Lunenburg — Planned Town & Atlantic Fishery
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
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Transcript
Lunenburg's Lutheran tradition reflects the large number of German-speaking settlers recruited to the colony in the eighteenth century.
German language and customs survived for generations, helped by the relative isolation of the community and strong church institutions.
That makes Lunenburg different from the stereotype of colonial Nova Scotia as culturally uniform and British.
The settlement was British politically, but many settlers arrived with continental European languages and religious traditions.
Over time, English became dominant and identities blended, but surnames, churches and customs preserved the earlier migration story.
Immigration history is not only about modern cities. Colonial governments actively recruited migrants to serve strategic settlement goals.
Lunenburg was multicultural before the word became Canadian policy.
The difference is that migration was being used to strengthen an empire's claim to land.