Father Le Loutre's War

About forty years later, the British made a concerted effort to settle Protestants in the region and to establish military control over all of Nova Scotia and present-day New Brunswick, igniting armed response from Acadians in Father Le Loutre's War.

Acadians joined French privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste as crew members in his victories over many British vessels during King William's War.

After the Siege of Pemaquid, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville led a force of 124 Canadians, Acadians, Mi'kmaq and Abenaki in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign.

During the war, however, Massachusetts Governor Shirley acknowledged that Nova Scotia was still "scarcely" British and urged London to fund building forts in the Acadian communities.

To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (Citadel Hill in 1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville in 1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

[25]: 384 [13]: 254  Cornwallis continued to press for the unconditional oath rejecting their Christian Catholic Faith and accepting the Protestant Anglican Church with a deadline of 25 October.

[20]: 18 [28]: 179  The year earlier the Mi'kmaq had seized Captain Ellingwood's vessel Success and he promised them 100 pounds and left his son hostage to have it released.

[9]: 149 [30] On 24 September 1749, the Mi'kmaq formally wrote to Governor Cornwallis through French missionary Father Maillard, proclaiming their ownership of the land, and expressing their opposition to the British actions in settling at Halifax.

This raid was consistent with the Wabanaki Confederacy and New England's approach to warfare with each other since King William's War (1688).j On October 1, 1749, Cornwallis convened a meeting of the Nova Scotia Council aboard HMS Beaufort.

The intent of the proclamation was to put an end to native raids on colonial settlements and to pressure them into "submission" in order to establish "peace and friendship."

After the British soldiers were captured, the native and Acadian militias made several attempts over the next week to lay siege to the fort before breaking off the engagement.

[36]: 174 Gorham proceeded to present-day Windsor and forced Acadians to dismantle their church – Notre Dame de l'Assomption – so that Fort Edward could be built in its place.

[41][42]: 370 In August 1750, there was a naval battle off Baie Verte between British Captain Le Cras, of the Trial and the French sloop, London, of 70 tons.

The London was seized to discover that it had been employed to carry stores of all kinds, arms, and ammunition, from Quebec to Le Loutre and the Mi'kmaq fighters.

Early on 16 October, about ten leagues west of Cape Sable (present-day Port La Tour, Nova Scotia and area), British Captain John Rous in HMS Albany overtook the French vessels.

[20]: 34  In early July, New Englanders killed and scalped two Mi'kmaq girls and one boy off the coast of Cape Sable (Port La Tour, Nova Scotia).

[36]: 209  In August, at St. Peter's, Nova Scotia, Mi'kmaq seized two schooners – the Friendship from Halifax and the Dolphin from New England – along with 21 prisoners who were captured and ransomed.

[9]: 162  This reduction led to the 22 March 1753 resolution for a militia that would be raised from the colonists to establish the security of the colony, in which all British subjects between the ages of 16 and 60 were compelled to serve.

[51]n In response, on the night of May 19, under the leadership of Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope and the Mi'kmaq attacked another British schooner in a battle at sea off Jeddore, Nova Scotia.

[28]: 188  As a result, Governor Peregrine Hopson received warnings from Fort Edward that as many as 300 natives nearby were prepared to oppose the settlement of Lunenburg and intended to attack upon the arrival of settlers.

[10]: 136 [20]: 37  The settlement was founded by two British army officers John Creighton and Patrick Sutherland and German-immigrant local official Dettlieb Christopher Jessen.

[10]: 137 In mid December 1753, within six months of their arrival at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the new settlers, who were mostly Foreign Protestants and weary from resettlement and poor conditions,[52] rebelled against the British.

Commander Patrick Sutherland at Lunenburg asked for reinforcements from Halifax and Lawrence sent Colonel Robert Monckton with troops to restore order.

He returned with success in May 1753 and work began on the grand dyking project on riviere Au Lac (present day Aulac River, New Brunswick).

[10]: 137 By the summer of 1754, Le Loutre's amazing engineering feats manifested themselves on the great sweeping marshlands of the isthmus; he now had in his workforce and within a forty-eight-hour marching radius about 1400 to 1500 Acadian men.

[10]: 139  That year storm tides broke through the main cross-dike of the large-scale reclamation project, destroying nearly everything the Acadians had accomplished in several months of intense work.

[43] In April 1755, while searching for a wrecked vessel at Port La Tour, Cobb discovered the French schooner Marguerite (Margarett), taking war supplies to the Saint John River for Boishebert at Fort Menagoueche.

[62] On May 22, 1755, the British commanded a fleet of three warships and thirty-three transports carrying 2,100 soldiers from Boston, Massachusetts; they landed at Fort Lawrence on June 3, 1755.

The bread basket of the region, they raised wheat and other grains, produced flour in no fewer than eleven mills, and sustained herds of several thousand head of cattle, sheep and hogs.

[10]: 146 More than any other single factor – including the massive assault that eventually forced the surrender of Louisbourg – the supply problem spelled doom to French power in the region.

The evacuation of French forces from Port Royal . The French ceded the Acadian peninsula to the British after the siege of Port Royal in 1710.
Acadian , and Mi'kmaq militias fought alongside French forces during the Battle of Grand Pré , 1747.
Lieutenant-General Peregrine Lascelles , Commander 47th Regiment
Soldier of the 29th Regiment of Foot guarding Halifax against raids by Acadian and Mi'kmaq militia, 1749. Horsemans Fort stands in the background. t
Richard Bulkeley
Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre led the Acadian Exodus , an event that saw half of the Acadian population in the Acadian peninsula relocate to French-controlled territories further inland.
Edward Cornwallis , the Governor of Nova Scotia
Fort Edward in 1753. In an effort to further consolidate control, John Gorham was dispatched to establish the blockhouse at Pisiquid .
Fort Beausejour and the surrounding area, c. 1755 . The French built fortifications around the Isthmus of Chignecto in an effort to limit British expansion into continental Acadia.
A historical marker for Fort Boishebert . Although British forces failed to intercept supplies heading to the fort in October 1750, Cornwallis gained further evidence that the French Governor General of the Canadas was providing the Mi'kmaq with weapons.
The Old Burying Ground , in Halifax. British victims from the conflict were occasionally buried here, including the victims from the Dartmouth raids.
View of Halifax, c. 1749 . Although the settlement was protected by palisades , areas outside the city walls were subject to raids.
In December 1753, the British dispatched Robert Monckton to quell the Hoffman Insurrection. The British feared the French, and German Protestant rebels might have joined the Acadians.
The capture of French naval ships Alcide and Lys . Carrying supplies for the Acadian and Mi'kmaq militias, the battle was a contributing factor to the resumption of formal war between the British and French.
A scene depicting the deportation of Acadian settlers in Grand-Pré .