Edward Cornwallis

Early life

He was the sixth son of Charles, 4th Baron Cornwallis, and Lady Charlotte Butler, daughter of the Earl of Arran. The Cornwallis family possessed estates at Culford in Suffolk and the Channel Islands. His grandfather, Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, was First Lord of the Admiralty. His nephews were Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, James Cornwallis, 4th Earl Cornwallis, and William Cornwallis.

He and his twin brother, Frederick Cornwallis, were made royal pages at the age of 12. They were enrolled at Eton at age 14. Their brother, Stephen Cornwallis, rose to the rank of General in the Army.

It was initially unclear which brother would enter the church and which the military. The matter was decided when, one day, Frederick fell and paralyzed his arm; he would take the religious path.

At age 18, Edward was commissioned into the 47th Regiment of Foot in 1731.

War of the Austrian Succession

Cornwallis participated in the Battle of Fontenoy during the War of the Austrian Succession. He fought under Colonel Craig, who was killed in action. Cornwallis took over command of the regiment and organized a retreat. Cornwallis's regiment lost eight officers and 385 men. While the retreat was respected by the military, the British public mocked Cornwallis and the other leaders.

Cornwallis played an important role in suppressing the Jacobite rising of 1745. He fought for the victorious British soldiers at the Battle of Culloden and then led a regiment of 320 men north for the Pacification of the Scottish Highlands. The Duke of Cumberland ordered him to "plunder, burn and destroy through all the west part of Invernesshire called Lochaber." Cumberland added: "You have positive orders to bring no more prisoners to the camp." Cornwallis's campaign was later described as one of unrestrained violence. Cornwallis ordered his men to chase off livestock, destroy crops and food stores. Cornwallis's soldiers used rape and mass murder to intimidate Jacobites from further rebellion.

Founding of Halifax

The British Government appointed Cornwallis as Governor of Nova Scotia with the task of establishing a new British settlement to counter France's Fortress Louisbourg. He sailed from England aboard HMS Sphinx of 14 May 1749, followed by a settlement expedition of 15 vessels and about 2500 settlers. Cornwallis arrived at Chebucto Harbour on 21 June 1749, followed by the rest of the fleet five days later. There was only one death during the passage due to careful preparations, good ventilation and good luck, a remarkable feat when Transatlantic expeditions regularly lost large numbers to disease.

Cornwallis was immediately faced with a difficult decision: where to site the town. Settlement organizers in England had recommended Point Pleasant due to its close access to the ocean and ease of defence. His naval advisers opposed the Point Pleasant site due to its lack of shelter and shallows which would not allow ocean-going ships to dock. They wanted the town located at the head of Bedford Basin, a sheltered location with deep water. Others favoured Dartmouth. Cornwallis made the decision to land the settlers and build the town at the site of present-day Downtown Halifax halfway up the harbour with deep water, protected by a defensible hill (later known as Citadel Hill). By 24 July, the plans of the town had been drawn up and on 20 August lots were drawn to award settlers their town plots in a settlement that was to be named "Halifax" after Lord Halifax the President of the Board of Trade and Plantations who had drawn up the expedition plans for the British Government.

Relations with the Wabanaki Confederacy

One of Cornwallis' first priorities was to make peace with the Wabanaki Confederacy, which included the Mi'kmaq. (The Confederacy had been aligned with New France through four wars starting with King William's War.) A group of Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and single band of Mi'kmaq met with Cornwallis in the Summer of 1749. They agreed with the British to end fighting and renewed an earlier treaty drafted in Boston, redrafted as the Treaty of 1749.

However Cornwallis's diplomatic efforts were doomed to failure. The treaties signed at Halifax represented mostly native groups in New Brunswick. Most Mi'kmaw leaders in Nova Scotia regarded the unilateral establishment of Halifax as a violation of an earlier treaty with the Mi'kmaq people (1726), signed after Father Rale's War. Mi'kmaw leaders met at St. Peters in Cape Breton in September 1749 to respond to British moves. They composed a letter to Cornwallis making it clear that, while they tolerated the small garrison at Annapolis Royal, they completely opposed settlement at Halifax: "The place where you are, where you are building dwellings, where you are now building a fort, where you want, as it were, to enthrone yourself, this land of which you want to make yourself absolute master, this land belongs to me". Cornwallis had no authority to respond by abandoning the Halifax expedition and Mi'kmaw leaders regarded the Halifax settlement as "a great theft that you have perpetrated against me."

A wave of Mi'kmaw attacks began immediately after the letter. At Chignecto Bay, two British ships were attacked while two others were seized at Canso. At Halifax, attacks began on settlers and soldiers outside the fortified township, beginning with the first of several raids on the longhouse settlement at Dartmouth across the harbour. This stage of the long-running Anglo-Mi'kmaw conflict is known by some historians as Father Le Loutre's War.

Father Le Loutre's War

Cornwallis sought to project British military forces by establishing forts in the largest Acadian communities, which were located at Windsor (Fort Edward), Grand Pre (Fort Vieux Logis) and Chignecto (Fort Lawrence). As a result, during Cornwallis's three years in Nova Scotia, Acadians and Mi'kmaq people orchestrated attacks on the British at Chignecto, Grand Pre, Dartmouth, Canso, and Halifax. The French erected forts at present day Saint John, Chignecto and Port Elgin, New Brunswick. Cornwallis's forces responded by attacking the Mi'kmaq and Acadians at Mirligueche (later known as Lunenburg), Chignecto and St. Croix.

Frontier warfare against families was the Wabanaki Confederacy and New England approach to warfare with each other since King William's War began in 1688. By the time Cornwallis had arrived in Halifax, there was a long history of the Wabanaki Confederacy (which included the Mi'kmaq) protecting their land by killing British civilians along the New England/ Acadia border in Maine (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747).

As well, to prevent the French and Wabanaki Confederacy massacres of British families, prior to Cornwallis, there was a long history of Massachusetts Governors issuing bounties for the scalps of Indian men, women, and children. Cornwallis followed New England's example when, after the Raid on Dartmouth (1749), he put a bounty on Mi'kmaq men, women and children (1749).

In Acadia and Nova Scotia, both the British and Wabanaki Confederacy engaged in frontier warfare or total war, that is, both sides of the conflict repeatedly killed combatants and non-combatants. While the British paid the New England Rangers for Mi'kmaq scalps, the French paid members of the Wabanaki Confederacy for British scalps. At the same time the British were adopting an uncomplicated, racially based view of local politics, several leaders of the Mi'kmaq community were developing a similar stance. According to historian Geoffery Plank, both combatants understood their conflict as a "race war", and both the Mi’kmaq and British were "single-mindedly" determined to drive each other from the peninsula of Nova Scotia. The bounties were not effective. Cornwallis was forced to dramatically increase what he was willing to pay for a scalp in March 1751. This increase only resulted in one scalp being collected within the following four months.

After eighteen months of inconclusive fighting since the outbreak of the war, uncertainties and second thoughts began to disturb both the Mi’kmaq and the British communities. By the summer of 1751 Governor Cornwallis began a more conciliatory policy. For more than a year, Cornwallis sought out Mi’kmaq leaders willing to negotiate a peace. On 16 February 1752, hoping to lay the groundwork for a peace treaty, he repealed his 1749 proclamation against the Wabanaki Confederacy. He eventually gave up, resigned his commission and left the colony in October 1752. (Shortly after Cornwallis's departure, Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope signed the only peace treaty of the war, which was ultimately rejected by most of the other Mi'kmaq leaders. Cope burned the treaty six months after he signed it.)

Cornwallis left Nova Scotia in 1752, three years before Father Le Loutre's War ended in 1755.

Seven Years War

In November 1756 Cornwallis was one of three colonels who were ordered to proceed to Gibraltar and from there embark for Minorca, which was then under siege from the French. Admiral John Byng called a council of war, which involved Cornwallis, and advised the return of the fleet to Gibraltar leaving the garrison at Minorca to its fate. Byng, Cornwallis and the other officers were arrested when they returned to England. A large, unruly mob attacked the officers as they left their ships in Portsmouth and later burned effigies of Cornwallis and the other officers.

The officers faced court martial on "suspicion of disobedience of orders and neglect of duty." Byng was found guilty and executed. Cornwallis testified that he had not disobeyed orders, but that it was "impracticable" to land at Minorca due to stiff French defences. Further, he said he was following Byng's command. "I looked upon myself as under the command of the admiral and should have thought it my duty to have obeyed him," he testified. Cornwallis was judged to have been a passenger under the control of Byng and was thus exonerated.

Cornwallis was also one of the senior officers in the September 1757 Raid on Rochefort which saw a failed amphibious descent on the French coastline. The vast force massed on the Isle of Wight before sailing for Rochefort. The fleet stopped at Ile D'Aix and examined the French defences. General Sir John Mordaunt, head of the land forces, decided the defences were too strong to attack. He called a council of war. Cornwallis voted to retreat, while Admiral Edward Hawke, head of the naval forces, and James Wolfe, quartermaster general, voted to attack. Mordaunt and Cornwallis carried the day and the mission was abandoned.

Mordaunt was arrested and faced court martial. Cornwallis testified that an attempted landing at Rochefort would have been "dangerous, almost impracticable and madness." Mordaunt was found not guilty, but the court martial left a stain on his career, and the career of Cornwallis.

Governor of Gilbraltar

Cornwallis served as the Governor of Gibraltar from 14 June 1761 to January 1776 when he died at the age of 63.

His body was returned to England and laid to rest at Culford Parish Church in Culford, near Bury St. Edmunds on 9 February 1776.

Personal life

In 1763, Cornwallis married Mary Townshend, daughter of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend and Dorothy Townshend (Walpole). His marriage to Mary did not produce any children. His brother, Charles Cornwallis, 1st Earl Cornwallis married Mary's half sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Charles and his first wife, Elizabeth Pelham. Through his brother's marriage, he became uncle of General Lord Cornwallis.

Legacy

Led by the efforts of Daniel N. Paul, there has been much public attention in the twenty-first century on Cornwallis' use of frontier warfare against Mi'kmaq civilians. Paul accuses Cornwallis of committing "genocide". Historians have asserted that this position distorts the past, paying little regard for the historical context of Cornwallis's decisions. Frontier warfare against civilians was standard practice during the colonial period - Mi'kmaq leaders and New England Governors had endorsed this type of warfare since King William's War (1688). Further, rather than being intent on genocide, Cornwallis tried to create peace treaties with the Mi'kmaq before and after the 18 month bounty he imposed. As well, had Cornwallis been intent on genocide of aboriginal peoples, he would have also put a bounty on the other tribes in the region. Instead, Cornwallis was able to create peace treaties with the other tribes.

Because of the efforts of Paul, in 1995 Cornwallis Place (Halifax) was changed to Summit Place. As well, in June 2011, Cornwallis Junior High School Paul influenced the Halifax regional school board to vote unanimously to change the school's name because of Cornwallis' legacy of offering a bounty for the scalps of Mi'kmaq. Rather than destroying the Edward Cornwallis Statue, Paul has recently joined historian John G. Reid to advocate that the complexity of Cornwallis' legacy needs to be told by putting the statue in a museum or adding interpretive panels beside the existing statue.

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