Military history of the Mi'kmaq

[11] 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.

[13][15] Shortly after the Battle at Bouabouscache River, the retreating Iroquois set up camp on the Riviere Trois Pistoles to build canoes to return to their village.

In the wake of King Philip's War, the Mi'kmaq became members of the Wapnáki (Wabanaki Confederacy), an alliance with four other Algonquian-language nations: the Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet.

Two years later, New France, led by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, returned and fought a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy before moving on to raid Bristol, Maine again.

In the lead up to this battle in Fundy Bay, on 5 July, 140 natives (Mi'kmaq and Maliseet), with Jacques Testard de Montigny and Chevalier, from their location of Manawoganish island, ambushed the crews of four English vessels.

On 14 May 1715, New England naval commander Cyprian Southack attempted to create a permanent fishing station at a place he named "Cape Roseway" (now known as Shelburne).

In this same month British Captain David Donahue of the Resolution took prisoner the chief of the Mi'kmaq people of Île-Royale Jacques Pandanuques with his family to Boston and killed him.

[56] Concerned about their overland supply lines to Quebec and seeking revenge for the death of their chief, the Mi'kmaq and French first raided the British fishing port of Canso on 23 May.

Then, in mid-August, a larger French force arrived before Fort Anne, but was also unable to mount an effective attack or siege against the garrison, which was relieved by the New England company of Gorham's Rangers.

[e] By unilaterally establishing Halifax, historian William Wicken asserts the British were violating earlier treaties with the Mi'kmaq (1726), which were signed after Father Rale's War.

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

[74] On 30 September 1749, about forty Mi'kmaq attacked six men, who were under the command of Major Gilman, who were in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia cutting trees near a saw mill.

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.

[103] 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).

In response, on the night of 21 April, 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.

During this time period Acadians participated in various militia operations against the British and maintained vital supply lines to the French Fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour.

[41] During the French and Indian War, the British sought to neutralize any military threat Acadians and Mi'kmaq militias posed within Nova Scotia but particularly to the northern New England border in Maine.

[131] In December 1757, while cutting firewood near Fort Anne, the Mi'kmaq warriors captured John Weatherspoon and carried him away to the mouth of the Miramichi River.

From there he was eventually sold or traded to the French and taken to Quebec, where he was held until late in 1759 and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, when General Wolfe's forces prevailed.

[137] Because of the strength of the Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq militia, British officer John Knox wrote that "In the year 1757 we were said to be Masters of the province of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, which, however, was only an imaginary possession … " He continues to state that the situation in the province was so precarious for the British that the "troops and inhabitants" at Fort Edward, Fort Sackville and Lunenburg "could not be reputed in any other light than as prisoners.

[170] In 1757 and again in 1758, the Natives and Acadian militias were stationed at the potential landing beaches of Pointe Platee and one further away Anse d la Cormorandiere (Kennington Cove).

[177] On 15 July, Boishebert arrived with Acadian and Mi'kmaq militias and attacked Captain Sutherland and the Rogers' Rangers posted at Northeast harbour.

Along with the French, they continued up river to draw the British fleet closer to the Acadian community of Pointe-à-la-Batterie, where they were ready to launch a surprise attack on the English.

On July 7, British commander Byron spent the day getting rid of the battery at Pointe aux Sauvages and later returned to the task of destroying the Machault.

Historian Stephen Patterson indicates that the Halifax Treaties established a lasting peace on the basis that the Mi'kmaq surrendered and chose to uphold the rule of law through the British courts rather than resorting to violence.

The Mi'kmaq leaders who represented their people in the Halifax negotiations in 1760 had clear goals: to make peace, establish secure and well-regulated trade in commodities such as furs, and begin an ongoing friendship with the British crown.

The documents summarizing the peace agreements failed to establish specific territorial limits on the expansion of British settlements, but assured the Mi'kmaq of access to the natural resources that had long sustained them along the regions' coasts and in the woods.

[191] As the New England Planters and United Empire Loyalists began to arrive in Mi'kmaki (the Maritimes) in greater numbers, economic, environmental and cultural pressures were put on the Mi'kmaq with the erosion of the intent of the treaties.

The treaty established a military alliance between the United States and the St. John's and Mi'kmaq First Nations in Nova Scotia—two of the peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy—against Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War.

The party arrived at a very opportune moment for the Americans, and afforded material assistance in the defence of that post during the attack made by Sir George Collier on 13–15 August.