Jean-Baptiste Cope

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Jean-Baptiste Cope
Jean-BaptisteCopeSignatureJPEG.jpg
Signature of Jean Baptiste Cope (Beaver)
Nickname(s) Major Cope
Born 1698
Port Royal, Nova Scotia
Died October, 1758-1760
Miramichi, New Brunswick
Battles/wars Father Rale's War
  • Treaty of 1726

Father Le Loutre's War

French and Indian War

Jean Baptiste Cope (Kopit in Mi’kmaq meaning ‘beaver’) was also known as Major Cope, a title he was probably given from the French military, the highest rank given to Mi’kmaq.[1] Cope was the sakamaw (chief) of the Mi'kmaq people of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia (Indian Brook 14, Nova Scotia/ Mi’kma'ki). He maintained close ties with the Acadians along the Bay of Fundy, speaking French and being Catholic.[2] During Father Le Loutre’s War, Cope participated in both military efforts to resist the British and also efforts to create peace with the British. During the French and Indian War he was at Miramichi, where he is presumed to have died during the war. Cope is perhaps best known for signing the Treaty of 1752 with the British, which was upheld in the supreme court in 1985 (See R v. Simon) and is celebrated every year along with other treaties on Treaty Day (October 1).[3]

Father Rale's War

Cope was born in Port Royal and the oldest child of six.[4] During Father Rale's War, at the young age of 28, Cope was probably one of a number of Mi’kmaq who signed the peace treaty, which ended the war between the New Englanders and the Mi’kmaq.[5]

King William’s War

During King William's War, Cope was a leader in the Shubenacadie region. There were between 50-150 Mi’kmaq families and a few Acadian farms in the river valley close to the principal Mi’kmaq village named Copequoy. The village had become the site of a Catholic mission in 1722.[6] (The location became a site of two major annual events, All Saints Day and Pentecost, which attracted Mi’kmaq from great distances.[7])

Le Loutre took over the Shubenacadie mission in 1737. During King William’s War, Cope and Le Loutre worked together in several engagements against the British forces.[8]

Father Le Loutre’s War

At the outbreak of Father Le Loutre’s War, the Catholic missionary began to lead the Mi’kmaq and Acadian Exodus out of peninsular Nova Scotia to settle in French-ruled territory. Dozens of Mi’kmaq from Shubenacadie accepted Le Loutre’s offer and followed him to the Isthmus of Chignecto. But Cope and at least ninety other Mi’kmaq refused to abandon their homes on the Shubenacadie.[9] While Cope may have initially not supported the French initiatives, he would quickly reconsider after Edward Cornwallis establishing Halifax.

Cornwallis established Halifax in violation of early treaties with the Mi’kmaq.[10] He tried to set up peace treaties, but failed. Cornwallis offered to New England Rangers a bounty for the scalps of Mi’kmaq families just as the French had offered a bounty to the Mi’kmaq for the scalps of British families.[11] At the same time the British were adopting an uncomplicated, racially based view of local politics, several leaders of the Micmac community were developing a similar stance.[12] According to historian Geoffery Plank, both combatants understood their conflict as a "race war", and that the Mi’kmaq and British were “singlemindedly” determined to drive each other from the peninsula of Nova Scotia.[13]

After the establishment of Halifax, Cope seems to have joined Le Loutre at the Isthmus of Chignecto. Stationed in this region, through a series of raids, Cope and the other Mi’kmaq war leaders were able to confine the new settlers to the vicinity of Halifax.[14] British plans to scatter Protestants across peninsular Nova Scotia were temporarily undermined.[15]

Battle at Chignecto

After the Battle at Chignecto on September 3, 1750, Le Loutre and the French retreated to Beausejour ridge and Lawrence began to build Fort Lawrence on the former Acadian community of Beaubassin. Almost a month after the battle, on October 15, Cope, disguised in a French officer's uniform, approached the British under a white flag of truce and killed Captain Edward Howe.[16][17][18]

Peace Treaty (1752)

Governor Peregrine Hopson and the Nova Scotia Council negogiated the Peace Treaty with Cope
Monument to the Treaty of 1752, Shubenacadie First Nation, Nova Scotia

After eighteen months of inconclusive fighting, uncertainties and second thoughts began to disturb both the Mi’kmaq and the British communities. By the summer of 1751 Governor Cornwallis began a more conciliatory policy. For more than a year, Cornwallis sought out Mi’kmaq leaders willing to negotiate a peace. He eventually gave up, resigned his commission and left the colony.[19]

With a new Governor in place, Governor Peregrine Hopson, the first and only willing Mi’kmaq negotiator was Cope. On 22 November 1752, Cope finished negotiating a peace for the Mi’kmaq at Shubenacadie.[20] The basis of the treaty was the one signed in Boston which closed Father Rale's War (1725).[21] Cope tried to get other Mi’kmaq chiefs in Nova Scotia to agree to the treaty but was unsuccessful. The Governor became suspicious of Cope’s actual leadership among the Mi’kmaq people.[22] Of course, Le Loutre and the French were outraged at Cope’s decision to negotiate at all with the British.

Attack at Jeddore

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Main article: Attack at Jeddore

In retaliation for the Attack at Country Harbour, on the night of April 21 (19 May), under the command of Major Cope, Mi'kmaq warriors attacked a diplomatic team made up of Captain Bannerman and his crew in the area of Jeddore, Nova Scotia. On board were nine English men and one Anthony Casteel, who was the pilot and spoke French. The Mi'kmaq killed the English and let Casteel off at Port Toulouse, where the Mi'kmaq sank the schooner after looting it.[23][24]

As the war continued, on 23 May 1753, Cope burned the peace treaty of 1752. The peace treaty signed by Cope and Hobson had not lasted six months. Shortly after, Cope joined Le Loutre again and worked to convince Acadians to join the exodus from peninsula Nova Scotia.[25]

After the experience with Cope, the British were less willing to trust Mi’kmaq efforts for peace that followed over the next two years. Future peace treaties also failed because the Mi’kmaq proposals always included land claims, which the British presumed was tantamount to giving land to the French.[26]

Capture of French ships Alcide and Lys off Newfoundland. The ships were carrying war supplies for Acadians and Mi'kmaq

In the Action of 8 June 1755, a naval battle off Cape Race, Newfoundland, on board the French ships Alcide and Lys were found 10,000 scalping knives for Acadians and Indians serving under Chief Cope and Acadian Beausoleil as they continue to fight Father Le Loutre's War.[27]

French and Indian War

During the French and Indian War, Lawrence declared another bounty on scalps of male Mi’kmaq. Cope was probably among the Mi’kmaq and the Algonquian allies who helped Acadians evade capture during the St. John River Campaign.[28] According to Louisbourg account books, from 1756 to 1758, the French made regular payments to Cope and other natives for British scalps.[29] Cope is reported to have gone to Miramichi, New Brunswick, in the area where French Officer Boishebert had his refugee camp for Acadians escaping the deportation.[30] He is likely to have died in the region before 1760.[31]

Battle at St. Aspinquid's Chapel

Cope's burial site, St. Aspinquid’s Chapel (Chain Rock Battery, Point Pleasant Park, Nova Scotia)

Tradition indicates that during the French and Indian War, Lahave Chief Paul Laurent and a party of eleven invited Shubenacadie Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope and five others to St. Aspinquid’s Chapel (in present-day Point Pleasant Park) to negotiate peace with the British.[32] Chief Paul Laurent had just arrived in Halifax after surrendering to the British at Fort Cumberland on 29 February 1760.[33] In early March 1760, the two parties met and engaged in armed conflict.[34] Chief Larent's party killed Cope and two others, while Chief Cope’s party killed five of the British supporters. Shortly after Cope's death, Mi'kmaq chiefs signed a peace treaty in Halifax on 10 March 1760. Chief Laurent signed on behalf of the Lahave tribe and a new chief, Claude Rene, signed on behalf of the Shubenacadie tribe.[35][36] [37] (During this time of surrender and treaty making, tensions among the various factions who were allied against the British were evident. For example, a few months after the death of Cope, the Mi'kmaq militia and Acadian militias made the rare decisions to continue to fight despite losing the support of the French priests who were encouraging surrender.) [38]

Legacy

After the treaty of 1752, while the conflict continued, the British never returned to their old policy of driving the Mi’kmaq off the peninsula.[39] The treaty signed by Cope and Governor Hobson was upheld in 1985 Supreme Court (See R v. Simon). Currently there is a monument to the Peace Treaty on the Shubenacadie Reserve (Indian Brook 14, Nova Scotia). The descendants of Cope gave Cope's gun to the Citadel Hill (Fort George) museum of Parks Canada.

Author Thomas Raddall wrote about Cope in his novel Roger Sudden.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.31
  2. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.28
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.27
  5. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.29
  6. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.30
  7. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.30
  8. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.30
  9. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.125
  10. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.127
  11. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.129
  12. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.33
  13. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.34
  14. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.130
  15. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.131
  16. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.19
  17. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.131
  18. ↑ There has long been uncertainty among scholars as to the identity of the person who shot Howe until Plank’s 2001 publication which cites , “Looking back on the incident years later, Cope claimed credit for killing the British officer p. 131. Also see Beamish Murdoch. A History of Nova Scotia. Vol. 2. p. 193
  19. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.34
  20. ↑ Historian William Wicken notes that there is controversy about this assertion. While there are claims that Cope made the treaty on behalf of all the Mi'kmaq, there is no written documentation to support this assertion (See William Wicken. Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Jr. University of Toronto Press. 2002. p. 184).
  21. ↑ For a detailed discussion of the treaty see William Wicken. Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Jr. University of Toronto Press. 2002. pp. 183-189.
  22. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.135
  23. ↑ Whitehead, p. 137
  24. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.35
  25. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.136
  26. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.137
  27. ↑ Thomas H. Raddall. Halifax: Warden of the North. Nimbus. 1993. (originally 1948)p. 45
  28. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.150
  29. ↑ Patterson, Stephen E. 1744-1763: Colonial Wars and Aboriginal Peoples. In Phillip Buckner and John Reid (eds.) The Atlantic Region to Conderation: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1994. p. 148
  30. ↑ p. 4
  31. ↑ Plank, 2001, p.152; also see Canadian Biography.
  32. ↑ Awalt bases his account on stories from 17 separate Mi'kmaq accounts from 11 different locations in Nova Scotia (See Don Awalt.The Mi’kmaq and Point Pleasant Park. 2004). This oral tradition was also recorded by Harry Piers from elders who heard the story in the 19th century (See Ruth Whitehead. The Old Man Told Us. Nimbus Press. 1991. p. 140).
  33. ↑ See Beamish Murdoch, Vol. 2, p. 385
  34. ↑ None of the oral accounts give the exact date of the battle. Awalt is left to speculate about the date of the battle, which he asserts might be in May 1758 just before siege of Louisbourg. The evidence contradicts this assertion and suggests that the date was more likely March 1760. The two main players of the conflict - Paul Laurent and Jean-Baptiste Cope - both could not have been in Halifax in 1758 as indicated. Laurent was not seeking peace in 1758. Throughout the war Laurent fought the British and did not surrender until 29 February 1760 at Fort Cumberland. The only evidence of Chief Paul being in Halifax after 1755 is when he travels there over the following weeks to sign a peace treaty on March 10, 1760 (See Beamish Murdoch, Vol. 2, p. 385; also see March 10, 1750. Chief Paul and Governor Lawrence. Andrew Browns Manuscripts. British Museum. Nova Scotia Archives as cited by Daniel Paul. We were not the Savages). Further, Cope could not have died before the Siege of Louisbourg because French Officer Chevalier de Johnstone indicated that he saw Cope at Miramichi after the Siege of Louisbourg when Johnstone was en route to Quebec (See Johnstone, p. 46).
  35. ↑ See Beamish Murdoch, Vol. 2, p. 385
  36. ↑ Daniel N. Paul erroneously asserts that "the record shows Cope was still alive in the 1760s, which indicates he may have lived to a ripe old age" (See Daniel Paul). The last record of Cope is by Johnstone (1758). The Chief of the Shebenacadie was replaced in 1760, indicating that Cope was dead.
  37. ↑ Paul Laurent's biographer Michael Johnston notes that another chief from La Heve signed another treaty with the English on 9 Nov. 1761.
  38. ↑ Chief Joseph Labrador of Lunenburg supported Chief Cope. He survived the battle and continued his raids on British settlers (See History of Lunenburg County, p. 343)
  39. ↑ Plank, 1996, p.37

Secondary sources

External links

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