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CHAPTER 1: AN EARLY HISTORY
To fully appreciate any tales of early Prince Edward Island, it is best to understand at least a little about the early peoples and how they lived. For it is with these early dwellers, and the circumstances of their lives, that many legends, folklore, and true tales (as strange as any fiction imaginable) originated.
The Island was first inhabited by the Mi’kmaq First Nations. Europeans brought additional cultures and approaches to life when they arrived. But these early settlers did not have an easy time adjusting. Most of them were poor and unskilled. The general population had little education, with the exception of members of government or high-ranking military officers. No matter the culture, it was through storytelling, usually around the fire after dark, that many tales were passed down.
Many of the stories originated with early settlers to the Island. While trying to eke out existence from a harsh land, they were beset by pirates, privateers, enemy forces, plagues of mice, devastating fires, and corrupt landlords and agents. Their very lives were threatened by the wars of other nations: the French, the British, the Americans, and then the First and Second World Wars. The expulsion of the Acadians was reflected years later by the arrival of the Loyalists, fleeing from their own intolerable situation. Although an island, the influence of the outside world was never far from shore.
A short history will provide insight into the province’s development, but bear in mind that while these facts were being established, all of the aforementioned obstacles and many more affected the lives of the individual.
It is thought that several thousand Mi’kmaq people may have lived on or near the Island prior to settlement by Europeans. In 1534, their way of life changed. Jacques Cartier sighted, landed on, and duly reported to his ruler the existence of the “fairest land that may possibly be seen.” Over the next hundred years, the most frequent visitors were French and Basque fishermen. In fact, it was not until 1720 that Europeans, namely French colonists, began to settle permanently in any numbers.
At that time the Island was heavily wooded. Hard labour was required to even clear enough land to build a home, let alone fields for crops. For a great number of years, settlement didn’t extend more than one farm deep from the shoreline. The development of roads was a slow process, so travel was primarily undertaken by canoe. The Hillsborough River was the main water route, accounting for the distribution of the settlers along its shores.
Early settlement concentrated around Charlottetown Harbour, particularly at Port-la-Joye and in St. Peters Bay, as well as in the areas of Tracadie, Orwell, and South Lake. The Island’s settler population numbered just over seven hundred people by 1748.
Generally, the north shore area was slow to be settled, because sand dunes and shallow waters barring the entrances to the bays and rivers made it difficult to bring large ships to shore. This situation continues even today, resulting in all large shipping taking place from the south shore, and even small fishing boats occasionally facing problems getting in and out of harbour safely in the north.
Through the 1740s and 1750s, the population gradually increased along the north shore, especially between Malpeque and Savage Harbour. After the French were expelled from the Bay of Fundy area by the British, many travelled to the Island by 1758, creating a refugee camp as much as a colony, and increasing the population to around 4,500 people.
The Island remained under French rule until 1758 when the British, having taken the Fortress of Louisbourg for the second and final time, rounded up the French settlers and deported them. This expulsion and its consequences mark a shameful part of history. Only about three hundred Acadians remained, located south of Malpeque and around Rustico and Souris.
In 1763 the Island was formally awarded to the British Crown as part of the Treaty of Paris. There was pressure on the Crown to award land to influential petitioners; thus Samuel Holland came to survey in 1764. The Island was divided into three counties, fourteen parishes, and sixty-seven townships or lots, with each township containing twenty-thousand acres and each county having its own town.
By 1767, Holland had done his job, and the British Board of Commissioners conducted a lottery in which lots were awarded to military officers and others of influence. Each new proprietor had to agree to pay quit-rents to the Crown, and to settle his township with one hundred Protestants within ten years.
Unfortunately for the Crown and the early settlers, most proprietors were not particularly interested in their acquisitions or in fulfilling the requirements. As a result, lots changed hands, rents went unpaid, and a land-ownership problem began that would cause trouble on the Island until after Confederation — still almost a century away.
Basic settlement patterns followed those of the French, which was a natural progression since the British had simply taken over what the French had begun.
A few proprietors tried to settle their lots, and by 1800 communities were developing. The Tracadie area was among the more notable, where Captain John MacDonald of Glenaladale brought several hundred Scottish Highlanders in to farm the area between 1770 and 1775. He did not stick strictly to the letter of the agreement, however, as the Scots were Roman Catholic.
The eastern shores of Malpeque were settled by Protestant Scottish Lowlanders. Lowland Scots and English Protestants settled the New London area, and a number of Protestant families set down roots in the Covehead area. The Rustico area was heavily populated by Acadians who fled British capture in 1758. The religious patterns continued for many years; in fact, they can still be seen today by the careful observer.
This influx brought most of the north shore land under cultivation, and established transportation patterns that ran primarily east and west. The main route from north to south shores was still the mighty Hillsborough River, and it was there and across the bays of the north shore that the first ferries operated.
The Island had been granted separate government from Nova Scotia in 1769 on the presumption that government would be financed by the quit-rents due from proprietors. As they evaded these responsibilities, land ownership became a volatile issue for the populace, who, in 1798, numbered over four thousand.
Roads developed slowly, with the first of note connecting Charlottetown to Malpeque and St. Peters. By 1850 a basic network was in place, with roads running north and south to link these principal routes. Settlement naturally followed, and the population crept southward.
Beginning in the 1840s, relatively large numbers of Irish Roman Catholics immigrated to the Island. They tended to concentrate their settlements inland in areas like Saint Ann and Hope River. Immigration continued, and by 1891 the population had grown to 109,000 before it began a decline, reaching a low of about 88,000 in the 1930s. The population then began a steady increase to today’s population of around 143,000.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, many residents were able to acquire title to their lands. By Confederation about 50 percent of the lots were in freehold tenure. After Confederation the provincial government was able to purchase land and turn it over to tenants by lease purchase agreements.
The primary source of insecurity and the all too often dishonest dealings was gone, and the population had settled into a pattern of development and modernization following that of Canada as a whole. Modern shipping, stronger governments and law enforcement, electricity, the railroad, the automobile, and other technology served to change life, just as the pattern continues today.
