Expulsion of the Acadians

"Grand Dérangement" redirects here. For the Acadian folk band, see Grand Dérangement (band).
"Great Upheaval" redirects here. For the American labor unrest, see Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

Expulsion of the Acadians
Part of French and Indian War

St. John River Campaign: "A View of the Plundering and Burning of the City of Grimross" (1758)
Watercolor by Thomas Davies
DateAugust 10, 1755 – July 11, 1764
Location
Acadia (present-day: Canada's Maritimes and northern Maine)
Result
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Units involved

The Expulsion of the Acadians[b] was the forced removal[c] of inhabitants of the North American region historically known as Acadia between 1755 and 1764 by Great Britain. It included the modern Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, along with part of the US state of Maine. The Expulsion occurred during the French and Indian War, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.

Prior to 1758, Acadians were deported to the Thirteen Colonies, then later transported to either Britain or France. Of an estimated 14,100 Acadians, approximately 11,500 were deported, of whom 5,000 died of disease, starvation or shipwrecks. Their land was given to settlers loyal to Britain, mostly immigrants from New England and Scotland. The event is largely regarded as a crime against humanity, though the modern-day use of the term "genocide" is debated by scholars.[7][d] A census of 1764 indicates 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony, having eluded capture.[9]

In 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the British captured Port Royal, the capital of Acadia. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded the territory to Great Britain while allowing the Acadians to keep their lands. Reluctant to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain, over the following decades some participated in French military operations and helped maintain supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Beauséjour.[10] 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.[11]

Without differentiating between those who had remained neutral and those who took up arms, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered all Acadians to be expelled.[e] 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 Mi'kmaq 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 Acadians live primarily in eastern New Brunswick and 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.

  1. ^ "Visit Oak Island". Archived from the original on January 16, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  2. ^ "George E. E. Nichols, "Notes on Nova Scotian Privateers", Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, March 15, 1904". Archived from the original on March 14, 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  3. ^ Delaney, Paul (January–June 2004). "Pembroke Passenger List Reconstructed". Les Cahiers de la Société historique acadienne. 35 (1 & 2). Archived from the original on June 19, 2014. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  4. ^ Pothier, Bernard (1974). "LeBlanc, Joseph". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. III (1741–1770) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  5. ^ d’Entremont, C. J. (1974). "Bourg, Belle-Humeur, Alexandre". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. III (1741–1770) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  6. ^ Johnson, Micheline D. (1974). "Manach, Jean". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. III (1741–1770) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  7. ^ Plank (2001), p. 149.
  8. ^ White, Stephen A. (2005). "The True Number of Acadians". In Ronnie Gilles LeBlanc (ed.). Du Grand Dérangement à la Déportation: nouvelles perspectives historiques. Université de Moncton. pp. 21–56. ISBN 978-1-897214-02-2. Archived from the original on April 3, 2023. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  9. ^ "An Estimate of the Inhabitants in Nova Scotia, A.D. 1764. By Hon. Alexander Grant, Esq. at the Request of Dr. Stiles". Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Vol. X. Boston: Munroe, Francis, and Parker. 1809. p. 82.
  10. ^ Grenier (2008).
  11. ^ Patterson, Stephen E. (1998). "Indian-White Relations in Nova Scotia, 1749–61: A Study in Political Interaction". In P.A. Buckner; Gail G. Campbell; David Frank (eds.). The Acadiensis Reader: Atlantic Canada Before Confederation (3rd ed.). Acadiensis Press. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0-919107-44-1.
    • Patterson (1994), p. 144
  12. ^ Faragher (2005), p. 337.


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