First Century After the Expulsion 55

LAND OWNERSHIP PROBLEMS

The resettlement of the Acadians on the Island did not take place without problems, since it was soon discovered that the entire colony had been turned over to “deserving” Englishmen. Thus, in order to stay on the Island, Acadians had to accept tenant status.

After the Treaty of Paris (1763) fle Saint Jean became St. John’s Island, and then Prince Edward Island in 1799. At first the colony was under the administrative jurisdiction of Nova Scotia. In 1764, Captain Samuel Holland was appointed to survey the Island. He di- vided it into sixty-seven lots or townships, each covering about twenty- thousand acres. In the meantime, the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, the British governing body in charge of colonies, began receiving petitions for large land grants on the Island. The Commission- ers thus conceived a system (a type of lottery) by which the lots were distributed to a number of prominent Englishmen. There were, how- ever, several conditions attached to the grants. In effect each grantee was to undertake the settlement of his land within ten years at the rate of one person per two hundred acres; to introduce only Protestant settlers recruited in Europe or in the British North American colonies; and to pay annual quit-rents of between 20 and 60 pounds to the Royal Treasury.

The distribution of the lots soon proved to be a failure. The grantees did not take the conditions of the grants seriously and many of them seized the first opportunity to sell their Island property. Within two years, one quarter of the lots had changed ownership and ten years after the lottery, forty-nine of the sixty-seven lots still re- mained uninhabited'®. Most proprietors preferred to entrust their affairs to agents rather than actually live on their land amidst their tenants. In the final analysis, the land grants on the Island resulted in a muddled and complex system of absentee landlords. A source of considerable discontent and serious problems, this system was to mark the history of the Island until it entered Confederation in 1873.

This “seigneurial system” significantly affected the Acadians. From the very beginning, it caused hardship among the families who had resettled on the Island. Some of the proprietors or their agents exploited the families unscrupulously. William Cooper, a very popular politician and champion of the tenants, gave a clear summary of how