Current Archaeology

In the New World ...

When the population crisis made emigration inevitable, many of the Hebrideans
went to Canada, to Nova Scotia, or New Scotland ...


Nova Scotia

The settlers were quick to adopt new building techniques, notably the use of wood- which is unknown in the Hebrides, which are treeless.

Here we see the Macdonald house of 1820 in the Highland Village Museum, in Iona, Cape Breton.

The Highland Settlers Project has been co-ordinated with the University College of Cape Breton.

However in many ways Nova Scotia was poorer than the Hebrides for the ground was less fertile than the machair, and the winters - lacking the benefits of the Gulf Stream - were harsher.

The settlers soon drifted off to work in the coal mines, and most of the farms are now themselves lost, covered by spruce forest which are themselves being logged of paper.

Map of Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia landscape All that remains are the cellars, which are now being uncovered by the archaeologists.
As for Flora MacDonald, she and her husband Allen emigrated to America in the 1770s, first to North Carolina, where she supported the British side in the American War of Independence, and consequently lost everything. She then went to Nova Scotia, and finally she decided that Britain was best after all, so she returned to her former home in the Hebrides.
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This is based on an article in Current Archaeology 152, where further details can be obtained.
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