Nova Scotia, history

Nova Scotia was contested territory between the French and British (and the Indians) from 1500 down to 1763. It was ruled as a British colony until it became a founding member of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.

1500 to 1763

Following the voyages of the Norsemen around 1000 and the discoveries of John Cabot in 1497, European fishermen and navigators skirted the coast. The explorers examined the coasts of Nova Scotia, sounded its harbors, and prepared maps; the fishers frequented its bays and fishing banks.

The French made the first permanent colonization. In 1603 Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, the patron and associate of Samuel de Champlain, obtained by charter all those lands lying between 40 and 46 degrees north latitude. In the spring of 1605 he founded Port Royal on Annapolis Basin. It was the first permanent agricultural settlement of Europeans in territory now Canadian.

The British crown, ignoring the French claims, granted all the territories between the 34th and 45th parallels (including both St. Croix and Port Royal) to the London and Plymouth companies in 1606. Rival French and English charters, with their overlapping territories, provided a basis for conflict. Between 1613 and 1710 Nova Scotia or Acadie changed hands ten times. In 1621 New Scotland, called “Nova Scotia” in the Latin charter, was granted to Sir William Alexander by James I of England. In 1632 300 French settlers arrived; together with some who came in 1671 they were the ancestors of the Acadian people. By the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 French sovereignty to Port Royal was again recognized but in 1710, the British seized Port Royal for the last time, changing its name to Annapolis Royal.

Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island enjoyed a brief but impressive existence as a New France colony during 1713-58. Founded as a military fortress, Louisbourg was a port for fishing and trade and an urban center for the French colonists. Louisbourg was founded at a time when there were no other French settlements on the island; it was the first crown-sponsored venture, in contrast to earlier private settlements. The settlement was divided into several distinct military zones to be fortified. Based on a fishing economy, Louisbourg was carefully planned to include public spaces for community gatherings, as well as churches and cemeteries. About 250 black slaves were brought from the West Indies to be house servants.

The French-speaking Acadians tried to remain neutral between France and Britain even as wars swirled around them. In 1749, in anticipation of another war with France, the British turned Nova Scotia into a military bastion, constructing a major new naval base of Halifax and subsidizing the migration of thousands of Protestant colonists. Once again they demanded an unqualified oath of loyalty to nritain from the Acadians, which they refused. The irresistible drift to war made the Acadian position increasingly untenable, and in 1755 Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence and his council resolved to expel them from the colony. About 12,000 of the 18,000 were rounded up and resettled in Louisiana, as well as New England, France, England, and Saint Domingo, with many dying of disease in the process.

The first newspaper anywhere in Canada, the Halifax Gazette, was founded in 1752.

1867 to present

The first radio station began to broadcast in 1920.

Long-serving Liberal premier Angus L. Macdonald after World War II initiated large-scale spending programs for such services as health, education, labor union protection measures, and pensions. His successor Conservative Robert L. Stanfield served as premier during 1956-67. The more pragmatic Stanfield, though in favor of some government intervention in economic affairs, was cautious about social policy and unwilling to raise public expectations by trumpeting universalist schemes. Still, social provision was extended, notably in the building of new hospitals, for which funds were raised through a regressive sales tax. After 1960 there was increased emphasis on provincial assistance for local municipalities in health and education, with finances for university expansion. Generally, Stanfield, though a conservative, took a positive view of the state's role in helping citizens overcome poverty, ill-health, and discrimination and accepted the need to raise taxes to pay for such services.

Demographic history

The Micmac, an Algonquian-speaking First Nation, inhabited the area when Europeans first arrived. The first explorers and fishermen brought European diseases (especially smallpox) which killed off most of the Indians.

After several failures at colonization, the French settled at Port Royal in 1605. The first Scottish settlements in Nova Scotia were made in 1629 at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island and at Port Royal. British settlement began with the founding of Halifax in 1749; about 2,500 settlers from the continent of Europe migrated to the province in 1750-1752. About 12,000 Acadians were expelled Between 1755 and 1762. Some 8,000 New England Yankees settled in Nova Scotia. Between 1772 and 1774 about 1,000 Yorkshiremen settled at the Isthmus of Chignecto. The shipload of Scots which reached Pictou in 1773 were the first of thousands who came in the 19th century. After 1783, with the loss of the American RevolutionLoyalists, and disbanded British soldiers doubled the population of Nova Scotia, and about 20,000 became permanent settlers there. Some freed blacks came with the Loyalists, but many moved on to Sierra Leone; several hundred remained and another 3,500, mostly escaped from Virginia, came after the War of 1812. The largest immigration came in 1815-51, with the arrival of some 55,000 Scottish, Irish, English, and Welsh settlers. After 1880 the coal and steel industries attracted immigrants from Britain and Western Europe.

In 1991 about 70 percent of the population was of British background, with people of English and Scottish ancestry predominating. Persons of French descent accounted for about 8 percent of the total. About 37 percent were Roman Catholic, 17 percent belonged to the United Church of Canada, 15 percent were Anglican, and 11 percent were Baptists. In 1991 the population was 54 percent urban and 46 percent rural. Migration from rural to urban areas was rapid until the late 1960s and insignificant since then.

Economic and Business history

After Confederation, boosters of Halifax, Nova Scotia, expected federal help to make the city's natural harbor Canada's official winter port and a gateway for trade with Europe. Halifax's advantages included its location just off the Great Circle route and the closest proximity to Europe of any mainland North American port. But the Canadian Intercolonial Railway (ICR) took an indirect, southerly route for military and political reasons, and national leaders did not live up to promises to declare Halifax Canada's winter port. Despite appeals to nationalism and the ICR's own attempts to promote traffic to Halifax, most Canadian exports went though Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine. Wealthy Haligonians also failed to finance the construction of needed facilities. The outbreak of World War I finally boosted Halifax's harbor into prominence.

William F. Stairs (1848-1904), scion of the powerful Stairs family, enlarged the family's multipl businesses by merging the cordage firms and sugar refineries and then creating the steel industry in Nova Scotia. In order to develop new regional sources of capital, Stairs was a pioneer in building legal and regulatory frameworks for these new forms of financial structure. Frost contrasts Stairs's success in promoting regional development with the obstacles that he had encountered in promoting regional interests, particularly at the federal level. The family finally sold its businesses in 1971, after 160 years.

In Halifax Samuel Cunard, with his father, Abraham, a master ship's carpenter, founded the A. Cunard & Co. cargo shipping company and later the Cunard Line, a pride of the British Empire. Samuel parlayed his father's modest waterfront real estate holdings into a succession of businesses that revolutionized transatlantic shipping and passenger travel with the introduction of steam power. He contributed to Halifax civic life through philanthropic activities, founding the Chamber of Commerce, and participating in banking, mining, and other commercial enterprises. He also became one of the largest landholders in the Maritime Provinces.

Labour history

The labour movement in Nova Scotia may be traced back to the late 18th century. As early as 1799 there was a Carpenters' Society at Halifax, and soon there were attempts at organization by other workmen and tradesmen. In 1816 Nova Scotia had an act against trade unions, the preamble of which declared that great numbers of master tradesmen, journeymen, and workmen in the town of Halifax and other parts of the province had, by unlawful meetings and combinations, endeavored to regulate the rate of wages and effectuate other illegal aims.

Unionization has primarily focused on craft rather than industrial lines, except in the coal mines and steel plants. There has been an increase in industrial unionism with the expansion of industry. After the middle of the 19th century international unionism and American influence became important, with international unionism entering the province in 1869, when a branch of the International Typographical Union was chartered in Halifax. The development of federated unions is seen in the organization of the Amalgamated Trade Unions of Halifax in 1889, which was succeeded by the Halifax District Trades and Labour Council in 1898. By the end of the 19th century there were more than 70 local unions in Nova Scotia.

The Provincial Workmen's Association began in 1879 as a miners' union; in 1898, faced by a challenge from the Knights of Labor, it sought to embrace unions in all the industries of the province. The first local union of the United Mine Workers was established in 1908. After a struggle for control of the labour movement among the miners, the Provincial Workmen's Association was dissolved in 1917, and by 1919 the United Mine Workers had triumphed in the coal areas of the province.

After 1940 the labour movement has spread throughout Nova Scotia. Although most Nova Scotia branches affiliated with the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada after it first entered the province in 1902, there were a growing number of Canadian Congress of Labour affiliates in later years. In 1956 these two groups merged to form the Canadian Labour Congress. In 1987 there were about 105,000 union members, almost half of them affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress.

Labour legislation includes the Canada Trade Union Act of 1872 which made labour organizations more respectable, and the Nova Scotia Trade Union Act of 1937. It established the right of employees to organize and set the procedure for collective bargaining. Laws regulating the conditions and terms of employment are contained in a Labour Standards Code passed in 1972.

Historical resources

Historical libraries, in addition to research library at Dalhousie University at Halifax, include the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and the Nova Scotia Legislative Library. The museum of the Public Archives of Nova Scotia exhibits important documents, paintings, and relics of the province's history. Other museums include the Nova Scotia Museum, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, all at Halifax; and fisheries museums at Lunenburg and at North East Margaree. The six national historic parks are: Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal, the site of early Acadian settlement; Fortress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island, with the ruins of a walled city erected by the French in 1720- 1740; Port Royal near Annapolis Royal, with a restoration of the Habitation built in 1605; Grand Pre in "the Evangeline country"; Alexander Graham Bell, with a museum, at Baddeck; and Halifax Citadel, at Halifax. Important historic houses and buildings include the Perkins House, at Liverpool, which was built in 1766; the Ross-Thomson House, at Shelburne, which was erected in the 1780's; Uniacke House, built at Mount Uniacke near Halifax, in 1813-1815; the Wolfville Historic House at Wolfville; and Clifton (Haliburton Memorial Museum), the Windsor home of Judge Thomas Chandler Haliburton, author of the "Sam Slick" stories.

Bibliography

Surveys

• Beck, J. Murray. The Government of Nova Scotia University of Toronto Press, 1957, the standard history
• Choyce, Lesley. Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea. A Living History. Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, 1996. 305 pp.
• Donovan, Kenneth, ed. Cape Breton at 200: Historical Essays in Honour of the Island's Bicentennial, 1785-1985. Sydney, N.S.: U. Coll. of Cape Breton Press, 1985. 261 pp.
• Fingard, Judith; Guildford, Janet; and Sutherland, David. Halifax: The First 250 Years Halifax: Formac, 1999. 192 pp.
• Girard, Philip; Phillips, Jim; and Cahill, Barry, ed. The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1754-2004: From Imperial Bastion to Provincial Oracle U. of Toronto Press 2004. online review in French
• Johnson, Ralph S. Forests of Nova Scotia: A History. Tantallon: Nova Scotia Dept. of Lands and Forests; Four East Publ., 1986. 407 pp.
• Loomer, L. S. Windsor, Nova Scotia: A Journey in History. Windsor, N.S.: West Hants Hist. Soc., 1996. 399 pp.
• Robertson, Allen B. Tide & Timber: Hantsport, Nova Scotia, 1795-1995. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot, 1996. 182 pp.
• Robertson, Barbara R. Sawpower: Making Lumber in the Sawmills of Nova Scotia. Halifax: Nimbus; Nova Scotia Mus., 1986. 244 pp.
• Tennyson, Brian Douglas, ed. Cape Bretoniana: An Annotated Bibliography. U. of Toronto Press, 2005. 789 pp.

Pre 1900

• Beck, J. Murray. Joseph Howe Volumes I & II : Conservative Reformer 1804-1848; The Briton Becomes Canadian 1848-1873 (1984)
• Beck, J. Murray. Politics of Nova Scotia. vol 1 1710-1896 Tantallon, N.S.: Four East 1985 438 pp.
• Bell, Winthrop P. The "Foreign Protestants" and the Settlement of Nova Scotia: The History of a Piece of Arrested British Colonial Policy in the Eighteenth Century. (1961). reprint Fredericton, N.B.: Acadiensis for Mount Allison U., Cen. for Can. Studies, 1990. 673 pp.
• Brebner, John Bartlet. New England's Outpost. Acadia before the Conquest of Canada (1927)
• Brebner, John Bartlet. The Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia: A Marginal Colony During the Revolutionary Years (1937)
• Byers, Mary and McBurney, Margaret. Atlantic Hearth: Early Homes and Families of Nova Scotia. U. of Toronto Press, 1994. 364 pp.
• Campey, Lucille H. After the Hector: The Scottish Pioneers of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Toronto: Natural Heritage Books, 2004. 376 pp.
• J. A. Chisholm, ed. Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe 2 vol Halifax, 1909
• Conrad, Margaret and Moody, Barry, ed. Planter Links: Community and Culture in Colonial Nova Scotia. Fredericton, : Acadiensis, 2001. 236 pp.
• Conrad, Margaret, ed. Intimate Relations: Family and Community in Planter Nova Scotia, 1759-1800. Fredericton, : Acadiensis, 1995. 298 pp.
• Conrad, Margaret, ed. Making Adjustments: Change and Continuity in Planter Nova Scotia, 1759-1800. Fredericton: Acadiensis, 1991. 280 pp.
• Cuthbertson, Brian. Johnny Bluenose at the Polls: Epic Nova Scotian Election Battles, 1758-1848. Halifax: Formac, 1994. 344 pp.
• Desserud, Donald A. "Outpost's Response: The Language and Politics of Moderation in Eighteenth-Century Nova Scotia" American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol. 29, 1999 online
• Faragher, John Mack. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland (2006)
• Frost, James D. Merchant Princes: Halifax's First Family of Finance, Ships, and Steel Toronto: Lorimer, 2003. 376 pp.
• Griffiths, N. E. S. From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604-1755. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 2005. 633 pp.
• Gwyn, Julian. Excessive Expectations: Maritime Commerce and the Economic Development of Nova Scotia, 1740-1870 McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1998. 291 pp.
• Hornsby, Stephen J. Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton: A Historical Geography. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1992. 274 pp.
• Johnston, A. J. B. Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg, 1713-1758. Michigan State U. Press, 2001. 346 pp.
• Krause, Eric; Corbin, Carol; and O'Shea, William, ed. Aspects of Louisbourg: Essays on the History of an Eighteenth-Century French Community in North America. Sydney, N.S.: U. Coll. of Cape Breton Press, 1995. 312 pp.
• Lanctôt, Léopold. L'Acadie des Origines, 1603-1771 Montreal: Fleuve, 1988. 234 pp.
• McKay, Ian. The Craft Transformed: An Essay on the Carpenters of Halifax, 1885-1985. Halifax, N.S.: Holdfast, 1985. 148 pp.
• MacKinnon, Neil. This Unfriendly Soil: The Loyalist Experience in Nova Scotia, 1783-1791. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1986. 231 pp.
• Mancke, Elizabeth. The Fault Lines of Empire: Political Differentiation in Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, ca. 1760-1830 Routledge, 2005. 214 pp. online
• Marble, Allan Everett. Surgeons, Smallpox, and the Poor: A History of Medicine and Social Conditions in Nova Scotia, 1749-1799. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1993. 356 pp.
• Pryke, Kenneth G. Nova Scotia and Confederation, 1864-74 (1979)
• Reid, John G. et al. The "Conquest" of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions. U. of Toronto Press, 2004. 297 pp.
• Schama, Simon. Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. 2006. deals with freed slaves in Nova Scotia in 1780s-1790s
• Waite, P. B. The Lives of Dalhousie University. Vol. 1: 1818-1925, Lord Dalhousie's College. McGill-Queen's U. Press 1994. 338 pp.
• Walker, James W. St. G. The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870. (1976). reprint U. of Toronto Press, 1992. 438 pp
• Whitelaw, William Menzies; The Maritimes and Canada before Confederation (1934) online

Since 1900

• Beck, J. Murray. Politics of Nova Scotia. vol 2: 1896-1988. Tantallon, N.S.: Four East 1985 438 pp.
• Bickerton, James P. Nova Scotia, Ottawa and the Politics of Regional Development. U. of Toronto Press 1990. 412 pp.
• Creighton, Wilfred. Forestkeeping: A History of the Department of Lands and Forests in Nova Scotia, 1926-1969. Halifax: Nova Scotia Dept. of Lands and Forests, 1988. 155 pp.
• Earle, Michael, ed. Workers and the State in Twentieth Century Nova Scotia. Fredericton: Acadiensis, 1989.
• Frank, David. J. B. McLachlan: A Biography - the Story of a Legendary Labour Leader and the Cape Breton Coal Miners. Toronto: Lorimer, 1999. 592 pp.
• Fraser, Dawn. Echoes from Labor's Wars: The Expanded Edition, Industrial Cape Breton in the 1920's, Echoes of World War One, Autobiography and Other Writings. Wreck Cove, N.S.: Breton Books, 1992. 177 pp.
• McKay, Ian. The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1994. 371 pp.
• McKay, Ian. The Craft Transformed: An Essay on the Carpenters of Halifax, 1885-1985. Halifax, Holdfast, 1985. 148 pp.
• March, William DesB. Red Line: The Chronicle-Herald and Mail-Star, 1875-1954. Halifax, N.S.: Chebucto Agencies, 1986. 415 pp.
• Morton, Suzanne. Ideal Surroundings: Domestic Life in a Working-Class Suburb in the 1920s. U. of Toronto Press, 1995. 201 pp. about Richmond Heights
• Sandberg, L. Anders and Clancy, Peter. Against the Grain: Foresters and Politics in Nova Scotia. U. of British Columbia Press, 2000. 352 pp.
• Sandberg, L. Anders, ed. Trouble in the Woods: Forest Policy and Social Conflict in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Fredericton, Acadiensis, 1992. 234 pp.

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