Expulsion of the Acadians
{{infobox military conflict
|conflict = Expulsion of the Acadians
|partof = French and Indian War
|image = 
|caption = St. John River Campaign: "A View of the Plundering and Burning of the City of Grimross" (1758)
Watercolor by Thomas Davies
|date = August 10, 1755 – July 11, 1764
|place = Canada's Maritimes
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|map_size =12345
|map_marksize =
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|result = Fall of Louisbourg
Burying the Hatchet Ceremony
Forced Displacement of Acadian Populace
|actions = Forcible Transfer, Deportations, Persecutions, Unlawful Confinement, Plunder of Public and Private Property</ref>https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf[1]
See also
References
- ↑ |status =
|combatants_header = Belligerents
|combatant1=
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Great Britain
|combatant2=
France
Wabanaki Confederacy
|combatant3 =
|commander1 = Robert Monckton
George Scott
Joseph Gorham
Moses Hazen
Benoni Danks
Silvanus Cobb
Charles Lawrence
Alexander Murray
John Winslow
Andrew Rollo
James Wolfe
James Murray
Naval Captain John Rous
Charles Hardy
Montague Wilmot
Jedidiah Preble
Roger Morris
|commander2 = Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil)
Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot
Father Pierre Maillard
Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope
Joseph-Nicolas Gautier's sons
Chief Étienne Bâtard
Pierre II Surette
Prudent Robichaud<ref>He was a leader of the mutiny on the Pembroke (See [http://www.acadian-home.org/PD-Pembroke.html article]</ref>
Joseph LeBlanc<ref>{{cite DCB |first=Bernard |last=Pothier |title=LeBlanc, Joseph |volume=3 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/leblanc_joseph_3E.html}}</ref>
Alexandre Bourg<ref>{{cite DCB |first=C. J. |last=d’Entremont |title=Bourg, Belle-Humeur, Alexandre |volume=3 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bourg_alexandre_3E.html}}</ref>
Joseph Godin
Father Jacques Manach<ref>{{cite DCB |first=Micheline D. |last=Johnson |title=Manach, Jean |volume=3 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/manach_jean_3E.html}}</ref>
|commander3 =
|units1 = 40th Regiment
22nd Regiment
43rd Regiment
Gorham's Rangers
Danks' Rangers
|units2 = Acadian militia
Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaq militia and Maliseet militia)
Troupes de la marine
|units3 =
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The Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion, the Great Deportation and Le Grand Dérangement, was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island —an area also known as Acadia.<ref>The term "forced removal" is being used intentionally. For the academic discussions about referring to this event as "ethnic cleansing" or a "deportation" see the Historical Comparisons section.</ref> The Expulsion (1755–1764) occurred during the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War)<ref>This conflict is also referred to as "Anglo French Rivalry of 1749–63" and War of British Conquest.</ref> and was part of the British military campaign against New France. The British first deported Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and after 1758 transported additional Acadians to Britain and France. In all, of the 14,100 Acadians in the region, approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported.<ref>{{cite book|first=Geoffrey|last=Plank|title=An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|year=2003|page=149|series=Early American Studies|isbn=978-0-8122-1869-5}}</ref><ref>Stephen White calculated the number of Acadians in 1755 (See Stephen White. The True Number of Acadians. In Rene Gilles-LeBlanc. Du Grand Derangement a la Deportation. pp. 21-56</ref> (A census of 1764, indicates that 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony, presumably having eluded being captured.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofmas110mass#page/82/mode/2up p. 82]</ref>)
After the British Siege of Port Royal in 1710, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht allowed the Acadians to keep their lands. Over the next forty-five years, however, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During the same period, they also participated in various military operations against the British, and maintained supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Fort Beauséjour.<ref>{{cite book |first1=John |last1=Grenier |title=The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia 1710–1760 |publisher=Oklahoma University Press |location=Norman |year=2008 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TXoCBQAAQBAJ |isbn=978-0-8061-3876-3 |ref=harv}}</ref> As a result, the British sought to eliminate any future military threat posed by the Acadians and to permanently cut the supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by removing them from the area.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Stephen E.|last1=Patterson|title=Indian-White Relations in Nova Scotia, 1749–61: A Study in Political Interaction|publisher=The Acadiensis Reader|volume=1|year=1998|pages=105–106}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Stephen|last1=Patterson|chapter=Colonial Wars and Aboriginal Peoples|page=144|title=The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History|isbn=978-0-8020-0553-3}}</ref>
Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been neutral and those who had resisted the occupation of Acadia, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered them to be expelled.<ref>British officer [[John Winslow (British Army officer)|John Winslow]] raised his concern that officials were not distinguishing between Acadians who rebelled against the British and those who did not. (John Faragher, p. 337)</ref> In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, from where they migrated to Louisiana. Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Isle Saint-Jean (present-day Prince Edward Island) and Isle Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island). During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported.
Throughout the expulsion, Acadians and the Wabanaki Confederacy continued a guerrilla war against the British in response to British aggression which had been continuous since 1744 (see King George's War and Father Le Loutre's War).
Along with the British achieving their military goals of defeating Louisbourg and weakening the Mi'kmaq and Acadian militias, the result of the Expulsion was the devastation of both a primarily civilian population and the economy of the region. Thousands of Acadians died in the expulsions, mainly from diseases and drowning when ships were lost.
On July 11, 1764, the British government passed an order-in-council to permit Acadians to legally return to British territories, provided that they take an unqualified oath of allegiance.
The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the historic event in his poem about the plight of the fictional character Evangeline, which was popular and made the expulsion well known. According to Acadian historian Maurice Basque, the story of Evangeline continues to influence historic accounts of the deportation, emphasising neutral Acadians and de-emphasising those who resisted the British Empire.<ref>Maurice Basque. "Atlantic Realities, Acadian Identities, Arcadian Dreams", In Ried and Savoie (eds) ''Shaping An Agenda for Atlantic Canada'', Fernwood Press. 2011. p 66</ref>
Historical context
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After the British officially gained control of Acadia in 1713, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of loyalty to become British subjects. Instead, they negotiated a conditional oath that promised neutrality. Some Acadians remained neutral and refused the unconditional oath. The difficulty was partly religious, as the British monarch was the head of the Protestant Church of England and the Acadians were Roman Catholic. They also worried that signing the oath might commit male Acadians to fight against France during wartime, and that it would be perceived by their Mi'kmaq neighbours as an acknowledgement of the British claim to Acadia, putting Acadian villages at risk of attack from Mi'kmaq.<ref>Reid, John. ''Nova Scotia: A Pocket History'', Fernwood Publishing. 2009. p. 49.</ref>
Other Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath because they were anti-British. Various historians have observed that some Acadians were labelled "neutral" when they were not.<ref>Marice Basque (2004). "Family and Political Culture in Pre-Conquest Acadia," In ''The Conquest of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions''. 2004, University of Toronto Press. p. 49; John Reid, ''Six Crucial Decades'', 29–32; John Reid. ''1686–1720: Imperial Instrusions''; Barnes, "Twelve Apostles" or a "Dozen Traitors?"; Basque, ''Des hommes de pouvoir'', 51–99; Basque and Brun, ''La neutralite l' epreuve.''; Bernard Potheir, ''Course d l'Accadie''; Bobert Rumilly, ''L'Acadie angalise.''</ref> By the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians, there was already a long history of political and military resistance by Acadians and the Wabanaki Confederacy to the British occupation of Acadia.<ref>Faragher, John Mack, ''A Great and Noble Scheme'' New York; W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. pp. 110–112 ISBN 0-393-05135-8</ref> The Mi'kmaq and the Acadians were allies through their Catholicism and numerous inter-marriages.<ref>Geoffery Plank. ''An Unsettled Conquest''. University of Pennsylvania. 2001. p. 72</ref> While the Acadians were the largest population, the Wabanaki Confederacy, particularly the Mi'kmaq, held the military strength in Acadia even after the British conquest.<ref>Geoffery Plank. ''An Unsettled Conquest''. University of Pennsylvania. 2001. p. 67</ref> They resisted the British occupation and were joined on numerous occasions by Acadians. These efforts were often supported and led by French priests in the region.<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Grenier |title=The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JGCin1JJp8cC |isbn=978-1-1394-4470-5 |ref=harv}}</ref> The Wabanaki Confederacy and Acadians fought against the British Empire in six wars, including the French and Indian Wars, Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War, over a period of seventy-five years.
French and Indian War
In 1753, French troops from Canada marched south and seized and fortified the Ohio Valley. Britain protested the invasion and claimed Ohio for itself. On May 28, 1754, the war began with the Battle of Jumonville Glen. French Officer Ensign de Jumonville and a third of his escort were killed by a British patrol led by George Washington. In retaliation the French and the Indians defeated the British at Fort Necessity. Washington lost a third of his force and surrendered. Major General Edward Braddock's troops were defeated in the Battle of the Monongahela, and William Johnson's troops stopped the French advance at Lake George.
In Acadia, the primary British objective was to defeat the French fortifications at Beausejour and Louisbourg and to prevent future attacks from the Wabanaki Confederacy, French and Acadians on the northern New England border.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/selectionsfrompu00nova#page/n211/mode/1up Thomas Akins. Papers on Forced Removal of the French Inhabitants p. 382-385, 394]</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/stream/documentaryhisto12main#page/266/mode/2up/search/halifax Letter by Charles Morris May 15, 1754 Documentary history of the state of Maine, p. 266]</ref> (There was a long history of these attacks from Acadia - see the Northeast Coast Campaigns 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724, 1745, 1746, 1747.) The British saw the Acadians' allegiance to the French and the Wabanaki Confederacy as a military threat. Father Le Loutre's War had created the conditions for total war; British civilians had not been spared and, as Governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council saw it, Acadian civilians had provided intelligence, sanctuary, and logistical support while others had fought against the British.<ref>Patterson, 1994, p. 146</ref> During Le Loutre's war, to protect the British settlers from attacks along the former border of New England and Acadia, the Kennebec River, the British built Fort Halifax (Winslow), Fort Shirley (Dresden, formerly Frankfurt) and Fort Western (Augusta).
After the British capture of Beausejour, the plan to capture Louisbourg included cutting trade to the Fortress in order to weaken the Fortress and, in turn, weaken the French ability to supply the Mi'kmaq in their warfare against the British. According to historian Stephen Patterson, more than any other single factor - including the massive assault that eventually forced the surrender of Louisbourg - the supply problem brought an end to French power in the region. Lawrence realized he could reduce the military threat and weaken Fortress Louisbourg by deporting the Acadians, thus cutting off supplies to the fort.<ref>Patterson, 1994, p. 152</ref> During the expulsion, French Officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadians in a guerrilla war against the British.<ref>John Gorham. ''The Far Reaches of Empire: War In Nova Scotia (1710–1760)''. University of Oklahoma Press. 2008. p. 177–206</ref> According to Louisbourg account books, by late 1756 the French had regularly dispensed supplies to 700 natives. From 1756 to the fall of Louisbourg in 1758, the French made regular payments to Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope and other natives for British scalps.<ref>Patterson, Stephen E. "1744–1763: Colonial Wars and Aboriginal Peoples." In Phillip Buckner and John Reid (eds.) ''The Atlantic Region to Conderation: A History''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1994. p. 148</ref>
British deportation campaigns
Bay of Fundy (1755)
Grand-Pré: Deportation of the Acadians.
Cape Sable
Cape Sable campaign involved the British removing Acadians from present-day Shelburne County and Yarmouth County. In April 1756, Major Jedidiah Preble and his New England troops, on their return to Boston, raided a settlement near Port La Tour and captured 72 men, women and children.<ref name=Landry>{{cite book |first=Peter |last=Landry |title=The Lion and the Lily: Nova Scotia Between 1600-1760 |publisher=Trafford Press |date=2007 |p=555 |isbn=978-1-4251-5450-9 |ref=harv}}</ref> In the late summer of 1758, Major Henry Fletcher led the 35th regiment and a company of Gorham's Rangers to Cape Sable. He cordoned off the cape and sent his men through it. One hundred Acadians and Father Jean Baptistee de Gray surrendered, while about 130 Acadians and seven Mi'kmaq escaped. The Acadian prisoners were taken to Georges Island in Halifax Harbour.
En route to the St. John River Campaign in September 1758, Moncton sent Major Roger Morris of the 35th Regiment, in command of two men-of-war and transport ships with 325 soldiers, to deport more Acadians.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/collectionsmass01socigoog#page/n252/mode/2up Roger Morris and Joseph Gorham Accounts of expedition, 1758]</ref> On October 28, Moncton's troops sent the women and children to Georges Island. The men were kept behind and forced to work with troops to destroy their village. On October 31, they were also sent to Halifax.<ref>Marshall, p. 98{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}</ref> In the spring of 1759, Joseph Gorham and his rangers arrived to take prisoner the remaining 151 Acadians. They reached Georges Island with them on June 29.<ref name=Landry/><ref>{{cite book |first=Beamish |last=Murdoch |title=A History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, |volume=Vol. 2 |publisher=James Barnes, Printer and Publisher |date=1866 |location=Halifax, Nova Scotia |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NKgOAAAAYAAJ |p=373 |ref=harv}}</ref><ref>Marshall, p. 98;{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}</ref> In November 1759, 151 Acadians from Cape Sable who had been prisoners on George's Island since June were deported to Britain. In July 1759 on Cape Sable, Captain Cobb arrived and was fired upon by 100 Acadians and Mi'kmaq.
Île St. Jean and Île Royale
The second wave of the expulsion began with the French defeat at the Siege of Louisbourg (1758). Thousands of Acadians were deported from Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Île Royale (Cape Breton). The Île Saint-Jean Campaign resulted in the largest percentage of deaths of the deported Acadians. The sinking of the ships Violet (with about 280 persons aboard) and Duke William (with over 360 persons aboard) marked the highest numbers of fatalities during the expulsion.<ref>Earle Lockerby, ''The Expulsion of the Acadians from Prince Edward Island''. Nimbus Publications. 2009</ref> By the time the second wave of the expulsion had begun, the British had discarded their policy of relocating the Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and had begun deporting them directly to France.<ref>Plank, p. 160</ref> In 1758, hundreds of Île Royale Acadians fled to one of Boishebert's refugee camps south of Baie des Chaleurs.
Petitcodiac River Campaign
The Petitcodiac River Campaign was a series of British military operations that occurred from June to November 1758 to deport the Acadians who either lived along the river or had taken refuge there from earlier deportations. Benoni Danks and Gorham's Rangers carried out the operation. Contrary to Governor Lawrence's direction, New England Ranger Danks engaged in frontier warfare against the Acadians. On July 1, 1758, Danks began to pursue the Acadians on the Petiticodiac. They arrived at present day Moncton and Danks' Rangers ambushed about thirty Acadians, who were led by Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil). The Acadians were driven into the river and three of them were killed and scalped, and the others were captured. Broussard was seriously wounded.<ref>Faragher, p. 402.</ref> Danks reported that the scalps were Mi'kmaq and received payment for them. Thereafter, he went down in local lore as "one of the most reckless and brutal" of the Rangers.
St. John River Campaign
Colonel Robert Monckton led a force of 1,150 British soldiers to destroy the Acadian settlements along the banks of the Saint John River until they reached the largest village of Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas (Fredericton, New Brunswick) in February 1759.<ref>Note that John Faragher in the ''Great and Nobel Scheme'' indicates that Monckton had a force of 2000 men for this campaign. p. 405.</ref> Monckton was accompanied by New England Rangers led by Joseph Goreham, Captain Benoni Danks, Moses Hazen and George Scott. The British started at the bottom of the river, raiding Kennebecais and Managoueche (City of St. John), where they built Fort Frederick. Then they moved up the river and raided Grimross (Gagetown, New Brunswick), Jemseg, and finally reached Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas.
Contrary to Governor Lawrence's direction, New England Ranger Lieutenant Hazen engaged in frontier warfare against the Acadians in what has become known as the "Ste Anne's Massacre". On 18 February 1759, Hazen and about fifteen men arrived at Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas. The Rangers pillaged and burned the village of 147 buildings, two Mass-houses and various barns and stables. The Rangers burned a large store-house, containing a large quantity of hay, wheat, peas, oats and other foodstuffs, killing 212 horses, about five head of cattle and a large number of hogs. They also burned the church located just west of Old Government House, Fredericton.<ref>Plank, p. 61</ref> The leader of the Acadian militia on the St. John river Joseph Godin-Bellefontaine refused to swear an oath despite the Rangers torturing and killing members of his family in front of him. The Rangers also took six prisoners.<ref>A letter from Fort Frederick which was printed in ''Parker's New York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy'' on 2 April 1759 provides additional details of the behaviour of the Rangers.</ref><ref>William O. Raymond. The River St. John: Its Physical Features, Legends and History from 1604 to 1784. St. John, New Brunswick. 1910. pp. 96–107</ref>
Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign
In the Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign, also known as the Gaspee Expedition, British forces raided French villages along present-day New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula coast of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Sir Charles Hardy and Brigadier-General James Wolfe commanded the naval and military forces, respectively. After the Siege of Louisbourg (1758), Wolfe and Hardy led a force of 1500 troops in nine vessels to Gaspé Bay, arriving there on September 5. From there they dispatched troops to Miramichi Bay on September 12, Grande-Rivière, Quebec and Pabos on September 13, and Mont-Louis, Quebec on September 14. Over the following weeks, Hardy took four sloops or schooners, destroyed about 200 fishing vessels, and took about 200 prisoners.<ref name="archive.org">J.S. McLennan, ''Louisbourg: From its Founding to its Fall'', Macmillan and Co. Ltd London, UK 1918, pp. 417–423, Appendix 11 https://archive.org/stream/louisbourgfromit00mcleuoft/louisbourgfromit00mcleuoft_djvu.txt</ref>
Restigouche
The Acadians took refuge along the Baie des Chaleurs and the Restigouche River.<ref>Lockerby, 2008, p. 17, p. 24, p. 26, p. 56</ref> Boishébert had a refugee camp at Petit-Rochelle, which was probably located near present-day Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec.<ref>Faragher, p. 414</ref><ref>''History: Commodore Byron's Conquest''. The Canadian Press. July 19, 2008, http://www.acadian.org/La%20Petite-Rochelle.html</ref> The year after the Battle of Restigouche, in late 1761, Captain Roderick Mackenzie and his force captured over 330 Acadians at Boishebert's camp.<ref>John Faragher, p. 41 [https://books.google.com/books?id=RqoOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Gamaliel+Smethurst&source=bl&ots=c_j-_HAidc&sig=vIONxjidbBRqlTWmqgFSrFu-Jz4&hl=en&ei=93uyTNSTJoG8lQeu5fTXAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false MacKenzie's Raid]</ref>
Halifax
Monument to Imprisoned Acadians on
Georges Island (background), Bishops Landing, Halifax
Maine
.jpg)
A map of the British and French settlements in North America in 1755. The province of Nova Scotia had expanded to encompass all of Acadie, or present-day New Brunswick.
Deportation destinations
In the first wave of the expulsion, most Acadian exiles were assigned to rural communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina. In general, they refused to stay where they were put and large numbers migrated to the colonial port cities where they gathered in isolated, impoverished French-speaking Catholic neighbourhoods, the sort of communities Britain's colonial officials tried to discourage. More worryingly for the British authorities, some Acadians threatened to migrate north to French-controlled regions, including the Saint John River, Île Royale, the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Canada.<ref>Plank, 2005, p. 70</ref> Because the British believed their policy of sending the Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies had failed, they deported the Acadians to France during the second wave of the Expulsion.
Maryland
Approximately 1,000 Acadians went to Maryland, where they lived in a section of Baltimore that became known as French Town.<ref>Arsenault 155</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K6BlU1wPV7oC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=acadia+French-town+baltimore#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State |author=Writers' Program of the [[Work Projects Administration]] in the State of Maryland |date=August 1940 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |page=206 |accessdate=30 April 2011 |quote=In time the Acadians were able to construct small houses along South Charles Street; for a century this section of Baltimore was called French Town |isbn=9781603540193}}</ref> The Irish Catholics were reported to have shown charity to the Acadians by taking orphaned children into their homes.<ref>Rieder, Milton P. Jr. and Rieder, Norma G. ''Acadian Exiles in the American Colonies,'' Metairie, LA, 1977, p. 2; Faragher 375</ref>
Massachusetts
Destinations for deported Acadians<ref name="Geoffrey Plank 2001. p. 149">Statistics for the British colonies found in Geoffrey Plank. ''Unsettled Conquest''. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2001. p. 149.</ref>
| Colony | # of Exiles |
|---|
| Massachusetts | 2,000 |
| Virginia | 1,100 |
| Maryland | 1,000 |
| Connecticut | 700 |
| Pennsylvania | 500 |
| North Carolina | 500 |
| South Carolina | 500 |
| Georgia | 400 |
| New York | 250 |
| TOTAL | 6,950 |
| Britain | 866 |
| France | 3,500 |
| TOTAL | 11, 316<ref>Total exiles for Britain and France found in R.A. LEBLANC. "Les migrations acadiennes", in ''Cahiers de géographie du Québec,'' Vol. 23, no 58, April 1979, p. 99–124.</ref> |
Approximately 2,000 Acadians disembarked at Massachusetts. For four long winter months, William Shirley, who had ordered their deportation, had not allowed them to disembark and as a result, half died of cold and starvation aboard the ships. Children were taken away from their parents and were distributed to various families throughout Massachusetts.<ref>Arsenault 197</ref> The government also arranged the adoption of orphaned children and provided subsidies for housing and food for a year.<ref>Faragher 374</ref>
There were numerous families deported to Maine.<ref>https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofmai28main#page/340/mode/2up</ref>
Connecticut prepared for the arrival of 700 Acadians.<ref>Rieder and Rieder 1</ref> Like Maryland, the Connecticut legislature declared that "[the Acadians] be made welcome, helped and settled under the most advantageous conditions, or if they have to be sent away, measures be taken for their transfer."<ref>Arsenault 153</ref>
Pennsylvania and Virginia
Pennsylvania accommodated 500 Acadians. Because they arrived unexpectedly, the Acadians had to remain in port on their vessels for months. Virginia refused to accept the Acadians on grounds that no notice was given of their arrival.<ref>Arsenault 156</ref> They were detained at Williamsburg, where hundreds died from disease and malnutrition. They were then sent to Britain where they were held as prisoners until the Treaty of Paris in 1763.<ref name="Renault 203">Renault 203</ref>
Carolinas and Georgia
The Acadians who had offered the most resistance to the British—particularly those who had been at Chignecto—were reported to have been sent furthest south to the British colonies of the Carolinas and Georgia,<ref>Arsenault 157; Farragher 383</ref> where about 1,400 Acadians settled and were “subsidized” and put to work on plantations.<ref name="Arsenault 157">Arsenault 157</ref>
Under the leadership of Jacques Maurice Vigneau of Baie Verte, the majority of the Acadians in Georgia received a passport from the governor Reynolds.<ref>(Faragher 386)</ref> Without such passports, travel between borders was not allowed.<ref>Farragher 389</ref> As soon as the Acadians bearing passports from Georgia reached the Carolinas, the colonies granted passports to the Acadians in their territories.<ref>Farragher 386</ref> Along with these papers, the Acadians were given two vessels.<ref>Rieder 2</ref> After running aground numerous times in the ships, some Acadians returned to the Bay of Fundy.<ref name="Arsenault 157"/> Along the way, they were captured and imprisoned.<ref>LeBlanc, Dudley J. ''The True Story of the Acadians'' (1932), p. 48</ref> Only 900 managed to return to Acadia, less than half of those who had begun the voyage.<ref name="Arsenault 157"/> Others also tried to return home. The South Carolina Gazette reported that in February, about thirty Acadians fled the island to which they were confined and escaped their pursuers.<ref>Doughty 140</ref> Alexandre Broussard, brother of the famed resistance leader Joseph Broussard, dit Beausoleil, was among them.<ref>Arsenault 160</ref> About a dozen are recorded to have returned to Acadia after an overland journey of 1,400 leagues.<ref>Faragher 388</ref>
France and Britain
Mémorial des Acadiens de Nantes
Fate of the Acadians
Louisiana
Acadians left France, under the influence of Henri Peyroux de la Coudreniere, to settle in Louisiana, which was then a colony of Spain.<ref>Winzerling 91</ref> The British did not deport Acadians to Louisiana.<ref>Doughty 150</ref>
Louisiana was transferred to the Spanish government in 1762.<ref>Winzerling 59</ref> Because of the good relations between France and Spain, and their common Catholic religion, some Acadians chose to take oaths of allegiance to the Spanish government.<ref name="Arsenault 203">Arsenault 203</ref> Soon the Acadians comprised the largest ethnic group in Louisiana.<ref>Faragher 436</ref> They settled first in areas along the Mississippi River, then later in the Atchafalaya Basin, and in the prairie lands to the west—a region later renamed Acadiana. During the 19th century, as Acadians reestablished their culture, "Acadian" was elided locally into "Cajun".
Some were sent to colonize places as diverse as French Guiana and the Falkland Islands under the direction of Louis Antoine de Bougainville; these latter efforts were unsuccessful. Others migrated to places like Saint-Domingue, and fled to New Orleans after the Haitian Revolution. The Louisiana population contributed to the founding of the modern Cajun population. (The French word "Acadien" evolved to "Cadien", then to "Cajun".)<ref name="Calloway161_164">Calloway, pp. 161–164</ref>
Nova Scotia
On July 11, 1764, the British government passed an order-in-council to permit Acadians to legally return to British territories, provided that they take an unqualified oath of allegiance. Some Acadians returned to Nova Scotia (which included present-day New Brunswick). Under the deportation orders, Acadian land tenure had been forfeited to the British crown and the returning Acadians no longer owned land. Beginning in 1760 much of their former land was distributed under grant to the New England Planters. The lack of available farmland compelled many Acadians to seek out a new livelihood as fishermen on the west coast of Nova Scotia, known as the French Shore.<ref>Bona Arsenault, p326.</ref> The British authorities scattered other Acadians in small groups along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It was not until the 1930s, with the advent of the Acadian co-operative movements, that the Acadians became less economically disadvantaged.<ref name="The Canadian Encyclopedia p6">The Canadian Encyclopedia, Hurtig Publishers, p6.</ref>
Historical comparisons
Thomas Jefferys (1710-71) was a royal geographer to
King George III and a London publisher of maps. He is well known for his maps of North America, produced to meet commercial demand, but also to support British territorial claims against the French. This map presents Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island in the wake of the “great upheaval”.
Commemorations
In 1847, American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a long, narrative poem about the expulsion of the Acadians called Evangeline.<ref>Calhoun, Charles C. ''Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life''. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004: 189. ISBN 0-8070-7026-2.</ref> The Evangeline Oak is a tourist attraction in Louisiana. The song "Acadian Driftwood", recorded in 1975 by The Band, portrays the Great Upheaval and the displacement of the Acadian people.<ref>{{cite web|title=Acadian Driftwood|publisher=The Band|url=http://theband.hiof.no/lyrics/acadian_driftwood.html|accessdate=2011-07-15}}</ref> Antonine Maillet wrote a novel, called Pélagie-la-Charrette, about the aftermath of the Great Upheaval. It was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1979. Grand-Pré Park is a National Historic Site of Canada situated in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, and preserved as a living monument to the expulsion. It contains a memorial church and a statue of Evangeline, the subject of Longfellow's poem. The song "1755" was composed by American Cajun fiddler and singer Dewey Balfa and performed on his 1987 album Souvenirs, and later covered by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys on their 1994 live album.
In December 2003, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, representing Queen Elizabeth II (Canada's head of state), acknowledged the expulsion but did not apologize for it. She designated July 28 as "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gov.ns.ca/acadien/en/lacadie-celebrations.htm|publisher=Government of Nova Scotia|title=Acadian Affairs|accessdate=2011-07-15}}</ref> This proclamation, officially the Royal Proclamation of 2003, closed one of the longest cases in the history of the British courts, initiated in 1760 when the Acadian representatives first presented their grievances of forced dispossession of land, property and livestock. December 13, the date on which the Duke William sank, is commemorated as Acadian Remembrance Day.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.journalpioneer.com/Living/Faith/2009-12-09/article-1397141/Acadian-Remembrance-Day-Dec.-13/1|work=The Journal Pioneer|title=Acadian Remembrance Day Dec. 13|accessdate=2011-07-15|date=2009-12-09}}</ref> There is a museum dedicated to Acadian history and culture, with a detailed reconstruction of the Great Uprising, in Bonaventure, Quebec.<ref>"Musée Acadien du Québec". Musée Acadien du Québec. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
General references
- English
- Brian D. Carroll, "Savages in the Service of Empire: Native American Soldiers in Gorham's Rangers, 1744–1762," New England Quarterly 85, no. 3 (Sept. 2012): 383–429.
- Brenda Dunn, A History of Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal 1605–1800, Halifax: Nimbus, 2004 ISBN 1-55109-740-0
- Griffiths, E. From Migrant to Acadian. McGill-Queen's University Press. 2005 ISBN 0-7735-2699-4
- Christopher Hodson. The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History (Oxford University Press; 2012) 260 pages
- John G. Reid. The 'Conquest' of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, an Aboriginal Constructions University of Toronto Press. 2004 ISBN 0-8020-3755-0
- Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest. University of Pennsylvania. 2001 ISBN 0-8122-1869-8
- Faragher, John Mack (2005). A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, New York: W.W. Norton, 562 pages ISBN 0-393-05135-8
- Jobb, Dean (2005). The Acadians: A people's story of exile and triumph, Mississauga (Ont.): John Wiley & Sons Canada, 296 p. ISBN 0-470-83610-5
- Johnston, A.J.B. The Acadian Deportation in a Comparative Context: An Introduction. Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society: The Journal. 2007. pp. 114–131
- Moody, Barry (1981). The Acadians, Toronto: Grolier. 96 pages ISBN 0-7172-1810-4
- Patterson, Stephen E. 1744–1763: Colonial Wars and Aboriginal Peoples. In Phillip Buckner and John Reid (eds.) The Atlantic Region to Conderation: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1994. pp. 125–155
- Rosemary Neering, Stan Garrod (1976). Life in Acadia, Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside. ISBN 0-88902-180-5
- Belliveau, Pierre (1972). French neutrals in Massachusetts; the story of Acadians rounded up by soldiers from Massachusetts and their captivity in the Bay Province, 1755–1766, Boston : Kirk S. Giffen, 259 p.
- Griffiths, N.E.S. (1969). The Acadian deportation: deliberate perfidy or cruel necessity?, Toronto: Copp Clark Pub. Co., 165 p.
- Doughty, Arthur G. (1916). The Acadian Exiles. A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline, Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. 178 pages
- Government of Nova Scotia transcripts from Journal of John Winslow
- Text of Charles Lawrence's orders to Captain John Handfield - Halifax 11 August 1755
- Thomas Atkins. Acadian French. Selections from the public documents of the province of Nova Scotia (1869)
- Thomas Atkins. Papers related to the Forced Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia (1755-1768)
- French
- LeBlanc, Ronnie-Gilles, ed. (2005). Du Grand dérangement à la Déportation : nouvelles perspectives historiques, Moncton: Chaire d'études acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 465 p.
- Arsenault, Bona and Pascal Alain (2004). Histoire des Acadiens, Saint-Laurent, Québec: Éditions Fides, 502 p.
- Sauvageau, Robert (1987). Acadie : La guerre de Cent Ans des français d'Amérique aux Maritimes et en Louisiane 1670–1769 Paris: Berger-Levrault
- Gaudet, Placide (1922). Le Grand Dérangement : sur qui retombe la responsabilité de l'expulsion des Acadiens, Ottawa: Impr. de l'Ottawa Printing Co.
- d'Arles, Henri (1918). La déportation des Acadiens, Québec: Imprimerie de l'Action sociale
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