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 in the years between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia. On one side of the conflict, the British and New England colonists were led by British officer Charles Lawrence and New England Ranger John Gorham. On the other side, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadia militia in guerrilla warfare against Protestant settlers and British forces. At the outbreak of the war there were an estimated 2500 Mi'kmaq and 12,000 Acadians in the region.
While the British captured Port Royal in 1710 and were ceded peninsular Acadia in 1713, Mi'kmaq and Acadians continued to contain the British in settlements at Port Royal and Canso. The rest of the colony was in the control of the Mi'kmaq and Catholic French Acadians. About forty years later, the British made a concerted effort to settle Protestants in the region and to establish military control over all of Nova Scotia and what became present-day New Brunswick, igniting armed response from Acadians in Father Le Loutre's War. The British settled 3,229 people in Halifax during the first years. This exceeded the number of Mi'kmaq in the entire region and was seen as a threat to the traditional occupiers of the land. The Mi'kmaq and some Acadians resisted the arrival of these Protestant settlers.
The war caused unprecedented upheaval in the area. Atlantic Canada witnessed more population movements, more fortification construction, and more troop allocations than ever before. Twenty-four conflicts were recorded during the war (battles, raids, skirmishes), thirteen of which were Mi'kmaq and Acadian raids on the capital region Halifax/Dartmouth. As typical of frontier warfare, many additional conflicts were unrecorded.
During Father Le Loutre's War, the British attempted to establish firm control of the major Acadian settlements in peninsular Nova Scotia and to extend their control to the disputed territory of present-day New Brunswick. The British also wanted to establish Protestant communities in Nova Scotia. During the war, the Acadians and Mi'kmaq left Nova Scotia for the French colonies of Ile St. Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Ile Royale (Cape Breton Island). The French also tried to maintain control of the disputed territory of present-day New Brunswick. (Father Le Loutre tried to prevent the New Englanders from moving into present-day New Brunswick just as a generation earlier, during Father Rale's War, Rale had tried to prevent New Englanders from taking over present-day Maine.) Throughout the war, the Mi'kmaq and Acadians attacked the British forts in Nova Scotia and the newly established Protestant settlements. They wanted to retard British settlement and buy time for France to implement its Acadian resettlement scheme.
The war began with the British establishing Halifax, settling more British settlers within six months than there were Mi'kmaq." In response, the Acadians and Mi'kmaq orchestrated attacks at Chignecto, Grand Pré, Dartmouth, Canso, Halifax and Country Harbour. The French erected forts at present-day Fort Menagoueche, Fort Beauséjour and Fort Gaspareaux. The British responded by attacking the Mi'kmaq and Acadians at Mirligueche (later known as Lunenburg), Chignecto and St. Croix. The British unilaterally established communities in Lunenburg and Lawrencetown. Finally, the British erected forts in Acadian communities located at Windsor, Grand Pré and Chignecto. The war ended after six years with the defeat of the Mi'kmaq, Acadians and French in the Battle of Fort Beauséjour.
Background
Acadian resistance to British-rule in Acadia began after Queen Anne's War, with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1713. The treaty saw the French cede portions of New France to the British, including the Hudson Bay region, Newfoundland, and peninsular Acadia. Acadians had previously supported the French in three conflicts known as the French and Indian Wars. Acadians joined French privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste as crew members in his victories over many British vessels during King William's War. After the Siege of Pemaquid, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville led a force of 124 Canadians, Acadians, Mi'kmaq and Abenaki in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign. They destroyed almost every British settlement in Newfoundland, killed more than 100 British and captured many more. They deported almost 500 British colonists to England or France.
During Queen Anne's War, Mi'kmaq and Acadians resisted during the Raid on Grand Pré, Pisiquit, and Chignecto in 1704. The Acadians assisted the French in protecting the capital in the First siege of Port Royal and the final second siege of Port Royal. However, with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1713, peninsular Acadia was formally ceded to the British. Although peace was formally reestablished with France, the British still faced resistance from the French colonists in the Acadian peninsula. During Father Rale's War, the Wolastoqiyik raided numerous British vessels on the Bay of Fundy while the Mi'kmaq raided Canso in 1723. In the latter engagement, the Mi'kmaq were supported by the Acadians.
During these conflicts, the French and Acadian settlers were aligned with the Mi'kmaq, fighting alongside them during the Battle of Bloody Creek. The Mi'kmaq, which formed a part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, had a long history of conflict with encroaching British settlers along the New England/Acadia frontier in Maine. During the 17th and early-18th century, the Wabanaki fought in several campaigns, including in 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, and in 1747.
Hostilities between the British and French resumed during King George's War (1744–48). Supported by the French, Jean-Louis Le Loutre led French soldiers, Acadian militias, and Mi'kmaq forces in efforts to recapture the capital, such as the Siege of Annapolis Royal. During this siege, the French officer Marin had taken British prisoners and stopped with them further up the bay at Cobequid. While at Cobequid, an Acadian said that the French soldiers should have "left their [the British] carcasses behind and brought their skins." Le Loutre was also joined by the prominent Acadian resistance leader Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil). Broussard and other Acadians supported the French soldiers in the Battle of Grand Pré. During King George's War, Le Loutre, Gorham and Lawrence rose to prominence in the region. During the war, however, Massachusetts Governor Shirley acknowledged that Nova Scotia was still "scarcely" British and urged London to fund building forts in the Acadian communities. The signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 ended formal hostilities between British and French forces. With peace formally reestablished, the British began to consolidate its control over peninsular Acadia, leading further conflict with the Acadian and Mi'kmaq.
At the outset of Le Loutre's war, along with the New England Ranger units, there were three British regiments at Halifax, the 40th Regiment of Foot arrived from Annapolis, while the 29th Regiment of Foot (Peregrine Hopson's regiment) and 45th Regiment of Foot (Hugh Warburton's regiment) arrived from Louisbourg. The 47th Regiment (Peregrine Lascelles' regiment) arrived the following year (1750). At sea, Captain John Rous was the senior naval officer on the Nova Scotia station during the war. The main officer under his command was Silvanus Cobb. John Gorham also owned two armed schooners: the Anson and the Warren.
Course of war 1749 British consolidation of Nova Scotia
The war began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749. 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 in 1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville in 1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).
Within 18 months of establishing Halifax, the British attempted to take control of the Nova Scotia peninsula by building fortifications in all the major Acadian communities: present-day Windsor (Fort Edward); Grand Pré (Fort Vieux Logis) and Chignecto (Fort Lawrence). A British fort (Fort Anne) already existed at the other major Acadian centre of Annapolis Royal and Cobequid remained without a fort. Le Loutre is reported to have said that "the English might build as many Forts as they pleased but he wou'd take care that they shou'd not come out of them, for he was resolved to torment them with his Indians...." In fact, Mi'kmaq resistance kept the British largely holed up in their forts until the fall of Louisbourg (1758).
By June 1751, Cornwallis wrote to the Board of Trade that his adversaries had "done as much harm to as they could have done in open war." Richard Bulkeley wrote that between 1749 and 1755, Nova Scotia "was kept in an uninterrupted state of war by the Acadians... and the reports of an officer commanding Fort Edward, [indicated he] could not be conveyed [to Halifax] with less an escort than an officer and thirty men." (Along with Bulkeley, Cornwallis' other Aide-de-camp was Horatio Gates.)
The only land route between Louisbourg and Quebec went from Baie Verte through Chignecto, along the Bay of Fundy and up the Saint John River. With the establishment of Halifax, the French recognized at once the threat it represented and that the Saint John River corridor might be used to attack Quebec City itself. To protect this vital gateway, at the beginning of 1749, the French strategically constructed three forts within 18 months along the route: one at Baie Verte (Fort Gaspareaux), one at Chignecto (Fort Beausejour) and another at the mouth of the Saint John River (Fort Menagoueche).
In response to Gorham's raid on the Saint John River in 1748, the Governor of Canada threatened to support native raids along the northern New England border. There were many previous raids from the Mi'kmaq militia and Wolastoqey Militias against British settlers on the border (1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747). During the war, along the former border of Acadia, the Kennebec River, the British built Fort Halifax (Winslow), Fort Shirley (Dresden, formerly Frankfurt) and Fort Western (Augusta).
Acadian Exodus
With demands for an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain, the British fortification of Nova Scotia, and the support of French policy, a significant number of Acadians made a stand against the British. On 18 September 1749, a document was delivered to Edward Cornwallis signed by a total of 1000 Acadians, with representatives from all the major centres. The document stated that they would leave the country before they would sign an unconditional oath. Cornwallis continued to press for the unconditional oath rejecting their Christian Catholic Faith and accepting the Protestant Anglican Church with a deadline of 25 October. In response, hundreds of Acadians were deported by the British with the confiscation of their homes, their lands and their cattle. The deportation of the Acadians by the British involved almost half of the total Acadian population of Nova Scotia. The expulsion was brutal often separating children from their families. The leader of the Exodus was Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre, whom the British gave the code name "Moses". Historian Micheline Johnson described Le Loutre as "the soul of the Acadian resistance."
Conflict begins The first Mi'kmaq breach of the Treaty of 1726 and 1748 was at Canso. On 19 August 1749, Lieutenant Joseph Gorham, younger brother of John Gorham (military officer), was under the command of William Clapham at Canso and his party was attacked by Mi'kmaq.