This was a long process. It occurred from the point of the American Revolution during the 1770s and the Loyalist immigration into Nova Scotia in the 1770s and 1780s.
Most Mi’kmaq people actually live below the Shubenacadie River, in the areas of Queens, Shelburne and Yarmouth, as well as in Kings county. It was a gradual process. They were dispossessed from their coastal areas where they had historically lived. These are a coastal people and they're a fishing people.
Reserves were created beginning in the 1840s, but most of them were inland and very, very small, and as in Bear River and Shubenacadie, which are on swampland, they are not very accessible to coastal areas. So this was a gradual process.
In the 1871 census, we had 22 Mi’kmaq people living on St. Marys Bay. We also had many other people living in coastal areas who were Mi’kmaq and who were fishing up until the early part of the 20th century.