Attack at Mocodome



The Attack at Mocodome (present-day Country Harbour, Nova Scotia) occurred during Father Le Loutre’s War on February 21, 1753 when two English died and six Mi'kmaq. There are differing accounts of the battle. British accounts blamed the English for the incident while the Mi'kmaq blamed the English. Regardless, the battle ended any hope for the survival of the 1752 Peace Treaty signed by the British and chief Jean-Baptiste Cope.

Historical context
Despite the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq. By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of the Wabanaki Confederacy (which included the Mi'kmaq) protecting their land by killing British civilians along the New England/ Acadia border in Maine (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747).

To prevent the establishment of Protestant settlements in the region, Mi'kmaq raided the early British settlements of present-day Shelburne (1715) and Canso (1720). A generation later, Father Le Loutre's War began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749. By unilaterally establishing Halifax the British were violating earlier treaties with the Mi'kmaq (1726), which were signed after Father Rale's War. The British quickly began to build other settlements. To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (1749), Bedford  (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754). There were numerous Mi'kmaq and Acadian raids on these villages such as the Raid on Dartmouth (1751).

There was a raid on those in the Dartmouth area in 1749 (See History of Dartmouth). In response to the raids, Governor Edward Cornwallis offered a bounty on the head of every Mi'kmaq. The British military paid the Rangers the same rate per scalp as the French military paid the Mi'kmaq for British scalps.

After eighteen months of inconclusive fighting, uncertainties and second thoughts began to disturb both the Mi’kmaq and the British communities. By the summer of 1751 Governor Cornwallis began a more conciliatory policy. On 16 February 1752, hoping to lay the groundwork for a peace treaty, Cornwallis repealed his 1749 scalp proclamation against the Wabanaki Confederacy. For more than a year, Cornwallis sought out Mi’kmaq leaders willing to negotiate a peace. He eventually gave up, resigned his commission and left the colony.

With a new Governor in place, Governor Peregrine Thomas Hopson, the first willing Mi’kmaq negotiator was Cope. On 22 November 1752, Cope finished negotiating a peace for the Mi’kmaq at Shubenacadie. The basis of the treaty was the one signed in Boston which closed Dummer's War (1725). Cope tried to get other Mi’kmaq chiefs in Nova Scotia to agree to the treaty but was unsuccessful. The Governor became suspicious of Cope’s actual leadership among the Mi’kmaq people. Of course, Le Loutre and the French were outraged at Cope’s decision to negotiate at all with the British.

The Battle
According the two British involved in the ordeal, Connor and Grace, on February 21, 1753, nine Mi'kmaq from present-day Antigonish (Nartigouneche) in canoes attacked their schooner Dunk from Canso, Nova Scotia which had a crew of four at present-day Country Harbour, Nova Scotia. The Mi'kmaq fired on them and drove them toward the shore. Other natives joined in and boarded the schooner, forcing them to run their vessel into an inlet. The two English men witnessed the Mi'kmaq scalp and kill two of their crew. The Mi'kmaq took the two others captive for seven weeks. After seven weeks in captivity, on April 8, the two English men killed a Mi'kmaq woman and child and then four other Mi'kmaq men. Afterward, they managed their escape.

According to Mi’kmaq accounts, the English schooner first went to Jedore and robbed the Mi’kmaq of forty barrels of provisions. Mi’kmaq then apprehended the four English men, who, in turned, killed the Mi’kmaq people for scalp money. The English schooner accidentally was shipwrecked, some of the crew drowned. They reported two men died of illness while the two others, despite the Mi'kmaq hospitality shown them, killed the six Mi'kmaq for the scalp bounty. In response, Mi'kmaq natives were reported to have gone to Halifax to complain about how to keep their provisions safe during fishing season.

A French officer at Louisbourg did not believe the Mi'kmaq account of events. If Connor and Grace were only motivated by scalp money as the Mi'kmaq asserted, it is unclear who would have paid them for Mi'kmaq scalps given Governor Cornwallis had stopped the bounty on Mi'kmaq scalps the previous year.

Aftermath
In response, on the night of April 21, under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Cope and the Mi'kmaq Attack at Jeddore in which the Mi'kmaq attacked an English schooner. There were nine English men and one Acadian who was the British interpreter. The Mi'kmaq killed the English and let the Acadian named Anthony Casteel off at Port Toulouse, where the Mi'kmaq sank the schooner after looting it. Cope's peace treaty was ultimately rejected by most of the other Mi'kmaq leaders. Cope burned the treaty six months after he signed it. Despite the collapse of peace on the eastern shore, the British did not formally renounce the Treat of 1752 until 1756.