Bloody Footprints 67WAR THAT TURNS THE TIDE
The decade leading up to the outbreak of the French and Indian
War (1754-63), known in Europe as the Seven Years" War, saw con
flict on the British-French frontiers in New England, New York,
and Nova Scotia, all of which were well populated with Indigenous
villages of various nations as well as French settlers called Acadi
ans. 30 A clash of interests among British settlers, Indigenous com
munities, and Acadians in the region of the present-day Canadian
Maritime Provinces led to a four-year conflict that the British called
King George's War. Although Britain had gained nominal posses
sion of Nova Scotia, it could not control the population of Acadians
and the mixed communities of intermarried Acadians and Mi'kmaq
and Malisset people. The Acadian-Indigenous villages insisted
on neutrality in the British and French disputes, and the power
ful Haudenosaunee confederacy supported them in that stance. But
British imperialists wanted the land, and they permitted Anglo
American settlers to play a prominent role in the fighting, which
included ranging and scalp hunting. By the end of the war, settler
rangers dominated the British military presence in Nova Scotia,
setting off sustained Acadian-Indigenous resistance against British
rule. 31
At the outbreak of the French and Indian War, while the Brit
ish regular army and navy focused on French imperial positions in
the Maritimes, the settler militia forces continued ranging against
the Acadian-Indigenous villages, which led to an expulsion of the
Acadians, sometimes known today as the Great Upheaval. In a pe
riod of weeks, British army forces and colonial militias forced four
thousand noncombatants out of Nova Scotia, and at least half that
number died in the Acadian diaspora. Some eight thousand escaped
deportation by fleeing into the woods. The Acadians thus became
the largest population of European settlers in North American
history to be forcibly dispersed. This feat was accomplished with
slaughter, intimidation, and plunder. By this time, there was no hesi
tation on the part of Anglo settlers to consider unarmed civilians of
all ages as appropriate targets of violence.
Major General Jeffery Amherst-after whom Amherst, Mas-