Raid on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (1756)

The Raid on Lunenburg occurred during the French and Indian War when a militia of the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaw and Maliseet) attacked a British settlement at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on May 8, 1756. The native militia raided two islands on the northern outskirts of the fortified Township of Lunenburg, [John] Rous Island and Payzant Island (present day Covey Island). The Maliseet killed twenty settlers and took five prisoners. This raid was the first of nine the Natives and Acadians would conduct against the peninsula over a three year period during the war. The Wabanaki Confederacy took John and Lewis Payzant prisoner, both of whom recorded one of the few Captivity narratives that exist from Nova Scotia/ Acadia.

Historical context
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). 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 (Citadel Hill) (1749), Bedford  (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

To thwart the development of these Protestant settlements, the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq and Acadians conducted numerous raids on the settlements, such as the Raid on Dartmouth (1751). During these raids, the French military paid the Mi'kmaq for the British scalps they acquired. (In response, the British military paid Rangers for the scalps of Mi'kmaq and Maliseet.)

When the French and Indian War began, the conflict in Acadia intensified. With the British victory at the Battle of Fort Beauséjour (1755), the Expulsion of the Acadians from the Maritimes began and conflict between the British and the Mi'kmaq, Acadians and Maliseet continued. Fort Cumberland was raided for two days between April 26–27, 1756, and nine British soldiers were killed and scalped. The raid on Lunenburg took place almost two weeks later.

Raid on Lunenburg
The Governor General of New France, Pierre François de Rigaud, ordered the top military figure in Acadia Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot to send a Mi'kmaw and Maliseet militia to raid Lunenburg. The French garrison was at Ste. Anne's Point (near present day Fredericton, New Brunswick), where Boishébert was stationed. This site was also close to the location of the Maliseet encampment Aukpaque. The Maliseet left Aukpaque / Ste. Anne and arrived at the outskirts of Lunenburg on May 8, 1756. According to French reports, the Maliseet militia killed and scalped twenty settlers - men, women and children - and burned their homes, although British accounts suggest that only five were killed. There was little resistance. The five remaining residents, Marie Anne Payzant and her four young children, were taken prisoner. Her husband Louis Payzant was one of the settlers who was killed and scalped.

Lieut-Colonel Patrick Sutherland, who was stationed at Lunenburg, immediately dispatched a company of 30 officers and soldiers to repel the raid. Upon their return on May 11, Deputy provost marshal Dettlieb Christopher Jessen reported the number killed was five and that the Maliseet militia and the prisoners were gone.

Consequences
In response to the Lunenburg raid and the earlier raids on Fort Cumberland, on May 14, 1756, Governor Charles Lawrence increased the bounty offered to rangers for the scalps of Mi'kmaq and Maliseet.

Upon learning that the victims were French (albeit Protestant French), on August 6, 1756, the Governor of New France considered the possibility of recruiting other French settlers at Lunenburg to burn the town and join the French occupied territories of Île St. Jean (Prince Edward Island) or Île Royale (Cape Breton Island). While the burning of Lunenburg never took place, a number of the French and German-speaking Foreign Protestants left the village to join Acadian communities. The Maliseet and Mi'kmaq took Marie Anne Payzant (who was in the first month of pregnancy) and her four young children over land and by canoe to Quebec City. Along the way they stopped at the French garrison at Ste. Anne's Point, where Boishébert, who had ordered the raid, was stationed. The Maliseet kept Marie Anne's children for ransom at their near-by village Aukpaque (present-day Springhill, New Brunswick and Eqpahak Island) and forced her to go to Quebec City without them. She gave birth while a prisoner of war on December 26, 1756. The following summer, a ransom was paid and the rest of her children joined her in Quebec City. Marie Anne Payzant and her children spent four years in captivity (1756–1760). They were released after the Battle of Quebec and settled in present day Falmouth, Nova Scotia in 1761. Later in life, two of the surviving children recorded their captivity narratives after the Lunenburg raid.

After the raid Governor Lawrence sought to protect the area by establishing blockhouses at the LaHave River, Mush-a-Mush (present day Mahone Bay) and at the Northwest Range (present day Blockhouse, Nova Scotia). Despite the protection of these blockhouses, Indians and Acadians continued raiding the area, executing eight such raids over the next three years. A total of 32 people from Lunenburg were killed in the raids with more being taken prisoner. The British reported that most of these raids were by the Mi'kmaq and Acadians at Cape Sable. (The Argyle, Nova Scotia region was formerly known as Cape Sable and encompassed a much larger area than it does today. It extended from Cape Negro (Baccaro) through Chebogue.)

Following the raid of 1756, Mi'kmaq made eight more raids on the Lunenburg Peninsula over the next three years. In 1757, the Mi'kmaq raided Lunenburg and killed six people from the Brissang family. The following year, March 1758, the Mi'kmaq raided the Lunenburg Peninsula at the Northwest Range (present-day Blockhouse, Nova Scotia) and killed five people from the Ochs and Roder families.

During the summer of 1758, Mi'kmaq conducted four raids on the Lunenburg Peninsula. On July 13, 1758, a member of the Labrador family killed two boys on the LaHave River. The next raid happened at Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia on August 24, 1758, when eight Mi'kmaq attacked the family homes of Lay and Brant. While they killed three people in the raid, the Mi'kmaq were unsuccessful in taking their scalps, which was the common practice for payment from the French. Two days, later, two soldiers were killed in a raid on the blockhouse at LaHave, Nova Scotia. Almost two weeks later, on September 11, Mi'kmaq killed a child in a raid on the Northwest Range.

Another raid happened on March 27, 1759, in which natives killed three members of the Oxner family. The last raid happened on April 20, 1759. The Mi’kmaq killed four settlers at Lunenburg who were members of the Trippeau and Crighton families.