Nova Scotia - the 14th American Colony

quote:

---

If you went to school in the United States, you most likely learned about the thirteen colonies. Twelve were founded in the 1600s, in order of settlement they are:

1. Virginia in 1607,
2. Massachusetts in 1620,
3. New Hampshire in 1623,
4. New York in 1624,
5. Connecticut in 1633,
6. Maryland in 1634,
7. Rhode Island in 1636,
8. Delaware in 1638,
9. Pennsylvania in 1643,
10. North Carolina in 1653,
11. New Jersey in 1660,
12. and South Carolina in 1670.


The 13th colony, Georgia, was not settled until 1733, a gap of 63 years!

The 14th and last colony was Nova Scotia founded in 1749, 16 years later still. Nova Scotia northeast of Maine, which until 1820 was part of Massachusetts colony.

---

quote:

---

The American Revolution (1775–1783) had a significant impact on shaping Nova Scotia. At the beginning, there was ambivalence in Nova Scotia, "the 14th American Colony" as some called it, over whether the colony should join the Americans in the war against Britain and rebellion flared at the Battle of Fort Cumberland and the Siege of Saint John (1777). Throughout the war, American privateers devastated the maritime economy by capturing ships and looting almost every community outside of Halifax. These American raids alienated many sympathetic or neutral Nova Scotians into supporting the British. By the end of the war a number of Nova Scotian privateers were outfitted to attack American shipping. British military forces based at Halifax were successful in preventing American support for rebels in Nova Scotia and deterred any invasion of Nova Scotia. However the British navy was unable to establish naval supremacy. While many American privateers were captured in battles such as the Naval battle off Halifax, many more continued attacks on shipping and settlements until the final months of the war. The Royal Navy struggled to maintain British supply lines, defending convoys from American and French attacks such as the fiercely fought convoy battle, the Naval battle off Cape Breton.

---

quote:

---

After the British were defeated in the Thirteen Colonies, its troops helped evacuate approximately 30,000 United Empire Loyalists (American Tories), who settled in Nova Scotia, with land grants by the Crown as some compensation for their losses. (Nova Scotia was divided and the present-day province of New Brunswick created). The Loyalist exodus created new communities across Nova Scotia, including Shelburne, which was briefly one of the larger British settlements in North America, and infused the province with additional capital and skills. However the migration also caused political tensions between Loyalist leaders and the leaders of the existing New England Planters settlement. The Loyalist influx also pushed Nova Scotia's Mi'kmaq People to the margins as Loyalist land grants encroached on ill-defined native lands. Approximately 3,000 members of the Loyalist migration were Black Loyalists who founded the largest free Black settlement in North America at Birchtown, near Shelburne. However unfair treatment and harsh conditions caused about one-third of the Black Loyalists to resettle in Sierra Leone in 1792 where they founded Freetown and became known in Africa as the Nova Scotian Settlers

---