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'[[Nova Scotia]] is a Canadian [[Provinces of Canada|province]] located on [[Canada]]'s [[Maritimes]]. Originally part of [[New England]], it became [[self-governing colony|self-governing]] in 1848 and joined the [[Canadian Confederation]] in 1867. ==Early history== [[Paleo Indians|Paleo-Indians]] [[campsite|camp]]ed at locations in present-day Nova Scotia approximately 11,000 years ago. [[Archaic stage|Archaic Indians]] are believed to have been present in the area between 1,000 and 5,000 years ago. [[Mi'kmaq]], the [[First Nations]] of the province and region, are their direct descendants. Some believe that the Europeans may have settled in Nova Scotia at some time, though there is little evidence of this and the claim is deeply disputed. (The only authenticated Viking settlement in North America is [[L'Anse aux Meadows]], in [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]], which was begun 500 years before Christopher Columbus reached the Americas.) ==Early European Explorations== While there is some debate over where he landed, it is most widely believed that the English explorer [[Giovanni Caboto|John Cabot]] visited present-day [[Cape Breton Island|Cape Breton]] in [[1497]].<ref>{{Cite web|url= http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH33/croxto33.html| title = The Cabot Dilemma: John Cabot's 1497 Voyage & the Limits of Historiography| author= University of Virginia - Corcoran Department of History|accessdate=2007-02-09|year=1991}}</ref> The first European settlement in Nova Scotia was established in 1604. The [[France|French]], led by [[Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts]] established the first capital for the colony [[Acadia]] at [[Port Royal, Nova Scotia|Port Royal]] in [[1604]] at the head of the [[Annapolis Basin]]. In [[1620]], the [[Plymouth Council for New England]], under [[James I of England|King James I (of England) & VI (of Scots)]] designated the whole shorelines of Acadia and the Mid-Atlantic colonies south to the [[Chesapeake Bay]] as [[New England]]. The first documented Scottish settlement in the Americas was of Nova Scotia in 1621. On 29 September 1621, the charter for the foundation of a colony was granted by [[James I of England|James VI]] to [[William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling]] and, in 1622, the first settlers left [[Kingdom of Scotland|Scotland]]. This settlement initially failed due to difficulties in obtaining a sufficient number of skilled emigrants and in 1624, James VI created a new order of [[Baronet]]s; admission to this order was obtained by sending 6 labourers or artisans, sufficiently armed, dressed & supplied for 2 years, to Nova Scotia, or by paying 3,000 [[merk (coin)|merks]] to William Alexander. For 6 months, no one took up this offer until James compelled one to make the first move. In 1627, there was a wider uptake of baronetcies, and thus more settlers available to go to Nova Scotia. However, in 1627, war broke out between [[Kingdom of England|England]] and [[France]] and the French re-established a settlement at [[Port Royal, Nova Scotia|Port Royal]] which they had originally settled. Later that year, a combined Scottish and English force destroyed the French settlement, forcing them out. In 1629, the first Scottish settlement at Port Royal was inhabited. The colony's charter, in law, made Nova Scotia (defined as all land between [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]] and [[New England]]) a part of mainland Scotland, this was later used to get around the English [[navigation acts]]. However, this did not last long: in 1631, under [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]], the [[Treaty of Suza]] was signed which returned Nova Scotia to the French. The Scots were forced by Charles to abandon their mission before their colony had been properly established and the French assumed control of the Mi'kmaq and other First Nations territory. In 1654, [[King Louis XIV of France]] appointed aristocrat [[Nicholas Denys]] as Governor of [[Acadia]] and granted him the confiscated lands and the right to all its minerals. English colonists captured Acadia in the course of [[King William's War]], but England returned the territory to France in the [[Treaty of Ryswick]] at the war's end. The territory was recaptured by forces loyal to Britain during the course of [[Queen Anne's War]], and its conquest confirmed by the [[Treaty of Utrecht]] of [[1713]]. France retained possession of Île St Jean ([[Prince Edward Island]]) and Île Royale ([[Cape Breton Island]]), on which it established a fortress at [[Louisbourg]] to guard the sea approaches to [[Quebec]]. This fortress was captured by [[American colonial forces]] then returned by the British to France, then ceded again after the [[French and Indian War]] of [[1755]]. ==British Colony== From 1691 to 1696, what is now Nova Scotia was included as part of the territory of the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]]. Thus mainland Nova Scotia became a British colony in 1713, although [[Samuel Vetch]] had had a precarious hold on the territory as governor from the fall of Acadian Port-Royal ([[Annapolis Royal]]) in October 1710. British governing officials became increasingly concerned over the unwillingness of the French-speaking, Roman Catholic [[Acadians]], who were the majority of colonists, to pledge allegiance to the [[British Crown]], then [[George II of Great Britain|George II]]. The colony remained mostly Acadian despite the establishment of Halifax as the province's capital, and the settlement of a large number of [[foreign Protestants]] (some French and Swiss but mostly German) at Lunenburg in 1753. In 1755, the British forcibly expelled the over 12,000 Acadians in what became known as the Grand Dérangement, or [[Great Expulsion]]. The colony's jurisdiction changed during this time. Nova Scotia was granted a supreme court in 1754 with the appointment of [[Jonathan Belcher (jurist)|Jonathan Belcher]] and a [[Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia|Legislative Assembly]] in 1758. In 1763 [[Cape Breton Island]] became part of Nova Scotia. In 1769, St. John's Island (now [[Prince Edward Island]]) became a separate colony. The county of [[Sunbury County, Nova Scotia|Sunbury]] was created in [[1765]], and included all of the territory of current day [[New Brunswick]] and eastern [[Maine]] as far as the Penobscot River. In [[1784]] the western, mainland portion of the colony was separated and became the province of [[New Brunswick]], and the territory in Maine entered the control of the newly independent American state of [[Massachusetts]]. Cape Breton became a separate colony in 1784 only to be returned to Nova Scotia in 1820. [[Image:Nova Scotia stamp.jpg|thumb|During the colonial period, Nova Scotia issued its own postage stamps printed in England. This distinctive diamond shape (issued between 1851 and 1857) was also used by neighbouring New Brunswick.]] Ancestors of more than half of present-day Nova Scotians arrived in the period following the [[Acadian Expulsion]]. Between 1759 and 1768, about 8000 [[New England Planters]] responded to Governor [[Charles Lawrence]]'s request for settlers from the New England colonies. Several years later, approximately 30,000 [[United Empire Loyalists]] (American Tories) settled in Nova Scotia (when it comprised present-day [[Maritime Canada]]) following the defeat of the [[United Kingdom|British]] in the [[American Revolutionary War]]. Of these 30,000, 14,000 went to New Brunswick and 16,000 to Nova Scotia. Approximately 3,000 of this group were [[Black Loyalist]]s (slaves of African ancestry), about a third of whom soon relocated themselves to [[Sierra Leone]] in [[1792]] via the [[Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor]], becoming the [[Original Settlers (Freetown)|Original settlers]] of [[Freetown, Sierra Leone|Freetown]]. Large numbers of [[Canadian Gaelic|Gaelic-speaking]] [[Highland Scots]] migrated to Cape Breton and the western portion of the mainland during the late 18th century and 19th century. About a thousand [[Ulster Scots]] settled in the 1760s, largely through the efforts of colonizer [[Alexander McNutt (colonisation)|Alexander McNutt]]. Just over a thousand farming migrants from [[Yorkshire Emigration to Nova Scotia|Yorkshire]] and [[Northumberland]] settled central areas of Nova Scotia between 1772 and 1775. [[File:W&ARGabriel.jpg|275px|left|thumb|An early railway locomotive in Nova Scotia, the "Gabriel" of the [[Windsor and Annapolis Railway]], circa 1870]] Coal was mined on a small scale at several locations in Nova Scotia beginning in the 18th century. In 1827, all of Nova Scotia's coal mines were taken over by the British-based General Mining Association which intensified production with new technology including in 1829 the first steam engine in Nova Scotia and in 1839 the first railway in Nova Scotia using [[Samson (locomotive)|Samson]], the oldest railway locomotive in Canada to carry coal from [[Stellarton, Nova Scotia|Stellarton]] to waiting ships.<ref>*[http://www.parl.ns.ca/samson/index.htm “The Sage Of The Samson: Canada's Oldest Locomotive” ''Pictou County Historical Society'' (1968) digitized by Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library]</ref> Samson is now preserved at the [[Nova Scotia Museum of Industry]] in Stellarton. Nova Scotia emerged as a major shipbuilding power beginning in the 1840s. Large numbers of wooden sailing ships were built and by the 1860s, the colony owned a substantial share of the shipping of the British Empire. At first building ships to sell to British shipowners, the province moved in the 1850s to building and operating its own fleet of merchant ships around the world. Nova Scotian vessels became a common sight in every major port. Some such as the barque [[Stag (barque)|''Stag'']] were famous for speed, but Nova Scotian vessels were most noted as efficient and versatile cargo carriers. One Nova Scotian shipowner, [[Samuel Cunard]], went on to found the giant [[Cunard Line]] steamship company in 1840, but most of the province's shipowners stayed with sail. The shipping industry peaked in the 1870s with the construction of the ship ''[[William D. Lawrence (ship)|William D. Lawrence]]'', the largest sailing ship ever built in Canada. ==Canadian Confederation== Nova Scotia was one of the first colonies in [[British North America]] and in the [[British Empire]] to achieve [[responsible government]] in January-February 1848 and become [[self-governing colony|self-governing]] through the efforts of [[Joseph Howe]]. Pro-Confederate premier [[Charles Tupper]] led Nova Scotia into the [[Canadian Confederation]] in 1867, along with [[New Brunswick]] and the [[Province of Canada]]. In the Provincial election of 1868, the [[Anti-Confederation Party]] won 18 out of 19 Federal seats, and 35 out of 38 seats in the provincial legislature. For seven years, [[William Annand]] and Joseph Howe led the ultimately unsuccessful fight to convince British Imperial authorities to release Nova Scotia from Confederation. The government was vocally against Confederation, contending that it was no more than the annexation of the Province to the pre-existing province of Canada: {{quotation | "...the scheme [confederation with Canada] by them assented to would, if adopted, deprive the people [of Nova Scotia] of the inestimable privilege of self-government, and of their rights, liberty, and independence, rob them of their revenue, take from them the regulation of trade and taxation, expose them to arbitrary taxation by a legislature over which they have no control, and in which they would possess but a nominal and entirely ineffective representation; deprive them of their invaluable fisheries, railroads, and other property, and reduce this hitherto free, happy, and self-governed province to a degraded condition of a servile dependency of Canada." | from Address to the Crown by the Government (Journal of the House of Assembly, Province of Nova Scotia, 1868) }} A motion passed by the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in 1868 refusing to recognize the legitimacy of Confederation has never been rescinded. Repeal, as anti-confederation became known, would rear its head again in the 1880s, and transform into the Maritime Rights Movement in the 1920s. Some Nova Scotia flags flew at half mast on Canada Day as late as that time. ==First World War== During [[World War I]], Halifax became a major international [[port]] and [[Navy|naval]] facility. The harbour became a major shipment point for war supplies, [[troop ship]]s to [[Europe]] from [[Canada]] and the [[United States]] and [[hospital ship]]s returning the wounded. These factors drove a major [[military]], [[Industrial sector|industrial]] and [[residential]] expansion of the city.<ref>''The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy'' John Armstrong, University of British Columbia Press, 2002, p.10-11.</ref> On Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was devastated by [[Halifax Explosion|the huge detonation]] of a French cargo ship, fully loaded with wartime explosives, that had accidentally collided with a Norwegian ship in "The Narrows" section of the [[Halifax Harbour]]. Approximately 2,000 people (mostly Canadians) were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and it is estimated that over 9,000 people were injured.<ref name=cbc>[http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he2_ruins/he2_ruins_explosion.html CBC - Halifax Explosion 1917]</ref> This is still the [[List of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions|world's largest man-made accidental explosion]].<ref name="Jay White 1994 p. 266">Jay White, "Exploding Myths: The Halifax Explosion in Historical Context", ''Ground Zero: A Reassessment of the 1917 explosion in Halifax'' Alan Ruffman and Colin D. Howell editors, Nimbus Publishing (1994), p. 266</ref> ==Other facts== {{trivia|date=January 2009}} *In November [[1761]] a furious storm sent the merchant ship ''[[Auguste (ship)|Auguste]]'' to its doom, taking with it 114 people bound for [[France]] and all of their earthly possessions. One of seven survivors, Monsieur [[St. Luc de la Corne]], made an epic trek of almost one thousand miles in winter back to his family in [[Montreal]]. Almost 250 years later, what is left of the ''Auguste'' and her valuable cargo of gold and silver lies at the bottom of [[Cape Breton Island|Cape Breton's]] [[Aspy Bay]]. Underwater explorer, Joe Amaral, and his team have sifted through the sands of Aspy Bay looking for treasure and answers to what really happened during this devastating shipwreck. So far, they have found several cannons, lead sheathing from repairs to the ship, a few coins, and a spoon. *[[City of Halifax|Halifax]] played a key role in the aftermath of the loss of the [[RMS Titanic]] on [[April 15]] [[1912]], becoming the final resting place of many of her unclaimed victims. Three Halifax ships were involved in the grim task of recovering victims - many of whom were laid to rest in [[Fairview Cemetery]]. The [[Maritime Museum of the Atlantic]] on the Halifax waterfront has an exhibition of items recovered from the disaster, including the passenger list and one of the few deck chairs from the Titanic known to exist. *In [[1621]] [[James I of England|King James I]] granted [[William Alexander, Earl of Stirling|Sir William Alexander]] the land between [[New England]] and [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]] as New Scotland (Nova Scotia). The [[Baronetage of Nova Scotia|Baronets of Nova Scotia]] were created as a means of encouraging settlement. There is now a piece of land under the [[Esplanade]] of [[Edinburgh Castle]] which is deemed, under [[Scotland|Scottish]] Law, to be Nova Scotia for the purposes of claiming one of these Baronetages. The law has never been repealed. *The Halifax Regional Municipality played a key role during the events of [[9/11]], as [[Halifax International Airport]] was a principal landing point for many airborne planes that could not land in the U.S. following the [[FAA]] ban on domestic air traffic. On [[September 11]] [[2006]], [[US Secretary of State]] [[Condoleezza Rice]] attended a ceremony in Halifax to honour and thank the residents of Halifax for helping stranded passengers. *At 2:00AM on Sunday, [[April 15]], [[1923]] all drivers on Nova Scotia roads switched from driving on the left side to driving on the right. ==References== {{reflist}} {{Canada History}} [[Category:History of Nova Scotia| ]]'