Plaque at Fort Beauséjour, erected in 1927. Built by the French in 1751, the fort was captured by the British in 1755 and renamed Fort Cumberland. The plaque commemorates the loyalty of the Yorkshire people who supported the British side.
In these troubled times an evangelist by the name of Henry Alline emerged and made his mark in the region. Of New England extraction, he had come to Falmouth, Nova Scotia, as a child with his family during the Planter migration of the 1760s. Having been weighed down for many years by “a load of guilt and darkness, praying and crying continually for mercy,”7 Alline suddenly found himself, at the age of twenty-six, being called by God. He would go on to lead a popular religious revival known as the “Great Awakening” of Nova Scotia. Its beginnings can be traced back to March 26, 1775, a day when Alline, having read the 38th Psalm in the Bible, felt as if “redeeming love broke into my soul … with such power, that my whole soul seemed to be melted down with love.”8 After a year of intense agonizing he decided to go forth and preach about God’s redeeming love. He confined his preaching circuit to the Annapolis Valley until after 1779, when he gradually extended his reach to Nova Scotia’s south shore, the Island of St. John, and parts of the territory that would become New Brunswick. He attracted large crowds and usually preached outdoors, since most church buildings were closed to him.
Alline’s rejection of tradition and embracing of an individual’s inner feelings made him particularly appealing to New World settlers. He spoke of a loving God before whom all people were equal. It was essentially an egalitarian message that transcended the harshness and tribulations of everyday life. And his conviction that all people were capable of salvation in the next world brought enormous comfort to countless people who were caught up in the chaos and economic uncertainty of the war years. Organizing two churches in the Minas Basin region, one in Annapolis County and others in Liverpool and Maugerville — all areas where traditional churches were weak or absent — he roused nonconformist Nova Scotia to its core. But the so-called “New-Light” churches that he founded in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did not remain true to his teachings, reverting, after his death in 1784, to Baptist churches that adopted more sober and conservative ways.9
Memorial stone to Henry Alline, United Baptist Church, Falmouth.
Following Britain’s defeat in the American Revolutionary War, officially recognized by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, around forty thousand people who had taken the British side (known collectively as Loyalists) fled from what became the independent country of the United States and sought sanctuary in the British-held northern colonies. The Loyalist influx had an explosive impact on the Atlantic region’s population.
Receiving land grants and financial help under the British Loyalist Assistance program, about thirty-five thousand refugees moved to Nova Scotia, while another five thousand went to the old province of Quebec.10 When New Brunswick was divided from the peninsula as a separate colony in 1784, around fifteen thousand Loyalists would find themselves in it, and around nineteen thousand would be in Nova Scotia. Taken together, these Loyalists doubled the population of peninsular Nova Scotia and swelled the population count to the north of the Bay of Fundy by fivefold.11 Only about six hundred Loyalists were allocated land in Prince Edward Island, but, because of great difficulty in obtaining grants, many left.12 This was the case despite attempts by the island’s proprietors and government to attract Loyalists. It was a similar situation in Cape Breton, created as a separate colony in 1785. Having acquired about four hundred Loyalists initially, it probably only had around two hundred by 1786.
About half of the thirty-five thousand Loyalists who came to the Maritime region were civilian refugees. The other half were disbanded British soldiers and provincial soldiers13 who had served in regiments raised in North America, including the New Jersey Volunteers, King’s American Regiment, Queen’s Rangers, Loyal American Regiment, Royal North Carolina Regiment, King’s Carolina Rangers, and the Loyal Nova Scotia Volunteers. Men from the provincial corps were known as the “Provincials” to distinguish them from civilian refugees, although the difference was not always clear since many civilians had also served during the war, in regiments.14 Most civilians went to Nova Scotia while the Provincials were mainly sent to New Brunswick. In addition to being provided with free land, Loyalists could also claim provisions and other help from the government. Former soldiers were granted land according to their rank, with the usual amount ranging from one thousand acres for officers to one hundred acres for privates. Civilians normally received one hundred acres for each head of family and fifty additional acres for every person belonging to the family.
The origins of those who made their way to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were roughly similar, with the majority coming from New York and New Jersey. Just over 60 percent of New Brunswick Loyalists originated from these two colonies, but they represented only a slim majority in Nova Scotia. New Brunswick had a higher proportion of Loyalists from Connecticut (13 percent), but Nova Scotia had more southerners (about 25 percent), who came principally from North and South Carolina.15 A full 10 percent of Nova Scotia Loyalists were Blacks who fared badly in spite of the varied skills that they brought with them.16
Loyalists began to pour into the Maritimes throughout the summer and fall of 1783, but their first year was marked by hardship and uncertainty. As winter approached, many lacked proper shelters and, because of difficulties in transporting provisions to them, they suffered severe food shortages. Civilian refugees in Halifax were said to be living in deplorable conditions, while, according to the Anglican clergyman Jacob Bailey, there were 1,500 distressed people in the Annapolis Valley who were “fatigued with a long stormy passage, sickly and destitute of shelter from the advances of winter. Several hundred are starved in our Church and larger numbers are still unprovided for.”17
Men from the 38th and 40th Regiments were accommodated in huts during their first winter, the Duke of Cumberland’s Regiment in tents in the woods outside Halifax, while men from the 60th Regiment were accommodated in a ship off Falmouth until severe weather forced them to come ashore.18 They were all British regulars who had been disbanded in the province, and were entitled to the same land and provisions as exiled Americans.
Loyalists were widely dispersed in the southwestern peninsula of Nova Scotia,19 but in New Brunswick they were mainly concentrated along the St. John River valley and its tributaries (see Map 4).20 By 1785, Halifax, Nova Scotia’s capital, had acquired about 1,200 Loyalists. Another two thousand were settled in the Annapolis Valley, especially in Annapolis, Clements, Granville, Wilmot, and Aylesford, and another thousand were scattered about the fertile Minas Basin, especially at Parrsboro in Kings County (now Cumberland County). Around 1,300 went to Digby, while Shelburne (formerly Port Roseway) suddenly gained ten thousand Loyalists, making it the fourth largest town in North America, after Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. There were further Loyalist population clusters to the southeast of Truro in Hants County21 and on the east side of the province, especially at Pictou,22 Merigomish, Guysborough (formerly New Manchester) on Chedabucto Bay, and Country Harbour. Men from the Duke of Cumberland’s Regiment settled at Guysborough, while men from the disbanded South Carolina Regiment, King’s Carolina Rangers, and North Carolina Volunteers were allocated land at Country Harbour, but a good many drifted away from the area.23 After the American war ended, the Antigonish area acquired disbanded soldiers from the Nova Scotia Volunteers,24 who founded a settlement at Town Point (renamed Dorchester) and gradually moved upriver to the present site of Antigonish.25
Uniform of the 60th Regiment of Foot Guards, 1756–95,