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Read before the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 16 January 2013
For some twenty years now, a lively controversy has flourished over the reputation of the first Halifax-based governor of Nova Scotia, Edward Cornwallis. Was Cornwallis a courageous and far-sighted founder of Halifax and builder of colonial Nova Scotia, or was he a genocidal imperialist whose chief claim to notoriety was his placement of a price on the heads of all indigenous inhabitants of Mi'kma'ki?1 Should Cornwallis continue to be distinguished by the prominence of his statue in downtown Halifax, or should all public marks of his existence-statue, names of places and streets-be erased? Insofar as I have made previous public comments on such issues, I have expressed concern about the application of the twentieth-century term 'genocide' to an eighteenth-century situation, but have applauded the action of the Halifax Regional School Board in renaming Cornwallis Junior High School and have suggested that the statue belongs in a museum with an appropriate interpretive panel rather than in its current place of public display. My focus in this essay, however, is rather different. I will offer a historical portrayal of Cornwallis in three contexts. The first will be the eighteenth-century Cornwallis. What, from the viewpoint of historical analysis, is or is not significant about the Nova Scotia career, brief as it was, of this early governor? The second will be the Cornwallis of the statue. The raising of the statue in 1931 had very specific antecedents, and an ideological basis-as well as a commercial purpose attributable to Canadian National Railways-that was particular to its time. The third will be the Cornwallis of the controversy that has spanned the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries. What do these debates have to tell us about historical memory-or historical memories plural-in these eras? Then I will conclude with some observations designed to bring the governor's three lives into a more integrated perspective.
Edward Cornwallis was born in London on 22 February 1713. He came from an aristocratic family, his father being the fourth Baron Cornwallis, but as the sixth son he was never likely to inherit the title. After attending Eton College, he followed the path of many younger sons of his social class by entering the army as...