OUR ISLAND STORY

THE SECOND CHAPTER

Division of the Land and the Proprietory System

The French and their successors, the British, entered upon the lands and forests, the fish and game that had from time im- memorial been the domain and the property of the aboriginal Indians. These Indians were of the same race as those of the nearby Continent. They lived in tents under poles covered by the bark of the birch trees and by the branches of other trees. In winter they dressed themselves with the skins of wild animals and Walked on snowshoes. In summer they wore the garments of nature and paddled their birch canoes. They were cunning and fierce in the treatment of their enemies; but to those whom they regarded as their friends they were constant and true. In stature they were of medium height and they were symmetrically formed and swift of foot. They were copper-colored and dusky. Their untutored minds were easily impressed with the idea, in- culcated by the French, that the British were their enemies ; and it is stated that in the years of the French and British wars they took surreptitiously many British scalps.

With the transfer of Isle St. lean to the British, in the year 1765, the Indians on the Island became the wards of those against whom they had fought. For many years they were permitted to roam freely throughout the forest and—in their birch bark canoes—~the surrounding seas. By the Government of Great Britain Isle St. Jean was placed under the care and administration of the British authorities in Nova Scotia.

A survey of the country was ordered and Captain Holland was commissioned to make it. He began this survey in 1764 and ended it in 1766. Meantime a very notable scheme for the

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