When was nova scotia settled

Navigation menu Personal tools English. Namespaces Page Talk. Views Read View source View history. Submit Wiki Content Report a Problem. Beginning Research. Nova Scotia Background. Gazetteers History Language. Maps For Further Readings. Nova Scotia Cultural Groups. Cultural Groups Black Canadians. First Nations. Local Research Resources. These Scottish settlers soon made up the majority of the population of developing Nova Scotia.

The greater part of these settlers came from the Lowlands, from Dumfries and the Borderland areas of Scotland. However, after the Battle of Culloden in , many Highlanders also made the journey to Nova Scotia; persecuted Catholics and Jacobites who felt the need to leave Scotland.

Large numbers of Scots also migrated during the Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries. These migrants came to the colony through the ports of Sydney, Halifax and most importantly, Pictou. Due to the large numbers of Highlanders, Gaelic quickly became the third most common European language spoken in Canada, after English and French.

The large migration of Scots during the 18th and 19th century show how, even though Scotland was now part of Great Britain , Nova Scotia was still influenced strongly by Scotland. Even today Nova Scotia still has a large portion of people who identify as Scottish Canadians, and are in some way related to Scottish immigrants. The success of Scotland in colonising Nova Scotia can be seen, not only in its history, but in its inhabitants — both past and present.

When the vote came to a tie, the speaker broke it in favour of the anti-franchisers. Another attempt to get the municipal vote was passed in , though school board service was revoked. Indigenous Peoples. Federal legislation put forward by Sir John A.

Macdonald extended voting rights to Status Indians in eastern Canada who met existing property requirements. The federal legislation was repealed in , but, unlike other provinces, Nova Scotia did not subsequently enact laws disqualifying Status Indians from voting provincially. Plant pathologist John Craigie, who discovered the sexual process in rust diseases of wheat, was born at Merigomish, NS.

John Stuart Foster, a physicist who made important contributions to the study of the "Stark effect," was born at Clarence, NS. One hundred and twenty-five miners were killed in a coal mine disaster in Springhill, NS. He completed his journey on 27 June , making him the first man to sail around the world alone. Song collector and folklorist Mary Creighton, who was a pioneer collector of folk music of the Maritimes, was born at Dartmouth, NS.

Psychologist Donald Hebb, whose studies of development showed the importance of environmental stimulation in early childhood, was born at Chester, NS. It was the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine in Canada and the British Empire. Hank Snow, influential pioneer of country and western music, was born in Brooklyn, NS. Though the conviction was upheld, her struggle became a catalyst for change.

She began to enlist others to serve in Europe. MacDonald was the first woman in the British Empire to achieve the rank of major. The resulting explosion, the largest before the advent of the atomic bomb, killed more than 1, people and injured 9, in Canada's worst disaster.

Both women and men joined the league, which provided information for any group interested. The Halifax Explosion of December so impacted its membership that the League decided its resources were better used in aiding the victims.

The schooner Bluenose was launched at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Pier 21 opened in Halifax, NS. Cape Breton Highlands National Park was established. The park stretches across the northern tip of Cape Breton Island , occupying km 2 of a high plateau dotted with ponds and covered with bogs and forest. This is one of the places claimed as the site of John Cabot 's landfall in Anne Murray, whose renditions of songs such as "Snowbird" made her one of the first Canadian popular musicians to enjoy international fame, was born in Springhill, NS.

An ammunition barge blew up at the naval magazine jetty on Bedford Basin, Halifax harbour. A chain reaction of fire, explosion and concussion rocked Halifax for a day.

The once-famous schooner Bluenose hit a reef and sank off the coast of Haiti. The crew of 8 men was rescued. Francis worked in a variety of senior public service positions, including director and chief executive officer of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission from to , and she was the first female provincial ombudsman from to She was named lieutenant-governor in Beginning with British Columbia in and ending with Quebec in , First Nations peoples gradually win the right to vote in provincial elections without losing status or treaty rights.

The Angus L. Macdonald Bridge linking Halifax and Dartmouth opened. A mine disaster at Springhill, NS, killed 39 men. Another 88 trapped men were later rescued. A prolific and award-winning writer, Clarke is a strong voice for the Black community in Canada. Gladys Porter became the first woman elected to the Nova Scotia legislature. Encouraged by media attention to Africville's "American-style ghetto," the Halifax City Planning Commission expropriated the land.

Residents resisted, citing the community's proud traditions, although Africville lacked basic services such as water, sewage, and good roads. Between and residents were relocated and the community razed. The Liberian-registered tanker Arrow ran aground on Cerebus Rock in Chedabucto Bay, NS, spilling 10, metric tons of oil onto the water and beaches and causing catastrophic environmental damage.

A total eclipse of the sun cast a shadow kilometers wide along Canada's Atlantic coast, sweeping the length of Nova Scotia and across Newfoundland.

Forty-three years after its official opening, Pier 21 was closed. Armed conflict ensued between the French and British, and throughout the 17th century Acadia was handed back and forth between the European powers. Aside from maintaining a small garrison at Port Royal, renamed Annapolis Royal, the British did little with Nova Scotia until , when Halifax was founded as a military town and naval base on the shores of what the Mi'kmaq called the "Great Harbour.

British military officials feared the colony's large Roman Catholic Acadian population — despite its expressions of neutrality — would side with the French during the war. The result, starting in , was the Acadian Expulsion, in which British forces rounded up more than 6, Acadian men, women and children, and dispersed them on ships to various American colonies.

In , as these traumatic deportations were still under way, Louisbourg fell to the British, precipitating the Conquest of Canada in , and the ceding to Britain of Cape Breton Island in the Treaty of Paris that ended the war in Loyalists, both white and black, as well as former black slaves, also arrived following the American Revolution. During the early part of the 19th century the colony grew as a fish exporting, lumbering and shipbuilding centre, and Halifax emerged as an important merchant hub and a base for British privateering captains.

Starting in the Confederation question left a mark on the province. Nova Scotia's economy was closely tied, as were many families, to the New England states. Despite these fears the colony became one of the four founding provinces of the new Dominion of Canada in ; however, a strong anti-Confederate movement existed for many years, with some Nova Scotians flying flags at half-mast on 1 July.

In the 20th century the First World War stimulated the provincial economy with an increased demand for iron, steel, fish and lumber. The war also brought disaster in the form of the Halifax Explosion ; and the war's end brought with it recession, which lasted for several years.

Nova Scotia enjoyed good economic times again during the Second World War. Halifax became one of the major North American ports for the gathering of trans-Atlantic convoys, which carried munitions and other wartime supplies to Western Europe.

Since the mids Nova Scotia has struggled financially, and economic development has been one of the primary concerns for provincial politicians. The fishing industry — especially lobster and shellfish exports — has remained a mainstay of the economy, sustaining many coastal communities even through the collapse of cod and other groundfish stocks in the s.

As manufacturing began its steady decline in the s, coal mining and steel making continued in Cape Breton with the help of massive government subsidies, until the last coal mine was shut down in Its closure ended a way of life and left the Sydney Tar Ponds — the result of decades of coke oven effluent — as the steel mill's environmental legacy.

In an effort to contain the contaminants, the waste was eventually buried, and Open Hearth Park opened on the site of the ponds in Coal was also mined on the Nova Scotia mainland starting in the 19th century, and certain strip mining operations continue to this day. The Springhill mine was the site of three deadly disasters, the most famous being the underground earthquake, which trapped miners and became an international news spectacle.

Offshore oil and natural gas production began in , bringing new revenues and opportunities to the province, but was not the economic windfall many had hoped for. Economic uncertainty continues in the 21st century, with pulp and paper mills across the province closing down and many rural communities in decline as people move to the Halifax area for jobs primarily in government, universities, the burgeoning aerospace sector and the military.

Since , great hopes have been pinned on the opportunities that might arise from the awarding of a long-term contract to Irving Shipbuilding to construct 21 new combat ships for the Royal Canadian Navy.

It is the largest military procurement in Canadian history. At the same time, the French were growing grain at Port-Royal and in they erected the first water-powered gristmill in North America.

To secure salt for curing fish, they also built dykes along tidal marshes and later used them to begin dykeland agriculture. Since the s, the Department of Agriculture has preserved, extended and rebuilt this system of dykes. The largest cultivated areas are found in the Annapolis Valley and in some parts of northern Nova Scotia.

In , the average farm size was acres, compared to the national average of The county fair is an important institution, and the one at Windsor, established in , is the oldest of its type in North America. Historically by far the most important mineral in Nova Scotia is coal. The rapid increase in coal production and the development of the steel industry were primarily responsible for the province's prosperity in the early 20th century.

After the Second World War conditions in the coal areas were often troubled, and in the late s the market contracted greatly in the face of competition from petroleum and natural gas.

Production declined from about 6. Coal made a striking comeback in the s. Following large increases in petroleum prices the province was determined to reduce dependency on foreign oil by replacing it with thermal coal. Production in amounted to over 1. While the last Cape Breton coal mine closed in , there are two coal strip mining operations in the province, one in Stellarton and the other Point Aconi.

Other minerals mined in Nova Scotia include gypsum , salt , limestone and sand. See Coal Mining. Before the generation of electric energy was in the hands of the Nova Scotia Power Commission, a government agency established in , and the Nova Scotia Light and Power Company, a private utility. In they were united in a crown corporation , the Nova Scotia Power Corp. The corporation was privatized in and is now an incorporated entity. In about 70 per cent of the province's energy needs were met by hydroelectric power and indigenous coal.

Convinced that cheap oil would continue to be available and that nuclear energy would be less expensive than that derived from coal , governments allowed a situation to develop in which, by , over 70 per cent of the electricity was produced from oil. Nova Scotia had the most expensive energy in Canada because of major increases in oil costs, with the exception of PEI.

In the Energy Planning Board was established under the new Department of Mines and Energy to devise an energy strategy. This strategy aimed to develop the few remaining hydroelectric opportunities, to open new coal mines and expand existing ones so as to permit oil-fired generating plants to be phased out.

As a part of these efforts the Annapolis River tidal plant was completed in Nova Scotia is doing this gradually — in previous years the amount of energy produced from coal was as high as 80 per cent. More discoveries led to the first offshore oil and gas legislation in In March of that year, Premier John Buchanan signed a year agreement with the federal government giving Nova Scotia the same benefits from its offshore resources that Alberta receives from its land-based oil and gas.

Nova Scotia has just over 4 million ha of forest, accounting for 79 per cent of its total land area. The most common softwood is spruce.