Raid on Lunenburg (1756)

Raid on Lunenburg
Part of the French and Indian War
Raid on Lunenburg (1756): Marie Anne Payzant and her children by Donald A. Mackay
Date May 8, 1756 Location Lunenburg, Nova Scotia Result French, Acadian, Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaq) victory
Belligerents
Great Britain	France Wabanaki Confederacy
Commanders and leaders
Lieut-Colonel Patrick Sutherland, Dettlieb Christopher Jessen	Charles Deschamps de Boishebert Joshua Labradore
Strength
30	unknown
Casualties and losses
disputed – French report: 20 killed, 5 prisoners; British report: 5 killed, 5 prisoners	none

The Raid on Lunenburg occurred during the French and Indian War when a militia of the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaw) attacked a British settlement at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on May 8, 1756. The native militia raided two islands on the northern outskirts of the fortified Township of Lunenburg, [John] Rous Island and Payzant Island (present day Covey Island). The Maliseet killed twenty settlers and took five prisoners. This raid was the first of nine the Natives and Acadians would conduct against the peninsula over a three-year period during the war. The Wabanaki Confederacy took John and Lewis Payzant prisoner, both of whom recorded one of the few Captivity narratives that exist from Nova Scotia/ Acadia.

The first recorded Mi'kmaq militia attack in the region happened during King George's War on the La Have river. The militia killed seven English crew members on a vessel that went ashore. The scalps were taken to Joseph Marin de la Malgue at Louisbourg.

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). 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 (Citadel Hill) (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

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