page_title: Battle of Bloody Creek (1711)
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Bloody Creek (1711) / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: A portrait of colonial entrepreneur and first governor of Nova Scotia Samuel Vetch (1668-1732).
context_page_description: The Battle of Bloody Creek was fought on 10/21 June 1711 during Queen Anne's War. An Abenaki militia successfully ambushed British and New England soldiers at a place that became known as Bloody Creek after the battles fought there. The creek empties into the Annapolis River at present day Carleton Corner, Nova Scotia, and was also the location of a battle in 1757.
  The battle was part of an orchestrated attempt by the leaders of New France to weaken the British hold on Annapolis Royal. The British had only captured the fort the previous year and they only had a very tenuous control of the area. The battle, in which the entire British force was captured or killed, emboldened the French and their native allies to blockade Annapolis Royal. Without heavy weapons, the force was unable to effectively attack the fort, and abandoned the siege when British reinforcements arrived by sea.
context_section_description: The victory at Bloody Creek rallied the local resistance, and prompted many of the Acadians who were nominally under British protection to withdraw to the north. Soon thereafter a force of some 600 warriors, including Acadians, Abenaki, and Mi'kmaq, gathered and blockaded Fort Anne under the leadership of Gaulin and Saint-Castin.  The defending garrison was small, but the attackers had no artillery and were thus unable to make an impression on the fort, and the fort was still accessible by sea. Gaulin went to Plaisance in Newfoundland for supplies and equipment to advance the siege; Governor Philippe Pastour de Costebelle provided supplies, but the ship had the misfortune to encounter a major British fleet and was captured. That same expedition abandoned its goal of attacking Quebec when eight of its ships were lost on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River; Governor Vetch, who had accompanied the expedition as a leader of the provincial militia, returned to Annapolis Royal with 200 provincial militia, after which the besiegers withdrew.
  Annapolis Royal remained in British hands for the remainder of the war, but Acadians and Natives continued to resist the British after peace was reached and Acadia was formally ceded to Britain with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.  This resistance was motivated by a French desire to recover Acadia and by the concerns of the Abenaki and Mi'kmaq, who had not been parties to Utrecht, to British encroachment on their lands and liberties after the war ended. The Natives disputes led to Dummer's War in the 1720s; it was fought primarily in northern New England, but British settlements in Nova Scotia were also attacked.  The disputes between the French and British over Acadia/Nova Scotia were not resolved until the British conquests of the Seven Years' War and the expulsion of the Acadians in the 1750s.  The site was again the scene of battle during the Seven Years' War, and has been designated by the Canadian government as a National Historic Site.
caption: Nova Scotia Governor Samuel Vetch
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