For over a hundred years, Lunenburg was an Acadian/ Mi’kmaq village named Mirligueche. It was established under the command of Isaac de Razilly in the first half of the seventeenth century. In 1745 there were reported to be only eight settlers in the village. Four year later, Cornwallis reported that there were a number of families that lived in comfortable wooden houses.
Despite the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi'kmaq.Father Le Loutre's War began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749. By unilaterally establishing Halifax the British were violating earlier treaties with the Mi'kmaq (1726), which were signed after Father Rale's War. Upon the outbreak of Father Le Loutre's War, on October 5, 1749, Governor Edward Cornwallis sent Commander White with troops in the 20 gun sloop Sphinx to Mirligueche (i.e., Lunenburg) and had the village destroyed. By 1753 there still was only one family in the area - a Mi'kmaq man named "Old [Paul] Labrador" and his metis family.
After establishing Halifax, the British quickly began to build other settlements. To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1751), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrence town (1754). The Natives and Acadians raided the Lunenburg peninsula nine times in the first six years of its establishment.
Three years into the war, John Creighton led a group of Foreign Protestants to settle the area and renamed it Lunenburg (1753). In 1753, during Father Le Loutre's War, the British unilaterally established Lunenburg, that is, without negotiating with the Mi'kmaq people. In the spring, Governor Hopson was received warnings from Fort Edward that as many as 300 natives nearby were prepared to oppose the settlement of Lunenburg and intended to
