Indigenous period
The first traces of human settlement in current the Nova Scotia immediately follow the withdrawal of the glaciers at the time of the end of the last period refrigerator, that is to say there are 10.000 to 13.000 years. They are stone tools and vestiges of campings of hunters-gatherers of the period paléoindienne (13 000 with - 9 000 years before this day).
Curiously, there exists very little of traces of human settlement during the time located between 10.000 and 5.000 years before this day. One speaks about this time like “great hiatus”. Several assumptions of an especially ecological nature were advanced to explain this absence but none could be shown.
On the other hand, the immediately posterior period, which goes until 2.500 years ago reveals many traces of human settlement the stone tools reappear then and one finds among them many tackles of fishing, indicating an increasing preponderance of the maritime resources in the food. Develops then the maritime “antiquated” culture known as, present since much longer at the Labrador, Newfoundland and on the coast of the Maine. In addition to important tools for fishing and hunting for the marine mammals (weight, harpoons, hooks) a large variety of tools designed for the work of wood is in the sites of this civilization. The elaborate funerary rites left tombs in which the late ones were buried, covered with red blood stone and were accompanied by tools, amulets and stone sculpture often representing marine animals. The disappearance of this culture could be connected to a rise of the sea level, which has occurred 3.500 years ago, which submerged the current continental shelf, hitherto emerged. The most interesting sites would be then under water.
Around 3.000 years before today, the area was occupied by people of the tradition known as “Susquehannna” come from the south. Their lifestyle associated hunting, fishing and gathering. Around 2.500 years, and until the time of the contact with Europeans (XVIe century), it is the “ceramic” period, corresponding on arrival of the people Micmacs and Malécites, and being distinguished, as its name indicates it, by the appearance of the pottery, innovation come from the south like, undoubtedly, the Micmac S themselves if one believes their oral traditions of them. The micmaque language belongs to the family algonquienne, like the malécite, the Abénaki, the cry, the innu and the majority of the spoken languages in the North-East of America.
In XVIe century, the Intrigues enter a phase of expansion and their territory will cover, on arrival of Europeans, approximately 100.000 km ² in the three seaboard provinces and the Gaspésie. It is them whom the French will call the “Gaspésiens”. This territory will be divided into 7 districts. These districts recognize each one a “sagamo” or chief whose principal function is the attribution of the territories of hunting and fishing. It hardly has other capacities and, for the remainder the micmaque political organization is similar to that of the other people algonquiens of the Canadian east: one lives in village restricted including/understanding some families and the role of chief is recognized, in a temporary and abstract way, with the individuals showing competences recognized by all. The institution of the “sagamo”, however, is particular with the Intrigues and could indicate a southernmost influence, just as the important place held by the sun-worship in their religion. In addition, this one comprises a recourse to the shaman, as at the other people algonquiens. The bands gather in summer for fishing and are divided into winter to drive out inside the grounds. The gathering and, by place, an auxiliary agriculture, make it possible to fill the needs. The dwelling is made up of huts in poles covered with barks, certain villages coastal are surrounded by palisades.
The total population is difficult to evaluate. Estimated more in vogue speak about 5 to 6.000 people there but, according to certain authors, it could there have up to 35.000 Intrigues right before the contact with Europeans. It is sure here that the wars and the three centuries epidemics which followed reduced the indigenous population considerably, like elsewhere in America.
The Contact
It is difficult to say with certainty which was the first European with touching the coasts of Nova Scotia. In addition to the speculations around the arrival of medieval Scandinavians, supplied with the discovery of a Norwegian currency of XIIe century in the State of Maine, it is not at all certain that Giovanni Cabotto (John Cabot) touched ground at the place which is called today Cabot' S trail, at the time of its voyage of 1497. It, in any case, skirted the coast and, having identified the Grands Benches of Morue of Newfoundland, it caused the invasion of European fishermen in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence which occurred in XVIe century.In 1524, Giovanni Verrazano, with the service of king de France, charted the Atlantic coast of North America and applied the name to it “Arcadie”, inspired of ancient mythology (we are with the Rebirth). This term gave rise to the name “Acadie”. It is possible that the name merged with the micmaque term of origin “cadie” which would indicate a port. The Florentin was followed closely by Portuguese Gomes, with the service of Spain.
The increased presence of the fishermen and European whalers in water of the American North-East had as a consequence the development of the trade of the furs with Autochtones and, subsequently, the development of companies with monopoly. It followed a will, on behalf of the European powers, to secure the control of the strategic ways giving access to this trade. France wishing to make sure control of the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the paddle of the XVIIe century saw the sending of several forwardings charged to find a site favorable to the establishment of a colony. The first attempt, with the island of Sand in 1598, finished in disaster and some starveling survivors last being repatriated.
Acadie, French colony.
In 1604, Pierre of Gua de Monts, commercial huguenot, was charged by Henri IV with colonization with what one more and more often called Acadie. Associated with noble the Jean de Poutrincourt and to the geographer Samuel de Champlain, it proceeded, this year with the foundation of Royal Port, today Annapolis. The contacts with the Intrigues were sufficiently good so that the colony, abandoned in 1607 for lack of vivres, is left under the guard of the sagamo Membertou. The French were of return in strength in 1610. The colonial competitions disturbed peace quickly: as of 1613, an attack virginienne devastated the colony and, in 1621, the king Jacques VI of Scotland granted to sir William Alexander, a charter authorizing it to establish a Scottish colony in Acadie and the name “Nova Scotia” (Nouvelle Scotland) appeared on the charts. In 1628, the British Kirke brothers, corsairs, took the colony and of the Écossais colonists unloaded. Three years later, the colony was returned to France by treaty and the Scot was expelled while 300 French colonists, under the direction of the sior of Razilly, came to settle. The colony concerned from now on the Company of the Hundreds Associated, which was to proceed to colonization, in exchange of the monopoly of the draft of the furs. That put the colony under the dependence of the governor from News-France installed at Quebec. However, this one was well far and Acadie was, in fact, left with an almost total abandonment. Also, when Razilly died, the same year, and that its field was shared between the sieurs Charles Menou d' Aulnay and Charles the Tower, the two lords entered in a competition which degenerated quickly into a true private war which culminated with the massacre of the garrison of the fort the Tower, by Aulnay, in 1645. The Tower intriguing with the English, an English force took the colony in 1654. Returned to France in 1667, the colony was again the object of English attacks in 1690, and then British attacks in 1707 and 1710. The Traités of Utrecht (1713) yielded current Nova Scotia, except for the island Royale (today island of the Cape Breton) with the Great Britain. The areas which constitute the New Brunswick today and the island-of-Prince-Edouard remained in France. However, the majority of the 4.000 inhabitants designated from now on like Acadian, found itself under British domination. Despite everything these adventures, the colony had relatively thrived. The Acadian ones, contrary to the majority of the European colonists in America, had developed new grounds, not by clearing the forest, but while gaining on the sea, thanks to a network of dams (“aboîteaux”) and channels inspired by the technique of the marshes poitevins, area in which several were originating. The development of agriculture as well as an important trade with the close colonies, including British in spite of the wars and prohibitions, made it possible the population to quickly increase (they will be 15.000 in 1755). This evolution was all the more necessary as successive pandemias which struck the indigenous population had reduced the number of Intrigues and Malécites so much so that those were not any more able to supply the colony. Moreover the herd of mooses of the Royale island was completely exterminated in the middle of the XVIIe century and the micmaque population of the island emigrated.
“Nova Scotia” and Acadie Frenchwoman
The period which goes from 1713 to 1755 was that of a strategic face-to-face discussion between great powers. On a side, France, eager to fill the vacuum left by the abandonment of its portion of Acadie, invests in the development of a French news “Acadie”, whose center was the city-fortress of Louisbourg, located on the Royale island, whose construction started in 1718. The costs of construction were exorbitant and the many times but, in a few decades, Louisbourg became, with 4.000 inhabitants, the greatest agglomeration of the French empire of North America and a high place of the transatlantic trade… as well as smuggling with the British colonies. This although few Acadian left their grounds to be established in this rocky island. In parallel, a beginning of French colonization was done in the islands of the Madeleine, the Miscou island and the St-Jean island, given initially in stronghold to the count of Saint-Pierre, then royalized in 1724.
British side, the colony of Nova Scotia experienced a significant development through the increase in the population and the development of the trade with the British and French colonies in spite of the prohibition of this last by the British Parliament in 1722. The main issue was due to the dubious statute of the acadian population, which refused in mass to lend the oath of allegiance to the crown required by the colonial government. This situation encouraged London to refuse with the colony the usual institutions with the British colonies (room of assembly, habeas corpus, etc) and to maintain a military regime. The British colonists, consequently, tended to be sulky Nova Scotia which remained a French enclave in the British empire. The arrival of German colonists to found Lunenburg in 1752 did not regulate the problem. In addition, the British pressures to force the Intrigues to yield part of their territory caused, starting from 1718, a terrestrial and maritime guerilla encouraged in writing pad by the authorities of Louisbourg. To make part with Louisbourg, the Cornwallis governor founded Halifax in 1749, small island British in this French enclave. The Third intercolonial war, started in 1740, caused a great military activity (raid intrigue on Canseau in 1744, taken of Louisbourg in 1745) but the Traité of Aachen (1748) brought back the Status quo handle bellum . It is the last intercolonial war, which began in 1754, which caused finally the French end of Acadie. In 1755, the Lawrence governor began the Déportation of Acadian the which continued advance of the British troops progressively. Louisbourg was taken in 1758 and shaven a few years later, its expelled population. Peace was signed with the Intrigues in 1761. The Traité of Paris (1763) left Great Britain in possession of the old French empire. In the case of Nova Scotia, it was about a colony depopulated and ruined by the destruction of the infrastructures built by the Acadian ones.
Nova Scotia, British colony
In 1764, following the pressures exerted by Jacques Robin, important contractor in fisheries of the island of Jersey, the Acadian ones are authorized to be established in Nova Scotia, provided that they disperse in small establishments through the province. The returns will continue until the beginning of the XIXe century. However, it was only in 1768 that the law excluding the Catholics from the property right in the colony was repealed and, in practice, this right was hardly respected before the next century. In parallel, the “John Saint To rivet Society”, formed by an about sixty British officers, obtained broad ground concessions in the valley of Midsummer's Day, to establish colonists britanno-American there. Other companies recruited Scot and of the Protestant Irishmen. Those occupying the vacant grounds left by the deportation, the Acadian ones were established mainly much more in north in the territories which currently form New Brunswick. The colonists of Scottish origin installed in the island of the Breton Cape (ex Royal Ile), began in 1766 the exploitation of coal layers. “Intolerable measurements” which were to start the war of Independence of the United States (Stamp Act, Acte of Quebec, Proclamation Royal, etc) affected Nova Scotia as much as the other British colonies and Halifax Gazette (first Canadian periodical, founded in 1752) was made the echo D, a dissatisfaction equal to that one found in Massachusets or New York. However the absence of a Room of Parliament less made it possible this dissatisfaction to be organized and, especially, the massive military presence in the area (naval Base with Halifax, many forts) did not make it possible Nova Scotia to join the thirteen colonies which rebelled in 1776. An attempt of the rebels on strong Beauséjour was quickly crushed. The Intrigues united with insurgent but the Caiffe chief was quickly put in rout and captures of 16 hostages by Royal Navy ensured its replacement by a leader more favorable to the British. During the conflict, the population of Nova Scotia kept an ambiguous attitude, trading with the two sides, which was worth in the Nova Scotian the durable nickname of “Neutral Yankees”. Halifax became also a home port for an intense war of race in the Atlantic. This diagram will be repeated during the following conflicts. The end of the war, in 1784, found Nova Scotia always firmly attached to the British Empire. The same year, the provinces of the Island-of-Prince-Edouard and New Brunswick were detached from Nova Scotia. The Independence of the United States indeed brought the emigration of tens of thousands of Loyalistes for which it was necessary to give grounds, from where the creation of these two new colonies. In addition, a big number of black Loyal supporters, former slaves released to have taken the weapons for the crown during the war, settled in Nova Scotia. The province knew its first racial riot this same year. The relationship between White and Blacks will be difficult thereafter.Nova Scotia obtained its Room of Parliament in 1791 and, the same years transfer the beginning of naval construction in the province, supplied with the needs for Royal Navy during the long cycle of wars which goes from the French revolution to the fall of Napoleon. The War of 1812 between the British Empire and the USA made it possible Halifax to benefit from the war of race and to the colonists to continue their profitable commercial relations with the enemy. It brought also a new wave of released slaves. The abolition of slavery in the empire, in 1833, will do moreover of Nova Scotia one of the termini of the “subway”, where the slaves in escape of the Old South ended. In 1827, “General Mining Association” imported necessary technology to exploit with large scales the coal of the Cape Breton, and the labor made up of workmen Scot and Welsh which will import the trade unionism, British style. In parallel, the construction of sailing ships entered a golden age which lasted, approximately, of 1830 to 1880. In 1846, in the town of Londonderry, one began the production of steel. Years 1830 were also those of an agitation reformist. The “Reformists”, directed by Joseph Howe, required a greater autonomy, more democracy and the end of the privileges of the Church Anglican. These claims were satisfied as from 1848 and Howe will become Prime Minister in 1860. At that time, the economic situation of Nova Scotia started to worsen. The end of the laws of Navigations and the Corn Laws in the United Kingdom carried a hard blow to the colonial economies. Moreover, the progressive replacement of wood by steel in naval construction did not forecast anything good for the many building sites of the area. Lastly, the American American Civil War seriously cools the relationship between Americans and British, creating a all the more serious military threat as Royal Navy spoke to withdraw its troops of Canada. One commence¸a with speaking about a Union of the seaboard provinces. It is that of which was to discuss the Conference of Charlottetown (I.P.E.) in 1864 when delegates from Ottawa brought a proposal much more ambitious: the federation of all the British colonies of North America. In spite of the vehement opposition of Howe, the conservative Charles Tupper, become Prime Minister, was favorable to the idea and Nova Scotia adhered to the agreement which, in 1867, leads to the adoption, by Westminster, of the Act of British North America, creating the Dominion of the Canada, semi federation independent of four provinces: the Quebec, the Ontario, the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotian were from now on Canadian.
Canadian province
The entry in the new federation did not bring, for Nova Scotia, the discounted economic benefit. The access to a vaster interior market was accompanied by an increasing dependence vis-a-vis the decisions taken in central Canada. The concerns of Ottawa were turned well more towards the development of the west. In addition, not having a back country as vast as Quebec or Ontario, the seaboard provinces could not launch out in the development of the virgin lands to the same degree and became places of emigration towards central Canada and the USA. Moreover, as of 1868 took place an attempt at secession of Nova Scotia Party directed by Joseph Howe, who gained the provincial elections and made elect several federal deputies. A motion was presented to the House of Commons requiring the secession of the province. It was demolished. Moreover, in London, the Private Council also opposed the attempt. After 1867 saw the decline of naval construction in the building sites of maritime, incompetents to adapt to the replacement of wood by steel. The importance of the coal mines increased as much minors by them started the first of long series of strikes in 1876. The same year, the racial segregation separated the White from the Blacks in the schools. Autochtones are transfered also marginalized during the same period. Sédentarisés of force by “The Act for the Instruction and Permanent Settlement off the Indian” in 1842, years 1860-70 transfers the authorities to gradually exclude them from commercial fishing, the imposition of license and rules conceived for the White transforming their traditional activities into “poaching”.
When in 1900, the Bank of Nova Scotia moved its head office in Toronto, it had become clearly that the decisions concerning the province were caught more and more in the center of Canada.
The two world wars reflect in value the strategic importance of the Atlantic area of Canada. Halifax, principal naval base Canadian saw the investments flowing. The port of Halifax also benefitted from the activity of war and, during the Second world war, was the starting point of the convoys of the Atlantic which supplied the United Kingdom. That did not go without a cost: in 1917, the explosion of the cargo liner Mont Blanc , charged with ammunition, in the port, made 2.000 dead and destroyed most of the city., to see Explosion of Halifax.
The Great War, for its part, led the authorities to reinforce the prohibition which was not abolished in the province, that in 1929. The interval war was one agitated period. The women obtained the right to vote in 1918 but the same year saw the racial segregation becoming more severe. The economic crisis of the Thirties brought an addition of trade-union agitation accompanied by repression, often violent as when the troop was called to repress a strike in the steel-works in 1922, or in the mines of the island of the Cape Breton in 1924.
The Twenties transfer also the appearance of a “Movement of the rights of Maritime”, rested by anxious citizens of the relative decline of these provinces as a whole Canadian. That leads to the foundation of the “League for the economic Independence of Nova Scotia”, in 1927. In 1932, the province knew its own version of the movements reformists which appeared elsewhere in Canada when the “movement began from Antigonish”. Inspired by the social doctrines of the Catholic church but also gathering Protestants, it supported the development of the co-operatives. The racial question remained acute as shows it the events of Trenton: in 1937, 400 White burn the house of a black family being installed in a “white” district.
The end of the second world war brought a wind of change. In 1945 was abolished the legislation which prevented the Black ones from becoming teaching and Carrie Best founded Clarion, first newspaper of the black community. It was also the foundation of the NSAACP (Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement off People off Color). The following year, the segregation was openly defied when Viola Desmond was stopped to be sitted in the “white” section of a theater. The law was disputed until in Supreme court and, in 1955, the racial segregation was finally abolished. That did not put fine at the racial tensions as the protests showed it which caused, in 1964, the demolition of Africville, the black district of Halifax, in order to build a bridge towards Dartmouth. In 1969, the foundation of “Black United Front” inspired by the American Black Panthers showed that nothing was still solved.
However, the fact that, in 1946, the town of Hood Port, followed by several others, decided to give up its municipal charter for financial reasons showed that the economic decline of the province continued. The nervousness of the legislators vis-a-vis the investors appeared since 1947 by the adoption of many anti-trade-union laws. This nervousness is maintained as the adoption proves it, in the Eighties, of a series of laws of exceptions aiming at preventing the unionization of the factories of Michelin tires. Tourism was regarded more and more as a last hope and the rebuilding partial of Louisbourg, with observers in costume of time, as from the Fifties, attracted the travellers towards the island of the Cape Breton. The setting in front of the French past of the province did not mean, however, larger opening to the present French-speaking person. So far, Nova Scotia remains extremely reticent vis-a-vis the official bilingualism of the Canadian State (adopted in 1969) and grants school rights to its acadian minority only with one extreme parsimony.
In 1957, the province was in the center of the world attention when, in Pugwash, the residence of the businessman Cyrus Eaton, was held the international meeting of the scientists for disarmament (Pugwash conference) convened by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.
See too
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