Reviews of Books

The familiar narratives of development in British North America before 1750 have more to do with the settlement and exploitation of territory and labor than with the processes and consequences of war and conquest. That much can be learned by understanding the history of a small colony that entered the British empire by conquest is the premise of Geoffrey Plank's meticulous reconstruction of Nova Scotia's history from the 1690s through 1763. The story he tells is much more than a description of the exception that proves the rule; rather, Nova Scotia's case brilliantly illuminates both the nature and the limits of British imperial rule in the eighteenth century.	1
Any conquered colony poses one great problem to the conqueror: what to do with its occupants, the thousands of recent enemies who can be dealt with on a spectrum that ranges from assimilation to subjugation to expulsion. In the case of Nova Scotia, ceded by France to Britain at the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), British policymakers vacillated between assimilation and expulsion until in 1755–1756 they finally opted for deporting the colony's French and exterminating its Indians. This tragic, complex story has been related before, notably by Lawrence Henry Gipson in four long chapters of The British Empire before the American Revolution (see vol. 5: Zones of International Friction: The Great Lakes Frontier, Canada, The West Indies, India, 1748–1754 [New York, 1942], 167–206, and vol. 6: The Great War for the Empire: The Years of Defeat, 1754–1757 (New York, 1946), 212–344). Never before, however, has the tale been told in such a thorough, coherent, and consequential way.	2
Acadia was more than a century old by the time of the Treaty of Utrecht but of little consequence to the French diplomats who ceded it to Britain. Neglected once Québec proved better able to project French influence into the interior, Acadia developed slowly. By 1710, the year of its conquest, the population consisted of perhaps 2,000 farmers and fishermen in small settlements along the Bay of Fundy and another 2,000 or so Mi'kmaq Indians occupying the rest of the peninsula. Because the colonists were few and their presence offered trade advantages to the Mi'kmaqs (who had also responded favorably to evangelization), peaceable relations between colonists and Indians had always been the rule. Intermarriage was so common that the British found it difficult to distinguish Acadians from Mi'kmaqs.	3
For the next three decades, Nova Scotia remained as much a backwater as ever. Imperial authorities did little to Anglicize the "French Neutrals," who had been guaranteed the right to practice the Catholic faith in return for a limited oath of allegiance, which did not require them to take up arms against France in the event of war. Ironically, the Acadians now mattered more than ever before. The founding of Louisbourg on nearby Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) created a lucrative market for Acadian crops, and the governors of the new fortress saw the Acadians and Mi'kmaqs as potential allies in the next war. British imperial officials, too weak militarily to suppress the Louisbourg trade, were only too aware of the dangers posed by the close relationship between the Acadians and their former masters.	. . .