Introduction to History of Nova Scotia
Archeological evidence indicates that the first inhabitants of Nova Scotia were Indians who moved northward as the icefields of the last Ice Age melted more than 10,000 years ago. They were probably a hunting people. Whether Nova Scotia was continuously inhabited from that time is not known.
Some archeologists believe that the Viking settlement of Vinland around 1000 A.D. may have been on Cape Breton Island. The occupants of the region when the first of the 15th- and 16th-century explorers arrived were Indians of the Algonquian language family. The Micmacs, a tribe of nomadic hunting and fishing people, were the dominant group. They later allied themselves with the French colonists.
European Exploration and Colonization
In 1497 John Cabot reached the North Atlantic coast of North America (probably eastern Newfoundland) and took possession in the name of Henry VII of England. Others, such as Gaspar Corte-Real, Giovanni da Verrazano, and Jacques Cartier, explored the region in the 16th century.
No attempt at colonization was made until 1604, when Samuel de Champlain, the Sieur de Monts, and Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt established a French settlement on an island at the mouth of the St. Croix River. After a severe winter, the colony was moved across the Bay of Fundy to the mainland and named Port Royal. The settlers abandoned Port Royal in 1607, but the colony was reestablished in 1610.
French-English Rivalry
For 150 years, France and England struggled for supremacy in North America. In 1613 Captain Samuel Argall of Jamestown plundered and burned Port Royal. In 1621 James I of England, disregarding French claims, granted the entire territory of Acadia (as it was called by the French) to Sir William Alexander, a Scotsman, and named it Nova Scotia, Latin for “New Scotland.” The English seized Port Royal in 1628, but ceded the settlement and all claims to Acadia to the French in 1632.
Several times during the 17th century, Acadia changed hands between France and England. In 1710 Port Royal was captured by the British and renamed Annapolis Royal. By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Acadia was ceded to the British. France retained Île Royale (later Cape Breton Island) and Île St. Jean (Prince Edward Island). The failure to identify boundaries led to further conflict.
After 1713, many French settlers remained in Acadia, although the French government urged them to move to Île Royale. In 1755, during the French and Indian War, they were ordered to take an oath of loyalty to the British government. They refused, and 6,000 of them were expelled. Longfellow's poem Evangeline describes the deportation of the Acadians and their migration to other colonies.
After the expulsion of the Acadians, new settlers came to Nova Scotia from New England and Great Britain. These settlers, unwilling to accept the existing system of rule solely by a royal governor, demanded a voice in the government. In 1758 Canada's first elective assembly was convened at Halifax. The same year Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island fell to the British, led by General James Wolfe. Wolfe's forces then went on to take Quebec. All of Canada passed into British hands by the Treaty of Paris of 1763, and Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island were annexed to Nova Scotia. In 1769 Prince Edward Island became a separate colony. Nearly 35,000 Loyalists migrated to Nova Scotia during and after the American Revolution. This led to the establishment of two new colonies in 1784, New Brunswick and Cape Breton Island. Cape Breton Island was reannexed by Nova Scotia in 1820.
19th Century
At the beginning of the 19th century, the colony profited from Britain's wars with France and the United States, providing ships and supplies. Nova Scotia's population increased rapidly, from 65,000 in 1806 to nearly 331,000 in 1861. After 1825 a new period of expansion began. Growing demand for Nova Scotian sailing ships and, later, steamships brought prosperity to the colony. Lumbering and coal mining also developed, while fishing and agriculture remained profitable industries. One Nova Scotian, Samuel Cunard, established the first regular transatlantic steamship line, between Liverpool and Halifax, in the 1830's. The Cunard Line soon became one of the world's most important shipping companies.
Also during the 1830's and 1840's, Nova Scotia struggled to achieve self-government. Joseph Howe, a Halifax journalist, aroused public opinion in 1835 when he accused colonial leaders of corruption and then successfully defended himself against libel charges. The next year he was elected to the colonial assembly. There he argued that the executive branch of the colonial government should become responsible to the Nova Scotian people, subject to votes of confidence or dismissal by the assembly, which was elected. Under Howe's leadership, a set of 12 resolutions to adopt changes to this effect were sent to the British government, and in 1848 Nova Scotia became the first British colony to gain responsible self-government.
In 1867 Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario joined to form the Dominion of Canada. Many Nova Scotians were opposed to confederation, feeling little in common with the two large provinces to the west. Opposition diminished with the granting by the Dominion of a larger subsidy to the province than had been originally negotiated, and with the completion of the Intercolonial Railway in 1876. However, some discontent remained.
20th Century
The provincial government, controlled by the Liberal party 1884–1923, was concerned chiefly with development of mining, fishing, and agriculture, and later, with education and various social issues. The government also encouraged railway and highway construction. During World War I, expanding markets for fish, lumber, iron, and steel stimulated the economy. A postwar slump, however, began in 1920 and lasted longer in the Maritime Provinces than anywhere else in Canada. Recovery was halted by the depression of the early 1930's.
World War II, like World War I, spurred economic development. Mining, particularly of coal, was greatly increased. Despite shipping problems and shortage of workers, farm production rose. After the war, mining continued to flourish, and tourism became an important industry for Nova Scotia. The provincial government made a concentrated effort in the 1960's to strengthen and diversify the economy, and by the 1970's Nova Scotia had succeeded in boosting its employment, production, and overall income. In the 1980's, significant deposits of petroleum and natural gas were discovered; development began in the early 1990's.
Other sources of revenue for Nova Scotia in the 1990's and 2000's, in addition to the production of natural gas, included the Port of Halifax; casinos, which were legalized in 1995; and tourists. However, economic problems also surfaced in the province in the 1990's, mostly as a result of decreased funding from the federal government. Many fishers were also out of work because cod was overfished in the area.