Reviews for Land, Settlement, And Politics On Eighteenth-Century Prince Edward Island

The average rating for Land, Settlement, And Politics On Eighteenth-Century Prince Edward Island based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-01 00:00:00 Jim Moineau This had all kinds of little tidbits of info that were interesting for me and my studies, but its level of detail about a relatively short period in the history of a relatively small island means that its potential audience is pretty tiny. Even a PEI history buff might balk at the comprehensiveness of Bumsted's coverage of the 1780s and 90s. The short short version is that the British government had granted the entire island to proprietors in exchange for those proprietors getting settlers to move there and play rents, but then (Bumsted says this was the key problem) they set up an independent government and assembly and everything for the island way too early, when practically no one lived there and communication with London was incredibly difficult. So the politicos in residence on the island tried to basically grab unused land for themselves, while the proprietors back in Britain tried to fight them and retain their rights. Meanwhile, every few years a plague of field mice ate all the crops, and no one could get anyone except Catholics to move to the island, even though Catholics were barred from voting, and if Americans tried to move there the authorities confiscated their goods because of the navigation acts, etc etc etc. Basically it was a huge mess for decades. I am interested, though, in these Americans (from Rhode Island and NY, apparently) who tried, with some success, to move to PEI in the 1780s and 90s. There weren't many of them but it would be interesting to figure out what moved them in that direction at that time.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-05-29 00:00:00 Angela Leath Bacon really captures the conflict on the borders and the very real opposition to American-style capitalism in Mexico. Great photos too.