Raid on Dartmouth (1749)

Plaque to Raid on Dartmouth (1749) and the blockhouse that was built in response (1750), Dartmouth Heritage Museum

Date	September 30, 1749
Location	Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Result	Mi’kmaq victory

Belligerents

Mi'kmaq militia
Acadian militia

British America

Commanders and leaders

Major Ezekiel Gilman

Strength

40 Mi'kmaq

6 British

Casualties and losses

3 killed

4 killed, 2 wounded

The Raid on Dartmouth (1749) occurred during Father Le Loutre’s War on September 30, 1749 when a Mi’kmaq militia from Chignecto raided Major Ezekiel Gilman's sawmill at present-day Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, killing four workers and wounding two. This raid was one of seven the Wabanaki Confederacy and Acadians would conduct against the settlement during the war.

Despite the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq. 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), which were signed after Father Rale's War. 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 (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of the Wabanaki Confederacy (which included the Mi'kmaq) protecting their land by killing British civilians along the New England/ Acadia border in Maine (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747).

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