New England Planters
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The New England Planters were settlers from the New England colonies who responded to requests by the lieutenant governor and, subsequently, governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, to settle lands left vacant by the Acadian Expulsion of 1755. Eight thousand Planters, largely farmers and fishermen, arrived from 1759 to 1768 to take up the offer. The farmers settled mainly on the rich farmland of the Annapolis Valley and in the southern counties of what is now New Brunswick but was then part of Nova Scotia. Most of the fishermen went to the South Shore of Nova Scotia, where they got the same amount of land as the farmers did. Many fishermen especially wanted to move there because they were already fishing off the Nova Scotia coast. The Planters were the first major group of English-speaking immigrants in Canada who did not come directly from Great Britain. Most of the Planters were Protestant Congregationalists, in contrast to the largely Roman Catholic Acadians. They were soon joined by the United Empire Loyalists leaving the New England colonies after the American War of Independence. This influx greatly diminished the Planter influence in Nova Scotia.
