User:Lunenburg exile

The settlement of Lunenburg county by “Foreign Protestants” in the mid-eighteenth century was almost undone by an inadequate implementation by the government and poor provisions for the settlers. They landed at the Acadian settlement of Malagash and renamed it Lunenburg. Within six months, filled with hunger and frustration, the settlers were fully prepared to rebel against the very government that had brought them to live there. When the insurrection came it lasted less than a week, but nearly the whole community participated in the uprising. Surprisingly no one died in the uprising despite the exchange of musket shot. As a result, the Governor would consider expelling the Foreign Protestants just as he expelled the Acadians. Negative attitudes towards these very un-British settlers seemed to develop in the province because of what is known as the Hoffman Insurrection.

The initial settlement of Lunenburg comprised 1453 persons, including 158 soldiers and rangers commanded by Colonel Charles Lawrence. Upon their arrival the settlers began constructing the defences for the settlement. While the Lunenburg residents were able to build homes, those who wished to settle outside Lunenburg proper worked on the town’s defences. Poor conditions and ill treatment soon led to grumbling by the settlers who expressed their frustration via letters and petitions and eventually armed insurrection. Letters home listed numerous complaints and a formal petition to the government was being made when a rumour set off one of Canada’s smallest insurrections.

They had arrived in two waves, on the 8th and 17th of June 1753 and from the beginning the settlers felt betrayed by those in charge of the settlement. The scant food they received had to be carefully rationed or they would have starved. Most had little time to erect ramshackle huts and to obtain inadequate supplies of firewood. Permanent Lunenburg residents; however, were able to plant gardens and build “many good framed house,” which they all wanted to do. Those who would not be staying in Lunenburg were forced to act as guards against rumoured hostile Mi’Kmaq. The blockhouses and pickets they built only seemed to isolate them from their promised land. Frustratingly, the resident Acadians claimed that “the Indians are quite peacable [sic] and not at all to be feared - there are none hereabouts.” Then Lawrence returned to Halifax with most of the troops before November to take up new duties. Leadership of the Lunenburg settlement fell to the less popular Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Sutherland who led the town militia of 650 well armed settlers and soldiers. The community was frustrated and something had to give.

What sparked the insurrection was a rumoured letter that was said to contain proof that corrupt officials were siphoning off most of the supplies. John William Hoffman, a former Justice of the peace from Halifax, enticed John Peterquin, a Frenchman to claim that he had the letter. On Saturday the 15th of December 1753, several men went to the home of John Peterquin and demanded that he surrender the letter to them, threatened bodily harm if he did not comply and then locked him up in the cellar of the Blockhouse.

Upon hearing of this, Colonel Sutherland, along with the justice of the peace Mr. Zouberbuhler, one Mr. Strasburg and Major Rudolf went to the Blockhouse. There Colonel Sutherland convinced the rebels to release their prisoner, but Mr. Peterquin was seized by a mob as he left the blockhouse. He was again confined in the cellar of the Blockhouse, but this time under the guard of ten of the settlers, “Here he remained until Sunday, when he endeavoured to effect his escape, but having been discovered by the guard, he was removed from the cellar into the body of the blockhouse, bound hand and foot, and threatened, if he did not produce the letter.”

Mr. Peterquin then said that the letter had been taken by the justice of the peace. At nine a.m. the mob gathered the settlers on the parade square so that they could figure out how to get the letter. For several days messengers were sent hourly to Sutherland and Zouberbuhler demanding the surrender of the letter, forcing them to seek refuge in the western blockhouse. Sutherland then learned that a band of Mi’Kmaq had been spotted near the town, making a bad situation even worse. Winthrop Bell recounts the situation that faced the soldiers that cold Sunday: At seven O’clock that evening about 150 appeared under arms before the lower blockhouse and demanded of the corporal in charge to let them take it over. When they advanced despite the corporal’s warning to them not to, shots were fired, and returned, and two of the attackers were wounded before the crowd withdrew.

Sutherland took what steps were available to him, fortified key positions, such as the storehouse, then sent to Halifax for reinforcements. Winthrop Bell records that “On the evening of Monday, 17 December, a boat reached Halifax bringing from Lunenburg, Lieutenant William Adams of the 47th (Lascelles’) regiment, with a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Sutherland, reporting that the settlers were in armed rebellion.”

Governor Lawrence immediately sent to Mr. Henry Baker, the commander of the HM sloop Wasp, a request for twenty of his sailors so that  two government sloops could be sent to Lunenburg. On Tuesday the 18th the Nova Scotia Council discussed Sutherland’s letter and questioned Lieutenant Adams. They decided to send two hundred soldiers, or 40% of the garrison in Halifax, to Lunenburg to restore order. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monckton, a member of the Council, volunteered to lead them and with four ships they left later that same day.

By Wednesday the 19th, Monckton had recaptured the blockhouse and taken Mr. Peterquin into custody who quickly confessed his part in the affair. He had never had the letter but said the whole idea was the invention of Mr. Hoffman: “Mr. Hoffman showed a letter. . . to Peterquin on the parade, and told him that he had received it from a sailor, and that Hoffman gave Peterquin directions how to proceed. In short, from Peterquin’s declaration, Hoffman was the instigator and cause of the whole mischief.” Colonel Monckton sent an officer and squad of soldiers to arrest Mr. Hoffman at the Harshman’s house. On the 20th he was questioned by Monckton and then sent to Halifax by ship with a guard of twelve men commanded by Captain Trickett. Monckton then disarmed the mob within two or three days.

The worst was over by Monday the 24th and Monckton remained in Lunenburg until the 15th of January 1754 by which time the settlers had calmed down. He left behind forty soldiers and an officer to control the blockhouses and keep the peace. Monckton sent a report to Lawrence from Lunenburg outlining his conclusions. He found that the Acadians could not be blamed for instigating the insurrection. As to the settlers themselves he stated “that as the people there were so generally implicated, the better course would be to grant a general forgiveness.”

Governor Lawrence was not in the forgiving mood, and wanted to punish the ringleaders of the whole affair. The “ringleaders” boiled down to Mr. Hoffman who was in prison on George’s Island in Halifax harbor. The governor was severe with John Hoffman setting strict limits on his rights, ordering “that he should not be allowed to converse with, nor write to, anybody, nor even have the use of pen, ink or paper.” Lawrence wanted Hoffman charged with high treason but, as there was only one witness, the Grand Jury refused. Hoffman would face charges of “high crimes and misdemeanours” for which he was tried in Halifax on the 30th April 1754. Found guilty, he was sentenced to a fine of 100 pounds and two years in prison which he served on George’s Island. Not content, “Governor Lawrence described him as a mischievous fellow. . . and wished that the colony was well rid of him.”

As for the settlement in Lunenburg, better provisions were obtained for the settlers and outright starvation was avoided, although the rations still continued to be meagre. Farming attempts outside of Lunenburg would be hampered until the peace treaty with the Mi’Kmaq of March 1760. In fact surrounding communities were all but abandoned in 1757 because of Mi’Kmaq raids. By 1758, 152 of the Foreign Protestants and soldiers had died, although more would have died had not rations improved after the insurrection. Scalping and kidnapping by the Mi’kmaq were common place occurrences in those first years and more than one soldier was killed carrying messages between the various blockhouses in the area.

In the long term, suspicion of the “Foreign Protestants” continued into the twentieth century and there was some speculation on the part of Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, who, in March of 1756 thought that it might be a good idea to expel the Foreign Protestants of Lunenburg. Although the settlers quickly became loyal British subjects, two centuries after the Hoffman insurrection, they continued to be held in suspicion by others for being German, independent and keeping customs from the old country.

The settlement of Lunenburg county was not an easy one. The deplorable conditions of the new settlement almost led to its demise before it had a chance to get established. Whether the Hoffman rebellion had any significant effect upon the colony is hard to tell even 253 years later. The small improvements in the rations might have been of some help, but little else changed as a result. As far as John William Hoffman, had he actually been the instigator of the insurrection then it is probable that Governor Lawrence was right in saying the settlement was better off without him. It seems unlikely that Lawrence would attempt to undermine the settlement despite the aggravation it gave him, it was very much his personal project which he wanted to succeed. The enduring negative reputation of the settlers of Lunenburg county coming out of those early days lacks some credibility as the community never again engaged in overt acts of rebellion against the British crown.