Local: Halifax History -European Settlers
Nova Scotia was among the early discoveries of the explorer and navigator John Cabot, who claimed Cape Breton for the king of England. France sent Samuel de Champlain to the area in 1604, who first wintered in the area on the St Croix River, between current-day New Brunswick and Maine. The next year he moved across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal in the Annapolis River valley. The French named the area around the Bay of Fundy, from Main to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and north to PEI "Acadia" the "peaceful land".
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The British captured Port Royal, renamed it Fort Anne, lost it, and then burned Port Royal to the ground in 1613. In 1621 King James of England named the area "Nova Scotia", Latin for New Scotland, and granted it to Sir William Alexander. In 1629, Scotish settlers arrived, stayed for three years, and then left. A 1632 peace treaty forced England to return Nova Scotia to the French. 32 French Acadian villages were settled around the Bay of Fundy, building dykes, and growing orchards. By 1650, the French had fortified towns at Guysborough (on Chedabucto Bay) and at St Peters (Īle Royale).
The new British governors expelled 10,000 Acadians from the Atlantic colonies in 1753 and again in 1758 (mostly to what is now the State of Louisiana.), a persecution made famous by the epic poem "Evangeline".
The British under Colonel Edward Cornwallis brought 2500 settlers who founded Halifax along what is now Barrington street. The settlement was named for Lord Halifax, then president of Britain's Board of Trade and plantations. By 1752, Dartmouth was settled and ferry system was begun, the oldest saltwater ferry in North America. The harbour was also fortified that decade with batteries at McNab's Island, North West Arm, Point Peasant, George's Island and York Redoubt, with the Halifax Citadel completed in 1856. The British began settling the territory with pro-crown settlers, mostly from Germany, Switzerland, as well as French Protestants, and then Scots. Following the American Revolution, 25,000 Loyalist settlers came north, followed by several thousand American blacks after the War of 1812, and shiploads of Irish from 1815 to 1850.
Late in the 1700s PEI and New Brunswick were made separate colonies, and Cape Breton, for a while a separate colony became part of Nova Scotia in 1820. In 1758, Nova Scotia had it first elected government. In 1837, a rebellion broke out in Canada and Lord Durham, then governor general of British North America, provided a report to the Crown on how to restructure its colonies in North America. Later, in 1837, Queen Victoria became the head of the British Empire Nova Scotia got "responsible" government in 1848, with a legislature of elected colonials advising the colony's King-appointed governor.
Halifax was quickly maturing as a community. In 1802, Halifax got its first university with the founding of Saint Mary's. By 1807, the towns population reached 50,000. Dalhousie University was founded in 1818, based on the University of Edinburgh. In 1835, halifax newspaper publisher Joseph Howe successfully defended himself against a charge of criminal libel, setting a standard for freedom of the press throughout the British Empire. Samuel Cunard start a Halifax-based shipping empire in 1839, and grew to dominance with his early fleet of steam-powered ships which could guarantee timely trans-oceanic delivery of the Royal Mail. In 1842, the City of Halifax was incorporated, electing its first mayor. One of the wealthiest cities in the colonies, Halifax was the birthplace for two of Canada's biggest financial institutions: the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Nova Scotia (in 1832).
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