Jean-Louis Le Loutre

Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre (September 26, 1709 – September 30, 1772) was a priest and missionary. He is renoun for being a controversial figure of Maritime Canadian History prior to the Expulsion of the Acadians. Some argue that he was a villian to the Acadians, while others argue that he was a leader of the Acadian resistance to Protestant occupation of Acadia, which eventually lead to the deportation.

France

He was born to Jean-Maurice Le Loutre Després, a paper maker, and Catherine Huet, the daughter of a paper maker in the parish of Saint-Matthieu in Morlaix, France. He entered the Séminaire du Saint-Esprit in Paris in 1730. By this time he had already lost both of his parents. When he completed his training, he transferred to the Séminaire des Missions Étrangères in March 1737 as he intended to serve the church abroad.

Ile Royal

He sailed for Acadia soon after this and arrived in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia that autumn, along with others who would settle in Acadia. Le Loutre was to be allowed to replace Abbé de Saint-Vincent, a missionary to the Mi'kmaqs and live in Shubenacadie. Before doing so, he spent time at Malagawatch, Île Royale(now Cape Breton Island) to learn the Mi'kmaq language.

Shubenacadie

On September 22, 1738, Le Loutre left for Shubenacadie where he ministered the Mi'kmaq and the French. He built chapels for the Mi'kmaq.

During this time period, the New Englanders had been burning, pillaging and taking prisones from Acadian communities over the previous hundred years, which undoubtedly lead the Acadians to resist New England domination. While many Acadians continued to trade with and make money off of the the protestants, many clearly did not want to be ruled by them. Acadians knew the fate of Irish Catholics at the hands of the British government.

Siege of Annapolis Royal (1744)

Le Loutre was involved in the French siege of the British capital of Acadia, Annapolis Royal. From Canseau (Canso), Duvivier hastily dispatched a letter to Le Loutre asking him to keep watch on the route from Annapolis Royal to Minas, the place where they were to join forces, and François Du Pont Duvivier noted in his journal the value of Le Loutre’s presence during the siege of Annapolis Royal in September. The siege was unsuccessful.

Fall of Louisburg (1745)

When the Fortress of Louisbourg fell to Anglo-American forces in 1745, the New Englanders at Île Royale tried to seize Le Loutre by telling him that he would be in danger elsewhere. Le Loutre, instead, went to Canada (Québec) to consult with authorities, accompanied by five Micmacs. He left a week later with instructions that made him a military leader whereby through him the French government was able to work with the Mi'kmaq militia in Acadia.

Le Loutre had also been given instructions to receive at Baie of Chibouctou (now Halifax Harbour) the squadron under the leadership of Duc d’Anville that France was sending in 1746 to take back Acadia. Only he and Maurice de La Come knew how to identify the ships of the fleet. The British had a price on the head of Le Loutre and La Come would replace Le Loutre’s duties if anything were to happen to him. The fleet was delayed and many ships had been sunk, and when Le Loutre went to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia to meet with a ship but this did not happen because the squadron had to return to France. Le Loutre sailed to France on La Sirène.

Le Loutre returned to Acadia in 1749 on La Chabanne with Charles Des Herbiers de La Ralière who was the new governor of Île Royale, which had been returned to France. He had made two previous attempts to return but ended up in British prisons, after which he concealed his identity by using the names of Rosanvern and Huet.

Beauséjour

Fort Beausejour and Cathedral (c.1755)

Acadia had changed since his departure. Louisbourg was with the French again, and the British had founded Halifax. The ministry set up headquarters at Pointe-à-Beauséjour (near Sackville, New Brunswick) because Shubenacadie was too close to the British in Halifax.

Raids on Protestant Settlers

Upon his arrival, Le Loutre worked with the Mi'kmaq to prevent the expansion of protestant settlements by harassing British settlers. He paid 1800 pounds for 18 British scalps. As with most military operations, Le Loutre was forced to maintain disciplin among some of the Acadians who did not heed his warnings of the protestant occupation.

The practice of the New England and New France military making aboriginal allies in their struggle was common. So to was the practice of the aborginal allies engaging in warfare by themselves to prevent large scale war fare between New England and New France. Le Loutre wrote to the minister of the Marine: “As we cannot openly oppose the English ventures, I think that we cannot do better than to incite the Indians to continue warring on the English; my plan is to persuade the Indians to send word to the English that they will not permit new settlements to be made in Acadia. …I shall do my best to make it look to the English as if this plan comes from the Indians and that I have no part in it.” Attacks were made by the Mi'kmaq such as the "Dartmouth Massacre" (1751) and the Raid on Halifax that killed Governor Edward Cornwallis' gardener.

The governor of Nova Scotia, Edward Cornwallis, ordered Le Loutre and the Mi'kmaq killed. Rewards were offered for their scalps. Against Le Loutre's direction, Cornwallis ordered the Acadians to stay in the Cobequid for fear of their gathering strength in present day New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island as well as wanting to stop their support of Louisburg.

Exodus from the Cobequid

Fort Beausejour and Cathedral (1755)

With the founding of Halifax (1749) and the protestant occupation of Nova Scotia intensifying, Le Loutre lead the Acadians who lived in the Cobequid to Catholic occupied present day New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Le Loutre tried to establish newcomers from France for three years but soon found it difficult to supply the new settlers, the Indians, and the garrisons at Fort Beauséjour and Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island) with food and other necessities. While there is a report that some Acadians were sad to leave their homelands when they arrived on Prince Edward Island (1750), the fact that so many did leave suggests that they still thought that leaving was their best option. Upon the deportation of the Acadians from Nova Scotia (1755), they may have concluded they made the right choice.

Some settlers wanted to return to their former lands and Le Loutre felt that people at the warehouse were not doing their job as there were supplies in the warehouse. Le Loutre went to Quebec in 1752 to meet with authorities but was not satisfied with his representation and so he returned to Acadia, entrusted his Micmacs to Abbé Jean Manach, and left for France in December 1752.

Le Loutre went to the courts in France and wrote up reports about how the French and British lands in Acadia should be divided so that Acadians would not have to be divided between two governances. He also got money from the courts to build dykes in Acadia so that low-lying lands could be protected from the tides and land could be used for raising cattle and growing crops so that there would no longer be problems of starvation. He was granted other money sources for his mission and sailed to Acadia with other Missionaries in 1753.

Siege of Beaubassin

Beaubassin/ Fort Beausejour Cathedral Bell

Upon the New Englanders about the lay siege to Beaubassin (1750), Le Loutre ordered the village burned so that it could not be used as a base from which to attack Beausejour. Le Loutre saved the bell from Notre Dame d’Assumption Church in Beaubassin and put it into the Cathedral he had built beside Fort Beausejour (1753-55). Upon the imminent fall of Fort Beausejour, Le Loutre burned the Cathedral to the ground to prevent it from falling in the hands of the New Englanders. Before burning the Cathedral, Le Loutre had the bell saved.

Le Loutre's defeat and the fall of Fort Beauséjour marked the beginning the Deportation of the Acadians.

Imprisonment

Le Loutre knew he was in danger and escaped to Quebec through the woods. In the late summer, he returned to Louisbourg where he sailed to France. The ship that he was on was seized by the hands of the British in September and Le Loutre was taken prisoner and was not released until 8 years later, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763). He tried to help deported Acadians settle in lands such as Morlaix, Saint-Malo, and Poitou. However, on the trip to Poitou to show some Acadians the land, Le Loutre died at Nantes on September 30, 1772. Finally, Le Loutre left in his will his worldly possessions to the displaced Acadians.

Controversy

The issue of Le Loutre's relationship to the Acadians has created much debate. Most English speaking historians have demonized him and stated that Le Loutre was an enemy to the Acadians, while most french speaking historians have defined his as a leader of the Acadian resistance to the protestant occumpation of Nova Scotia/ Acadie.

Mi'kmaq scholars defined Le Loutre as an ally to the Mi'kmaq and the Acadians. They point to the undisputed close connections that existed between the Mi'kmaq and the Acadians. A significant part of this connection was their shared religion, Catholicism. Clearly, the Mi'kmaq community supported Le Loutre's efforts As a result, historians argue that it seems likely that both Acadians and Mi'kmaq were both committed to their religion and following their direction of their religious leaders. These historians give less emphsis on British reports of imprisoned Acadians accounts that they were threatened by the Mi'kmaq to either fight the New Englanders or threatened to leave their lands. The histoians emphasis that it seems reasonable that the captured Acadians would blame the Mi'kmaq to try and save themselves rather than risk the fate of taking responsiblity in the face of their New England captors.

References

Footnotes

Links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• History of Nova Scotia - Abbé Le Loutre
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Louis-Joseph Le Loutre" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.