Nova Scotia Archives

Mi'kmaw Teaching and Learning Resources

Letter from H.W. Crawley of Sydney to Joseph Howe, Prov. Sec., regarding the Mi'kmaq request for seeds for the 1848 growing season and encouragement of agriculture among the Mi'kmaq.
view page 1 2 3 4 view transcript 1 2 3 4

close

note: transcription publicly contributed - please contact us with comments, errors or omisions

They were making a considerable advance; but the disastrous seasons of the three last years have been exceedingly adverse to the desired object. A withdrawal or apparent cessation of that encouragement at the present crisis, it is to be feared, would throw these people back upon their former listless and vagrant habits.

My constant attendance at the Crown Land office is an impediment to the personal inspection , which, as Commiss[ione]r. I should be expected to make, of the Indian settlements; but I shall gladly [?render] such aid as may be within my power for communicating to them whatever measure of relief the Lieutenant Governor may be pleased to extend to them. If I may be permitted, however, to offer a recommendation, I should say that the member elect for this township, Mr. James [?McKeagney], would be a much more efficient person for the office of Indian Commissioner, having his time at [?command] and having also opportunities of seeing these people in their settlements ; but I know not how far he may be disposed to undertake their superintendence-

I ought to state that the Indian settlements that will look to Sydney for supplies are, Escasoni, Wagamathkook, and probably Whykokomagh . The chapel Island Indians
will


Date: 1848

Retrieval no.: Commissioner of Public Records — Mi'kmaq and Government Relations series Nova Scotia Archives RG 1 volume 431 number 48

Questions to Consider

  • When do you think the document was written?



  • Who do you think wrote the document?



  • Why do you think the document was written



  • Who do you think received the document?



  • Who do you think this document was written for?



  • What information do you think this document provides? What do you think it tells us about the past?



  • How do you think the document reflects the attitudes and values of the time period in which it was written?



  • What impact do you think the document had at the time it was written?



    • Do you think those were different impacts for different people?



               

Nova Scotia Archives — https://archives.novascotia.ca/teaching-learning/mikmaq/archives/?ID=281

Crown copyright © 2026, Province of Nova Scotia.