The siege of Fort Cumberland, 1776

In this absorbing study of divided loyalties in a British North American colony at the beginning of the American revolution, Ernest Clarke describes events leading up to the siege of Fort Cumberland by the Continental army in 1776 and argues that from the beginning of hostilities Nova Scotians' primary loyalty was to Britain. He examines the attitudes of the various players in the region - New England planters, Acadians, Native peoples, Yorkshiremen, and Scots-Irish - and their responses to the call to arms issued by the revolutionary forces in the thirteen colonies. Clarke is the first to take the Nova Scotia patriots seriously and to explain their motives instead of damning them as rebels.