New People Come

Over the next 100 years many more people settled in the area. The different groups had different reasons for coming to their new home.

• Some Irish fishermen from Newfoundland had moved to Louisbourg after the English defeated the French. After the English left Louisbourg these Irish people moved to the closest settlements they could find. These were in Richmond County.

• Merchants from the Isle of Jersey came to the area to buy fish.

• Loyalists who had remained loyal to England during the American Revolution did not feel safe there after England was defeated. Thousands of them came to Nova Scotia, including the Richmond County area.

• About 20,000 Scottish Highlanders came to Cape Breton Island in the early 1800s. Their landlords had forced them off the land in Scotland because the method of farming was changing there. Landlords had started to use fenced fields for farming, instead of open fields. This change in farming methods was called the Enclosure Movement. This way of farming made more money for the landowners, but left many tenant farmers with nothing. Some of the Highlanders settled in parts of Richmond County.