Edward Cornwallis is as notorious today as he was in 1749, when the founder of Halifax issued bounties for the scalps of Mi'kmaq people. Despite that, statues, streets, parks and buildings have been named in his honour.
It’s been a point of contention these days, but he's not the only historic figure with an unsavoury past memorialized in the Maritimes.
Amherst, N.S., is named after Jeffery Amherst, a British general who suggested the spreading of smallpox disease to Indigenous people.
Amherst Mayor David Kogon says the town has received one complaint from a person demanding the name be changed.
“It's very simple to change the name of a street. It's very costly, unfortunately that's a reality, to change the name of a town,” Kogon says.
But Kogon says that doesn't mean the town condones Amherst's actions.
“It's not right, but that's history,” he says.
The city of Moncton is named after another British man who aided in the expulsion of Acadians. CTV News reached out to Monckton's ancestor, Christopher Monckton, who sent the following response:
"Colonel Monckton, as he then was, was ordered to carry out the policy of the civil administration, and he did so, albeit with much regret. In one episode, he was compelled to round up and deport some 400 Acadians whom he had earlier pardoned.”
Charles Lawrence, then governor of Nova Scotia, oversaw the Acadian deportation. Despite his actions, Lawrence was buried in one of the most sacred of places – a crypt under Halifax's historic St. Paul's Church.
Peter Secord, the senior warden of St. Paul’s, says he doesn't condone Lawrence's actions, but says it's a part of Maritime history.
“It happened, and we live with it,” Secord says.
Lawrencetown is named after the controversial governor.
“We have no statues. We have no plaques. All we have is a sign,” says Lawrencetown historian David Whitman.
Whitman turned a building in his backyard into a museum, where pieces of Lawrenctown memories line the walls. But you won't find a picture of Charles Lawrence – just the people and buildings who've made the community what it is today.
“I think a lot of people in the Maritimes don't know the history of their town's name,” Whitman says. “I think now, in this ongoing thing about the so-called ‘bad guys,’ people are looking at their town and saying, ‘Oh I wonder where that name came from?’ Sometimes they’re surprised sometimes, they’re pleased, sometimes they don't care.”
Whitman says it’s important not to deny history, but understand and learn from it so it doesn’t repeat itself.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Brown.
