Rename Cornwallis

History relates that on October 1, 1749, English Colonial Governor Edward Cornwallis and his Military Council met aboard HMS Beaufort, at anchor in Chebucto Harbour, now Halifax, and decided that it would be in the best interests of Protestant colonizing of Nova Scotia to exterminate the Mi'kmaq population. To help realize their ethnic cleansing goal, they approved a motion to offer a bounty of ten pounds per scalp for the scalps of Mi'kmaq men, women, and children. On June 21, 1750, probably because scalps were not coming in fast enough, they revisited the issue and raised the bounty.

Professor Geoffrey Plank of the University of Cincinnati comments about their rational for approving such a barbarous course of action:

"If the Micmac chose to resist his expropriation of land, the governor intended to conduct a war unlike any that had been fought in Nova Scotia before. He outlined his thinking in an unambiguous letter to the Board of Trade. If there was to be a war, he did not want the war to end with a peace agreement. 'It would be better to root the Micmac out of the peninsula decisively and forever.' The war began soon after the governor made this statement."

Therefore, we the undersigned, because we firmly believe that no person who attempted genocide should, under any circumstances, receive public honors, express support for changing the name of all public entities such as schools, streets, parks, etc. which currently honor the name of Edward Cornwallis, founder of the British colonial city of Halifax which is currently the capital city of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada.

We ask this be done as a move towards restoring justice to the Mi'kmaq First Nation People of Nova Scotia. Governor Cornwallis, as part of the machinery of colonization, attempting to destroy them completely, oversaw the infliction of terrible suffering and indignities on men, women and children of the Mi'kmaq Nation. Morally, no Nation that self-describes itself as civilized, can justify honoring such a man. His action demands that he be condemned by honorable caring citizens, not honored!