Fort Beauséjour

Fort Beauséjour
Aulac, New Brunswick
View of Fort Beauséjour showing the foundation of the Officers Quarters in the foreground, the modern (1930s) museum in the middle ground, and Cumberland Basin in the background
Type	Fortress
Site information
Controlled by	France(1751-1755), United Kingdom(1755-1835), Parks Canada(1926-present)
Site history
Built	1751
In use	1751-1835

Fort Beauséjour, (also known as Fort Cumberland), is a National Historic Site officially known as Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site. It is located approximately eight kilometres east of the town of Sackville on a ridge overlooking the Tantramar Marshes in Aulac, New Brunswick, Canada. Fort Beausejour is famous for the Battle of Fort Beausejour, which was both the final act in the long fight between Britain and France for control of Acadia and the opening act of the final struggle between the two great empires for North America itself. The fort was renamed Fort Cumberland by the British and was involved in the Battle of Fort Cumberland during the opening stages of the American Revolution.

Migration to Beausejour

The region comprising the Tantramar Marshes on the Isthmus of Chignecto had been settled by French colonists during the 17th and 18th centuries. They gave the name Beaubassin to this part of Acadia. Following the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the part of Acadia which is known today as peninsular Nova Scotia changed from French to British control, becoming the fourteenth British colony on the eastern seaboard.

The boundary between Nova Scotia and Acadia were not clear, although it was generally understood to be in the vicinity of Beaubassin. As tensions between France and Britain escalated in the 1740s, the territorial dispute over colonial limits became an important issue.

Recent scholars (see Hand for example) suggest that the French were entrenched on Beauséjour Ridge (present-day Aulac Ridge, site of Fort Beausejour) as early as 1750. In June of that year, a British Army expeditionary force under Major Charles Lawrence arrived below the ridge to survey matters. Finding a landing impossible, given the presence of French troops, the flotilla moved further up the basin to the village of Beaubassin, on a second ridge immediately east of the Missaguash River. When it was clear that Lawrence intended to land, the local priest, Abbé Jean-Louis le Loutre ordered the village burnt to deny the British any profit from its seizure. The displaced Acadians took refuge with the French encampment on Beausejour Ridge.

Finding his troops too few and ill-prepared to build a fort or to launch an attack on the French, Lawrence ordered a retreat. He returned in September 1750 with greater numbers, and Le Loutre was joined in resisting the British by Acadian militia leader Joseph Broussard. The British troops defeated the resistance and began construction of a palisade fort near the site of the ruined Acadian village of Beaubassin. It overlooked the Missaguash River, which they believed to be the historic dividing line between Acadia and Nova Scotia following the Treaty of Utrecht. The work on the fort proceeded rapidly and the facility was completed within weeks.

Construction of Fort Beausejour

Fort Beausejour and Cathedral (c.1755)

France responded to the construction of Fort Lawrence in November 1750 when the Governor of New France, Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière, Marquis de la Jonquière, issued new orders that a star-shaped fortress be built on Beauséjour Ridge. Work on the French fortress did not begin until the following spring, but by April 1751 construction was underway. Construction was slow, and the fort was yet incomplete when attacked in 1755 (Hand, 22). It was nonetheless a more substantial construction than Fort Lawrence, given its earthworks. In 1753, Le Loutre and the Acadians began to build a Cathedral just outside the fort.

At about the same time, two satellite forts, Fort Gaspareaux and Fort Menagoueche, were established to shore up the French defenses of Acadia. For four years, Fort Beauséjour and Fort Lawrence kept watch across the frontier between French and British territory on the Isthmus of Chignecto until the outbreak of the French and Indian War.

Battle of Fort Beauséjour (Seven Year's War)

See main article at Battle of Fort Beauséjour.

File:Camp of the British 43rd Regiment during the siege of Fort Beausejour, June 1755.jpg

Camp of the British 43rd Regiment during the siege of Fort Beausejour, June 1755

Fort Beausejour

Fort Beauséjour was among the northernmost and easternmost of a series of French forts in North America built along the Mississippi and Ohio valleys and in the Great Lakes to contain British expansion into French territory. These defensive works are believed to have contributed to the "claustrophobic feeling" that European-American colonists on the eastern seaboard complained of in being prevented westward expansion from the Appalachian Mountains. Their inability to expand westward contributed to British tensions and helped lead to the French and Indian War. The result was the downfall of France's colonial ambitions in North America.

On June 4, 1755 the British conquest of all of France's North American territory began when a force of British regulars and New England militia attacked Fort Beauséjour from Fort Lawrence under command of Lt. Col. Robert Monckton. Again, Le Loutre was joined in resisting the British by Acadian militia leader Joseph Broussard. The British-led force took control of Fort Beauséjour by June 16, 1755, after which they changed its name to Fort Cumberland. French priest Jean-Louis Le Loutre's last act of defiance was to burn the local Cathedral so that it would not fall into the hands of the British. For leading the resistance against the British occupation of Acadia, he was captured and imprisoned for eight years.

The Expulsion of the Acadians

In the ensuing months, British forces attempted to persuade Acadians living in the Beaubassin region to sign an oath of allegiance to the British Crown; however the Acadians refused, stating that they preferred to stay neutral. While Jean-Louis Le Loutre and Acadian militia leader Joseph Broussard escaped, some of the remaining captured Acadians reported that they were reluctant to participate in the defense of Fort Beausejour. The British used this fact against them and in August 1755, they began expelling Acadians under the orders of Charles Lawrence, now Governor of Nova Scotia. He was the military officer who had presided over construction of Fort Lawrence in 1750.

This event was the start of what would come to be known as the Great Upheaval (le Grand Dérangement) of Acadian society. It commenced with the Acadians in the Beaubassin region. British forces burnt Acadian homes at Beaubassin and the vicinity of the fort to prevent their return. As the British army had relocated to the more substantial facility at Fort Cumberland, they also burned the abandoned Fort Lawrence, on October 12, 1756. Fort Cumberland became one of four sites in which Acadians were imprisoned during the nine years of the expulsion. (The other sites were Fort Edward (Nova Scotia); Fort Frederick, Saint John, New Brunswick, and Fort Charlotte, Georges Island, Halifax.)

There was Acadian and Mi'kmaq resistance to the Expulsion. In the early spring of 1756, a band of Acadian and Mi'kmaq partisans ambushed a small party of New England soldiers cuttng wood for Fort Cumberland, killing and mutiliating nine men. In the April of 1757, after raiding Fort Edward (Nova Scotia), a band of Acadian and Mi'kmaq partisans also raided Fort Cumberland, killing and scalping two men and taking two prisoners. In the winter of 1759, five British soldiers on patrol were ambused while crossing a bridge near Fort Cumberland. they were scalped and their bodies mutilated.

Battle of Fort Cumberland (American Revolutionary War)

See main article at Battle of Fort Cumberland.

Under its new name of Fort Cumberland, the Beauséjour Ridge fort became a strategically important British military emplacement as it guarded the overland route to peninsular Nova Scotia and also the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy. Following the Seven Years' War, the British renamed all of Acadia as Nova Scotia, until parts were split off as separate colonies prior to and following the American Revolutionary War.

In 1776, during the early part of the American Revolutionary War, Fort Cumberland and its British garrison repelled a rebel attack from local guerrillas led by the American sympathizer Jonathan Eddy. This event had historical significance as the imperial loyalties of some Nova Scotian settlers (especially recent planter's) were suspect; and if Fort Cumberland had fallen, Nova Scotia might have joined in the revolutionary effort.

Reoccupation (War of 1812)

Fort Cumberland was abandoned in the late 1780's, but with the resumption of hostilities with the American states in 1812, the fort was reoccupied and refurbished. Although it did not see any action during this conflict, the presence of a British garrison in the fort did serve as a deterrent to attack. Fort Cumberland was finally declared surplus by the British military in 1835, and lay abandoned until declared a National Historic Site by Canada in 1926.

Commemorations

• Father of Canadian Poetry Charles G.D. Roberts wrote novel "The Raid from Beausejour"
• C.A.M Edwards wrote the novel "Brook Watson of Beausejour". Ryerson Press. Toronto. 1957.
• National Historic Site

Affiliations

The Museum is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada.

References

Primary Texts

• Chris M. Hand, The Siege of Fort Beausejour 1755, 2004, Fredercton: Goose Lane Editions and the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project. ISBN 0-86492-377-5.
• Bernard Pothier, Battle for the Chignecto Forts, 1995, Toronto: Balimuir.
• Dr. John Clarence Webster, The Forts of Chignecto, 1930, self published.
• Dr. John Clarence Webster, Thomas Pynchon: The Spy of Beausejour, 1937, Sackville: Tribune Press.
• Dr. John Clarence Webster, The Building of Fort Lawrence in Chignecto, 1941, Saint John: New Brunswick Museum.
• Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, 2000, New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40642-5.
• Ernest Clarke, The Siege of Fort Cumberland, 1776, 1995. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 0-7735-1323-X.
• Ross, Sally (translator), The Fort of Beauséjour, 1993, Les Éditions d'Acadie, Moncton, New Brunswick.
• Schmeisser, Barbara M., Yorkshire Immigrants in Search of a Better Life, 1772-1775, 2001, Fort Beauséjour NHS bulletin, Parks Canada.
• Parks Canada, Fort Beauséjour National Historic Park brochure, 2001
• Parks Canada, Memories of the Marsh: Burials at Fort Beauséjour NHS brochure, undated (2001 ?).
• There were various British soldiers who kept journals of the deportation from Beaubassin such as Jeremiah Bancroft.

External links

• Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site - official site