Place:Nova Scotia, Canada

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Nova Scotia is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".

Most of the population are native English-speakers and the province's population is 969,383 according to the 2021 Census. It is the most populous of Canada's Atlantic provinces. It is the country's second-most densely populated province and second-smallest province by area, both after Prince Edward Island. Its area of includes Cape Breton Island and 3,800 other coastal islands. The peninsula that makes up Nova Scotia's mainland is connected to the rest of North America by the Isthmus of Chignecto, on which the province's land border with New Brunswick is located. The province borders the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, and is separated from Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland by the Northumberland and Cabot straits, respectively.

The land that comprises what is now Nova Scotia was inhabited by the Miꞌkmaq people at the time of European exploration. In 1605, Acadia, France's first New France colony, was founded with the creation of Acadia's capital, . Britain fought France for the territory on numerous occasions for over a century afterwards. The Fortress of Louisbourg was a key focus point in the battle for control. Following the Great Upheaval (1755–1763) where the British deported the Acadians en masse, the Conquest of New France (1758–1760) by the British, and the Treaty of Paris (1763), France had to surrender Acadia to the British Empire. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), thousands of Loyalists settled in Nova Scotia. In 1848, Nova Scotia became the first British colony to achieve responsible government, and it federated in July 1867 with New Brunswick and the Province of Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) to form what is now the country of Canada.

Nova Scotia's capital and largest city is Halifax, which today is home to about 45 percent of the province's population. Halifax is the thirteenth-largest census metropolitan area in Canada, the largest city in Atlantic Canada, and Canada's second-largest coastal city after Vancouver.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The province includes regions of the Mi'kmaq nation of Mi'kma'ki, the territory of which extends across the Maritimes, parts of Maine, Newfoundland and the Gaspé Peninsula. The Mi'kmaq people are part of the large Algonquian-language family and inhabited Nova Scotia at the time the first European colonists arrived.

European settlement

The first Europeans to settle in what is now Nova Scotia were the French, who arrived in 1604, and Catholic Mi'kmaq and Acadians formed the majority of the population of the colony for the next 150 years. In 1605, French colonists established the first permanent European settlement in the future Canada (and the first north of Florida) at Port Royal, founding what would become known as Acadia.

Warfare was a notable feature in Nova Scotia during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the first 80 years the French and Acadians lived in Nova Scotia, nine significant military clashes took place as the English and Scottish (later British), Dutch and French fought for possession of the area. These encounters happened at Port Royal, Saint John, Cap de Sable (present-day Port La Tour, Nova Scotia), Jemseg (1674 and 1758) and Baleine (1629). The Acadian Civil War took place from 1640 to 1645.

Beginning with King William's War in 1688, a series of six wars took place between the English/British and the French, with Nova Scotia being a consistent theatre of conflict between the two powers.

18th century

Hostilities between the British and French resumed from 1702 to 1713, known as Queen Anne's War. The British siege of Port Royal took place in 1710, ending French-rule in peninsular Acadia. The subsequent signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 formally recognized this, while returning Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island to the French. Despite the British conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq, who confined British forces to Annapolis and to Canso. Present-day New Brunswick then still formed a part of the French colony of Acadia. Immediately after the capture of Port Royal in 1710, Francis Nicholson announced it would be renamed Annapolis Royal in honour of Queen Anne.

As a result of Father Rale's War (1722–1725), the Mi'kmaq signed a series of treaties with Great Britain in 1725. The Mi'kmaq signed a treaty of "submission" to the British crown. However, conflict between the Acadians, Mi'kmaq, French, and the British persisted in the following decades with King George's War (1744–1748).

Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755) began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on 21 June 1749. A General Court, made up of the governor and the council, was the highest court in the colony at the time.^[1] Jonathan Belcher was sworn in as chief justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court on 21 October 1754. The first legislative assembly in Halifax, under the Governorship of Charles Lawrence, met on 2 October 1758. During the French and Indian War of 1754–63 (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763), the British deported the Acadians and recruited New England Planters to resettle the colony. The 75-year period of war ended with the Halifax Treaties between the British and the Mi'kmaq (1761). After the war, some Acadians were allowed to return.

In 1763, most of Acadia (Cape Breton Island, St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island), and New Brunswick) became part of Nova Scotia. In 1765, the county of Sunbury was created. This included the territory of present-day New Brunswick and eastern Maine as far as the Penobscot River. In 1769, St. John's Island became a separate colony.

The American Revolution (1775–1783) had a significant impact on shaping Nova Scotia. Initially, Nova Scotia—"the 14th American Colony" as some called it—displayed ambivalence over whether the colony should join the more southern colonies in their defiance of Britain, and rebellion flared at the Battle of Fort Cumberland (1776) and at the Siege of Saint John (1777). Throughout the war, American privateers devastated the maritime economy by capturing ships and looting almost every community outside of Halifax. These American raids alienated many sympathetic or neutral Nova Scotians into supporting the British. By the end of the war, Nova Scotia had outfitted a number of privateers to attack American shipping. British military forces based at Halifax succeeded in preventing American support for rebels in Nova Scotia and deterred any invasion of Nova Scotia. However the British navy failed to establish naval supremacy. While the British captured many American privateers in battles such as the Naval battle off Halifax (1782), many more continued attacks on shipping and settlements until the final months of the war. The Royal Navy struggled to maintain British supply lines, defending convoys from American and French attacks as in the fiercely fought convoy battle, the Naval battle off Cape Breton (1781).

After the Thirteen Colonies and their French allies forced the British forces to surrender (1781), approximately 33,000 Loyalists (the King's Loyal Americans, allowed to place "United Empire Loyalist" after their names) settled in Nova Scotia (14,000 of them in what became New Brunswick) on lands granted by the Crown as some compensation for their losses. (The British administration divided Nova Scotia and hived off Cape Breton and New Brunswick in 1784). The Loyalist exodus created new communities across Nova Scotia, including Shelburne, which briefly became one of the larger British settlements in North America, and infused Nova Scotia with additional capital and skills. There are also a number of Black loyalists buried in unmarked graves in the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia).

However the migration also caused political tensions between Loyalist leaders and the leaders of the existing New England Planters settlement. The Loyalist influx also pushed Nova Scotia's 2000 Mi'kmaq People to the margins as Loyalist land grants encroached on ill-defined native lands. As part of the Loyalist migration, about 3,000 Black Loyalists arrived; they founded the largest free Black settlement in North America at Birchtown, near Shelburne. Many Nova Scotian communities were settled by British regiments that fought in the war.

19th century

During the War of 1812, Nova Scotia's contribution to the British war effort involved communities either purchasing or building various privateer ships to attack U.S. vessels. Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the war for Nova Scotia occurred when HMS Shannon escorted the captured American frigate USS Chesapeake into Halifax Harbour (1813). Many of the U.S. prisoners were kept at Deadman's Island, Halifax.

During this century, Nova Scotia became the first colony in British North America and in the British Empire to achieve responsible government in January–February 1848 and become self-governing through the efforts of Joseph Howe. Nova Scotia had established representative government in 1758, an achievement later commemorated by the erection of the Dingle Tower in 1908.

Nova Scotians fought in the Crimean War of 1853–1856. The Welsford-Parker Monument in Halifax is the second-oldest war monument in Canada (1860) and the only Crimean War monument in North America. It commemorates the 1854–55 Siege of Sevastopol.

Thousands of Nova Scotians fought in the American Civil War (1861–1865), primarily on behalf of the North. The British Empire (including Nova Scotia) in the conflict. As a result, Britain (and Nova Scotia) continued to trade with both the South and the North. Nova Scotia's economy boomed during the Civil War.

Post-Confederation history

Soon after the American Civil War, Pro-Canadian Confederation premier Charles Tupper led Nova Scotia into Canadian Confederation on 1 July 1867, along with New Brunswick and the Province of Canada. The Anti-Confederation Party was led by Joseph Howe. Almost three months later, in the election of 18 September 1867, the Anti-Confederation Party won 18 out of 19 federal seats, and 36 out of 38 seats in the provincial legislature.

Throughout the 19th century, numerous businesses developed in Nova Scotia became of pan-Canadian and international importance: the Starr Manufacturing Company (first skate-manufacturer in Canada), the Bank of Nova Scotia, Cunard Line, Alexander Keith's Brewery, Morse's Tea Company (first tea company in Canada), among others.

Nova Scotia became a world leader in both building and owning wooden sailing ships in the second half of the 19th century. Nova Scotia produced internationally recognized shipbuilders Donald McKay and William Dawson Lawrence. The fame Nova Scotia achieved from sailors was assured when Joshua Slocum became the first man to sail single-handedly around the world (1895). International attention continued into the following century with the many racing victories of the Bluenose schooner. Nova Scotia was also the birthplace and home of Samuel Cunard, a British shipping magnate (born at Halifax, Nova Scotia) who founded the Cunard Line.

In December 1917, about 2,000 people were killed in the Halifax Explosion.

In April 2004 when its Nova Scotia legislature adopted a resolution explicitly inviting the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands to explore the possibility of joining Canada as part of that Province.

In April 2020, a killing spree occurred across the province and became the deadliest rampage in Canada's history.

Research Tips

• Historical Maps of Nova Scotia prepared by Nova Scotia Archives
• The CanGenealogy page for Nova Scotia. An overview of available online sources with links written by Dave Obee.