After Britain lost many American colonies in 1783, it encouraged settlement in the Madawaska Territory to help secure the St. John/Grand Portage route, offering 200 acres to settlers willing to move there. In 1784, several groups of Acadians petitioned for and received permission to settle there, selling their property in the newly crowded lower St. John Valley, where British Loyalists from the United States were being relocated. Drawn by free, plentiful, fertile land and by the proximity of priests in nearby Quebec, they moved upriver with their faith, families, assets, knowledge, and strong regional family ties, creating a thriving French-speaking community. By 1790, this rapidly growing French-Acadian settlement numbered nearly 200 people. The move was driven in part by the sudden arrival of 12,000 Loyalists in the lower St. John Valley, which had been home to only 1,400 white people in 1783, including Acadians, making land scarcer for Acadian sons and reducing the prospects for a Catholic priest in a predominantly Protestant setting.