Northeast Coast campaign (1703)

Military history of the Mi'kmaq
Miꞌkmaw warrior
Events
Battle of Port La Tour 1677 Raid on Salmon Falls 1690 Raid on Chignecto 1696 Avalon Peninsula Campaign 1696–97 Northeast Coast Campaign 1703 Raid on Grand Pré 1704 Siege of St. John's 1705 ‪Battle of St. John's 1709 Siege of Port Royal 1710 Raid on Port Roseway 1715 Battle of Winnepang 1722 Blockade of Annapolis Royal 1722 Raid on Canso 1744 Siege of Annapolis Royal 1744 Siege of Port Toulouse 1745 Siege of Louisbourg 1745 Naval battle off Tatamagouche 1745 ‪Battle at Port-la-Joye 1746 Battle of Grand Pré 1747 Raid on Dartmouth 1749 Siege of Grand Pre 1749 ‪Battle at St. Croix 1750 Battle at Chignecto 1750 Raid on Dartmouth 1751 Attack at Mocodome 1753 Battle of Fort Beauséjour 1755 Battle of Petitcodiac 1755 Battle of Bloody Creek 1757 Siege of Louisbourg 1758 Lunenburg Campaign 1758 Battle of Restigouche 1760 Halifax Treaties 1761
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The border area between Acadia and New England in the early 18th century remained contested after battles between French and English colonists (and their allied Native Americans) during King William's War in the 1690s failed to resolve territorial disputes. New France defined the western border of Acadia as the Kennebec River in what is now southern Maine,[9] while the English Province of Massachusetts Bay formally claimed all of the land between the Piscataqua and St. Croix rivers (all of present-day Maine). During the 1670s the English had established settlements between the Kennebec River and Penobscot Bay, contesting claims to the area by the French and the local Abenaki people.

The French had established Catholic missions at Norridgewock and Penobscot, and there was a French settlement of long standing in Penobscot Bay near the site of modern Castine, Maine. All of these sites had been used as bases for attacks on English settlers during King William's War.[10] The frontier areas between the Saint Lawrence River and the primarily coastal settlements of Massachusetts and New York were still dominated by natives (primarily Abenaki to the east and Iroquois in New York), and the Hudson River–Lake Champlain corridor had also been used for raiding expeditions in both directions in earlier conflicts. Although the Indian threat had receded somewhat due to reductions in the native population as a result of disease and the last war, they were still seen to pose a potent threat to outlying settlements.[11]

Although war had broken out between France and England in 1702, the frontiers between New France and New England remained quiet until December of that year, when Governor-General Louis-Hector de Callière authorized the Abenaki to resume the border war. In addition to any plunder reaped from expeditions against the English colonies, Callière promised additional gifts. Callière died in May 1703, and was replaced by Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, who vigorously promoted raiding activity as a means to maintain French influence with the Abenaki.[12] Vaudreuil gave Alexandre Leneuf de La Vallière de Beaubassin, a military officer whose family's seigneury at Beaubassin had been raided in 1696 by New England forces,[13] command of a small contingent of French forces and instructions to organize raids against English settlements.

Massachusetts Bay Governor Joseph Dudley did not believe that the Abenaki would go to war. In June 1703 Boston newspapers reported that the Abenaki were two thirds "for peace and one Third for warr", and Dudley had been unable to convince them to join the conflict on the English side.[14] Abenaki chief Moxus attempted to warn Dudley of Vaudreuil's aggressive posture, but Dudley brushed off these reports.[15]

Beaubassin's command numbered about 500, and included a small contingent of French forces. Some of the remaining were Mi'kmaq from present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and there was also a party of Kennebec from Norridgewock, which was under the direction of Father Sebastian Rale. Rigaud de Vaudreuil said later that the Abenaki were added to the expedition after Father Rale had assured him that his Indians would be "ready to take up the hatchet against the English whenever he [Vaudreuil] gave them the order."[16]

Beaubassin divided his force into six groups. On August 10, 1703 (Old Style; August 21 New Style), they simultaneously attacked settlements at Wells, Cape Porpoise, Saco, Scarborough, Spurwink and Purpooduck (now in Cape Elizabeth), and Casco (now Portland).[17]

In response to their losses in the campaign, the French and natives attacked Deerfield.[1] The French also wanted to capture a high-ranking man to use in a prisoner exchange. In the spring of 1704, after the raid on Deerfield in February, the Wabanaki again attacked Wells and York.[21] (In 1712, the Wabanaki conducted another campaign against these villages and towns. They killed or captured 24 people in three raids on three villages, one of which was Wells.)[22]

In response to these events and the Raid on Deerfield, the governors of the northern English colonies called for action against the French colonies. Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley wrote that "the destruction of Quebeck and Port Royal [would] put all the Navall stores into Her Majesty's hands, and forever make an end of an Indian War",[24] the frontier between Deerfield and Wells was fortified by upwards of 2,000 men,[25] and the bounty for Indian scalps was more than doubled, from £40 to £100.[26] Dudley promptly organized a retaliatory raid against Acadia. In the summer of 1704, New Englanders under the leadership of Benjamin Church raided Acadian villages at Pentagouet (present-day Castine, Maine), Passamaquoddy Bay (present-day St. Stephen, New Brunswick), Grand Pré, Pisiquid, and Beaubassin (all in present-day Nova Scotia).[27]

There were also reprisals by the New Englanders against Norridgewock. During the winter of 1705, 275 soldiers under the command of Colonel Hilton were sent to Norridgewock to seize Father Rale and sack the village. Father Rale escaped them, but they burned his church.[16]

John March led an expedition against the Acadian capital of Port Royal in 1707.

The French drew off a great number of Indian families from the Penobscot, Norridgewock, Saco, and Pequaket tribes, and settled them at St. Francis, Canada, as a protection against the Iroquois Confederacy. These were called the St. Francis Indians.[28]

By the end of the war, natives were successful in killing more than 700 British and capturing over 250 along the Acadia/ New England border.[29]

• John Reid
• Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Vol. 3, p. 139-141
• Papers related to the Indian Troubles in Maine 1702-04. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Vol. 3, p. 341
• Calloway, Colin Gordon (1997). After King Philip's War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. ISBN 978-0-87451-819-1. OCLC 260111112.
• Child, Hamilton (1883). Gazetteer and Business Directory of Lamoille and Orleans Counties, Vermont. Syracuse, NY. OCLC 7019124.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Clark, Andrew Hill (1968). Acadia, the Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299050801. OCLC 186629318.
• Drake, Samuel Adams (1910) [1897]. The Border Wars of New England. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. OCLC 2358736. drake border wars.
• Haefeli, Evan; Sweeney, Kevin (2003). Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-503-6. OCLC 493973598.
• Johnson, Michael; Smith, Jonathan (2006). Indian Tribes of the New England Frontier. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-937-0. OCLC 255490222.
• Melvoin, Richard (1989). New England Outpost: War and Society in Colonial Deerfield. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-02600-9. OCLC 17260551.
• Morrison, Kenneth (1984). The Embattled Northeast: the Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki-Euramerican Relations. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05126-3. OCLC 10072696.
• Williamson, William D. (1832). The History of the State of Maine: From Its First Discovery, 1602, to the Separation, A. D. 1820, Inclusive. Vol. II. Glazier, Masters & Company.
• Willis, William. The History of Portland, from 1632 to 1864, Portland, Maine: Bailey and Noyes, 1865 [1]

• Military history of Nova Scotia
• Northeast Coast campaign (1723)
• Northeast Coast campaign (1745)
• Military history of the Mi’kmaq people