Raid on Dartmouth (1749) | |||||||
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Part of Father Le Loutre's War | |||||||
![]() Plaque to Raid on Dartmouth (1749) and the blockhouse that was built in response (1750), Dartmouth Heritage Museum | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Mi'kmaw militia Acadian militia | ![]() | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Major Ezekiel Gilman [1] | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
40 Mi'kmaq | 6 British | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
3 killed | 4 killed, 2 wounded |
Military history of the Mi'kmaq | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Raid on Dartmouth (1749) occurred during Father Le Loutre's War on September 30, 1749 when a Mi'kmaw militia from Chignecto raided Major Ezekiel Gilman's sawmill at present-day Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, killing four workers and wounding two. This raid was one of seven the Wabanaki Confederacy and Acadians would conduct against the settlement during the war.
Despite the British |Conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq. Father Le Loutre's War began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749. [2]
By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of the Wabanaki Confederacy (which included the Mi'kmaq) killing British civilians along the New England/ Acadia border in Maine (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747). [3] [4]
After establishing an initial settlement in Halifax in the summer of 1749, it was imperative that Governor Edward Cornwallis make peace with the Native peoples of the province before further colonization could proceed. On 15 August, Governor Cornwallis and members of his Council met with representatives of the Penobscot, Naridgwalk, St. John, Cape Sable and other tribes aboard HMS Beaufort in Halifax Harbour. They agreed to sign a redrafted treaty of 1725 that would be ratified at a later date. [5]
Governor Cornwallis was informed in August that two vessels were attacked by the Indians at Canso whereby "three English and seven Indians were killed." Council believed the attack had been orchestrated by Abbe Le Loutre. [6]
Prior to this incident, the priest had written the following to the minister of marine in France:
As we cannot openly expose the English ventures, I think that we cannot do better than to incite the indians to continue warring on the English; my plan is to persuade the Indians to send word to the English that they will not permit new settlements to be made in Acadia. . . I shall do my best to make it look to the English as if this plan comes from the Indians and that I have no part in it." [7]
To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).
On 24 September 1749, the Mi'kmaq formally wrote to Governor Cornwallis through Father Maillard, proclaiming their ownership of the land, and expressing their opposition to the British actions in settling at Halifax. Some historians have read this letter as declaration of hostility against the British. [8] Other historians have questioned that interpretation. [9]
Raids started at Canso, then Chignecto and then at present-day Dartmouth. During Father Le Loutre's War, there were four raids on Dartmouth. [10]
Major Ezekiel Gilman (Gillman) was in command of the mill at Dartmouth. He had worked in the lumber industry in Exeter, New Hampshire. He had distinguished himself in Colonel Samuel Moore's Regiment at the Siege of Louisbourg (1745), where he engineered moving the British canons across boggy terrain. [11] [12] [13] Sir William Pepperrell referred to Gilman as "very serviceable" in the expedition. [14] (He returned various times to New Hampshire but died in Nova Scotia in 1755.) [lower-alpha 1] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
On September 30, 1749, about forty Mi'kmaq attacked six men who were in Dartmouth cutting trees. The Mi'kmaq killed four of them on the spot, took one prisoner and one escaped. [22] Two of the men were scalped and the heads of the others were cut off. The attack was on the saw mill at Dartmouth Cove (Mill Location ), which was under the command of Major Ezekiel Gilman. A detachment of rangers was sent after the raiding party and cut off the heads of two Mi'kmaq and scalped one. [6]
On October 2, 1749, to stop the attacks on the emigrants, Governor Edward Cornwallis created an extirpation proclamation directing "all Officers Civil and Military, and all His Majesty's Subjects or others to annoy, distress, take or destroy the Savage commonly called Micmac, wherever they are found." [23] As part of the proclamation he offered a bounty for the capture or scalps of Mi'kmaw men and for the capture of women and children: "every Indian you shall destroy (upon producing his Scalp as the Custom is) or every Indian taken, Man, Woman or Child." [23] The three companies scoured the land around Halifax looking for Mi'kmaq, however, the Rangers never made contact with any Mi'kmaq. [24]
Cornwallis also stationed thirty men guarding the saw mill over the following winter, with two armed vessels. Gilman left unannounced to New England by April 1750. [lower-alpha 2] [25] By July, Cornwallis had given the saw mill to Clapham to manage. [25] In September, he gave command of Gilman's rangers to Captain Francis Bartelo. [25]
Despite Cornwallis' efforts to defend the community, in July 1750, the Mi'kmaq killed and scalped seven men who were at work in Dartmouth. [26] In August 1750, 353 people arrived on the ship Alderney and began the town of Dartmouth, which was laid out in the autumn of that year. [26] The following month, on September 30, 1750, Dartmouth was attacked again by the Mi'kmaq and five more residents were killed. [27] In October 1750 a group of about eight men went out "to take their diversion; and as they were fowling, they were attacked by the Indians, who took the whole prisoners; scalped ... [one] with a large knife, which they wear for that purpose, and threw him into the sea ..." [28]
In March 1751, the Mi'kmaq attacked on two more occasions, bringing the total number of raids to six in the previous two years. [lower-alpha 3] Three months later, on May 13, 1751, Broussard led sixty Mi'kmaq and Acadians to attack Dartmouth again, in what would be known as the "Dartmouth Massacre". [29]
Mi'kmaw historian Daniel N. Paul has disputed British accounts of the raid. Paul dismisses the possibility that Mi'kmaw people would attack unarmed civilians and speculates, instead, that the woodcutters were probably armed and better equipped compared to the Mi'kmaq raiders. Paul provides no historical evidence to support his speculations. [30] In his book We Were Not the Savages Paul writes:
The question this poses is, why was this group of 'defenseless' Englishmen sent out into the forest alone to cut wood during a time of war without troop protection and thus left vulnerable to attack? If this was the case then it smacks of gross incompetence on a British officer's part. If the story is true and not propaganda, a more credible reason for them being sent out without troop protection is that they were not defenseless but as well-armed as the Mi'kmaq and probably more so. This can be reasonably assumed because, as woodcutters, they had axes to cut wood with, which alone would have made them possessors of weapons as lethally effective, and probably more reliable, than most of the arms the Mi'kmaq had access to. In any event, because the English were assaulting the Mi'kmaq and stealing their territory, Cornwallis and his Council should not have been so affronted and reacted so barbarously when the Mi'kmaq fought back. In fighting back to preserve their freedom and country, the Mi'kmaq paid a heavy price.
— Daniel N. Paul, We Were Not the Savages [30]
Paul asserts that Cornwallis used "a few incidents such as these" to justify his bounty proclamation. [31] Cornwallis' decision to put a bounty on the Mi'kmaq did not pivot simply on the Raid on Dartmouth in 1749. [3] By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of conflict between the Wabanaki Confederacy (which included the Mi'kmaq) and the various British American colonies of North America; with the Wabanaki launching several raids along the New England-Acadia Border in Maine in response to British settlement (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745). [3] The proclamation was modelled on earlier proclamations used by New England Governors.
Citadel Hill is a hill that is a National Historic Site in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Four fortifications have been constructed on Citadel Hill since the city was founded by the English in 1749, and were referred to as Fort George—but only the third fort was officially named Fort George. According to General Orders of October 20, 1798, it was named after King George III. The first two and the fourth and current fort, were officially called the Halifax Citadel. The last is a concrete star fort.
Edward Cornwallis was a British career military officer and member of the aristocratic Cornwallis family, who reached the rank of Lieutenant General. After Cornwallis fought in Scotland, putting down the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, he was appointed Groom of the Chamber for King George II. He was then made Governor of Nova Scotia (1749–1752), one of the colonies in North America, and assigned to establish the new town of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Later Cornwallis returned to London, where he was elected as MP for Westminster and married the niece of Robert Walpole, Great Britain's first Prime Minister. Cornwallis was next appointed as Governor of Gibraltar.
Fort Gaspareaux was a French fort at the head of Baie Verte near the mouth of the Gaspareaux River and just southeast of the modern community of Strait Shores, New Brunswick, Canada, on the Isthmus of Chignecto. It was built during Father Le Loutre's War and is now a National Historic Site of Canada overlooking the Northumberland Strait.
Dartmouth founded in 1750, is a Metropolitan Area and former city in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
Lawrencetown is a Canadian rural community in the Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, Canada. The settlement was established during the eve of Father Le Loutre's War and at the beginning of the French and Indian War.
Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre was a Catholic priest and missionary for the Paris Foreign Missions Society. Le Loutre became the leader of the French forces and the Acadian and Mi'kmaq militias during King George's War and Father Le Loutre's War in the eighteenth-century struggle for power between the French, Acadians, and Miꞌkmaq against the British over Acadia.
John Gorham was a New England Ranger and was the first significant British military presence on the frontier of Nova Scotia and Acadia to remain in the region for a substantial period after the Conquest of Acadia (1710). He established the famous "Gorham's Rangers". He also commissioned two armed vessels: the Anson and the Warren, who patrolled off Nova Scotia.
The Battle at St. Croix was fought during Father Le Loutre's War between Gorham's Rangers and Mi'kmaq at Battle Hill in the community of St. Croix, Nova Scotia. The battle lasted from March 20–23, 1750.
The Raid on Dartmouth occurred during Father Le Loutre's War on May 13, 1751, when a Mi'kmaq and Acadian militia from Chignecto, under the command of Acadian Joseph Broussard, raided Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, destroying the town and killing twenty British villagers and wounding British regulars. The town was protected by a blockhouse on Blockhouse Hill with William Clapham's Rangers and British regulars from the 45th Regiment of Foot. This raid was one of seven Miꞌkmaq and Acadians would conduct against the town during the war.
The siege of Grand Pré happened during Father Le Loutre's War and was fought between the British and the Wabanaki Confederacy and Acadian militia. The siege happened at Fort Vieux Logis, Grand-Pré. The native and Acadia militia laid siege to Fort Vieux Logis for a week in November 1749. One historian states that the intent of the siege was to help facilitate the Acadian Exodus from the region.
Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755), also known as the Indian War, the Mi'kmaq War and the Anglo-Mi'kmaq War, took place between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia.c On one side of the conflict, the British and New England colonists were led by British officer Charles Lawrence and New England Ranger John Gorham. On the other side, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadia militia in guerrilla warfare against settlers and British forces. At the outbreak of the war there were an estimated 2500 Mi'kmaq and 12,000 Acadians in the region.
The Acadian Exodus happened during Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755) and involved almost half of the total Acadian population of Nova Scotia deciding to relocate to French controlled territories. The three primary destinations were: the west side of the Mesagoueche River in the Chignecto region, Isle Saint-Jean and Île-Royale. The leader of the Exodus was Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre, whom the British gave the code name "Moses". Le Loutre acted in conjunction with Governor of New France, Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière, who encouraged the Acadian migration. A prominent Acadian who transported Acadians to Ile St. Jean and Ile Royal was Joseph-Nicolas Gautier. The overall upheaval of the early 1750s in Nova Scotia was unprecedented. Present-day Atlantic Canada witnessed more population movements, more fortification construction, and more troop allocations than ever before in the region. The greatest immigration of the Acadians between 1749 and 1755 took place in 1750. Primarily due to natural disasters and British raids, the Exodus proved to be unsustainable when Acadians tried to develop communities in the French territories.
Fort Vieux Logis was a small British frontier fort built at present-day Hortonville, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1749, during Father Le Loutre's War (1749). Ranger John Gorham moved a blockhouse he erected in Annapolis Royal in 1744 to the site of Vieux Logis. The fort was in use until 1754. The British rebuilt the fort again during the French and Indian War and named it Fort Montague (1760).
The Battle at Chignecto happened during Father Le Loutre's War when Charles Lawrence, in command of the 45th Regiment of Foot and the 47th Regiment, John Gorham in command of the Rangers and Captain John Rous in command of the navy, fought against the French monarchists at Chignecto. This battle was the first attempt by the British to occupy the head of the Bay of Fundy since the disastrous Battle of Grand Pré three years earlier. They fought against a militia made up of Mi'kmaq and Acadians led by Jean-Louis Le Loutre and Joseph Broussard (Beausoliel). The battle happened at Isthmus of Chignecto, Nova Scotia on 3 September 1750.
The attack at Mocodome was a battle which occurred during Father Le Loutre's War in present-day Country Harbour, Nova Scotia on February 21, 1753 which saw two British mariners and six Mi'kmaq killed. The battle ended any hope for the survival of the Treaty of 1752 signed by Governor Peregrine Hopson and Mi'kmaq chief Jean-Baptiste Cope.
Fort Sackville was a British fort in present-day Bedford, Nova Scotia. It was built during Father Le Loutre's War by British adjacent to present-day Scott Manor House, on a hill overlooking the Sackville River to help prevent French, Acadian and Mi'kmaq attacks on Halifax. The fort consisted of a blockhouse, a guard house, a barracks that housed 50 soldiers, and outbuildings, all encompassed by a palisade. Not far from the fort was a rifle range. The fort was named after George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville.
The military history of the Mi'kmaq consisted primarily of Mi'kmaq warriors (smáknisk) who participated in wars against the English independently as well as in coordination with the Acadian militia and French royal forces. The Mi'kmaq militias remained an effective force for over 75 years before the Halifax Treaties were signed (1760–1761). In the nineteenth century, the Mi'kmaq "boasted" that, in their contest with the British, the Mi'kmaq "killed more men than they lost". In 1753, Charles Morris stated that the Mi'kmaq have the advantage of "no settlement or place of abode, but wandering from place to place in unknown and, therefore, inaccessible woods, is so great that it has hitherto rendered all attempts to surprise them ineffectual". Leadership on both sides of the conflict employed standard colonial warfare, which included scalping non-combatants. After some engagements against the British during the American Revolutionary War, the militias were dormant throughout the nineteenth century, while the Mi'kmaq people used diplomatic efforts to have the local authorities honour the treaties. After confederation, Mi'kmaq warriors eventually joined Canada's war efforts in World War I and World War II. The most well-known colonial leaders of these militias were Chief (Sakamaw) Jean-Baptiste Cope and Chief Étienne Bâtard.
The military history of the Acadians consisted primarily of militias made up of Acadian settlers who participated in wars against the English in coordination with the Wabanaki Confederacy and French royal forces. A number of Acadians provided military intelligence, sanctuary, and logistical support to the various resistance movements against British rule in Acadia, while other Acadians remained neutral in the contest between the Franco–Wabanaki Confederacy forces and the British. The Acadian militias managed to maintain an effective resistance movement for more than 75 years and through six wars before their eventual demise. According to Acadian historian Maurice Basque, the story of Evangeline continues to influence historic accounts of the expulsion, emphasising Acadians who remained neutral and de-emphasising those who joined resistance movements. While Acadian militias were briefly active during the American Revolutionary War, the militias were dormant throughout the nineteenth century. After confederation, Acadians eventually joined the Canadian War efforts in World War I and World War II. The most well-known colonial leaders of these militias were Joseph Broussard and Joseph-Nicolas Gautier.
Captain Francis Bartelo (?-1750) was a ranger who served under Edward Cornwallis during Father Le Loutre's War. Bartelo may have served with the Free Companies at Flanders during the war. Bartelo arrived in Halifax on the Merry Jacks with Cornwallis expedition. In February 1750, Bartelo successfully arrested Priest Jacque Girrard and a number of Acadians who participated in the Siege of Grand Pre. After the Battle at St. Croix, he also arrested the Acadians who killed Cornwallis' messenger. In March 1750, Cornwallis wrote, "Gorham is no officer at all; Capt. Bartelo, I can confided in as a good officer, and an honest man." In April, Bartelo was appointed the commander of all the independent companies in Nova Scotia. In September, Cornwallis gave command of Gilman's rangers to Captain Bartelo. He was the commander at Fort Sackville in August 1750, when he served as second in command at the Battle at Chignecto. On August 26 Salusbury recorded that the Mi'kmaq and Acadian militias killed him in the battle. 35 Mi'kmaq and Acadians ambushed Ranger Captain Francis Bartelo, killing him and six of his men while taking seven others captive. The Mi'kmaq conducted ritual torture of the captives throughout the night, which had a chilling effect on the New Englanders.
The Lunenburg campaign was executed by the Mi'kmaq militia and Acadian militia against the Foreign Protestants who the British had settled on the Lunenburg Peninsula during the French and Indian War. The British deployed Joseph Gorham and his Rangers along with Captain Rudolf Faesch and regular troops of the 60th Regiment of Foot to defend Lunenburg. The campaign was so successful, by November 1758, the members of the House of Assembly for Lunenburg stated "they received no benefit from His Majesty's Troops or Rangers" and required more protection.
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