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, Prince Edward Island, and also part of the U.S. state of Maine (an area also known as Acadie). The Expulsion (1755–1763) occurred during the French and Indian War. The Expulsion started by the British deporting Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies and then, after 1758, the British sent them to France. Approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported.

The British Conquest of Acadia happened in 1710. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, and allowed the Acadians to keep their lands. Over the next forty-five years, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During this period, Acadians participated in various militia operations against the British and maintained vital supply lines to the French fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour. The Acadian Expulsion was part of the military campaign that the New Englanders used to defeat New France. The British sought to eliminate future military threat posed by the Acadians and to permanently cut the supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by deporting Acadians from the area.

Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been peaceful and those who rebelled against the occupation, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered them expelled. British officer John Winslow raised his concern that officials were not distinguishing between Acadians who rebelled against the British and those who did not. 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 Acadians migrated to Louisiana. Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the un-colonized Northern part of Acadia, Isle Saint-Jean and Isle Royale. During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported. The deportation led to the deaths of thousands of Acadians primarily by disease and drowning when ships were lost.

John Mack Faragher compared this event to a contemporary ethnic cleansing, while "premier scholar of the Acadians" Naomi E. S. Griffiths and A.J.B Johnston have suggested the event is comparable with other deportations in history, not being an ethnic cleansing. In her "magnum opus" entitled From Migrant to Acadian, Griffiths writes that "the Acadian deportation, as a government action, was a pattern with other contemporary happenings." A.J.B Johnston argues that the evidence for the removal of the Acadians indicates the decision makers thought the Acadians were a military threat, therefore, the deportation of 1755 does not qualify as an ethnic cleansing. As the deportation continued after the Siege of Louisbourg (1758), Johnston identifies that it was a "cleansing", however, not an ethnic cleansing because the persecutors cared much more about religious adherence than about ethnicity.

The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the historic event in his poem about the plight of the fictional character Evangeline; it was widely popular and made the expulsion well known. Acadians who lived during the deportation include Noel Doiron and Joseph Broussard ("Beausoleil"), who became icons.

Historical context

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

Neutrality

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 while others did not. The Acadians who were sincerely neutral had reasons not to sign an unconditional oath. The Acadians who might have signed the oath had numerous reasons for refusal: The difficulty was partly religious, as the British monarch was the head of the (Protestant) Church of England and the Acadians were Catholic. They worried that signing the oath might commit male Acadians to fight against France during wartime. Third, they were concerned that signing the oath would be perceived by their Mi'kmaq neighbours as acknowledging the British claim to Acadia rather than that of the Mi'kmaq. To be seen as allies of the British might have put Acadian villages at risk of attack from Mi'kmaq.

There were other Acadians who were not neutral and did not sign an unconditional oath because they were anti-British. Various historians have observed that some Acadians were labelled "neutral" when they were not. Acadians either ignored the demands for an unconditional oath or attempted to negotiate the terms by asking to be exempted from taking up arms against their former countrymen during events of war between Britain and France.

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 and Wabanaki Confederacy 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. While Acadians remained the largest population, the Wabanaki Confederacy, particularly the Mi'kmaq, held the military strength in Acadia even after the conquest of 1710. They resisted the British occupation of Acadia and were joined in their efforts on numerous occasions by Acadians. These efforts were often supported and led by the French priests in the region.

The Wabanaki Confederacy and Acadians defended the region against the British Empire through six wars which lasted over a period of seventy-five years (see the four French and Indian Wars, Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War).

King William's War

The first war, King William's War, began in 1688. Much of the local conflict of this war was orchestrated by the Governor of Acadia who raided protestant villages along the Acadia/ New England border at the Kennebec River in present-day Maine. During the 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). There are letters from Acadian officials, censuring and asking for the removal of certain priests, "do nothings," who took no part in the King William’s War, but attended strictly to their religious duties and were therefore suspected of favoring the English. After the Siege of Pemaquid (1696), d'Iberville led a force of 124 Canadians, Acadians, Mi'kmaq and Abanakis in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign. They destroyed almost every Engish settlement in Newfoundland, over 100 English were killed, many times that number captured, and almost 500 deported to England or France.

Queen Anne's War

During Queen Anne's War, the Wabanaki Confederacy members from Acadia participated in the Northeast Coast Campaign (1703) along the Acadia/ New England border in present-day Maine. Mi’kmaq and Acadians resisted the New England retaliatory raids at Grand Pre, Piziquid and Chignecto in 1704. Acadians joined French privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste as crew members in his victories over British vessels. Acadians also fought along side the Confederacy and French soldiers in protecting the capital in the Siege of Port Royal (1707) and the final Conquest of Acadia. Acadians and Wabanaki Confederacy were also successful in the Battle of Bloody Creek (1711).

Charles Lawrence

Father Rale's War

During Father Rale's War, the Maliseet raided numerous New England 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. Much of the conflict of this war happened along the (former) Acadia/ New England border in Maine. The Wabanaki Confederacy members from Acadia also participated in two Campaigns against the British on the New England/ Acadia border in present-day Maine (1723, 1724).

There was a long history of the British threatening to remove the Acadians. Just in advance of Father Rale's War, there was talk of deporting the Acadians. On December 28, 1720 in London, the House of Lords wrote: "It seems as though the French in Nova Scotia will never be good British subjects to her Majesty...This is why we believe that they should be expulsed as soon as the necessary forces, which will be sent to Nova Scotia, are ready." After the first Siege of Louisbourg, thousands of Acadians on Île-Royale were deported to France.

King George's War

During King George's War, Abbe Jean-Louis Le Loutre led efforts which involved both Acadians and Mi’kmaq to recapture the capital, such as the Siege of Annapolis Royal (1744). During the Siege, French officer Marin had taken British prisoners and stopped with them further up the bay at Cobequid. While they were at Cobequid, an Acadian said that the French soldiers should have "left their [the British] carcasses behind and brought their skins." Le Loutre was 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. After the Siege of Louisbourg (1745), the Wabanaki Confederacy members from Acadia conducted a campaign against the British civilians along the New England/ Acadia border in present-day Maine.

After the failure of the Duc d'Anville Expedition to recapture Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia Governor Paul Mascarene told Acadians to avoid "deluding Hopes of Returning under the Dominion of France." One French officer noted that when the French troops withdrew from Annapolis Royal, the Acadians were alarmed and disappointed, feeling they were being abandoned to British retribution.

Father Le Loutre's War

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 Halifax (1749), Acadians and Mi'kmaq conducted twelve raids on the capital region (Halifax/ Dartmouth). The most significant raid being the one in 1751 on Dartmouth. They also resisted the initial British occupation of Chignecto (1750) and then later fought against them in the Battle of Beausejour (1755).

Throughout Father Le Loutre's War, English speakers began calling the Acadians "French neutral," and that label would remain in common use through the 1750s. British people used the term sarcastically in 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 against them. The following governor, Peregrine Hopson, continued the conciliatory policy for the Acadians.

During the war, Acadians revealed their political allegiance by leaving mainland Nova Scotia. From 1749–55, there was massive Acadian migration out of British-occupied mainland Nova Scotia and into French-occupied Ile Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island), and Ile Royale (Cape Breton) and present-day New Brunswick. A prominent Acadian who transported Acadians to Ile St. Jean and Ile Royal was Joseph-Nicolas Gautier. While 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, when a British naval patrol intercepted Acadians in a vessel making their way to Ile St. Jean, an Acadian passenger said, "They chose rather to quit their lands and estates than possess them upon the terms propos'd by the English [sic] governor."

Acadian political resistance was evident in their refusal to trade with the British. By 1754, the Acadians sent no produce to the Halifax market. When British merchants tried to buy directly from Acadians, they were refused. Acadians refused to supply Fort Edward with firewood. Lawrence saw the need to neutralize the Acadian military threat. To defeat Louisbourg, the British destroyed the base of supply by deporting the Acadians.

Father Le Loutre's War had done much to create the condition of total war; British civilians had not been spared, and, as Governor Charles Lawrence saw it, Acadian civilians had provided intelligence, sanctuary, and logistical support while others fought in armed conflict. During the French and Indian War, Governor Lawrence came up with a military solution for the forty-five years of an unsettled British conquest of Acadia. Lawrence's primary objectives in Acadia were to defeat the French fortifications at Beausejour and Louisbourg. The British saw Acadians as a military threat in their allegiance to the French and Wabanaki Confederacy. The British also wanted to interrupt the Acadian supply lines to Fortress Louisbourg, which, in turn, supplied the Mi'kmaq and others. According to Historian Stephen Patterson, more than other single factors - including the massive assault that eventually forced the surrender of Louisbourg - the supply problem spelled doom to French power in the region. Lawrence realised he could cut off supplies to the French by deporting the Acadians.

British deportation campaigns

Bay of Fundy (1755)

A letter from Major-General John Winslow to William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, regarding Acadian prisoners and the expulsion, dated August 1755.

Grand Pré: Deportation of the Acadians.

Main article: Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755)

The first wave of the expulsion began on August 10, 1755, with the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) during the French and Indian War. The British ordered the expulsion of the Acadians 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.

On November 17, 1755, during the Bay of Fundy Campaign at Chignecto, George Scott took 700 troops and attacked twenty houses at Memramcook. They arrested the Acadians who remained and killed two hundred head of livestock, to deprive the French of supplies. Acadians tried to escape the Expulsion by retreating to St. John and Petitcodiac rivers, and the Miramichi in New Brunswick. The British cleared the Acadians from these areas in the later campaigns of Petitcodiac River, St. John River, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1758.

Cape Sable

Cape Sable included Port La Tour and the surrounding area (a much larger area than simply Cape Sable Island). In April 1756, Major 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.

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, in command of two men-of-war and transport ships with 325 soldiers, to deport more Acadians. On October 28, his 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.

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. In November 1759, 151 Acadians from Cape Sable that were prisoners on George's Island since June were deported to England.

Ile St. Jean and Ile Royale

Main article: Ile Saint-Jean Campaign

The second wave of the Deportation began with the French 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 resulted in the largest percentage of deaths of the Acadians deported. The highest single event total of fatalities during the Deportation occurred with the sinking of the Violet, with about 280 persons aboard, and the Duke William, with over 360 persons aboard. By the time the second wave of the expulsion had begun, the British had discarded their policy of relocating the Catholic, French-speaking colonists to the Thirteen Colonies. They deported them 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

This was a series of British military operations from June to November 1758 to deport the Acadians who either lived along the 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.

Contrary to Governor Lawrence's direction, New England Ranger Danks engaged in frontier warfare against the Acadians. On July 1, 1758, Danks himself 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). Acadians were driven into the river, three of them were killed and scalped, and others were captured. Broussard was seriously wounded. 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

Main article: St. John River Campaign

Colonel Robert Monckton led a force of 1150 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 (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. 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.

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, Lieutenant 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, besides the barns and stables. The Rangers burned a large store-house, and with a large quantity of hay, wheat, peas, oats, etc., killing 212 horses, about 5 head of cattle, a large number of hogs and so forth. They also burned the church (located just west of Old Government House, Fredericton).

As well, the rangers tortured and scalped six Acadians and took six prisoners. There is a written record of one of the Acadian survivors Joseph Godin-Bellefontaine. He reported that the Rangers restrained him and then massacred his family in front of him. There are other primary sources that support his assertions.

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 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 the Gaspé Bay arriving there on September 5. From there they dispatched troops to Miramichi Bay (Sept. 12), Grande-Rivière, Quebec and Pabos (Sept. 13), and Mont-Louis, Quebec (Sept. 14). Over the following weeks, Sir Charles Hardy took four sloops or schooners, destroyed about 200 fishing vessels, and took about 200 prisoners.

Restigouche

The Acadians took refuge along the Baie des Chaleurs and the Restigouche River. Boishébert had a refugee camp at Petit-Rochelle (which was located perhaps near 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.

Halifax

Monument to Imprisoned Acadians on Georges Island (background), 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 organised an expulsion of 1300 people, shipping them to Boston. The government of Massachusetts refused the Acadians permission to land and sent them back to Halifax.

Before the deportation, Acadian population was estimated at 14,000 Acadians. Most were deported. Acadians escaped to Quebec, or hid among the Mi'kmaq or in the countryside, to avoid deportation until the situation settled down.

Acadian and Mi’kmaq resistance

During the expulsion, French Officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadians in a guerrilla war against the British. 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.

Annapolis (Fort Anne)

Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot

The Acadians and Mi’kmaq fought in the Annapolis region. They were victorious in the Battle of Bloody Creek (1757). Acadians being deported from Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia on the ship Pembroke rebelled against the British crew, took over the ship and sailed to land.

In December 1757, while cutting firewood near Fort Anne, John Weatherspoon was captured by Indians (presumably Mi'kmaq) and carried away to the mouth of the Miramichi River. From there he was eventually sold or traded to the French and taken to Quebec, where he was held until late in 1759 and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, when General Wolfe's forces prevailed.

About 50 or 60 Acadians who escaped the initial deportation are reported to have made their way to the Cape Sable region (which included south western Nova Scotia). From there, they participated in numerous raids on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Piziquid (Fort Edward)

There was Acadian and Mi'kmaq resistance to the Expulsion. In September 1756, a group of 100 Acadians ambushed a party of thirteen soldiers who were working outside the fort. Seven were taken prisoner and six escaped back to the fort.

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

Chignecto (Fort Cumberland)

The Acadians and Mi’kmaq also resisted in the Chignecto region. They were victorious in the Battle of Petitcodiac (1755). In the spring of 1756, a wood-gathering party from Fort Monckton (former Fort Gaspareaux), was ambushed and nine were scalped. In the April 1757, after raiding Fort Edward, the same band of Acadian and Mi'kmaq partisans raided Fort Cumberland, killing and scalping two men and taking two prisoners. July 20, 1757 Mi'kmaq killed 23 and captured two of Gorham's rangers outside Fort Cumberland near present-day Jolicure, New Brunswick. In March 1758, forty Acadian and Mi'kmaq attacked a schooner at Fort Cumberland and killed its master and two sailors. In the winter of 1759, the Mi'kmaq ambushed five British soldiers on patrol while they were crossing a bridge near Fort Cumberland. They were ritually scalped and their bodies mutilated as was common in frontier warfare. During the night of 4 April 1759, using canoes, a force of Acadians and French captured the transport. At dawn they attacked the ship Moncton and chased it for five hours down the Bay of Fundy. Although the Moncton escaped, it’s crew suffered one killed and two wounded.

Others resisted during the St. John River Campaign and the Petitcodiac River Campaign.

Lawrencetown

By June 1757, the settlers had to be withdrawn completely from the settlement of Lawrencetown (established 1754) because the number of Indian raids eventually prevented settlers from leaving their houses.

In near-by Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in the spring of 1759, there was another Mi'kmaq attack on Fort Clarence (located at the present day Dartmouth Refinery), in which five soldiers were killed.

Maine

In present-day Maine, the Mi’kmaq and the Maliseet raided numerous New England villages. At the end of April 1755, they raided Gorham, Maine, killing two men and a family. Next they appeared in New-Boston (Gray) and through the neighbouring towns destroying the plantations. On May 13, they raided Frankfort (Dresden), where two men were killed and a house burned. The same day they raided Sheepscot (Newcastle), and took five prisoners. Two were killed in North Yarmouth on May 29 and one taken captive. They shot one person at Teconnet. They took prisoners at Fort Halifax; two prisoners taken at Fort Shirley (Dresden). They took two captive at New Gloucester as they worked on the local fort. During this time period, the Maliseet and Mi'kmaq were the only tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy who were able to fight.

On 13 August 1758 Boishebert left Miramichi, New Brunswick with 400 soldiers, including Acadians which he led from Port Toulouse. They marched to Fort St George (Thomaston, Maine) and Munduncook (Friendship, Maine). While the former siege was unsuccessful, in the latter raid on Munduncook, they wounded eight British settlers and killed others. This was Boishébert’s last Acadian expedition. From there, Boishebert and the Acadians went to Quebec and fought in the Battle of Quebec (1759).

Lunenburg

The Acadians and Mi'kmaq raided the Lunenburg settlement nine times over a three year period during the war. Boishebert ordered the first Raid on Lunenburg (1756). Following the raid of 1756, in 1757, there was a raid on Lunenburg in which six people from the Brissang family were killed. The following year, March 1758, there was a raid on the Lunenburg Peninsula at the Northwest Range (present-day Blockhouse, Nova Scotia) when five people were killed from the Ochs and Roder families. By the end of May 1758, most of those on the Lunenburg Peninsula abandoned their farms and retreated to the protection of the fortifications around the town of Lunenburg, losing the season for sowing their grain. For those that did not leave their farms for the town, the number of raids intensified.

During the summer of 1758, there were four raids on the Lunenburg Peninsula. On 13 July 1758, one person on the LaHave River at Dayspring was killed and another seriously wounded by a member of the Labrador family. The next raid happened at Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia on 24 August 1758, when eight Mi'kmaq attacked the family homes of Lay and Brant. While they killed three people in the raid, the Mi'kmaq were unsuccessful in taking their scalps, which was the common practice for payment from the French. Two days, later, two soldiers were killed in a raid on the blockhouse at LaHave, Nova Scotia. Almost two weeks later, on 11 September, a child was killed in a raid on the Northwest Range. Another raid happened on 27 March 1759, in which three members of the Oxner family were killed. The last raid happened on 20 April 1759. The Mi’kmaq killed four settlers at Lunenburg who were members of the Trippeau and Crighton families.

Halifax

On 2 April 1756, Mi'kmaq recieved payment from the Governor of Quebec for 12 British scalps taken at Halifax. Acadian Pierre Gautier, son of Joseph-Nicolas Gautier, led Mi’kmaq warriors from Louisbourg on three raids against Halifax in 1757. In each raid, Gautier took prisoners or scalps or both. The last raid happened in September and Gautier went with four Mi’kmaq and killed and scalped two British men at the foot of Citadel Hill. (Pierre went on to participate in the Battle of Restigouche.)

In July 1759, Mi'kmaq and Acadians kill five British in Dartmouth, opposite McNabb's Island.

Cape Sable

In July 1759, Captain Cobb arrived and was fired upon by 100 Acadians and Mi'kmaq.

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 gathered in isolated, impoverished French-speaking Catholic neighbourhoods, exactly the sort of communities Britain's colonial officials had hoped to discourage. More worrisome still, 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. Because the British believed their policy of sending the Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies had failed, during the second wave of the Expulsion, they deported the Acadians to France.

Maryland

Approximately 1000 Acadians went to Maryland, where they lived in a section of Baltimore that became known as French Town. The Irish Catholics were reported to have shown charity to the Acadians by taking 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 2,000 Acadians disembarked at Massachusetts. For four long winter months, they were not allowed to disembark on orders of the one who had given orders to deport them, William Shirley. As consequence, half died of cold and starvation aboard the ships. Children were taken away from their parents to be distributed to various families throughout Massachusetts. The government also arranged the adoption of orphaned children and provided subsidies for 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 arrived unexpectedly, the Acadians had to remain in port on their vessels for months. Likewise, Virginia refused to accept the Acadians on grounds that no notice was given of their arrival. They were detained at Williamsburg, where hundreds died from disease and malnutrition. They were then sent to England where they were held as prisoners until the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

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 1,400 Acadians settled in these colonies. The 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 bearing passports from Georgia reached the Carolinas, the colonies granted passports to the Acadians in their territories. Along with these papers, the Acadians were given two vessels. After running aground numerous times in the ships, Acadians did make it back to the Bay of Fundy. Along the way, Acadians were captured and imprisoned. Only 900 made it to Acadia, less than half who had begun the voyage.

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. Alexandre Broussard, brother of the famed resistance leader Joseph Broussard, dit Beausoleil, was among them. About a dozen are recorded to have returned to Acadia after an overland journey of 1,400 leagues. Such Acadians returning to the homeland were 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. Acadians 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 and went to Nantes.

The Virginians sent other Acadians to Britain as prisoners of war. British officials distributed them to districts in segregated quarters in cities along the British coast. These prisoners were eventually repatriated to France. They said the area where they were held, which they called La Grand’ Ligne (the King’s Highway), yielded no harvest for two years. Following the Treaty of Paris 1763, Acadians were repatriated to Belle-Île-en-Mer off the western coast of Brittany.

Louisiana

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 Louisiana. 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 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".

Aftermath of the Seven Years War

Of the 12,000 or so Acadians deported, thousands died either of drowning aboard ill fated ships, starvation, or illness. Of the 60,000 French sailors captured by the British Royal Navy, 8,500 prisoners died aboard old British pontoons. In 1763, after the signing of the peace treaty, Acadians returned to Nova Scotia. Under the Deportation orders Acadian land tenure had been forfeited to the British crown and as such the returning Acadians no longer owned land. Beginning in 1760 much of their land had been distributed under grant to the New England Planters. This lack of available farmland compelled many Acadians to seek out a new livelihood as fishermen on the west side of Nova Scotia known as the French Shore.

As for the other Acadians, the British authorities scattered them in small groups along the shores of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It was only in the 1930s with the arrival of the Acadian co-operative movements that the Acadians became less economically disadvantaged.

Historical comparisons

The Expulsion of the Acadians has been compared to such military operations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The French had carried out their own expulsion in Newfoundland in 1697 when they occupied the English portion of Newfoundland during Pierre d'Iberville's Avalon Peninsula Campaign, burning every English settlement and exiling the surviving English inhabitants. One historian compared the Acadian Exodus to the retreating Russians burning their own lands before Napoleon's invasion, while comparing the British actions to General Sherman's destroying 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 expelled from the United States to present-day Canada after the American Revolution. Another deportation was the Highland Clearances in Scotland between 1762 and 1886. Another parallel cited in North America was the relocation of the Cherokee and other Native Americans from the South-East United States in the 1830s in the Indian Removal.

Commemorations

In 1847, american poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a long, narrative poem about the plight of the Acadians called Evangeline. 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. The author Antonine Maillet wrote a novel about the aftermath of the Great Upheaval, Pélagie-la-Charrette. The novel was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1979. Grand-Pré Park, situated in present-day Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia is a National Historic Site of Canada. It is preserved as a living monument to the Expulsion, complete with a memorial church and a statue of Evangeline, the subject and title of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's stirring poem on the experience.

In December 2003, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, representing Canada's Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, declared the Crown's acknowledgement of (but did not apologise for) the Expulsion. She designated July 28 as "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval." This proclamation, often referred to as the Royal Proclamation of 2003, closed one of the longest open cases in the history of the British courts, initiated when the Acadian representatives first presented their grievances of forced dispossession of land, property and livestock in 1760. December 13, the day the Duke William sank during the Expulsion, is commemorated every year as Acadian Remembrance Day. There is a museum dedicated to Acadian history and culture, including detailed reconstruction of the Great Uprising, in the town of Bonaventure, Quebec.

See also

• Expulsion of the Loyalists
• France in the Seven Years War
• Great Britain in the Seven Years War

General references

English

• 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
• John Grenier. The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. Oklahoma University Press. 2008 ISBN 978-0-8061-3876-3
• 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, 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 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

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