BRING BACK THE STATUE, EDWARD CORNWALLIS IS INNOCENT.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF CORNWALLIS SHOWS WE’RE PUNISHING THE WRONG MAN
Edward Cornwallis has been bested by the Mi’kmaq. Again. Earlier this week, Halifax removed a contentious statue of Cornwallis, the first British governor of Nova Scotia, from a downtown park and put it into “temporary” storage. It seems unlikely it will ever see the light of day again.
The move i s meant to satisfy local Mi’kmaq leaders who claim Cornwallis is unsuitable for public display given his violent colonial legacy — primarily a scalping bounty he signed in 1749 declaring “a reward of ten Guineas be granted for every Indian Micmac taken or killed.”
Last year Halifax announced a special advisory committee comprised of citizens, historians and Indigenous leaders to examine Cornwallis’ legacy in light of his historical role and current sensitivities. But before this committee could meet, local native groups reversed themselves and demanded “the statue … be immediately removed.” City council meekly complied, without even bothering to consider the case against Cornwallis.
The comic book version of Cornwallis paints him as a bloody- minded racist intent on killing every native in the most gruesome manner possible. The indisputable evidence of his scalping bounty certainly bolsters that argument. But a closer look reveals Cornwallis is not the villain of this piece. He’s more like the victim.
When Cornwallis arrived in Halifax harbour in June 1749 with 2,500 settlers, his task was to establish the f i rst permanent English colony in the area. And to do so as cheaply as possible. Lacking substantial military resources, he sought to maintain a pre- existing peace treaty with nearby Mi’ kmaq tribes and asked the neutral French- Catholic Acadians to take a loyalty oath to the British crown. For New France, however, which considered the region to be within its sphere of influence, this new colony posed a significant threat. A response was necessary. Enter Father Jean- Louis Le Loutre.
Le Loutre was an i ntensely puritanical Catholic missionary operating throughout the Maritimes as an agent for the government of New France. One of early colonial Canada’s most fascinating figures, he considered the Acadians under his remit disappointingly lax in their religious and political outlook and found common cause instead with the Mi’kmaq, who shared his aggressive zeal and sense of opportunism.
Quebec City ordered Le Loutre to do whatever necessary to get rid of the English at Halifax. Since England and France were not currently at war, Le Loutre’s solution was to convince his Mi’kmaq flock to attack Cornwallis’ settlers. “We cannot do better than to incite the Indians to continue warring on the English,” he wrote to his political masters. “I shall do my best to make it look to the English as if this plan comes from the Indians and that I have no part in it.”
Fo r their part, the Mi’kmaq stood to gain from any conflict between English and French — both in terms of regional power and booty. And the appearance of a large new colony left them worried. “Where will the Indian live? When you drive me away, where will I seek refuge?” a Mi’kmaq delegation asked of Cornwallis. Two weeks later, in October 1749, native warriors seized the initiative and attacked a sawmill on the outskirts of Halifax, leaving five dead. Immediately t hereaf t er, Cornwallis enacted his infamous scalping bounty. Advantage: Le Loutre.
Plenty of atrocities fol- lowed on all sides, with Le Loutre generally at the centre of it all. In addition to arming Mi’ kmaq, Abenaki and Maliseet warriors for raids on English settlers, the abbé has also been implicated in the murder of a peace emissary sent by Cornwallis under a flag of truce. Le Loutre further threatened to unleash his Mi’kmaq allies on the peaceable Acadians if they took the English oath or refused to fight for the French. And given the present- day prominence of Cornwallis’ decision to pay for scalps, it seems relevant to note that Le Loutre was also paying cash for hair — he doled out 1,800 French livres to Mi’kmaq warriors for 18 English scalps. Cornwallis was not the only one engaged in this ghastly practice.
So pivotal was Le Loutre to this conflict that today historians call it “Le Loutre’s War.” And by 1751 both he and his Mi’ kmaq allies had what they wanted; Le Loutre was holding the new British colony in check while the Mi’kmaq were profiting greatly from French supplies and bounties, as well as ransom payments from the British. For Cornwallis, the war was a disaster. The entire budget for the Halifax colony was £ 39,000, but he spent £ 174,000 defending it. He even put a special £50 bounty on the head of his nemesis, the “incendiary priest,” to no avail. Sharply criticized by his superiors for his inability to contain the situation, Cornwallis resigned as governor after just two years in country.
But the scope of Le Loutre’s impact is much broader than simply getting the better of Cornwallis. His success in mobilizing the Mi’kmaq eventually led the British to seek a conclusive end to the conflict through t he application of overwhelming military force. And it was the Acadians, reluctantly drawn into the fight by Le Loutre’s threats, who bore the brunt of the Redcoats’ hammer. In 1755, Cornwallis’ successor used the conflict as a pretext to order their mass expulsion — the much-lamented Acadian deportation.
In successfully banishing Cornwallis from Halifax for a second time, modern- day Mi’ kmaq can lay claim to another convincing victory over their old adversary. If we’re looking for the villain responsible for all that bloodshed and sorrow almost three centuries ago, however, we’ve punished the wrong man.