Nova Scotia in the American Revolution

Nova Scotia theatre
Part of the American Revolutionary War

Naval battle off Halifax (1782)
Date12 July 1775 – 5 September 1782
Location
Result

British victory

  • American forces driven from Nova Scotia
Belligerents
United Colonies
(1775-1781)
United States
(1781-1782)
Kingdom of France
 Great Britain
Commanders and leaders

George Washington
Jeremiah O'Brien
John Paul Jones
Jonathan Eddy
Benoni Danks
John Allan
John Manley
Hector McNeill
Louis-René Levassor
Noah Stoddard
George Wait Babcock
Herbert Woodbury
William Williams
Joseph Olney
David Ropes 
John Selman
Nicholson Broughton
Latouche Tréville

La Pérouse

Thomas Gage
Sir William Howe
John Creighton (POW)
Dittlieb Jessen
Joseph Pernette
Phillips Callbeck (POW)
Joseph Goreham
Thomas Dixson
Gilfred Studholme
Michael Francklin
George Collier
John Brisbane
Simeon Perkins
Benjamin Belcher
Jonathan Crane
Phineas Lovett
Jonathan Prescott

Captain Henry Francis Evans 
Captain Rupert George
Richard Peter Tonge (POW)

The Province of Nova Scotia was heavily involved in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). At that time, Nova Scotia also included present-day New Brunswick until that colony was created in 1784. The Revolution had a significant impact on shaping Nova Scotia, "almost the 14th American Colony". At the beginning, there was ambivalence in Nova Scotia over whether the colony should join the Americans in the war against Britain. Largely as a result of American privateer raids on Nova Scotia villages, as the war continued, the population of Nova Scotia solidified their support for the British. Thousands of Loyalist refugees fled to Nova Scotia during the war, and many were resettled in the region after the signing of the 1783 Treaty of Paris as "United Empire Loyalists".