
to get a good war going without an army. Those Nova Scotians
sympathetic to the cause of revolution were thinking that maybe if
they sat back, the American Revolution would come north to
“liberate” them from British rule. It would be an easy way to win
without risk or bloodshed. Restless to get things moving, however,
Eddy and Allan went to talk to George Washington to persuade him
that Nova Scotia was ripe for a revolution if he could help get one
going here. Again, Washington thought he might be stretching his
army a bit thin, and indeed there were a dozen good reasons to
ignore Nova Scotia and worry about the Thirteen
Colonies.

   
Legge knew what Eddy and Allan were up to and sent Francklin
(a good talker and charming to boot) to cool things off in
Cumberland. Nothing much happened, so in June John Gorham and 200
of his men were sent there to offer rewards for the ringleaders.
Eddy was in Massachusetts, failing again to get support for an
invasion. All he could get from that colony was some ammunition and
a little pork to take home. But on his way back he had gathered
together a small (well, very small) contingent of eighty men ready
to take over Nova Scotia. John Allan tried to convince Eddy that it
wasn’t going to work, but Eddy was all fired up for a good
revolution. He said he was sure that if he could just light the
match the whole damn thing would blow.

   
He mustered seventy or so Cumberland Chignecto Yankees to his
cause and he now had a small army of about 180. At least he had
more than doubled his force. Eddy succeeded in taking control of
the Chignecto area since no one offered any real opposition. What
was the point? At the same time, he didn’t get many new recruits.
The revolutionary fervour just wasn’t there. Most people wanted to
hang onto their land and be left alone to live their lives. Eddy
seemed incoherent sometimes, so they didn’t want to mess with him
or get in his way. When Gorham’s men finally turned on the rebels,
they didn’t last long. Most ran for the woods and all hopes of a
Nova Scotia revolution disappeared with them.

“Nova Scarcity”

Back in Halifax, Michael Francklin
sent a delegation to London to convince the British government to
have Governor Legge shipped back. Legge was disliked by so many
Nova Scotians that Francklin feared this hostility directed at one
man might help unify any movement afoot toward independence.
Francklin’s delegates succeeded in proving their point and Legge
left town, boarding a ship as he shook his fistsf and screamed at a
crowd on the Halifax waterfront, cheering his dismissal there.
Francklin lost his own job as lieutenant-governor, possibly to
diffuse the rift that had developed over booting Legge out of
office. He hung around, however, to support the Loyalist cause and
did a pretty good job of it. Legge was replaced by Marriot
Arbuthnot, a gentleman of high social standing.