Raid On Dartmouth (1751)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Raid on Dartmouth (also referred to as the Dartmouth Massacre) occurred during
Father Le Loutre's War Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755), also known as the Indian War, the Mi'kmaq War and the Anglo-Mi'kmaq War, took place between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia. On one side of the conflict, the Kingdo ...
on May 13, 1751, when a
Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...
and Acadian militia from Chignecto, under the command of Acadian
Joseph Broussard Joseph Broussard (1702–1765), also known as Beausoleil (), was a leader of the Acadians, Acadian people in Acadia; later Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. Broussard organized Military history of the Mi’kmaq people, Mi'kma ...
, raided
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Dartmouth ( ) (Scottish Gaelic, Scottish-Gaelic: Baile nan Loch) is a Urban area, built-up community of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. Located on the eastern shore of Halifax Harbour, Dartmouth has 101 ...
, destroying the town and killing twenty British villagers and wounding British regulars. The town was protected by a blockhouse on Blockhouse Hill (close to the corner of King St. and North St.) with William Clapham's Rangers and British regulars from the 45th Regiment of Foot. This raid was one of seven Miꞌkmaq and Acadians would conduct against the town during the war.


Historical context

After the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, the British laid claim to all of peninsular Acadia, renaming it Nova Scotia. Its population was primarily Catholic French Acadians and the Mi'kmaq. The Mi’kmaq numbered about 1000 in total in Nova Scotia at the time. In response to British settlement, the Mi'kmaq raided the early British settlements of present-day Shelburne (1715) and Canso (1720), prior to entering into a Peace and Friendship Treaty with the British in 1726. A generation later,
Father Le Loutre's War Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755), also known as the Indian War, the Mi'kmaq War and the Anglo-Mi'kmaq War, took place between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia. On one side of the conflict, the Kingdo ...
began when
Edward Cornwallis Edward Cornwallis ( – 14 January 1776) was a British career military officer and member of the aristocratic Cornwallis family, who reached the rank of Lieutenant General. After Cornwallis fought in Scotland, putting down the Jacobite r ...
arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749. By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of the
Wabanaki Confederacy The Wabanaki Confederacy (''Wabenaki, Wobanaki'', translated to "People of the Dawn" or "Easterner"; also: Wabanakia, "Dawnland") is a North American First Nations and Native American confederation of five principal Eastern Algonquian nations ...
(which included the Mi'kmaq) warfare against British civilians along the New England/Acadia border in Maine (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns
1688 Events January–March * January 2 – Fleeing from the Spanish Navy, French pirate Raveneau de Lussan and his 70 men arrive on the west coast of Nicaragua, sink their boats, and make a difficult 10 day march to the city of Ocota ...
,
1703 In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Thursday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. Events January–March * January 9 – The Jamaican town of Port Royal, a center of trade ...
,
1723 Events January–March * January 25 – English-born pirate Edward Low intercepts the Portuguese ship ''Nostra Signiora de Victoria''. After the Portuguese captain throws his treasure of 11,000 gold coins into the sea rather th ...
, 1724,
1745 Events January–March * January 7 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Austrian Army, under the command of Field Marshal Károly József Batthyány, makes a surprise attack at Amberg and the winter quarters of the Bav ...
,
1746 Events January–March * January 8 – The Young Pretender Charles Edward Stuart occupies Stirling, Scotland. * January 17 – Battle of Falkirk Muir: British Government forces are defeated by Jacobite forces. * February ...
, 1747). The British quickly began to build other settlements. To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax ( Citadel Hill) (1749),
Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...
( Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754). There were numerous Mi'kmaq and Acadian raids on these villages such as the Raid on Dartmouth (1751). There was a raid on those in the Dartmouth area in 1749. In response to the raid, Governor
Edward Cornwallis Edward Cornwallis ( – 14 January 1776) was a British career military officer and member of the aristocratic Cornwallis family, who reached the rank of Lieutenant General. After Cornwallis fought in Scotland, putting down the Jacobite r ...
issued an
extirpation Local extinction, also extirpation, is the termination of a species (or other taxon) in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with extinction, global extinctions. Local extinctions ...
proclamation A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...
against the Miꞌkmaq on peninsular Nova Scotia and those that supported them. To carry out this task, two companies of rangers were raised, one led by Captain Francis Bartelo and the other by Captain William Clapham. These two companies served alongside that of John Gorham's company. The three companies scoured the land around Halifax unsuccessfully looking for Mi'kmaq. In July 1750, the Mi'kmaq killed and scalped seven men who were at work in Dartmouth. In August 1750, 353 people arrived on the ship Alderney and began the town of Dartmouth. The town was laid out in the autumn of that year. The following month, on September 30, 1750, Dartmouth was attacked again by the Miꞌkmaq and five more residents were killed. In October 1750 a group of about eight men went out "to take their diversion; and as they were fowling, they were attacked by the Indians, who took the whole prisoners; scalped ... newith a large knife, which they wear for that purpose, and threw him into the sea ..." In March 1751, the Mi'kmaq attacked on two more occasions, bringing the total number of raids to six in the previous two years.


Raid

Three months later, on May 13, 1751 before sunrise,
Joseph Broussard Joseph Broussard (1702–1765), also known as Beausoleil (), was a leader of the Acadians, Acadian people in Acadia; later Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. Broussard organized Military history of the Mi’kmaq people, Mi'kma ...
led sixty Mi'kmaq and Acadians to attack Dartmouth again, in what would be known as the "Dartmouth Massacre". The raiding party came down the Shuebenacadie River from Chignecto. Broussard and the others killed twenty settlers and more were taken prisoner. Captain William Clapham and sixty soldiers of Hugh Warburton's regiment were on duty and fired from the blockhouse, which was located at the point overlooking Dartmouth Cove. The raiding party tortured and mutilated the sergeant and wounded three other soldiers. Captain Alexander Murray along with about 40 soldiers left Halifax in three vessels and tried to track them down for miles but most of the raiding party had dispersed. The British reported they had killed six Mi'kmaq warriors, but were only able to retrieve one scalp that they took to Halifax. Those at a camp at Dartmouth Cove, led by John Wisdom, assisted the settlers. Upon returning to their camp the next day they found the Mi'kmaq had also raided their camp and taken a prisoner. The Mi'kmaq scalped all the settlers. The British took what remained of the bodies to Halifax for burial in the Old Burying Ground. ( John George Pyke survived the raid but his father John Abraham did not.)


Aftermath

The British retaliated by sending several armed companies to Chignecto. A few French defenders were killed and the dikes were breached. Hundreds of acres of crops were ruined which was disastrous for the Acadians and the French troops. Immediately after the raid, a wooden
palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...
was erected around the town plot.Harry Chapman, p. 31 A
court martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the mili ...
was called on 14 May, the day after the raid, to inquire into the conduct of the commanding officers who allowed the town to be destroyed.Thomas Beamish Akins, ''History of Halifax City,'' Nova Scotia Historical Society. Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1895
/ref> In June, Clapham's sergeant was acquitted. Mi'kmaq and Acadian attacks continued throughout the
French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...
which ended fourteen years after Dartmouth was first settled. (For example, in the spring of 1759, there was another attack on Fort Clarence, in which five soldiers were killed.) After the initial raid, no new settlers were placed in Dartmouth again for the next thirty years. Of the 383 settlers who arrived in Dartmouth on the Alderney in August 1750, only half remained two years later. By the end of war (1763), Dartmouth was only left with 78 settlers. Similar raids happened in response to the British founding of Lawrencetown and
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia Lunenburg () is a port town on the South Shore (Nova Scotia), South Shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. Founded in 1753, the town was one of the first British attempts to settle Protestants in Nova Scotia. Historically, Lunenburg's economy relied o ...
, such as the Raid on Lunenburg (1756).


Fiction

Joseph Howe Joseph Howe (December 13, 1804 – June 1, 1873) was a Nova Scotian journalist, politician, public servant, and poet. Howe is often ranked as one of Nova Scotia's most admired politicians and his considerable skills as a journalist and writer h ...
lived in Dartmouth and was well acquainted with its history. He included a Mi'kmaw raid on a British dwelling in his poem "Acadia".


See also

*
List of massacres in Canada This is a list of events in Canada and its predecessors that are commonly characterized as ''massacres''. ''Massacre'' is defined in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as "the indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people or (less commonly) anim ...
*
Military history of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia (also known as Mi'kma'ki and Acadia) is a Canadian province located in Canada's Maritimes. The region was initially occupied by Mi'kmaq. The colonial history of Nova Scotia includes the present-day Maritime Provinces and the northern ...
*
History of the Halifax Regional Municipality Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...
* Military history of the Acadians


References


Primary sources

*
''Expeditions of Honour: The Journal of John Salusbury in Halifax'' edited by Ronald Rompkey - 1982, p. 111

London Magazine. Vol. 20. 1751. p. 419 June 30 letter

London Magazine. Vol. 20. 1751. p. 341 June 25 letterGentleman's Magazine, August 1751, p. 379 June 25 letter


* The Nova Scotia Magazine. Vol. 2, no. 4, (Apr. 1790) pp. 287–289
Charles Morris
* The Nova Scotia Gazette and Weekly Chronicle, Sept. 1780
Letters from Nova Scotia, Captain W. Moorsom. London, 1830, p. 29
*


Secondary sources


Akins. History of Halifax. Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. 8, p. 27

Mrs. William Lawson. The History of The Townships of Dartmouth, Preston and Lawrencetown, Halifax County, Nova Scotia, 1893, p. 10
*Landry, Peter. The Lion & The Lily. Vol. 1, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, B.C., 2007. *Rompkey, Ronald. Editor. Expeditions of Honour: The Journal of John Salusbury in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1749-53. University of Delaware Press, Newark, 1982. * *

*Harry Chapman. In the Wake of the Alderney. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Raid On Dartmouth Military history of Acadia Military history of Nova Scotia Military history of New England Military history of the Thirteen Colonies Dartmouth Massacres by First Nations Mi'kmaq in Canada 1751 in Nova Scotia Dartmouth (1751) Dartmouth History of Halifax, Nova Scotia Massacres in Canada Dartmouth Father Le Loutre's War