Mi'kmaq Land Claims and the Escheat Movement in Prince Edward Island‪.‬

Recent decisions on Mi'kmaq and Maliseet rights to resources in the Maritimes have underlined the potential for conflict between different groups of peoples who rely upon the harvests of land and sea for a livelihood. (1) Given the economic and cultural issues at stake, the strident rhetoric and, in some cases violence, should not have been a surprise, but they were not inevitable. There have been times in the past when rural leaders have thought in terms of the shared problems of those deriving a living from natural resources and of comprehensive solutions that might address the needs of them all. In the spring of 1838, William Cooper made his way from his lodgings in East London to the Colonial Office. He had arrived in London from Prince Edward Island several days earlier, carrying a thick bundle of papers concerning property rights and the distribution of land on Prince Edward Island, which he presented to the officials responsible for Britain's colonies. (2) He also carried with him the hopes of much of the rural population of Prince Edward Island, as he had come to London charged with persuading the Imperial government to reconsider policies that permitted a relatively small number of landlords, some resident on Prince Edward Island, some in Britain, and a few elsewhere, to control four-fifths of the land in the colony. Indeed, an 1830 survey of landlord holdings showed that the six largest landlord estates included more than a third of the land on the Island. (3)