For centuries, Cape Breton Island has seen waves of settlers come ashore from many different parts of the world. The ebb and flow of peoples spurred on by the effects of war, by enterprise or by the simple desire to put food on their table has shaped the cultural fabric of the island for hundreds of years. Bretons, Normans and Basque arrived during the 18th century when the island was under the jurisdiction of New France, and then in the early 19th century the Gaelic speaking inhabitants of places like Barra and Uist put down permanent roots seeking refuge and a new beginning. As the tides of immigration and settlement came and went, communities likewise did the same. In this episode, we’ll discuss one of these communities at length – St. Esprit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1.   Sieur de La Roque. “Recensement de l’Île Royal et de l’Île Saint-Jean”, p. 21 -30 – https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c4582/24
2.  Sieur de La Roque. “Recensement de l’Île Royal et de l’Île Saint-Jean”, p. 21 -30– https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c4582/24
3.  MacLellan, J.S. (1918). Louisbourg From its Foundation to its Fall, p. 207
4.  MacLellan, J.S. (1918). Louisbourg From its Foundation to its Fall, p. 208
5.  MacLellan, J.S. (1918). Louisbourg From its Foundation to its Fall, p. 209
6.  MacLellan, J.S. (1918). Louisbourg From its Foundation to its Fall, p. 209
7.  MacLellan, J.S. (1918). Louisbourg From its Foundation to its Fall, p. 210
8.  Holland, Samuel (1935). Holland’s Description of Cape Breton Island and Other Documents, p.81.

TRANSCRIPT

This is The Lost World of Cape Breton Island. Through personal journals, memoirs and correspondence from the 18th century, we will reconstruct the lives of people long gone, walk the roads that no longer exist, and retell events from a reality so very different from the one that the people of Cape Breton Island now know.

A long forgotten homestead is slowly re-absorbed into nature – it’s a scene that people find both haunting and fascinating because it tells the story of something that has, ultimately, gone wrong. After all, no one builds a house for it to crumble only a few decades down the road. On a much larger scale, a community that ends up in the same state is even more unsettling, and if no one alive today has watched its slow decline into obscurity, it can be lost to the realms of history with no apparent connection to the present. 

For centuries, Cape Breton Island has seen waves of settlers come ashore from many different parts of the world. The ebb and flow of peoples spurred on by the effects of war, by enterprise or by the simple desire to put food on their table has shaped the cultural fabric of the island for hundreds of years. Bretons, Normans and Basque arrived during the 18th century when the island was under the jurisdiction of New France, and then in the early 19th century the Gaelic speaking inhabitants of places like Barra and Uist put down permanent roots seeking refuge and a new beginning. As the tides of immigration and settlement came and went, communities likewise did the same.

What is meant when reference is made to ‘lost communities’ in this episode? It refers to a settlement that no longer exists and whose exact location is now unknown. In some instances the community’s original name is still in use today, perhaps now referring to a general area instead of an exact location, while other times its original name has fallen into disuse or has been replaced entirely. 

There are at least four prominent examples of these kinds of lost communities from 18th century Cape Breton Island, or Île Royale – the busy outport of St. Esprit, the soldier-village of Rouillé, Village des Allemands, and finally Espagnole.

Writing about events that took place during his tenure in Louisbourg, the Chevalier de Johnstone identified the very moment he realized that the Maritime region was headed for another full-scale war. That watershed moment was the peace-time seizure of a French merchant vessel off of Nova Scotia by a British warship1 in the year 1750. As it turned out, things would eventually culminate into the conflict that Johnstone had long foreseen – the French and Indian War. Hostilities would begin in 1754 between the North American colonies of Great Britain and France, but would soon grow to include the European powers as fighting spread across the globe. This new conflict ensured that the coming years would be some of the most tumultuous that the Maritimes would ever see, especially for the island of Cape Breton. By the end of the war in 1763, the cultural landscape of Cape Breton would be forever changed – thousands of people would be removed from the island and shipped back to France, and the once busy port of Louisbourg would be reduced to a position of redundancy when Cape Breton was eventually grafted onto the Province of Nova Scotia. The settlements of St. Esprit, Allemands, Rouillé and Espagnole, four communities established in Cape Breton during the time of the French, would be particularly affected by the instability and upheaval of that decade. In fact, it would spell the end of their very existence and cement their fall into obscurity. 

To understand why the exact locations of these settlements were lost over time, an appreciation of how both the French and British used and understood Cape Breton Island is essential. The settlement dispersal pattern on Cape Breton Island during the 18th century is fundamentally different from the island’s settlement dispersal pattern of the early 19th century, simply because of the way French settlers and eventually British settlers set out to use the island. For the French, the ultimate goal of Île Royale was the cod fishery, so it was the Atlantic coastline that saw the most development. Although some French settlers did put down permanent roots during this period, many came temporarily either for the fishing season or because they were passing through this North Atlantic entrepôt on the hunt for better prospects. A handful of roads (some of them very well built) spread inland from the bustling harbour of Louisbourg, but they were few and far between. In fact, the inhabitants of Île Royale much preferred getting around the island by boat1. For the Gaels seeking refuge after the effects of the highland clearances during the 19th century, the aim was different. The goal for them was to find farmland and settle down permanently – nearly impossible on the coarse and rough shoreline that had seen the most activity only a century prior. So beginning in the early 1800s, attention was directed inland along the temperate shores of the Bras d’Or Lakes and the western part of the island, while the older roads and communities that had served the French so well only a few decades before slowly slipped into oblivion.

Several documents are instrumental to our understanding of what life was like in these four lost communities. One of those documents is “Les Derniers Jours de l’Acadie, 1748-1758,” which is a collection of correspondence that ran through the hands of Le Courtois de Surlaville, an officer who also served in the Louisbourg garrison during the early 1750s. Another is Sieur de La Rocque’s census of Île Royale, compiled during the brutal winter months of 1752. Other primary sources include the journals of the very people who were eye-witnesses to these long lost communities, like the canadien Charles Deschamps de Boishébert and British engineer John Montresor. In fact, in at least one instance the journal entries are known to have been made on site. These kinds of invaluable primary sources are now preserved in places like the Bibliotheque et Archives Nationale de Québec and Library and Archives Canada.

 The following events are pulled from this kind of documentation. Some are stories of heroism. Others portray the cruel effects of war, and still others tell the tale of seemingly endless displacement. These events could be seen as critical moments in these communities’ brief existence.

St. Esprit was one of the outports that developed in Cape Breton after the French evacuated Placentia, Newfoundland in the year 1713. The book Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg says the following about this obscure cod-fishing hub: “In 1734 there were 234 residents; three years later there were 546” This was a very large settlement in Cape Breton at the time. Established about thirty kilometres up the coast from Port Toulouse (today’s St. Peter’s), it was an easy target for the New Englanders during the first siege of Louisbourg in 1745, and the outport was subsequently attacked. After the war, the community never did regain its former significance. The habitants of St. Esprit during the 1750s were people native to places like Acadia, Niganiche (present-day Ingonish) and Port Toulouse, but also places like St. Malo and the region of Rochefort in France2. The population, however, would plateau at about 100 people3. Interestingly, if the French ever did make a map of St. Esprit during the 18th century, it has either been destroyed, mislabelled or has never been published, hence why the exact location of the settlement is unknown today.

 Three centuries of North Atlantic storms have forever altered the coastline of this once bustling harbour, but the sandbanks that line the coast have no doubt remained a constant feature of the community since the time of Louisbourg. One could imagine standing on those sandbanks on a clear night three hundred years ago and seeing the flickering lights of shipping on the horizon. During the 1750s, the waters off Cape Breton were rife with danger, as the beginning of the French and Indian War ushered in an era of further unrest and turmoil for the entire Maritime region. Instead of seeing the flickering lights of far off shipping, one could likely see the flickering lights of British warships spreading across the North Atlantic like a net in an attempt to catch French vessels bound for Cape Breton. 

The year 1757 saw the height of these ever-mounting maritime tensions. Sir Francis Holburne and his fleet of warships from Halifax spent the late summer months plying the waters off Louisbourg, blockading the port in preparation for a full scale assault that would ultimately be postponed until the following year. Anchored safe and sound inside the port, however, was a French fleet of equal size. The fleet was under orders to not engage the British, who were at times so close to the entrance of the harbour that sailors could likely be seen walking around on the deck of their ships from the fortress’s seaward bastions. This standoff continued until the end of September, when mariners began to observe something peculiar on the horizon.

Included in J.S. MacLennan’s definitive work on Louisbourg, “Louisbourg from its foundation to its fall,” are extracts from the journals of people aboard both the British and French fleets. The following entries are from sailors that were aboard the French fleet anchored in Louisbourg harbour.

“Out at sea we noticed a mist which spread towards the harbour in the night. On Friday there was a slight S.E. wind with a little fog. Saturday it veered from S.E. to E.S.E nice and fresh…at 11 o’clock at night the wind got very violent, but two hours after midnight it was even stronger, till 11 o’clock this morning, when it veered to the south and soon to the S.W. I have never seen anything like it.”4 

What they were witnessing was the landfall of a tremendously powerful hurricane. Another sailor in Louisbourg harbour described the carnage that followed: “More than 80 boats and skiffs of the squadron were tossed by the waves and smashed, most of them on the shore, a number of men on board them perishing. More than 50 schooners and boats met the same fate…Sailors, who have been 50 years afloat, say that they never saw the sea so awful. The ramparts of the town were thrown down, and the water inundated half of the town, a thing which has never been seen. The sea dashed with such tremendous force on the coast that it reached lakes two leagues inland…”5

Holburne’s fleet clawed their way offshore in a desperate attempt to get out to open sea. All but one of Holburne’s ships managed to escape – HMS Tilbury, which floundered on the coast of – none other than – St. Esprit.

Once word had reached Louisbourg that a British ship had been wrecked in the vicinity of St. Esprit, a rescue party was dispatched to give aid to the survivors. The going, however, was difficult. First of all, their ship was turned back by contrary winds, so they had to go on foot instead. There was no road to St. Esprit from either Louisbourg or St. Peter’s, so the rescue party had to push their way through 50 kilometres of thick, coastal forests. “Our troops had great difficulty in reaching the scene of the wreck, owing to the floods in many localities which the gale had caused the sea to submerge,”6 said someone in the rescue party. Another reason the rescue party was dispatched so promptly was because the French believed that if the Mi’kmaq arrived at the site before them that they would kill the surviving crew members as soon as they made it to shore. Their fears about the Mi’kmaq, however, would prove to be completely unfounded. Upon the party’s arrival to St. Esprit, they found 230 of the 400-strong crew alive, aided by the very people the French feared would kill them. According to one report, a Mi’kmaq chief (we quote) “came forward and reassured them [the crew of the Tilbury], saying “fear not, since the hurricane has brought you to shore we are coming to your relief, but if you had come to make war upon us, not one of you would be safe.” The Indians themselves went on board the ship to help others get off.”7

The ship was never salvaged, but thanks to the Mi’kmaq, the majority of the sailors aboard the Tilbury survived. The coast that she ran aground on still bears her name, Tilbury Rocks, and for many years cannons and coins could be found up and down the shoreline.

Though not identifying the man by name, it’s possible the Mi’kmaw chief who aided in rescuing the crew of the Tilbury was Jeannot Pequidalouet. Jeannot was the chief in Cape Breton during the time of Louisbourg and shows up frequently in 18th century records and correspondence, and it’s likely that he was in the vicinity of Louisbourg during the period of heightened military activity in the summer of 1757.

About ten years after these events, British surveyor Samuel Holland visited the area of St. Esprit. Holland’s letters regarding Cape Breton as well as his final observations delivered to the British Board of Trade in 1768 can now be found in the publication  “Holland’s Description of Cape Breton Island and Other Documents,” compiled by archivist D.C. Harvey. Holland was assessing Cape Breton Island for future potential settlement, and retraced the steps of many of the engineers and surveyors who had criss-crossed Cape Breton before him. He found that St. Esprit, like many communities since the second siege of Louisbourg in 1758, had been abandoned. Holland reported that many houses had simply been left to rot, which gives the impression that the community did not suffer the same fate as it had during the first siege in 1745 – namely, being seriously targeted and attacked by the British and New Englanders.9 What happened to the inhabitants, however, is unclear. Some were likely deported, and others probably fled to the woods with the Mi’kmaq. Though never to the extent that it had seen during what Holland called “the French time,” St Esprit would again see settlement around the year 1840 when Scottish families began to settle in the area after the Highland Clearances. Today, the area of St. Esprit retains the name given to it by the French some three hundred years ago. [END]