20 Surveys on the Edge

Very early in the nineteenth century, families - many of them Acadians - began to settle around Cascumpeque Bay, some fifteen miles south of Tignish. English entrepreneurs named Hill started a lumbering and shipbuilding business there, attracting many settlers. The Hills also owned a store, which while more convenient than going to Bedeque, charged exorbitant prices. As we shall see later, many such “entrepreneurs” considered the Acadians fair game, since few, if any of them had a command of the English language. Here the Irish were at a great advantage, since they all seem to have spoken English, at least as a second language.

And so, by 1830, there were two groups of fugitives established only a few miles from one other. Both had come to the lands around North Cape for freedom from government intervention and unfriendly English—speaking colonists. They had hoped for an opportunity to live in peace, raise their families and support them with products harvested from

the land and sea They must have hoped this would continue

f01 generations And by 1830, their dream had largely come true Nevertheless, there were already some signs that the dream might expand to include new possibilities, and that their freedom might soon be curtailed. But nothing later in the century would endanger their survival nor the habit of co-operation they had formed.

Source Notes for Chamr One

The information about the Acadians is almost all taken from L'Impm'tinl Illustré, a special centennial number of the Tignish newspaper, L'Impnrtial, prepared for the ’1899 centennial. It is probable that nearly all this information was collected by Tignish’s first historian, Gilbert Buote (who was also co-founder of L’Impartinl) from elderly residents who remembered the events mentioned or had heard about them from those who took part Gilbert Buote was working towards a history of the Island Acadians, which was nearly finished at his death in

1905, but which disappeared some time afterwards. The best