Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada.
The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although the island is physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the Strait of Canso, the long Canso Causeway connects it to mainland Nova Scotia. The island is east-northeast of the mainland with its northern and western coasts fronting on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with its western coast forming the eastern limits of the Northumberland Strait. The eastern and southern coasts front the Atlantic Ocean with its eastern coast also forming the western limits of the Cabot Strait. Its landmass slopes upward from south to north, culminating in the highlands of its northern cape. A large body of saltwater, the Bras d'Or Lake, dominates the island's centre.
The total population from 2020 data numbered 134,850 Cape Bretoners, which is approximately 15% of the provincial population. Cape Breton Island has experienced a decline in population of approximately 2.9% since the 2011 census. Approximately 75% of the island's population is in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, which includes all of Cape Breton County and is often referred to as Industrial Cape Breton.
Toponymy
Cape Breton Island takes its name from its easternmost point, Cape Breton. This may have been named after the Gascon fishing port of Capbreton, but more probably takes its name from the Bretons of northwestern France. A Portuguese mappa mundi of 1516–20 includes the label "terra q foy descuberta por Bertomes" in the vicinity of the Gulf of St Lawrence, which means "land discovered by Bretons". The name "Cape Breton" first appears on a map of 1516, as C dos Bretoes, and became the general name for both the island and the cape toward the end of the 16th century.The indigenous Mi'kmawi'simk name for the island is Unama'ki, which loosely translates to "land of fog." Unama'ki is one of the seven districts of Mi'kmaw Country, Mi'kma'ki, which itself forms one branch of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The district hosts the seat of the Grand Council at Mniku, which still functions as the capital of the nation in the Potlotek reserve. Despite colonial efforts to replace indigenous names, the use of "Unama'ki" has increased in recent years, with examples including Unama'ki College, the multicultural festival "Hello Cape Breton - Kwe' Unama'ki," and private organizations using the name, including, for example, Cape Breton Partnership's investment campaign titled "Invest in Unama’ki – Cape Breton."
History
Cape Breton Island's first residents were likely archaic maritime natives, ancestors of the Mi'kmaq people. These peoples and their progeny inhabited the island for several thousand years and continue to live there to this day. Their traditional lifestyle centred around hunting and fishing because of the unfavourable agricultural conditions of their maritime home. This ocean-centric lifestyle did, however, make them among the first Indigenous peoples to discover European explorers and sailors fishing in the St Lawrence Estuary. Italian explorer John Cabot reportedly visited the island in 1497. However, European histories and maps of the period are of too poor quality to be sure whether Cabot first visited Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island. This discovery is commemorated by Cape Breton's Cabot Trail, and by the Cabot's Landing Historic Site & Provincial Park, near the village of Dingwall.The local Mi'kmaq peoples began trading with European fishermen when the fishermen began landing in their territories as early as the 1520s. In about 1521–22, the Portuguese under João Álvares Fagundes established a fishing colony on the island. As many as two hundred settlers lived in a village, the name of which is not known, located according to some historians at what is now Ingonish on the island's northeastern peninsula. These fishermen traded with the local population but did not maintain a permanent settlement. This Portuguese colony's fate is unknown, but it is mentioned as late as 1570.
During the Anglo-French War of 1627 to 1629, under King Charles I, the Kirkes took Quebec City, James Stewart, 4th Lord Ochiltree, planted a colony on Unama'ki at Baleine, Nova Scotia, and Alexander's son, William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling, established the first incarnation of "New Scotland" at Port Royal. These claims, and larger ideals of European colonization were the first time the island was incorporated as European territory, though it would be several decades later that treaties would actually be signed. However, no copies of these treaties exist.
These Scottish triumphs, which left Cape Sable as the only major French holding in North America, did not last. Charles I's haste to make peace with France on the terms most beneficial to him meant the new North American gains would be bargained away in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which established which European power had laid claim over the territories.
The French quickly defeated the Scots at Baleine, and established the first European settlements on Île Royale, which is present-day Englishtown and St. Peter's. These settlements lasted only one generation, until Nicolas Denys left in 1659. The island did not have any European settlers for another fifty years before those communities along with Louisbourg were re-established in 1713, after which point European settlement was permanently established on the island.Known as Île Royale to the French, the island also saw active settlement by France. After the French ceded their claims to Newfoundland and the Acadian mainland to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the French relocated the population of Plaisance, Newfoundland, to Île-Royale and the French garrison was established in the central eastern part at Fort Sainte Anne. As the harbour at Sainte Anne experienced icing problems, it was decided to build a much larger fortification at Louisbourg to improve defences at the entrance to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and to defend France's fishing fleet on the Grand Banks. The French also built the Louisbourg Lighthouse in 1734, the first lighthouse in Canada and one of the first in North America. In addition to Cape Breton Island, the French colony of Île Royale also included Prince Edward Island, today called Prince Edward Island, and Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
Seven Years' War
itself was one of the most important commercial and military centres in New France. Louisbourg was captured by New Englanders with British naval assistance in the Siege of Louisbourg and by British forces in 1758. The French population of Île Royale was deported to France after each siege. While French settlers returned to their homes in Île Royale after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748, the fortress was demolished after the second siege in 1758. Île Royale remained formally part of New France until it was ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. It was then merged with the adjacent British colony of Nova Scotia. Acadians who had been expelled from Nova Scotia and Île Royale were permitted to settle in Cape Breton beginning in 1764, and established communities in northwestern Cape Breton, near Chéticamp, and southern Cape Breton, on and near Isle Madame.Some of the first British-sanctioned settlers on the island following the Seven Years' War were Irish, although upon settlement they merged with local French communities to form a culture rich in music and tradition. From 1763 to 1784, the island was administratively part of the colony of Nova Scotia and was governed from Halifax.
The first permanently settled Scottish community on Cape Breton Island was Judique, settled in 1775 by Michael Mor MacDonald. He spent his first winter using his upside-down boat for shelter, which is reflected in the architecture of the village's Community Centre. He composed a song about the area called "O 's àlainn an t-àite", or "O, Fair is the Place."
American Revolution
During the American Revolution, on 1 November 1776, John Paul Jones, the father of the American Navy, set sail in command of Alfred to free hundreds of American prisoners working in the area's coal mines. Although winter conditions prevented the freeing of the prisoners, the mission did result in the capture of Mellish, a vessel carrying a vital supply of winter clothing intended for John Burgoyne's troops in Canada.Major Timothy Hierlihy and his regiment on board HMS Hope worked in and protected the coal mines at Sydney, Cape Breton, from privateer attacks. Sydney, Cape Breton provided a vital supply of coal for Halifax throughout the war. The British began developing the mining site at Sydney Mines in 1777. On 14 May 1778, Major Hierlihy arrived at Cape Breton. While there, Hierlihy reported that he "beat off many piratical attacks, killed some and took other prisoners."
A few years into the war, there was also a naval engagement between French ships and a British convoy off Sydney, Nova Scotia, near Spanish River, Cape Breton. French ships, fighting with the Americans, were re-coaling and defeated a British convoy. Six French and 17 British sailors were killed, with many more wounded.
Colony of Cape Breton
In 1784, Britain split the colony of Nova Scotia into three separate colonies: New Brunswick, Cape Breton Island, and present-day peninsular Nova Scotia, in addition to the adjacent colonies of St. John's Island and Newfoundland. The colony of Cape Breton Island had its capital at Sydney on its namesake harbour fronting on Spanish Bay and the Cabot Strait. Its first Lieutenant-Governor was Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres and his successor was William Macarmick.A number of United Empire Loyalists emigrated to the Canadian colonies, including Cape Breton. David Mathews, the former Mayor of New York City during the American Revolution, emigrated with his family to Cape Breton in 1783. He succeeded Macarmick as head of the colony and served from 1795 to 1798.
From 1799 to 1807, the military commandant was John Despard, brother of Edward.
An order forbidding the granting of land in Cape Breton, issued in 1763, was removed in 1784. The mineral rights to the island were given over to the Duke of York by an order-in-council. The British government had intended that the Crown take over the operation of the mines when Cape Breton was made a colony, but this was never done, probably because of the rehabilitation cost of the mines. The mines were in a neglected state, caused by careless operations dating back at least to the time of the final fall of Louisbourg in 1758.
Large-scale shipbuilding began in the 1790s, beginning with schooners for local trade, moving in the 1820s to larger brigs and brigantines, mostly built for British ship owners. Shipbuilding peaked in the 1850s, marked in 1851 by the full-rigged ship Lord Clarendon, which was the largest wooden ship ever built in Cape Breton.