Added by you! Jean Baptiste Cope

Jean Baptiste Cope was an eighteenth century sakamaw (chief) of the Mi’kmaq people of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. He is best known today for his early resistance to British settlement in the region—in alliance with les Acadiens—and his later signing of a Peace and Friendship Treaty with the British in 1752. His attempts to get other Mi’kmaq chiefs to make peace with the British failed, and hostilities soon resumed. Cope is said to have burned his copy of the treaty six months after the signing ceremony. But in 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada declared the treaty was still valid, and still protected the hunting and fishing rights of today’s Mi’kmaq people of Shubenacadie.