Attack at Mocodome

The Attack at Mocodome (present-day Country Harbour, Nova Scotia)[lower-alpha 1] occurred during Father Le Loutre's War on February 21, 1753, when two English and six Mi'kmaq died. The battle ended any hope for the survival of the Treaty of 1752 signed by Governor Hobson and chief Jean-Baptiste Cope.

Attack at Mocodome
Part of Father Le Loutre's War

John Connor, Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
DateFebruary 21, 1753
Location
Mocodome (present-day Country Harbour), Nova Scotia
Result Mi'kmaq victory
Belligerents
Mi'kmaq British America
Commanders and leaders
unknown
Strength
unknown
Casualties and losses
6 Mi'kmaq 2 killed, 2 prisoners

Historical context
Main article: Military history of the Miꞌkmaq people

Despite the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq. By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of the Wabanaki Confederacy (which included the Mi'kmaq) protecting their land by killing British civilians along the New England/ Acadia border in Maine (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747).[1][2][3]

To prevent the establishment of Protestant settlements in the region, Mi'kmaq raided the early British settlements of present-day Shelburne (1715) and Canso (1720). A generation later, Father Le Loutre's War began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749.[4] 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 (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).[5] There were numerous Mi'kmaq and Acadian raids on these villages such as the Raid on Dartmouth (1751).[6]

After the Raid on Dartmouth (1749), Governor Edward Cornwallis offered a bounty on the head of every Mi'kmaq. The British military paid the Rangers the same rate per scalp as the French military paid the Mi'kmaq for British scalps.[7][lower-alpha 2]

After eighteen months of inconclusive fighting, uncertainties and second thoughts began to disturb both the Mi'kmaq and the British communities. By the summer of 1751 Governor Cornwallis began a more conciliatory policy. On 16 February 1752, hoping to lay the groundwork for a peace treaty, Cornwallis repealed his 1749 scalp proclamation against the Wabanaki Confederacy.[8] For more than a year, Cornwallis sought out Mi'kmaq leaders willing to negotiate a peace. He eventually gave up, resigned his commission and left the colony.[9]

With a new Governor in place, Governor Peregrine Thomas Hopson, the first willing Mi'kmaq negotiator was Cope. On 22 November 1752, Cope finished negotiating a peace for the Mi'kmaq at Shubenacadie.[lower-alpha 3] The basis of the treaty was the one signed in Boston which closed Dummer's War (1725).[lower-alpha 4] Cope tried to get other Mi'kmaq chiefs in Nova Scotia to agree to the treaty but was unsuccessful. The Governor became suspicious of Cope's actual leadership among the Mi'kmaq people.[10] Of course, Le Loutre and the French were outraged at Cope's decision to negotiate at all with the British.

Battle

According to Charles Morris's account, John Connor and three others on abroad the Schooner Dunk from Canso, Nova Scotia, put into Jeddore and stole the Mi'kmaq stores, 40 barrels of provisions given them by the Governor. At present-day Country harbour on 21 February 1753, nine Mi'kmaq from present day Antigonish (Nartigouneche) captured John Connor and the three other crew members James Grace, Michael Haggarthy and John Power. The Mi'kmaq fired on them and drove them toward the shore. Other natives joined in and boarded the schooner, forcing them to run their vessel into an inlet. The Mi'kmaq scalped two of the British crew, Haggarthy and Power.[11] The Mi'kmaq took Connor and Grace captive for seven weeks. After seven weeks in captivity, on April 8, the two British men killed a Mi'kmaw woman and child and then four other Mi'kmaw men. Afterward, they managed their escape.[12][13]

In contrast, according to Anthony Casteel, after stealing provisions from the Mi'kmaq at Jeddore, the English schooner accidentally was shipwrecked and two of the four crew members drowned.[14] The two British survivors, despite the Mi'kmaw hospitality shown them, killed seven Mi'kmaq: two men, three women, one child and one infant. In response, Mi'kmaq were reported to have gone to Halifax to complain about how to keep their provisions safe during fishing season.[15]

A French officer at Louisbourg did not believe this account of events.[16][lower-alpha 5] If Connor and Grace were only motivated by scalp money as Casteel asserted, it is unclear who would have paid them for Mi'kmaw scalps given Governor Cornwallis ended the bounty for Mi'kmaw prisoners and scalps the previous year.

Aftermath

In response, on the night of April 21, under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Cope, the Mi'kmaq attacked an English schooner at Jeddore. There were nine English men and one Acadian, Anthony Casteel, who was the British interpreter. The Mi'kmaq killed the English and let Anthony Casteel free at Port Toulouse, where the Mi'kmaq sank the schooner after looting it.[17] Cope's peace treaty was ultimately rejected by most of the other Mi'kmaq leaders. Cope burned the treaty six months after he signed it.[18] Despite the collapse of peace on the eastern shore, the British did not formally renounce the Treaty of 1752 until 1756.[19]

See also

Notes
  1. Stephen Patterson (1998), p. 97, reports the attack happened on the coast between Country Harbour and Tor Bay. Ruth Whitehead (1991), p. 137, reports the location was a little harbour to the westward of Torbay, "Martingo", "port of Mocodome". Beamish Murdoch (1865), p. 410, identifies Mocodome as present-day "Country Harbour".
  2. While the French military hired the Mi'kmaq to gather British scalps, the British military hired rangers to gather French and Mi'kmaq scalps. The regiments of both the French and British militaries were not skilled at frontier warfare, while the Mi'kmaq and Rangers were. British officers Cornwallis, Winslow, and Amherst both expressed dismay over the tactics of the rangers and the Mi'kmaq (See Grenier, p.152, Faragher, p. 405;, Hand, p.99).
  3. Historian William Wicken (2002), p. 184, notes that there is controversy about this assertion. While there are claims that Cope made the treaty on behalf of all the Mi'kmaq, there is no written documentation to support this assertion.
  4. For a detailed discussion of the treaty see Wicken (2002), pp. 183-189
  5. The Mi'kmaq account of the British killing infants or babies in the womb echoes the same accusations against John Gorham in his attack on Mi'kmaq near Annapolis in 1744 (See Malliard's journal). The assertion against Gorham is not supported by the evidence. In both counts, the influence of French priests on the embellishment of these incidents is apparent. Accusing the enemy of killing babies and babies in the womb has a long history in war propaganda to objectify the enemy.

Citations
  1. Scott, Tod (2016). "Mi'kmaw Armed Resistance to British Expansion in Northern New England (1676–1761)". Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. 19: 1–18.
  2. Reid, John G.; Baker, Emerson W. (2008). "Amerindian Power in the Early Modern Northeast: A Reappraisal". Essays on Northeastern North America, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. University of Toronto Press. pp. 129–152. doi:10.3138/9781442688032. ISBN 978-0-8020-9137-6. JSTOR 10.3138/9781442688032.12.
  3. Grenier, John. The Far Reaches of Empire. War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2008.
  4. Grenier, John. The Far Reaches of Empire. War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 2008; Thomas Beamish Akins. History of Halifax, Brookhouse Press. 1895. (2002 edition). p 7
  5. John Grenier. The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. Oklahoma University Press.
  6. Grenier pp. 154–155. For the Raids on Dartmouth see the Diary of John Salusbury (diarist): Expeditions of Honour: The Journal of John Salusbury in Halifax; also see A genuine narrative of the transactions in Nova Scotia since the settlement, June 1749, till August the 5th, 1751 [microform] : in which the nature, soil, and produce of the country are related, with the particular attempts of the Indians to disturb the colony / by John Wilson. Also see http://www.blupete.com/Hist/NovaScotiaBk1/Part5/Ch07.htm
  7. Thomas Akins. History of Halifax, Brookhouse Press. 1895. (2002 edition). p 19
  8. Patterson, p. 134
  9. Plank, 1996, p.34
  10. Plank, 2001, p.135
  11. Halifax Gazette 28 April 1753
  12. Diary of Anthony Casteel; Atkins. Public Documents, pp. 694–695
  13. Diary of Anthony Casteel
  14. Diary of Anthony Casteel, p. 118
  15. Account by Joseph Morrice in the Diary of Anthony Casteel, p. 118
  16. Whitehead (1991), p. 137; Patterson (1998), p. 99
  17. Whitehead (1991), p. 137; Patterson (1994), p. 135
  18. Plank (1996), pp. 33-34.
  19. Patterson (1994), p. 138.

References
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources

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