58 THEISLAND ACADIANS

the oath in the presence of a British naval commander who handed over an Official document confirming their land ownership, condi- tional upon their remaining loyal British subjects”.

BAY FORTUNE

Unfortunately the land titles that the people of Bay Fortune received from the British officer proved to be worthless. Around 1770, David Higgins, the agent for the proprietor of Lot 43, demanded rent for the lands occupied by Acadians”®. Without the means to defend their rights, the Acadians complied unwillingly to his request. Higgins promised them leases, but without ever asking them to sign anything. The Acadians continued clearing and farming their land, despite their precarious situation.

Following Higgins’ death in 1783, a group of Acadians from Bay Fortune who still had reservations about their future on St. John’s Island, were trying to resettle in Cape Breton where the likelihood of obtaining free Crown land was much greater. In 1784 a group went there on a survey expedition. A few years later, in 1786 and 1787, a number of families moved to Cape Breton, including about a dozen to Cheticamp”'.

In June of 1787, thirteen men from Bay Fortune presented a petition to the new governor of the Island, Edmund Fanning, in the hope of securing titles for the lands they and their families were occupying. They pointed out that ever since the death of David Higgins they had no idea who they were dealing with and, in addition, they were afraid they might have to give up their land to outsiders armed with valid titles. Moreover, they had reluctantly just given away the salt marshes that constituted their hay supply to a group of Loyalists. Governor Fanning was sympathetic to the Acadians’ petition and consequently the Executive Council on the Island recommended that their request be granted”?. The Governor himself distributed owner- ship titles to a number of Acadians in Bay Fortune?’.

However, the request does not appear to have been approved by the Board of Trade in England since the deeds the Acadians received from Fanning were revoked. Confronted with this sudden reversal, in the spring of 1788 the heads of seventeen households in Bay Fortune asked the governor of Cape Breton to grant them lands in