What’s in a name? : Scottish settlement and land plot names and settler colonialism in nineteenth century Inverness County, Cape Breton

The application of place names by Scottish colonizers is a well-studied field.However, those studies focus on the identification and classification of such names, with little emphasis on how these names actually came to exist.This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of those that exist in Inverness County, exploring two types of names: those applied to settlements, settlement names; and those applied by individuals to land granted them, land plot names.Through analysis of land petitions, maps, and post office records, this thesis charts the settlement of places that would come to have Scottish names and the emergence of Scottish settlement and land plot names within Inverness County to demonstrate that these names were introduced as a result of large-scale Scottish settlement.This contrasts with the place names that can be found in other parts of the former British Empire such as Australia, New Zealand and even other parts of Canada where Scottish names came to exist as a result of Scottish colonial involvement as administrators, explorers and cartographers.While both can be seen as part of the process of settler colonisation; the replacement of the Indigenous population, in the case of Inverness County, the Mi'kmaq, with an exogenous one, the Scots, the evidence that has been considered demonstrates that the names in Inverness County are distinct in the sense that they were introduced by the Scots settlers themselves.orders for themselves, rather than to exploit native labour."12 Patrick Wolfe, who also undertakes work in the area, states in his book Settler Colonialism that "Settler colonialism is at base a winner-takes-all project whose dominant feature is not exploitation but replacement."13 For the purposes of this thesis, settler colonialism will be understood as the supplanting the Indigenous population, in this case the Mi'kmaq, by an exogenous one, the Scots, a process that was undertaken with the support of an imperial authority, the British Government.14 While this process took a number of forms, within this thesis it is physical and cultural replacement through settlement and the act of applying names that will be examined.While this thesis focuses on the role that settlers played in the settler colonial process, it is important to note that this could not have been undertaken without the support of the government.15 A number of scholars have written on the displacement of Indigenous populations by Scots.Cape Breton is not the only place where Scots were involved in such an act Alan Wilson notes that Scottish, as well as Irish, settlers took part in the destruction of Indigenous communities and cultures globally.16 Focusing on Cape Breton, in his article "Scots, settler colonization, and indigenous displacement: Mi'kma'ki, 1770-1820, in comparative context," John Reid explores whether a pattern can be identified in the 12 Lorenzo Veracini "'Settler Colonialism': Career of a Concept," The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 41:2 (2013): 313.13 Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism (London: A&C Black, 1999), 163.14 Settlers came from other parts of Britain alongside those from other European countries and the United States, however, Scots are the focus of this thesis.15 An example would be the grants of land to settlers by the colonial government, which reinforced the notion that the land belonged to the settlers.Another would be the granting of permission to open post offices, which will be explored later in this thesis, in some cases in areas where settlers had squatted and, on that basis, had no legal right to occupy the land in the eyes of the colonial government.16 David A. Wilson, Introduction to Irish and Scottish Encounters with Indigenous Peoples: Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, eds., Graeme Morton and David A. Wilson (Montreal and Kingston, 2013), 17-18.Patrick Wolfe highlights, in his article "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native", the role that territory plays in this process.He argues that "the primary motive for elimination is not race (or religion, ethnicity, grade of civilization, etc.) but access to territory.Territoriality is settler colonialism's specific, irreducible element."22 This is reflected in the case of the Scottish settlers in Cape Breton, as in 1847 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs reported "These lands are eagerly coveted by the Scottish Presbyterian settlers.That the Micmac's fathers were sole possessors of these regions is a matter of no weight with the Scottish emigrants."23 A number of scholars, such as Andrew Parnaby, Rusty Bittermann and Courtney Mrazek, have explored how Scots, in particular those who were squatters, displaced the Mi'kmaq.Andrew Parnaby talks of the disputes between squatters and the Mi'kmaq over land, giving the example of Scots who settled along the Wagmatcook River and Reserve, an area that had been marked as Mi'kmaq territory.24 He states that settlement by Scottish immigrants began in 1811 and by 1837, 13 families had settled in this area.25 Those settlers took the best land from the Mi'kmaq, creating tension between the two groups.26 From 1837 until 1860, colonial 22 Patrick Wolfe, Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4 (2006): 388.23 As cited in Andrew Parnaby, "The Cultural Economy of Survival: The Mi'kmaq of Cape Breton in the Mid-19th Century," Labour/Le Travail 61 (2008): 72.24 Parnaby, "The Cultural Economy of Survival: The Mi'kmaq of Cape Breton in the Mid-19th Century.",78.Rusty Bitterman also explores this in his article.He states that "Despite the legal claim of the region's Micmacs to the lands lying along the lower three miles of the Wagamatcook River and their legal and physical resistance to its loss, squatters overran Indian lands, and subsequently persuaded the government to sanction these new property rights.The intruders contended that the Micmacs were not utilizing their lands and that the squatters' needs, coupled with their cultivation of the soil, gave them greater claim to the property."See: Rusty Bitterman "The Hierarchy of the Soil: Land and Labour in a 19th Century Cape Breton Community," Acadiensis, 18:1 (1988): 43-4.Courtney Mrazek also references the encroachment of squatters on Mi'kmaq land.See: Courtney Mrazek, ""after planting their few potatoes they wander about the Island": The Mi'kmaq and British Agricultural Policies in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia," Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 20 (2017): 20. 25 Parnaby, "The Cultural Economy of Survival: The Mi'kmaq of Cape Breton in the Mid-19th Century.",78. 26 Ibid.

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