Alannah Francis
ABRG*3864 – David Perley
“We Were Not the Savages; written by: Daniel N. Paul”
Chapter Seven
More bounties for Human Scalps and the Treaty of 1752 - At the beginning of 1749, in line with the statement contained in this letter, the life of a Mi’kmaq had no value. Thus, they were accorded no civil or human rights. In 1749, Nova Scotia’s colonial government undertook an attempt to exterminate the Mi’kmaq - The term “genocide” was first used to describe the extermination of most of Europe’s Jew by Nazi Germany. It was later used by the United Nations in 1948 in the Genocide Convention to mean crimes against humanity. Genocide means:
▪ Killing members of the Aboriginals groups. ▪ Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. ▪ Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. ▪ Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. ▪ Forcefully transferring children of the group to another group.
- The Mi’kmaq Nation, to its everlasting credit, even in the face of such horrific provocations as the 1749 Proclamation, did not respond in kind or adopt a policy to attack Caucasian women and children. Although some apologists try to make a case to the contrary, no evidence exists whatsoever to support such a contention.
- Instead of the monster depicted by English colonial authorities and many later chronicles of history afflicted with racial and religious biases, Le Outré was a humanitarian. He probably was affronted and appalled, as any decent human being should have been, by the inhumanities being committed against the Mi’kmaq and other Amerindians by the English. This line of thinking is confirmed by the fact that he tried in vain in future years to arrange a peace with the British that would have left the Mi’kmaq with enough land to preserve their status as a free and independent people.
- When trying to understand the hatred the British had for Le Outré, another factor must be kept in mind – their unwavering resolve to disposes the Mi’kmaq of everything and to subjugate them.
- Many apologists have claimed that the cruelties inflicted upon Mi’kmaq and other Amerindian Nations were for the most part local acts of depravity and not acts sanctioned by the European Crowns themselves. This reaction by British officialdom towards Cornwallis’s proclamation proves that contention wrong. By not rescinding or condemning his inhuman proclamation, the Lords of Trade, policymakers for the British government, showed support, thus implicating the British Crown itself in the crime of genocide.
- The scalping bounties also adversely affected the Acadian population, because many of them were part Mi’kmaq or were related to Mi’kmaq families by marriage. Many Acadians were also scalped by the bounty hunters simply because they were handily and hated.
- On June 21, 1750, in what must have resulted from dissatisfaction with the number of Mi’kmaq scalps being brought in, Cornwallis and his Councillors raised the monetary incentive by proclamations to fifty pounds sterling per head. Gorham was part of the Council which approved the 1749 scalp bounty, and he was also a member of the Council in 1750 when the bounty was raised. One might be excused for concluding that he was in a conflict of interest.
- In 1752, three years after the despicable proclamation had been issued; the colonial government ordered a temporary halt to bounty hunting in the province. At a Council meeting held at the Governor’s house on July 17, 1752, it was resolved that a proclamation be issued to forbid hostilities against the Indians. - The British government was sending foreign settlers over by the boatload without adequate provisions and they were starving to death. The fort was in a serious state of decay, the troops were restless and it was feared that the Acadian French might leave the province and dry up the colony’s only reliable source of food. The Mi’kmaq and the British were at war. - Responding to their feelers, Chief Jean Baptise Cope, Chief of the Shubenacadie Mi’kmaq – whose territory comprised an area that today covers approximately Cumberland, Colchester, Guys borough, Hants, Halifax and parts of Antigonish, Pictou, Kings and Lunenburg counties – approaches the British in September 1752 with a proposal that peace be restored with this District.
- During the negotiations the Chief informed the English authorities that they should pay for the land they had taken for their settlements and other uses. However, with the same stubbornness they had previously displayed, the English refused to discuss the issue of land. With terms finally worked out, the treaty was signed on November 22, 1752.
- The Treaty of 1752, including the demeaning provisions the British had included in previous treaties, included a radical departure from the policy of the previous administration. The treaty also provided some benefits to the Mi’kmaq, such as recognition of convince the Chief to agree to the inclusion of Section 3, which required him to work to bring in other District Chiefs to sign similar treaties.
- On November 24, 1752, the colonial government issued a proclamation advising the citizens of the ratification and signing of the treaty. A legitimate British colonial government made public that it had signed a treaty with another nation ending a war. The British, by ratifying the Treaty of 1752, took a small step towards peace with the Mi’kmaq. However, it was not an act of honour by the English, because it was simply another step towards realizing the complete rape of the Mi’kmaq Nation.
