The conflict known, among other names, as…

The conflict known, among other names, as Father Rale’s War, occurs as a result of an expansion of New England settlements along the Kennebec River (in present-day Maine) and of the movement of more New England fishermen into Nova Scotia waters.

Despite their promise, the English have failed to establish official trading posts selling cheap goods at honest prices to the natives.

Tribes have been forced to continue exchanging their furs with private traders, who are notorious for cheating them.

In addition, natives regarded the British blockhouses being built on their lands as threats.

The establishment of a permanent British settlement at Canso is a particular sore spot with the local Mi'kmaq.

The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which had ended Queen Anne's War and included the cession of peninsular Nova Scotia to Great Britain, had facilitated this expansion.

The treaty, however, had been signed in Europe and had not involved any member of the Wabanaki tribes.

None had been consulted about the expansion of British settlements, and they have protested through raids on British fishermen and settlements.

For the first and only time, Wabanaki will fight New Englanders and the British on their own terms and for their own reasons and not principally to defend French imperial interests.

Their discontent has been instigated by Sebastien Rale and other French Jesuit priests embedded with the tribes and promoting New France interests.

In defiance of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Abenakis have resumed raids on the encroaching English settlements.

In response to Wabanaki hostilities toward the expansion, the governor of Nova Scotia, Richard Philipps, had built a fort in traditional Mi'kmaq territory at Canso in 1720, and ...