The Acadians were French settlers of eastern Canada who were exiled from their land in the 1750s. In 1755 the British took the stern step of deporting the Acadian French from Nova Scotia. Though this province had been ceded to Great Britain in 1713 many of the Acadians had refused to accept British sovereignty. In 1749 the British founded Halifax, began to colonize Nova Scotia, and, with war imminent, deemed it prudent to disperse the Acadians, chiefly along the Atlantic seaboard.