Expulsion of the Acadians

St. John River Campaign: Raid on Grimrose (present day Gagetown, New Brunswick). This is the only contemporaneous image of the Expulsion of the Acadians

The Expulsion of the Acadians (also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion, The Deportation, the Acadian Expulsion, Le Grand Dérangement) was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from present day Canadian Maritime provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island (an area also known as Acadie). The Expulsion occurred immediately following Father Le Loutre's War and with the beginning of the French and Indian War.

The British Conquest of Acadia happened in 1710. Over the next forty-five years, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During this time period, Acadians participated in various militia operations against the British and maintained vital supply lines to the French fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour. During the French and Indian War, the British sought to neutralize any military threat posed by the Acadians and to interrupt the vital supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by deporting them from the area.

Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been peaceful and those who rebelled against the British occupation, the expulsion of all the Acadians was ordered by British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council. In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies. During the second wave they were deported to England and France (from where some Acadians migrated to Louisiana). Many Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Quebec, the unsettled North Shore of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. During the second wave of the expulsion many of these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported. The deportation led to the deaths of thousands of Acadians primarily by disease and drowning. One historian compared this event to a contemporary ethnic cleansing while other historians have suggested the event is comparable with other deportations in history.

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the historic event famous through his poem about the plight of the fictional character Evangeline. Actual iconic Acadians who lived during the deportation include Noel Doiron and Joseph Broussard ("Beausoleil").

Historical context

Main articles: French and Indian Wars, French and Indian War, and Father Le Loutre's War

The Acadian removal occurred during the French and Indian War, which was the fourth and final of the French and Indian Wars between the French and the English for hegemony of North America north of the Gulf of Mexico. After the initial Conquest of Acadia, during Queen Anne's War, Catholic Acadians remained the dominant population in Acadia for the next fifty years. Their allegiance to the British was determined largely by how close they lived to the capital Annapolis Royal. The closer the Acadians were to Louisbourg, the more their resistance to the British was evident.

Acadian Political Resistance

After the British officially gained control of Acadia in 1713, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath to be British subjects. Instead, they negotiated a conditional oath that promised neutrality. Many Acadians might have signed an unconditional oath to the British monarchy had the circumstances been better, while other Acadians did not sign because they were clearly anti-British. For the Acadians who might have signed an unconditional oath, there were numerous reasons why they did not. The difficulty was partly religious, in that the British monarch was the head of the (Protestant) Church of England. Another significant issue was that an oath might commit male Acadians to fight against France during wartime. A related concern was whether their Mi'kmaq neighbours might perceive this as acknowledging the British claim to Acadia rather than the Mi'kmaq. As a result, signing an unconditional oath might have put Acadian villages in dangers of attack from Mi'kmaq.

Some Acadians' unwillingness to sign an unconditional oath to become British subjects reflected their resistance to any British rule. Various historians have observed that many Acadians were labeled "neutral" when they were not. The Acadians either ignored these demands for an unconditional oath or attempted to negotiate the terms by asking that they be exempted from taking up arms against their former countrymen during any event of war between Britain and France. After King George's War in 1744, many English-speakers began calling the Acadians "French neutral," and that label would remain in common use through the 1750s. For many, however, this term was used as a sarcastic term of derision. This stance led to the Acadians becoming known at times as the "neutral French". In 1749, Governor Cornwallis again asked the Acadians to take the oath. Although unsuccessful, he took no drastic action. The following governor, Peregrine Hopson, continued the conciliatory policy for the Acadians.

Another example of political resistance was the Acadian Exodus from mainland Nova Scotia prior to the expulsion. From 1750–55, there was massive Acadian migration out of British-occupied mainland Nova Scotia and into French-occupied New Brunswick, PEI and Cape Breton. While some Acadians were forced to leave, for other Acadians leaving British-occupied territory for French-occupied territory was an act of resistance to the British occupation. On one occasion, for example, a British naval patrol intercepted Acadians in a vessel making their way to Ile St. Jean and an Acadian passenger declared "they chose rather to quit their lands and estates than possess them upon the terms propos'd by the English governor."

Another example of political resistance was Acadian refusal to trade with the British. By 1754, no Acadian produce was reaching the Halifax market. When British merchants tried to buy directly from Acadians, they were refused. Acadians refused to supply Fort Edward with any firewood. Lawrence saw the need to neutralize the Acadian military threat. As well, to defeat Louisbourg, the British answer was to destroy the base of supply by deporting the Acadians.

Acadian and Native Armed Resistance

File:Joseph Broussard Beausoleil acadian HRoe.jpg

Joseph Broussard ("Beausoleil"). Artist Herb Roe

By the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians, there was already a long history of Acadian, Mi’kmaq and Maliseet resistance to the British occupation of Acadia – both politically and militarily. The Mi'kmaq and the Acadians were allies through their religious connection to Catholicism and through numerous inter-marriages. The Mi'kmaq held the military strength in Acadia even after the conquest of 1710. They primarily resisted the British occupation of Acadia and were joined in their efforts on numerous occasions by Acadians. The military conflicts involving New France and its native allies against New England and its native allies involved the killing of men, women, children and infants on both sides of the conflict. This "frontier warfare" extended into Acadia during King Georges War with the arrival of the Rangers from New England. Examples of Mi'kmaq, Acadians and Maliseet engaging in frontier warfare are their raids on protestant British settlements of Dartmouth and Lunenburg when they were first established. The escalation of this type of warfare eventually led to the indiscriminate removal of all Acadians – combatants and non-combatants – from Acadia.

Before the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, Acadians fought against the English occupation. While many Acadians traded with the New England protestants, they seem to have been reluctant to be ruled by them. During King William's War, the crews of the very successful French privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste were primarily Acadian. The Acadians resisted during the Raid on Chignecto (1696). During Queen Anne's War, Mi’kmaq and Acadians resisted during the Raid on Grand Pré, Piziquid and Chignecto in 1704. Acadians joined French privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste as crew members in his victories over many British vessels. The Acadians also assisted the French in protecting the capital in the Siege of Port Royal (1707) and the final Conquest of Acadia. The Acadians and Mi’kmaq were also successful in the Battle of Bloody Creek (1711).

Charles Lawrence

During Dummer's War, the Maliseet raided numerous vessels on the Bay of Fundy while the Mi'kmaq engaged in the Raid on Canso, Nova Scotia (1723). In the latter engagement, the Mi'kmaq were aided by Acadians. During King George's War, Abbe Jean-Louis Le Loutre led many efforts which involved both Acadians and Mi’kmaq to recapture the capital such as the Siege of Annapolis Royal (1744). During this Siege, French officer Marin had taken British prisoners and stopped with them further up the bay at Cobequid. While at Cobequid, an Acadian said that the French soldiers should have "left their [the English] carcasses behind and brought their skins." Le Loutre was also joined by prominent Acadian resistance leader Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil). Broussard and other Acadians were involved in supporting the French soldiers in the Battle of Grand Pré.

During Father Le Loutre’s War, the conflict continued. The Mi'kmaq attacked New England Rangers in the Siege of Grand Pre and Battle at St. Croix. Upon the founding of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Broussard and the Mi'kmaq conducted numerous raids on the village, such as the Raid on Dartmouth (1751), to try to stop the Protestants migration into Nova Scotia. (Similarly, during the French and Indian War, Mi’kmaq, Acadians and Maliseet also engaged in numerous raids on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia to stop the migration, such as the Raid on Lunenburg (1756).) Le Loutre and Broussard also worked together to resist the British occupation of Chignecto (1750) and then later they fought together with Acadians in the Battle of Beausejour (1755). (As early as the summer of 1751, La Valiere reported, approximately 250 Acadians had already enrolled in the local militia at Fort Beausejour.) Father Le Loutre's War had done much to create the condition of total war; British civilians had not been spared, and, as Lawrence saw it, Acadian civilians had provided intelligence, sanctuary, and logistical support while others actually fought in armed conflict.

When Charles Lawrence took over the post following Hopson’s return to England, he took a stronger stance. He was not only a government official but a military leader for the region. Lawrence came up with a military solution for the forty-five years of an unsettled British conquest of Acadia. The French and Indian War (and Seven Years' War in Europe) began in 1754. Lawrence's primary objectives in Acadia were to defeat the French fortifications at Beausejour and Louisbourg. The British saw many Acadians as a military threat in their allegiance to the French and Mi'kmaq. The British also wanted to interrupt the Acadian supply lines to Fortress Louisbourg, which, in turn, supplied the Mi'kmaq.

British Deportation Campaigns

Bay of Fundy (1755)

Grand Pré: Deportation of the Acadians.

Main article: Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755)

The first wave of the expulsion began with the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) during the French and Indian War. The British ordered the Expulsion of the Acadians from Acadia after the Battle of Beausejour (1755). The Campaign started at Chignecto and then quickly moved to Grand Pre, Piziquid (Falmouth/ Windsor, Nova Scotia) and finally Annapolis Royal.

Cape Sable Island

On Cape Sable Island, in 1756, Major Preble and his New England troops raided the island and captured 72 men, women and children.

In the late summer of 1758, Major Henry Fletcher led the 35th regiment and a company of Gorham's Rangers to Cape Sable. He first cordoned off the cape and then swarmed over it. 100 Acadians and Father Jean Baptistee de Gray surrendered, while about 130 Acadians and 7 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, in command of two men-of-war and transport ships with 325 soldiers to deport more Acadians. On October 28, the women and children were sent to Georges Island. The men remained behind and were forced to help the troops destroy their village. On October 31, they were also sent to Halifax.

In the spring of 1759, Joseph Gorham and his rangers arrived to take prisoner the remaining 151 Acadians. On June 29th the prisoners also arrived at Georges Island.

Ile St. Jean and Ile Royale

Main article: Ile Saint-Jean Campaign

The second wave of the Deportation began with the defeat at the Siege of Louisbourg (1758). Thousands of Acadians were deported from Ile Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Ile Royale (Cape Breton). The Ile Saint-Jean Campaign saw the largest percentage of deaths of the Acadians deported. The single largest number of deaths during the Deportation happened with the sinking of the Duke William. By the time the second wave of the expulsion had begun the policy of relocating the Catholic, French-speaking coloinists to the thirteen coloines had been discarded as a failure. The Acadians were then deported directly to France.

In 1758, hundreds of Ile Royale Acadians fled to one of Boishebert's refugee camps south of Baie des Chaleurs.

Petitcodiac River Campaign

Main article: Petitcodiac River Campaign

On November 17, 1755, during the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) at Chignecto, George Scott took seven hundred troops and attacked twenty houses at Memramcook. They arrested the Acadians that remained and killed two hundred head of livestock. Many Acadians had tried to escape the Expulsion by retreating to St. John River, Petitcodiac River and the Miramichi in New Brunswick. The British cleared the Acadians from these areas in the St. John River Campaign, Petitcodiac River Campaign and the Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign (1758).

The Petitcodiac River Campaign was a series of British military operations from June to November 1758 to deport the Acadians that either lived along the Petitcodiac River or had taken refuge there from earlier deportation operations, such as the Ile Saint-Jean Campaign. Benoni Danks and Joseph Gorham's Rangers carried out the operation.

St. John River Campaign

Main article: St. John River Campaign

The St. John River Campaign when Colonel Robert Monckton led a force of 1150 British soldiers to destroy the Acadian settlements along the banks of the Saint John River (New Brunswick) until they reached the largest village of Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas (present day Fredericton, New Brunswick) in February 1759. Monckton was accompanied by New England Rangers led by Joseph Goreham, Captain Benoni Danks, Moses Hazen and George Scott (army officer).

The British started at the bottom of the river with raiding Kennebecais and Managoueche (City of St. John), where the British built Fort Frederick. Then they moved up the river and raided Grimross (Gagetown, New Brunswick), Jemseg, and finally they reached Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas.

Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign

Main article: Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign (1758)

Raid on Miramichi Bay - Burnt Church Village by Captain Hervey Smyth (1758)

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 were in command of 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 the Gaspé Bay arriving there on September 5. From there they dispatched troops to Miramichi Bay (Sept. 12), Grande-Rivière, Quebec and Sainte-Adelaide-de-Pabos (Sept. 13), and Saint-Maxime-du-Mont-Louis, Quebec (Sept. 14). Over the following weeks, Sir Charles Hardy took 4 Sloops or Schooners, destroyed about 200 fishing vessels and took about two hundred Acadians and Canadiens prisoners.

Restigouche

The Acadians also managed to continue to take refuge along the Baie des Chaleurs and the Restigouche River. On the Restigouche River, Boishébert also had a refugee camp at Petit-Rochelle (which was located at present-day Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec). The year after the Battle of Restigouche, in late 1761, Captain Roderick Mackenzie and his force captured over 330 Acadians at Boishebert's camp on the Restigouche River.

Halifax

Monument to Imprisoned Acadians on Georges Island, Bishops Landing, Halifax

After the French conquered Saint John's, Newfoundland in June 1762, the success galvanized both the Acadians and Natives. They began gathering in large numbers at various points throughout the province and behaving in a confident and, according to the British,"insolent fashion". Officials were especially alarmed when Natives concentrated close to the two principal towns in the province, Halifax and Lunenburg, where there were also large groups of Acadians. The government therefore tried yet another expulsion of 1300 people, an attempt to ship Acadians from the Halifax area to Boston. The expulsion was eventually aborted when the government of Massachuestts refused Acadians permission to land and sent them back to Halifax.

There were approximately 14,000 Acadians before the deportation and most of these were deported. Many Acadians escaped to Quebec, hid among the Mi'kmaq, or were able to hide in the countryside and avoid deportation until the situation settled down.

Acadian and Mi’kmaq Resistance

Marquis de Boishébert - Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot (1753)

With the Expulsion of the Acadians during the French and Indian War, the Mi’kmaq and Acadian resistance intensified. After the Expulsion began, much of the resistance was led by Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot. The Acadians and Mi’kmaq again engaged victoriously in the Battle of Petitcodiac (1755) and the Battle of Bloody Creek (1757). Acadians who were being deported from Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia on the ship Pembroke defeated the British crew and sailed to land. There was also resistance during the St. John River Campaign. Boishebert also ordered the Raid on Lunenburg (1756). In the spring of 1756, a wood gathering pary from Fort Monckton (former Fort Gaspareaux), was ambushed and nine of them were scalped.

In the April of 1757, a band of Acadian and Mi'kmaq raided a warehouse near Fort Edward, killing thirteen British soldiers and, after taking what provisions they could carry, setting fire to the building. A few days later, the same partisans also raided Fort Cumberland.

Deportation destinations

In the first wave 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; a large number migrated to the colonial port cities, where they established impoverished French-speaking Catholic neighbourhoods, exactly the sort of communities Britain's colonial officials had hoped to discourage. More worrisome still, a number of Acadians threatened to make their way north, to French-controlled regions including the St. John River, Ile Royale, the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Canada. As a result of the failure of sending the Acadians to the British Colonies, during the second wave of the Expulsion Acadians were deported to France.

Maryland

Approximately 1000 Acadians went to Maryland, residing in a Baltimore suburb now known as Frenchtown. The Irish Catholic were reported to have shown the Acadians Christian Charity, by taking some of the orphaned children into their homes.

Massachusetts

Destinations for deported Acadians

Colony	# of Exiles
Massachusetts	2000
Virginia	1100
Maryland	1000
Connecticut	700
Pennsylvania	500
North Carolina	500
South Carolina	500
Georgia	400
New York	250
TOTAL	6950
England	866
France	3,500
TOTAL	11, 316

Approximately two thousand Acadians disembarked at Massachusetts. Orphaned children were adopted and the local government provided housing and food for a year.

Connecticut

Connecticut prepared for the arrival of 700 Acadians. 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.”

Pennsylvania and Virginia

Pennsylvania accommodated 500 Acadians. Because they had arrived unexpected, the Acadians would remain in port on their vessels for several months before they were ready for them. Likewise, Virginia refused to accept the Acadians on grounds that no notice was given of their arrival. Eventually, 1100 Acadians were accommodated at Virginia.

Carolinas and Georgia

The Acadians who had offered the most resistance to the British - particularly those who were at Chignecto - were reported to have been sent the furthest south to the British colonies of the Carolinas and Georgia. About 1400 Acadians settled in these colonies. These Acadians were “subsidized” and put to work on plantations.

Under the leadership of Jacques Maurice Vigneau of Baie Verte, the majority of the Acadians in Georgia received a passport from the governor Renyolds. Without such passports travel between borders was not allowed. As soon as the Acadians from Georgia made it to the Carolinas bearing a passport, passports were granted to the Acadians in these colonies. Along with these issuances the Acadians were given two vessels. After running aground numerous times in the ships, some Acadians did make it back to the Bay of Fundy. Along the way many were captured and were imprisoned. Of those who made it to Acadia only 900 remained, less than half who had begun the voyage.

These were not the only Acadians to find their way back home. The South Carolina Gazette reported that in February about thirty Acadians fled the island to which they were confined and escaped their pursuers. Alexandre Broussard, brother of the famed resistance leader Joseph Broussard, dit Beausoleil, was among these Acadians. About a dozen are recorded to have returned to Acadia after an overland journey of 1,400 leagues. Such Acadians returning to the homeland are exceptions.

France and England

Mémorial des Acadiens de Nantes

After the Siege of Louisbourg (1758), the British began to deport the Acadians directly to France rather than to the British colonies. Many deported to France never reached their destination. Three hundred and sixty died when the transport ship Duke William sank as did the Violet and Ruby in 1758 en route from Île St.-Jean to France. About 3,000 eventually gathered in France’s port cities, many went to Nantes.

Others were sent to Britain by the Virginians as prisoners of war. They were then distributed to districts in segregated quarters in cities along England’s coast. These prisoners were eventually repatriated to France. This land, named by them La Grand’ Ligne, or the King’s Highway, gave no harvest for two years. Following the Treaty of Paris 1763 many Acadians were repatriated in Belle-Île-en-Mer; off the western coast of Brittany.

Louisiana

Many Acadians left France (under the influence of Henri Peyroux de la Coudreniere) to settle in Louisiana, which was then a colony of Spain. The British did not deport Acadians to Louisianna. The transfer of Louisiana to the Spanish government was done in 1762. Good relations between the two nations, and their common Catholic religion resulted in many Acadians choosing to take oaths of allegiance to the Spanish government. Soon the Acadians comprised the largest ethnic group within Louisiana. Acadians 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".

Historical comparisons

The Expulsion of the Acadians has been compared to many such military operations during eighteenth and nineteenth century. One historian compared it to the retreating Russians burning their own lands before Napoleon's dreadful invasion, or for General Sherman to destroy everything in his path as his unchallenged army drove its powerful way across Georgia in the American Civil War. Another historian compared the deportation to the fate the of the United Empire Loyalists who were deported from America to present-day Canada after the American Revolution. Another deportation was the Highland Clearances between 1762 and 1886. More recently, the closest parallel is the relocation of the Cherokees from the Southeast United States in the 1830s.

See also

• Great Britain in the Seven Years War
• France in the Seven Years War
• Tintamarre

References

English

• Brenda Dunn, A History of Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal 1605-1800, Halifax: Nimbus, 2004 ISBN 1551097400
• Griffiths, E. From Migrant to Acadian. McGill-Queen's University Press. 2005 ISBN 0773526994
• John Grenier. The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. Oklahoma University Press. 2008 ISBN 9780806138763
• John G. Reid. The 'Conquest' of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, an Aboriginal Constructions University of Toronto Press. 2004 ISBN 0802037550
• Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest. University of Pennsylvania. 2001 ISBN 0812218698
• 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, John. 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 0717218104
• *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 0889021805
• 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

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

External links

• Deportation Transports/ Ships - Departures and Arrivals
• Grand-Pré National Historic Site of Canada
• Acadian Ancestral Home – a repository for Acadian History & Genealogy
• Find-A-Grave article on a memorial to the Acadians in Georgia
• French and Indian War: Expulsion of the Acadians