The new name of a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker will honour a historic Peace and Friendship Treaty.
The Edward Cornwallis will be renamed Kopit Hopson 1752.
The icebreaker is currently undergoing $12 million in upgrades at Shelburne Ship Repair and will be relaunched later this year.
Cornwallis was the founder of Halifax and was known for offering a bounty to anyone who killed Mi’kmaw men, women and children.
Street names and places around the province are slowly removing his name from public landmarks.
The Federal government decided last June to work with Indiginous peoples to re-name the ship to help pave the way for a better relationship.
“As we work together with Minister Bernadette Jordan to address the long-standing negative history of figures of the past, we are witnessing reconciliation in action,” Chief Terry Paul, Chief & CEO, Membertou said when the announcement was made to rename the ship. “The Mi’kmaq have called this land home since time immemorial, however, the dark legacy of early settlers continues to serve as a painful reminder of the inequalities that still exist today. As we right the wrongs of the past, we build stronger relations for the future.”
The Treaty of 1752 was signed between Cornwallis’s successor British governor Peregrine Thomas Hopson and Mi’kmaw Chief Kopit.
