Expulsion of the Acadians.
Nova Scotia is a self-governing territory in the northeastern part of North America, associated with the Confederation of North America since the latter's foundation in 1783 under the Britannic Design. Its capital and largest city is Kingston. It is currently represented by three non-voting observers in the C.N.A.'s Grand Council.
During the French and Indian War, the British government deported thousands of French settlers called Acadians from the area that the French called "L'Acadie" and (with colonial troops) captured the fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island. The English-speaking settlers of Nova Scotia were strongly loyal to Britain in the North American Rebellion, and the port of Kingston, then known as Halifax, hosted General William Howe, his army, and thousands of Loyalist refugees in 1776 when Howe evacuated Boston.
When the war ended, Nova Scotians felt threatened by their restive French-speaking minority, by their Indian population, and by their North American neighbors. Under the Design, Nova Scotia was given more autonomy, under the rule of its own Assembly, than any other part of British North America.
Acceptance of British sovereignty was not universal for some time, however. In 1839 800 Nova Scotians came to aid Louis Papineau's unsuccessful Patriotes rebellion in Quebec.
When Ezra Gallivan allowed a referendum in Quebec to decide that confederation's status, the winning faction proposed autonomy and association with the C.N.A., explicitly using Nova Scotia's arrangement as a model. In fact, the winning Justice and Peace Party included many Quebecois with direct ties to Nova Scotia. Antagonism toward the C.N.A. subsided in both Quebec and Nova Scotia, as symbolized by Governor-General Christopher Hemingway's successful tour of both in 1907.
Under the Galloway Plan, Nova Scotia was a popular destination for migrants from the C.N.A. proper who sought a simpler life.
Shortly before his sudden death, Governor-General Henderson Dewey proposed a devolution of the National Financial Administration that would create separate bodies in each confederation of the C.N.A. proper. This plan also envisioned a separate N.F.A. for Nova Scotia. Dewey's plan was subsequently implemented by his successor, Douglas Watson.
Sobel's source for the history of Nova Scotia is Harold Muncrief's Nova Scotia Forever! (London, 1959).
On the frontspiece map in For Want of a Nail . . ., Nova Scotia is shown as including only part of the IOW Canadian province of that name, excluding Cape Breton. In For All Nails, it includes Cape Breton as well as the IOW provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and part of IOW Maine. The city of Kingston does not exist IOW -- the village of Kingston NS was founded as "Kingston Station" after the introduction of railroads. In For All Nails, Kingston was founded immediately after the rebellion on the site IOW of Digby NS, which IOW was founded at exactly this time by United Empire Loyalists under the leadership of Sir Robert Digby. For some reason Sobel's Nova Scotians chose not to put their capital in Halifax, and Digby would have been a logical location particularly if New Brunswick was part of the territory governed. (Note that New Brunswick had very few white settlers at the time of the Rebellion -- IOW it was settled aggressively by the British to strengthen their frontier with the United States.) An alternative explanation is that Halifax was renamed Kingston under the Britannic Design.
| Associated Confederations of the C.N.A. |
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| Nova Scotia • Quebec |