Tsar of New Zealand:
An alternate Nova Scotia:
A Brief History of New Zealand said:
With the beginning of British colonisation of New Zealand in 1818, Scottish intellectuals and adventurers began to wonder if they might stand to gain from the best chance of a colonial pressure valve they had had since the abortive Acadian colony two centuries earlier (which itself had seen immigration of Irish moving to neighbouring Nova Hibernia, the new ‘Ireland-in-America’ [1]), and promptly formed the Alba Association.
The Royal New Zealand Company, pleased at the prospect of a quick influx of capital, gladly allowed the Alba Association to purchase a large portion of the South Island below the Rangitata River which was to be the new colony of Nova Scotia (Gaelic: Alba Nuadh), a home for the masses of Scots who felt there was nothing left for them in Scotland proper. With the issuing of Letters Patent in 1838 the nascent colony was separated from the rest of New Zealand, as the English in the north feared being overwhelmed by ‘Jocks,’ and the Scots in turn tired of funding English wars against the restive Maori of the Colony of New Zealand (who had some words to say about being evicted from their ancestral lands). The English had good reason to fear being outnumbered: by 1853 there were 30,000 Scottish settlers in the colony, aided by a Church mission to establish Presbyterian missions in the new lands.
The Nova Scotian Gold Rush of the 1860s was integral to securing the colony’s success, and towns sprouted across the Otago Highlands as Dunedin became the largest city in New Zealand and Nova Scotia put together, with the colony’s population rising above 80,000 by 1864 – it is no coincidence that the majority of Scottish emigration remained consistently directed to Nova Scotia – and although the gold rush had largely died down by 1867, the majority of Scots in particular stayed in a colony which seemed – and indeed, was – tailored to their kind.
Of course, the boom didn’t last forever; as emigration began drying up with the continued industrialisation of Scotland the motivation to make the long voyage south was less and less appealing. Still, by 1871 the population of Nova Scotia was about fifty-four percent Scottish or of Scottish origin [2], with Gaelic widely spoken as a first or second language, especially in County Wallace and the Otago Highlands (many placenames today are simple transliterations of the Gaelic). The largely democratic principles espoused by the Alba Association also helped to retain settlers, as the contrast with the increasingly baronial system of landholdings in the Province of Canterbury over the border made Nova Scotia seem wonderful in comparison.
Nonetheless, by the 1890s the viability of the colony had been called into question and, forced to decide between union with the rest of New Zealand as an influential province or with Australia as an uninfluential sheep farm, Nova Scotia’s legislature entered into negotiations with the Colonial Legislature of New Zealand, with canny Treasurer Julius Vogel helping persuade the ‘Jocks’ to vote for union on June 7, 1893 – a date since celebrated as Union Day.
While Nova Scotia’s existence was relatively brief, its major role in New Zealand’s early history and colonial period is not to be understated; today there are as many speakers of Gaelic in Nova Scotia as in Scotland, and cultural ties remain strong. Union also brought a major shift in the culture of New Zealand as the incorporation of tens of thousands of independent-minded Nova Scotians led to a period of democratic upheaval and – just as importantly – resulted in the relocation of the colonial capital from Auckland to the small regional port of Wellington [3]. Although the twentieth century would open Nova Scotia up to increased immigration and diversity, evidence of its Scottish heritage is still clear: from stately Dunedin to booming Kinloch, icy Invercargill to slightly-less icy Invercullen, and throughout the patchwork of small towns from Winton to Selkirk to Peebles to Geraldine, the Scottish spirit lives on at the bottom of the world.
[1] OTL Nova Scotia/New Brunswick. The neighbouring province of Avalon has remained largely English since the expulsion of the French Acadians in the 1760s.
[2] Followed by English settlers (including Australians), Irish, and sizable numbers of Welsh around Pembroke and Croats near Lochinvar.
[3] Although it must be said that many of the more hardcore Presbyterians were somewhat shocked at the idea of adopting female suffrage, which New Zealand had adopted in 1887.
Flag credit goes to Martin23230