What is the Tin Trumpet?

Historical Tenant Action on PEI

This Island has a rich history of radical tenant action.

In 1833 a landlord’s agent, Donald McVarish, tried to serve Allan and Isabella MacDonald of Naufrage with a notice that their property would be confiscated for refusal to pay rent. When the MacDonalds realized what was going on, they argued with the agent and the confrontation turned physical.

At this time, many Islanders were tenant farmers, living and working on land owned by a landlord they were required to pay regular rents to.

Eventually, with the help of some family and a neighbour, the couple ejected the landlord’s agent from the farm. This was an illegal act, and in June of the next year, a sheriff from Charlottetown and his posse of eight armed men set out for Naufrage to apprehend the renters. They left up St. Peters Road in the middle of the night, hoping to catch the tenant farmers while they were still asleep.

Instead of a village at sleep however, the posse were met by around a hundred armed locals waiting for them on the bridge into town. The crowd had axes, muskets and pitchforks. They told the sheriff and his band that they would prefer to spill their own blood before handing over their neighbours, and the heavily outnumbered sheriff decided to cut his losses and head back to Charlottetown.

By banding together the community stopped the landlord from taking more than they already had, even though the landlord had the full backing of the law. Actions like this eventually caused real change to the system of land ownership on the Island. With widespread refusal to pay rent and agitation from the countryside to give the land to the farmers, it was a risky investment.

The province caved to the tenant farmers. It took joining Canada, but the government of Prince Edward Island came up with the cash, bought out the absentee landlords and sold the land to the farmers who’d been working it as tenants.

Today most Island tenants aren’t farmers. But renters today need a roof over their heads just as much as the tenant farmers of the 1800s, and like their predecessors they’re expected to hand the fruits of their labour over to a landlord for it.

Today’s tenants can learn from the action’s of the past. Landlords hold a tremendous amount of power over the lives of the people they rent to. But history has shown that when tenants stand together they can level the playing field and force the change they want to see.

Source: Bittermann, R. (2006). Rural Protest on Prince Edward Island: From British Colonization to the Escheat Movement. University of Toronto Press. https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9780802072290

Why Tin Trumpet?

In the days when Island tenant farmers resisted paying rent, they would blow a tin trumpet to alert their neighbours whenever they saw land or law agents coming. This gave their neighbours the time they needed to get organized and either resist or run away.

We hope our Tin Trumpet digital newsletter will supply Island renters with the information they need to stand up for themselves by learning new organizing skills, attending events, and supporting our ogranization’s efforts.