Unamak'i, The land of fog
This island is known as Unama’ki, or “Land of fog”. Since time immemorial, it has been and continues to be home to the L’nu, also known as the Mi’kmaq, the Indigenous peoples of Mi’kma’ki. A complex society, the Mi’kmaq hold unique and longstanding systems of governance, foodways, and arts and culture.Mi’kmaw communities lived near the coast during the summer months, where they could harvest an abundance of seafood. On these shores, they met and traded with Europeans. For many years, this harbour was visited by European fishers who made an annual pilgrimage to take part in the fisheries. At the approach of each fall, as the Mi’kmaq prepared to travel inland to weather the cold winter months, the fishers would return home with their plentiful catches.
1713
Near the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), France lost two of its North American colonies through the Treaty of Utrecht. To maintain their country’s foothold in the important North Atlantic fisheries, French settlers needed to increase their presence in the new colony of Ile Royale, which included modern day Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. In the fall of 1713, a group of 151 men, women, and children arrived on Louisbourg’s shores with limited supplies, only weeks before the cold set in. Despite the immense difficulty of that first winter, they persevered and a community was born.After the first few years of settlement, it was decided that Louisbourg would become the capital of this new colony. Construction of the town’s fortifications started in 1719, and the community quickly expanded under the guidance of the town’s engineer.
A military stronghold
Do you know the difference between a fort and a fortress? While a fort is exclusively used by military personnel, fortresses like that at Louisbourg include a civilian town surrounded by military defenses. The size of Louisbourg’s garrison varied during the town’s occupation, but soldiers always made up a large percentage of the year-round population. In addition to their duties defending and policing the town, Louisbourg’s soldiers took part in the construction of roads, fortifications, and other defensive works.As a town with a significant military presence, Louisbourg’s administration was required to feed, arm, and house its many soldiers. Some town blocks, like this one with its blacksmith forges, a military bakery, and storehouses for both artillery and military supplies, were dedicated to government use.
The cod fisheries
While many think of Louisbourg primarily as a military post, its priority from its founding was to support the fisheries. As a Roman Catholic nation with the religious obligation to refrain from eating meat for approximately one-third of each year, fish was a staple in the French diet.Cod was the town’s main export. Once dried and preserved in salt, it stayed edible for months, allowing for it to be sent to France, to Quebec and to the French colonies in the Caribbean in a time before refrigeration simplified the shipping process. Fishing proprietors were year-round residents of Louisbourg who owned properties along the coast and would employ workers each spring to sail, fish, and prepare the catch for sale. Proprietors like Joseph Lartigue saw cod as gold and had the opportunity to become very wealthy thanks to the rich Grand Banks fishery.
A beautiful harbour
From the ramparts of the Dauphin Demi-Bastion, one can see much of Louisbourg’s harbour. During the 18th century, the harbour’s north shore would have been filled with fishing properties where fishers landed and shore workers cleaned, salted, and dried fish. The north shore was also home to the Royal Battery, a large defensive structure which, in addition to the Dauphin Demi-Bastion, was designed to defend Louisbourg’s important harbour. Further defense was offered by the Island Battery, located on an island at the harbour’s mouth.At its height, Louisbourg was a bustling trade hub, and the third busiest harbour in North America after Philadelphia and Boston. Over one hundred large vessels could anchor in the harbour at any time, while smaller boats travelled between them. To support the shipping traffic at Louisbourg, a careening facility was built opposite the fortress to make repairs to ships, and a lighthouse, the first in what is now Canada, was constructed in 1734.
A diverse community
While the majority of the population here was French, the sounds of this bustling street included a chorus of other languages during the 18th century. Second only to French, the community was home to a significant number of Basque residents. Renowned for their fishing abilities, year-round Basque inhabitants were joined each spring by fishers who played an important role in the town’s economy and culture. In addition, the community was host to those of Swiss, Irish, African, and Acadian descent, among others.In order for the community to succeed, the people who lived here took on many different roles. In addition to soldiers, military officers, and those who worked in the fisheries, Louisbourg saw many administrators, including the Governor, Intendant, and harbourmaster, working to keep the community in order. Artisans, including carpenters, blacksmiths, seamstresses, and wigmakers, were kept busy thanks to the needs of other residents within the town, who also enjoyed the services of Louisbourg’s many tavern keepers.
A centre for trade
Louisbourg’s quay, this street that runs along the harbour, was the community’s centre of activity, particularly in the town’s busy summer months. Here, trade goods were loaded and unloaded from ships, business was conducted, and auctions took place. Few goods were produced in Ile Royale; therefore, a significant amount of each year’s catch was traded for other products like dishes, clothing, fresh vegetables, sugar, and rum. Immense quantities of goods were stockpiled each year in preparation for the long winter months in which shipping was limited.Due to Louisbourg’s position as a trade centre, it became a place of opportunity for many. Fishing proprietors who invested wisely in trade and shipment had the potential to become wealthy merchants, and those who had been involved in trade elsewhere had the potential to grow their business through this seaport.
The women of Louisbourg
While women were outnumbered at Louisbourg, sometimes at a ratio of ten to one, they played an undeniably important role within the community. In addition to the significant labour that was required to run an 18th-century home, many women worked in their family’s business or operated small businesses, like laundries, out of their homes. Some supported fellow women as midwives, while others acted as translators for administrators within the colony.At Louisbourg, many women also operated businesses independently when given the opportunity. When a woman was widowed, she gained the legal right to own a business without the consent or oversight of any male relatives. On this street alone, through different points in the town’s history, women operated taverns, a seamstress shop, and a successful shipping operation.
The enslaved people of Louisbourg
Sadly, not all residents of Louisbourg came here by choice. Over the course of the occupation of the Fortress, at least 400 people were enslaved here. More than 90% of these people were African or of African descent, brought to Louisbourg’s shores by the West African slave trade and through France’s colonies in the French West Indies. Others were Indigenous, brought to Louisbourg from Quebec. In Quebec, almost 65% of those enslaved came from Indigenous groups to the west and south of New France. The people who were enslaved here were taken from their families, their homes, and their culture, and treated as property. Despite their impact in this community, the identities of many who were enslaved here have been lost to time.
Religious communities
Religion played an important role in the lives of many in Louisbourg, but members of religious orders did not only serve the town through the chapel.Louisbourg’s only school was operated by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, and served the girls of the community exclusively. The Sisters offered both boarding and day school, and took on girls orphaned by the community’s 1732 smallpox epidemic. Thanks to their efforts, girls at Louisbourg are believed to have been more literate than their peers in both France and Quebec.The Brothers of Charity served the community in a different way: medical services. Operating the King’s Hospital, Louisbourg’s second largest building, they provided medical treatment and care to the men of the garrison, sailors, and more.
Mi'kmaw allies
Throughout the French occupation of Louisbourg, there was a strong relationship between French officials and members of the Mi’kmaw nation. As allies united against the British, they shared information and worked together during military operations. This alliance was celebrated annually, when both groups would come together to dine, exchange gifts, and renew their commitment to each other.Throughout this relationship, there was an ongoing exchange of trade goods, culture, knowledge, and language. During one winter, Mi’kmaq at the community of Malagawatch welcomed two sons of Michel LeNeuf De la Valliere, whose reconstructed home now acts as the Fortress of Louisbourg’s Mi’kmaw Interpretive Centre. With hopes of them becoming military officers, De la Valliere understood the importance of his sons being able to communicate with the colony’s strongest allies.
The siege of 1745
Louisbourg’s peace and prosperity would not last forever. In 1744, news arrived that France and England were at war. At once, the community’s relatively friendly relationship with the New England colonies was severed, and both sides feared attack. Despite Louisbourg’s impressive fortifications, the Fortress had a weak point. Built to defend against a sea-based attack, it was vulnerable from the land. In 1745, New England troops and a British fleet, determined to exploit this weakness that had been shared with them by a former prisoner of war, mounted a full-scale attack of the Fortress. After six weeks of besiegement, the walls were breached, the French governor surrendered, and the New Englanders had won their first, large-scale military campaign as united colonies. The New Englanders were forced by their British superiors to temporarily garrison the damaged town. During that first winter at Louisbourg, almost half of the 2000 people garrisoned were lost to disease, cold, and inadequate shelter.Only three years later, as a result of a treaty, Louisbourg was returned to the French. In the fall of 1749, French colonists returned to their seaport town and the British founded a new stronghold in the North Atlantic: Halifax.
The siege of 1758
Less than a decade after Louisbourg’s residents returned to its shores, the community found itself on alert once again. France and England were at war, and few of the defensive weaknesses that had contributed to Louisbourg’s fall in 1745 had been corrected. The community had to prepare for attack.By June of 1758, the British flotilla of more than 190 ships, including 40 men-of-war, was visible from the walls of the King’s Bastion, less than five kilometres away. Outnumbered three to one, French troops worked diligently to protect the seaport town, but British forces outpowered the community’s defenses. On the morning of July 27th, after more than six weeks of besiegement, the Fortress was surrendered for the second and final time. The sieges of Louisbourg are important events in the European struggle for North America. Once Louisbourg had fallen, the British fleet was able to sail up the St. Lawrence River, defeat reinforcements sent by France, and capture Quebec in the battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. Montreal surrendered in 1760, marking the fall of New France.
A city rebuilt
After Louisbourg fell for the second time, British forces feared that the community may once again fall into French hands. To ensure that wouldn’t happen, the decision was made to systematically destroy the town and its fortifications, starting in 1760. When the project was deemed complete in 1768, only traces of the once prosperous capital remained.And yet, the story of the community of Louisbourg didn’t end there. Louisbourg harbour continued to attract European settlers to its shores, and the fishing industry continued to play an important role in the lives of those that called this place home. As time progressed, there was significant development and growth in what is now the modern town of Louisbourg.In 1961, the Government of Canada undertook the task of reconstructing a portion of the 18th century fortress. In the two decades that followed, archaeologists, historians, and tradespeople worked together to recreate a portion of the fortified town as it was in the 1740s, allowing visitors to Louisbourg to step into the past and better imagine what life was like for those who lived here so long ago.
The historical landscape
Are you interested in learning more about the portion of 18th century Louisbourg that wasn’t reconstructed? If so, consider exploring the Ruins Walk. This experience, available both at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic site and virtually, will lead you through the segment of the town that has remained relatively undisturbed since the 18th century. Learn more about Louisbourg’s massive King’s Hospital, the outer fortifications, and the forces that currently threaten this important part of our heritage: climate change and coastal erosion.To learn more about the community that thrived after the Fortress fell, take time to visit the modern community of Louisbourg. Consider exploring the Old Town Trail, which shares the 300 year history of Old Town, a community that once stood along Louisbourg’s north shore. The ruins of the Royal Battery and of the first lighthouse in what is now Canada are also yours to discover.
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