Expulsion of the Acadians facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Expulsion of the Acadians |
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 St. John River Campaign: "A View of the Plundering and Burning of the City of Grimross" (1758) Watercolor by Thomas Davies |
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The Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion, the Great Deportation, and the Deportation of the Acadians (French: Le Grand Dérangement or Déportation des Acadiens), was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present-day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and the present-day U.S. state of Maine — parts of an area historically known as Acadia, causing the deaths of thousands of people. The Expulsion (1755–1764) occurred during the French and Indian Wars (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War) 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 were deported, of whom at least 5,000 died of disease, starvation or in shipwrecks. Men, women and children were forcibly removed from their homes and their land, which they had farmed for a century. Their houses were burned and their land given to settlers loyal to Britain, mostly immigrants from New England and then Scotland. The event is largely regarded as a crime against humanity, though contemporary use of the term "genocide" is debated by scholars. A census of 1764 indicates that 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony having eluded capture.
In 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the British captured Port Royal, the capital of Acadia, in a siege. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which concluded the larger conflict, ceded the colony to Great Britain while allowing the Acadians to keep their lands. However, the Acadians were reluctant to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. Over the following decades, some participated in French military operations against the British and maintained supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Fort Beauséjour. 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.
Without making any distinction 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. In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British North American colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, and from there a significant number migrated to Spanish Louisiana, where "Acadians" eventually became "Cajuns". Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island), and Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island). During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported.
Along with the British achieving their military goals of destroying the fortress of Louisbourg and weakening the Miꞌkmaq 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 return to British territories in small isolated groups, provided that they take an unqualified oath of allegiance. Today the Acadians live primarily in eastern New Brunswick and in some regions of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Northern Maine. American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the expulsion in the popular 1847 poem, Evangeline, about the plight of a fictional character, which spread awareness of the expulsion.
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Historical context
After the British 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. 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 Miꞌkmaq neighbours and allies as an acknowledgement of the British claim to Acadia, putting villages at risk of attack from the Miꞌkmaq.
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. 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. The Miꞌkmaq and the Acadians were allies through their Catholicism and numerous inter-marriages. While the Acadians were the largest population, the Wabanaki Confederacy, particularly the Miꞌkmaq, held the military strength in Acadia even after the British conquest. 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. 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 75 years.
Seven Years' 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 Native Americans 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 Major General William Johnson's troops stopped the French advance at Lake George.
In Acadia, the primary British objective was to defeat the French fortifications at Beauséjour and Louisbourg and to prevent future attacks from the Wabanaki Confederacy, French and Acadians on the northern New England border. (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. 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 Beauséjour, 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 Miꞌkmaq 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. During the expulsion, French Officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert led the Miꞌkmaq and the Acadians in a guerrilla war against the British. According to Louisbourg's account books, by late 1756 the French had regularly dispensed supplies to 700 natives.
British deportation campaigns
Once the Acadians refused to sign an oath of allegiance to Britain, which would make them loyal to the crown, the British Lieutenant Governor, Charles Lawrence, as well as the Nova Scotia Council on July 28, 1755 made the decision to deport the Acadians. The British deportation campaigns began on August 11, 1755. 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).
Bay of Fundy (1755)
The first wave of the expulsion began on August 10, 1755, with the Bay of Fundy Campaign 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-Pré, Piziquid (Falmouth/Windsor, Nova Scotia) and finally Annapolis Royal.
On November 17, 1755, George Scott took 700 troops, attacked twenty houses at Memramcook, arrested the remaining Acadians and killed two hundred head of livestock to deprive the French of supplies. Acadians tried to escape the expulsion by retreating to the 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, Saint John River, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1758.
The Acadians and Miꞌkmaq resisted in the Chignecto region and 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. In April 1757, the same band of Acadian and Miꞌkmaw partisans raided Fort Edward and Fort Cumberland near present-day Jolicure, New Brunswick, killing two men and taking two prisoners. July 20, 1757, some Miꞌkmaq killed 23 and captured two of Gorham's rangers outside Fort Cumberland. In March 1758, forty Acadians and Miꞌkmaq attacked a schooner at Fort Cumberland and killed its master and two sailors. In the winter of 1759, the Miꞌkmaq ambushed five British soldiers on patrol while they were crossing a bridge near Fort Cumberland. During the night of April 4, 1759, a force of Acadians and French in canoes captured the transport. At dawn they attacked the ship Moncton and chased it for five hours down the Bay of Fundy. Although Moncton escaped, one of its crew was killed and two were wounded.
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In September 1756, a group of 100 Acadians ambushed a party of thirteen soldiers who were working outside Fort Edward at Piziquid. Seven were taken prisoner and six escaped back to the fort. In April 1757, a band of Acadian and Miꞌkmaw partisans raided a warehouse near Fort Edward, killed thirteen British soldiers, took what provisions they could carry and set fire to the building. Days later, the same partisans raided Fort Cumberland. By November 1756, French Officer Lotbinière wrote about the difficulty of recapturing Fort Beausejour: "The English have deprived us of a great advantage by removing the French families that were settled there on their different plantations; thus we would have to make new settlements."
The Acadians and Miꞌkmaq fought in the Annapolis region. They were victorious in the Battle of Bloody Creek (1757). Acadians being deported from Annapolis Royal 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 Natives—presumably Miꞌkmaq— and was carried away to the mouth of the Miramichi River, from where he was sold or traded to the French, taken to Quebec and was held until late in 1759 and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, when General Wolfe's forces prevailed.
Approximately 55 Acadians, who escaped the initial deportation at Annapolis Royal, are reported to have made their way to the Cape Sable region—which included south western Nova Scotia—from where they participated in numerous raids on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The Acadians and Miꞌkmaq raided the Lunenburg settlement nine times over a three-year period during the war. Boishebert ordered the first Raid on Lunenburg (1756). In 1757, the second raid on Lunenburg occurred, in which six people from the Brisson 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 from the Ochs and Roder families were killed. By the end of May 1758, most of those on the Lunenburg Peninsula had 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 who did not leave their farms, the number of raids intensified. The last raid happened on April 20, 1759 at Lunenburg.
Cape Sable
The 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. 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 Miꞌkmaq escaped. The Acadian prisoners were taken to Georges Island in Halifax Harbour.
En route to the St. John River Campaign in September 1758, Monckton 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. On October 28, Monckton'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. 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. November 1759 saw the deportation to Britain of 151 Acadians from Cape Sable who had been prisoners on George's Island since June. In July 1759 on Cape Sable, Captain Cobb arrived and was fired upon by 100 Acadians and Miꞌkmaq.
Île Saint-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 Island). 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. 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. 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 30 Acadians who were led by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil. The Acadians were driven into the river where three of them were killed, and the others were captured. Broussard was seriously wounded. Danks 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. 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 Saint 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 February 18, 1759, Hazen and about fifteen men arrived at Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas. The Rangers pillaged and burned the village of 147 buildings, two Catholic churches and various barns and stables. The Rangers burned a large store-house, containing a large quantity of hay, wheat, peas, oats and other foodstuffs, and killed 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. The leader of the Acadian militia on the St. John river, Joseph Godin-Bellefontaine, refused to swear an oath. The Rangers also took six prisoners.
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.
Restigouche
The Acadians took refuge along the Baie des Chaleurs and the Restigouche River. Boishébert had a refugee camp at Petit-Rochelle, which was probably located 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
After the French conquered St. John's, Newfoundland on June 14, 1762, the success galvanized both the Acadians and the natives, who gathered in large numbers at various points throughout the province and behaved in a confident and, according to the British, "insolent fashion". Officials were especially alarmed when natives gathered close to the two principal towns in the province, Halifax and Lunenburg, where there were also large groups of Acadians. The government organized an expulsion of 1,300 people and shipped them to Boston. The government of Massachusetts refused the Acadians permission to land and sent them back to Halifax.
Miꞌkmaw and Acadian resistance was evident in the Halifax region. Acadian Pierre Gautier, son of Joseph-Nicolas Gautier, led Miꞌkmaw warriors from Louisbourg on three raids against Halifax Peninsula in 1757. In each raid, Gautier took prisoners. Their last raid happened in September and Gautier went with four Miꞌkmaq, and killed two British men at the foot of Citadel Hill. Pierre went on to participate in the Battle of Restigouche.
Arriving on the provincial vessel King George, four companies of Rogers Rangers (500 rangers) were at Dartmouth April 8 until May 28 awaiting the Siege of Louisbourg (1758). While there they scoured the woods to stop raids on Dartmouth.
In July 1759, Miꞌkmaq and Acadians killed five British in Dartmouth, opposite McNabb's Island. By June 1757, the settlers had to be completely withdrawn from Lawrencetown (established 1754) because the number of Indian raids prevented settlers from leaving their houses. In nearby Dartmouth, in the spring of 1759, another Miꞌkmaw attack was launched on Fort Clarence, located at the present-day Dartmouth Refinery, in which five soldiers were killed. Before the deportation, the Acadian population was estimated at 14,000. Most were deported, but some Acadians escaped to Quebec, or hid among the Miꞌkmaq or in the countryside, to avoid deportation until the situation settled down.
Maine
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In present-day Maine, the Miꞌkmaq and the Maliseet raided numerous New England villages. At the end of April 1755, they raided Gorham, killing two men and a family. Next they appeared in New Boston (Gray) and went 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 people were killed in North Yarmouth on May 29 and one taken captive. The natives shot one person at Teconnet, now Waterville, took prisoners at Fort Halifax and two prisoners at Fort Shirley (Dresden). They also captured two workers at the fort at New Gloucester. During this period, the Maliseet and Miꞌkmaq were the only tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy who were able to fight.
On August 13, 1758, Boishebert left Miramichi, New Brunswick with 400 soldiers, including Acadians whom he led from Port Toulouse. They marched to Fort St. George (Thomaston) and unsuccessfully laid siege to the town, and raided Munduncook (Friendship) where they wounded eight British settlers and killed others. This was Boishébert's last Acadian expedition; from there he and the Acadians went to Quebec and fought in the Battle of Quebec (1759).
Deportation destinations
| Colony | Number 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 |
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 (Cape Breton Island), 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, they deported the Acadians to France during the second wave of the Expulsion.
Maryland
Approximately 1,000 Acadians went to the Colony of 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
Approximately 2,000 Acadians disembarked at the Colony of Massachusetts. There were several families deported to the Province of Maine, a large, but sparsely populated exclave of the colony of 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. Some men and women were forced into servitude or forced labor, children were taken away from their parents and were 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
The Colony of 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
The Colony of Pennsylvania accommodated 500 Acadians. Because they arrived unexpectedly, the Acadians had to remain in port on their vessels for months. The Colony of 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 Britain 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 had been at Chignecto—were reported to have been sent to the southernmost colonies (the Carolinas and the Colony of Georgia), where about 1,400 Acadians settled and 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 Reynolds. 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, some Acadians returned to the Bay of Fundy. Along the way, they were captured and imprisoned. Only 900 managed to return to Acadia, less than half of those 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 (4,200 miles (6,800 km)).
France and Britain
After the Siege of Louisbourg (1758), the British began to deport the Acadians directly to France rather than to the British colonies. Some Acadians deported to France never reached their destination. Almost 1,000 died when the transport ships Duke William, Violet, and Ruby sank in 1758 en route from Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) to France. About 3,000 Acadian refugees eventually gathered in France's port cities and went to Nantes. Many Acadians who were sent to Britain were housed in crowded warehouses and subject to plagues due to the close conditions, while others were allowed to join communities and live normal lives. In France, 78 Acadian families were repatriated to Belle-Île-en-Mer off the western coast of Brittany after the Treaty of Paris. The most serious resettlement attempt was made by Louis XV, who offered 2 acres (8,100 m2) of land in the Poitou province to 626 Acadian families each, where they lived close together in a region they called La Grande Ligne ("The Great Road", also known as "the King's Highway"). About 1,500 Acadians accepted the offer, but the land turned out to be infertile, and by the end of 1775, most of them abandoned the province.
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. The British did not deport Acadians to Louisiana.
Louisiana was transferred to the Spanish government in 1762. Because of the good relations which existed between France and Spain, and because of their common Catholic religion, some Acadians chose to take oaths of allegiance to the Spanish government. Soon the Acadians comprised the largest ethnic group in Louisiana. First, they settled in areas along the Mississippi River and later, they settled in the Atchafalaya Basin, as well as in the prairie lands to the west—a region which was later renamed Acadiana.
Some Acadians were sent to colonize places in the Caribbean, such as French Guiana, or the Falkland Islands under the direction of Louis Antoine de Bougainville; these latter efforts at colonization were unsuccessful. Other Acadians migrated to places like Saint-Domingue, but they fled to New Orleans after the Haitian Revolution. Louisiana's population contributed to the founding of the modern Cajun population. (The French word "Acadien" evolved into the word "Cadien", which was later anglicized as the word "Cajun".)
Nova Scotia
On July 11, 1764, the British government passed an order-in-council to permit Acadians to legally return to British territories in small isolated groups, 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. The British authorities scattered other Acadians in groups along the shores of eastern New-Brunswick 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.
Commemorations
In 1847, the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a long, narrative poem about the expulsion of the Acadians titled Evangeline, in which he depicts the plight of the fictional character Evangeline. The poem became popular and made the expulsion well known. 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. 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. 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. In 2018, Canadian historian and novelist A. J. B. Johnston published a YA novel entitled The Hat, inspired by what happened at Grand-Pré in 1755.
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". 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. There is a museum dedicated to Acadian history and culture, with a detailed reconstruction of the Great Uprising, in Bonaventure, Quebec.
See also
In Spanish: Expulsión de los acadianos para niños
