Mainland Nova Scotia became a British colony in 1713, although Samuel Vetch had a precarious hold on the territory as governor from the fall of Acadian Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal) in October 1710. British governing officials became increasingly concerned over the unwillingness of the French-speaking, Catholic Acadians, who were the majority of colonists, to pledge allegiance to the British Crown, then George II. The colony remained mostly Acadian despite the establishment of Halifax as the province's capital, and the settlement of a large number of mostly German foreign Protestants along the South Shore in 1750. In 1755, the British forcibly expelled the over 12,000 Acadians in what became known as the Grand Dérangement, or Great Expulsion.
The colony's jurisdiction changed during this time. Nova Scotia was granted a supreme court in 1754 with the appointment of Jonathan Belcher and a Legislative Assembly in 1758. In 1763 Cape Breton Island became part of Nova Scotia. In 1769, St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony. The county of Sunbury was created in 1765, and included all of the territory of current day New Brunswick and eastern Maine as far as the Penobscot River. In 1784 the western, mainland portion of the colony was separated and became the province of New Brunswick, and the territory in Maine entered the control of the newly independent American state of Massachusetts. Cape Breton would again became a separate colony in 1784 only to be returned to Nova Scotia in 1820.
With the Scottish Highland Clearances (c. 1762) many Gaelic-speaking Highlanders were forced from their homes by landlords eager to make way for livestock (Coll, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides). In 1773 The Hector landed with 189 Gaelic-speaking settlers at Pictou,[2] on the Nova Scotia mainland. In 1784 a law restricting land-ownership on Cape Breton Island was repealed, freeing up the vast territory the Scots would nickname Tir nan Croabh (Land of Trees). It is estimated more than 50,000 Gaelic settlers immigrated to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island during this period, the last ship arriving in 1840.
Ancestors of more than half of present-day Nova Scotians arrived in the period following the Acadian Expulsion. Between 1759 and 1768, about 8000 New England Planters responded to Governor Charles Lawrence's request for settlers from the New England colonies. Several years later, approximately 30,000 United Empire Loyalists (American Tories) settled in Nova Scotia (when it comprised present-day Maritime Canada) following the defeat of the British in the American Revolutionary War. Of these 30,000, 14,000 went to New Brunswick and 16,000 to Nova Scotia. Approximately 3,000 of this group were slaves of African ancestry, about a third of which soon relocated themselves to Sierra Leone in 1792. Large numbers of Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots emigrated to Cape Breton and the western portion of the mainland during the late 18th century and 19th century. About one thousand Ulster Scots settled in mainly central Nova Scotia during this time, as did just over a thousand farming migrants from Yorkshire and Northumberland between 1772 and 1775.
When the Hudson's Bay Company first started trading in furs in 1670, it required strong, hardy workers who could work long seasons in the New world wilderness. Ships sailing from London, England would stop over in the Hebrides Islands and Highland Coastal Villages of Scotland to hire-on workers, and these men were the first to bring Gaelic to the Canadian interior.
Nova Scotia was the first colony in British North America and in the British Empire to achieve responsible government in January-February 1848 and become self-governing through the efforts of Joseph Howe. Pro-Confederate premier Charles Tupper led Nova Scotia into the Canadian Confederation in 1867, along with New Brunswick, Québec, and the Province of Canada. 500–1000 Nova Scotians today are fluent in Scottish Gaelic - nearly all live in Antigonish County or on Cape Breton Island. No native Nova Scotians speak Scots. Canadian Gaelic (Gàidhlig Canadanach) is the dialect of Scots Gaelic spoken on Cape Breton Island, and in isolated enclaves on the Nova Scotia mainland, Prince Edward Island, and to a lesser degree by emigrant Gaels living in major cities like Toronto. Formerly spoken across much of Canada, Scots Gaelic was once the third most spoken language in the country after English and French.
1, 2,