Fortress of Louisbourg
The Fortress of Louisbourg is a tourist attraction as a National Historic Site and the location of a one-quarter partial reconstruction of an 18th-century French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Its two sieges, especially that of 1758, were turning points in the Anglo-French struggle for what today is Canada.
The original settlement was founded in 1713 by settlers from Terre-Neuve, and initially called Havre à l'Anglois. Subsequently, the fishing port grew to become a major commercial port and a strongly defended fortress. The fortifications eventually surrounded the town. The walls were constructed mainly between 1720 and 1740. By the mid-1740s Louisbourg, named for Louis XIV of France, was one of the most extensive European fortifications constructed in North America.
The site was supported by two smaller garrisons on Île Royale located at present-day St. Peter's and Englishtown. The Fortress of Louisbourg suffered key weaknesses, since it was erected on low-lying ground commanded by nearby hills and its design was directed mainly toward sea-based assaults, leaving the land-facing defences relatively weak. A third weakness was that it was a long way from France or Quebec, from which reinforcements might be sent. It was captured by British colonists in 1745, and was a major bargaining chip in the negotiations leading to the 1748 treaty ending the War of the Austrian Succession. It was returned to the French in exchange for border towns in what is today Belgium. It was captured again in 1758 by British forces in the Seven Years' War, after which its fortifications were systematically destroyed by British engineers. The British continued to have a garrison at Louisbourg until 1768 but had abandoned the site by 1785.
The fortress and town were partially reconstructed, in a project that started in 1961 and continued into the 1970s. The head stonemason for this project was Ron Bovaird. This reconstruction work provided jobs for unemployed coal miners, but relied on expropriating an entire community known as West Louisbourg. Additional restoration was completed in 2018–2020 and again in 2022–2023 after Hurricane Fiona. The earlier of the two projects was intended to protect the site from rising water and to restore parts of the fortress.
The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic site is operated by Parks Canada as a living history museum. The site stands as the largest reconstruction project in North America.
History
French settlement on Île Royale can be traced to the early 17th century following settlements in Acadia that were concentrated on Baie Française such as at Port-Royal and other locations in present-day peninsular Nova Scotia.A French settlement at Sainte Anne on the central east coast of Île Royale was established in 1629 and named Fort Sainte Anne, lasting until 1641. A fur trading post was established on the site from 1651 to 1659, but Île Royale languished under French rule as attention was focused on the St. Lawrence River/Great Lakes colony of Canada, Louisiana, and the small agricultural settlements of mainland Acadia.
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 gave Britain control of part of Acadia and Newfoundland; however, France maintained control of its colonies at Île Royale, Île Saint-Jean, Canada and Louisiana, with Île Royale being France's only territory directly on the Atlantic seaboard and it was strategically close to important fishing grounds on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, as well as being well placed for protecting the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In 1713, France set about constructing Port Dauphin and a limited naval support base at the former site of Fort Sainte-Anne; however, the winter icing conditions of the harbour led the French to choose another harbour on the southeastern part of Île Royale. The harbour, being ice-free and well protected, soon became a winter port for French naval forces on the Atlantic seaboard and they named it Havre Louisbourg after King Louis XIV.
First siege
British forces besieged Louisbourg in 1745. The British captured the fortress, but returned it to the French at the end of the War of Austrian Succession.The Fortress was besieged in 1745 by a New England force backed by a Royal Navy squadron. The New England attackers succeeded when the fortress capitulated on June 16, 1745. A major expedition by the French to recapture the fortress led by Jean-Baptiste de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, duc d'Anville, the following year was destroyed by storms, disease and British naval attacks before it ever reached the fortress.
Louisbourg returned
In 1748, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the War of the Austrian Succession, restored Louisbourg to France in return for territory gained in the Austrian Netherlands and the British trading post at Madras in India. Maurepas, the ministre de la marine, was determined to have it back. He regarded the fortified harbour as essential to maintaining French dominance in the fisheries of the area. The disgust of the French in this transaction was matched by that of the English colonists.The New England forces left, taking with them the famous Louisbourg Cross, which had hung in the fortress chapel. This cross was rediscovered in the Harvard University archives only in the latter half of the 20th century; it is now on long-term loan to the Louisbourg historic site.
Having given up Louisbourg, Britain in 1749 created its own fortified town on Chebucto Bay which they named Halifax. It soon became the largest Royal Navy base on the Atlantic coast and hosted large numbers of British army regulars. The 29th Regiment of Foot was stationed there; they cleared the land for the port and settlement.
Second siege
Britain's American colonies were expanding into areas claimed by France by the 1750s, and the efforts of French forces and their First Nation allies to seal off the westward passes and approaches through which American colonists could move west soon led to the skirmishes that developed into the French and Indian War in 1754. The conflict widened into the larger Seven Years' War by 1756, which involved all of the major European powers.A large-scale French naval deployment in 1757 fended off an attempted assault by the British in 1757. However, inadequate naval support the following year allowed a large British combined operation led by Jeffrey Amherst to land for the 1758 Siege of Louisbourg which ended after a siege of six weeks on 26 July 1758, with a French surrender. The fortress was used by the British as a launching point for its 1759 Siege of Quebec that culminated in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Governors
- Philippe Pastour de Costebelle
- Jacques L'Hermite
- Joseph de St. Ovide, Monbeton de Brouillan
- Francois de Bourville
- Isaac-Louis de Forant
- Jean-Baptiste Prévost du Quesnel
- Louis Du Pont Duchambon de Vergor
- Antoine Le Moyne de Châteauguay
- Peter Warren
- Charles Knowles
- Charles Watson
- Peregrine Thomas Hopson
- Charles des Herbiers de La Ralière
- Jean-Louis de Raymond
- Charles Joseph D'Ailleboust
- Augustin de Boschenry de Drucour
20th century
Dozens of researchers worked on the project over a span of five decades. They included British-born archeologists Bruce W. Fry and Charles Lindsay; and Canadian historians B. A. Balcom, Kenneth Donovan, Brenda Dunn, John Fortier, Margaret Fortier, Allan Greer, A. J. B. Johnston, Eric Krause, Anne Marie Lane Jonah, T.D. MacLean, Christopher Moore, Robert J. Morgan, Christian Pouyez, Gilles Proulx and many more. Among the architects, Yvon LeBlanc, one of the first Acadian architects, was responsible for most of the town-site buildings, with input from researchers who contributed to various committees. According to one source, accuracy was assured by a review of "750,000 pages of documents and 500 maps and plans have been copied from archives in France, England, Scotland, the United States and Canada".
Today, the entire site of the fortress, including the one-fifth reconstruction, is the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada, operated by Parks Canada. Offerings include guided and unguided tours, and the demonstration and explanation of period weapons, including muskets and a cannon, by enactors wearing period clothing. Children's programming includes puppet shows. The Museum / Caretakers Residence within the site is a Classified Federal Heritage Building. The fortress also greatly aided the local economy of the town of Louisbourg, as it struggled to diversify economically with the decline of the North Atlantic fishery and the decline of coal mining.
On 5 May 1995, Canada Post issued the 'Fortress of Louisbourg' series to mark the 275th anniversary of the official founding of the fortress, the 250th anniversary of the siege by the New Englanders, the 100th anniversary of the commemoration by the Society of Colonial Wars, and the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Sydney and Louisburg Railway. The Fortress of Louisbourg series includes: 'The Harbour and Dauphin Gate', '18th Century Louisbourg'; 'The King's Bastion'; 'The King's Garden, Convent, Hospital, and British Barracks' and 'The Fortifications and Ruins Fronting the Sea and Rochfort Point'. The 43¢ stamps were designed by Rolf P. Harder.
The museum that operates from the Fortress is affiliated with: Canadian Museums Association, Canadian Heritage Information Network, and Virtual Museum of Canada.