BOOK FIVE: The Great Upheaval
BOOK ONE: French Acadia
BOOK TWO: British Nova Scotia
BOOK THREE: Families, Migration, and the Acadian "Begats"
BOOK FOUR: The French Maritimes
BOOK SIX: The Acadian Immigrants of Louisiana
BOOK SEVEN: French Louisiana
BOOK EIGHT: A New Acadia
BOOK NINE:
The deportation fleet exits the Gut at Annapolis Royal, October 1755 ...01b
Upheavals Large and Small
The Acadians' Great Upheaval, or Grand Dérangement, is often dated 1755, the year in which the British forcibly removed thousands of Acadians from Nova Scotia and sent them to nine of their other Atlantic colonies. Historians also consider the year 1758 as part of the Grand Dérangement, when victoriouis British forces in the French Maritime islands deported hundreds of more Acadians to St.-Malo and other French ports. But one could make a case that the Acadian upheaval began long before the 1750s, that a series of petit dérangements, beginning with the voluntary "removal" of Acadians from Nova Scotia to the French Maritime islands in 1714, shook their Fundy communities for decades. These petit dérangements continued with the not-so-voluntary "removal" of Acadians from Nova Scotia to the French Maritimes following British victory in King George's War in the late 1740s, and the decidedly involuntary removal of Chignecto Acadians by French Canadian militia and M'kmaq warriors from the British to the French side of Rivière Missaguash in the summer of 1750. Beginning in October 1750 and continuing for several years, many Chignecto Acadians crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean and joined their cousins already there. By 1755, then, Fundy Acadians had endured an almost continuous disruption of their way of life for nearly half a century. The mass deportations of the 1750s tore their culture from its geographical milieu. The roots of their culture--their families, their language, their faith, their collective identity--somehow survived being flung out to the world, but the place in which these roots had been set was, for the most part, no longer theirs. Many more petit dérangements followed the mass deportations, and some, both voluntary and involuntary, were nearly as large as les grand dérangements. The result was the creation of new Acadian cultures in places as far flung as the St. Lawrence valley and the bayous and prairies of South Louisiana.01c
Lawrence Springs the Trap, July 1755
What Shirley,
Lawrence, Monckton, and their ilk saw as a coordinated
military effort to rid British Nova Scotia of a hostile
population, the Acadians saw as nothing less than the
attempted destruction of their way of life. Before the ashes
cooled and the buzzards stopped circling, down to the
present day, sides have been drawn between apologists
for the B
Lieutenant-Governor
Charles Lawrence and his colonial Council began
stumbling their way through a policy of removal soon after
the fall of Fort Beauséjour. But before he could
impose such a radical measure, Lawrence was compelled to
set a series of traps in which to ensnare as many
Acadians as he could manage with fine points of British
law backed up by British bayonets. By the end of
June 1755, he had informed his superiors in London that
he was determined to drive "out of the country" the
Acadians of the Chignecto area, who had fought beside
the French at Beauséjour, but not until they provided
much needed labor in the reconstruction of the battered
fort. At the same time, he directed Captain
Alexander Murray at Fort Edward to order the 25
inhabitants from Minas and Pigiguit who had composed a
lengthy "Memorial" during the siege of Beauséjour
to report to Halifax by July 3, the date for the next
Council meeting. Correctly construing this order
as evidence Lawrence was unhappy with them
Most of the
Acadians summoned before the Council appeared at Halifax
on the appointed day. Judging by the apologetic
tone of their second memorial, they came to the colonial
capital expecting to be dressed down by angry British
officials. While they waited in the street outside
the governor's house, Lawrence took his seat inside the
Council chamber with the four men who would help
determine the fate of these impertinent Frenchmen:
Little is known of William Cotterell other than he
tended to be a Lawrence supporter. Benjamin Green,
who also got along well with Lawrence, had known the
lieutenant-governor longer than anyone else on the
present Council. A Massachusetts-born
merchant-turned-constable from Boston, in March 1745
Green had been appointed as General William Pepperell's
secretary on the eve of the expedition against
Louisbourg. Green remained at Louisbourg after
Pepperell's victory to serve as treasurer, councilman,
and commissary for the occupying forces, and there he
would have met Charles Lawrence. Green came to
Halifax in the summer of 1749, "at the same time as
Lawrence," and served not only on Governor Edward
Cornwallis's original Council, but also as a naval
officer and judge on the court of vice-admiralty at
Halifax. In 1750, he was appointed secretary to
the Council as well as provincial treasurer and now held
four colonial offices. In 1752, about the time
that Cornwallis resigned as governor, Green also
resigned, as Council secretary, but retained his
positions as naval officer and colonial treasurer, thus
keeping his seat on the new governor's Council.
Early the following year, during the governorship of
Peregrine Thomas Hopson, Green resigned his position on
the vice-admiralty court, again because his several
positions took up too much of his time, but he retained
his position as a naval officer and provincial treasurer
and kept his seat on the colonial Council.
Meanwhile, he engaged in business at Halifax, at one
time owning four large warehouses there. He was
married, the father of five children, and about to turn
age 42 in July 1755. Green's fellow councilor, John
Collier, age unknown, was a native of England who also
had come to Halifax with Cornwallis. Collier, a
retired army captain and purportedly a protégé of the
earl of Halifax, was prepared to launch a new career in
the new Nova Scotia capital. Cornwallis was
impressed with his fellow officer and appointed him as
justice of the peace in July 1749. In January
1752, during the final weeks of Cornwallis's
governorship, he appointed Collier to his colonial
Council. During Hopson's governorship,
D
Lawrence
wasted no time in pushing forward whatever he was
planning for the Acadians of Nova Scotia. On July
12, in orders issued through the garrison commanders,
the inhabitants of all of the Acadian communities in the
province were instructed to elect or, in the case of
Minas and Pigiguit, re-elect delegates who must report
to Halifax "as soon as possible, prepared to swear the
unqualified oath of allegiance." By then, the
imperial conflict in North America had taken a sudden,
dramatic turn. On July 9, three days before
Lawrence issued his orders, Major-General Edward
Braddock and his advanced force of redcoats and
provincials were decisively defeated at a crossing of
the Monongahela tantalizingly close to the Forks of the
Ohio. Braddock was mortally wounded in the mêlée
and was buried on his army's retreat five days later,
but news of it could not reach Halifax for nearly a
month. On the same day as Braddock's defeat,
however, the war, now a little over a year in the making
and still undeclared, became real and tangible to the
people living at Halifax: on July 9, a dozen or so
ships from Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen's fleet
Lawrence
called another Council meeting for July 14. He
informed his four councilors of the contents of a
circular he had just received from Sir Thomas Robinson,
secretary of state for the Southern Department,
instructing all colonial governors "to cooperate with
Admiral Boscawen and provide him with all obtainable
intelligence." The secretary's direction, though
written on April 15 and now three months old, could not
be ignored. The circular had been written an ocean
away on the same day as Braddock's conference with the
five royal governors at the Carlyle House in Alexandria,
Virginia. Strangely, this also was the same day
that the Baron de Dieskau's fleet carrying thousands of
French troupes de terre left the port of Brest for
Québec and Louisbourg. Most of the the baron's
forces reached their destinations; the part of it that
failed to reach its destination was languishing on
nearby Georges Island. Braddock was dead, his
demoralized regiments retreating back towards Virginia
and Philadelphia. T
Since b
The July 15
meeting was an important step forward in the evolution
of Lawrence's removal policy. In attendance were
the same four councilors as had attended the earlier
meetings, as well as the two admirals. According
to the minutes, Lawrence wasted no time in addressing
the problem of the Acadians. He "laid before the
Admirals the late Proceedings of the Council in regard
to the French Inhabitants, and desired their Opinion and
Advice thereon." They reviewed the Council's
proceedings against the Acadians and, unsurprisingly,
approved of them. They added that "it was now the
properest Time to oblige the said Inhabitants to Take
the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty, or to quit the
Country." Lawrence then read to them a letter from
Captain John Rous describing his encounter with the
French force on lower Rivière St.-Jean a few weeks
before. Rous was seeking advice from Lawrence and
the Council, and, tangentially, from his naval
superiors, on what he should do to neutralize the French
and Indians in that area. The councilors, perhaps
focusing on the bottom line, were of the opinion that
the fort on the lower St.-Jean should be left alone for
now. The discussion then turned to "the Number and
State of the Troops in this Province," especially in
light of the French reinforcements at Louisbourg and
Québec. Again, looking to the bottom line, the
Council pondered the question of whether or not it would
"be absolutely necessary for the Good of His Majesty's
Service, and the Security of this His Province, to
retain in pay the Two Thousand New England Troops now
under the Command of Lieutenant Colonel Monckton on the
Isthmus of Chignecto." The Council, as well as the
admirals, agreed that the troops "should be retained at
least untill the augmentation was compleated," but that
the transports who took them from Boston to Annapolis
and Chignecto "should be immediately discharged, to
avoid any unnecessary Expence."
Here was an
ominous sign for the Acadians of Nova Scotia. Here
also was tacit approval by two senior naval officers of
Lawrence's policy of removal. Boscawen would make
Halifax his headquarters until the following October.
"[T]he presence of the fleet in the region,"
Naomi Griffiths tells us, "obviously encouraged Lawrence" to
do what must be done to secure the province against
French aggression. Despite the presence of the
admirals and their formidable force, however, Lawrence
would remain in charge of Nova Scotia and direct
whatever military actions were needed there.
Three days
after the meeting with the admirals, Lawrence addressed
a letter to the Board of Trade. He had last
written Secretary Robinson and the Board of Trade on
June 28. In those letters he had informed his
superiors in London that he intended to rid the province
of the rebellious inhabitants at Chignecto. The
first part of his letter was an account of Captain
Rous's movement against the French on the lower St.-Jean
and its result. He then recounted the early July
Council meetings in which the Minas deputies refused to
take the unqualified oath. In reviewing the
Council's warning to the delegates of what would befall
them if they refused the oath, Lawrence admitted to the
Lords that he had informed the Acadians "if they should
then refuse, they must expect to be driven out of the
country...." He added that refusal to take the
oath without qualification meant "they refused to become
English subjects," that if "we could no longer look upon
them in that light; that we should send them to France
by the first opportunity, and till then" they would be
held prisoner on Georges Island. Lawrence admitted
that the deputies "have since earnestly desired to be
admitted to take the oath, but have not been admitted,
nor will any answer be given them until we see how the
rest of the inhabitants are disposed." He informed
the Lords of his order for the election of new Acadian
deputies who also must appear before the colonial
Council, and of the councillors' determination to "bring
the Inhabitants to a compliance, or rid the province of
such perfidious subjects."
There it was,
irrevocably expressed to the highest British
authority--a policy of removal. Lawrence's July 18
missive to London could not arrive until the autumn, and
the Lords' response could not reach him until the middle
of winter. Though it would cross a letter from
Secretary Robinson, dated August 13, that letter could
not reach Halifax until the middle of autumn. Writing in response to Lawrence's missive of
June 28, in which the lieutenant governor had announced
his determination to relocate the Chignecto Acadians,
the secretary "wrote that 'it cannot ... be too much
recommended to you, to use the greatest Caution and
Prudence in your Conduct, towards these neutrals, and to
assure such of Them, as may be trusted, especially upon
their taking the Oaths to His Majesty and His
Government, That they may remain in quiet Possession of
their Settlements under proper Regulation"--hardly a
ringing endorsement for "sending the Acadians out of the
colony." But by the time Lawrence would receive
this letter--it reached him in late October--even if words could have
swayed him, which they likely could not, his removal of all of the Acadians
from Nova Scotia was a fait accompli.
Lawrence, with the Council and the admirals behind him,
would be having his way with these "perfidious subjects."
Was the
policy of removal Governor Lawrence's and his alone?
Naomi Griffiths, the most informed scholar on
the history of the Acadians, answers in the affirmative.
Although the idea of removal may have, in the beginning,
belonged to Governor Shirley, and though Lawrence sought
the approval of his Council, the admirals, and his
regular officers in his efforts to be rid of these
"perfidious subjects," "essentially," Griffiths reminds us, "it was his policy" and no one
else's. Neither in his July 18 dispatch "nor in
any other of his letters to London," she adds, "did
Lawrence suggest that anyone else was responsible for
the evolution of his policy towards the Acadians."
Not only
could Lawrence produce no policy emanating from London
that encouraged, much less authorized, the deportation
of the Acadians, his July 18 missive,
By then, other Acadian communities had responded to
Lawrence's July 12 dictum by drawing up memorials and
selecting their own delegates to appear before the
Council at Halifax. On Sunday, July 13, the
Acadians of the Annapolis valley, meeting probably at
the church of St.-Jean-Baptiste, "unanimously consented
to deliver up" their "fire arms" to the commander of
Fort Anne, Major John Handfield, who, unlike the other
garrison commanders,
The 30 delegates presented their memorial to the
colonial Council on Friday, July 25, in a meeting
attended by Lawrence, Green, Collier, Cotterell,
Belcher, the two admirals, and also Captain John Rous in
his first meeting as a regular councilor. Like
their fellow Acadians three weeks before, the Annapolis
delegates were forced to stand before the eight British
officials and answer to what they had written to their
governor. They repeated to the Council that they
would take no oath without "a Reserve that they should
not be obliged to Take up Arms, and that if it was the
King's intentions to force them to quit their Lands,
they hoped that they should be allowed a convenient Time
for their Departure." Here were delegates from the
one Acadian community that Lawrence expected to bend to
his will. Instead, "Polite, unafraid, sure of the
righteousness of their position, of the rectitude of
their past conduct, the Annapolis deputies stated their
policy," no doubt expecting the same treatment as their
Minas cousins.
They received
exactly that, and more. They, too, were
interrogated by Lawrence and the other officials, who
noted that, when asked "to mention a single Instance
whereby any Advantage" from their individual or
collective actions "
During
Meanwhile, a second set of delegates from "Pisiquid, Menis and the river Canard" arrived at Halifax to appear before the Council on July 28. With them were two more memorials addressed to the lieutenant-governor. The Pigiguit memorial, signed on July 22 by 103 inhabitants, recalled to Lawrence "the oath of fidelity to His Britannic Majesty, with all circumstances and reservation granted us, in the name of the King, by Mr. Richard Philipps, Commander in Chief in the said province, which allegiance we have observed as far as possible, for a number of years, enjoying peaceably our rights according to the terms of our oath in all its tenor and reserve." Now, they continued, they were "resolved, with one consent and voice, to take no other oath." They beseeched the governor "to set at liberty our people who have been detained at Halifax for some time, not even knowing their situation, which appears to us deplorable." The second memorial, signed by 203 inhabitants of Grand-Pré and Rivière Canard, also called to mind the previous "oath of fidelity, which has been approved of several times in the name of the King," as well as by "letters and proclamation of his Excellency Governor Shirley," dated 16 September 1746 and 21 October 1747. These had promised the King's protection if the inhabitants of Nova Scotia "lived faithful and obedient" to their oath, meaning the one submitted to Governor Philipps in 1729. The delegates added, with rhetorical flourish: "... we will never prove so fickle as to take an oath which changes, ever so little, the conditions and the privileges obtained for us by our sovereigns and our fathers in the past." If Lawrence and his colleagues still disdained these Acadians, and all evidence tells us that they did, the next paragraph of the Minas address should have opened their eyes to the political acumen of these simple French farmers: "And as we are well aware that the king, our master, loves and protects only constant, faithful, and free subjects," they lectured their fellow subjects, "and as it is only by virtue of his kindness, and of the fidelity which we have always preserved towards his majesty, that he has granted to us, and that he still continues to grant to us, the entire possession of our property and the free and public exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, we desire to continue, to the utmost of our power, to be faithful and dutiful in the same manner that we were allowed to be by His Excellency Mr. Richard Philipps." (Philipps had been in his grave for three and a half years now, but one wonders what the old soldier would have thought of his name being invoked so reverentially, and so forcefully, by the people who had driven him so often to despair.) They, too, beseeched the governor "to restore to them," their imprisoned cousins, "that liberty which we ask for them, with all possible submission and the most profound respect." These were the "answers" the two delegations from Pigiguit and Minas were ready to submit at the first opportunity.25
That
opportunity would come on Monday the 28th in a meeting
which would seal the fate not only of the delegates from
Annapolis and the Minas Basin, but also of every Acadian
man, woman, and child residing in the settlements from
whence they had come. Sometime over the fateful
weekend between the Friday and Monday meetings, Chief
Justice Belcher, probably on the urging of the
lieutenant-governor, penned a memorial of his own.
Presented to the Council before the Acadian delegates
were ushered in to the governor's house, "It was a
mean-minded document, full of historical inaccuracies
and of specious arguments," Naomi Griffiths
contends. Its greatest distortion--in truth, an
outright lie--was the accusation that, from 1713 until
the present time, the Acadians had supported the French
outwardly and continuously, at great detriment to the
colony. This implied that British administrators
in Nova Scotia had tolerated such perfidy and so "had
acted contrary to 'the spirit and letter of His
Majesty's Instructions.'" Such a baseless
accusation against Philipps and his lieutenant-governors
was essential to Belcher's indictment against them
for the imposition and toleration of a qualified oath of
allegiance. Having distorted history, the chief
justice then indulged in dubious sociology. The
continued Acadian presence in the colony, he insisted,
"'may retard the Progress of Settlement ... since the
French at Lunenburgh and the Lunenburghers themselves
... are more disposed to the French than to the
English.'" Belcher then indulged in a fine piece
of religious bigotry, revealing his utter ignorance of
the Acadian people. Even if the Acadians agreed to
take a new oath, he contended, "'It is well known, that
they will not be influenced' by it 'after a (papal)
Dispensation'" against an oath to a Protestant
monarch--as if their qualified oath had led them to seek
such a dispensation during the quarter century since
they had taken it. Belcher's final argument for
Acadian removal could have been written by William
Shirley himself. Griffiths continues:
"He concluded by remarking that the presence of
Massachusetts forces in the colony had provided an
opportunity to remove the Acadians which, 'once the
armament is withdrawn,' would be lost. At that
point," Belcher sincerely believed," "the Acadians would
'undoubtedly resume their Perfidy and Treacheries and
with more arts and rancour than before.' Belcher
therefore advised" his official colleagues "that 'all
the French inhabitants'"--he of course meant all of the
Catholic ones--"'may be removed from the Province' from
'the highest necessity which is lex temporis, to
the interests of His Majesty in the Province.'"
"And so,"
Naomi Griffiths contends, "when the Acadians were
called before the Council on 28 July, their fate had
already been decided." Appearing before
Lawrence's
trap was sprung, locked, and secured; the Acadians of
Nova Scotia had reached a turning point in their history
that defines them to this day. "There had been no
attempt made, in any of the Council meetings" held that
July, Naomi Griffiths reminds us, "to persuade the
Acadians that taking the oath would guarantee them the
peaceful possession of their lands." A
The final
paragraphs of the July 28 meeting announced the
completion of Lawrence's handiwork. "As it had
been before determined to send all the French
Inhabitants out of the Province if they refused to Take
the Oaths, nothing now remained to be considered but what measures
should be taken to send them away, and where they should
be sent to." But this, too, already had been
decided: "After mature Consideration, it was
unanimously Agreed That, to prevent as much as possible
their Attempting to return and molest the Settlers that
may be set down on their Lands, it would be most proper
to send them to be distributed amongst the several
Colonies on the Continent, and that a sufficient Number
of Vessels should be hired with all possible Expedition
for that purpose."
.
Morris advised secrecy in
the removal plan, "for once the Acadians knew about them," John Mack
Faragher reminds us, "it would be impossible to prevent them from
fleeing the province and contributing their capacious skills as
sailors and rangers to the French enemy." Morris's report had
been submitted before the fall of the Chignecto forts, but his
advise was still relevant. French forces remained on the St.
John River as well as St. John and Cape Breton islands, and the
French citadel at Louisbourg, though under blockade, still posed a
menace to British interests in the region. The British, Morris
went on, must strike the "Neutral" settlements with stealth and
overwhelming force.
On July 31,
Lawrence
informed Monckton that Captain Alexander Murray,
commanding at Pigiguit, and Major John Handfield, at
Annapolis Royal, "have nearly the same orders in
relation to the interior Inhabitants." Lawrence
was concerned, and rightly so, that the Acadians living
in the interior settlements "will fall upon ways and
means in spite of all our Vigilance to send off their
Cattle to the Island of St. John & Louisbourg ... by the
way of Tat[a]magouche." He intimated that, thanks
to Boscawen's blockade, Louisbourg "is now in a starving
condition," so the French there would be especially
eager to secure Acadian cattle. Lawrence therefore
ordered Monckton, "without loss of time," to send to
Tatamagouche and the interior "a pretty strong
detachment to beat up that quarter and to prevent them"
from succoring Louisbourg. "You cannot want a
guide for conducting the party," Lawrence insisted, "as
there is not a Frenchman at Chignecto but must perfectly
know the road"; however, he offered no suggestion as to
how this Chignecto "Frenchman" could be persuaded to do
harm to his cousins living in those settlements.
Lawrence
turned his attention to French activities in an even
more troubling quarter of the province. "When Beau
Soleil's son arrives," he advised Monckton, "if he
brings you no intelligence which you can trust to, of
what the French design to do or are doing upon the St.
John River, I would have you fall upon some method of
procuring the best intelligence by means of some
inhabitant you dare venture to put confidence in, whom
you may send thither for that purpose." One
wonders which of Joseph
Broussard's sons Lawrence was referring to--was it
Jean-Grégoire, the oldest, who was married with children
and would have been age 29 in the summer of 1755?
Or second son Joseph-Grégoire dit Petit Jos, who
also was married and a father and would have
been age 28 in 1755. Or third son Raphaël, age 22,
perhaps still single or a newly-wed. Timothée-Athanase, called Athanase, the
next in age, would have been only 14 at the
time. No matter, one suspects that none of the
partisan chief's sturdy sons, nor any of his nephews or
other kin, would have given Monckton reliable
information on the activities of the French "upon the
St. John River." After his confrontation with Rous
the month before,
Lawrence also
shared with his senior officer in the field the
logistics of deportation. When Monckton had
captured Beauséjour, he found substantial provisions in
the fort intended not only for the garrison, but also
for the local population. Ironically, those
provisions would be used to help send those Acadians
away. "As to the provisions that were found in the
stores at Beausejour," Lawrence instructed, "The 832
Barrels of Flour must be applied to victual the whole of
the French inhabitants, on their passage to their place
of destination." Lawrence and his staff had
carefully calculated how much provender would be needed
to transport the Acadians to their destinations:
"It is agreed that the inhabitants shall have put on
board with them, one pound of Flour & half a pound of
Bread pr. day for each person, and a pound of beef pr.
week to each, the Bread and Beef will be sent to you by
the Transports from Halifax, the Flour you have already
in store." Lawrence was certain that the captured
French stores would be more than enough for the
Chignecto deportation. "[I]f any remain," he
instructed Monckton, "it will be sent to Lunenburg for
the settlers there."
Orders in
hand, on the morning of August 6, Monckton summoned
Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, senior commander of the New
English forces at Chignecto, to his headquarters at Fort
Cumberland; Winslow later wrote in his Journal that this
was "the First Conference of a Publick nature I have had
with the Colo Since the reduction of Beausejour."
Winslow, in fact, had recently complained to his Journal
that "Thus have we Got to the End of July the whole of
which was Spent in an Indolent Maner...." After
Rous's encounter with Boishébert on the lower St. John
in late June, Winslow had beseeched Monckton to allow
his men "to Proceed in Strong Parties Two or Three days
March at a time to reconniter the Countrey and make our
Selves acquainted with its Scituation...." It was
an intelligent suggestion, but Monckton had ignored him.
Their idleness, however, was about to end.
Monckton acquainted Winslow with Lawrence's
instructions, including his decision "to remove all the
French Inhabitants out of the Province"; discussed with
him how they would deal with the Indians in the area,
especially those on the St. John River; and then
Monckton issued instructions of his own. Following
Morris's and Lawrence's recommendations, he informed
Winslow that he had hit upon a stratagem to lure the
Chignecto men and boys into his custody for the purpose
of holding them for deportation. He would "issue a
summons calling all the male inhabitants of Chignecto
and Chipoudy Bay to a meeting at the fort," John Mack
Faragher relates. "When he had them in his grasp,
he would hold them hostage against the eventual
surrender of their wives and children after the
transport vessels arrived. Then they would all be
deported to points south." Monckton directed
Winslow to observe the stratagem closely, after which he would lead a
force of his New Englanders to an as yet undisclosed
location, where he would
employ the same stratagem. Other commanders in the
region, including Captain Murray at Pigiguit and Major
Handfield at Annapolis, would employ similar schemes.
Faragher continues: "Although rumors of the removal
of the Acadians had been running through the British
encampment for weeks," yet Winslow "seemed genuinely
surprised by what Monckton told him." As a veteran
of the fighting in Nova Scotia during King George's War,
Winslow also knew, wherever he would be sent, that "he faced a difficult assignment."
That
afternoon, August 6, Monckton issued, by word of mouth,
a summons for all male inhabitants of the Chignecto
area, 16 years or older, to report to him at Fort
Cumberland on Sunday, August 10, "'to make arrangements
concerning the return of their lands.'" Nothing could
have been more clever in gaining the Acadians'
attention. According to Abbé François La Guerne,
the priest at Aulac who had served earlier at
Beaubassin, the habitants at Chepoudy and other trois-rivières
settlements, including the Broussards,
"reacted with skepticism" and stayed
away. But the Acadians forced from their lands east of the Missaguash five
years before would have been more vulnerable
And so, on
the appointed day, 400 Acadian men, most of them
refugees from the 1750 dispersal, came to the fort to
discuss with Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton
Monckton was
not deterred by the disappointing turn
out. He held the 400 in
the crowded fort overnight, promising to address them
the following day. Meanwhile, he ordered several
companies of Winslow's New Englanders to march to every
hamlet from Aulac to Baie-Verte to bring in more Acadian
men. Unfortunately for Monckton's scheme, the New Englanders
brought back only a hand full of stragglers, so the ones
who had bothered to report to him would have to do for
now. On the 11th, as promised, Monckton assembled
them on the parade ground at the center of the fort, his
redcoats, armed and ready, poised above them, and read
to them Lawrence's proclamation, which Winslow, likely
an eye witness, paraphrased in his Journal: The
governor declared them "rebels" and informed them that
"'Their Lands, Goods and Chattels forfitt to the Crown
and their Bodys to be Imprisoned.'" Monckton then
ordered the gates of the fort closed, and the 400
Acadians were now his prisoners. That same day,
Monckton issued orders through Winslow directing his New
Englanders "to take notice that all oxen, Horses, Cows,
Sheep, and all Cattle whatsoever which were the Property
of the French Inhabitants are become forfitt to his
Majty wherefore no Bargain on any Pretence whatsoever
for the Purchase of sd Cattle will be allowed of.
The officers are Desiered to acquaint the men that they
are not to Strole from their Camp and that no Cattle are
to be Kild or Destroyed as they belong to his Majesty."
Before the day was out, Monckton received reports of
Yankees killing sheep, so he ordered the lot of them,
including their officers, not to venture beyond "the
advance Gaurd without his Perticular Leave."
On the 12th,
as he certainly must have expected, Monckton received a
memorial from the imprisoned Acadians, expressing their
astonishment at the way they were being treated.
Again, these simple farmers displaced an extraordinary
eloquence through the words of the few of them who could
read and write. "They were prepared to accept the
sentence of the government," historian John Mack
Faragher interprets their lengthy plea. "'Although
born here and settled there for sixty or eighty years,'"
they reminded the commander, "'inhabitants cannot dwell
in a country against the will of the sovereign, to which
as Christians we must submit without argument.'
But what was a Christian to make of their treatment?
They had responded to Monckton's summons in good faith,
but he had imprisoned them all without warning.
They were shocked by such 'universal detention.'
They had brought no food, no blankets, no change of
clothing, and Monckton had made no provision for their
care. They had been crowded into damp quarters,
forced to sleep on boards, were being eaten alive by
vermin, and threatened with disease. Why were they
being subjected to such things? It was an
unendurable hardship, something a true Christian could
not fail to appreciate. They had to think of the
families which it pleased God to grant them.
Terrified, their women and children had fled into the
woods, and would perish for the want of a little milk.
They prayed that Monckton inform their wives and mothers
of their situation, so they would have no cause for
worry. A 'truly Christian and paternal heart (d'un
coeur vrayment Chretien et patneral),' they
concluded, could not refuse their prayer."
Monckton's response was to relieve overcrowding at Fort
Cumberland by sending 150 of them under guard to nearby
Fort Lawrence, where
.
Lawrence
penned those "particular instructions" on August 11, the
same day Monckton shut the gates of Fort Cumberland on
the Chignecto Acadians. In words that, to a large
extent, were necessarily redundant, Lawrence revealed to
his field commanders the details of his plan for
deportation. Striving for tactical and logistical coordination
across a wide swatch of territory,
Lawrence's plan was in many ways naive and
unworkable. "That the inhabitants may not have it in
their power to return to this Province, nor to join in
strengthening the French of Canada or Louisbourg," he
informed his commanders, "it is resolved that they shall be dispers'd among his Majesty's Colonies upon the
Continent of America." Transports and warships
already were on their way from Halifax to ship off the
Acadians at Chignecto. (
Lawrence advised Winslow to consult with Captain Murray at Pigiguit, who was "well acquainted with the people and with the country" in that part of the Minas Basin. "You will use all the means proper and necessary for collecting the people together so as to get them on board," Lawrence instructed each commander. "If you find that fair means will not do with them" (whatever he meant by that) "you must proceed by the most vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to embark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter or support, by burning their houses and destroying everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the Country." Winslow was ordered to "send a strong Detachment to Annapolis Royal to assist Major Handfield in shipping off those of that River." On the way to Annapolis, Lawrence directed, Winslow's detachment was to pick up "all the stragglers that may be met with by the way" and carry them on to Annapolis, where they would be "shipped with the rest."
Lawrence then revealed the destinations of the transported Acadians. From Minas and Pigiguit, 500 inhabitants would go to North Carolina, 1,000 to Virginia, and 500 to Maryland. If the number from those settlements exceeded 2,000, the commanders there would ship off the extras "in proportion" to the numbers given for each destination. From the Annapolis valley, 300 inhabitants would go to Philadelphia, 200 to New York, 300 to Connecticut, and 200 to Boston. If the number actually captured there exceeded 1,000 persons, more would be sent to Boston "in proportion" to those shipped "to the Province of Connecticut." Nowhere in Lawrence's orders does he advise his commanders to keep Acadian families together. In fact, the stratagem to be employed for subduing the inhabitants was certain to result in their separation: the men and older boys would be held in confinement while patrols rushed about to cordon off the villages, filled now with only women and children. Lawrence's instructions did not address the safety of these women and children while his soldiers went about the business of torching their villages. The commanders themselves would determine such things. But, as military officers, both regular and provincial, they did not have to be told that the fate of these people was secondary to the completion of their missions.
Once the
inhabitants had been placed aboard the transports,
each commander was to present to the master of each
vessel "one of the Letters (of which you will receive a
number signed by me) which you will address to the
Governor of the Province, or the Commander in Chief for
the time being, where they are to be put on shore, and
endorse therein the printed form of the Certificate to
be granted to the masters of the vessels, to entitle
them to their hire as agreed upon by Charter Party."
This would insure proper compensation to the masters and
their crewmen who would take these people into exile,
but it would not be done until each of the ships had
completed the assigned voyage. Once
each ship reached its destination, each master was "to
wait upon the Governors or Commanders in Chief of the
Provinces to which they are bound, with the said
letters" addressed to each of them by Lawrence's
officers, "and to make all possible dispatch in
debarking these passengers and obtaining Certificates
thereof agreeable to the form aforesaid." Looking
to the bottom line of what would be a very expensive
operation, Lawrence urged each commander to remember
that, since the transports were being "hired by the
month, you will use all possible dispatch to save expence to the publick."
The most
remarkable part of Lawrence's instructions was the
missive entitled "Circular Letter from Governor Lawrence
to the Governors on the Continent," also dated August
11. When Lawrence and his Council had decided to send all
of the Acadians out of Nova Scotia two weeks before,
they had not been granted
the luxury of time to consult with Lawrence's fellow
governors. Except for rumors that might reach them
during the following weeks, British officials down the
coast would not know what was coming until the transports full of "Neutrals" arrived at their
door! Lawrence no doubt expected his lengthy
communication to explain it all to them: "SIR," the circular began,
"The success that has attended his Majesty's arms in
driving the French from the Encroachments they had made
in this province, furnished me with a favorable
opportunity of reducing the French inhabitants of this
Colony to a proper obedience to his Majesty's
Government, or forcing them to quit the country." Lawrence then assumed the role of historian.
"These inhabitants were permitted to remain in quiet
possession of their lands upon condition they should
take the Oath of allegiance to the King within one year
after the Treaty of Utrecht by which this province was
ceded to Great Britain," he related. "[W]ith this
condition they have ever refused to comply," he
contended, "without having at the same time from the
Governor an assurance in writing that they should not be
called upon to bear arms in the defence of the province;
and with this General Philipps did comply," Lawrence
admitted, "of which step his Majesty disapproved and the
inhabitants pretending therefrom to be in a state of
Neutrality between his Majesty and his enemies have
continually furnished the French & Indians with
Intelligence, quarters, provisions and assistance in
annoying the Government; and while one part have abetted
the French Encroachments by their treachery, the other
have countenanced them by open Rebellion." A
It would be
months before Lawrence's fellow governors could read
these words. Meanwhile, on August 13, two days
after Lawrence wrote the circular, Secretary of State
Sir Thomas Robinson, the colonial governors' immediate superior in
London, penned a letter to Lawrence which did not
comport with much of what the Nova Scotia governor had written
to his colleagues. Robinson's letter reveals that
.
By the middle
of August, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow and his New
Englanders were ready to put the Chignecto isthmus
behind them. They had been there for three long
months, fighting their way into Fort Beauséjour and
accepting the surrender of Fort Gaspereau, which had
been rewarding enough, but then came weeks of forced
idleness until ordered to round up Acadian men and boys
who had ignored Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton's summons to
report to him at Fort Cumberland.
But their
travails with Monckton were not yet behind them.
After a meeting with his young commander on August 14
that only set the proud officers at loggerheads again, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow ordered his senior captain, Nathan
Adams, to march the four companies from their camp near
Fort Cumberland to the docks on the lower Missaguash,
where their baggage waited. Adams ordered the
drummers to beat cadence while he and his New
Englanders, with regimental colors flying, marched past
the walls of Monckton's fort. Soon Monckton's
aide-de-camp, T. Moncreiffe, appeared "and Peremptorly
Demanded the Colours by the Commanders Orders and
actually took them from Mr. Gray my Ensign," Winslow
related in his Journal. "I apprehend [this] is the First
Time that Ever a British Commandr in Chiefe Took the
Kings Colours from a Marching party that had
always behaved well," Winslow complained. "This Transaction Causd Great
uneassiness to both officers & Soldiers, & raised my
Temper Some." At the docks, Winslow found the
transports still not ready, so he ordered his companies
to camp on higher ground until they could move on to their new posting. But the
touchy New Englishman could not resist a parting shot at
his "Commandr in Chiefe." On the 15th, while
still waiting for the transports,
Winslow fired off a letter to Monckton, chiding him for
ordering the striking of his colors while his men
marched past the walls of Cumberland. He found it
coldly ironic that "the French who
were Conquered Should March with their Colours Flying
and that we who assisted to Conquer them were not
permitted." He ended his missive with what
seemed to be conciliatory words but was likely sarcasm: "If Sir, you have any Commands
[I] shall Gladly receive & Chearfully obey them." Monckton's response, written the same
day, only widened the chasm between himself and the New
Englanders and revealed a penchant on his part for playing the
martinet. He reminded Winslow that, since the other seven
companies of Governor Shirley's regiment, under
Lieutenant-Colonel William Scott, would remain at
Fort Cumberland, the regimental colors should remain
there as well. He reminded Winslow that he was
being allowed to accompany just a portion of his command
to its new post only through the indulgence of
Governor Lawrence and himself. He offered a
lukewarm apology for having offended the proud New
Englander, who soon would be off "Seeing the Country,"
Monckton sneered sarcastically.
Lawrence could not have been unaware of the bad blood flowing between these senior officers. The feud between them had erupted in Boston the previous winter, and the heat of summer seemed only to make it worse. The dispute, in fact, may have been a reason why Lawrence sent Winslow to Minas with only a portion of his regiment--an embarrassing circumstance of which the touchy New Englander certainly was aware.45b
Finally, on
August 16, Winslow and his 313 New Englanders, with two
weeks worth of provisions, sailed down Cumberland Basin
and into the Bay of Fundy, their destination the Minas
Basin. The flotilla--the
sloop of war HMS York under ship's master
Preble, the armed schooner Greyhound under Master
Samuel Hodgkins, and the schooner of war HMS Warren
under Master Abraham Adams--dropped anchor at "a Place
Cald the Jaging (?)" that evening. The following
day, the 17th, they rounded Cape Chignecto, entered the Minas
Channel, sailed past capes d'Or, Split, and Blomidon,
and anchored in Minas Basin at the mouth of Rivière
Pigiguit, before nightfall. They remained there for the night,
and on the morning tide of the 18th ascended the Pigiguit to Fort Edward,
which they reached "at Eleven o'Clock in the
Forenoon." Winslow was impressed with what he saw.
Keeping his men on board, he and several of his officers
were rowed ashore to consult with the fort's commander.
After the requisite greetings and lunch with Captain
Murray and "the Gents the officers," Murray handed Winslow a letter
from Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that detailed the operations for
the Minas settlements; Winslow and his New Englanders
would not remain at Pigiguit but were going, instead, to Grand-Pré. The letter contained more
detailed suggestions for distracting the area Acadians
on the eve of deportation, detailed what the Acadians
could and could not carry into exile, cautioned Winslow
to prevent his provincials from interacting with the
local inhabitants, warned both commanders to keep the
news of Braddock's defeat from reaching the Acadians,
ordered the immediate arrest of any inhabitant expected
"to be an Haranger or an Intreiguer amongst the People,"
and included an
important addition to Lawrence's original instructions
that affected the timing of the entire operation:
Murray and Winslow, Lawrence insisted, must wait until the Acadians
completed their harvest before
setting into motion their deportation schemes. The
grain would help provision the deportation ships, which
would not arrive in the basin until after the harvest was in.
Winslow and
his officers spent the night with the men aboard their
transports. That evening, Winslow addressed a
letter to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence in which he reported meeting
with Captain Murray and learning "that it is your
Pleasure that I with the Party be posted at Mines."
He would be going not to Pigiguit but to the most
populous community in the colony, to the breadbasket of
British Nova Scotia. Ironically, Winslow's first
complaint to Lawrence was that his command
had "only Provissions
for Eight Days & for that time nither Butter no
Molasses." He had expected to pick up those
items at Fort Edward, but Murray had not even bread to
spare. Winslow asked for a resupply of rum,
instead of molasses, to avoid the trouble of having to
distill the essential liquor during a campaign that
would require "Mostly Marching" in open
country. He
also informed the governor that, when his men reached
Pigiguit, they had "nither Powder nor ball but what is
in our Cartherage Boxes nor Spare Flints." Murray,
at least, was able to supply them with ammunition--a
barrel and a half of power and 3,000 musket balls--though not with spare flints
or cartridge paper, so
Winslow appealed to Lawrence's "Fatherly
Care for our future Supply, which I hope will Come
Seasonably." He asked for his artillery, still at
Chignecto, as well as all or part of
Joseph Goreham's company of rangers to provide
reconnaissance and security until his men could learn the country.
At sunrise the following the morning,
August 19, the three ships carrying Winslow and his
313 Yankees slipped back down the Pigiguit on the ebbing
tide, rounded the headland at present-day Oak Island, sailed into the mouth of Rivière Gaspereau,
and reached Grand-Pré landing a little before noon.
Many of the area inhabitants must have noticed the armed British vessels making their way slowly up and down the
Pigiguit. Only a few years earlier, during the petit-guerre, it
would not have been unheard of for these vessels and
their occupants to come under musket fire from the riverbanks. But Le Loutre and the Mi'kmaq were gone now, as were many of the local hotheads. Thanks to
Lawrence's diligence back in early June,
Murray and his redcoats had confiscated most, if not
all, of the inhabitants'
weapons. No shots rang out, during the day or
night, to disturb the tranquility of Winslow's
movements.
Also gone
were three of the four priests who had served the
parishes in that part of the colony. Like
every British official before him, Lawrence believed
the Acadians obeyed their priests without question, and
that most, if not every, French clergyman preached nothing but ill
against the British government. Father
Claude-Jean-Baptiste Chauvreulx, a Sulpician,
As Winslow
led his 313 New Englanders ashore, "It must have been
profoundly unsettling for the Acadians to watch, ...
especially in the climate
Winslow posted an order calling on the principal inhabitants to
report to him at "Nine of ye Clock" the following
morning, August 20. All of the Minas
deputies were gone, still languishing in one of the
prison sheds on Georges Island, and the Grand-Pré priest
likely was there as well. Nevertheless, at the appointed
time, several of the community's elders appeared at the
priest's house, at least two of them acquainted with Winslow from
his days at Grand-Pré eight years before. François
Landry of Rivière-des-Habitants west of
Grand-Pré was a man in his 60s. René LeBlanc
was
the septuagenarian notary of Grand-Pré who had spent two
years as Le Loutre's prisoner at trois-rivières a few
years earlier. Both were well-known accommodators who had
served over the years as intermediaries between the
Minas inhabitants and the
provincial government. Winslow told them that he
was there "to take Command of this Place" but that he
was "Scanty of Provisions." It would be necessary,
then, for the inhabitants to provision his
men until his supply ships arrived. The elders
agreed, offering "to Furnish meat Saterday & Continue to
Grant me Supplys til Such time as I was otherways
releved," Winslow noted in his Journal. The elders "expressed concern about the
'sacred things' in the church's sacristy, and Winslow
gave them leave to remove the objects and cover the
altar" in order "to Prevent there being Defiled by
Herriticks," he
The desecration of St.-Charles-des-Mines "by Herriticks" had only just begun.
In a letter
addressed to Governor Shirley on August 22, Winslow
intimated to his powerful benefactor that he expected
"to be Joyned with 200 men more Soon." In the same
letter, he revealed, not for the last time, subtle
misgivings about the nature of his mission "at Mines."
In describing what he had seen recently at Chignecto, he
noted that "The women & Children are Suffered to Lieve
in their Housses and the Inhabitants throh out the
Provinces it is Suposed will Suffer the Same Fate," he
shrugged, "althoh not Equally Guilty of open Violence,
as those of Chignecto and Bay of Verte." He
assured the governor that "the Army in General" enjoyed
"a Good State of Health, and it is Likely Shall Soon
have our Hands full of Disagreable Business to remove
People from their Antient Habitations, which, in this
part of the Countrey," he assured the governor, "are
Verry Valuable."
Ever mindful
of the devastating surprise attack at Grand-Pré eight
years before, Winslow kept his men busy manning a strong
line of pickets around his encampment, while others
unloaded what supplies were left aboard the three ships
still at anchor in the Gaspereau and stow them inside
the church under lock and key. Judging from what
Winslow saw and heard, the locals still had no inkling
of what was about to befall them. Winslow told
them that he
and his men would remain among them at least through the winter.
But security from local hotheads was only one of
Winslow's worries. There was also the matter of
subsistence for his men. Although the elders had
agreed to provide him whatever he needed, he naturally
preferred a more regular source of supply not dependent
on the whims of the local inhabitants. Much to his
relief, soon after his arrival he received a letter from
Captain Murray relaying more "Directions" from
Lieutenant-Governor
Lawrence that may have eased his mind, if not his
conscience. Murray related that Lawrence would be
sending Winslow "a months Provissions" but,
On the
evening of August 22,
Winslow's "Months Provissions for 400 men" reached
Grand-Pré from Halifax aboard the 96-ton sloop
Endeavor, under Captain James Nichols. The
following day, Winslow's men unloaded the vessel and
stored these supplies in the church as well. Winslow
now was able to send two of the vessels on which he had
come,
the Greyhound and HMS York, back to
Chignecto and sent the HMS Warren to Annapolis
Royal. Meanwhile, his men
erected obstacles in front of their picket lines,
prepared a small dwelling within their lines to house their captains,
and cobbled together a guard house from material they
could find. I "Shall put his Majesty to No Exspence in the whole," Winslow quipped in a letter to
Murray on the 24th, but he did ask to borrow a thousand
nails and a proper lock for his storeroom inside the
church. He had another use in mind for that sturdy
edifice, but not until the Acadians completed their
harvest. He informed Murray that Grand-Pré elder
Jacques Thériot had reassured him his fellow
Acadians at Grand-Pré and Rivière-aux-Canards "readily
Comply with the Governours Deman of Cattle and that they
Should be of the Best," that they were in fact in the
woods collecting the beeves that very day. Winslow
also asked Murray to send him "one mans Provissions for
a weak of Each Specia" so that he could issue rations
according to regulation. Murray promptly hurried a
thousand "ten penny nails" to Grand-Pré and promised to
pay his "Complements" to Winslow as soon as he could get
away.
In late
August, Winslow received two letters that could not have
pleased him. The first, from Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence,
though written in conciliatory language, denied him,
without explanation, the reinforcements from Chignecto
he had hoped to receive by then. Lawrence assured
him that the force he had brought to Minas was "Intirely
Sufficient for the Service you are Going Upon."
Nor could Lawrence spare him any rangers "at Present"
but assured him that Captain Murray at Fort Edward "has
People Enough who Know the Country and Can Conduct Any
Party's you may have Occasion to Send Out."
Perhaps included in the same packet with Lawrence's
missive was a letter addressed to Winslow from Joseph Goreham, also dated
August 26. The ranger captain offered to
exchange some of his men for "the Indians that Are
Scattered in your Corps," evidently the only way that
Winslow would be able to acquire men with rangering
skills. Lawrence agreed to meet with him at Halifax once his
duties at Minas were completed, "when wee Shall Settle
all Matters Both with Regard to the Greavances you hint
at, and the Business of the Intended Settlers."
Convinced that Winslow and his New Englanders "have no
Attack to Fear from the Enemy," he urged Winslow,
On Friday,
August 29, Captain Murray descended to Grand-Pré
During the
next two days, the first of the deportation transports
arrived from Boston--three sloops on the evening of Saturday the 30th,
and a schooner on Sunday the 31st. The vessels
included the 83-ton sloop Endeavor, master John
Stone (not to be confused with the 96-ton Endeavor
under James Nichols, which had arrived from Halifax the
week before and likely had already departed Minas); the
86-ton sloop Industry, master George Goodwin
(also called Gooding); and the 90 1/2-ton sloop Mary,
also styled a schooner, master Andrew Dunning.
Each ship's captain presented their orders--Stone's and
Goodwin's dated August 21 and Dunning's dated August
22--each properly endorsed by the ships'
Although Lawrence's
"agent Victualler," George Saul, had not reached
Minas by September 1, the governor's plan nevertheless
was progressing nicely; another, even more formidable
trap, was about to be sprung on these Acadians.
Soon some of them were clamoring aboard the merchant
vessels, curious about their purpose. As John Mack
Faragher relates, Winslow had already given "The ships'
masters ... instructions to say 'they were come to
attend' to needs of the New Englanders. "It was
part of the campaign of lies intended to keep the
Acadians in the dark," Faragher adds, though the whole
business "must have struck the inhabitants as
suspicious." The vessels lay high in the water, so
they obviously carried no more supplies for Winslow and
his Yankees, nor were the ships' captains eager to strike bargains with the
local inhabitants; Boston merchants were never evasive
about the wares they offered to trade. Some of the
locals had observed the unloading of the other
Endeavor with its cargo of provisions
More
transports were coming, of that they were certain, and
the harvest was almost complete, so it was time to
secure the Acadians for deportation. Early in the
morning of Tuesday, September 2, as Captain Adams and his company began
their march to Rivière-aux-Canards, Winslow, heading in
the opposite direction, "took a whaleboat to Fort Edward
for a final planning session with Murray." Captain
Murray had been busy. He showed Winslow a copy of
the summons they would issue for the "meetings" of Friday the 5th,
which they agreed would be held at the church in Grand-Pré
and at Fort Edward at the same time in the middle of the
afternoon so that inhabitants in one community could not
alert their cousins in the other. With Winslow's approval,
Murray employed Pigiguit merchant Isaac Deschamps, a
Huguenot, to translate the finished text into French.
Wasting no time, "at Eleven a Clock in the Forenoon," Winslow hurried back
down to Grand-Pré and
employed a local collaborator, Alexandre de Rodohan, "a
Flemish surgeon married to an Acadian woman, to read the
summons publicly throughout the countryside" on that and
the following days.
In English, Winslow's September 2 summons read: "To the Inhabitants of the District of Grand Pre, Mines River, Cannard, &c. as well ancient as young Men & Lades. Whereas his Excellency the Governour has Instructed us of his Last resolution Respecting the maters Proposed Lately to the Inhabitants and as ordered us to Communicate the same to the Inhabitants in General in Person his Excellency be desierous that each of them Should be fully Satisfyed of his Majesty's Intentions which he has also ordered us to Communicate to you Such as they have Given him. I therefore order and Strictly Injoyne by these Pressence to all the Inhabitants as well of the above named Districts as of all the other Districts, both old men & young men as well as all the Lads of ten years of age to attend at the Church at Grand Pre on Fryday the 5th Instant at Three of the Clock in the afternoon that We May Impart to them what we are ordered to Communicate to them: Declaring that no Excuse will be admitted of on any Pretense whatsoever on Pain of Forfitting Goods and Chattels on Default. Given at Grand Pre the Second of September in the 29th year of his Majesty's reign A.D. 1755." Murray's summons, but for the names of the affected districts, was worded exactly the same.58a
Winslow, meanwhile, kept his men in camp, cleaning and repairing their weapons, while he polished the proclamation he would read to the Acadians during the appointed meeting in the Grand-Pré church. Three days before, on the 31st, as per Lawrence's instructions, he had sent Lieutenant Crooker in a whaleboat to Chignecto to retrieve more ammunition and molasses and to deliver dispatches to Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton. On Tuesday the 2nd, while returning to Grand-Pré, Crooker boarded a transport lying in the Gaspereau that had arrived the previous day. Here was the 90-ton schooner Neptune, master Jonathan Davis, with orders from Apthorp & Hancock dated August 22. Five deportation transports now waited in the Gaspereau. On Wednesday the 3rd, Captain Adams returned from his overnight sojourn to Rivière-aux-Canards "and reported it was a Fine Country and Full of Inhabitants, a Butifull Church & abundance of ye Goods of the world. Provisions of all Kinds in great Plenty"--likely the same things Winslow had found at Grand-Pré earlier in the week. Later that day, Winslow ordered Captain Hobbs with a junior officer, two sergeants, two corporals, and 50 men "to Visset the Village Melanson on the River Gaspereau," south of Grand-Pré. Captain Osgood "with the Like Number of officers and men" was sent to reconnoiter "the Country in the Front or to the Southward of our Incampment." Both parties returned that evening "and Gave Each accounts that it was a Fine Countrey."
That evening,
the first scare occurred in Winslow's encampment.
Around 9 o'clock, well after dark, two shots rang out at
the west end of the picket line. Winslow ordered
an immediate roll call to determine who was missing and
inquired as to the nature of the disturbance. It
was soon ascertained that, when someone had approached
the sentries at that end of the camp, the New Englanders
"Three Times haled & he not answering they Both Fired at
him." The nighttime wandere proved to be
"[T]he
announcement of the meeting had created a great deal of
concern" among all of the inhabitants," John Mack
Faragher relates. "An assembly of all men of the
community, including boys, was highly unusual."
And then yet another "apparently empty sloop had arrived
at the landing. Might the British actually be
implementing the removal they had threatened for so many
years? A group of inhabitants, fearing impending
arrest, took their concerns directly to Winslow's
captains. 'We had the greatest assurance given
us,' they later wrote, 'that there was no other design
but to make us renew our former oath of fidelity.'"
Still, as
Faragher relates, "An unknown number of families fled in
the days preceding the meeting." They included
Augustin LeBlanc, 31-year-old cousin of the
accommodator, René LeBlanc, the aging notary.
After hearing Winslow's summons, Augustin hurried home
and cried until his face was wet with tears. He
then resolved to do more than cry. Carrying what
they could, he and his wife, Françoise Hébert, "took
to the woods with their two young sons," Jean, age 2,
and Augustin, fils, an infant. "But the
families most inclined to leave had already done so,"
Faragher notes. "Most of the Acadians who
remained in September 1755 found the prospect of
abandoning their homes and homeland almost unthinkable."
Many of the families in the region were in their fourth
and fifth generations--Augustin,
E
"Gentlemen," the proclamation began," I have Received
from his Excellency, Governor Lawrence, The King's
Commission which I have in my hand and by whose orders
you are Convened together to Manifest to you His
Majesty's final resolution to the French Inhabitants of
this his Province of Nova Scotia, who for almost half a
Century have had more Indulgence Granted them, than any
of his Subjects in any part of his Dominions."
Those who were amused by the final clause of this
rambling sentence were wise enough to keep their
feelings to themselves. Nor could they have known
that the genesis of this proclamation lay not with their King
in London but rather with Lawrence and his Council in
Halifax, who were acting in violation of royal intent--something
And then Winslow "Declared them the King's Prisoners."
Again, John Mack Faragher says it best: "These words, translated into French, came as a profound shock to the assembled men and boys. Winslow recorded only that they were 'greatly struck.' There is no other evidence of their reaction, no Acadian recollections, no family stories transcribed by genealogists or antiquarians. It is as if they had been struck dumb, and that may be close to the truth. It was impossible for most of them to accept what they heard. Years later, old Acadians who suffered through the expulsion told Reverend Brown of Halifax that 'to the last hour of their confinement, they refused to believe that the government would dare to execute their threatened purpose.'" Yet there they remained, their beloved church now "their prison while they awaited the arrival of sufficient transports for their deportation."64
After the
doors of St.-Charles-des-Mines were locked shut, Winslow
and his officers returned to their other duties.
Mindful of the nature of soldiers and sailors, as well
as vengeful inhabitants, Winslow issued the following
dictum: "All officers and Soldiers and Sea Men
Employed in his Majesty's Service as well as his
Subjects of what Denomination Soever, are hereby
Notifyed That all Cattle vizt. Horsses, Horne Cattle,
Sheep, goats, Hoggs and Poultrey of Every Kinde, that
was this Day Soposed to be Vested in the French
Inhabitants of this Province are become Forfitted to his
Majesty whose Property they now are and Every Person of
what Denomination Soever is to take Care not to Hurt
Kill or Destroy anything of any Kinde nor to Rob
Orchards or Gardens or to make waste of anything Dead or
alive in these Districts without Special order."
He ordered his proclamation to be published not only in
the camps, but also in all of the villages under his
jurisdiction.
Winslow could
not have been surprised by the Acadian response to their
incarceration. Three weeks earlier, while Winslow
was still there, it had taken 24 hours for the 400
Acadians at Chignecto to petition Lieutenant-Colonel
Monckton; at Grand-Pré, a response came probably soon
after Winslow had returned to his quarters. The
elders locked inside the church, including François
Landry and René LeBlanc, chose a delegation
to meet with Winslow in person. Probably expecting
the request, he agreed to it. They expressed to
him their "Great Greif ... that they had incurd his
Majty's Displeasure." (One wonders what their
reaction would have been had they been aware of the
true nature of the King's feelings towards them, men
he had called his "useful Subjects.") What worried
them most, of course, was the effect of their
incarceration on their wives and children. They
begged the lieutenant colonel to allow them to return to
their homes so that they could calm the fears of their
families. Some of them, they informed him, had
agreed to "be returned as Hostages for the appearance of
the rest," who they would try to bring in to report to
the commander. "Winslow got the impression,"
Faragher tells us, "that none of them believed they
would actually be removed." A hostage scheme as
they proposed, Winslow understood, would be unworkable
in the grand scheme of things--his orders, not to
mention the success of the deportation plan, called for
the enforced detention of the men and boys until
it was time to reunite them with their women and
children as they boarded the deportation transports.
He intended for them--the men, women, and
children--to feel anxious, vulnerable, continually
confused. Nevertheless, he reassured the elders
that their women and children would be protected.
He promised to "Consider of their Motion" and then
dismissed them to return to their impromptu "prison."
As soon as they had gone, he convened a council of his
officers and reviewed what the Acadian elders had
proposed. His officers agreed that a modification
of the hostage scheme could be helpful: 10 of the
men from Grand-Pré and 10 from aux-Canards and Habitants
would be allowed to visit the families in their villages
that evening and then return with "an Exact Account of
their absent Bretheren & their Circumstances on the
Morrow." Moreover, during their visit, the 20
representatives would inform all of the women in their
communities that they would be "responsible for feeding
and clothing the prisoners, just as they were
provisioning the troops." This would encourage the
women to look after the "King's" animals as well as
"his" recently-harvested crops until the New Englanders
could secure them.
Winslow
issued orders to double the camp guards and to march
12-man patrols accompanied by a sergeant around the
church continuously. A courier soon arrived from
Fort Edward: "I have Succeeded Finely," Captain
Murray chortled in his dispatch, "and have Got 183 Men
into my Possession. I Belive there are but Very
feu Left Excepting ye Sick I am hopefull you have had
Equal Good Luck." He asked for transports to be
sent to him as soon as possible "for you Know our Forte
is but smal," he reminded Winslow, so the vessels could
serve as floating prisons. He also asked for
another officer and 30 more men "as I Shall be Obliged
to Send to Some Distant Rivers where they are not all
Come yet." Murray added that "I have Sent Pierre
Leblanc's Son to you to Go with his Father as you
have Taken him under your Protection"--an
interesting way of putting it. Murray had
originally estimated that he would require at least 360
"tun Shipping" to send the Pigiguit Acadians into
oblivion, but after consulting with Captain Davis of the
Neptune, which evidently had been sent to him, "I
belive 400 Tuns will be Better."
Winslow
answered Murray promptly: "I have the Favor of
yours of this Day," he wrote, "and Rejoyce at your
Success and also for the Smiles that has attended ye
Party hear. The Number of Men I have now in
Custody I Cant think Falls Much Shorte of 500 Men."
He mentioned the scheme of the 20 representatives and
intimated that he had attempted to "take the List" of
the men and boys he had lured into the church, "but
Night put me off." But something else was putting
him off. Murray was not the only one in need of
reinforcements. Since Sunday the 31st, Captain
Handfield at Annapolis had been beseeching him for more
men as well. But here he was, with 400, perhaps a
many as 500, men and boys in a simple church, twice the number of prisoners
to guard as the size of his entire
command. Not nearly enough transports had arrived
to take these prisoners and their families away, nor had
his whaleboat returned, again, from Chignecto with more
ammunition and supplies for his men. And where was
Mr. Saul and the victuals for the deportation
transports? Winslow
had no idea how many more men in the Minas area had yet
to be rounded up. Even if, upon their return in
the morning, the 20 representatives released to their
villages gave him an accurate
count of who was missing, he would have to "Send partys to the remotest
parts of these Districts" to bring them in, willingly or
otherwise, and this would weaken the size of his guard at the church
even further. "Things are Now Very heavy on my harte and hands," he intimated to Murray in his rambling
reply. Before sealing the letter and handing it
to Murray's courier, he admitted that "the out Commands
if not willing to Submit Must be Let alone till a
Further Day." This included the hamlets at
Cobeguit, at the northwestern end of the basin.
But the
lieutenant-colonel's day was not yet over. He
issued orders allowing the prisoners "to repair to their
Quarters in the church att Tattoo, and in the Day time
not to Exstend their walks to the Eastward of the
Commandants Quarters without leave from the officer of
the Guard." While the Acadians were taking their
exercise, he added, "one half of the Guard Take Shelter
under my Markee." Learning that the prisoners had
not yet received their dinner and were begging "for
Bread," he ordered rations to be distributed to them but
reminded them "that for the Future they be Supplyd from
their respective Familys." This would mean, of
course, a constant coming and going of women and
children, but the disturbance could not be helped--there
was not enough food in his stores of supply to feed both
the prisoners and the men of his command. "Thus
Ended the Memerable fifth of September," he confided to
his Journal, "a Day of Great Fatigue & Troble."
The men and boys sleeping in the church that night certainly would have agreed.
.
The round up
of the Acadians in the Annapolis valley was not going
The trouble
started at the end of August, before Major John
Handfield and his hundred or so redcoats at Fort Anne
could round up the valley's men and boys. A
transport from Boston, sitting high in the water,
slipped through the Gut and into the lower Annapolis
basin and anchored near the walls of Fort Anne.
Evidently Acadians in the banlieu had become
aware of the Chignecto roundup during the second week of
August and the arrival of a large force of Yankees at
Minas the following week. Meanwhile, over a dozen
lightly-laden merchant vessels had sailed up the bay
towards Chignecto and Minas, and the Acadians at
Annapolis had made note of it. And here was a
transport of similar description making its way past
Goat Island.
The Acadians
at Annapolis panicked. According to John Mack
Faragher, "all of the men of the banlieu fled,
leaving their wives and children to bring in the
harvest." The panic spread upriver. Major
Handfield, evidently taken by surprise, reacted as
swiftly as he could. He sent a party of men to the
haute rivière "to bring in About 100 of the Heads
of Families and young Men," but his redcoats, under
Ensign Middleton, "Found the Villages up the River
Destitute of all the Male heads of Families who are
retiered into the woods having Taken their beding &c
with them." On August 31, Handfield hurried a
dispatch to Winslow at Minas, asking him to "Send me
reinforcement of Men So Soon as you Can Posably Spare
them that May Enable me to Bring them to reason."
Winslow's instructions from Lawrence had ordered him to
A
Evidently
Handfield's family connections with the Acadians of the
valley redounded in his favor. He deceived them unashamedly and got away with it. On
September 4, Handfield sent a letter to Winslow by his
son, Lieutenant John Handfield, Jr., with the notation
that the young Handfield would share with Winslow the
details of his father's success. Somehow the
redcoat major lured "The whole of the French Inhabitants
on the River of Annapolis Royal [to] return to their Duty
and Houses and Promised to Submit to the Kings Orders,"
as Winslow put it--an amazing feat. John
Mack Faragher admits that how Handfield "accomplished
this is not known. Lawrence had ordered that in
the face of the slightest resistance the commanders were
to proceed against the Acadians by 'the most vigorous
measures possible... burning their houses and destroying
everything" if necessary. Monckton was employing
those very tactics in attempting to subdue the
inhabitants of the trois-rivières. Winslow
and Murray were prepared to wield the torch as well,
but, so far, such measures were unnecessary at Minas and
Pigiguit. "Handfield at Annapolis," Faragher
explains, "seems to have used milder forms of
persuasion. Inhabitants who fled Annapolis and
eventually found their way to refugee camps on the North
Shore reported that Handfield assured the inhabitants
their removal was to be temporary and that they would be
allowed to return to their farms at the conclusion of
the war. In exchange for their promise to
surrender voluntarily when the vessels arrived, he
offered others the choice of being transported to
'whichever of the colonies they pleased.'" Nothing
in Lawrence's instructions had promised any such thing,
but that may be the point: Handfield may have been
thinking about what the governor's instructions did
say to him when he lied so boldly to his neighbors and
kin. In a letter of reply dated September 7,
Winslow thanked Handfield for the intelligence he had
received via the major's son and apologized for not
having been able to send reinforcements to Annapolis
during Handfield's moment of tribulation. "Have
but 287 Privates with me & 423 French men in camp,"
Winslow explained, and then he insured the major that
"My Best Compliments waits your Lady, Family & Frinds."
.
Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton's August 10 roundup of the Chignecto men and boys was a qualified success, and other triumphs soon followed. Monckton kept his Yankees busy not only bringing in more men and boys from the surrounding settlements, but also rounding up the women and children and "torching the hamlets of Au Lac, Tantramar, and Baie-Verte, north of Fort Cumberland." Lawrence had authorized such methods to drive reluctant habitants into the arms of the British forces, so this redcoat commander, unlike his connected colleague in the Annapolis valley, felt no compunction in employing what one historian calls "a campaign of terror." Despite strict orders against it, Monckton's Yankees plundered Acadian homes before torching them, killed and ate "the King's" livestock, and treated the inhabitants with great brutality before escorting them to concentration areas set up near the walls of forts Cumberland and Lawrence. An example of New English depredation in the area is related by historian John Mack Faragher: "At the village of Minudie[sic], located at the water's end on Beaubassin channel" of today's Cumberland Basin, "a company of New Englanders surrounded the houses of sleeping Acadians in the hours before dawn. Roused at first light by a volley of musket fire, the inhabitants rushed from their homes. Finding their escape by land cut off, many plunged into the channel and attempted to swim against the surging tide to the other shore, two miles away. The troops made targets of the struggling people. 'See how I made his forked end turn up!' one Yankee shouted to another. The brutality at Minudie," Faragher reminds us, "was intended as a lesson to other refugees."80
Moncton's campaign of terror was not confined to the Chignecto area. To close off an avenue of escape from the Chignecto isthmus, as well as from the interior of the peninsula, Monckton sent a force of 100 New Englanders under Captain Abijah Willard to round up the Acadians at Tatamagouche, on the Mer Rouge shore east of Baie-Verte. The New Englanders traveled not by water but by land, traversing rugged uplands and tide-churned marshes to get to the coastal village. When Willard and his exhausted Yankees finally reached the port, the unsuspecting inhabitants welcomed them, but their greeting was instantly rebuffed. "Willard ordered the dozen male heads of household herded together while his troops searched their homes for weapons," John Mack Faragher relates. "After confiscating a few muskets, Willard announced his mission: The men were to be conducted to Fort Cumberland to await deportation from the province, and their village was to be destroyed." The Acadians were understandably shocked. An elder stepped forward and demanded to know what they had done to deserve such treatment. They reminded the captain of the oath they taken under Governor Philipps a quarter of a century before, which prevented them from taking up arms against anyone, especially the British. They had never violated their oath, the elder insisted. "His fellow Acadians shouted their agreement," Faragher goes on, "but Willard cut them off. It is too late for that, he told them. By order of the government they were declared rebels." The elder asked if they might take their families to Île St.-Jean to live among their relations there. "That he could not permit, Willard replied." He was there, he could have told him, to prevent that very thing! He informed them that "his orders instructed him to arrest the men only, and he would allow them to choose whether the women and children should accompany them to Fort Cumberland or remain behind." Recalling the difficulty of the march getting there, Willard would have much preferred to return without added encumbrance. "After deliberating," Faragher tells us," the Acadians decided the men would go alone." Here was another instance of the Acadians' inability even to imagine the possibility of forced deportation. By allowing their women and children to remain, they certainly believed that their incarceration would be a temporary inconvenience. "On Willard's order the village was torched and the men marched off, leaving the women and children 'to take care of themselves.' There was 'great lamentation,'" Willard recorded. "'I confess,'" he mused later, "'it seemed to be sumthing shocking.'"77
Despite
success along the Missaguash and at Tatamagouche,
Monckton's round up of the Chignecto Acadians began to
unravel. A few weeks into the operation, he
complained to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow at Minas that
the operation
west of the Missaguash was progressing slower than
expected,
Monckton had
good reason to be wary of Broussard and the
trois-rivières partisans; he had recognized precious
few of them among the 400 men and boys who fell into his
trap at Fort Cumberland. His biggest concern,
however, was a Canadian officer only a year younger than
himself whose
combat, if not his command, experience was nearly as
impressive as his own. Driven upriver by Rous's
attack on the lower St.-Jean not long after the fall of
Beauséjour, Lieutenant Charles des Champs de Boishébert
organized his troupes de la marine and the local
Acadians for the continuation of an offensive that did
not come. Rous's failure to pursue Boishébert up
to the Acadian settlements left the
Canadian with a tactical force still intact. Most
troubling for Monckton and his redcoats, Boishébert
still possessed operational
Nevertheless,
Boishébert's strategic options were severely
constricted. The closest French force to him, at
Port-La-Joye on Île St.-Jean, likely was
insubstantial. The British blockade of Louisbourg
precluded reinforcements from that quarter; he need only
recall the fate of the French schooner Marguerite,
sent to him from Louisbourg "laden with provisions,
guns, and other military stores," at the hands of
Boscawen's warships back in April. Reinforcements
from Québec via the St.-Jean portage were not
forthcoming. The previous governor-general, Ange Duquesne de Menneville, had been instructed
by the Minister of Marine to "do nothing in Acadia and
around Lake Champlain," so he had concentrated his efforts
in the Ohio valley and along the southwest Canadian
frontier. Before his efforts could come to
fruition, however, Duquesne was recalled to France.
When Beauséjour fell, the ousted governor-general blamed the mishap on
Abbé Le Loutre, who Duquesne and his predecessors had
relied upon to win back Acadia for France.
Duquesne's successor,
Boishébert's first
goal was to prevent the deportation of the Acadians, or
at least limit the number of them being taken away.
There was little or nothing he could do for the Acadians
along the Missaguash--their hamlets lay too close to the
captured Beauséjour and its garrison of British and New
English troops. But he could save the Acadians of
the trois-rivières from further depredation.
Responding to an appeal from the Acadians at Chepoudy,
Boishébert left a token force on Rivière St.-Jean and
hurried via Rivière Kennebecasis and the upper
Petitcoudiac to Chepoudy, but he arrived too late to
save the villages there. On August 28, a force of
nearly 200 New
Englanders
Their
opportunity came
On the way
back to Chignecto, Major Frye and his
officers tallied their losses. Their numbers,
taken from unit rolls, would have been accurate enough,
but, having abandoned the battlefield in such haste, the
nature of their casualities was more difficult to determine.
The total reported was 44. Confirmed
dead were Surgeon March, whose body likely remained on
the field; and Private William Hutson of Captain
Willard's Company, who perhaps had helped molest the
Acadians at Tatamagouche a few weeks earlier.
Lieutenant Billings was, according to his captain, shot
through the body and through the arm and likely remained
on the field; one wonders if his wounds were mortal. Six other New Englanders
were confirmed wounded; they evidently had not remained
on the field. Some historians insist that ranger
Captain John Gorham was one of the wounded. Most
troubling of all, 22 of Frye's men were reported missing--either
hit by enemy fire during the retreat to the dykes
and left where they fell, or rounded up as prisoners of
war by Boishébert's
men.
Boishébert reported only three of his men
wounded, so his victory was complete.
Boishébert's
attack on
the Petitcoudiac was more than a tactical victory; it
also affected the region's strategic posture, both French and
British.
"The stinging defeat on the Petitcodiac, wrote abbé
Le Guerne," the priest at Chignecto, "'made the English
tremble more than all the cannons of Beauséjour.'"
After the fight on the Petitcoudiac, Major Frye, whose
orders likely called for the destruction of Memramcook,
took stock of his ammunition, his supplies, and the
condition of his men and hurried back to the safety of
Fort Beauséjour. On September 5, soon after Frye's
return, Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton called in his
patrols and prepared for an attack that did not come.
Not until mid-November, a month after the deportation
ships departed Chignecto, would Monckton send another
large force to the trois-rivières.
Meanwhile, on September 7, the news of Frye's defeat
reached Winslow at Minas and threw him and his New
Englanders into
a momentary panic.
Despite the
setback on the Petitcoudiac, Monckton's operation was progressing as planned.
By August 24,
Major Jedediah Preble of the Massachusetts regiment,
still stationed at Chignecto, could inform his superior, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow
at Minas: "Capt Proby & Eight Transportes arived Last
wednesday 20th, Capt Taggett[sic] arived this Morng and a
Sloop from New yorke with Provissions for the Troops."
The major was referring to Captain Charles Proby,
commander of the HMS Syren, a 30-ton sloop of
war, and Captain John Taggart commander of
the HMS Halifax, an armed snow. The eight
transports at Chignecto likely included the schooner Jolly Phillip, master Jonathan Waite;
the ship Prince Frederick, master William
Trattles; the schooner Boscawen, master
David Bigham; the ship Union, master
Jonathan Carthorne; the sloop Dolphin,
master William Hancock; the ship Edward
Cornwallis, master Andrew Sinclair; the sloop
Endeavor, master James Nichols; and the brig Two Brothers, master James Best--most, if
not all, of them, hired from the Boston firm of Apthorp and
Hancock. Here were enough vessels for giving
Monckton "the means to deport upward of three thousand
persons" to the most distant British Atlantic colonies.
On September 10, Monckton relieved the overcrowding at
Fort Cumberland by moving 50 of the Acadian prisoners to
one of the transports--"the first embarkations for the
deportation," one historian describes it.
Lawrence, by then, was complaining about the delays in
embarkation. Even at Chignecto, a full month after
securing the men, the rounding up of the wives,
children, and old folks and the concentration of
families outside the walls of his forts was
frustratingly incomplete. Lawrence scoffed at such
sentimentality and ordered Monckton to hurry the plan
along, suggesting that he "go ahead with the deportation
of the men already in his custody. 'I would have
you not wait for the wives and children coming in, but
ship off the men without them,'" he urged. But not
even the ambitious young British professional was
that cold-hearted. On September 11, Monckton
sent to the transports 160 of the married men from Fort Cumberland
whose families evidently had fled the region, but he
would go no farther than that. More
men followed on September 13, and now most of them were
being held aboard the transports.
With Frye's
defeat still fresh on his mind, but largely unburdened by
sentimentality,
Monckton resumed his campaign of terror, which, he
believed, was the
only way to complete the chaotic roundup. On
The New Englanders did not encounter Boishébert and his troupes de la marine during their three-day operation, but they likely were dogged by Acadian partisans, who were organizing an insurgency from the trois-rivières. Canadian historian Dianne Marshall paints a romanticized picture of the burgeoning resistance: "In the weeks that followed [the fight on the Petitcoudiac] they [the Broussards] banded together with their Native allies to defend Acadians across the region and to send a clear message to both Frye and Monckton that their assaults on innocents would not be tolerated. The Surrettes from Missaguash Creek and hundreds of their followers were quick to join in the anti-British offensive being organized out of Village-des-Beausoleils. Soon hundreds of resistance fighters were spreading out over the region, attacking and killing as many English soldiers as possible, sometimes to help their prisoners to escape, at other times just because they could. From the cover of trees along the riverbank, small boats launched bloody assaults on passing English boats. Others watched over the gates of the forts, waiting for soldiers and rangers to step outside and into their clutches."85a
Monckton's response was predictable: he sent out the rangers. Marshall's narrative continues: "The countless clashes that followed resulted in many deaths and serious injuries on both sides, but in the end dozens of resistance fighters were caught by the rangers and tossed into the prison at Fort Cumberland--among them" Joseph and Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil, ages 53 and 56, respectively, and at least one of Alexandre's older, married sons, Victor-Grégoire, age 27--a major coup for Monckton and his officers. To relieve overcrowding at Fort Cumberland and to keep the dangerous brothers apart, Joseph and other insurgents were transferred under heavy guard to the dungeon at Fort Lawrence. Victor remained with his father Alexandre at Fort Cumberland.86
.
A few days after the September 5 roundup at Grand-Pré and Fort Edward, the transport Leopard, an 87-ton schooner, master Thomas Church, arrived at Minas with orders from Apthorp and Hancock dated August 28. Seven transports now rode at anchor in the lower Gaspereau. On September 7, Winslow received a welcome dispatch from Monckton, addressed to him from Chignecto on September 2. The redcoat commander promised to send to him via the HMS Warren a reinforcement from the four companies of his Massachusetts battalion. Monckton also would send powder, ball, cartridge papers, flints, and molasses. He had no other provisions to spare, but he promised to alert Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence of the supply needs for Minas. In a moment of candor, Monckton complained of the slowness of the roundup at Chignecto, "it being Very Difficult to Collect the women and children." He passed on the news from Lieutenant-Governor Phipps that the discharged men from the Massachusetts regiment had reached Boston safely, but he had no news from Governor Shirley or "Mr. Johnston," still maneuvering against the French in upper New York.74a
Monckton's dispatch also
contained an alarming note. In the margin of his letter,
written on September 4 after the news had just been received,
Monckton noted that Major Joseph Frye, with a force
of New Englanders, during an operation against the Acadians in the trois-rivières
area, was attacked on the Petitcoudiac by an
overwhelming French force. Surgeon-Lieutenant
March of the second battalion had been killed in the skirmish, Ensign Billings
of Winslow's battalion grievously if not mortally wounded, "and
about 22 Men kild & Missing"
No partisan attack struck
Winslow's picket lines, but he nonetheless maintained tight security
around Grand-Pré church. His ad hoc response to the Grand-Pré
elders had created a workable routine that allowed him to sustain his
hundreds of captives within the church without undue expense to His Majesty's service.
He now "Permitted the Millers to attend their usual Duty and 10 of the
river Cannard &c & Ten of Grand Pre at a Time to Provide for the
rest." He also employed his some of his troops--50 men
over four days, with the promise of compensation of course--to help
the Acadian women and children bring in the harvest, as well as
their cattle, now that the men and older boys were being held in
confinement. Moreover, he now had a good idea of how many men
and boys his troops were guarding--418 individuals held
originally, with "Six French hands Come in" by the 7th. He
planned to send out a party that afternoon under Lieutenant John
Handfield, Jr. "to the Uppermost Housses & to Examin Every
Individual by the List" he had compiled "& if any Fowle Play is
about Shall Make Examples as Instructed." The young Handfield
By September 7, Winslow
now had five transports waiting in the lower Gaspereau,
having sent two of them up to Fort Edward. He was
convinced "the
Government had not Provided Sufficient Vessels," which he hoped to
see remedied soon. Captain Murray informed him on the 8th that
his captives at Fort Edward also were behaving themselves. "[T]hey
are more Patient than I Could have Exscpected for People in their
Circumstances," Murray intimated, but that surprised him most "is
the Indifference of the women who really are or Seem Quite
unconcerned"--a clear indication that, despite the roundup of the
5th and the continued imprisonment of the men and boys, the Acadians
at Pigiguit, as at Minas, still were refusing to believe that they
were about to be deported. Despite the bloodless roundups at
Minas, Pigiguit, and Annapolis and the seeming calmness in those
areas in the days that followed, Murray was well aware of the
character of the men who made those bloodless roundups possible.
"I am afraid there will be Some Lives Lost before they are Got
together," he lamented, because "you Know our Soldiers Hate them and
if they Can Find a Pretence to Kill them, they will." Well
aware of the bloodshed at Chignecto, especially the mishap on the
Petitcoudiac, Murray commented philosophically: "I am
Exstreamly Sorrey to Hear of our Loss at Chignecto but it is the
Fortune of War, the Lads will Stand Fire better another time and I
hope will Soon wipe off their Scorest at next Meeting," which was
sure to come. "I Long Much to See the Poor wretches Embarked
and our affair a Little Settled and then I will do my Self the
Pleasure of Meeting you and Drinking their Good Voyage," Murray
promised. But when that would be, neither he nor Winslow
could say.
Sure enough, a few days
after Murray's letter to Winslow, blood was almost spilled at Minas. On
the morning of September 10, after discerning "Some Uncommon
Motions" among the younger prisoners in the Grand-Pré church yard which he "did not
Like," Winslow called together his officers. After a
short discussion, in which they agreed that "There were too many
prisoners for the troops to handle," Winslow and his officers
"Determined ... that it would be best to Divide the Prisoners."
Winslow offered no specifics in any of his recorded dispatches or
even
Such sentiments had been manifesting themselves for weeks now in the Chignecto area, where Monckton's New Englanders were still terrorizing the locals. Winslow's Yankees evidently were treating the Acadians at Minas with equal brutality. Faragher goes on: "It is hardly surprising that the actions of those troops had a pronounced anti-Catholic character. Shouting epithets and oaths, the Yankees forced the families of the missing men from their homes, plundered their personal property, and threatened their lives. The soldiers 'wanted to make us give up our religion and take theirs, but did not want to,' an Acadian woman remembered nearly seventy years later. 'They threatened us with death, and we answered that we would prefer to die. Then they made us line up while they loaded their guns with grapeshot. We were on our knees, our faces prostrate against the ground, offering our lives to God while waiting for the firing of the guns. I was only nine years old, and I too was prostrate beside my family. But suddenly the English changed their minds; they took all our goods and effects and left us nothing to cover ourselves.' The New England troops, writes one historian, 'seem to have regarded the expedition as a religious duty--much the same as an Israelite raid on the uncircumcised Philistines.'"94b
And now such righteous behavior was coming back to haunt them: "As the prisoners learned of the terror going on outside the church from the women who daily came in with provisions," Faragher relates, "their concern for their families mounted." Hence the disturbance in the church yard on the morning of the 10th among men who could not bear the thought of remaining apart from their families. Looking to the five merchant vessels from Boston sitting idly at anchor in the lower Gaspereau, Winslow took counsel of his fears and resolved to transfer at least half of his prisoners to those waiting vessels, which now would serve as prison ships until the deportation. Beginning with the young men, Winslow would send 50 prisoners to each transport, to be guarded by six non-commissioned officers and privates per vessel. This would relieve the crowded church of 250 of the 425 or so prisoners being held there. He requested Captain Abraham Adams of the HMS Warren, a schooner of war still on station at Minas, to maneuver his vessel into position to cover the operation, which likely would consume much of the day.94c
This having been decided, Winslow summoned François
Landry, the Acadians' "Principal Speaker who Talks English[,]
and Told Him it must be Done." The elder "was greatly
Surprised," as Winslow doubtlessly hoped he would be. François
and his fellow elder, René LeBlanc, had hoped that all the
talk about deportation was only a threat. But here the Yankee
colonel was proposing what until then had been unthinkable--not only
deportation from their beloved homeland, but the break up of their
families. Old François, seeing no choice but to comply, relayed Winslow's orders to "his bretherin":
all of the prisoners were to "be Drawn up Six Deep, their young men
on the Left, and as the Tide in a Very Little time Favoured"
Winslow's "Design," he "Could not Give them above an Houer to
Prepare for going on Board" the transports. Winslow ordered
all 300 of his officers and men "to be under Arms" and posted most
of them "between the Two Gates & the Church in the rear" of the
commander's quarters, which was the priest's house. When the
prisoners were lined up as directed, Winslow ordered Captain Nathan
Adams, with a lieutenant and 80 men "to Draw off from the main body"
of soldiers and march the young men, who numbered 141, to the ship's
boats that would take them out to the waiting transports. Only
then, facing the reality of family separation, did the Minas
Acadians finally defy him. The young men "all answered they
would Not go without their Fathers." "Non, they likely
shouted, pas sans nos pères!" Winslow would have none
of this. "I Told them," he confided to his Journal, "That Was
a word I did not understand," his foreign tongue translated by
François Landry. He told them through the aged
interpreter "that the Kings Command was to me absolute & Should be
absolutely obeyed & That I Did not Love to use Harsh Means but that
the time Did not admit of Parlies or Delays." Winslow "Then
ordered the whole Troops to Fix their Bayonets and advance Towards
the French." He next ordered the "4 right hand Files of the
Prisoners Consisting of 24 men" to be separated from the rest of the
prisoners. Taking hold of the first young man who had shouted
in defiance, he ordered him to march. "He obeyed," Winslow
related, "& the rest followed, thoh Slowly, and went off Praying,
Singing & Crying being Met by the women & Children," who followed
their sons and brothers, "with Great Lamentations." Some of
the mothers, sisters, and fiancées, crying out the names of their
loved ones, fell to their knees, as the young men trudged the mile
and a half from the Grand-Pré church to the landing on the
Gaspereau. Back at the church, Winslow ordered the married men
to choose 109 of their number and follow their young kinsmen down to
the landing. "They readily Complyed," Winslow insisted.
When Captain Adams returned with his lieutenant and 80 men, Winslow
ordered Captain Phineas Osgood with a lieutenant and 80 men to
escort these prisoners down to boats. "But when he Came to put
them on board the vessels," Winslow added, Captain Osgood counted
only 89 instead of 109. Winslow shrugged off the miscount, at
least for now, evidently satisfied that 230 of his 425 prisoners,
over half of them, were safely aboard the transports.
"Thus Ended this Troblesome Jobb, which was [a] Scheen of Sorrow,"
he confided to his Journal.
After the last of the
prisoners had been stowed away, Captain Abraham Adams, aboard the
HMS Warren, escorted the five transports down the Gaspereau
and around to the mouth of Rivière Pigiguit, where they anchored
east of present-day Oak Island. Winslow then turned to the
Acadian elders and broached the subject of feeding their kinsmen
aboard the transports. "I would Either Victual their People on
Board the Transportes with the Kings Provisions," he proposed, "or
Permit Them to have their Familys & Friends Provide for them their
Victuals and Dress it and Send it on Board." The elders chose
the latter method, though they may not have anticipated a potential
problem with the scheme: when the wind blew too hard or the
tide did not cooperate, it would be difficult, if not impossible,
for the Acadian "Familys & Friends" to take the boats full of
provisions out to the ships. Several days of contrary winds,
such as would accompany a gale or a hurricane, could bring the
prisoners aboard the transports to the point of starvation.
Evidently also unaware of the potential problem, Winslow "ordered all the Boats to
attend on the Top of every Tide that Should happen in the Day time
to receive Such Provissions as Should be brought by the women &
Children for those on Board their respective Vessels, and that a
French man Come in Every Boat to Receive and See that the Provisions
by Delivered to Each Person to whome it was Sent and to Permit as
many French People to go on Board to See their Frinds as their
Several Boats would Carry."
That evening, the elders
pressed on Winslow something that he was not authorized to accept: another "memorial."
The Acadians had dug into their community archive and produced a
copy of the qualified oath they had taken under Governor Philipps in
April 1730, as well as a certificate, written by the priests at
Grand-Pré and Pigiguit at the time, attesting to their having taken
an oath that allowed the free practice of their religion and
exempted them from bearing arms against the French. With these
documents came a newly-written petition to Lieutenant Colonel
Winslow, which he summarized in his Journal: "Representing
that the Evils which Seams to threaten them on all Sides Obliges
them to beg your Protection on their behalf and that you will
interced with his Majesty to Consider those who have Invioblay Kept
the Fidelity and Submition Promised to his sd Majesty"--an appeal
based on their belief that they had maintained a strict neutral
during this and previous wars. The petition goes on:
"and as you have Given them to understand that the King has ordered
them to be Transported out of this Province they beg at Least if
they must Quit their Estates that they may be permitted to Go to
Such Places where they will Finde their Kindred & that at their own
Exspence, allowing them a Convenient time for that Purpose, more
Particularly as that by that Means they will be able to Preserve
their Religion which they have Verry much at Harte, and for which
they are Content to Sacrafice their Estates, &c." How
surprised they would have been to know that His Majesty George II,
the same King to whom they had pledged their fidelity in 1730, had
not ordered their removal and that he likely was unaware of its
impending execution. Nor would their governor, who, with the
approval of his Council but in contradiction of royal policy, had
"ordered them to be Transported out this Province," allowed them to
go anywhere than where he planned to send them--North Carolina,
Virginia, and Maryland, where only in Maryland would they have a
chance of practicing their religion openly. Allowing them to
go to Louisbourg or Québec was anathema to Lawrence's plan, which
was based on the colony's military needs, not on the needs and
desires of a hostile population.
Although Lawrence had
expressly forbidden him, or any of the other commanders, to accept
anymore memorials from the Acadians, Winslow sent the collection of
documents to merchant Isaac Deschamps at Pigiguit for a translation.
He then forwarded the translation to Lawrence. According to
John Mack Faragher, Winslow would do nothing more on behalf of the
Minas prisoners. "He refused to intercede on behalf of the
Acadians and refused to make any commitment as to their ultimate
destination, although he was well aware that Lawrence planned to
send them to widely dispersed locations, as far away from their
kindred in New France as possible. Nor would he give the
Acadians more time to prepare. He would ship them off as soon
as he had sufficient transports, 'that at length we may get over
this troublesome affair, which is more grievous to me than any
service I was ever employed in.'" And who knows how much
longer it would be before the rest of the transports arrived.
On September 12, Winslow received a note from
Captain Murray congratulating him for the successful transfer and
wishing that he and his officers at Pigiguit "Could Get rid of ours
also." Winslow also received a long directive from Lawrence,
dated the 11th. Judging by its contents, the lieutenant-governor, at the time that he wrote, was unaware of the Minas
memorial. He congratulated Winslow and Murray on their
successful operations. He reminded Winslow that Cobeguit lay
within Winslow's command and offered a company of rangers to help
him round up the inhabitants there as well, "which I belive,"
Lawrence intimated, "will be no easy Task." He informed
Winslow that Admiral Boscawen had sent the 20-gun ship HMS
Nightingale, Master Dudley Diggs, to Minas for escort duty.
Evidently unaware of Winslow's recent efforts, Lawrence insisted
that "I would have you put the men on board [the transports] as Fast
as you Can" and continue his policy of allowing the women "to
Provide them Victuals til they are ready to Sail, as it will be a
Considerable Saving to the Government." Lawrence said nothing
about keeping the Acadian families together. He promised more
provisions for Minas and Pigiguit, promising that the ship would
sail from Halifax "tomorrow or the Day after." Aboard this
vessel, Lawrence informed him, would be the delegates
from Minas, Pigiguit, and Annapolis Royal who had been held on Georges Island
since July.
Upon their arrival, he instructed, the delegates from Minas and Pigiguit would be thrown in
with the others, and the delegates from Annapolis would be marched
under guard back to their own community, "that they may Go off with
their Families." Evidently unhappy with the lack of progress
in rounding up the Acadians in the Annapolis valley, Lawrence ordered Winslow to direct the commander of the party who would
be escorting the Annapolis deputies "to Scour all the Villages on the
River as they Go Down, and Carry into Annapolis all the Men they Can
Finde, and Order the women to follow with their Children Carrying
with them what Provissions they Can For the mens Subsistance til
they are all ready for Sailing. I donte Care how Soon the
Party is Sent to Annapolis," Lawrence added, "Provided it Donte
Hinder the Cobequid Expedition," which now must be a priority.
The mission at Annapolis, as well as an operation against Cobeguit,
would require a substantial number of Winslow's troops.
Lawrence, in fact, sent Winslow an undated memorandum setting the
number for the Annapolis detachment at 30 or 40 men, so Winslow had
done well to move most of the Minas prisoners from the church to the
transports before Lawrence thrust these new missions on him.
In the same memo, Lawrence, ever the micro-manager, but also aware
of Acadian crafitness, "Charged" the masters of the transports "Not
to Suffer Many Inhabitants on Deck at a time for Fear of their
Seasing or running away with their Vessels." Lawrence was
especially concerned about the harvest at Minas and Pigiguit.
He insisted that "All Posable Care must be Taken to Save as Much of
the Grain as you can for the Good of the Publick and likewise the
Cattle which we Shall want, both for Supplying the Fleet and the
Soldiers with Fresh Provissions" He also planned to use
Acadian livestock to provision Halifax and Lunenburg during the
swiftly approaching winter.
Even after they had gone to their places of exile, the Acadians would be sustaining their Protestant neighbors.
On September 17, Winslow answered Lawrence with a lengthy letter of his own. He reviewed for the governor what he had told the Acadians 12 days before, after he had locked them inside the church, adding: "They were Greatly Struck at this Determination, thoh I belive that they did not then Nor to this Day do Imagine that they are Actually to be removed." He reviewed his scheme of sending some of the men back to their villages as 24-hour "hostages," 20 at a time, and reported that "this Method I have Continued in to this Day and have found no Ilconveniency in it." He then detailed the transference of 230 of the Acadians, including all of the young men, to the transports, the week before. Winslow no doubt was happy to report "that we have been all around the Villages here to ye remotest parts of Cannard by parties and Cant Finde but what we Got the whole in Our Possession Excepting about Thirty Very old & Infirm whome I am Loth to Incumber our Selves with til their Departure. As to Provissions," he added proudly, "I have Exspended None to the French, but one Day being the First of Their Detention, before a Method was Found for their Subsistence, which is now Settled in this Form vizt that the women & Boys bring Provissions for those in Custoday at this Place." He then described in detail the scheme he employed for feeding the prisoners on the transports.
Other than seeing the Acadians gone, nothing could have pleased Lawrence more than a scheme that saved so much of "the Publick Money."
Winslow nonetheless was
eager for George Saul and the extra transports to come to Minas.
He was aware of the arrival of the transports at Chignecto nearly a
month before, but "what Detains them I Cant tel," he confessed to
Lawrence.
Despite his complaints,
Winslow could see signs that his mission at Minas was nearing
completion. He and his men had rounded up and secured the
great majority of the men and older boys in the colony's largest
community. His men were helping the Acadian women and children
bring in the rest of a good harvest, threshing the grain, and
securing their animals for
government use. In less than two weeks, his force, which he
had always considered to be too small for the task,
Sometime in late
September, Winslow received a letter, dated September 4, from
General William Pepperell of Kittery Point, Maine, the hero of
Louisbourg. The general congratulated his former subordinate
"upon the Success" he had "been Favored with against those that have
Invadd his Majestys rights to Lands they had no just pretense to,"
and wished him more success in the King's service. Pepperell
was writing in favor of a friend and neighbor, Colonel Nathaniel
Donnal, "who is Bound to your Government to receive Some Debts
formerly Due to him from the Nutral French." The letter
contains no names of Donnal's Acadian debtors, so one wonders who
they may have been. One also wonders what were the chances the
Yankee colonel could collect such a debt, especially after Winslow
had informed these Acadians that all of their lands and cattle now
belonged to the King. Winslow also received a letter from
fellow Yankee Silvanus Cobb, then living at Chignecto, who
congratulated the lieutenant-colonel for his "fine Success and
Securing So Many of the Bogers," meaning the Acadians. "I hope
you will Continue in Such Success til you have routed all Such
Enemys from the Land," Cobb chortled. "[W]e have been Not So
Luckey here in as much as So many Got off before we Could lay hands
on them but hope to have them in time." The Yankee trader then
got down to the business for which he was pestering his friend:
"there is among those at Mines or Piziquid one who I paid for a pair
of Bullocks & Likewise another pair at the River Canard which I paid
one Murp L3 Towards as I Expect ye Cattle will all be Seized for the
King. [I] Should take it as a Favor," he beseeched Winslow,
"that you should Contrive Some way to Secure me Cattle before they
Go off, one Joseph Landre Car Tel the Name of the man."
During the late week of
September, Winslow received a long missive from Lawrence, dated
September 23, in which the governor thanked him for the list of
detainees at Minas. Lawrence also approved of Winslow's manner
of feeding the men and boys on his list.
Having pressed Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton to send away the Acadians
he was holding at Chignecto, Lawrence was confident that George
Saul and Monckton's extra transports would have reached Minas before
Winslow received the letter. Lawrence, as
always, was especially keen on his commanders "Saving of the Publick
Money." He assured Winslow that if did not receive the proper
victuals for the deportation vessels from Chignecto, he would
receive them from Annapolis Royal or Halifax.
As soon as he embarked his Acadians, Lawrence instructed Winslow, "I would
have you Loose No time in sending a Strong Detachment to Major
Handfield agreable to your former Instructions as he Seems to want
them very much being Suspicious that ye Inhabitants of that River
will not Come in Volentarily as they have Promised." Lawrence
next broached a subject that could only have miffed the Yankee
colonel. "We Shall when the Country is Clear of French
Inhabitants have much use for the Rangers," Lawrence wrote, "and as
that Service Can Never be So well performed by any as by real
Indians, I Must desier it as a Perticular Favor that you will
Countenance as far as you have it in your Power the Exchange
Proposed by Capt [John] Goreham[sic]," which was included in
an attached letter penned by Gorham. Here was a clear
admission that, even after the majority of the "French Neutrals"
would be sent into exile, enough of them would remain to menace the
colony through armed resistance. The rest of Lawrence's
missive concerned the need for a close accounting of the cost to the
colony of feeding Winslow's New Englanders wherever they were
stationed. "Donte Know how to Supply with Salt," the governor
concluded, "unless you Could Get Some from Annapolis by Horse
Carrage." Gorham's letter, dated September 22, offered the
astonishing proposal of exchanging for ranger service not only
enlisted men from Massachusetts who belonged to the colony's Indian
tribes, but also the officers of the Massachusetts Regiment who were
reluctant to part with them.
Another letter dated
September 22, this one from naval Captain John Rous,
lauded not only Rous's recent service in Newfoundland
clearing out the French there, but also the fighting
prowess of the New-English troops under General Sir
William Johnson in upper New York. Although Rous
had been holding his rank of naval captain under a
regular commission for nearly a decade, he was still at
heart the New English privateer who helped defeat the
French at Louisbourg. After crowing about the New
Englanders at Lake George, Rous intimated to his fellow
Yankee: "I hope one Day to hear that Some of those which have
asspersed the Character of the New England Troops in this Province,
will be Cald to an account for So doing."
Winslow also received
from Archibal Hinshelwood, a royal official at Halifax, and Joseph
Goreham, John Gorham's younger brother, letters dated September 26.
They, too, sought favors from the Minas commander, in the form of "Some Oxen &
Milk Cowes & a Couple of Horses," recently taken from the Acadians,
"for Stocking their Forces at Lunenburg." They offered to
provide the men to bring in the critters and a
proper accounting of what was taken. They, too,
lamented Winslow's "Troublesom Service" and hoped to pay their
respects to him soon. No sooner had Winslow read
these letters than he received another missive from John Rous. The
captain, now a member of the colonial Council, hoped to acquire "a
good Strong Horse ... to ride or Draw me about the Town, as I recon
you have many Able Horses, about you for I have been Sick this Six
weeks & the Doctr recommends to me riding to recover my Health."
Rous also requested "a good Milch Cow" confiscated from the
Acadians. When Winslow answered these inquiries, h
On September 26, the
sloop Ulysses, under Captain Rogers, arrived at Minas with a
month's supply of provisions for Winslow's troops but no
reinforcement. Two days later, the armed snow HMS Halifax,
under Captain John Taggart, reached Minas. Aboard was the
long-awaited George Saul and food for the deportees at Minas and
Pigiguit. Winslow now had the victuals "for the removal of ye
French Inhabitants," but no transports from Boston accompanied the
Halifax. Saul, following the governor's instructions of
August 11, already had been to Chignecto, so this was his second
delivery; after completing his business at Minas, he would move on
to Annapolis Royal. Saul's instructions called for the
following seven-day ration to be issued for each deportee:
"Five Pounds of French Flower, Two Pounds of Bread &c, One Pound of Beaf." In those instructions, Lawrence had noted: "This
allowance Differs from that Mentioned by me in My Letter to Colo
Monckton of the 31st of July Last but it is Equally Sufficient and
Less Exspence to the Government." Lawrence, in fact, had
included in his August 11 instructions to the commanders a seven-day
ration of "5 pounds of flour and one pound of pork." Saul's
instructions also contained the following dictum from Lawrence:
"you are to Victual Every Person for Thirty Days bound to the
Southward of Piladelphia and those that Shall be Debarked at
Pihdelpia or to ye Northward thereof Shall be Victualled Each Person
for Twenty Days at the before mentioned allowance." Also to be
distributed among "ye French People" would be "29 Hds of Horse Beans
and Two Hds of French Beans among the Several Transportes ... over &
beside the allowance of Bread Flower & Beaf as Mentioned."
Lawrence detailed the procedure to be followed with the ship's
masters to account for the cost of the provisions.
Anticipating delays between embarkation and sailing, Lawrence
provided an allowance for the deportees "of Five Pounds of French
Flower and One Pound of Porke" per week, which was the ration for
the troops who would guard the deportees aboard each vessel.
Winslow
responded to Lawrence's latest missive on September 29. He
informed the governor of the arrival of George Saul but complained
that no more transports seemed forthcoming, either from Boston or
Chignecto, that the ones he had were only a fraction of what he
needed. He proposed that the transports waiting idly at
Annapolis come to Minas. With these added vessels, he and
Murray could ship off the large number of inhabitants they were
holding. This would free up many of his men to assist
Handfield in rounding up the valley Acadians. Winslow
informed the governor of that which Lawrence probably already
knew--there would be no inhabitants to ship off from Cobeguit.
He voiced approval of Joseph Goreham's scheme of placing
Massachusetts Indians in the ranger service but used the opportunity
to remind Lawrence of how small was his force at Minas.
Besides, there were only a hand full of Indians in the entire
regiment, and the one or two at Minas did not belong to his
battalion. He promised to forward the details of Goreham's
scheme to the New England company commanders who did have Indians in
their units. "I have Certain Intelligence," he informed
Lawrence, "that partys of the French Do pass & repas acrose from
Shepody Side over to ours & that they hold rendevouzes &c about the
River Pero [Pereau]. As Soon as Capt Lewis" and his detachment
of rangers and New Englanders returned from Cobeguit, Winslow
proposed, "Shall Make a Thoroh Vissit to that part and the Old River
Habitant where are Villages I have but Lately heard of and none of
their Inhabitants Come in." This was an astonishing admission
on Winslow's part: he and his New Englanders had been at Minas
for nearly a month and a half, and only now was he "hearing" of the
villages in the northern areas of Minas Proper. His report
also hinted that the refugees from the trois-rivères, perhaps
including armed partisans, may have come to recue their cousins on
the south shore of the Bay of Fundy. He reported the arrival
of the escort vessel, HMS Nightingale, master Dudley Diggs,
on the 26th and the frustration of Captain Diggs on finding the
Minas transports not yet ready for sailing. Winslow was
genuinely embarrassed about forwarding to the governor the Minas
Acadians' latest memorial. He mentioned General Pepperells's
intervention on behalf of his friend and neighbor,
On September 30, in
separate letters, Lawrence informed Murray and Winslow of a change
in their original orders of August 11 detailing the destinations of
the transports from their areas of command. Captain Diggs of
the escort vessel HMS Nightingale would sail "No Further
westward" than Philadelphia, so that port, and not North Carolina,
would become the destination for some of their Acadians.
Lawrence expressed the hope that more transports from Boston already
had arrived and that others would soon reach him from
Chignecto. And, of course, he addressed the need to save
money. "Pray Donte Lett Mr. George Saul Exceed his
Instructions with regard to the victualling," Lawrence beseeched
them, adding that "we have Incurred a Great Expensce by it, at
Chignecto." He urged Winslow to finish his round up as soon as
possible "as the Detention of them is a very Heavy Exspence as well
as a Great Hinderance to the Public Service." On October 2,
Winslow was still complaining of not having received any more
transports from Chignecto. The following day, however, in
response to Winslow's suggestion, Lawrence ordered the transports
intended for Annapolis Royal to proceed to Minas and Pigiguit
instead.
It was time to be rid of the hundreds of Acadians still lingering in the colony's agricultural heartland.
Embarkation and Deportation, September-December 1755
By late September,
Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton had rounded up as many Acadians as his
troops could safely get at. But despite a month and a half of effort,
he still was retaining "more transports than he needed, and his orders were to
send his extra vessels to Winslow" at Minas, John Mack Faragher
reminds us, "yet he was reluctant to release them, thinking his
campaign of terror would induce more inhabitants to surrender."
By then, however, Lawrence's patience had snapped. "'I am much
surprised as well as extremely sorry and uneasy that the transports
are not sailed,'" the governor complained. "'You will immediately
order all the people on board which you have, whether all the women
be come in or not.'" It was time for
the women and children still camped outside the forts to join their men
Monckton also may have believed he had broken the back of the
local resistance before it could get out of hand. In late
September, he felt
secure enough to allow the mothers, wives, and daughters of the
captured partisans to
bring their victuals to them inside the forts, but this indulgence soon
ended. According to Dianne Marshall:
"Near the end of September ..., when the usual group of women was
leaving Fort Lawrence after a scheduled visit, a guard noticed one
of them limping and as none had been lame on the way in, he became
very suspicious. A closer look revealed the 'woman' to be one
of the prisoners disguised in female clothing that had been smuggled
in by his wife. From that moment on, all visits ceased.
But by then it was too late." The women had been smuggling in
other items, baked in loaves of bread or inserted in bundles of
fresh clothing. The Acadians then struck Monckton another blow, this time with spoons instead of musket
balls. During the predawn hours of October 1, "during a fierce
thunderstorm," 86 of the prisoners being held in Fort Lawrence,
including Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil "and
several of his grown sons and nephews," slipped through
a muddy tunnel they had been digging with smuggled
spoons, knives, and whatever else they had been able to
find. Lieutenant-Colonel
Monckton reported that the escape tunnel
Here, running through the
rain back to their homes on the trois-rivières,
T
Unfortunately for these women and their
fellow Acadians, "the embarkation at Fort Cumberland took place in a
headlong rush," and the scene that followed in the next few days
added poignancy to the words le grand dérangement.
Whatever order Monckton hoped to impose on the loading procedure was
lost in the chaos of the actual embarkation, a result, perhaps, of
the two months of toil and terror among his New Englanders, their
frustrations now unleashed on the helpless Acadians. New-English Major Preble observed that "The French are daily driving off
the Cattle, Sheep & Hogs in Sight of us, and no Method taken to
Prevent it, Nor have our men had one Pound of Fresh Meat Served to
them Since you left us but are obliged to take French Pork or None,"
he informed Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow on October 10. And then
there was the uncooperative weather that wreaked havoc on Monckton's
timetable. A heavy rainstorm on October 6 and 7 did "Terrible
work amongst our Transports," Major Preble continued. "Sume
Dealt there Cables & went a Shore, and Some Run into the Creeks, and
if they are not Soon Dispatched there will be no Vessels fit to
Carry off the Tartars," as he described the inhabitants. When
the embarkation resumed in earnest, "'Families were seized and thrown pell-mell into the transports,'" a
young Acadian remembered. "'No one was granted any grace.
The least resistance meant death. Terror was everywhere.
They succeeded in filling several vessels full of inhabitants.
Children were separated from their parents, husbands from their
wives, brothers from their sisters.'" One of Monckton's staff
officers later admitted: "'I fear some families were divided
and sent to different parts of the globe ... notwithstanding all
possible care was taken to prevent it.'"
During the chaos at Chignecto, at least
one young Acadian managed to elude his captors.
The great of majority of the Acadians on the transports, however, were not as bold as Pierrot Cormier. On Monday, October 13, eight transports with nearly 1,800 Acadians aboard and three escort vessels, slipped away from Chignecto and headed down the Bay of Fundy to the Annapolis Basin, which they reached via the Gut that evening. The schooner Jolly Phillip, 94 tons, held 129 Acadians, well under its complement of 188; its master, Jonathan Waite, carried a letter for the governor of Georgia. The ship Prince Frederick, 170 tons, held 280 Acadians, well under Lawrence's dictum of two passengers per ton; its master, William Trattles, also held orders to sail to Georgia. The schooner Boscawen, 95 tons, held 190 Acadians, its exact complement; its master, David Bigham, carried a letter for the governor of Pennsylvania. The ship Union, 196 tons, held 392 Acadians, its exact complement; its master, Jonathan Carthorne, also carried orders to sail to Philadelphia. The sloop Dolphin, 90 tons, held only 121 Acadians; its master, William Hancock, carried a letter for the governor of South Carolina. The ship Edward Cornwallis, 130 tons, held 417 Acadians, substantially more than its complement of 260 passengers, so it was grossly overloaded; its master, Andrew Sinclair, also carried orders to sail to Charles Town. The sloop Endeavor, 96 tons, held at least 121 Acadians; its master, James Nichols, held orders to sail to Charles Town. The brig Two Brothers, 161 tons, held only 132 Acadians; its master, James Best, also carried orders to sail to Charles Town. One of the escort vessels, the HMS Syren, master Charles Proby, carried a special cargo--21 Acadians held in irons, including Alexandre and son Victor Broussard, destined for South Carolina.
The Boscawen and the Union would be lost at sea.109a
The short voyage to Annapolis basin was not without incident. Some of the Acadian men aboard the brig Two Brothers attempted to take over the vessel at dusk, but the soldiers aboard assisted the crew in maintaining control of the vessel. Meanwhile, aboard the schooner Jolly Phillip, the guards robbed some of the Acadians of their money and clothing. When Captain Proby heard of it, he ordered the soldiers to be severely punished. The 11 vessels lingered at Annapolis for two more weeks, waiting for the transports from Minas and Pigiguit to join them for the voyage down the coast.110
.
Finally, on October 4,
having been informed that transports diverted from Annapolis were on their way
to Minas,
Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow ordered the Acadian women at Grand-Pré
and the other villages "'to hold themselves in
readiness to embark with all their household goods.'" The
embarkation would begin in earnest two days later. On the
advice of his company commanders, Winslow decided to place not only immediate
families, but also entire villages aboard the same vessels. He
would place as many as he could aboard the transports already
waiting and embark more of them aboard the vessels Lawrence had
promised were coming to him. On the appointed day, however,
Monday, October 6, Winslow noted that "Even now Could not Perswade the People I
was in Earnest."
And then Winslow's well-laid
embarkation plans
began to unravel. On the 6th and 7th, a "cold, hard rain
forced a postponement of embarkation." On the evening of the
7th, while the storm still raged, 24 of the young men aboard two the
sloops--the Leopard and the Endeavour, masters Thomas
Church and Hohn Stone, respectively--managed to slip away.
The guards aboard the transports, eight per vessel, could not
explain how it happened, until someone found discarded men's
clothing in the holds of the ships. Using dresses spirited to
them by their mothers and sisters, the young Acadians disguised
themselves as women, followed their female kin off the vessels, and
disappeared into the countryside. Winslow's instinct, no
doubt, was to set his Yankees after them, but he focused, instead,
on his larger mission. On Wednesday the 8th, with the return
of fair weather and "winter already in the air," he ordered as many
of his men as he could spare from guard duty "to fan out through the
hamlets, driving the women, the children, the sick and infirm into
the village of Grand Pré," from whence they would be parceled out to
the transports still lying in the lower Gaspereau. Winslow
described the scene in his Journal: "began to Embarke the
Inhabitants who went off Very Solentarily and unwillingly, the women
in Great Distress Carrying off Their Children in their arms.
Others Carrying their Decript Parents in their Carts and all their
Goods Moving in Great Confussion & appeared a Sceen of woe &
Distress." Their ancestors had come to this place in the early
1680s and had created what some had called an agricultural paradise,
but here were their descendants, now numbering in the hundreds,
leaving behind them all that they had built there, all that they had
known. After being herded like cattle from the village to the
landing, 80 or so families were packed into two of the transports:
the 87-ton Leopard, which eventually held 178 Acadians, 4
over the limit; and the 97-ton sloop Elizabeth, which would
hold 242, 48 over the limit, both vessels bound for Maryland.
The same sad scenes were playing out at nearby Pigiguit, where some
of the inhabitants were complicating matters by taking the river
road down to Minas to join up with relatives there.
Meanwhile, Winslow "made the Strickest
Enquiery" into the previous evening's escape. He learned, to
his satisfaction at least, that François Hébert, who had been
held aboard the Leopard, "was Either the Contriver or abetter"
of the escape from that vessel and so must be made an example.
He ordered Hébert bound and brought ashore. At midday, in front of
dozens of Acadians still huddled in the village, including members
of the Hébert family, Winslow's men dragged the alleged conspirator
to his homestead, where he and his fellow Acadians were "forced to
witness the burning of his house, barn, and possessions."
Winslow then "Gave Notice to all the French that in Case these men
Did not Surrender them Selves in Two Days, I Should Serve all their Frinds in the Same Maner & not only So would Confisticate their
Household Goods and when Ever those men Should Fall Into the English
hands they would not be admitted to Quarter." That is to say,
Winslow's Yankees now had orders to shoot the escapees on sight wherever they
might find them. Hébert was hustled back aboard the Leopard, where he was joined by
his family later in the day.
Oddly, that night, the password among Winslow's Yankees was "Landree."124
On Thursday the 9th, Winslow ordered
the removal of the men from the empty transports waiting in the
lower Gaspereau "So as to Commode Each Nighbourhood for their
Familys to Joyne them when the other Transportes arived." He
then instructed the masters of the three vessels to drop anchor off Pointe-des-Boudrot,
which lay between the mouths of rivières des Habitants and Canards.
There they would take aboard families from the villages northwest of
Grand-Pré, where his troops had herded hundreds of more women and
children. Evidently Winslow planned to embark the 600 or 700
Acadians still waiting at Grand-Pré on transports that would
soon arrive from Annapolis or Chignecto, but when that would be
was anyone's guess. On Friday the 10th, Dudley Diggs, master
of the escort vessel HMS Nightingale, complained that,
despite two days of fair winds, the transports from Annapolis had
not arrived. Diggs also complained about his dwindling water
supply, as well as his need for "a Little French Meat, for my
People," and proposed that "Two Bullocks will be of great Service to
them having a Great Many Down with Colds." By the end of the
day, however, seven transports had
arrived from Annapolis--the Hannah, a 70-ton sloop under
master Richard Adams; the Sarah and Molly, another 70-ton
sloop under Master James Purrington; the Mary, a 90
1/2-ton schooner under master Andrew Dunning; the Three
Friends, a 69-ton sloop under master Thomas Carlile; and likely
the Swan, an 80-ton sloop under master Jonathan Loviette; the
Industry, an 86-ton sloop under master George Goodwin; and
the Prosperous, a 75-ton sloop under master Daniel Bragdon. Winslow ordered them to haul alongside the armed snow HMS Halifax
one at a time, and,
Meanwhile, elder François Landry beseeched Winslow to allow him to do what he could to retrieve "the young men Deserted" with the promise "that they Should not be Punished upon their return." Only then could they be "Induced to Come in," the elder believed. Winslow answered haughtily that "I had already passed my word of Honr for it, and Now repeated it to him & Should Go no Further, be the Consequences what it would," which was his clumsy way of approving the amnesty.125a
On October 11, Winslow informed
Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that, with seven more transports now
available to him, he would resume the embarkation on the
13th and hoped that by "the Coming week will put an End
to our Duty here of removing the Inhabitants...."
Winslow complained that the many requests for beeves was
taxing his resources. He also complained about the
quality of the cattle he and his men were rounding up
for the navy. "I am Certain the Inhabitants have
Drove the Cattle Back into the Countrey," he surmised,
"and as Soon as we are rid of the People Make no
Question but their Beasts may be Found," but for now the
focus of action would be ridding the province of "the
People." Winslow and Murray were determined to
keep at least the immediate families together, but, at
the landing on the Gaspereau, at Pointe-des-Boudrot, and
evidently at Pigiguit as well, chaos reigned.
John Mack Faragher
explains the problem with Winslow's scheme: "... because the
men and women had been separated, with the men further divided
between those imprisoned on the transports and those in the church,
attempting to unite husbands with wives and to keep families
together proved terribly complicated, requiring troops and crews to
shuttle prisoners from one vessel to another as families were
loaded." The breakdown of the scheme was heartbreaking:
"... according to Acadian tradition," Faragher continues, "the
inhabitants were packed randomly onto the transports, despite their
desperate pleas to soldiers and sailors who could not understand
their language." One of the Pigiguit Acadians offered insight
into the socio-economic impact of what he had witnessed: "'The
hurry and confusion in which we were embarked,' wrote Jean-Baptiste
Galerne, 'was an aggravating circumstance attending our misfortunes,
for thereby many who had lived in affluence found themselves
deprived of every necessary, and many families were separated,
parents from children, and children from parents.' Anguished
mothers cried out for missing children," Faragher relates, "frantic
wives refused to board without their husbands, angry husbands
resisted the orders of angry soldiers."
The inhabitants' anguish was compounded
by British ignorance of the Acadians' concept of
"family." The so-called nuclear or immediate
family, in which a married couple and their children
lived apart from their relations, was rare among Acadian couples. To the typical Acadian of the mid-eighteenth century,
separation from grandparents, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, and
first and second cousins could be as painful an experience as
separation from parents and siblings. Did
Winslow and his officers lost control
of another aspect of the embarkation. One suspects Charles Lawrence would have shrugged off the Acadians' pain and suffering, but the mad destruction of
what they left behind them, now the property of the King, would have
triggered the lieutenant-governor's famous temper. Again, Faragher says
it best: "Once the inhabitants had been driven from their
homes, Minas belonged to the vultures," human as well as avian.
"Their abandoned property became the object of pillage and
destruction. Off-duty soldiers and sailors as well as English
and German colonists from Halifax, Lunenburg, and other Protestant
settlements on the Atlantic coast raided homes, looted storehouses,
killed chickens, butchered hogs, and dug through gardens for buried
valuables. For several days, chaos reigned." Elder
François Landry "complained bitterly to Winslow that in addition to
plundering Acadian property, troops and colonists were abusing
Acadian women in their encampment on the landing."
Winslow responded on the 13th with an order addressed not only to
his own troops, but also to ship's masters to keep their crewmen
under control so that "an End may be put to Distressing this
Distressed People." Winslow had
been warning Lawrence for weeks that he did not have enough troops
to fulfill his mission, and here was a terrible manifestation of
that fact. Nevertheless, on October 12, "amid these
scenes of ransack and pillage," Winslow managed to send several
companies of his New Englanders into outlying hamlets "to sweep up
fugitives and stragglers," and his Yankees finally found the
opportunity to shoot Acadians. "One patrol discovered a number
of the young escapees hiding in an abandoned hamlet," Faragher
relates. "Ordered to surrender, they instead fled on
horseback. The soldiers fired, killing one young
man--reputedly a grandson of Pierre Melanson dit
Laverdure, one of the first settlers at Minas ...--and mortally
wounding another. These were the first Acadian fatalities
recorded in Winslow's journal," Faragher tells us, "although Acadian
tradition claims many others."
They may have been the first Minas Acadians to suffer violent deaths, but they would not be the last.
On Monday the 13th, when the
embarkation at Minas resumed in earnest, François
Landry coaxed the other young men to return to Grand-Pré, and
Winslow allowed them to board the transports with their families.
Chaos reigned not only in the villages, but also out on the
water. L
By the evening of the 13th, John Mack
Faragher tells us, "all the Acadians of Grand Pré had been loaded
onto five transports anchored in the mouth of rivière Gaspereau.
These vessels ...," Faragher informs us, "had been specially
outfitted to carry human cargo, the holds divided into two or three
levels about four feet high, much as they were arranged in vessels
used for the slave trade." Since all of the transports had
been hired from the Boston firm of Apthorp and Hancock, one can
assume that the transports at Chignecto, now making their way down
the Bay of Fundy to the Annapolis Basin, were similarly fitted out
to accommodate the deportees at two persons per marine ton.
The available transports at Minas now full, Winslow issued orders to
each of the ship's masters. First, he informed them of where
they would be going. The Elizabeth and Leopard,
which had loaded at Grand-Pré and would be escorted by HMS Nightingale, were off to Maryland
with 420 Acadians aboard. The
Hannah, with its 140 deportees, and the Swan, with
168, eight over the limit--308 Acadians in all, loading at Pointe-des-Boudrot--were going to Pennsylvania.
The Endeavor with its 166 deportees, six over the limit; the
Industry with 177; the Mary with 182; the Prosperous with 152,
two over the
limit; and the Sarah and Molly with 154 deportees, 14
over the limit--831 Acadians in all, also loading at
Pointe-des-Boudrot and
At Pigiguit, Murray was still embarking
his Acadians, so the transports at Minas had to wait for
these additional vessels to join them in the basin
before moving on to the rendezvous at Annapolis.
During Murray's operation, one can be certain that the
Protestant settlers from Halifax and Lunenburg were just
as voracious in looting the villages at Pigiguit as they
were at
Minas. But Murray had a more pressing problem on his hands:
he still did not have enough transports to meet the
two-persons-per-ton passenger limit Lawrence had negotiated with the Boston shippers. On the
14th, Murray registered
By the 20th, Winslow
could report to Governor Shirley via an acquaintance in Boston that, even though he had loaded
nearly 1,600 Acadians from the various villages at Minas aboard the
nine transports available to him, he "apprehended full 500 More in
these my Districks" for which he had no vessels. He already
had overloaded several of his transports--one of them, the
Elizabeth, heading to Maryland, was 48 passengers over the limit.
Earlier in the month, Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton had promised him three
more transports, but they were nowhere to be seen. Winslow had no
choice but to march the inhabitants still waiting at Pointe-des-Boudrots--98
families, "upwards of Six Hundred Souls" from "the ... Villages of
Antoine & Landry & Some of Cannard"--down to Grand-Pré,
where he placed the women and children in the abandoned houses
closest to his camp. Winslow extracted a promise from the men
and older boys to answer to a roll call at sunset each day and
allowed them to remain with their families.
On Tuesday, October 21, 14
transports--nine from Minas and five from Fort
Edward--raised their flukes in the anchorage at lower
Gaspereau, at Pointe-des-Boudrot, and in the lower
Pigiguit, and slowly made their way on the ebbing
tide to their rendezvous in Minas Basin. Aboard were
over 2,600 Acadians--1,559 from Minas and 1,061 from Pigiguit--rounded up
from dozens of villages and
hamlets,
.
During the week following the transports' departure for Annapolis Royal, Winslow received a dispatch from Lawrence, dated the 23rd, that anticipated the departure of all of the Minas Acadians and detailed a new mission for Winslow and his men. Instead of sending "a Strong Detachment" to assist Major Handfield at Annapolis, he and his men would go to Pigiguit, "where you will leave with Capt. Murray such a Number of Men as he and you shall Conclude to be Necessary for the Defence of the Garrison, & for Sending out Parties to Scour the Country & Prevent the Enemy from Carrying off the Cattle or Provissions that may be found in the Villages," left intact by Murray and his men. Having saved from depredation that which mattered to Lawrence most--the Acadians' crops and animals--the governor planned to remove the New England troops from Nova Scotia by sailing the ones at Chignecto to Fort Edward, where they would rendezvous with Winslow's command before sailing round to Halifax, from whence, it was presumed, the entire regiment would return to Boston. However, Lawrence gave no specific timetable for what must have been welcome news to Winslow and his Yankees.136
But even a
During the first week of November
For this righteous old
Puritan from Marshfield, Massachusetts, it truly had been
.
All had been quiet--perhaps too
quiet--in the Annapolis valley during the months of September and
October. In the second week of September, word reached Major
Handfield at
Fort Anne that the delegates who had been held at Halifax since late
July would be returned to their families via Minas. On
September 17, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow at Grand-Pré informed
Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that the imprisoned delegates had
reached him, including 27 going to Annapolis. He planned to send them under
guard--a lieutenant, two sergeants, a corporal, and 35 privates--via
the road to the upper valley in a day or two. Winslow had
orders from Lawrence to instruct the officer in charge of the guard,
which turned out to be Lieutenant William Peabody, "to Scour all the Villages
on the [upper Annapolis] River as they Go Down, and Carry into
Annapolis all the Men they Can Finde, and Order the women to follow
with their Children Carrying with them what Provissions they Can,
For the mens Subsistance til they are all ready for Sailing."
Winslow supplemented Lieutenant Peabody's orders by instructing him
"to Supply your Self, Party and Prisoners with Provisions of Meat
Kinde at the Last Village." Peabody and his detachment would
then remain at Fort Anne to assist the commander there.
Major Handfield, then, despite his
clever fabrications during the crisis of late August, would be
compelled to stage a round up of his own, including some of his
kinsmen. But it did not happen anytime soon. Within days of
Lieutenant Peabody's arrival at Fort Anne with the delegates,
Winslow asked for the return of his detachment, and Handfield
agreed to send
them back, desiring only that "So Soon as you Can Spare the men, you
will Send me A Larger Reinforcement til the Arival of which I shall
not begin the Embarkation here." Handfield took the
opportunity to express his sincere desire "that we were both of us
Got over this most Disagreable and Troublesome part of the Service."
Evidently Handfield complained to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence of
his predicament, for Lawrence instructed Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow
on September 23 that a
Five days later, on October 27, the
British deportation of the Acadians from Nova Scotia reached a
poignant climax: the 22 transports from Chignecto, Minas, and
Pigiguit, along with four escort ships, raised anchor at the ebbing
tide. In single file, they slowly made their way out of the
Annapolis Basin, through the Gut, and into the Grand French Bay.
Sailing with them was t
Activity at Annapolis picked up considerably during the first week of November when a detachment of 90 New Englanders from Winslow's command marched down the valley from Minas. The reinforcement, however, was not an easy one, "the way being So extreemly bad we were obliged to Lodge two Nights in the Woods," Captain Nathan Adams, one of the two company commanders, complained to Winslow on November 10. When the Yankees reached Annapolis Royal, all of the transports needed to deport the rest of the local inhabitants still had not arrived. Only a couple of Admiral Boscawen's warships lay at anchor in Annapolis Basin. At least 300 of the inhabitants on the haute rivière escaped the subsequent roundup, but Handfield's redcoats, with Yankee assistance, secured the rest of the valley's inhabitants by the first week of December. One suspects that the embarkation at Annapolis, which had begun by December 4 at the anchorage off Goat Island in the lower basin, was no more orderly than those of Winslow and Murray the previous month. And, according to complaints some of them made after three months at sea reaching their destination, many of these Acadians, until the very moment of embarkation, remained certain that they would not be treated like their militant cousins deported from the other Nova Scotia settlements. "They affirm," Governor James Glen of South Carolina recorded the following January, "that so far from being in arms against the British or openly joining the French, they never abetted them in any shape, they often run the risk of their lives because they would not, like some other of the Acadians, be compelled to assist them, they always answered they would never act against the Fidelity they owed to the King of England; and they say they can give many instances of their attachment to the Government, particularly that it was their constant custom to give notice to the Commanders of our Troops when they discovered any Party of French or any number of Boats, that our people might be on their guard and might prevent a surprise so that they had no suspicion they were to share the like fate with some others of their Countrymen till the fatal moment came when they were forced on Board, under the pain of military execution, without being (as they say) able to learn the reason of such harsh treatment. Their Houses were burnt, their cattle killed, their Hay-stacks and Barns, full of corn ... all set in flames before their faces!!!" Yet here they were, like their militant cousins at Chignecto, being forced aboard vessels hired for the purpose, treated like the cattle they were leaving behind.138a
At 5 o'clock on the morning of December 8, "with a fair
wind," five transports, with close to 1,400 Annapolis Acadians locked in their
holds, departed Goat Island under
escort of the sloop of war HMS Baltimore, Captain T. Owens
commanding. The masters of the Annapolis
transports held orders for four destinations: t
.
During
Following the construction of the new British base at Halifax in the summer of 1749, the recently-appointed governor of Nova Scotia, Colonel Edward
And then came Lawrence's decision to send the Acadians
out of the colony. In a set of
detailed instructions intended for Lieutenant-Colonel
Monckton at Chignecto, written on July 31 but not
delivered until August 2, Lawrence had
And there the
matter stood until the second week of September, when
Lawrence sent a long directive to Winslow, dated
September 11. The lieutenant-governor
congratulated Winslow and Murray on their successful
operations at Minas and Pigiguit. "As the
Village of Cobequid are Comprehended under your
Instructions," Lawrence reminded the New Englander,
he promised to send a force under Captain Thomas Lewis
of the rangers "to
assist in bringing in those Inhabitants which I belive
will be no easy Task." "Capt Lewis has Lately been
there," Lawrence noted, "and being perfectly well
acquainted with the Scituation of the Villages will be
the Properest Person to Conduct this Enterprise."
He expected Winslow and Murray to consult with Captain
Lewis as soon as he reached Pigiguit. Lawrence
concluded his instructions with these words: "I
donte Care how Soon the Party is Sent to Annapolis,
Provided it Donte Hinder the Cobequid Expedition for
that is most Material and Ought to be Gone about without
one moments Delay."
The Cobeguit operation was now a priority.
Lawrence did not give an exact date for Lewis's visit to Cobeguit. The Acadians there likely had learned of the September 5 roundups at Pigiguit and Minas soon after they happened. One suspects that the news hit them like a thunderbolt. They would have been aware of the roundup at Chignecto on August 10, and that something similar was going on in the Annapolis valley. If Lewis visited Cobeguit during the second week of September, he evidently found the inhabitants still at their harvest. "Eight Invalids that Came fro[m] Cobegate" in a whale boat, in fact, reached Minas by September 11. But as soon as the Acadians at Cobeguit had learned the fate of their scattered cousins, only a swift operation, such as Lawrence was urging, could have kept them in their villages.87a
Winslow's and
Murray's operation against Cobeguit was anything but
swift. Not until September 16 did Winslow get
around to consulting with Captain Murray on the Cobeguit
venture, and not until the following day did Winslow
"settle" on "The Party for Cobequid." From Minas,
Winslow would furnish a lieutenant (Charles Buckley),
two sergeants, two corporals, a drummer, and 40
privates. Except for an extra drummer, Murray
would provide the same size force (his officer would be
Lieutenant Mercer). Captain Lewis's unit,
including regulars as well as rangers, would consist of
two lieutenants, a sergeant, two corporals, and 20
privates, 117 men in all, to be commanded by Captain
Lewis--"which is as many as we Can Spare," Winslow
informed Lawrence. He proposed to embark the force
that evening on two deportation vessels that housed no
Acadian men: the 90-ton schooner Neptune, Jonathan
Davis, master; and the 90-ton sloop Dolphin,
master William Hancock. Winslow's orders to
Captain Lewis reflected the lesson learned from Frye's
disaster on the Petitcoudiac. You "are to bring
the Inhabitants of [Cobeguit] off that Place," Winslow
directed the ranger captain, "and as you are Lately Come
from his Excellency Gov. Lawrance, and Know his
Intention as to the People of that Districk I Leave you
to your own Judgement, in the Management of this affair,
and would only recomend to You not to Divide your
Party." Winslow also left to Captain Lewis's
discretion whether to leave that night or wait until the
following morning. Despite the weather turning
foul, Lewis managed to get his force aboard the
transports safely that evening, but, as he tried to
explain to Winslow the following morning, "the Shalloops
did not Come down" from Pigiguit "on the last Ebb," so
he was compelled to send "the whale boat with a Serjant
& Twelve men in order to bring them Down" before he
could be ready for his mission.
It would have
taken the Neptune much of a day to reach the
entrance to Cobeguit Bay, where Captain Lewis and his
men would have witnessed some of the highest tides on
the planet. Not until the tide began to flow could
they sail eastward through the narrowing bay to the
mouths of rivières Shubenacadie and
On the 20th, Winslow addressed a letter to George Saul, Lawrence's commissary, then at Chignecto, and used the past tense to describe the party sent "to Bring in the People" at Cobeguit. Winslow predicted that "when the Party returns from Cobequid" it would bring in "at least Two or Three Hundred People"--perhaps a figure obtained from Captain Lewis's recent visit there. Winslow reminded Saul that the Cobeguit inhabitants "will have No Friend to Supply" them at Minas, since they would have been removed from their own food supply, "nor I anything to Give them to Subsist on," Winslow added. He then requested additional supplies to be sent to him to accommodate the increase in his number of deportees.90
Saul need not
have bothered. On September 25, Winslow received
from Captain Lewis the startling news that "the
Inhabitants of Cobequid have Entierly Deserted that
Country," as the lieutenant-colonel
described it to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence in a dispatch dated
the 29th. Captain Lewis and his force had
made this discovery on the 23rd, after which they "began
to Burn and lay waste" the villages there, which took
them two days to accomplish. Lewis's only casualty
in the expedition was New Englander Nathan Robins of
Osgood's Company, "who had the
Misfortune to be Shott Throh his Sholders by a Brother
Centry when on Post taking him to be an Enemy."
Despite the
destruction of the settlement, the expedition to
Cobeguit was a disaster for British arms. Sometime
during the middle of September, before the British could
get at them, most of the "Two or Three Hundred People," or
however many Acadians had been left at
Cobeguit, destroyed what they could not take with them;
gathered up their families, household valuables, and the food they could carry or drive
before them; and either hid in the hills above the
settlement or hurried up the overland tracks
to the North Shore ports. Tatamagouche, the
closest one, was only 40 miles away, but it would have
been nothing but a ruin by the time they reached it.
Most of the men from Tatamagouche were languishing at Chignecto, and
the port's women and children, if they were still in the
remains of their homes, would
have been in
terrible condition.
But there were other North Shore villages the Cobeguit
refugees could
turn to for help--Pugwash and Remsheg west of Tatamagouche;
and Cape
John, Pictou, and Caribou to the east--where boats could
transport them across Mer Rouge to the southern shore of
Île St.-Jean. There, from early autumn into the
following spring and summer, they joined their many kinsmen already there.
.
The
deportations from Nova Scotia continued into late
autumn, but on a much smaller
scale: 805 Acadians aboard six transports from
Minas and Halifax, compared to the 6,397 aboard 28
transports from Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, and
Annapolis Royal.
Meanwhile, in early November, Lawrence was
still laboring under the assumption that Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton would send extra transports to
Minas to deport the 750 Acadians still waiting there.
"I have Some fears that the Provissions put on Board
these Transportes at Chignecto may have been put to Some
other use," Lawrence wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow,
still at Minas, on November 5. "If this Should be
the Case they must get what more may be wanted at
Annapolis to which Place they must be ordered to proceed
to be taken under the Convoy of the Kings Ships
appointed to Carry away those of that District."
Lawrence urged "Speedy" execution in getting these
Acadians away, but Winslow was then occupied with
destroying the Minas villages before putting the place
behind him.
On November
29, Winslow, still at Halifax, informed Osgood that the
New-English venture at Grand-Pré soon would be over.
Governor Lawrence had assured him that "Colo Monckton
will be with you before the Receipt of this and Doubless
with him the Transports" needed to ship off the
remaining Acadians. Winslow was confident that
Osgood would "make no Delay in Putting a Finishing
Stroke to the Removal of our Friends the French."
This done, Winslow was anxious that his two detachments
at Minas and Annapolis rendezvous at Fort Edward, from
whence they would join him at Halifax. Following
Lawrence's directive, Winslow ordered Osgood to "remove
the Sick by Water," along with "the King's Stores" that
could not be taken on the march from Pigiguit.
Meanwhile, Osgood prepared his men for the winter by
building chimneys "in the Mass House,"
St.-Charles-des-Mines.
A
Fait Accompli and Promotion, October 1755-May 1756
Lawrence then
recounted some recent history, much of which
he himself had observed.
And then came Lawrence's pièce de résistance in defense of the deportation: "But when we found the French Inhabitants who had not deserted their lands entertained the same disloyal sentiments with those who had, and positively rejected the Oath of Allegiance, we thought it high time to resolve (as well for His Majesty's Honor as the immediate preservation of the Province) that the whole French Inhabitants, as well those who had not deserted as those who had, should be embarked on board Transports to be sent out of the Province and dispersed among the neighbouring Colonies." He was writing the secretary on November 30, so he could update him on the status of an operation that had yet to be approved by any British official other than his colonial Councilmen and admirals Boscawen and Mostyn. "By much of the greater part of them are sailed," Lawrence noted, "and I flatter myself by this time the whole."
John Mack Faragher provides a poignant description of the opening scene of the Acadians' Great Upheaval. "In the confusion of those final days," the historian relates, "not only did some Acadians surrender, but others found the means to escape. One woman was able to slip away from her captors and return to her village, which had yet to be torched. Her memory of the horror she saw chronicled the destruction of a a way of life. Homes plundered; household furniture and pottery smashed and strewn about the cart paths; cattle grazing in the wheat fields, pigs rooting in the gardens; oxen, still yoked to the carts that the Acadians drove to the landing, bellowing in hunger; droves of horses running madly through the wreckage. Standing before her abandoned house, she felt delirious from exhaustion and distress. The family cow came up to her, begging to be milked. She sat on her doorstep, milked it and drank, and felt refreshed. And as she sat there a Mickmaw man approached her. He pointed toward the basin. 'See the smoke rise; they will burn all here tonight.' He helped her gather a few things that remained. Come with me, he said. The Acadians are 'gone, all gone.'"146
In spite of the depth of this good woman's suffering, she was one of the lucky ones. Though Winslow's, Murray's, and Handfield's operations had been virtually bloodless, Acadians died in the roundup at Chignecto and during the brief resistance that accompanied it. But whatever the number of those deaths may have been, it was miniscule compared to the number of Acadians who perished on the deportation transports.
Soon after the 22
transports from Chignecto, Minas, and Pigiguit set sail from the
Annapolis Basin and entered the Bay of Fundy, they ran head on into
"a powerful early season nor'easter," which churned the bay for
days. "The sea turned completely white," John Mack Faragher
relates, "the air filled with foam, and huge waves and hurricane
force winds pummeled the vessels." Captain Abraham Adams
of HMS Warren, one of the escort vessels, described the gale
as "one of the Severest Storms I ever knew. I keept Company
with the [HMS] Nightingal," another escort vessel,"as far as
yet Grand Menan," a large island on the north side of the entrance
to the Bay of Fundy, "and then I brought too in hopes not to leave
the Bay, but we Sprung a leake which obliged me to Skudd out of the
Bay. I Stood at Helmm 5 Hours and all our People employed in
Pumping & Bailing to free the Vessel." The storm drove him
around to Georges Island, where he found refuge in Halifax harbor.
"I am afraid Several of the Fleet was lost in ye Gale," the captain
told Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow. The Warren remained at
Halifax for a month, undergoing repairs, and returned to Annapolis
Basin by December 1. Faragher provides a poignant
description of what it must have been like for the Acadians enduring
these first dreadful hours of exile: "The less seaworthy
transports were not so lucky, and scattered before the winds.
From their dark prisons below deck, men, women, and children cried
out in terror, but they could not be heard over the roar of the
tempest." Miraculously, most of the transports and the other
escorts also survived the dreadful storm. However, the
schooner Boscawen, with 190 Acadians aboard, and the ship
Union, carrying 392 Acadians, both bound for Pennsylvania, "were
never heard from again"--582 exiles from Chignecto, a third of the
Acadians sent from that settlement, lost at sea. The snow
Two Sisters, with approximately 250 Annapolis Acadians aboard,
bound for Connecticut, also may have been lost in the storm.
On November 5, after
battling the storm for over a week, six of the deportation
transports, four filled with Acadians from Pigiguit and two from
Minas, took refuge in Boston harbor. None of their masters
had letters for the governor of Massachusetts, but each of the
vessels was in serious need of repair and replenishment. This
did not prevent the Massachusetts Assembly from demanding a report
from the harbor authorities to a committee of the Assembly on the
condition of the "French Neutrals." What authorities reported
could only have sickened the good Puritans. "'The vessels in
general are too much crowded,' read the report. The exiles on
one transport"--the sloop Dolphin, from Pigiguit heading to
Maryland--"were described as 'sickly occasioned by being too much
crowded, (with) 40 lying on deck,' on another--the sloop Ranger,
from Pigiguit on its way to Maryland--as 'sickly and their water
very bad.'" Acadians aboard the
The Boston authorities
acted quickly. On November 7, they declared that conditions
aboard most of the vessels was intolerable and recommended that 134
passengers be removed from their respective vessels and allowed to
disembark at the city docks. This would allow each vessel to
proceed to its intended destination with the required complement of
two passengers per ton. As long as it did not break up anymore
families, the Acadians could only have applauded the disembarkation
scheme. "The ships' captains," however--Zebediah Forman of the
Dolphin, Francis Piercy of the Ranger, William Ford of
the Neptune, James Purrington of the Sarah and Molly,
John Stone of the Endeavor, and Thomas Carlile of the
Three Friends--"loudly protested any reduction in number, for
their contract specified payment on the basis of the number of
persons delivered at their ports of destination," John Mack
Faragher relates. They sought out Benjamin Green, a member of
Lawrence's Nova Scotia Council who was in Boston on government
business, "and convinced him to agree that the province would pay
for all the inhabitants counted at Boston," not their ultimate
destinations, "which cleared the way for the embarkation" of the
recommended number of Acadians. These first arrivals in
Massachusetts, soon to be jointed by hundreds of their fellow
Acadians, were housed temporarily in the city's poorhouse before the
Assembly decided which Bay Colony communities would receive them.
Once the excessive number
of deportees were removed from their holds, repairs were made, and
food and water replenished at government expense, the six transports
were allowed to go on their way. Each of them survived the
final leg of their arduous journey. One reached Hampton
Roads, Virginia, on the 13th, followed by two more on the 30th; one reached Philadelphia
on the 21st; and two dropped anchor at Annapolis, Maryland, on the
last day of the month.
Virginia
Officials in the other British seaboard colonies were not so
accommodating to Lawrence's deportation scheme. Lieutenant-Governor
Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia was especially chagrined to find so
many dangerous "French Neutrals" suddenly at his doorstep.
Lawrence's original order of August 11 called for 1,000 of the
estimated 2,000 Acadians at Minas and Pigiguit to be sent to
Virginia, Britain's oldest, largest, and most populated colony in
North America. When the debarkations at Minas and Pigiguit
were completed two months later, 831 Minas exiles, in five
transports, were destined for Virginia. One transport from
Pigiguit would carry 206 more Acadians to that colony--1,037
inhabitants from the heart of Nova Scotia. On December
20, the final transport removing the last of the inhabitants from
the Minas Basin headed down to Virginia with 112 more deportees,
making at total of 1,149 Acadians placed aboard seven transports
heading to the Old Dominion.
Only South Carolina, with 1,167 deportees from Chignecto and
Annapolis Royal in five ships, was the destination of more Acadian exiles in 1755,
but more transports filled with exiles reached Virginia than any other
seaboard colony.
Virginia was an especially troubled place during the autumn of 1755.
Two summers before, in early July 1754, the French and Indians had
meted out death and humiliation to Virginia forces in western
Pennsylvania. Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela almost
exactly a year later had brought death to even more Virginia
volunteers, who had followed the young Washington back to
Pennsylvania to avenge the defeat at Great Meadows the summer
before.
And suddenly here they
were, hundreds of
"French Neutrals," Roman Catholics every one. The
first to arrive were 359 exiles aboard the sloops Industry
and Mary, escorted by HMS Halifax. They sailed
into Hampton Roads on November 13, the first of
Lawrence's deportation transports to reach their
destination. Evidently the two vessels had endured
the late October gale with relatively little damage.
That same day, at the colonial capital at Williamsburg,
Governor Dinwiddie was handed Lawrence's circular
letter, which he promptly read to his Council. On
November 17, in a letter to Secretary of State Sir
Thomas Robinson, Dinwiddie complained in a postscript:
"'Sir: Since writing the above I have, last Night,
an Express from Hampton, to acquaint me of the arrival
of two sloops and four more daily expected, with
Neutrals from Nova Scotia. It is very disagreeable
to the People to have imported, to rest among us, a
number of French people, when many of [the same nation] joined with Indians and are now
murdering and scalping our frontier Settlers.'" Not even
Lawrence and the members of his colonial Council could
have associated these simple farmers with the Canadian
and French cutthroats out on the frontier as
enthusiastically as this irate Scotsman. "'I shall
call and consult the Council what is to be done with
them,'" Dinwiddie reassured the secretary.
One wonders how Dinwiddie and his Council would have reacted to the
news that Robinson and the Lords of Trade had never authorized
Lawrence to deport these "French Neutrals," much less send hundreds
of them to Virginia.
No matter, Dinwiddie had to address this fait accompli with
all of its political and military complications. His
councilors, who included John Blair, Philip Grymes, Philip Ludwell,
William Byrd the younger, Thomas Nelson, Peyton Randolph, and the
unnamed
Two days later, a special
Council meeting was held to receive Ludwell's and the commissary's
report. (Thomas Nelson and Peyton Randolph were now in
attendance.) Ludwell made his report, stating that he and "Mr.
Commissary" had boarded the "four sloops and one schooner and
inquired particularly into the number and circumstances of the
Neutral French, and on account whereof he presented at the Board;
with a Paper signed by the said French importing their submission
and adherence to His Majesty and promising fidelity to him."
These were Acadians from Minas and Pigiguit, some of whom, like
Claude Pitre and Honoré LeBlanc, had been friends of
the British back in Nova Scotia. Many more of them had clung
to neutrality and still had a mind to do so. But four months
earlier Lawrence had imprisoned their delegates for refusing to take
the unqualified oath, and they had been told by Winslow and Murray
that exile from their homeland would be a result of that refusal.
And here they were, on crowded, fetid deportation transports, far
from their ancestral homes. Considering the circumstances in
which they had been placed and the condition of themselves and their
loved ones, who could have blamed them for meekly submitting, which
would have marked the end of their neutrality? But, in spite
of what the Council's record implies, the Acadians even now refused
to take the oath. A year later, in explaining to the Lords at
Whitehall why he had sent the Acadians to England,
Here were accusations of
a general sort to deepen the prejudice that already existed against
anything French or Catholic, but then the Acadians themselves were
accused of an act of folly unforgivable in the eyes of most
Virginians. Rumors came in from the western country that the
Shawnee, a tribe then allied with the French, "took three French Men
in your way to Fort Du Quesne. They prove to be Neutrals y't
they were sent to So. Caro." Here, perhaps, was evidence that
relatives of the French Neutrals being held in the colony were
stirring up hostiles along the Virginia frontier. Much closer
to home, and even more troubling, was a report from Hampton that
probably sealed the fate of the Acadians in Virginia. "Those
sent here," Governor Dinwiddie wrote to one of his provincial
officers, "behave ill and have had frequent Cabals with our
Negroes." Virginia, like most of Britain's seaboard colonies,
had sanctioned chattel slavery the century before. At first, the
planters had enslaved the local Indians to work their fields of
tobacco. When Native numbers dwindled from disease and
warfare, the planters, with the approbation of the royal governors
and the colony's House of Burgesses, imported more Africans, at
first by the hundreds and then by the thousands, to provide labor
for their burgeoning tobacco plantations. Agricultural slavery,
and its attendant fears, had never taken hold in French Acadia or British Nova Scotia.
Most Acadian families were so large and healthy, their communities
so tight-knit, there was no shortage of labor in their
fields and pastures. Moreover, the Mi'kmaq were too
numerous and powerful to have allowed Europeans to enslave them; and
only a few well-to-do merchants, nearly all of them British, living at Annapolis Royal, could have afforded prestige domestics
to wait on them and their families. For most of the Acadians
from the deportation transports, the bondsmen in the
Virginia communities would have been the first African slaves they
encountered. And who
"In the spring of 1756,"
The legislative process
of removal began in early April. A committee was formed,
chaired by Charles Carter, to fashion a bill "to enable certain
Persons to contract for the Transportation of the Neutral French to
Great Britain." By the middle of the month, Governor Dinwiddie could
report that
South Carolina and Georgia
Two other southern
seaboard colonies also attempted to send their exiles away, though neither of
them followed the Virginia model. On November 15, two days
after the first shipment of exiles reached the Old Dominion, HMS Syren,
Captain Charles Proby, arrived in Charles Town harbor, South
Carolina, after the long voyage from Annapolis Basin, which he had
left with two dozen other vessels on October 27. Aboard
the Syren were 21 "special prisoners," all in shackles,
including 56-year-old Alexandre Broussard dit
Beausoleil and his 27-year-old son Victor. As soon
as he could, Captain Proby informed colonial
officials that he was escort for six transports scattered by a
storm, four of them intended for South Carolina and expected to
arrive momentarily; the other two he would escort to Savannah. During the next few days, the four transports
intended for Charles Town "dropped anchor in Rebellion Road
just outside the harbor." The Two Brothers, which had
left Chignecto with 132 Acadians and suffered a failed attempt by
its passengers to take over the vessel, reached Charles
Town with 123 aboard. The
Dolphin had left Chignecto with 121 Acadians and, miraculously,
reached Charles Town with the same number. The Endeavour
departed Chignecto with 125 Acadians and reached Charles
Town with
121. The Edward Cornwallis, a 130-ton ship, had been
packed with 417 Acadians, a staggering 157 over Lawrence's limit. The
extreme discomfort below decks from the terrible overcrowding was
compounded by an epidemic of smallpox that broke out during the
voyage; only 207 Acadians reached Charles Town aboard the vessel,
less than half the number of passengers its master
had taken aboard at Chignecto the month before. Here were 593
newly-arrived "French Neutrals," some of them newly born,
that the Palmetto colony was expected to house and feed.
Their arrival was not
completely unexpected. On November 9, the South Carolina
Gazette had reported "shiploads of these people" being
distributed among the seaboard colonies. The Gazette
also reported the armed snow HMS Baltimore (actually a
sloop of war) was expected to arrive "with a party of them, but not
appeared." But here was the sloop of war Syren with
four "parties" in tow: on the morning of November
17, word reached the colonial Council chamber in Charles Town of the
transports' appearance outside of the harbor. Royal Governor
James Glen was informed of the ships' arrival, and he hurried to the
capitol, where six of his councilmen had gathered. Later that
morning, "the sergeant-at-arms announced that two ship's captains
awaited an audience" with the governor and the Council.
Masters James Best of the Two Brothers and Andrew Sinclair of
the Edward Cornwallis were ushered in (Masters Hancock of the
Dolphin and Nichols of the Endeavour had arrived with
their ships but did not join their fellows at the capitol).
Best, serving as spokesman, handed the governor a copy of Lawrence's
circular. The letter was addressed to William Lyttelton, "who
was to succeed Glen, but who had not yet arrived in the province."
Another governor now was informed that the so-called "French
Neutrals"
Milling offers this
analysis of Governor Glen's dilemma: "As Frenchmen the
Acadians had refused to take an unqualified oath of allegiance to
the British Government. Nevertheless, they were British
subjects, the majority of whom, if indeed not all of them, had been
born under the British flag. Since they were British subjects
they could hardly be sent, against their will, to foreign territory.
Because they were French they were suspected of being in sympathy
with the French cause in the undeclared war going on between the two
powers in America, yet the stubborn fact remained that they were
entitled to the protection of the British Government. As professed
Catholics they could not under the law be given citizenship in South
Carolina, whose charter, although expressively providing for liberty
of conscience, excepted 'Papists.'" Meanwhile, on the streets
and in the homes of the colonial capital, Carolinians, nearly all of
them Protestants of one denomination or another, shook their heads
and wondered what could be done with so many French Catholics thrust
upon them.
Governor Glen wasted no
time in confronting the dilemma. He requested that "two 'of
the most sensible and discreet men' from each of the four vessels"
appear before him and his councilors. On November 25,
"eight or ten" Acadian leaders appeared in the Council chamber and
promptly made a case for mistreatment at the hands of Governor
Lawrence and Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton, and presented three
documents to the colonial leaders. The Acadians, Milling
reminds us, "regarded" one of them "as the very charter of the
desecrated liberties." This was a copy of Ensign Robert
Wroth's report to Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence Armstrong, then
lieutenant-governor of British Nova Scotia, submitted to Armstrong
and the colonial Council in November 1727. Here was proof that
the Acadians, since that time known as "French Neutrals," had taken
a qualified oath of allegiance that not only acknowledged
them as subjects of King George II, but also guaranteed to them the
free exercise of their religion and exempted them from fighting in
any future colonial wars. The other documents also attested to
the Acadians' staunch neutrality and the price they paid for
clinging to it. "One was a written order signed by the French
commander, de Ramesay, dated at Beaubassin, May 25, 1747, ordering
them to fight for him on pain of death. The other ... was a
copy of the terms of capitulation of the fort [Beauséjour] which
contained the following clause: 'As to the Acadians, as they
have been forced to take up arms under pain of death, they shall be
forgiven for the part they have been taking.'"
"Clearly the will of the
Acadians was far from being broken," John Mack Faragher reminds us.
This governor, like his colleague, Dinwiddie of Virginia, soon would
learn that he was dealing not with a bunch of peasants unaware of
their rights but with men who were certain of where they stood in a
world that was treating them so shabbily. In the end, Governor
Glen would evince true sympathy towards the plight of the exiles, but,
unfortunately for the governor, and especially the exiles,
But Governor Glen would
have none of it. "'It would be cruelty to keep
these people on aboard the vessels till they perish,'"
he chided the Assembly.
In early December, perhaps after employing, as a gesture of
compromise, the transshipment of 120 exiles to Georgia aboard HMS
Syren, the governor persuaded the Assemblymen to approve the
disembarkation of the remaining exiles. "In spite of the
committee's unfavorable report," Milling tells us, the Assembly
voted to allow the Acadians to "be received on shore, subject to the
following conditions: 1. They were to be quarantined on
Sullivan's Island," near Rebellion Road, "for five days, 'that they
might purify and cleanse themselves' before they be permitted to
come to Charles Town. 2. Those of 'turbulent and seditious
disposition' were to be confined at the workhouse. 3. They
were to be lodged temporarily under guard in or near Charles Town.
Able-bodied men were to be put to work on the fortifications.
All Acadians must be in at sunset. The men were to be
quartered in barracks, under military guard. A sum not
exceeding ten shillings per week was voted for the maintenance of
each person. 4. It was suggested that as soon as possible they
be separated into [small] groups and the individuals indented,
either voluntarily or against their will, to such persons as would
take them." The Assembly agreed that the men working on the
fortifications should be paid, "but the proceeds of their hire
should go toward the maintenance of the whole body." The
provision for indenturing individuals required an act of the
Assembly, which was not forthcoming until the following July.
The governor, meanwhile,
required the ship's captains, before they could receive their
certificates of completion, as stipulated by Lawrence's
instructions, to "prepare lists of their
passengers, naming the heads of families" and giving the numbers of
dependents. Master Best of the Two Brothers completed
the assignment only cursorily, giving no names, only numbers.
Masters
Hancock of the Dolphin, Sinclair of the Cornwallis,
and Nichols of the Endeavour, however, complied with the
governor's wishes and furnished the required details, which the
governor then placed into the colonial records. Lawrence's
instructions of August 11, or any of the modifications that
followed, did not require the transport masters to create passenger
lists for their voyages, nor did any of the other receiving
governors create such rolls, so the three detailed lists written at
Charles Town are unique.
The Dolphin's 121
passengers included Peter Gold, that is, Pierre Doiron, his
wife, and three children; Joseph Purye or Poirier, his wife
and two children; John or Jean Poirier, his wife and two children; a
second Joseph Poirier, his wife and one child; a third
Joseph Poirier, his wife and three children; Franceway or
François Poirier, his wife and one child; Peter or Pierre
Poirier, his wife and seven children; Paul Poirier,
his wife and four children; a second Jean Poirier,
his wife and no children; Balone Duset, Bénoni Doucet,
his wife and three children; Mich'l Durna or Bernard, his wife and three children; John or Jean Bernard,
his wife and one child; Paul Duran or Doiron, his wife and three
children; another Paul Doiron, his wife and three
children; Joseph Doiron, his wife and child; Peter Busher,
Pierre Boucher, his wife and child; a second Paul
Poirier, his wife and four children; Joseph Duram or Doiron, his wife and six children; Jolour Lundrie, Jolour Landry, his wife and three children; Joseph Abar, Joseph Hébert, his wife and three children; Claude
Hébert, his wife and a child; a third Jean Poirier, his
wife and no children; Jean Duron or Doiron, his wife and six
children; Peter Tebuthu, Pierre Thibodeau, his wife
and no children; a second Pierre Poirier, evidently a
bachelor; Charles Brown, Charles Brun, his wife and two
children; a fourth Joseph Poirier, his wife and child; and
Andrew Leblang, André LeBlanc, his wife and two
children.
The Edward Cornwallis's
207 survivors included John Multon, that is, Jean Mouton,
his wife and 10 children, some of them perhaps nieces and nephews;
John Lewis, or Jean Louis, his wife and child; Joseph Kessey
or Quessy, his wife and five children; Peter Dermer, perhaps
Pierre Demers, his wife and eight children; Joseph Grangie or
Granger, his wife and eight children; Joroton Lavoia or
Lavoie, his wife and six children; Francis Purye or Poirier,
his wife and 10 children; Mich'l Wair, perhaps Mayer or
Douaire, his wife and seven children; John Day, Jean
Daigle or Daigre, his wife and four children; Paul Lavoy
or Lavoie, his wife and three children; Jarman Carry or
Germain Carrier, likely Carret, his wife and two children;
Marran Liblang, likely Marin LeBlanc, his wife and five
children; Alex'r See Curmie, Alexandre Cormier, his
wife and seven children; Joseph Curmie or Cormier, his wife
and seven children; Alexandre See Casie, Alexandre
Caissie, his wife and six children; Charles Burvoie or
Belliveau, his wife and eight children; Jarman Furrie or
Fournier, his wife and five children; Abrance Skison, Abraham Chiasson, his wife and five children; John Dupio,
Jean Dupuis, his wife and two children; John Furrie,
Jean Fournier, his wife and 10 children; John
Carrie, Jean Carrier, likely Carret, his wife and
eight children; Tako Bonvie, probably Jacques dit Jacquot
Bonnevie, his wife and four children; Alex'r See or Cyr,
his wife and 10 children; Peter Lambeer, Pierre Lambert,
his wife and seven children; and Charles Duzie or Doucet, his
wife and nine children.
The Endeavour's 121 passengers included Line Ougan, that is, Louis Hugon, his wife and three children; Peter Ougan, Pierre Hugon, his wife and four children; James Ougan, Jacques Hugon, his wife and two children; a second Pierre Hugon, his wife and child; John Corme, Jean Cormier, his wife and child; Mich'l Corme, Michel Cormier, his wife and child; John Multon, Jean Mouton, his wife and three children; John Jenvo, Jean Jeanveau or Juneau, his wife and no children; Glod Toudeau, Claude Trudeau, his wife and three children; Paul Morton or Martin, his wife and five children; Innes Woirt or Ouelette, his wife and four children; Jeremiah Duset, Jérémie Doucet, his wife and five children; Joseph Care or Carrier, probably Carret, his wife and four children; Charles Benn, perhaps Aubin, his wife and two children; John Dupe, Jean Dupuis, his wife and eight children; Francis Lopeore, François Lapierre, his wife and three children; Francis Lablong, François LeBlanc, his wife and no children; Joseph Lablong, LeBlanc, his wife and two children; Simon Leblong, LeBlanc, his wife and two children. Also aboard the Endeavour were 20 men without wives or children, perhaps part of the contingent of married men from Fort Cumberland whose families evidently had had fled the Chignecto area and whom Monckton had loaded aboard the transport in September, or widowers, or bachelors. They included Charles Furne or Fournier; Peter Morton, Pierre Martin; John Blonchin, perhaps Jean Blanchet; Mish'l Depe, Michel Dupuis; Joseph Léger; Alexander Commo, Alexandre Comeau; John Balleo, Jean Belliveau; Joseph Peters or Pitre; Michael or Michel Haché; Peter or Pierre Haché; Peter Curme, Pierre Cormier; Francis Duset, François Doucet; John Curme, Jean Cormier; Peter or Pierre Robert; Peter Oben, Pierre Aubin; Michael Lapeire, Michel Lapierre; Michael Pore, Michel Poirier; John Crenon, Jean Grenon; John Shesong, Jean Chiasson; and Peter Burswoy, Pierre Bourgeois.183
While Governor Glen and the House of Assembly debated the fate of the new arrivals, the exiles remained on the four transports still anchored at Rebellion Road. The governor believed that the Acadians in the harbor "were crowded but healthy, though sure to lose their wellbeing quickly." With this in mind, he "sent some small supply of fresh provisions to the Acadians aboard the vessels" but could not release them to the quarantine house on Sullivan's Island until the Assembly acted on the question of their landing. The Assemply's approval came finally on November 27, a week and a half after the exiles' arrival. But, as historan Victoria L. Musheff explains, the gentlemen legislators "expressed their uncertainty about whether or not they held any governmental authority that they could exercise toward the obedience and submission of the Acadians. While the record is vague was to what that concern was, it is clear that the Acadians were on the level of slaves." Not only did the Acadians have to enter the pest house on Sullivan's Island due to concerns over disease, but also like slaves, Carolinians expected them to obey and submit. "The House reasoned that since their authority was unclear, it was premature to discuss disposal of the group. The assembly sought guidance from the governor. They also concluded that the Acadians would ultimately determine their own fate to a degree: 'as the method of treating these People by this Government will in a great measure depend on their own Sentiments; which probably, will be more fully declared when they see all their Hopes defeated of retuning to Nova Scotia, or being sent to any of the Dominions of France.'" This having been said, "The House sent a message to the governor empowering him to receive the Acadians in the colony." On December 4, the four ships swung around from Rebellion Roads past the guns of Fort Johnson, on the south side of the harbor, then dropped the exiles ashore on Sullivan's Island, at the northeast end of the harbor.188
The exiles sent on to Georgia, also from Chignecto and escorted by HMS Syren, still under Commander Proby, anchored first at Tybee Island, outside the Savannah River bar, in late November. Aboard the Jolly Phillip, a 94-ton schooner captained by Jonathan White, were 124 Acadians, mostly women and children, down from the 129 exiles who had left Annapolis Basin a month and a half earlier. Among the survivors aboard this smaller vessel were four newborns. The other, larger transport, Prince Frederick, a 170-ton ship captained by William Trattles, held 210 exiles, down from 280.194
On the eve of his leaving for meetings with Native leaders in the Georgia backcountry, the colony's governor, John Reynolds, "forbade the colony's chief pilot 'at his peril to bring any more people into the Province.'" Reynolds was at Augusta, a good ways up the Savannah River, waiting for a delegation of Creeks, when the Acadians arrived at Tybee Island. Luckily for the exiles, Commander Proby ignored the governor's decree. The Syren and its two consorts crossed the Savannah bar on November 27, anchored off the city in early December, and, as Carl Brasseaux describes it, "nearly 400 exiles were deposited on Georgia's shores." Their suffering had only begun. "Because of the circumstances of their arrival," Brasseaux continues, "the destitute Acadians were generally ignored by the colonial government for the first year of their exile in the former penal colony. In fact, only when they petitioned the colonial government for emergency assistance in January 1756 were they recognized at all, and then only to the extent that those exiles too ill to support themselves were given a week's supply of rice."195
Meanwhile, in neighboring South Carolina, after their short stay in quarantine on Sulllivan's Island, nearly 600 Acadian exiles landed in Charles Town "on or about December 9." They were then escorted under guard, as the Assembly insisted, to the city work house or to military-style barracks, to be held under close confinement. The women and children likely were parcelled out "to such persons as would take them." Victoria Musheff notes: "... the government was obliged to provide three distinct Corps of Guard on watch every night, and the inhabitants [of the city] mounted guard as well." Given the pervasive anxiety among Carolinians in the late autumn of 1755, Musheff states that "it is not surprising that colonists placed the great number of French Roman Catholic Acadians into the category of those who could potentially ally with each other against the British. Anxieties over the types of damage the Acadians could inflict upon the city of Charlestown acting alone or in combination with slaves," who were quite numerous in the colony, "kept officials defensive and alert. From their perspective, Nova Scotia's Governor Lawrence had been unfair and had acted unconsciously by exiling Acadians for the security of his own province at the expense of all others. If Nova Scotia officials perceived this group of Roman Catholics to be dangerous, how could provincial leaders possibly receive the Acadians as a safe addtion to the Anglican colony of South Carolina?"187
Ever since their arrival, Governor Glen and his Council had been wrestling with the question of the legal status of these wayward exiles thrust upon their province, what Victoria Musheff calls "a legal issue of first impression, never before addressed in South Carolina." The trickiest part of their dilemma was the fact that, "While the French Neutrals had refused the [unqualified] oath" back in Nova Scotia, Glen deemed them "His Majesty's liege subjects, and," moreover, most were "natural-born subjects." Nevertheless, the governor charged his Council "to consider how the government might legally rid the colony of the Acadians." The Council "opined that the French Catholics' refusal to take the oath in South Carolina provided legitimate grounds," which echoed Charles Lawrence and his Council's decision several months earlier, to remove them from their lands. Governor Glen "pondered whether the colony could even legally receive the Acadians and permit them to settle. Moreover, was it prudent to admit and retain the French Catholics into a thinly settled Protestant province situated so near to the Spaniards and French? He believed it was illegal to let the Acadians relocate to land under another crown and imprudent to give them the freedom to go wherever they pleased. Ultimately, he concurred with the assembly's decision to allow them ashore and to meet their basic needs until they agreed upon disposal plans--it was too cruel to let them perish on board the vessels."189
One wonders what the Chignecto Acadians in their closely-guarded barracks would have made of all this agonizing over the detested oath and their status as French Neutrals. One suspects that their main concern was how to reunite their families and survive the Carolina winter. And then, in the middle of January 1756, another transport filled with their fellow exiles arrived at Rebellion Road.
The ship Hobson, 177 tons, captained by Edward Whitewood, had left the Annapolis Basin on December 8 with five other, smaller, transports, headed not to South Carolina but to Connecticut (two of them), New York, and North Carolina. Under escort by the sloop of war HMS Baltimore, the large transport took a little over a month to make the voyage down to Charles Town. It was one of two transports from the Annaspolis Basin destined for a southern port but the only one to reach its destination. Aboard the Hobson were 341 exiles: 42 men, 45 women, 120 boys, and 134 girls. The voyage down was evidently without incident, the transport having left Annapolis Basin with 342 Acadians aboard.190
Its arrival, bringing the total number of exiles in the colony to nearly a thousand since mid-November, caused immediate consternation among the Assembly delegates, as well as the governor and his Council. According to Victoria Musheff, many of the Assembly members refused to victual the new arrivals and moved to "send them off to another North American port. ... It was incredible, they argued, that Lawrence had forced them to consider how to care for another set of refugees, doubling the number of indigent Acadians in their city." Luckily for the Acadians "The House motion failed to pass; [Governor] Glen opposed the act as well. Thus, Charlestown officials continued to struggle over the best resolution to this North American catastrophe with neither guidance nor funding from Great Britain." After much hemming and hawing by the Carolina officials, as well as ship's Master Whitehood, on February 4 the Acadians aboard the Hobson were authorized by the Assembly to be let ashore at the quarantine station on Sullivan's Island. However, not until February 18 did the Assembly provide for their housing in the city for "a sum 'not exceeding L100 being appropriated for that purpose.'" They were still on Sullivan's Island in March, waiting for certification that they finally were "free from 'malignant or infectious distemper'" The certification took longer than usual. On March 22, Chapman J. Milling notes, "the House was informed that there was sickness among the Acadians on the island 'through the badness of the water ... and the want of proper care.'" Many of the Acadians "had already perished and others were ill."191
Governor Glen wasted no time taking the measure of the new arrivals. After interviewing some of them at Sullivan's Island, he concluded that these Acadians were "different from other Acadians," that is, from the rabblerousers at Chignecto and the trois-rivières, who tended to be less "neutral" than their cousins in the other Fundy settlements. The Annapolis spokemen lamented passionately about their harsh treatment at the hands of Lawrence and his Council despite their loyalty to the British Crown. Glen also interviewed a widow, with her children, "whose Husband was killed in an engagement by the French, in the service of the Government." This may have softened the governor's attitude towards Acadians in general, opening his mind to their finer qualities as a people. Perhaps, despite their religious wrong-headedness and their clever view of defining their status as British subjects, they might make good colonists after all. He went so far as to discuss "the concept of indenture and terms of such an arrangement with these newest Acadian arrivals." Back in the city, he shared with the General Assembly "that this second group of refugees had agreed to 'go to the Country & work for their Bread for one year.'" They even agreed "to do so for low terms," assuring the governor, without exaggeration, "that they were experienced agriculturists." Typically, though, "Glen had been speaking with ship captains about taking some Acadians away on their vessels when they left Charlestown," but he found few takers. "Desperate for a humane solution to the Acadian problem," Victoria Musheff informs us, "Glen half-heartedly suggested that the Acadians settle in huts on outer islands with cattle and barrels of rice until a better plan could evolve, but if not feasible, the government should continue to provide for the exiles. The main concern," he believed, "was to protect the public health of the colony's inhabitants. Glen reminded the Assembly that while Acadian exile was a misfortune for South Carolina, they themselves did not bring the misfortune upon the province. He also mentioned that he had considered shipping off all the strong Acadian men to remove any threat, but after consulting His Majesty's Attorney General and Chief Justice in the province, he determined it would be illegal."192
Meanwhile, the Assembly acted by deciding "to pay able-bodied French Acadian men to labor on the city's fortification rebuilding project," which had begun in earnest the previous summer. In late January, the city's Fortifications Committee "agreed to pay the French Acadians weekly." Happily, "Though these laborers required interpreters and guards, the commission was still pleased with the arrangement six months later." Moreover, "The wages earned on the fortifications helped to support those unable to work," a typical Acadian practice. Still, city residents remained wary of the newcomers, their paranoia made worse when a British naval squadron appeared in the harbor and "dropped more than one hundred French prisoners of war" in the city. When, in early June 1756, a fire destroyed a major wharf with its valuable cache of stores, "Rumors swirled that an Acadian was the incendiary." Many assemblymen now believed that indentureship, even involuntary, was the only way to "dispose of the Acadians," but the legislators' efforts, the opposition evidently led by the governor, came to nothing, at least for now. By late spring, however, "some of the Acadians went about begging and Glen confided to the London board [of trade] that he was afraid a number would starve."193
The Assembly's efforts to employ able-bodied Acadians in local construction projects, and the very mention of indentureship for the hard-pressed exiles, only fueled the intense desire of separated husbands and sons to rejoin their families in far-off Acadia. The result was a series of dramatic escapes in the late winter and early spring of the new year. According to Carl Brasseaux, some of the newly-arrived exiles, "unwilling to endure any longer the uncertainty clouding their future, large groups of exiles attempted to escape into the North American interior on at least three occasions within two months of their arrival." Colonial authorities acted quickly. "Fearing that" the escapees "would join hostile Indians" in the wilderness, "the South Carolina government mobilized posses to pursue and return the first two bands of fugitives. Only thirty Acadians managed to escape; their fate is unknown."193c
Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil, older brother of Acadian partisan leader Joseph dit Beausoleil, and Alexandre's son Victor, were considered so dangerous by the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia that he ordered them to be deported from Chignecto to South Carolina aboard the HMS Syren with other miscreants in chains. Once they were released from the compound on Sullivan's Island, the Broussards were moved with "some of their friends," to Charles Town's notorious "'Black Hole,' a dungeon 'so small, that they can hardly stand upright in, much less lie down.'" Carolina officials were wary of Alexandre dit Beausoleil not only for his reputation as a partisan in Acadia, but also for his "Native American connections." "As everyone knew," Christopher Hodson explains, "the borderlands of South Carolina and Georgia served as an Indian thoroughfare." Though Alexandre dit Beausoleil had never left his native Acadia, he could, like brother Joseph, speak several Algonquian dialects as well as English. Chapman J. Milling notes that the people of Charles Town described Alexandre "as 'General of the Indians,'" a clear exaggeration of his influence on the Natives but indicative of the brothers' reputation--a man like this running loose in the Carolina backcountry could mean only trouble for the British. Despite being held in such close confinement, Alexandre, Victor, and a half dozen or so of their Acadian companions escaped into the countryside. (One suspects that they had been removed from the Black Hole and returned to a work camp probably on Sullivan's Island, where their escape would have been much easier.) The elder Broussard's escape was especially noteworthy given that in the spring of 1756 he was age 57--elderly for that time. Son Victor was age 28. In contrast, other successful escapees, the Basque brothers, Pierre, fils and Michel, were ages 31 and 26, respectively. After his amazing feat, Alexandre boasted that he had treked "1,400 leagues 'to recover his native country." That day's league to a Frenchman was approximately 2.422 English miles, so Alexandre's trek from coastal South Carolina to where he and son Victor reunited with their families (Victor also was married) was a bit over 3,400 miles! Not bad for an old fellow. The Broussards and their companions, in the words of Carl Brasseaux, likely were the "small band of undetermined size" who "escaped from its detention camp, made its way to the Santee River Valley where its members stole goods, arms and ammunition from a local plantation and set out for Fort Duquesne, the French stronghold in the Ohio Valley." While the escapees made their way back home, the South Carolina Gazette reported from Charles Town on February 19 that, after the miscreants scared the wits out of the plantation mistress, Mrs. John Williams, and took her things, including her money, instead of laying "'their bones in the swamp they got into,'" they "'escaped from thence and crossed the river at Maxwell's Bluff on a bark log.'" Then off they went, up the Santee valley, making their way to the Indian trails running along the face of the mountains. Despite "a reward offered for their capture," they got clean away. After reaching Fort Duquesne many weeks later, Alexandre and his party, what was left of it, likely crossed the Great Lakes to the upper St. Lawrence and paddled past Montréal down to Québec. If so, they did not remain. They likely continued down the St. Lawrence to Rivière-du-Loup, followed the portage via Lac Pohénégamook to the headwaters of Rivière St.-Jean, and canoed down the river to its lower stretches, which they finally reached in June. There they would have learned of the Acadian refuge at Cocagne on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where they reunited with their wives and other loved ones, including Alexandre's brother Joseph. "Only two Acadians are known to have completed the trek" endured by the Broussards, Carl Brasseaux informs us--Alexandre dit Beausoleil and his second son Victor.193a
Other successful escapees were Michel Bastarache dit Basque of Chignecto and his older brother Pierre, fils, who also had been deported to South Carolina without their wives and children, perhaps aboard the Syren. In spring 1756, Michel, Pierre, fils, and a dozen or so companions, like the Broussards, escaped their work place and took to the woods. According to Michel Basque's biographer, "Together they made their way on foot across the colonies of North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York," which means they, too, likely followed the Indian trails running along the eastern face of the Appalachian mountains until they approached the Great Lakes region. "When they reached the shores of Lake Ontario," the biographer continues, "they fell into the hands of the Iroquois...." Luckily, they were rescued by an influential fur trader, who paid their ransom. The fur trader then "took them to Québec," where, accompanied by only two companions, the brothers "arrived in September 1756." From the Canadian citadel they either found a ship to take them down the St. Lawrence River to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, avoiding British naval patrols that roamed the shores of the Gulf, or, more likely, they also made their way down the St. Lawrence from Québec to the portage that took them overland to the headwaters of Rivière St.-Jean, which they followed to its lower stretches, following another, shorter, portage to the upper Petitcoudiac near present-day Moncton, New Brunswick, where they expected to reunite with their families. Learning that his wife had taken refuge on Île St.-Jean after his deportation, Michel crossed Mer Rouge to the island, still under French control, found his wife, recrossed Mer Rouge, and moved on with her to the Acadian refuge at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. Pierre, fils's wife was a sister of Michel's wife, so the brothers likely made the final leg of their long trip together.193b
Despite these embarrassing incidents, spring brought an opportunity for South Carolina officials finally to solve the Acadian problem, or so they hoped. Members of the Assemply resurrected the idea of shipping the Acadians "to another American port or elsewhere, ... including London, even if they were British subjects"; the Virginians, the Carolina Assemblymen may have learned, were about to do just that with all of the exiles who had been foisted on them the previous fall. Perhaps as a reaction to the recent overland escapes, "Glen had already placed eight or ten Acadians" men (another source says 13) he considered trouble makers, "on ships for proper ports," Victoria Musheff informs us, but Glen "soon stopped the practice out of fear that he lacked authority" to do so. But his time in office was coming to an end. As one of his last acts as South Carolina's governor, he threw caution to the wind and helped unleash one of the strangest episodes of the Great Unheaval. In cooperation with Governor Reynolds of Georgia, Glen announced in early spring that "all those who wished to leave South Carolina by sea were free to go...." He also hoped "to persuade others who were likely to be unproductive inhabitants to join those wishing to leave." The result was a mad rush by dozens of eager exiles to take up the governor's offer. Acadians in Georgia, in fact, had begun their homeward voyages weeks before. In March 1856, Carl Brasseaux relates, 200 or so of the exiles in Georgia (from half to three-quarters of the Acadians in the colony) "began coasting northward" in 10 or more "small sailing vessels" which they had secured "apparently with Governor Reynold's assistance." Their goal was to return to Nova Scotia or, if the way was still clear, the lower reaches of Rivière St.-Jean, from which they could reunite with their scattered families on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. This strange odyssey did not commence in South Carolina until late April or early May, when, according to Musheff, "upwards of one hundred and thirty Acadians," a fraction of the number in South Carolina, "left for ... the North in canoes." Brasseaux notes, with more detail, that "The Acadian desire to leave South Carolina matched that of the native South Carolinians who desperated wanted them to leave." So desperate, in fact, that "during its April, 1756, session, the colonial assembly, noting the passage of the Georgia Acadians, authorized public subscriptions in the amount of 12,000 pounds with all contributions dedicated to the purchasing and outfitting of two ships which would provide the exiles passage out of the colony. The local citizenry quickly raised the necessary funds, and two 'ancient' vessels and "a small quantity of bad provisions' were purchased and proferred to the Acadians." Taking advantage of the eagerness of their hosts to see them go, the South Carolina Acadians, typically, demanded more: that the Assembly provide them pilots to guide them through the coastal waters. The Assemblymen summarily refused the request, typically for legal reasons: "though the South Carolinians fully expected the Acadians to return to the Bay of Fundy," Charles Lawrence's orders be damned, "the hiring of two pilots for this voyage would have constituted an official endorsement of their repatriation and the inevitable wrath of the British administration," who had recently sanctioned the Acadians' expulsion from Nova Scotia by promoting Lawrence to governor! As soon as they could, "an undetermined, but large number of South Carolina Acadians" boarded the "two proferred ships," which, Brasseaux says, "immediately set sail for Nova Scotia."196
The largest flotilla of refugees from Georgia, numbering 150 or so, was led by Jacques-Maurice Vigneau of Baie-Verte, an experienced fisherman and coaster who spoke English as well as French. After he and his compatriots fashioned seaworthy craft, Vigneau obtained a passport from Governor Reynolds on March 10, and his flotilla of exiles left Tybee Island a few days later. With the assistance of a South Carolina scout boat from Port Royal, down the coast from Charles Town, "lest the inhabitants" of coastal Carolina "might be too much alarmed as they pass along," the Georgia exiles reached Charles Town harbor on March 29. Vigneau presented his passport to Governor Glen, who endorsed it on April 8. In the following days, as the Vigneau party lingered at Charles Town, Governor Glen issued passports to other voyagers coming up from Georgia, including "a party of twenty-one men and their families and another of four families." Those who needed it received provisions from the city storehouse. Colonial records reveal that the leader of one of the Georgia parties receiving provisions was Michel Bourgeois, a great-grandson of the founder of the Chignecto settlement. The arrival of so many Acadians from their neigboring colony prompted the Carolina Assembly to pursue its own efforts to clear South Carolina of Acadians. By mid-April, assisted by a South Carolina pilot who took them as far as Cape Fear in North Carolina, Acadians from both colonies continued their northward journey. Some of the Georgians were still at Charles Town on April 21. Eager to be rid of them, the local authorites urged them to be on their way or risk confinement on Sullivan's Island, "where they were to be held until further orders." They hurried on their way. In May, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia reported to his superiors in London that "many hundreds" of small boats, coming up from the lower colonies, were spotted off the coast of his colony. This meant that the South Carolina exiles, trailing behind the flotillas from Georgia, also had successfully rounded Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the most dangerous stretch of coast on the voyage north. One leaking vessel ran onto the beach near the village of Hampton, Virginia, inside the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Dinwiddie ordered that the locals provide the exiles with another vessel and send them on their way. According to the Acadians, "'This ship was still less seaworthy than those they had just left...,'" but they moved on. The ship, in fact, did not make it past the coast of Maryland before it needed extensive repair. It was about this time, on May 10, that Dinwiddie sent his own Acadians--over a thousand of them--in four full-sized hired transports from Hampton Roads to several ports in England.197
As spring turned to summer, the determined exiles continued on their way, beaching their vessels when necessary to complete what repairs they could manage. Then word of the approaching flotillas reached Nova Scotia. In July, a disgruntled Charles Lawrence "was in receipt of reports that hundreds of Acadians were sailing northward, and he drafted an angry letter to his fellow governors." He pled with them "'to use your utmost endeavors'" to arrest the miscreants and prevent further harm to his province. Unfortunately for the wayward Acadians, Lawrence's efforts succeeded. In late July, when Vigneau's main party of seven boats, containing "about one hundred men, women, and children," beached their vessels at Sandwich on Cape Cod, "much in need of repairs and provisions," Massachusetts authorities stopped them from going any farther. After a few days under guard, they were taken to Boston. On August 18, the Massachusetts Council "ordered them distributed among several towns," and there they would remain for the rest of the war. A few days later, a second contingent of Georgia exiles, this one numbering 78 men, women, and children, was arrested by New York authorities on a Long Island beach, where they, too, had stopped for repairs. Taken before Governor Charles Hardy at nearby Manhattan, he found that the exiles "carried passports from the governors of Georgia and South Carolina." They, too, declared "their intention 'to get back to Nova Scotia.'" The governor already knew their intention, revealed to him "a few weeks before" by Jacques Vigneau himself when he and his party had stopped at New York City and "secured Hardy's endorsement of his passport." This evidently was before the New York governor had received "an angry letter" from fellow governor Lawrence. This Georgia contingent also was distributed "among several towns," in lower New York colony, where, like their fellows in Massachusetts, they remained for the rest of the war.198
But what of the hundreds of other exiles still making their way up the Atlantic coast? John Mack Faragher notes: "The capture and arrest of these two groups left unaccounted the fate of more than four hundred boat people. There is no way of knowing how many made it back to the Bay of Fundy, but many did. One group later wrote that they spent two months on a deserted island repairing their leaking vessels before finally succeeding in reaching the mouth of rivière Saint-Jean. The governor-general of New France, Pierre-François de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil, reported the arrival of several groups." Once they had reached the Bay of Fundy, these Acadians would have made their way carefully into the lower St.-Jean, where they either followed the series of portages up that river to the lower St. Lawrence, or made their way across country, also via portage, to a refugee camp on the upper Petitcoudiac in the trois-rivières area west of Chignecto or, more likely, to Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. Unfortunately for these exiles, in the summer of 1756 the redcoats still occupied forts Cumberland and Lawrence near Beaubassin and still patrolled the lower trois-rivières, so these determined voyagers, if they hoped to remain free, could not have returned to their homes at Chignecto.199
Back in Georgia, the few Acadians who remained in the colony did their best to feed themselves and to keep their families together. According to historian Christopher Hodson: "... nearly two hundred Acadians found a clearing west of Savannah, built some rudimentary huts, and began to work. It was hardly easy, and the exiles were hardly welcome. In response to their habit of cutting down 'Valuable Timber' that did not belong to them," Governor Reynolds "assented to a bill authorizing justices of the peace to 'bind' Acadians to local landowners as unpaid laborers. The act might have been put into practice if not for the Board of Trade's decision to remove Reynolds from power late in 1756, a decision motivated in part by his mishandling of the Creek confederation that coincided with the Acadians' arrival." No matter, Reynold's hard policies drove more Acadians out of the colony, not to make their way back to Acadia but to seek refuge in nearby South Carolina. On the first of May 1756, as the Georgia and South Carolina voyagers were making their way far up the Atlantic coast, "Mr. [William] Pinckney, who as Commissary General" of South Carolina "had charge of supplying the Acadians, informed the Council that a party of three boats had come from Georgia and landed up the river above Charles Town," Chapman J. Milling relates. "Three of them were brought into the Council Chamber and asked if they would work if given employment in the country, to which proposition they objected. They were then ordered back to their boats, a little provisions furnished them, and were told that they might either continue northward or return to Georgia. The commander of the scout boats were instructed not to allow any more parties from Georgia to pass Port Royal. Hearing that these exiles possessed firearms, the Council ordered the Commissary General to search them and seize any guns discovered." Milling says nothing about women and children accompanying these men. One suspects that they were.202
Reynold's replacement, Henry Ellis, who arrived at Savannah in early 1757, was "a gentlemanly scientist" who "exhibited a far more creative turn of mind." Happily for the Acadians, the new governor "expressed sympathy and admiration for the Acadians," who seemed to fit into his philosophical notion that "'every one should contribute according to his ability, that something may arise from the whole, of use in the improvement of our country.'" This included not only the colony's many slaves, but also the struggling exiles, who, one source says, had "dwindled down to one hundred by March 1757." Ellis encouraged the Acadians to develop "skills required by the local plantation and shipping industries," and so they did. Ellis related to his superiors that the exiles had become "'very useful to the Colony as they employ themselves in making Oars hand spikes & other implements for sea Craft.'" In April 1757, soon after his arrival, he visted the Acadian encampment near Savannah. He was distressed to see "'such a number of distressed People surrounded with large Families of helpless infants....'" He suggested that the colonial assembly grant the refugees "'a bit of land'" where they could plant gardens using seeds provided by the governor himself and "'perhaps including some of the exotica (olive and orange trees, rhubarb, Egyption kale)" recently imported into the colony--all "to further his ambitious vision of experimental agriculture..." Despite these efforts, observes Carl Brasseaux, "Most of the remaining Acadians ... remained mired in dire poverty."204
In South Carolina, the somewhat-reduced population of exiles there also witnessed a change in governors, this time, they soon would learn, not for the better. William Henry Lyttelton, a 31-year-old bachelor in 1756, had been appointed governor the year before to replace James Glen, who elected to remain in the colony as a planter and merchant. On his way to Charles Town, soon after the formal declaration of war between Britain and France, the new governor suffered the misfortune of being captured by a French warship and held briefly as a prisoner of war until he was exchanged. He did not reach Charles Town until the first of June 1756, after the flotillas of exiles had passed up the coast, and did not assume office until June 17. While awaiting exchange in London, the King's ministers had briefed him on the presence of Acadians in the colony, as well as "'the King's pleasure' concerning them," which was "to stop all further deportation. No further removals, even voluntary ones were to be permitted after Lyttelton assumed office. All officers of the ports, and all other officers, civil and military, were put on notice to stop all Acadians attempting to leave." In other words, the new governor and the people of his colony were stuck with these troublesome "Neutrals." The question now was what to do with them.203
Unlike Glen, Lyttelton would not have hesitated to suggest to the Assembly that the remaining Acadians be subject to indentureship--that they should be hired out to planters and farmers as laborers or, in the case of boys and younger men, apprenticed to local artisans, and, while this was being achieved, scatter them and their families to every corner of the colony. Lieutenant-Governor William Bull, Jr., who had served under Glen, agreed with such a policy. Needless to say, the Acadians resisted it fiercely, but their protests fell on deaf ears.
Such a policy could not be implemented until colonial authorities knew more about the Acadians who were still in the colony. In January 1756, while James Glen was still governor, "the House ordered a census of all Acadians on shore and especially desired information regarding the number and ages of the children." Also documented in that census were "any sick or disable Acadians...," the list of which, unlike the original census, has survived. For example, there was "John Giroire [Girouard], sick in bed, a wife, two children, eldest two years old." The census taker added: "We recommend an allowance to be made of them of 20 Shills per week." Also "Widow of John Sevoirs [probably Savoie], three children, eldest ten years: L2." "Frances Vincent, Widow, 2 Sons, eldest 3 years old. We recommend L3 per week." "Chas Ignace Carree [Carret], Lunatic and sick; We recommend 10s." "Marg. Aucon [Aucoin], 2 small children, her husband left behind: We recommend L1 10s per week." "Charles Doucet, a young man, his mother old, and six young Children. L2." "Three small children of Jeram Fouryns [...], L1, 1s." And "Francis Moses [Moïse?], past labor, 10s." But the January list would not suffice. A substantial number of exiles had joined the north-bound voyagers, so the question remained: which of them were still living in the colony, and which were still able to support themselves? Sometime in late June, Governor Lyttelton ordered the Commissary General, William Pinckney, to "make out a compleat list of all the Familys of the Acadians and distinguishing Sex and ages." In what Victoria Musheff descibes as "a matter-of-fact vote," the colonial Assembly passed on July 6 "' an act for disposing of the Acadians now in Charles Town, by settling one-fifth part of their number in the Parishes of St. Philip and St. Michael, and the other four parts of them in the several other parishes within this Province.'" Lyttelton promptly signed the bill.205
The new law approached the question of indentureship indirectly, leaving it up to the individual Acadian to "decide" by his own actions if he would be "bound out" or remain a "free" laborer. Chapman J. Milling explains: "The Act provided not only for the distribution of the Acadians according to the proposed arrangement, but placed directly upon the parishes the burden of caring for them for a period of three months. The Commissary General was directed by the Act to furnish complete lists of each parish." And then it came: "It was also provided that any Acadians refusing to work voluntarily for private families should be bound out upon such terms as the vestry and churchwardens should decide, a form being composed for this purpose. A special record of all such indentures was required to be kept." The act also banned Acadians from owning and using firearms of any kind. They also were forbidden to leave their assigned parish without permission. The Commissary General also "was ordered to hire boats to take all Acadians who could be transported by water to their respective Parishes. For the women and children, and for the aged and infirm, who could not reach their destination by boat, wagons were ordered, also wagons for what baggage they possessed." Milling notes that, because of the geography of lower South Carolina, "all went by water except those bound for 'the townships of Orangeburg, Amelia and Saxa Gotha'" in the central piedmont area of the colony. For each party going by foot, "A guard consisting of two armed men on horseback" made certain they reached their destination. Before the parties set out, the governor issued a proclamation explaining all of the above, including a reminder that the "Royal Will and Pleasure" of "our most gracious Sovereign" was that the exiles may not leave the province. Aware, now, of the true nature of these people, Lyttelton assured them that "their Familys shall be as near as may be kept together." And of course he warned potential troublemakers that if any of them "make any Resistance or refuse to comply," they would be compelled to do so "by force of arms." Moreover, all Acadian men were required to take an unqualified oath to the British Crown or be "bound out."206
On 11 August 1756, after "the distribution was carried out," Lyttelton provided the Lords of Trade "a rather graphic account" of this latest exodus for these weary exiles, whom he obviously had come to despise and fear: "'At present indeed it is scarce possible to conceive what an obstinate and refractory spirit in general prevails among them, which," he was certain, "'is principally owing to two causes, the one that they consider themselves as subjects of the Crown of France, the other that they are zealously attached to the Roman Catholic Religion, the exercise of which cannot, by His Majesty's instructions to me and also a particular municipal Law of the Province passed some years ago, he[sic] allowed them here. I have indeed carried this Act for their dispersion into execution by sending them from hence in such proportions as was thought proper into all the settled parts of the Province, but I found it necessary to order the Town Guard and a party out of the Independent Companies to be under arms during the time that this was doing, partly in terrorem [as a warning or a threat], and partly because some of them absolutely refused to remove unless compell'd by force, which was accordingly us'd in order to bind some of them with cords and to handcuff and fetter others, without, however, wounding or in any manner hurting any of them[!] Necessary carriages were provided to transport their baggage and effects, and for such women and children as were unable to march on foot and upon the whole I endeavor'd to exercise as much humanity towards them as the nature of the business would admit of.'"207
If any well-meaning denizen of this southern province hoped that these new "settlers" would choose to remain and become loyal subjects of the British Crown, they now embraced a forelorn hope. One can be sure that the relatively few Acadians who had come to this colony considering themselves "French Neutrals" no longer thought that way. Here, on a smaller scale, was a repeat of what had happened to them in Nova Scotia and to their fellow exiles in Virginia. Many may have envied their fellow exiles who had acted boldly, secured "canoes," and voyaged up the Atlantic shore, though by late summer of 1756 they likely had learned through the Acadian grapevine that many of the canoers had failed to make it home. Did the Broussards and the Basques make it home? Probably not; they likely had been swallowed up by the vast American wilderness. But none of this really mattered now. For the "the other four parts of them" who had been "distributed" to these far-flung Anglican parishes, it was best to concentrate on adjusting to the realities of their strange new homes.
"In eighteenth-century Carolina," Victoria Musheff explains in her study of the Acadians in South Carolina, "the established church was the primary institution for social welfare and relief." That established church, of course, was the Church of England, also called the Anglican Church, today's Episcopal Church, which dated back to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century. In the larger context, Musheff notes that "in colonial America caring for the indigent sick was mainly an issue of poor relief based upon Elizabethan law," especially the Elizabethan poor law of 1601, written by Francis Bacon, which "placed responsibility for care for the needy at the local level within each town or parish." There nevertheless were limitations to a colony's ability to follow these legal mandates. "Faced with pestilence, famine, and death," Musheff continues, "it proved an epic struggle for many immigrants to gain a foothold in the New World. This means that the odds of a massive influx of refugees, as happened with the Acadian exile, productively resettling in a colony at once would be close to impossible. Overseas colonists and refugees came ashore in an unhealthy, diminished state after being aboard overcrowded ships with scarce and sometimes tainted foodstuff. The exiled Acadians landed in Charlestown in a weakened physical state--fortunate to have survived the journey from" Nova Scotia. "The colonial city, however, was neither socially nor fiscally prepared to manage a major humanitarian crisis--especially one involving a large group of refugees for which inhabitants felt little sympathy or even less association. English settlement law and social welfare, under Elizabethan law, worked together in an intricate manner. Thus, Acadians as Roman Catholics could not enjoy the best avenues of aid." Also, as French exiles, and some would say French hostiles, the Acadians remained in a precarious position vis-à-vis the laws of this particular colony. "Obtaining official settlement status," Musheff continues, "opened the door for an impoverished individual or family to receive poor care." Based on the law of 1601, "a person established permanent abode and the right to public relief with a period of uninterrupted residence, within one parish, from three months to one year. Whether the person was a native, householder, sojourner, apprentice, or servant, he/she was considered a parish resident once in that parish for three months. If a stranger had not established settlement, parish leadership might remove that person for fear they[sic] were at risk for becoming dependent or a publich charge." This policy applied to all outlying parishes, but not to the city of Charles Town. Aware that there were more, and perhaps better, doctors in Charles Town, a provincial act of 1712 allowed the parishes there, St. Philip's and St. Michael's, to maintain separate expense accounts for sick travelers who sought better health care in the city. Seeking to conform to the law of 1601, the act of 1712 also "shifted the primary responsibility for the sick poor from the province government to the local parish vestries." This compelled the vestries to assess taxes to fund public poor relief in order to supplement what the sufferers' families provided, if anything. Needless to say, church leaders were often hard put to collect these unpopular taxes. Combine this quotidian reality with a heavy dose of fear and loathing and "the struggle to collect poor taxes made caring of Acadians more challenging, since each parish received a number of exiles based upon its taxable male residents."208
Here was the hard dilemma that Governor Lyttelton and the colonial Assemply imposed on the Anglican churches. Based on Lyttelton's initial plan of distribution and in order of their distance from Charles Town, the vestries were: St. Philip's and St. Michael's parishes in the city, where 129 Acadians would be parcelled out; Christ Church Parish, northeast of the city, 26 Acadians to be received; St. Thomas's and St. Dennis's parishes, 25 Acadians; St. James's Parish Goose Creek (Santee?), 17 Acadians; St. George's Parish Dorchester, north of the city, 18 Acadians; St. John's Parish Berkeley, 16 Acadians; St. Andrew's Parish, northwest of the city, 17 Acadians; Stono East Side Pon Pon, 21 Acadians; St. John's Parish Colleton (James Island), south of the city, 17 Acadians; John's Island, 13 Acadians; Wadmalaw Island, southeast of the city, 10 Acadians; Edisto Island, 14 Acadians; Beach Hill, 12 Acadians; St. Bartolomew Parish, northeast of the city, 32 Acadians; Combee and Chehaw in Do[sic], 13 Acadians; St. James Parish, Santee, northeast of the city, 13 Acadians; St. Stephen's Parish, north of the city, 13 Acadians; Prince George, 36 Acadians; Welch Tract in P Parish, 33 Acadians; Prince Frederick Parish Winyah (also Winyaw), 31 or 32 Acadians; Southern Townships and Other Parts of Prince Frederick, 47 Acadians; St. Helena Parish, southwest of the city, 35 Acadians; St. Peter's Parish, 5 Acadians; Prince William Parish, 14 Acadians; New Windsor, 10 Acadians; Amelia Township, 6 Acadians; Orangeburg, northwest of the city, 13 Acadians; and Saxa Gotha Parish, 23 Acadians--530 Acadians or so outside of the city, 659 Acadians in all. According to Victoria Musheff, the July 6 act that sent the Acadians to these parishes "relied upon the solicitation of volunteers to take in the Acadians, and the main providers of assistance were church leaders themselves." Needless to say, the scheme was absurdly impractical. "It is hard to understand how the assembly thought that these poor dislodged refugees could quickly assimilate and resettle in a foreign land as despised outsiders without significant support," Victoria Musheff notes. "Once again, this legislated plan for resettlement and relief stood in stark contrast to the types of accommodations and provisions extended to acceptable groups of Protestant immigrant colonists. This dispersal act was doomed to failure given the last of realistic support, the ruggedness of South Carolina's countryside, others barriers to acculturation, and the Acadian desire for common Roman Catholic community: South Carolinians resisted Acadians who in turn resisted resettlement in the countryside." Needless to say, in the years following Lyttelton's "distribution," a number of exiles, once proud owners of land that they and their fellow Acadians had created with running dykes and aboiteaux, suffered the indignity of indentureship on land they could never own.209
That was among the least of their worries. "No matter the daily tasks required of Acadians," Victoria Musheff notes, "Carolina was an unhealthy environment and like new immigrants from Europe, many of the Acadians died from lowcountry diseases, including 'Fever and Agues.'" Moreover, she says, "One-third of the African slaves died within three months of arrival to South Carolina." Extant vestry records from South Carolina churches reveal the ultimate price some of the exiles paid for the heartless actions of two British governors. The records of Prince Frederick Parish Winyah, northeast of Charles Town, kept by Reverend Charles Woodmason, are especially revealing. After the Acadians sent there were "distributed among local families" on August 10, "Eight of the thirty-two were dead within three months," Chapman J. Milling notes, "possibly of malaria, a disease hitherto unknown to this people, perhaps of sheer heartbreak; the cold entries of the record do not inform us of the cause." Among the dead at Prince Frederick were Acadians named Durong (probably Doiron), Cormier, LeBlanc (seven with that name had been sent to the parish), Olivier, Bourg, Poirier, and Lapierre. "If the fate of the Acadians in other parishes was as tragic," Milling adds, "it is small wonder that so few records have come down to us...."210
The inevitable result of the Acadians' suffering in, and their discontent with, the Carolina hinterland should not have surprised anyone familiar with their headstrong nature--many of them slipped away from their rural caretakers and made their way back to Charles Town. Some made it. Others did not. In February 1757, Benjamin Warring charged the colonial Assembly "for entertaining 14 Acadians taken upon the Road by the St. George's Troops of Horse, amounting to L8:12:6." Victoria Musheff notes that "By the end of 1757," a year and a half after Lyttelton's distribution, "the Acadians remained in a state of flux with at least half of those dispersed to the country parishes living in Charlestown again," alarming the Assembly. The city's St. Philip's Parish was especially affected, colonial authorities noting "the number of 'helpless, naked, and forlorn Acadians in danger of perishing unless they are immediately relieved' who were living in Charlestown." Lyttelton responded by publishing a proclamation "that both chastised and commanded parish leaders and church wardens--with the exception of St. Philip's--to strictly observe the Acadian disposal act or suffer penalites." The Assembly responded by awarding St. Philip's Parish funds to purchase clothing "and covering for the infirm Acadian males and Acadian women in Charletown not bound as apprentices." The Assembly committee in charge of Acadian matters "complained about the failure of individual parishes to dispose of the Acadians in a proper manner and suggested the need for a new dispersal law. They considered the Acadian problem an unending trouble--a major cost to the colony at a time when leaders and citizens were contributing mightily to the general defense of North America." This included supporting British redcoats now quartered in South Carolina at colonial expense..211
Despite the seeming seriousness of the Acadian problem by the end of 1757, not until 6 June 1758 were the Overseers of the Poor "ordered to furnish a list of all Acadians in the province, classified as to name, age, sex, and the parish to which assigned," to be "used by the church wardens" to do what they could to take stock of their charges. And not until 2 April 1759 did the Assembly vote "on an additional bill to the original 1756 Acadian dispersal act..." But the new bill failed. Victoria Musheff explains why: "This addendum had been introduced a month earlier by Gabriel Manigault," an influential Charles Town merchant of French Huguenot extraction "who would provide emergency assistance to the Acadians" during a crisis that would strike the colony in less than a year. Manigault "had little faith in the Roman Catholics' collective ability or desire to assimilate or to become content in South Carolina. The colony's system of social welfare," he believed, "was inadequate to provide effective emergency aid let alone meaningful avenues of resettlement for a massive influx of impoverished refugees very different from themselves. However, the colony's leadership and inhabitants did not seem to acknowledge that failure[,] preferring instead to shift the entire blame onto the Acadians own unwillingness to assimilate and acculturate." He nevertheless introduced the additional bill, hoping, perhaps, that this time dispersal of the exiles would succeed.212
But it could not, and the Acadian themselves were the reason why it failed. Had colonial leaders taken the time and the effort to delve into the nature of these curious French Catholic foreigners, they would have discovered the most essential element of their nature--their obsession with maintaining "family." Acadians did not think of "family" as a nuclear unit--a father, a mother, and their own children. "Family" to them was a much larger affair, an "extended" family as sociologists call it--a father, a mother, and their children, to be sure, but also their aging parents and their parents' siblings, their uncles and aunts, their own grandchildren and their grandchildren's children, and their cousins' many children and their cousin's children's children, and on and on. To Acadians, first cousins were the same as brothers or sisters, nephews or nieces like their own children. Any attempt to disperse them, as had happened in Nova Scotia and here in South Carolina, was tantamount to kicking an anthill--the ants do everything in their power to bring their "family" back together again. Witness the bold escape of the Broussards and the Basques within weeks of their arrival here and the frenzied voyages up the Atlantic coast back to Nova Scotia. Historian Chapman J. Milling, a South Carolinian of Acadian descent, explains it well: "It is easy to condemn them for this movement" from the hinterland back to the colonial center, "as they were condemned at the time. From their own viewpoint any other course would have been incomprehensible. Seeking lost parents, brother searching for sister, lover for sweetheart, they preferred the companionship of misery and poverty shared in common to separation among strangers. Accustomed to toiling cheerfully for themselves and their own families, their independent spirtis rebelled at a state of indenture differing from slavery only in name. Together, although deprived of their spiritual fathers, they had at least the comfort of a common religion and their mother tongue in which to encourage their chastened souls with its promises." And so, as 1759 gave way to a new year, more Acadians slipped back to Charles Town, taking up residence with other Acadians "in brick tenements on Trotts Point, a small out-house at Petit Versailes, a house near the New Barracks called the 'Orange Garden 48,' which was the former school house named for its location next to an orange grove on the north side of Tradd Street, and a house neaby the new State House," which had been completed and opened in March 1756, while James Glen was still governor. According to the colonial authorities, by the dawn of the new year, 340 or so Acadians were packed into these tenements and ramshackle houses in lower Charles Town.213
Then the darkness came.
Acadians were noted for something else as remarkable as their obsession with family: in their northern settlements around the Bay of Fundy, they seldom died of communicable disease. There was no crowded urban environment there, not even in the old capital of Annapolis Royal, where such diseases could spread more easily. The mosquitoes that infested the Fundy shores in the warmer days--maringouins, the Acadians called them--carried no dreaded tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Dysentery, called the bloody flux, caused by contaminated water and food, was largley unknown among them, as was the most dreaded contagious disease of that day--small pox. Though they enjoyed a splendid geographical isolation, they were not removed from the human world around them. Their Mi'kmaq and Maliseet neighbors, rare among North American Natives, were not devastated by the white man's diseases. Fundy Acadians traded eagerly with New Englanders who made their way up the coast from Boston, which, like other Atlantic ports, suffered an occasional smallpox outbreak. However, the New England captains, like all good seafarers, were careful about the health of their crews. This rare "immunity" changed dramatically during the Acadians' Grand Dérangement: from the summer of 1757 through the spring of 1758, in and around Québec City, more than 300 Acadian refugees died of smallpox. Sadly for the exiles in South Carolina, the dreadful disease caught up to them in early 1760.214
Charles Town had suffered a major smallpox epidemic in 1738. The epidemic of 1760 was a result, interestingly enough, of Governor Lyttelton's punitive campaign against the Lower Cherokee towns, out in the Carolina upcountry, in late 1759. Smallpox evidently had hit the Cherokee towns before the war commenced. "The Cherokee hostages imprisoned by Lyttelton while under official safe conduct" to Charles Town "died like rats of the disease," Chapman J. Milling recounts. In the city, beginning in early February, "the infection spread until 'almost every family was in distress for the loss of some of its members.'" It did not wane until mid-summer, "and the assembly declared the crisis over in November," Victoria Musheff notes. According to Milling, "the disease accounted for 940 deaths in the city alone." Musheff gives a smaller but more specific count: "six hundred and fifty lives, three hundred of whom were white. One-sixth of its victims were Acadians: between one hundred fifteen and one hundred and thirty Acadians perished"--less than half of the number who had died at Québec three years earlier, but close to half of the Acadians who had congregated in Charles Town by early 1760. Before the epidemic broke out, Carolina authorities had noted the large number of exiles who had made their way back from the parishes to the city and had crowded together in the lower town. While the epidemic raged, the authorities correctily discerned that these crowded conditions and the ill health of many Acadians would become "a source of infection," so "efforts were made to prevent its spread among them." A committee of the House of Assembly "recommended that the Old Free-School may be fitted up with the utmost Expedition, which, together with part of the New Barracks may be allotted for the reception of as many of the said Acadians as they will conveniently hold which will lessen the number of those which are in the said Houses, give them more room and conveniency and prevent the Dangers arising from such numbers being together." The committe then recommended the allocation of funds to finance this new aid to the Acadians. "The Committee's recommendations were, in general, followed by the House," Milling notes, including "a special appropriation for two thousand pounds for their relief," as well as a letter to the governor "asking for approval of the use of the barracks for the Acadians...." Private individuals also offered assistance to the Acadians during the epidemic, Milling and Musheff add. In June, as the contagion raged, Lieutenant-Governor William Bull, Jr., now in charge of the colony following the appointment of Lyttelton as governor of Jamaica, reacted to a request for work by able-bodied Acadians and urged the House to find employment for these men. Bull's response to the Acadians' petition revealed that he was more akin to James Glen than to William Lyttleton in his attitude towards the exiles. In July, another committee of the Assembly was appointed "'to inquire into the present State of the Acadians in Charles Town.'" On July 12 it reported: "'The said Acadians are reduced to the Number of 210, that is to say 42 men, 42 women, 52 boys, and 74 girls."215
This having been said, the committee members could not resist venting their spleen on the hapless Acadians, using words similar to those uttered by Charles Lawrence and his councilors as they prepared to toss Acadians to the winds, as well as other governors and their councilors and legislators who were forced to receive the exiles: "That notwithstanding the Humanity with which they have been treated and the great Expense the Province has been put to on their account, which exceeds the sum of five and twenty thousand Pounds," the committe members huffed, "they are disaffected and discontented and wholly averse to the living under an English Government: nor is there any appearance of an alteration in their Sentiments or that they will ever become serviceable to the province." The committee also noted: "That the Orphan Children by being bound out to Handicraft Trades, and others of them by engaging in the service of private Families, might get a tolerable subsistence, yet such is the Bigotry and Obstinacy of these People that they choose to live miserably together than to separate and live comfortably." The committee concluded: "Upon considering the premises, the Committee are of Opinion that the said Acadians are burdensome and usless to the Province: And in case of any invastion or insurrection might adhere to His Majesty's Enemies, and therefore recommend it to the House to address his Honor the Lieutenant Governor to order the said Acadians to be transported to Europe, or some French Port in America: And that the House do provide a Sum sufficient to defray the expense of that Service." In other words, re-deport the remaining Acadians. The Assembly promptly informed Lieutenant-Governor Bull of its desire to send the Acadians away, adding a warning that the Acadians, meanwhile, might stir up insurrection among the colony's slaves--the ultimate enslavers' nightmare. Here was the final word on South Carolina's view of the Acadian exiles still living among them--the sooner they leave, the better. Here also was a clear message for the struggling exiles: as soon as they could, they would emulate the Broussards, the Basques, and the coastal voyagers and get themselves the hell out of this colony.216
They could not know it, but that opportunity would come sooner than later. In July 1758, when most the Acadians in South Carolina were languishing in the outlying parishes or making their way quieting back to the tenements at Charles Town, the French stronghold at Louisbourg on Île Royale fell to the British. In September 1759, on the eve of Lyttelton's war against the Cherokee, which came as a surprise to many Carolinians, and his inadvertent introduction of smallpox to Charles Town, the British captured Québec City and seized control of the lower St. Lawrence valley. A year later, in September 1760, as the smallpox epidemic gradually eased at Charles Town, the British accepted the surrender of Montréal, and French control of Canada ceased to be. A month later, in October 1760, a British naval force from Québec accepted the surrender of the French garrison, and a thousand Acadian refugees, at Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chalours--the last French stronghold in North America. The war lingered two years longer in the Caribbean, until the fall of Spanish Havana after a month-long siege by a British naval force in August 1762. Soon, negotiations began in Paris between British, French, and Spanish representatives to end what the British called the French and Indian War. The end came with the signing of a treaty at Paris.217
Lieutenant-Governor Bulls's response to the Assembly's proposal to deport the remaining Acadians was to remind them of His Majesty's insistence to Governor Lyttelton, and now to him, that "no more Acadians be sent to great Britain" or any other place. And so he could not re-deport them. Determined to be rid of them, "The Assembly now proposed that if the Acadians could not be deported they be allowed to leave the province of their own accord if they so desired, and that they be financially assisted in so doing," as Governor Glen had done four years earlier. But Lieutenant-Governor Bull would not budge from his superiors' instuctions. The smallpox epidemic ended by late 1760. In the next few years, the Acadians in South Carolina, including exiles from Georgia who had slipped into the colony and remained there, did their best to make a life for themselves in a place where they still felt like unwelcomed strangers. Then the war against Britain finally ended, bringing to these unwelcome strangers another opportunity to leave this place.218
The Treaty of Paris was signed on 10 February 1763 by representatives of His Britannic Majesty George III of Britain, His Most Christian Majesty Louis XV of France, His Catholic Majesty Carlos III of Spain, and Don Joseph I of Portugal. It consisted of 27 articles, the most significant of which to the Acadian exiles was Article IV. Here France surrendered all of "Nova Scotia or Acadia in all its parts," including what the French claimed in present-day New Brunswick west of Chignecto, including the trois-rivières and Rivière St.-Jean and all its tributaries. All of Canada, also captured by British arms, now belonged to Britain, as well as Cape Breton (formerly French Île Royale) and all other islands, including Île St.-Jean, the îles des Madeleines, and Newfoundland, with the exception of the cod-fishery islands of St.-Pierre and Miquelon off the southern coast of Newfoundland. "His Britannick Majesty, on his side," the article went on, "agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholic religion to the inhabitants of Canada; he will, in consequence, give the most precise and most effectual orders, that his Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit." His Britannick Majesty farther agrees, that the French inhabitants, or others who had been subjects of the Most Christian King in Canada," including the Acadians of Nova Scotia, "may retire with all safety and freedom where they shall think proper, and may sell their estates, provided it be to the subjects of his Britannick Majesty, and bring away their effects as well as their persons, without being restrained in their emigration, under any pretence whatsoever, except that of debts or of ciminal prosecutions: The term limited for this emigration shall be fixed to the space of eighteen months, to be computed from the day of the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty." Just as significant for the future of the Acadians, an earlier treaty, negotiated and signed secretly at Fountainbleu near Paris on 3 November 1762 by representatives of France and Spain, tranferred the Île of Orleans with the port of New Orleans, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including Illinois west of the river, from France to Spain; the rest of Louisiana and Illinois east of the Mississippi to be retained by Britain. France, in fact, surrendered its entire hold on North America, keeping in the New World only the two fishery islands off Newfoundland, and St.-Domingue, Guadaloupe, and Martinique in the French Antilles.219
So here it was, once and for all, the means of escape from their Carolina "prison."
The process of their release, as well as the release of all the other Acadian exiles still languishing in the British colonies, began soon after the treaty signing in Paris. Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini Mazarini, duc de Nivernois, French minister to the British Court in London, was determined to repatriate to France the Acadians in England, most of whom had been sent there from Virginia in the spring of 1756 and who had suffered terribly there over the following years. On 18 March 1763, Nivernois penned a secret dispatch, entrusted to his secretary, Monsieur de la Rochette, that promised the exiles in England "the protection of King Louis XV" in their efforts to return to French soil. And so they did, aboard several French transports, in May 1763, landing in northern Brittany at Morlaix and St.-Malo. "Copies of this communqué," Carl Brasseaux relates, "were subsequently smuggled" by the new arrivals via the Acadian grapevine "to friends and relatives" in the seaboard colonies. Upon receiving the document, Acadian leaders in the colonies reacted as quickly as they could to the welcomed opportunity.220
In South Carolina, Balthazard Côme [?]; Marin LeBlanc, who had come to the colony from Chignecto aboard the Edward Cornwallis; and Jacques Hugon, who had arrived aboard the Endeavor "wrote a petition to the duc de Nivernois requesting the intervention of the French king on behalf of Acadian families originally exiled to South Carolina who were still living in the colony." According to Victoria Musheff, the leaders "wrote cautiously while expressing joy over the fact that their Christian king planned to recall the Acadians refugees back to France. They assured their sovereign that in the face of advantageous offers made by the English, they had always remained loyal to France," which was true for the vast majority of them. They were especially eager for the King to plead for them "on behalf of their babies who Carolinians forcibly removed from their homes under the pretext of needing wet nurses." They "expressed their belief that nothing shore of a royal decree could restore children to their lawful parents. They asked for resettlement assistance under the French flag to any location that pleased the king. They claimed that they had sought to go to French colonies before England and France had declared war." In truth, they had been given no choice whatever as to their destination.220a
Accompanying the South Carolina leaders' petition was a repatriation list of their fellow exiles, headed "Names and Numbers of Families previously living in Acadia who have been transported to South Carolina and who desire to withdraw under the standard of their King his Very Christian Majesty, dated 12 August 1763. On the list were 57 men, 69 women (including 10 widows), and 138 children (40 of them orphans), 264 exiles in all, a far cry from the thousand or so deportees who had come to the colony in late 1755 and early 1756. Individuals on the August 12 list bore the surnames Landry, Richard, Dugas, Bernard, Babineau, Derairer, Lord, Comeau, Oliveau, Aucoin, Deveau, LeBlanc, Cormier, Bourgeois, Pitre, Girouard, Comme, Hébert, Simon, Doiron, Babin, LaPierre, Quessy (Caissy), Moreau (actually Marant), Carret, Orillon, Thériot, Dupuy, Boudreau, Arseneau, Poirier, Doucet, Olivier, Granger, Brun, Barnabé (Martin), Breau, Chiasson, Lambert, Boucher, Dugon, Forest/Foret, Pellerin, Maillet, Gauthier, Salete, Hugon, Lanoue, Thibodeau, Savoy, Blanchard, Robichaud, Gauselain (Gonsoulin?), Buchries (?), Gaudet, and Masson, the great majority of them Acadian names. One of the signers on the August 12 list, Pierre Deraier, obvioulsy a well-educated man, whose wife was Acadian Isabelle Lord, attested at the end of that list: "I the undersigned certify the true marks and that those who are not signed or have made their ordinary marks are not here in this country or engaged in the dwellings against the will of the fathers and mothers and have refused many times, in confidence of which I have signed at Charleston, South Carolina this 29th of August, 1763." This may mean that the number of names on this list included Acadians not only in Charles Town, but also others still scattered in the rural parishes who were bound there under indentureship, despite the wishes of their parents.220b
Also submitted to the duc de Nivernois was another list, headed "State, and List of the Acadians with Their Names and Number of Children that They have in South Carolina this 23rd of August 1763." (Notice the interesting use of the pronoun "they" in the title.) This list contained 32 heads of households named Poirier (10 of them, including two widows), Bourg (three), Babin (one), Hébert (six, including a widow), Guilbeau (one), Breau (one), Girouard (one, a widow), Pincer (perhaps Prince, one), Bourgeois (one), Cormier (five), Cir (a widow), and Richard (one)--160 men, women, and children in those households. Also on the August 23 list were three orphans, two Thériot brothers and a Babin; "one family who lives alone at Port Royale," south of Charles Town, Olivier Landry of Chignecto, his wife, and three children; and the families of André LeBlanc, his wife, and four children; Jean-Baptiste Gagne, his wife, and three children; and Gilbert Masson or Mason, his wife, and one child--a total of 185 persons. According to Victoria Musheff's research, this second, smaller list was submitted by Acadians living in South Carolina at the time but who had been exiled to Georgia in 1755 and had removed themselves to South Carolina by August 1763. These Acadians also sent a petition to Nivernois. The three-page submission began, Musheff observes, "with an apology for their lack of education and poor ability to communicate. Careful not to bore, these Acadians wrote with enthusiasm, confidence, and affection to their good Christian French king. Like those exiled directly to South Carolina, this group testified about their constant loyalty to France. In recommending themselves to his goodness, however, the Georgia Acadians went much further: they claimed to have taken up weapons in their hands against the English in their support of their country in service to ... the French king." They were referring, of course, to their participation in the British attack on French Fort Beauséjour back in June 1755. "This claim of course," Musheff notes, "was exceptional evidence of their fidelity. It was probably true to a degree, especially since Georgia's Acadians also came from the despised region of Chignecto; even so, the petitioners likely exaggerated to win favor." They, too, beseeched the King for help "to rescue their children whom colonists had removed and sent to plantations where Englishmen sold them. That this happened was a disgrace to their French parents who raised them as Catholics and did not want them to practice the religion of England. They trusted that the king, as their protector and liberator, would help them regain their children and that doing so would garner God's favor." Here was evidence that "a good number of young children were absorbed into Anglican families." Sadly, "It is not clear if South Carolinians returned any children to the Acadians at the close of the war," Victoria Musheff notes, and "there is no known evidence that the French government negotiated the rescue of Acadian children in the colony."221
So here they were, 450 or so Acadians lingering in South Carolina, down from the 934 exiles who had come directly to Charles Town aboard five vessels in November 1755 and January 1756, and 434 aboard two ships sent on to Georgia in November 1755--nearly 1,400 Acadians deported to the two southern-most colonies. Hundreds of them had been allowed to voyage back up the coast towards home, until the new South Carolina governor, on orders from his superiors, closed the door on these sanctioned "escapes." Many of them, men, women, and children, had died of neglect, abject poverty, and the most dreaded disease of that day. The question before them now was: where would these survivors choose to go? Nearly all of them refused to remain in these British colonies, where the leaders and the people had neglected them, again and again and again, and had refused to understand, even tolerate their nature, not only their faith but their obsession with family. But where would they go? Where could they go? Through their remarkable communication grapevine they doubtless had heard that many of their fellow survivors in New England and New York were going to British Canada, where their French Canadian cousins outnumbered the British oppressors and clung mightily to the One True Church. They were receiving no offers to resettle in France, which was even farther from South Carolina than Canada. So they turned their gaze southward, to the French Antilles, especially to the sugar colony of French St.-Domingue. Later in the year, they likely knew that a few of the remaining Acadians in Georgia had left Savannah for St.-Domingue "without any layover in Charlestown." Word also was reaching the Acadians in Charles Town that the French had big plans for St.-Domingue. While the end-of-war treaty was being negotiated, French officials encouraged exiles in the British colonies to resettle in the sugar colony. Although driven from North America by the Seven Years' War, the French were determined to hang on to what was left of their shrinking empire. A new naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas on the northwest end of the big island would protect the approaches to their remaining possessions in the Caribbean region and assist in the "war of revenge" to come. Exiles lured to St.-Domingue would prove a ready source of labor not only for the naval contractors, but also for colony's major planters, who hoped to supplement the work of their slaves. To sweeten the deal, the French promised the Acadians land of their own in St.-Domingue. By 18 February 1764, the South Carolina Gazette could report that Acadians had left Charles Town the previous November destined for Cape François in St.-Domingue. "'Soon after their arrival there,'" the editor of the Gazette relates, '"[they] had land alotted them at Cape Nicola [Môle St.-Nicolas] in the Windward Passage, and are settling at Platform, where most English Vessels passing to and from Jamaica commonly call for water, but are by no means pleased, either with their reception or situation.'" Unfortunately, this was more than wishful thinking on the part of the Carolina editor if he was typically disdainful of his colony's recent residents--a case, as it turned out, of hundreds of wayward Acadians jumping from the frying pan into the fire.222
Not all of the exiles who left South Carolina ended up in that fire.
Four families from Chignecto that had been deported to Georgia in
1755, voyaged up the coast via Charles Town in 1756, held in New
York for the rest of the war, and counted at Charles Town and Port
Royal in August 1763--Olivier Landry and his wife
Cécile Poirier; Cécile's brother Jean-Baptiste
Poirier and his wife Marie-Madeleine
Richard; Marie-Madeleine's parents Jean-Baptiste
Richard and his wife Marie-Catherine, called Catherine,
Cormier; and Catherine's first cousin Jean-Baptiste
Cormier and his wife Madeleine Richard,
sister of Jean-Baptiste--lingered in South Carolina after the August
counting along with most of their fellow exiles. During this
time they likely had received word through the Acadian grapewine
that the venture in St.-Domingue, as the Gazette article in
February 1764 would hint, was turning out to be a disaster.
North Carolina
Only one of the five
transports that left the Annapolis Basin on 8 December 1755 was
destined for North Carolina, and only one other transport had been
sent to that colony, a few weeks earlier. On December 8, the
Pembroke,
under master Milton ____, carrying 232 Annapolis valley exiles--33 men, 37 women, 70 boys, and 92
girls--was separated from its naval escort and its sister
ships by a heavy wind soon after it sailed through the Gut.
This circumstance, combined with the master's decision to allow six passengers at
a time on deck "for a few minutes of fresh air," made the
139-ton snow suddenly vulnerable. Fifty-eight-year-old Charles Belliveau of Annapolis
Royal, who, ironically, had fashioned a new mast for this very ship
after it had limped into the basin a few weeks earlier, saw an
opportunity. He chose six of the hardiest men and sent them
topside to enjoy the fresh air. After their time on deck
had elapsed and the guard opened the hatch to escort them below,
Belliveau and his fellow Acadians, armed with only their fists,
burst from the hold, overwhelmed the ship's crew, and
in only minutes the vessel was theirs! Belliveau was a pilot as well as
a ship's carpenter, so he and his compatriots were able to sail the Pembroke
into Baie Ste.-Marie, at northwest end of the peninsula. An
exchange during the passage
between the ship's master and Belliveau, as recorded by
historian John Mack Faragher, has become "the stuff of Acadian legend." "The
wind was strong," Faragher relates, "the sails filled, and the
mainmast groaned. 'Stop! You are going to break it,' cried the
captain. 'I made this mast, Belliveau shouted back,
'and I know it will not break!'" For a month, into the frigid
days of early January, Belliveau and his fellow exiles hid aboard the Pembroke in the isolated
coastal bay. Not wishing to press their luck, they sailed out
of the bay and across the Bay of Fundy, reaching the mouth of Rivière St.-Jean
on January 8.
The British, by then, had been searching for them and had guessed
that they would attempt to join their fellow Acadians on Rivière
St.-Jean. A small naval force attacked the Pembroke as
it lay in the lower river. Belliveau and his fellow passengers,
always on the alert, burned the vessel,
The first transport sent to North Carolina had been an ad hoc
venture. It also was the only one of the two ships sent there
that made it to the Tarheel colony.
After the Providence reached North Carolina in January 1756, an evidentiary shroud falls over the story of the Acadians who went there. Research by historian R. Martin ("Marty") Guidry, a descendant of one of the North Carolina exiles, indicates that, in March, they were deposited likely at Edenton on Albemarle Sound, in the far-northeastern corner of the colony. Edenton had once served as North Carolina's colonial capital, until it was moved to the lower Cape Fear River, in the far southeastern corner of the colony. There, in 1756, at Brunswick Town, stood the seat of the colony's governor, Arthur Dobbs, a 67-year-old Irishman, former soldier, and member of Parliament, who had been serving as governor only since November 1754. One suspects that the sudden arrival of 50 Acadians in a fast-growing colony noted for its ethnic diversity attracted little attention at first, until it was discerned that they were Frenchmen and Roman Catholics besides. Nevertheless, like in the other British colonies where the Acadians were transported, with the exception of Virginia, the Acadians sent by Governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia were expected to be held until the war was over. Edenton was an ideal place to hold these exiles. Located in a corner of what the Tarheels called the Inner Banks, Edenton, unlike Brunswick Town, lay a good distance from easy access to the open Atlantic. According to Marty Guidry's research, these Acadians, many of them related by blood and marriage, endured their exile on Albemarle Sound for four long years, subsisting on what crops they could grow, what they could catch in the sound and the nearby rivers, as well as what the colonial government deigned to provide them. In c1760, probably after learning of the fall of Canada, colonial authorities, perhaps tired of the expense of caring for them, allowed the Acadians to join their fellow exiles in Pennsylvania. If so, they would have had to charter a ship or, more likely, emulate their fellow exiles from Georgia and South Carolina by purchasing their own chaloupe, fixing it up, and coasting up the Atlantic shore to Delaware Bay, a much shorter voyage than their compatriots had endured four years earlier. In June 1763, they appeared on a repatriation list in Pennsylvania before moving on again--to Maryland in 1764 and then to Spanish Louisiana later in the decade.201
Maryland
Maryland, unlike South Carolina, was one of the oldest of the dozen or so seaboard colonies established by the English. Only Virginia and Massachusetts were older. Moreover, Maryland was the first English seaboard colony founded by an individual proprietor, in fact a family of proprietors--Sir George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, King Charles I's former Secretary of State and a Catholic convert--and, after Sir George's death in 1632 soon after receiving his grant, his son Cecilius, called Cecil, 2nd Baron Baltimore, also a Roman Catholic. Protestants, who composed the great majority of Englishmen, were welcome to the colony, and religious tolerance was granted to Marylanders by acts of 1649 and 1658. Beginning in the 1650s, however, successive Protestant revolts overturned the Calverts and their acts of toleration, and Maryland ceased to be a Catholic colony. By the late 1600s, Maryland's leaders were persecuting Roman Catholics as eagerly as officials in other English colonies did. In 1704, an "Act to Prevent the Growth of Popery in this Providence" barred Catholics from voting, practicing law, and holding office in the colony, putting an end to Catholic political power and influence. Despite the religious troubles, Maryland's economy thrived. Like Virginia, Maryland fronted the magnificent Chesapeake Bay, which gave easy access to its rivers and ports. Moreover, its climate was mild and its soil conducive to the cultivation of tobacco, which by Maryland's founding had become a valuable cash crop for the English. The headright system and indentureship provided new settlers from the British Isles, and enslavement of West Africans, tied to the headright system, became essential to tobacco production. By 1775, ironically, the richest man in Maryland, and perhaps in all of the American colonies, was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a Catholic whose lands comprised tens of thousands of acres and held 300 slaves.
Historian Gregory A. Wood describes his native Maryland in 1755: "When the Neutrals arrived, Maryland's population was somewhere over 150,000, divided into a variety of categories based on sex, color, servitude, taxability, and age. Much has been said about the province's traditional guarantee of religious freedom--a myth perpetuated in superficial histories! Political and religious expression were not sacred rights in this rural, plantation-centered society: tolerance came in degrees; so did freedom. In 1755, free white males fifteen years and older number 23,386, with the same category of white females equal to a couple of hundred more than that total. In addition, young white boys and girls provided another 51,000 more inhabitants. There were also some 26,000 people of lesser status at that time--servants, convicts, and free and enslaved Blacks and mulattoes--who were taxable and fiften years and older. Children of black slaves added another 22,000, and only 35 clergymen cared for the population."224
As dictated by Nova Scotia's Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence in the summer of 1755, four transports, two full of exiles from Minas Proper and two from nearby Pigiguit, were assigned to the colony of Maryland, these vessels also to be escorted to their destination by a British ship of war. On the same day, October 27, the four transports sailed through the Gut of the Annapolis Basin and entered the lower Bay of Fundy, exactly two weeks after six transports filled with Chignecto Acadians had left the Basin for South Carolina and Georgia. The 97-ton sloop Elizabeth, Master Nathaniel Milbury, held 242 passengers from the Minas settlements, 52 more than allocated by Lawrence's calculations, placing an unnecssary strain on the crew and passengers. The 87-ton schooner Leopard, master Thomas Church, held 178 passengers from Minas, only four overloaded. The 87-ton sloop Dolphin, master Zebediah Forman, held 230 passengers from the Pigiguit settlements, 56 over capacity. Finally, the 90-ton sloop Ranger, master Francis Piercy, held 263 passengers from Pigiguit, an astonishing 81 over capacity. The transports' escort was HMS Nightingale, commanded by Captain Dudley Diggs, with no passengers aboard--913 Minas Basin Acadians headed for another Chesapeake Bay colony.225
The gale that slammed into other transports leaving the Bay of Fundy that day, bound for Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, scattered the Maryland-bound flotilla as well. The Nightingale, separated from its charges, landed at New York City. The masters of the four deportation transports chose to press on to their destination, but they were not able to remain together. Elizabeth, with only 186 exiles still aboard, 56 fewer than it had taken through the Gut, made its way down the Atlantic side of Virginia's Eastern Shore, rounded Cape Charles, entered Chesapeake Bay, and sailed northward to its destination at Annapolis. It may have been the first of the Maryland-bound transports to reach the colony, on November 20, three weeks after its departure from Nova Scotia. Next appeared the Leopard, with 174 exiles aboard, on November 24, followed by the Pigiguit transports on November 30, the Dolphin with 180 exiles aboard, the Ranger with 238 or so (another source says only 205). The Pigiguit transports arrived later than the Minas ships because the storm had driven them to Boston, which they reached on November 5. Massachusetts authorities, about to receive their own exiles, noted the severe overcrowding on the two transports bound for Maryland, removed 47 Acadians from the Dolphin, 25 from the Ranger, replenished the ships' stores, and sent them on their way.226
Gregory Wood says of the Leopard, one of the smallest of the four transports and which carried the fewest Acadians to Maryland: "Newly constructed in New England and first registered on 10 April at Cambridge, this schooner was owned and captained by Thomas Church, who alone of the four seemed to be adequately prepared to wait in the Severn for Maryland officials to decide the proper disembarkation of a group practically equal to the population of Annapolis." The problem was, as in Virginia and South Carolina, colonial authorites were not informed of the exiles' arrival until they ... arrived. Maryland's governor Horatio Sharpe was attending "a conference of colonial executives in New York," which colony would not receive its two ships-full of Acadians until the following spring. One wonders if Captain Diggs of the HMS Nightingale, after taking refuge in New York Harbor, informed the conference of Charles Lawrence's deportation scheme, then unfolding up and down the coast. No matter, the governor was not at Annapolis, so former governor Benjamin Trasker, "president of the Council," had to decide what to do with the new arrivals, whose needs were becoming quite burdensome to the people of Annapolis. His decision guaranteed more suffering for the hapless exiles. Refusing to authorize any landings until the governor arrived, during the first week of December, after consulting his fellow councilors, Trasker ordered the masters of three of the vessels to take their passengers to other Maryland ports. The masters promptly filed "official protests" with "deputy public notary" John Brice, took on what provisions they could, weighed anchor, and went on their way. The master of the Elizabeth, Nathaniel Milbury, with his 242 exiles, was ordered to take his sloop back down the bay and anchor in the Wicomico River on the Eastern Shore in Somerset County. Amazingly, "no provisions were made for any compensation for food and supplies." Francis Piercy, master of the Ranger, was ordered to take his sloop full of "sickly ... exiles from Pisiquid," only 208 of them left, down to the Eastern Shore port of Oxford, in the Choptank estuary near the mouth of the Tred Avon River in Talbot County. Master Zebediah Forman of the Dolphin, with his severely reduced number of Pigiguit exiles, 180 at last count, was ordered to take his sloop down to the Patuxent River and then up and up and up that stream to the village of Lower Marlborough in Calvert County. Master Church of the Leopard, with his 178 exiles, was ordered to remain in the Severn at Annapolis, to await, like the others, the arrival of Governor Sharpe.227
The first of the transferred exiles to reach their destination, the 208 aboard the Ranger sent to the Choptank, dropped anchor at Oxford on December 8. The governor's arrival at Annapolis allowed them finally to disembark, but it did not improve their lot. The Acadians were placed under the supervision of local merchant Henry Callister, "who represented the Cunliffe commercial firm of Liverpool, England." According to Gregory Wood, "Callister became quite distrubed with the inaction of the Maryland government in the affair, for the province had not taken any official measures for the welfare of the exiles in their first month in Maryland." The same neglect affected the other three contingents--they, too, after they left their ships, were forced to rely on the charity and good will of confused and frustrated locals. On Christmas Day, Callister complained to a friend in England that "'Nobody knows what to do; and few have charity for them.'" In mid-January, the winter well along, "he begged the governor's help and understanding, and in his letter to Sharpe, he enclosed a list of major expenses that he had assumed upon himself," but nothing changed for the rest of the winter. Meanwhile, the colonial Council met again to address the Acadian problem, concluding that "'This Governmt. recd. them in that state" of misery "from the Captains that brought them here, and afterwards sent them to several Countys, not under the restraint or confinemt. of any person but let them at large and to their own liberty. ...They ought not to have been released or suffer'd at large by us, as they were the King's Prisoners, and he alone, I think, is to order their Releasement,'" the president of the Council complained.228
Carl Brasseaux offers the wider view of why these exiles would endure even more misery and neglect, as had their compatriots in the other British colonies to which they had been deported: "Upon reaching their destinations within Maryland, the Acadians found themselves in rather unenviable circumstances. As nominal British subjects, they were not entitled to any particular assistance from the provincial or local governments, and as French-speaking Catholics in a region that was at war with French Catholics, they were shunned, feared, and reviled by the region's Anglo-Protestant majority. Native Catholics were legally enjoined from assisting their co-religionists. Some assistance was provided by a few philanthropic individuals--often by those who had previously been most vocal in their support of the proposed Acadian expulstion. Because of the broad range of basic services required by the exiles and the corresponingly heavy financial burden which they entailed, these good samaritans were soon compelled to abandon their wards. Fully cognizant of the incompatability between their job skills and those required by the Maryland economy," and no doubt noting the many West African slaves and white indentured servants working in the colony's tobacco fields, "the Acadians demanded that the governement recognize their status as prisoners of war and accordingly provide food and shelter for them. The government, however, rejected this claim, indicating that the Acadians had acquired full British citizenship through 'the conventions of 1730.' Consequently, at least one group of Acadians on the lower Eastern Shore was literally forced to exist, without shelter, in the frozen, snow-covered countryside, huddling together for warmth, for several days" before a local minister secured for them adequate shelter. "Forced to make their own way in the world, the Acadians grudgingly accepted the low-paying and often degrading jobs offered by their reluctant hosts and gradually improved their lot, though never rising above the poverty level."229
Brasseaux also reveals the deep hypocracy practiced by the Maryland government in their policy towards the Acadians. "While unable to provide economic assistance to the Acadians because of their British citizenship," Brasseaux notes, "the provincial government paradoxically treated the exiles as prisoners, adopting regulations to restrict their individual liberties and freedom of movement in early 1756." In April, Governor Sharpe urged the colonial legislature to pass a law entitled "An Act to Empower the Justice of the Several County Courts, to Make Provision for the Late Inhabitants of Nova Scotia, and for Regulating Their Conduct.'" The act, "reflecting the prevailing public revulsion, fear and suspicion of the French-Catholic immigrants," Brasseux explains, "required the exiles, which were characterized as indolent and obstinate, to 'rely upon their own Labour and Industry to procure a comfortable subsistence for themselves.'" Moreover, and even more disturbing to the exiles, "In cases where Acadian parents appeared either unable or unwilling to support adequately their children, the county magistrates were empowered to 'bind out' Acadian children 'upon the best terms they could make' (vis-à-vis the provincial government) with local artisans, planters, or businessmen," with the result, historian John Mack Faragher says, of "a majority" of Acadian children being "forcibly taken away" from their families and "put out to service"--an Acadian parent's worst nightmare. "All unemployed, but able-bodied Acadians," Brasseaux continues, "were to be deemed vagrants and were to be jailed until they manifested an interest in finding employment. To ensure that employment was indeed available, the number of Acadians exceeding the local labor demand were to be transferred to neighboring counties where there was less surplus labor." This resulted in exiles being held during the following years not only at Annapolis, but also at Baltimore farther up the Western Shore; at Oxford in Talbot County on the lower Eastern Shore; at Princess Anne in Somerset County; and at Snow Hill in Worcester County, west of Princess Anne, only six miles from Chincoteauge Bay on the Atlantic; at Newtown (today's Chestertown) in Kent County farther up the Eastern Shore; and even farther up that shore at Georgetown in Kent County and Fredericktown in Cecil County on the opposite banks of the Sassafras River, at the far northeastern corner of the province, near the boundaries with Pennsylvania and Delaware. They were held also in the interior of the Western Shore not only at Lower Marlborough in Calvert County, but at Upper Marlborough farther up in Prince George's County; and at Port Tobacco in Charles County, at the head of an eponymous tributary five miles above the middle Potomac, near the border with Virginia--nearly a dozen new "homes" away from home for the colony's wayward Acadians.230
Sharpe's April regulations also addressed a major worry of Maryland's leaders and the colony's Protestant majority. "The act," Brasseaux notes, "also furnished the magistrates with administrative machinery for preventing the exiles from reaching the colony's vulnerable western border, where British troops were under orders to shoot the Acadians on sight. All Acadians wishing to travel more than ten miles from their residence were required to secure a passport from the local justice of the peace. Violators were subject to citizens' arrests, five-day imprisonment, and subsequent, forcible removal to the prisoner's abode." This colony would tolerate no Alexandre Broussards. Perhaps aware now of the dramatic overland escapes in South Carolina and certainly of the voyagers coming up the coast from that colony and Georgia, a month after the law was passed Horatio Sharpe assured his Nova Scotia counterpart, still Charles Lawrence, that "'None of the French who were imported into this Province have been suffered either by Land or Water to return" to Nova Scotia. Sharpe also was thrilled to learn that the colony's hereditary proprietor, Lord Baltimore in England, entirely approved of "his handling of the situation."231
So the exiles were boxed in, re-distributed to every corner of the lower province, watched over closely, forced to work alongside slaves and indentured servants, jailed for what they considered to be minor infractions, widows in rags forced to beg door-to-door to feed their starving children, and, worst of all, enduring the agony of seeing those children taken from them. Yet, as Carl Brasseaux, himself a descendant of Maryland exiles, insists, "Though confined to their host province" for the rest of the war, "and though oppressed by their host government, the Acadian community bent under the pressures brought to bear against it, but it did not break. Throughout the conflict, the Acadians openly supported the French cause and took no pains to conceal their delight at French military victories. Such successes, however, became more and more infrequent as the war progressed. France's ultimate defeat, which also dashed their lingering hopes of repatriation to Nova Scotia, hung like a pall over Maryland's Acadian community" into "the 1760s."232
But not all was bleak for the wayward Acadians in their make-shift communities bordering the Chesapeake. Merchantile representive and planter Henry Callister of Talbot County was not the only Marylander who appealed to the "principles of humanity" by providing food and shelter for the exiles. Another local shaker and mover, Colonel Edward Lloyd, a planter on the Wye River in Talbot County, considered the exiles a dangerous menace when they came to Oxford and said so to his fellow members of the governor's Council, yet, "Somewhat begrudingly, he contributed to their well-being while they were in the Choptank River...," Gregory Wood notes. "Fate should have it," Wood relates, "that the planter [Colonel Lloyd] found it necessary to take on the supervision of sixty or so Acadians in the Wye/Oxford area at L12 per week, and another group of thirty at L5 per week," all out of his pocket. Moreover, "The weather was cold and the river had frozen, thereby compounding the difficulties" the colonel and his charges had to face. Other local benefactors, also appealing to the "principles of humanity" in helping the new arrivals despite political and religious bias, included, Wood recounts, P. C. Blake, Rev. Thomas Bacon, Thomas Browning, Jacques Tilghman, Michael Hacket, Jean Caile, Charles Brown, Guill Goldsborough, Mrs. Sarah Blake, Pollard Edmondson, David Robinson, Col. Joseph Ennalls, Edward Niel, David Jones, Simon Jones, Mrs. Marguerite Lowe, Thomas Willson, Corneille Daly, Robert Howe, Edward Tilghman, Matthew Tilghman, Philemon Hambleton, and, above and beyond the call of Christian duty, Samuel Chamberlaine, who "allowed exiles to cut firewood on his estate and supplied them with Indian corn...." A certain Captain Lowes," Wood adds, "assumed much responsibility for the Neutrals in Somerset County," whose seat was the village of Princess Anne, where a hand full of Acadian families had been relocated.233
A list of benefactors who helped sustain the Acadians would not be complete without including the most distinguished Catholic family in Maryland, the Carrolls. Led by Charles Carroll of Annapolis, son of Charles Carroll "The Settler," who had come to the colony from Ireland in 1688, the family remained staunchly Catholic despite the political roadblocks thrown in their way. By the time the Acadians appeared in the colony, in fact, Charles Carroll of Annapolis was the richest man in Maryland. His only son, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as he came to be called, was age 18 when the Acadians arrived and a student at a Jesuit college in Belgium before moving on to Paris, where he would continue his studies until his return to Annapolis on the eve of the Acadians' repatriation. Charles Carroll of Annapolis's cousins, Charles and Daniel II, also prominent Maryland planters, and Daniel's younger brother John, a Catholic priest in Europe and future bishop of Baltimore, also helped the Acadians as best they could from their limited centers of influence in Maryland and Europe. As revealed in a letter written in July 1756, three months after the colonial assembly had passed the "Act to Empower," Charles Carroll of Annapolis lamented to his son in France: ""Many of them would have met with very humane treatment from the Roman Catholics here, but a real or pretended jealousy inclined this government not to suffer them to live with Roman Catholics. I offered the government to take and support two families consisting of fourteen souls," wrote the richest man in the colony, "but was not permitted to do it.'" The planter nevertheless confessed to his son in January 1759 that he had assisted a certain "'Manjan, a poor Accadian here'" and also helped the man's widow and their son, the wishes of the government be damned. More openly, Carroll assisted the Acadians at the village of Baltimore by selling for a pittance land on which a local priest could construct a house of worship. In the late 1750s, tongue in cheek, he wrote to his son "that the whole Acadian issue had 'cheated' the son "out of 2800 livres of his inheritance to that date." Revealing the family's regard for the exiles, Carroll wrote to his son a nostalgic description of their time in Maryland: "'... they manufactured all they wore, and their manufactures were good; they raised in great plenty the provisions they consumed; their habitations were warm and comfortable; they were all upon a level, being all husbandmen, and consequently as void of ambition as human nature can be'"--an entirely too rosy view of the reality of their time there but one that nonetheless captured the essence of their character and the admiration they engendered in a fellow Roman Catholic.234
Other benefactors, both spiritual and corporeal, were the dozen or more priests, most of them Jesuits, who ministered to the colony's Catholic minority. Only a hand full of the English seaboard colonies--Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Nova Scotia--allowed Catholic priests in their territories, and Nova Scotia was about to remove the last of them there now that the Catholic population was removed. The Acadians, when they became British subjects in 1713, had been guaranteed practice of their religion by Queen Anne, and that guarantee continued under her successors, George I and George II, so they had not suffered religious persecution in their homeland. Officials in Annapolis Royal nevertheless were frustrated to note the dependence of the new British subjects on their priests and did what they could to reduce that dependence, to no avail. The officials saw these troublesome priests as "'priest-agents'" of the French monarch, "fulfilling spiritual as well as political functions." After observing the exiles at Annapolis and in the other Maryland venues, Charles Carroll "was annoyed that the Neutrals," as they were called, "had little occasion to practice their religion in the province, for their spiritual character had impressed him greatly," Gregory Wood relates. "'They appear to be very regular and religious,'" one of Carroll's biographers quotes him as saying, "'and that from principle and a perfect knowledge of their duty, which convinces me that they were blessed with exceptional pastors. But alas, how is their case altered!'" "It is assumed that the Reverend Lewis or Carroll's personal chaplain provided minor help to Baltimore or Annapolis exiles," Wood notes, "but only in the 1760s can it be verified that spiritual assistance had some consistency." This was due to the lack of Catholic parishes in the colony (there were none!) and the pitiful number of Catholic missionaries--no more than a dozen--serving "approximately five thousand Catholic communicants (eight thousand in total according to other sources)" in the entire colony when the Acadians arrived. The only "churches" in the colony in the 1750s were personal chapels attached to the homes of wealthy Catholic planters like the Carrolls. According to Wood, "Dr. Richard Challoner, an English bishop and eventual Vicar Apostolic of London (1759-1781) oversaw church activities in America since no religious hierarchy existed in the colonies"--not even among the Protestants! Wood also notes that "Catholics in Maryland owned over 316,000 of the nearly four million acres available, but they were not allowed to vote, and, as of May, 1756," thanks to Sharpe's "Act to Empower, "were subject to double land tax. Additionally, their dozen priests were always open to official harassment," as the priests had been in Nova Scotia when the Acadians were there. "By 1764," Wood notes, "there were seventeen Jesuit missions" in Maryland "for over ten thousand souls (a figure as high as sixteen thousand has also been given!), half of which were said to be faithful to religious practices." About this time, Charles Carroll of Annapolis sold a small piece of land in the village of Baltimore "for a mere L6," later the site of St. Peter's church, "the first Catholic church constructed in the town" that would become the center of Acadian life in Maryland after most of them had left the colony in the late 1760s.235
And then the war between Britain and France finally ended, resulting in the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February 1763. As had happened in South Carolina, and would happen in Maryland and the other seaboard colonies where the hapless Acadian exiles lingered, a secret dispatch penned by the duc de Nivernois, French minister in London, given to the Acadians being held in England, who, with British approbation, were repatriated to France the following May, quickly made it way across the Atlantic via the Acadian communication grapevine. As in South Carolina, within weeks the Acadians in Maryland, in all the places they were being held, drew up a repatriation list of their own in early July and sent it, along with the usual petition for assistance, to the duc's secretary. Like their compatriots in South Carolina, the Acadians in Maryland also expected aid from King Louis XV, including repatriation to France. Like all of the other Acadians in the seaboard colonies, they got neither. Individuals on the repatriation list compiled at Annapolis bore the surnames Dupuis, Melanson, Landry, [LeBorgne de] Belhisle (2 families), Manjeant, Célestin [dit Bellemère] (four families), Thurin, Hébert, Sapin, LeBlanc (two families), Braux, Meunier, Gonsault, Paillottet, Chamaux, and Nicolas--a total of 77 persons. Surnames at Baltimore included LeBlanc (six families), Poirier, Melanson, Babin, Dug (perhaps Dugas), Landry (two families), Aling (Allain), Hébert, Trahan, Blanchard (two families), Thevereaux (Thériot), Richard, Forest, and Doiron--a total of 77 persons. Surnames at Fredericktown and Georgetown included Hébert (four families), Boudrot, LeBlanc, Granger, Babin, and Brasseux--a total of 68 persons. Surnames at Lower Marlborough, which included "French Prisoners," were LeRoy (Roy, two families), Brasseu, Lescun (prisoner), Launne (prisoner), Boudreau, L'Alemand (prisoner), and David (prisoner)--a total of 26 persons. Surnames at Newtown included Boudrot, Daigle (Daigre), Richard (two families), Jeaudain, Gautrot (two families), LeBlanc, and Hébert--no number given, but 57 counted. Surnames at Oxford included LeBlanc (four families), Landry (13 families), Bigeos (Bujole, two families), Brasseau, Braux, Babin (four families), Doiron, Clemençeau, Simonet (Simoneaux, two families), and Granger--a total of 169 persons. Surnames at Port Tobacco included Braux (10 families), Lejeune, Comeau (two families), Babin (four families), Trahan, Gaidris (Guédry, two families), Benoit (two families), Latier, Broussard, Boudreau, Dupuis (two families), Landry (two families), Richard (two families), Clouâtre (two families), and Poupard--a total of 157 persons. Surnames at Princess Anne included Germain, Maffier (Massier), Hébert, Trahan, Thiar, and Babin--a total of 33 persons. Surnames at Snow Hill included David, Dechamp (Dejean?), Forest, Melanson (five families), Granger, Lucas, LeBlanc, Douliard, and Thibodeau--a total of 68 persons. Surnames at Upper Marlborough included Babin (two families), Rivet (two families), Landry (three families), Forest (two families), Boudreau, Broussard, Richard, and Brasseu--a total of 58 persons, with a grand total of 790 persons, compared to the 913 exiles who left Nova Scotia seven and a half years earlier. According to a separate count, in Wood's history of the Acadians in Maryland, the July 1763 count included 42 orphans, seven widowers, and 34 widows. The great majority of the individuals in the counting were Acadians, but there also were a hand full of non-Acadians with Acadian spouses--Simoneaux, Latier, Hernandez, and Castille--counted at several locations, and several French families, held as prisoners of war, were counted at Lower Marlborough. Wood notes that, surprisingly, "births, deaths, and removals to other areas did not appreciably change the population [of the Acadians in Maryland] from the 1755 figures."236
Now that the war was over and the Treaty of Paris allowed them resettle in French territory, like their compatriots in South Carolina, the Acadians in Maryland had to decide: Where should we go? Where can we go? Down south, the Acadians of South Carolina and Georgia wasted little time in pooling funds to charter ships to Cap-Français for a new life in French St.-Domingue. Acadians in New York and New England also made their way to the French Antilles, especially to St.-Domingue. Trade between Maryland, primarily Baltimore, and French St.-Domingue would become important to the colony in future decades, but it was not the case in 1763. Maryland exiles largely hesitated in opting for early repatriation, feeling no pressure from the government in Annapolis to quit the colony anytime soon. As a result, few, if any, of the exiles resettled in St.-Domingue but chose to remain in the Chesapeake colony until sometime better offered. Wood offers a reason why they stayed. "Most Acadians continued to struggle with the seemingly endless poverty," he noted, "but little by little provincial attitudes were changing for the better." Evidently Governor Sharpe, still in power, and Major-General Thomas Gage, recently appointed acting commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, headquartered in New York, felt that the Maryland exiles, after they had been properly dispersed around the colony, "had reasonably behaved themselves during a very trying decade." This earned them the right to remain in British territory, as good British subjects, the two leaders reasoned. Sharpe and Gage even "discussed the possibility of resettling Neutrals in the Gaspé peninsula," where the British were about to open up new fisheries. Gage "wrote to the governors of Canada and Nova Scotia for their advice in the matter, but the royal secretary of state was not in agreement with his countrymen in the colonies and the idea failed to materialize." (One can only imagine the trepidation of the governor of Nova Scotia, now Jonathan Belcher, Jr., when he heard of Gage's proposal.) Why not let the Acadians remain in Maryland, then, the major-general suggested to the governor, where they could continue to be well-behaved British subjects? "'I should think that it would be greatly to the advantage of some of the great Landholders,'" he reasoned, "'to give a tract to these People on very moderate Terms, in order to begin a settlement on some of their unsettled Lands.'"237
So the Acadians remained. But, like their fellow British subjects, the majority anglophone Protestants, they no longer lived in a colony noted for domestic peace. In October 1763, eight months after the war had ended, King George III issued a royal proclamation declaring the newly-won British territory west of a line drawn across the top of the Applachian Mountains, from Maine all the way down to Georgia, was now a vast Indian reserve. Colonists were prohibited from settling west of the line, and those who chose to go there in violation of the King's wishes would not be protected by royal forces. Maryland's western boundary lay east of the Appalachians, so there was little protest in the province, but colonists in adjacent Pennsylvania and Virginia raised a feckless howl. In 1764, as Maryland Acadians were learning through the grapevine and local newspapers that their compatriots from other colonies were converging St.-Domingue to work on a huge French project there, Parliament passed the Sugar Act, aimed at ending the smuggling of sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies into the British colonies. Only British sugar and molasses could be imported legally, and only after paying a three-penny tax. Few, if any, Maryland Acadians had entered the merchantile business or could afford to the luxury of West Indian sugar, so, again, the protests of their fellow subjects meant little to them. And then in March 1765 Parliament passed the notorious Stamp Act, a direct tax, the first of its kind, not an import tariff, to pay down the kingdom's huge war debt as well as the added expense of quartering British redcoats in the colonies. Here was another matter entirely, so much so that colonial leaders from ... provinces convened a Stamp Act Congress in New York City in hopes of quelling violence and redcoat retribution. When the act went into effect the following November, colonists, including the Acadians, had to pay a nominal tax on bonds, licences, certificates, playing cards, parchment, and all manner of mundane items, affecting mostly the affluent, but also burdening the poor. Violent reaction was swift. The Sons of Liberty, formed that summer, quickly moved from protest to riot, tarring and feathering stamp agents, and sacking homes and warehouses, all the while shouting "No taxation without representation!" When the Sons of Liberty organized in Baltimore in February 1766, a young Acadian orphan, 14-year-old Cyprien Dupuis, who called himself Wells, signed up and joined the mayhem. Soon after, the House of Lords repealed the unpopular act but on the same day issued a Declaratory Act, reasserting the Parliament's right of direct taxation anywhere in the empire, "in all cases whatsoever."238
Most of the Acadians had seen enough. Here was an empire they were determined to quit. In late 1764 and early 1765, they heard through the grapevine that hundreds of exiles still languishing in prison compounds in Nova Scotia, led by resistance leader Beausoleil Broussard and others, had resolved to leave their home province, where they were forbidden to return to their former lands, and make their way to the French Antilles. Later in the year and in early 1766, messages from these compatriots were coming in, not from French St.-Domingue, where the Broussards had refused to settle, but from New Orleans and the western part of Louisiana, which for years had officially been a province of Catholic Spain. Here was an empire where they could be "Frenchmen," could speak their language without bother, and practice their religion in peace. Typically, they did not notify the French or Spanish officials in charge at New Orleans, headed now by a recently-arrived Spanish governor named Ulloa, of their coming, though they certainly had to inform Governor Horatio Sharpe, still in charge at Annapolis, of their going. In late June, following riots at Baltimore and Annapolis in reaction to the Stamp Act of 1765, over 200 Acadians from Port Tobacco, Snow Hill, Newtown, Baltimore, and especially Oxford boarded an English sloop, perhaps at Oxford, which, according to Gordon Wood, was then a thriving port on the middle Chesapeake Bay. Passengers aboard the sloop, its name lost to history, included, from Port Tobacco, Acadians named Breau, Landry, and Broussard; from Newtown, a family named Gautrot; from Baltimore, a family named Landry; from Snow Hill, Acadians named Gautrot (two families), Forest, Granger, LeBlanc (two families), Melanson (two families), Hébert, and Thériot; from Oxford, Acadians named Babin (six families), Landry (11 families), Thériot, Breau, Bujole (two families), Blanchard, Bourg, Godin, LeBlanc (five families), Forest, and Melanson; and a family from Pennsylvania named Melanson. Also aboard was a Simoneau family out of Oxford, whose head was from Lorraine, France, and whose wife was an Acadian Corporon. Their destination was New Orleans via Cap-Français, where much of the New Orleans-bound traffic from the seaboard colonies stopped either to exchange ships, pick up more passengers, or take on fresh stores and water. At La Balize, the entrance port near the mouth of the Mississippi, the passengers and crew would have been checked for signs of disease and would have been officially informed that Louisiana was now a Spanish possession. The sloop evidently was small enough to make its own way up, with the help of a river pilot, the 105 miles to New Orleans, fighting the river's powerful current all the way. The sloop, no longer carrying "exiles" but newly-minted Spanish subjects, reached the city on 28 September 1766 with 224 Acadians aboard, including 150 women and children. Fourteen of the passengers had died during the three-month voyage, and three more died on the journey up from La Balize. Three of the new arrivals were newborns, but only one of them had survived the rigors of the voyage. The survivors resettled at Cabahannocer on the river above New Orlean, near where many of the Halifax Acadians had settled--a stretch of the lower Mississippi now being called the Acadian Coast.239
Back in Maryland, an Acadian family at Snow Hill--Étienne-Michel, called Michel, David dit Saint-Michel, his wife Geneviève Hébert, and their eight children--said goodbye to several families from their community--Gautrots, LeBlancs, and especially Melansons--who were on their way to Louisiana aboard the sloop out of Oxford. David was no ordinary Acadian. No member of his family had helped build an aboiteaux or repair a running dyke. His father, Jean-Pierre David dit Saint-Michel, born in the parish of St.-Nazaire, Nantes, France, in c1699 or 1700, probably no kin to the other Davids of greater Acadia, worked as a master blacksmith and emigrated to Canada. He married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Monmellian dit Saint-Germain and Hélène Juineau of Haute-Ville, Québec, probably at Québec in c1717, and settled at Louisbourg, Île Royale, where he worked his trade. There, he was addressed as Sr. David. Between 1718 and 1743, Marie-Madeleine gave the blacksmith 13 children, nine sons and four daughters, most, if not all of them, born at Louisbourg. After the British seized the French citadel in June 1745, Jean-Pierre and his family, along with 1,900 other inhabitants of Louisbourg and the surrounding area, were deported to Rochefort, France. One of his sons, also a blacksmith, having married and settled in peninsula Nova Scotia, was not among the members of the family deported to France but remained in greater Acadia. Jean-Pierre and his family returned to Louisbourg in 1749 after the French resumed control of Île Royale. Marie-Madeleine died at the fortress in the spring of 1755, on the eve of the Acadian Grand Dérangement. After the second fall of Louisbourg, in July 1758, Jean-Pierre and his family were deported to La Rochelle, France, where, in his late 50s, he died at a local hospital soon after reaching the port and was buried in the hospital cemetery. Jean-Pierre's second son Étienne-Michel, born at Louisbourg in c1720, married Geneviève, 18-year-old daughter of Michel Hébert and Marguerite Gautrot, at Grand-Pré in January 1744. The recording priest described him as "age ca 20[sic], resident of Louisbourg." How a young man from the island citadel hooked up with a girl from the Minas Basin is anyone's guess. Four of their children were born at Grand-Pré: Anne in November1744; Michel-Luc or -Lin in September1746, who may have died young or remained in the colony; Joseph in November 1748; and Paul in c1754. In 1755, along with hundreds of other Minas Acadians, Michel and his family were shipped off to Maryland. When the dispersal in Maryland came the following year, the Davids ended up in Snow Hill. One suspects that Michel's skills as a blacksmith were welcome there and that at least this Acadian family did not have to endure the stigma of poverty; second son Joseph became a blacksmith, too, further enhancing the status of the family. Geneviève gave Michel more children in Maryland: Marie in c1756; Marie-Madeleine in c1757; Jean-Baptiste in c1759; Claude in c1761; and Angélique in c1765. Heaing of the plans of their fellow exiles, they, too, chose to go to Louisiana. Though Michel had no David relatives in the colony, wife Geneviève, a member of one of the largest Acadian clans, probably had many kinsmen there, Hébert as well as Gautrot. Paying their own way, they booked passage for New Orleans sometime in the summer of 1766 and reached the city on October 6, a week behind the others. While their fellow Marylanders moved upriver to Cabahannocer, where Acadians from Georgia and Halifax had settled since early 1764, the Davids, perhaps because of Michel's and son Joseph's skills, remained in the city until the early 1770s, when they joined their fellow Marylanders at Cabahannocer.240
The word was out now, spreading through the Acadian communities--the Spanish would welcome all of them to their Mississippi River colony. But a handfull of Baltimore Anglos would have none of it. In early spring of 1767, 27 Baltimore residents, feeling that they had been duped about the destination of the recent Acadian departures, sent a empassioned letter to Governor Sharpe demanding that these ventures be halted. The ill-informed Baltimoreans still believed that Louisiana was a French province and railed against handing over potential fifth-columnists to Britain's once and future enemy. They should be sent to Canada, the Baltimoreans suggested, "where they could be watched and allowed to contribute to the economic welfare and political happiness of Great Britain." This suggestion revealed that the busy-bodies of Baltimore were not completely ill-informed about the world around them. They evidently knew that in New England, north of them, many of the Acadians there, for a year or more, had begun moving on to the St. Lawrence valley to resettle in various river-side communities between Québec and Montréal, all controlled by the British. Governor Sharpe, Gregory Wood asserts, evidently did not take the complaint "too seriously." In April, another large contingent of exiles, 213 individuals comprising over 40 families, booked passage aboard the 60-ton English schooner Virgin out of Baltimore, heading for New Orleans via Cap-Français, again without informing French and Spanish authorities. These Acadians hailed from eight of the 11 Acadian communities, includng another, smaller contingent from Oxford. Passengers aboard the Virgin included, from Baltimore, Acadians named Allain, Hébert, Blanchard, LeBlanc, Landry, Thériot, Forest, Flan, Trahan, Melanson, Babin, and Richard; from Upper Marlborough, Acadians named Babin (two families), Richard, Forest (two families), Rivet, Landry, Prince, and LeBlanc; from Annapolis, Acadians named Bélisle and Babin; from Georgetown/Fredericktown, Acadians named Brasseaux (two families), Thibodeau, Hébert (six families), Landry, LeBlanc, and Melanson; from Newtown, Acadian named Richard, Babin, Hébert, and Landry; from Port Tobacco, Acadians named Comeau, Richard, Breau, and Boudrot; from Oxford, Acadians named Landry (four more families), Granger, and Hébert; and from Snow Hill, Acadians named LeBlanc. Also aboard was a Castille family out of Upper Marlborough, whose head was from Menorca, Spain, and whose wife was an Acadian Landry; an Hernandez family whose head did not appear in the July 1763 counting and whose wife was an Acadian Babin; and a Boutin family, Acadians from Pigiguit, the wife a Guédry, recently arrived from Pennsylvania. Wood notes that on March 24, on the eve of departure, several families from the Fredericktown community--Brasseau, Hébert, and Granger--petitioned the justice of the peace of Cecil County "for a travel subsidy," claiming that "on account of their large number of small children, and long captivity here, find themselves entirely able to pay" the fare for their movement out of the colony. Wood does not say if they received the funds. No matter, the Virgin, master Thomas Farrold, weighed anchor a week or so later, set sail down the bay, and headed into the wide Atlantic. On a voyage that took an astonishing 78 days, the Virgin stopped for 17 days at Cap-Français, where it likely took aboard Acadians from other seaboard colonies who had resettled in St.-Domingue but preferred to move on to Louisiana. The Virgin reached La Balize on July 12, went through the usual customs hassle and, either by lighters sent down to take them upriver, or by ship, its passengers reached New Orleans on July 23--213 Acadians in over 40 families. They, too, hoped that Governor Ulloa would send them to Cabahannocer to live with their fellow "Marylanders" or to the Attakapas prairie, where some of them had kinsmen. But Ulloa had other plans for them. Tensions with the British on the river at Bayou Manchac, on the north bank of which the British had built a fort, compelled Ulloa not only to fortify the Spanish side of the bayou at a place called San Gabriel d'Iberville, but to man the new fort with provincial militia alongside his Spanish regulars. These new Acadian arrivals would do just fine in providing that militia for Fort Infante San Gabriel. Predictably, when hearing of it, the Acadians protested. Ulloa would not back down--he threatened to send them out of the colony if they did comply with his wishes! The Acadians submitted. On August 7, escorted by a coterie of Spanish officers, including Lieutenant José de Orieta, the new commander at San Gabriel, they began the movement from the city up to Manchac, which they reached on the 17th. On their way up, they noticed that their new home was only 25 miles or so above the settlements at Cabahannocer--an easy trip dowriver to visit their loved ones.241
In two expeditions, over half of the exiles in Maryland had made
their way to the Gulf of Mexico and new homes in Spanish Louisiana.
And more were on the way. Unfortunately for them, the
confrontation between the last group of Acadians and Antonio de
Ulloa soured the prickly Spaniard against the new arrivals and
Acadians in general. Still, they had become an essential part
not only of the colony's economy, but also of its military
preparedness in case the British decided to own all of Louisiana.
Those "next Acadian immigrants" would soon be on their way. The great majority of them had spent their years in Maryland at Port Tobacco on the middle Potomac. Others families came from Oxford, Upper Marlborough, Princess Anne, and even Pennsylvania. From Port Tobacco came Acadians named Babin (three families), Landry (two families), Breau (11 families), Benoit, Boudrot, Trahan, Gautrot, Clouâtre (two families), LeBlanc, Comeau, Dupuis (three families), Guidry, and L'Enfant; from Oxford Acadians named Vincent and Doiron; from Upper Marlborough Acadians named Landry (two more families), Boudrot, and Rivet; from Princess Anne Acadians named Trahan and Thibodeau; and from Pennylvania Acadians named Guidry and Dupuis--150 individual in 29 families led by brothers Alexis and Honoré Breau of Pigiguit and Port Tobacco. By December 1767, the Breau party had chartered the English vessel Jane, perhaps a brig under a Captain Rider, which, on December 17, loaded with "One hundred and seventy Barrels Flour," as well as the 150 Acadians, headed down the Potomac towards the bay. The Jane also likely sailed to Cap-Français, where it might have picked up Acadians who had had enough of the sugar colony. After the usual hassle at La Balize and the slog upriver, they reached the city by 11 February 1768 and were taken across the river to the King's warehouse at present-day Algiers, where they could recuperate from their long winter voyage and wait to be sent to their new homes. They naturally expected to be settled near their kinsmen at Cabahannocer or San Gabriel or at least along the German Coast below the Acadians. But, again, Governor Ulloa had other plans for them. Informed of their arrival, Lieutenant Piernas and his subordinate, Ensign Andrés de Balderamma, hurried down from the fort to the city to escort the Acadians up to Natchez. "They [the Acadians] were received with kindness," the lieutenant insisted in a report to the governor. "Those who were ill, and, by the way, there was a large number of them, were given medicines and were treated by the two doctors" at the warehouse. The lieutenant then gathered together the family heads and told them where they were going. Realizing how far distant Fort San Luìs de Natchez was from their kinsmen at Cabahannocer, the Breau brothers refused to take their party there. Ulloa insisted that they go, or, as he had told the Acadians at San Gabriel, he would remove them from the colony! Giving the hothead Acadians time to think it over, he ordered the brothers and their party back to their ship, which was still docked at New Orleans. Seeing that the governor would follow through on his threat, the brothers talked the rest of the party into doing what Ulloa ordered, then, with their families--two wives and 10 children--they slipped off the vessel and into the city, outlaws now in their new country. Moving upriver, eluding Spanish authorities, they stayed in safe houses among the Germans and their fellow Acadians before crossing into British territory probably at the Amite. Meanwhile, beginning on February 20, in the dead of winter, Lieutenant Piernas, Ensign Balderamma, and a small contingent of Spanish troops escorted the rest of the party in three hired boats far upriver to the distant post. They stopped at the Germans to replenish their food supply, hurried past Cabahannocer to avoid any trouble, but lingered at San Gabriel, where they had to chase down a family who had attempted to escape downriver. They reached the Creole enclave at Pointe Coupée on March 8 and did not reach Fort San Luìs until the morning of March 20, having buried a child and a middle-aged woman on the month-long voyage up.243
Most of the Acadians in Maryland were gone now--nearly 600 out of
the nearly 800 counted in July 1763 had made up the three
Louisiana-bound parties--but there would be one more expedition,
also out of Port Tobacco, before the exodus to Spanish Louisiana was
finished. This one, unlike the others, was initiated not by
Acadians lingering in Maryland but by a Catholic leader there, Dr.
Henry Jerningham, who communicated with Governor Ulloa several times
in 1767 on the subject of sending Anglo Catholics from Maryland to
Louisiana. Despite Ulloa's guarded response, in December the
good doctor sent fellow Catholic James Walker to Louisiana aboard
the Jane "With your Excellencys permission to remain for
some months, under your government, to see the produce of the soil,
at the different seasons the manner(s) and Customs of the people
their Way of living, and how the Laws are executed...."
Walker, "a plebeyan and mechanic," Jerningham assured the governor,
carried with him a letter of introduction to Ulloa, who allowed the
Marylander to survey the province not only along the river above New
Orleans, where he lingered at San Gabriel, but also on the Red
River, the Atchafalaya, and out on the Opelousas prairies.
While there, Gregory Wood asserts, Walker could not have missed the
drama over the Breaus' clash with the governor and,
if he was there long enough, the insurrection that overthrew the
unpopular Ulloa in October 1768. One also wonders if any Anglo
Catholics from Maryland, even Walker himself, chose to settle in
Louisiana. One thing is certain: In January 1769, 27
Acadians in six families, 51 German Catholics in eight families, a
Canadian/Anglo family, seven "bachelors," and a dozen
"Britishers"--nearly a hundred passengers in all--made their way
from Maryland to Spanish Louisiana. The closely-related
Acadian families included Antoine Bellard from
Picardie, France, his Acadian wife Marie Trahan,
and their son Étienne-Simon; Honoré Trahan of
Pigiguit and Port Tobacco, Marie's father, wife Marie
Corporon, and son Pierre; Pierre-Olivier Benoit
of Pigiguit and Port Tobacco, wife Marie-Geneviève Brasseau,
son Jean-Charles, and daughters Madeleine and Marie-Rose; Étienne
Rivet of Ste.-Famille, Pigiguit, and Upper
Marlborough, a widower, and sons; Louis Latier of
Port Tobacco, not an Acadian, wife Anne Trahan,
Honoré's sister, sons Antoine and Paul, daughter Élisabeth, and
stepdaughters Marguerite, Marie-Anne, and Marie-Rose Benoit
from Anne's first husband, Jean-Baptiste Benoit,
deceased brother of Pierre-Olivier; and orphans Jean-Baptiste, fils,
Blaise, Marguerite, and Nanette Lejeune, nieces and
nephew of Honoré Trahan. The French-Canadian
couple were Pierre Primeaux and Susanne
Plante, both Catholics. The German families, all
Catholics, who had chosen to leave a colony with many fellow Germans
but most of them Protestant, included Nicolas Marcoff (later
Malbrough), wife Channe, four sons, and two daughter
daughters; Nicolas Ory, wife Christine, two sons,
five daughters, and an orphan; Joseph Basbler, wife
Susanne, three sons, and two daughters; Adam LaMaur,
wife Catherine, a son, and four daughters; Jacob Miller
of Alsace, wife Anne Marie Theigen, son Jacob, and
daughters Barbe, Catherine, and Anne Marie; André Reser,
wife Marie, three sons, and two daughters; Philip Pigleal,
wife Marie; and widow Catherine Asuber, a son, and
two daughters. The so-called bachelors included André
Meche, Daniel Muin, Henry Thomas,
Cristian Pringle, Jean Legeur, and
Antoine Murguier, all "established," and Jaques
Ruseau, "not established," whatever that meant.
In the middle of winter, they chartered an English schooner,
Britannia, master John Steel, which left Port Tobacco on 5
January 1769, bound for New Orleans. In late February, "due to
easterly winds and continuous fog," Captain Steel missed the mouth
of the Mississippi, and the hapless schooner was "driven some eighty
leagues south and then to the west of the Mississippi," deep into
the center of the Gulf of Mexico. "Finding ourselves without
food and water," Steel later testified, "we were obliged to put in
at a small bay"--the Bahía del Espíritu Santo, where La Salle and
his colonists, under similar circumstances, had landed 84 years
earlier. Nearby stood Presidio Nuestra Senora de la Loreto de
la Bahía, commanded by Captain Don Francisco Thobar. Captain
Steel and his passengers came ashore the first week of April.
Evidently alerted by local Indians, Captain Thobar and a small force
of Spaniards accosted the stranded seafarers. "From him we
requested a passport and food to get to New Orleans, both of which
he refused us," Captain Steel recalled. Their ordeal only got
worse. Evidently the Spanish officer suspected that the ship's
officers, crew, and strange mix of passengers were smugglers or even
spies. Or perhaps he saw an opportunity to enrich himself.
On April 8, Captain Thobar "seized our schooner, with all its sails,
tackle, equipment, passengers, crew, and merchandise, and took
everything (except the schooner) with him to a fort thirty leagues
inland," Steel lamented. "There he obliged the crew and
passengers to work until the 21st of May, when he ordered the
captain and pilot placed in stocks, keeping them so twenty-four days
on half rations, until an order arrived from the governor of that
province to set them at liberty." Not to be outdone by his
larcenous host, the Britannia's
supercargo, Philip Ford, representing the owners of the vessel,
after complaining about the crews' ill-treatment, made
a detailed list of the merchandise the ship had carried and the
Spanish now possessed, including the value of each item in Spanish
pesos. Thobar, meanwhile, forced the passengers and crew to work
at local haciendas to pay for their upkeep. Left on
the shore of Espiritu Santo Bay, the schooner became a victim of the
weather and the local Indians, who removed everything of value that
the Spaniards had not already taken. Finally,
on September 11, after the sailors and the passengers from the
Britannia had been held captive at La Bahía for five long
months, Don Rafael Martínez Pacheco, the newly-restored "commandant
of Fort Cokesaw"--the presidio of San Augustín de Ahumada
near El Orcoquisac on the lower Trinity River near present-day
Liberty, Texas--arrived at
The orders to Don Pacheco, passed on to the venal Captain Thobar, came from the new governor and captain-general of Spanish Louisiana, Don Alejandro O'Reilly, who had replaced the ousted Ulloa in July 1769. Pacheco, as ordered, escorted the hapless officers, sailors, and passengers of the Britannia to Natchitoches on the Red River via El Camino Real de Los Tejan, which, after a 420-mile overland trek, they reached on October 24. Oddly, one of the Lejeune orphans, Nanette, age 13, elected to remain at El Orcoquisac, for what reason is lost to history. O'Reilly ordered the Germans, ship's officers and crew to continue to New Orleans, which they reached by water on November 9. Most of the Germans moved on to San Gabriel or the German Coast. One family, the Millers, chose to settle on the Opelousas prairies. The captain-general expected the Acadians and the French-Canadians to remain at Natchitoches, but, typically, they refused, prreferring to settle near their kinsmen on the river or the prairies. O'Reilly's successor, Luis de Unzaga, released them from Natchitoches in April 1770 and ordered them to San Gabriel. The Rivets and Benoits remained there, but the Bellards, Trahans, Lejeune orphans, as well as the Canadian Primeaus, moved on to the Opelousas prairies, the Lejeunes, as suggested by Carl Brasseaux, perhaps to be closer to their sister in east Texas.245
After O'Reilly's succession, he decided to abandon the isolated post across from Natchez, essentially freeing the Maryland Acadians still languishing there. Soon after his decision to abandon the place, in December 1769, he decreed that the Acadians at Fort Fort San Luìs could settle where they wanted--their 21-month ordeal there was over. In 1770, all of them happily abandoned the place, and most of them chose to go to the Acadian Coast--Cabahannocer; San Gabriel (the fort also abandoned but the settlement still there); and the new district of La Fourche de Chitimachas, also called Ascension, between Cabahannocer and San Gabriel--where most of the other Maryland Acadians still lived. A few moved on to the western prairies. And then the river settlements fell silent. No more mass immigrations occurred in Louisiana for another 15 years, including from Maryland, from whence nearly half of the Acadians now in the Spanish colony had come.246
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania was one of the youngest of the English colonies, established in 1681 when William Penn the Younger received a royal charter from King Charles II in partial payment for a debt the king owed Penn's father. The younger Penn was a Quaker, a much-abused Protestant sect in England, so he insisted that the settlers of his new province not only practice religious tolerance, but also maintain good relations with the local Natives. As a result, Europe's persecuted flocked to Philadelphia, the colony's carefully planned city, which, in October 1682, Penn sited on the Delaware River near its confluence with the Schuykill. Oddly, Pennsylvania was the only one of England's seaboard colonies that did not lie directly on the Atlantic Ocean. The Delaware, however, was a substantial river which flowed into a magnificent eponymous bay, 52 miles long, that opened to the ocean at a 15-mile-wide strait between the lower New Jersey and Delaware shores. So advantageous was this port on the lower Delaware River that, by the 1750s, Philadelphia had become the most important city in the seaboard colonies. Though the city and the colony thrived economically, its political history was not exemplary. William Penn the founder died in 1718, and the proprietorship of the colony passed to his sons. In 1737, Penn's son Thomas Penn, then the colony's governor, foisted a giant land swindle, the Walking Purchase, on the Lenape nation, souring relations with the colony's Natives. By the early 1750s, the land-hungry Pennsylvanians, along with their fellow colonials from Virginia and Maryland, were clashing not only with the Natives, but also with the French from Canada for control of the headwaters of the Ohio River at the western edge of the colony. In 1754, the Virginians pushed the conflict with the French into armed conflict on Pennsylvania soil, and the following year the British over-reaction to the Virginians' defeat led to another, even more humiliating defeat, again on Pennsylvania soil. The western nations took full advantage of the colony's loss, and chaos erupted in the western country.248
Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence designated five transports full of over a thousand Acadians--582 exiles from Chignecto, 308 from Minas Proper, and 256 from Pigiguit--for war-scarred Pennsylvania. Two of them--the 95-ton schooner Boscowen, master David Bigham; and the 196-ton ship Union, master Jonathan Carthorne--left the anchorage at Chignecto on 13 October 1755, worked its way down the Bay of Fundy, slipped through the Gut, and anchored in the lower Annapolis Basin, waiting for the other transports. The two ships waited there for two long weeks, the hundreds of men, women, and children aboard anxioulsy awaiting their fate. On October 27, accompanying the two Chignecto vessels through the Gut and into the lower Fundy, were the three transports from the Minas Basin headed for Philadelphia: the 70-ton sloop Hannah, master Richard Adams, with 140 Minas Acadians aboard; the 80-ton sloop Swan, master Jonathan Loviette, with 168 Acadians; and the 69-ton sloop Three Friends, master Thomas Curtis, also called Carlile, with 156 Acadians from Pigiguit, 19 over capacity. Despite the fierce October gale that hit the 22 transports full of exiles and their four escorts as they debouched into the North Atlantic, the two sloops from Minas Proper reached Philadelphia without incident on November 19. The Hannah arrived with 137 of its original 140 exiles, and the Swan with 161 of its original 168. Meanwhile, the sloop from Pigiguit, the Three Friends, was driven by the storm to Boston, which it reached on November 15. After a quick turn around, it reached Philadelphia on November 21, only two days after the sloops from Minas got there. It may have arrived with its original contingent of 156 Acadians--454 exiles in all aboard the three vessels. Sadly, the schooner Boscowen and the heavily-laden ship Union, with their nearly 600 Chignecto exiles aboard, never reached Philiadelphia, probably lost at sea.249
Relations with the surprised officials at Philadelphia began to unravel as soon as the first of the three transports dropped anchor in the Delaware just below the city, an ironic response to the "great and noble Scheme" the Pennsylvania Gazette had crowed about back in July. The victims of that "great and noble Scheme," Carl Brasseaux asserts, "became the scapegoats for the colony's raging francophobia, resulting from successful French and Indian raids on the Keystone colony's western borders. These popular fears were soon translated into action by Pennsylvania Deputy Governor Robert Hunter Morris, who placed the exiles under armed guard aboard the three vessels.... He then detained a large contingent of provincial militia in Philadelphia to protect the colonial capital from the perceived (but non-existant) military threat posed by the unarmed exiles." What happened next was among the most cruel treatments of Acadian exiles by any colonial leadership. Morris refused to allow them to disembark and ordered them to be "kept under guard aboard the transports." As a consequence, "Acadian exiles succumbed to various epidemic diseases," including smallpox, Brasseaux relates. "These diseases posed a real threat to Philadelphia and spurred the provincial government into further negative actions." Informed by local doctors that the exiles all could die from the dreaded ailment unless they were removed from the transports, in early December Morris ordered the Acadians to be quarantined, "at the public's expense," on Province Island, at the mouth of the Schuykill, the site of the city's "pest-house," a safe distance from the city. Once "cured," the exiles could then return to the ships, where those who could would look after their loved ones while enduring the brutal Philadelphia winter. Beyond that, for now, official response was limited; the questions that had confounded leaders in other colony's arose among the leaders of this colony as well: were these so-called "French Neutrals" still subjects of the king? Did their refusal to take the unqualified oath make them any less so, and were they therefore ineligible for any more assistance? Or were they prisoners of war who their captives were obligated to house and feed at government expense? Morris consulted fellow leaders in other colonies, including Jonathan Belcher, Sr., governor of neighboring New Jersey, whose son Jonathan, Jr. was a member of Charles Lawrence's colonial Council in Halifax. Belcher, Sr., perhaps because of the influence wielded by this son, had refused to accept any exiles in his colony, and Lawrence sent him none. Still, the old man had an opinion about these Acadians. They were not "Neutrals," Belcher, Sr. insisted, but "'rather Traitors & Rebels to the Crown of Great Britain" and should be treated accordingly. Luckily for the exiles, cooler heads prevailed in the Quaker Colony, and so, for now, as winter came, the matter rested. "But for the intervention of a number of Quaker philanthropists, among them Anthony Benezet, a descendant of Huguenots" and a noted abolitionist, who visited the exiles on Province Island, "the Acadians would have gone without provisions," notes John Mack Faragher. "But upon Benezet's appeal, the Pennsylvania Assembly authorized emergency relief." "Only after the threat of contamination had subsided," Brasseaux observes, did the governor allow Acadians inside the city and "the Pennsylvania legislature seriously consider the long-term disposition of the exiles."250
Not until nearly three and a half months after their arrival, and only after more lobbying by Benezet and a testimony before the Assembly by Acadian Jean-Baptiste Galerne of Pigiguit of his fellow exiles' loyalty to the British Crown, did colonial officials decide what to do with them. (One can only imagine how the Philadelphia authorites would have handled the extra 582 of them who had died at sea!) On 6 March 1756, the governor signed a bill into law that "named four prominent Philadelphia Huguenots sympathetic to the plight of the Acadians to a commission to coordinate the dispersal of the Acadians throughout the easternmost Pennsylvania provinces," similar to the "solutions" being pursued by colonial leaders in other colonies, some of whom, along with Belcher, Sr., Governor Morris had consulted. "These commissioners," Carl Brasseaux explains, "were to place one Acadian [family] per county township, provided that the township wardens of the poor accepted them. The commissioners would also rent land for Acadian farmers, who were to be given a maximum of ten pounds' worth of agricultural implements to help them support themselves. Widows, orphans, and other exiles incapable of supporting themselves were to placed on the dole. All of these expenses were to be supported by the provincial war chest. The forgoing act was to remain in force for one year, at the expiration of which the Acadian exiles would presumably have been self-sufficient. The theoretical base upon which it was conceived was sound," Brasseaux asserts, "but the legislation failed miserably in practice." One could make a case, however, that the "theoretical base" of this elaborate plan was, in the face of Acadian "reality," serioulsy flawed and doomed to failure. First, the Acadians thought of family not as a nuclear unit but as an extended one, incompassing not just two but often three and four generations and numbering dozens of individuals living in close proximity. One Acadian family per township would not do for these people if the Pennsylvanians saw their families as only a father, a mother, and their dependant children. Moreover, though the great majority of the Acadians sent to this colony were farmers, and from the agricultural paradise of the Minas Basin at that, they were not upland farmers, as were most Pennsylvanians. They were, in fact, the only farmers in North America whose fields, which they themselves had created, lay below sea level, behind their amazing running dykes, which held back the highest tides on the planet. They could adapt to upland farming, of course, as Acadians who lived or moved outside the Fundy basin had done, but, despite their acumen as farmers, it would take them more than a year to become self-sufficient farmers, even if they wanted to.251
Brasseaux certainly was right about the legislators' plan failing
miserably in practice, and this had as much to do with the
Pennsylvanians themselves as with the stubborn Acadians.
"Most rural townships, in which the Acadian agriculturists could
conceivably have found a new life, refused to accept the exiles who
were almost universally viewed as a potential fifth column," Carl
Brasseaux explains. "Meanwhile, the Acadians themselves
refused to be dispersed, for they fully understood that such
dilution of their numbers would inevitably result in their
assimilation by the Anglo-Protestant majority," to them a fate worst
than death. They chose, then, to congregate in the city's
"slums," where "they remained on the government dole for the
duration of the Acadian dispersal act." One of the
Philadelphia "slums" where the Acadians chose to live was on
Chestnut Tree, near Anthony Bezenet's home and "a stone's throw
The end of the Seven Years' War finally came in February 1763. Soon after, the Acadians in Pennsylvania, like exiles in the other seaboard colonies, received a copy of the secret dispatch penned by the duc de Nivernois to the Acadians in England. Like their fellow Acadians, they believed that, after they compiled a list of their own and hurried it to France, King Louis XV would grant them much needed aid and find a place for them in the mother country, which did not happen. The date of their repatriation list--20 June 1763--hints that the Acadians in Pennsylvania had received their copy of Nivernois's dispatch before the exiles farther down the coast. Their "List of the Names and Numbers of All the Acadians Who are in Pinsilvenia" included Acadians and a few non-Acadians who bore the surnames Landry (six families), Aucoin (three families), Doiron, Blanchard (two families), LeBlanc (six families), Bisho (Bigeau, two families), Daigle (Daigre), Deschamps, LeCorfis (not Acadian), Giroir, Daili (?), Thibodeau (four families), Poirier, Bro (two families), Benoist (two families), Brasseau, Forain (Forest, two families), Cloutier, Scavoy (Savoy, two families), Emard, Bedard, Labos, Fauron, Bertrand, Migno, Martin, Bourg (two families), Ebourg, Clich (probably not Acadian), Babin (five families), Laudron, Hébert (two families), Doucet, Vincent (two families), Quisse (probably Quessy), Carron, Melançon, Godin, LePrince, Comeau, Mire, David, Boudreau, Langlois, Boutin, Guédry, Trahan, Beauserron, Canadien (not Acadian), Cornay (Cormier?), and Surreau. At the bottom of the list, an Acadian wrote: "'As we do not know how to sign, we have all in general made our mark.'" On the list were a hand full of Acadians--Pierre-Paul, called Paul, Boutin, wife Ursule Guédry, and their six children; Joseph Guédry, Ursule's brother, with his wife and three children; and Pierre Guédry, Ursule and Joseph's brother, described as "boy"--who had not come to Philadelphia in 1755 aboard any of the three transports from Minas and Pigiguit. They had been deported, instead, from Halifax to North Carolina in December 1755, among the few Acadians who had actually made it to that southern colony, and had been released during the war to move on to Pennsylvania in 1760. The following year, they would be among the first of the many Acadians in Pennsylvania who would move on to Maryland.254
Unable to return to France, the Acadians in Pennsylvania had 18 months to decide for themselves where they wanted to resettle. If they returned to their homes in Nova Scotia, they would find their former lands in the Minas Basin occupied by "planters" from New England, who had been urged to go there beginning in the spring of 1760. If they did resettle in Nova Scotia, they would have available to them only land in the rugged interior, where little could grow, or along the Atlantic, in the Cap-Sable area, or along the Baie St.-Marie, areas previously spurned by the aboiteaux builders because of the lower tides there. Canada was available to them, if they could stomach living under British rule and mistreatment at the hands of French Canadians. There was always the French Antilles, especially St.-Domingue. In 1764, some of them accepted the invitation of Charles-Henri, comte d'Estaing, governor-general of the French Antilles, to go to the sugar colony and work at Môle St.-Nicolas, where, on the northeastern end of the island, they were used as forced labor to clear away the jungle at the sight of a new naval base. Sadly, and predictably, Carl Brasseaux relates, many of them "died of tropical fevers, while their children perished from malnutrition and scurvy." Most of the Acadians in Pennsylvania, Brasseaux asserts, "remained in and around Philadelphia until the late 1760s, when they joined their relatives and friends exiled to neighboring Maryland in a massive migration to Louisiana" A few remained in the city.255
New York
Charles Lawrence, for a solid reason, sent only one transport to New York from the flotilla of transports that sailed out of the Annapolis Basin--the colony lay too close to the fighting along the western frontier, and was also too close to French Canada. The 136-ton brig Experiment, master Benjamin Stoddard, was loaded with 250 exiles from the Annapolis Royal valley, but not until December 8 was that ship and the other four transports full of Annapolis Acadians ready to sail. Unfortunately, they, too, ran smack into an autumn gale after they reached the Atlantic Ocean; only two of the transports made it without mishap to their destinations, one to Connecticut, the other to South Carolina. During the storm, the transport destined for North Carolina was seized by its passengers and ended up abandoned in the lower St.-Jean, where the Acadians escaped to nearby settlements. The other two transports, one heading to Connecticut, the other the Experiment, were blown far off course and were not able to land until they reached distant Antigua in the British Antilles. The Antiguan authorities evidently allowed the transport destined for Connecticut, the Edward, carrying 278 exiles, to remain at Antigua but sent the Experiment to nearby St. Kitts, where it arrived on 25 January 1756 and where it spent the winter. According to Carl Brasseaux, while the ship lay at anchor in the island harbor, "several Acadians escaped their captors and made their way to the French Antilles." "Unable or unwilling" to support the Acadians any longer, the local government at St. Kitts "transported some of the exiles to, and summarily abandoned them at, the Dutch colony of St. Eustatius (called St. Eustache by the French)." They ended up on the French island of Martinique, where they evidently remained. Master Stoddard did not leave St. Kitts with the majority of his charges until 20 April 1756. He reached New York harbor on 6 May 1756, with only 40 men, 45 women, 56 boys, and 59 girls, 200 exiles, down from 250, still aboard. Brasseaux notes that upon their arrival the survivors were described as "'poor, naked and destitute of every convenience."256
Interestingly, the Experiment was not the first transport full of exiles to reach New York City. While the Annapolis Acadians were enduring their five-month-long adventure, a force of British regulars struck the settlement of Pobomcoup near Cap-Sable in the spring of 1756. Most of the Acadians escaped, but the redcoats managed to round up nearly 200 of the fisher/habitants, loaded them aboard two transports, and sent them down the coast to North Carolina. The sloop Vulture, with its 72 exiles, got no farther than Boston. The other vessel, the 90 1/2-ton sloop, or perhaps a schooner, Mary, master Andrew Dunning, already had taken 182 exiles from Minas to Virginia the previous November and then returned to Nova Scotia. Now she held approximately 100 more exiles, but she, too, did not take them to North Carolina. The Mary reached New York harbor in late April 1756 with 94 exiles aboard. In July, the New York assembly emulated its neighboring colonies, especially Maryland, by adopting its own "Act to Empower the Justices of the Several County Courts," which allowed Governor Charles Hardy to disperse the colony's 300 or so exiles "throughout those New York counties farthest from French Canada--those on Long Island and Staten Island," which included New Rochelle and Rye in Westchester County; Richmond on Staten Island in Ricmond County; Easthampton, Southold, Southampton, Brookhaven, and Flushing on Long Island in Suffolk County; Flatbush on Long Island in King's County; and Jamaica, Bushwick, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Huntingon, and Newtown on Long Island in Queen's County. In late August, 78 men, women, and children from Georgia were found stranded on a beach on Long Island, their rickety vessel having sprung a leak as they were heading back up the coast to Nova Scotia. New York authorities, having been alerted to their coming, promptly arrested them. They, too, were distributed among several communites in lower New York, including Westchester Town, Phillipsburg, Yonkers, Bedford, Eastchester, North Castle, and Courtland Manor in Westchester County; in Orange County; and in Orange precincts south of the Highlands.257
Unfortunately for the Acadians, the July 1756 "Act to Empower" included a provision to allow New York authorities to indenture exiles who could not support themselves without being forced to labor. "Most Acadians found low-paying employment as farm laborers," John Mack Faragher notes, but, according to Carl Brasseaux, by late August 1756, "at least 110 of the 344 Acadians (32 percent) known to have lived in exile in New York," many of them children, had been indentured to New York colonists. The result was predictable. Not only did the Acadians raise a hue and cry about being separated from their children, but, Brasseaux relates, "A significant, but undetermined number of the Acadians thus indentured rebelled against forcible separation from their famililes by bolting for French Canada in 1757; most of the fugitives, however, were subsequently captured and imprisoned. The abortive escape attempt seems to have quelled further resistance, and the New York Acadians quietly endured captivity...." until the war finally ended.258
As in the other seaboard colonies, the Acadians in New York received a copy of the secret dispatch penned by the duc de Nivernois to the Acadians in England. And, like their fellow Acadians, they believed that, after they compiled a list of their own and hurried it to France, King Louis XV would grant them much needed aid and find a place for them in the mother country, which of course did not happen. An undated repatriation list, which genealogist/historian Stephen A. White says was dated 14 August 1763, lists 249 exiles, including unnamed wives and children, hopefully not all of the Acadians left in the colony! Those counted bore the following surnames: Aureillion (Orillion, two families), Garceau (two families), Dion, Lord (two families), Reuille, Sire, Boudreau (two families), deVaux or Devoux (two families), Bourgois (three families), Blanchard (two families), Dousset, Richard (three families), Signe, Mont, Martin (two families), Lanau, Commo (three families), Maillet (two families), Hébert, Gauet (Gaudet, two families), Jean or Medejan, Girouard, Norman, Jacob, Meichau, and Carneau.259
Interestingly, four families who evidently were among the Georgia voyagers who crashed on a Long Island beach in August 1756 and were sent to communities in the southern part of the colony for the rest of the war--the Cormiers, Landrys, Poiriers, and Richards--were not on the August 14 list. However, they do appear in a South Carolina repatriation list later in the month, and, by February 1764, were living in a new settlement on the river above New Orleans--the first documented Acadian exiles to settle in Louisiana. One suspects that these families who left New York before August 14 and headed south to South Carolina were not on their way to Louisiana but were heading to the destination of many of their fellow New York exiles--French St.-Domingue. If so, one wonders what would have turned them away from the French Antilles and towards the Mississippi valley colony. In 1764, as did hundreds of their fellow Acadians in Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, many of the New York exiles accepted the invitation of the governor-general of the French Antilles to go to St.-Domingue and work at Môle St.-Nicolas, where the French were constructing a new naval base. They, too, Carl Brasseaux laments, "shared the fate of their ill-starred confrères from Pennsylvania" as well as the other colonies--overwork, neglect, sickness, and death in a corner of the French empire so very different from their homes along the Fundy basin. Others went to Canada, and some may even have stayed in New York colony.260
Connecticut
Even before the first of the five transports destined for Connecticut anchored at New London, "the Connecticut legislature, in November 1755 ... passed a resolution authorizing the colonial governor," Thomas Fitch, "to take all steps necessary to dispose of any French Neutrals sent there for detention." The first transport, the 166-ton ship Elizabeth, master Ebenezer Rockwell, escaped a devastating late autumn gale and arrived at New London on 21 January 1756, with 277 Annapolis valley Acadians--42 men, 40 women, 95 boys, and 103 girls--aboard, down from the 280 it held when it left the Annapolis Basin the previous December 8. The following day, a sloop or schooner whose name and burden has been lost to history, master John Worster, landed with 173 more exiles, these from the Minas Basin. Eight days later, on January 30, the 87-ton sloop Dove, master Samuel Forbes, evidently reached Connecticut with 114 more Minas Acadians--a total of 564 exiles having reached the colony, with two more transports coming. Sadly, the 140-ton Two Sisters, master T. Ingram, which left the Annapolis Basin on October 13 with approximately 250 Annapolis exiles aboard, never reached Connecticut or any other colony; it probably had perished in the early autumn gale that sunk two other transports filled with Chignecto exiles heading to Pennsylvania. The fifth transport bound for Connecticut, the 139-ton snow Edward with 278 Annapolis Acadians aboard, had left the Annapolis Basin with the Elizabeth and other transports on December 8, but it did not arrive at New London in January, February, March, or April, and so was presumed to have been lost at sea. Finally, in late May 1756, the Edward appeared at New London with 180 exiles aboard, down from the 278 she had carried out of the Bay of Fundy. Like its sister ship in the December convoy--the Experiment, bound for New York--the Edward had been driven off course by the late autumn storm and ended up in faraway Antigua. There, a hundred or so of the exiles aboard the Edward died of malaria and smallpox, and there it spent the winter and much of the spring recuperating from the voyage. The Edward's New York-bound companion reached its destination in early May, but the Edward, evidently more heavily damaged by storm and illness, took longer to be ready for its return to the north. Its arrival drove the total number of exiles to reach Connecticut, between late January and late May, to 744.261
Meanwhile, Connecticut officials acted quickly in dealing with the first Acadian arrivals. Acting under the mandate of November 1755, Governor Fitch "convoked the legislature into emergency session ... and, under his guidance, bills were enacted to distribute the anticipated influx of exiles among fifty designated towns," which, except in Massachusetts, would have been the largest dispersal in any of the seaboard colonies. "The legislature also directed the 'selectmen'" or aldermen, "of each town to maintain the integrity of nuclear families in partitioning the anticipated waves of exiled immigrants," Carl Brasseaux goes on, which ignored the Acadian concept of family. "These local officials," the law decreed, "were also to provide public assistance to indigent and handicapped Acadians and to maintain strict controls over their able-bodied confrères to prevent them from departing their designated host communities and congregating into larger, potentially dangerous groups." There evidently was nothing in the bills to provide for the indenture of able-bodied Acadian men and women or, more importantly, the removal of Acadian children from their homes. As in Maryland, the distrubituion of the exiles in Connecticut, as ordered by the colonial Assembly, began almost immediately after the exiles' landing. "Little is known of their subsequent activities," Brasseaux relates, "other than the fact that their movements were severely restricted." Needless to say, the exiles, being Acadians, would have complained and cursed and protested vociferously about such treatment, and some may have attempted to move about as they damn well pleased, especially in trying to reunite with members of their extended families.262
What is known is that after the war finally ended in February 1763, the Acadians in Connecticut also received through their communication grapevine copies of the duc de Nivernois's secret missive to the Acadians in England promising them repatriation to France. Nivernois was true to his word, and the Virginia Acadians who had been shipped off to England, almost all of them from the Minas Basin like the Acadians in Connecticut, sent copies of Nivernois's dispatch to their kinsmen in North America, implying that they, too, could be repatriated to France. As in the other seaboard colonies, the Connecticut Acadians compiled a repatriation list of their own and sent it with a petition to King Louis XV beseeching him to bring them also to France. The list, dated 14 August 1763, the same date as the New York list, and entitled "General List of the Acadian Families Distributed in the Government of Konehtoket Who Desire To Go to France," counted 666 Acadians in the province with the following surnames, divided into several unnamed locations: Mireau, Bourg (five families), Jeansonne (two families), Amireau (three families), Dupuis (11 families), Doucet (five families), Orillion, Thibaud (two families), Lord (three families), Hébert (12 families), Forest (five families), Brun/LeBrun (four families), Leger, Breau (three families), Comeau (two families), Michel (three families), Miniot, Lanou (four families), Melanson, Blanchard, Granger (three families), Richard (five families), Robichaud (three families), Fontaine, Gaudet (two families), Gautreau, Fournos, Poirier (two families), LeBlanc (four families), Landry (four families), Belliveau (two families), Giroir (two families), Sidne, Babineau, Pitre, Puguau, Bourgeois (two families), Montaigne, Goulle, and Remon.263
And so they waited, weeks turning into months, but no promise of help came from France. So, like their confrères up and down the Atlantic seaboard, the Connecticut Acadians had to decide for themselves whether they would remain in this cursed New-English colony or resettle elsewhere. The great majority of them chose elsewhere. Carl Brasseaux notes that "When French assistance failed to materialize, some of the disgruntled Connecticut Acadians accepted the invitation of the Saint-Domingue government," specifically the comte d'Estaing, governor-general of the French Antilles. Though, ironically, the Connecticut authorities discouraged repatriation, in 1764 many of the Acadians slipped away from the colony and joined hundreds of their fellow Acadians at Môle St.-Nicolas at the northwest end of St.-Domingue to help construct a new French naval base. They, too, along with their families, sickened and died from the rigors of the tropical climate and the harsh working conditions in the jungles at Môle St.-Nicolas. Some, like Pierre Michel of Annapolis Royal, who had come to Connecticut as a teenager in and married there, escaped the killing conditions at Môle St.-Nicolas and moved inland to Mirebalais, near Port-au-Prince, to work on tobacco, coffee, or indigo plantations. Some stayed in the sugar colony, finding a place in its slave-based plantation system, while others, like Pierre Michel, now a young widower, looked for every opportunity to quit the place, which he did in 1765 or 1766 by hitching a ride with refugees from Halifax or Maryland passing through Cap-Français on their way to Louisiana. Brasseaux notes that, in 1767, another large group of Acadians in Connecticut, 240 of them, "led by their erstwhile parish priest," who he does not name, "pooled their resources, chartered the Pitt, a merchantman, and probably sailed for the St. John River Valley in New Brunswick or Quebec." Many others, emulating their compatriots in Massachusetts, found other ways to get to Canada, where Acadian refugees had settled since 1756 and remained there even after the province fell to the British in 1760. "Only a handful of Acadians," Brasseaux believes, "appear to have remained permanently in Connecticut."264
Massachusetts
"The Acadian experience in Massachusetts," Carl Brasseaux observes, "has traditionally been viewed as the darkest chapter of the diaspora. The conditions encountered by the exiles in Masschusetts, however, were generally no worse than those which they endured in other Atlantic seaboard colonies." And no other seaboard colony received as many Acadians exiles as the second oldest of the English colonies. In 1755, the formidable William Shirley, who had done so much to encourage Charles Lawrence and his colonial Council to deport the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who provided most of the troops to implement the removal, and who was preparing to send thousands of his New Englanders into the Fundy communities to take over the Acadians' lands, was still governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as well as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, and would remain so for another year. He, or more immediately his acting governor Spencer Phips, would soon receive more Acadian exiles than another other colonial governor. Four transports, two filled with exiles from Minas Proper, one from Pigiguit, and one from Annapolis Royal, were slated for his province. The first of them was expected to arrive in mid-or late November, after departing the Annapolis Royal Basin in late October. But then, on November 5, without warning, Boston Harbor was filled with half a dozen transports, five sloops and a schooner, that had left the Annapolis Basin in late October, heading for Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, was struck by a late autumn gale, and forced to seek shelter in Boston Harbor, with "approximately 2,000 Acadians aboard...." Knowing that their own expected transports were not far behind, Boston authorities hurried along any necessary repairs. Appalled by the conditions aboard the overloaded transports, on November 7, Massachusetts authorities removed from five of the transports 130 exiles who had been loaded at Minas and Pigiguit--the first Acadian deportees landed in the colony, "who were sheltered temporarily in the poorhouse." The first transport scheduled to go to Massachusetts, the 81-ton sloop Seaflower with 206 Acadians aboard, 18 over capacity, reached Boston Harbor on November 15, while some of the stranded transports still crowded the harbor. Four days later, the 166-ton ship Helena, master Samuel Livingston, with 323 Annapolis Royal Acadians aboard, anchored in Boston Harbor. The two remaining transports, carrying exiles from Minas still to be loaded, were not due to arrive for another month or so. On December 26, the schooner Racehorse, its burden unrecorded, master John Banks, reached Boston with 120 exiles aboard. On January 30, the 102-ton brig Swallow, master William Hayes, reached Boston with 236 more exiles--a total of 885 Acadians aboard the four scheduled ships. Add to that the 130 surprise arrivals in early December, and the grand total was a bit over a thousand. But there were more. According to Brasseaux, who offers no names or numbers, "Between December 26 and January 15, four more shiploads of Acadians were cast upon Massachusetts' shores." In the spring of 1756, a load of 200 Acadians captured near Cap-Sable by Massachusetts militia were deposited at Boston. In late July, a large party of Acadian voyagers coming up the coast from Georgia and heading home to Nova Scotia, seven boats containing "about one hundred men, women, and children," led by Chignecto waterman Jacques-Maurice Vigneau of Baie-Vert, beached their vessels at Sandwich on Cape Cod, "much in need of repairs and provisions." Massachusetts authorities stopped them from going any farther. After a few days under guard, they were taken to Boston. On August 18, the Massachusetts Council "ordered them distributed among several towns," and there they remained for the rest of the war. In light of all this coming and going, Brasseaux estimates that "perhaps as many as 1,500" Acadian exiles ended up in the Bay Colony, more than any other British seaboard colony.265
S
The a
And then the war
Typically
Acadian armed resistance
against the British began, or, more properly, resumed before the first
deportation transports left the Bay of Fundy in 1755. From the
beginning of this new war with Britain, as it had been
during the previous one, the center of Acadian
resistance was the trois-rivières region west
of Chignecto. Effective leaders are essential for
a successful resistance, but Lieutenant-Colonel Robert
Monckton's masterful capture of French forts Beauséjour
and Gaspereau in June 1755, followed by a series of
roundups of Acadian men from the Chignecto and
trois-rivières area, including the Beausoleil
Broussard brothers, had crippled, for a
time, Acadian resistance in the area. Moreover,
the most dangerous resistance leader of them all had
managed to slip away. While cleverly disguised,
the Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, head of the
Native bands in the region, slipped away during the
chaos of the fort's surrender and made his way back to
Québec, never to return. Still, there was
It was this young lieutenant who began to threaten the redcoats' hold on the area. In early September, while the Broussards were still enjoying an amnesty granted to them by Monckton after the fall of Beauséjour, Boishébert, some of his Canadians and troupes de la marine from the lower St.-Jean, the Broussards and other local partisans, and a small force of Indians following Boishébert, ambushed a large New-English raiding party from Fort Cumberland née Beauséjour under New-English Major Joseph Frye. A number of miles up the tide-churned Petitcoudiac lay the Broussards' settlement at today's Boundary Creek, so, essentially, they and his fellow partisans were defending their own homes when Frye and his Yankees came calling. The result was an embarrassing running retreat for the New-English marauders, who, up to the moment of the ambush, had, over a two-day period, burned 253 houses and barns in a number of area Acadian hamlets. Over the following weeks, Boishébert and his hodge podge force struck the redcoats whenever the opportunity arose, including at Baie-Verte and Fort Cumberland itself. He hoped to stop or slow the deportation of the area Acadians, but his force was too small and the enemy too numerous for him to fulfill such an ambitious mission.281
Without the cooperation of the navy, Monckton could not bag Boishébert and his men, who used the portage between the upper Petitcoudiac and the lower St.-Jean to take advantage of interior lines, but Monckton did have an ace in the hole to bring in the local partisans: his trusty New-English rangers. Sometime in September, the rangers brought in the two aging partisan leaders, Alexandre, age 56, and Joseph, age 53, along with Alexandre's second son, the 27-year-old Victor. Monckton ordered Joseph to be held with other partisans at Fort Lawrence, and Alexandre and son Victor remained with other partisans at Fort Cumberland. On October 1, two weeks before the transports full of Chignecto-area exiles left the landing at the mouth of the Missaguash and headed for the rendezvous in the Annapolis Basin, Joseph Broussard, several of his grown sons and nephews, and other partisans, 86 in all, escaped during a thunderstorm through a muddy tunnel they had dug from the barracks to the south curtain of Fort Lawrence, "above thiry Feet," Monckton lamented. The Acadian resistance was on again. Brother Alexandre and nephew Victor were not so lucky. When, on October 13, the eight transports with nearly 1,800 Chignecto-area Acadians aboard and three escort vessels left the Missaguash landing, one of the escorts, the HMS Syren, carried a special "cargo" in its hold--21 Acadians held in irons, including Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil and son Victor, heading for Charles Town, South Carolina.282
Other partisan bands operated in the area. One was led by Pierre Surette II of Chignecto, a friend of the Beausoleil Broussards for many years. Surette's father, Pierre I, a French-born mariner from La Rochelle, had come to Acadia by 1709, when he married a Pellerin at Port-Royal, a year before it fell to the British. The couple settled on the haute rivière above Annapolis Royal, where Pierre worked as a mariner-merchant as well as a farmer. Fluent in English, though he was no fan of the British, Pierre served as an interlocutor between his maritime customers at Minas and the authorites at Annapolis Royal. His oldest of three sons, Pierre II, born at Port-Royal in December 1709, married a Breau at Grand-Pré in 1732 and lived there for a time before moving on to Beaubassin, where his hatred of the British could be more fully expressed. He, too, was a farmer as well as a mariner, like his father. Pierre II and his brothers operated with the Broussards during King George's War, including the failed attack on Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal in 1746. Luckily for the Surettes, at war's end, none appeared on Governor William Shirley's list of Acadian outlaws, though, during the war, younger brother Paul had spent time in the dungeon at Fort Anne for running afoul of the British. Middle brother Joseph, married to a Thériot, did not live to see Le Grand Dérangement; he drowned in the Petitcoudiac near his home in c1750. When Fort Beauséjour fell five years later, brother Paul was still a bachelor, in his mid-30s, and, after escaping the roundup at Annapolis Royal, may have joined his brother in the Acadian resistance. When the roundup began at Chignecto, or perhaps before it began, Pierre II and his family most likely headed to the trois-rivières, where wife Catherine and the children would be safe. Pierre II either joined Joseph Beausoleil and his partisans or organized a band of his own. The winter of 1755-56 witnessed a number of attacks by the Broussards and Boishébert's men and perhaps by Surette's band as well. In retaliation, they, too, were struck hard by rangers out of Fort Cumberland, and Pierre II and dozens of others were held there as prisoners. Pierre II, like his father fluent in English, ingratiated himself with the officers there while he and his fellow partisans prepared an escape. On the night of 26 February 1756, 80 Acadians, led by Pierre II, tunneled their way out of Fort Cumberland and, à la Joseph Broussard and his men the previous October, escaped into the countryside.186
So the resistance continued. In the summer of 1756, Joseph Broussard and his men were operating either from their homes on the upper Petitcoudiac or from Cocagne, Boishébert's new headquarters on the Gulf shore, where Joseph welcomed two members of his merry band he may not have expected ever to see again. Back in February, brother Alexandre and nephew Victor had escaped from a work house at Charles Town, South Carolina, with half a dozen other Acadians, raided a plantation on the lower Santee River, made their way crosscountry to the foothills of the Appalachians, and followed the myriad Indian trails across the face of the mountains to Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. From there they pushed on via the lower Great Lakes and the upper St. Lawrence to Montréal and Québec, canoed down to Rivière-du-Loup, followed the portage via Lac Pohénégamook to the headwaters of Rivière St.-Jean, canoed down that river to its lower stretches and, finally, after a few more portages, home. One can only imagine the joy of Alexandre's wife Marguerite and her other children when they were able to hug their loved ones again. Sadly, the other Acadians who had joined Alexandre and Victor in their mad escape did not survive the punishing trek.283
Meanwhile, the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet, encouraged by Abbé Pierre Maillard from his mission in the interior of Île Royale and by other missionaries in the region, also continued their resistance against the British. The petit guerre that Abbé Le Loutre had fomented six years earlier was now, for the Natives, war against their red-coated enemy on a grander scale.339
Despite the efforts of Abb
T
And so they were.
I
When spring finally came, 120 Acadians left for
Québec
While the British were gathering up the Acadians in Nova Scotia during the fall of 1755, Marguerite Mius d'Azy of Port La-Joye, Île St.-Jean, and her new husband, Jean Delâge dit Langlois, left the island for Québec, where Marguerite died in early October 1755, age 36--perhaps the first Acadian to die in Canada during Le Grand Dérangement. Soon after and in the following years, many more Acadians followed Marguerite and her husband to the St. Lawerence valley, and many more would die there.
Early in their exile, Acadian refugees from Chignecto,
the trois-rivières, and the Annapolis valley chose to
put a substantial distance between themselves and their
British tormentors. During late summer of 1755, as soon a
By the
During the first week of August 1756, as the Annapolis
valley refugees began their trek up the St.-Jean portage, 49
families at Miramichi fled the scarcity of food there.
Some crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean, but others
headed north to Québec. Sometime that year, New-French
authorities changed their policy and allowed Acadians
from dangerously-overcrowded
In summary, between 1755 and 1763, "approximately 1,850 Acadians sought refuge in Quebec. Between 1756 and 1759, 488 Acadians died in Quebec City, including 335 who succumbed to smallpox and famine during the winter of 1757-1758. About 200 of the survivors returned to their homeland in 1759. By the end of the period, the colony was home to approximately 1,162 Acadians." No more Acadians seemed to have come to Canada between 1760 and 1766, when the far-northern province permanently changed masters. Then the flood gates were thrown open, making British Canada one of the central destinations of wayward exiles looking for a home.293
The French Maritimes, the Fall of Louisbourg, and the Deportation of the Maritimes Acadians, 1754-1759
In early 1752, three years before the Acadian Grand
Dérangement,
the governor of Île Royale, Jean-Louis, comte de
Raymond, sent Joseph, sieur de La Roque,
a young engineer, to survey the colony's physical assets
as well as its population.
The result was a model of its kind. The young
sieur's census included
In 1756, de Villejoin sent island refugees to Québec to relief the overcrowding. Some crossed Mer Rouge on their own to the Acadian refugee camp at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore in hopes of finding better living conditions, but what they found there was even worse than what they had left. One group of refugees de Villejoin sent to Québec did not make it there. What happened to them next is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Acadian diaspora. The year before, a group of women and children from Chignecto, separated from their husbands and fathers during the deportation there, sought refuge in the trois-rivières. Though their husbands had been sent to the seaboard colonies, probably South Carolina, their priest, Abbé François Le Guerne, advised them to go to Île St.-Jean. There they suffered along with other islanders when their food supplies gave out, so, in late October, de Villejoin sent to them to Québec by ship, 150 in all. A British warship seized the vessel off the Gaspé peninsula and took the women and children to Halifax, where, at the beginning of November, they were supposed to have been exchanged for British sailors captured by French privateers. The exchange fell through, and the women and children were held for several months on Georges Island in the middle of the harbor, "sleeping in the open air, most of them with nothing for covers, their bits of rag having been taken from them when they were captured." To keep them from freezing during the hard winter, they were finally "exchanged" and shipped off to Louisbourg, from which they would be taken to Canada, but they spent the winter of 1756-57, instead, at Baie-des-Espagnols on the north shore of Île Royale, where "Some of the young Acadian women married Acadian men or French soldiers based there." During the summer of 1757, the ship that was supposed to transport them to Canada was lost in a British raid at Baie-des-Espagnols. They did manage to get to Québec that fall, "by which time several had died of smallpox" probably in the epidemic that hit the Canadian capital from the summer of 1757 to the summer of 1758.
No effort to relieve overcrowding on the island succeeded; it remained, instead, a refuge for Acadians fleeing British oppression in Nova Scotia or the appalling conditions in the refugee camps along the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. Two years later, in 1758, on the eve of the island's dérangement, "there were slightly fewer than five thousand inhabitants on Île Saint-Jean, mostly Acadians," Earle Lockerby notes. "The inhabitants were distributed largely from Malpec in the west to the eastern tip of the Island, in a number of discrete communities comprising five parishes. The bulk of the population lived on the eastern half of the island," facing Île Royale.294
The Seven Years' War, as the current conflict was called, officially had begun in 1756, but its longer iteration, called in North America the French and Indian War, had begun in the Ohio country in 1754. In the first three years of fighting, the North American war generally had been fought in favor of French arms. In 1757, the new commander of British forces in North America, John Campbell, the Earl of Loudoun, who replaced William Shirley, was ordered to attack both Québec and Louisbourg. Delays, both political and military, in London and New York, postponed both operations. After Secretary of State for the Southern Department William Pitt the Elder took over military matters in London, he ordered Loudoun to concentrate first against Louisbourg before moving against Québec. The French learned of the British plan and promptly reinforced Louisbourg. In August, Loudoun and British Admiral Francis Holburne prudently called off the operation. In September, a gale shattered Holburn's fleet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the attack against Louisbourg was postponed indefinitely. Loudoun, back in New York, amid the constant squabbling with colonial governors and assemblies, turned his attention to Lake Champlain, the door to Montréal. However, British diasasters in Germany under the King's son, the Duke of Cumberland, led to more power and influence for Pitt. With the King's approval, Pitt relieved Loudoun of command in December (but Loudoun did not know of it until the following March) and replaced him with his second in command, Major-General James Abercromby. The new commander-in-chief in North America, however, would not be going to Louisbourg. In January 1758, soon after Loudoun's removal, Pitt chose newly-promoted Major-General Jeffery Amherst, recently serving in Germany, to command the movement against the French citadel.295
From his base at Halifax, Amherst wasted no timing moving against Louisbourg. With him were two familiar figures in the expulsion of the Acadians of Nova Scotia three years earlier: Charles Lawrence, now a brigadier-general and still governor of Nova Scotia; and Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen, who had given Lawrence and his Council tacit approval for the unauthorized removal of the Acadians. Also with Amherst were two more brigadiers, James Wolfe and Edward Whitmore, who Amherst would leave as military governor after Louisbourg's surrender. A year later, Wolfe would win everlasting fame before the walls of Québec in Canada, and it was Wolfe who led the successful British landing at Anse de la Cormorandière (today's Kennington Cove) on Gabarus Bay, "about four miles southwest of the fortress," on June 8, the first day of the nearly two-month-long campaign. Amherst conducted his siège en forme flawlessly, and the citadel's defenders, under Governor Augustin de Boschenry de Drucour, called Chevalier de Drucour, did what they could to delay the inevitable. Under cover of a heavy fog on the night of July 25, Boscawen's sailors destroyed and captured the two remaining French ships-of-the-line in the harbor, one of them the flagship of the French squadron. Amherst then unleashed a merciless 12-hour bombardment of the city, compelling Drucour to ask for terms. Amherst, despite being new to North American warfare, was nonetheless aware of the legacy of Fort William Henry. At the head of Lake George, New York, the summer before, after a six-day siege, the fort's garrison was compelled to surrender. The victor, the Marquis de Montcalm, had accorded British Colonel George Monro and his men the "the honors of war," whereby "the defenders would be allowed to keep their colors, personal property, small arms, and perhaps even a symbolic cannon, and would be allowed to withdraw on parole--that is, having given their word that they would not appear in arms for a stated period--without being made prisoners of war." However, soon after Monro and his garrison left the fort, on their way back to the nearest British lines, the Indians allied with Montcalm attacked the column and killed and scalped British soldiers and officers and even their wives and children--one of the darkest moments of the French and Indian War. And so Amherst refused to grant Drucour and his garrison "all honors," such as Montcalm had offered Monro at Fort William Henry. Instead, historian Fred Anderson explains, Amherst decreed that "[t]he town would not be opened to plunder and the civilians within it would be allowed to retain their personal effects, but all those who had resisted in arms would be made prisoners of war and transported to England. Louisbourg's civilian population, along with the rest of the inhabitants of Cape Breton and the neighboring island of St.-Jean (today's Prince Edward Island) would be deported to France: in all, more than eight thousand men, women, and children. No longer would Britain count only the soldiers of the King of France their enemies; at least in New France, civilians would also be subject to military action"--as the Acadians of Nova Scotia knew very well.296
Earl Lockerby, historian of the Acadian expulsion from
Île St.-Jean,
Amherst chose for the Île St.-Jean mission an aging lieutenant-colonel, 58-year-old Andrew Rollo, Fifth Baron Rollo, of Scotland. Rollo was second in command of the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment of Foot, commanded by Colonel Edward Whitmore, now one of Amherst's brigadiers and military governor of Louisbourg. The regiment, as well as Rollo, was recently brought to North America, so Rollo was new to the theatre. Amherst issued his orders to Rollo on August 8: he would hurry to Port-La-Joye, the military headquarters of Île St.-Jean, with 500 men, a number appropriate for his rank, in four transports, the King of Prussia, the Dunbar, the Bristol, and the Catherine, from Boscawen flotilla. Most of the men, 300, would be regular infantry drawn from his own and three other regiments, along with 200 light infantry, also redcoats, and fearsome New-English rangers. The transports would hold not only the men but also three-months worth of "victuals." Also aboard the transports were "one thousand palisades, boards, spikes, nails, and tools to be used by 300 men to construct a redoubt, or fort," at Port-La-Joye. Drucour was instructed to send with Rollo "two or three of his officers from Louisbourg to inform the garrison" at Port-La-Joye "and inhabitants" on the island "of the articles of capitulation." The HMS Hind, 24 guns, under Master Robert Bond, would escort the flotilla to its destination via the Strait of Canso, the most direct route from Louisbourg to the south shore of Île St.-Jean. Rollo also was ordered to inform the island's habitants to "surrender themselves and their firearms." A hundred of his men would build and garrison the new fort at Port-La-Joye, to be named Fort Amherst. Amherst expected Rollo, once the fort had been built and the inhabitants rounded up, to return the other 400 men, along with the habitants they had just rounded up, on the four transports back to Louisbourg! If the transports could not hold the remaining men and the hundreds of habitants, they were to send first the habitants to Louisbourg and then return to Port-La-Joye to pick up the men not needed to man the new fort.298
Orders in hand, Rollo and the flotilla, with the Hind in the lead, "cleared" Louisbourg on August 10, sailed through the Strait of Canso on the 13th, and the Hind arrived at the entrance to the harbor at Port-La-Joye on the early afternoon of August 17. The French commander at Port-La-Joye, which had served as the "capital" of the island since the 1720s, sent out "a boat bearing a flag of truce." Captain Bond sent his own cutter out to meet the boat. An hour later, Bond "fired a gun and," as ordered by Commandant Gabriel Rousseau de Villejoin, fils, "the Fort," along with the island, "surrendered" without firing a shot of its own. The Hind and its consorts then anchored in the roomy harbor, and Île St.-Jean, like Île Royale, no longer belonged to France.299
De Villejoin was not surprised by the arrival of a British force, having already learned of the fall of Louisbourg and well aware of his inability to defend the island. The size of the British force was a surprise; he expected the British to send only a packet boat to remove him and his small garrison, not all of the island's habitants! "It is unlikely however that the population was caught totally unawares," Earl Lockerby believes, "and in all probability they had taken some precautions. Louisbourg had been under threat for two or three years, and the inhabitants of Île Saint-Jean had known for some time that their situation was precarious. In the summer of 1756 Villejouin issued arms to some civilians, and had some stores moved up the Rivière-du-Nord Est (later named the Hillsborough River)" from Port-La-Joye. "He had also advised farmers to conceal their families and livestock in the woods as a drill to enhance their awareness of the need for defensive tactics, and to improve their ability to implement them if required." Many of the habitants were not only farmers but fishermen and thus in possession of their own boats. The relative few of them living on the western side of the island, at Malpèque near the northwest shore, and at Bédec, La Traverse, Rivière-des-Blonds, and Rivière-aux-Crapauds on the southwest shore, were in easy distance from the Acadie mainland via Mer Rouge. Bringing them in would be difficult, if impossible, if they were given enough warning of a roundup on the rest of the island. Fisher/habitants on the eastern shore of the island, at Tranchmontagne near Pointe de l'Est and at Havre-de-la-Fortune and Trois- Rivières farther down the eastern shore, likely had boats of their own as well, but escape to the North Shore of mainland Acadie would be more problematic for them. As for the great majority of the island's habitants settled along Rivière-du-Nord Est and its tributaries, from Port-La-Joye up to Rivière-du-Nord-Est, they lived in a virtual cul-de-sac from which there would be little chance of escape. Fisher/habitants on the southeast hump of the island, from Grand-Anse down to Anse-à-Pinnet, also were sitting ducks for ship's boats full of sailors could reach them easily from Royal Navy vessels lying off shore.300
While his infantrymen hurriedly built Fort Amherst and the transports discharged their supplies, Rollo launched his roundup. Not only the French garrison but also any administrative personnel on the island were targeted first. Rollo reasoned that "The speedy capture and incarceration of French soldiers and officials" would send "a strong signal to the inhabitants that they should surrender without resistance," which revealed his naivité about the nature of these people. On the first full day of the island's occupation, August 18, taking advantage of 'moderate and fair' weather, a detachment of Bond's men headed up Rivière-du-Nord Est "'to bring down some French prisoners.'" The following day, the 19th, down they came with "'the French prisoners and three 6 Pounders.'" One wonders who alerted the sailors to the location of the prisoners and their cannon. Earle Lockerby notes that the small French battery lay "on the north side of the Hillsborough River, slightly downstream of an island known today as Rams Island (formerly known as McNally's Island) near present-day Frenchfort," half way up the river. French soldiers and officials, along with hundreds of the habitants, were not the only victims of Rollo's roundup. The Hind," Lockerby relates, "received on-board ten steers and nineteen sheep 'for the use of the Ship's Company.'" One suspects that the sailors aboard the transports also brought aboard whatever they could steal from the islanders and that the infantrymen built not only sturdy walls for the defense of Fort Amherst, but also sturdy pens for more four-legged contraband the soldiers and the rangers could get their hands on. On August 24, two schooners, likely taken from fisher/habitants, followed on the 26th by another schooner, came down the river full of "prisoners from the head of the river." By then the roundup was in full swing and continued unabated until August 31, when the transports reached their limit. On that day, "the convoy, with 692 passengers," weighed anchor and, once again escorted by the Hind, headed back to Louisbourg the same way it had come. The ships reached the citadel on September 4, bearing a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Rollo, who had remained on Île St.-Jean. In the letter, Rollo boasted that "most of the inhabitants had 'brought in their arms & (would) embark for Europe.'" Admiral Boscawen, still at Louisbourg, noted that five transport under escort came in, so Rollo likely had sent to Louisbourg one of the confiscated French schooners also loaded with islanders.301
Aboard the flotilla was former commandant de Villejoin and his officers. On September 8, probably using a cipher, de Villejoin wrote a letter, which he carefully concealed, to the hapless Drucour's superior, the Minister of Marine in France, which detailed what he had observed on Île St.-Jean. He guessed that habitants in the outlying settlements, especially on the southwest shore, had crossed Mer Rouge in boats of their own and sought refuge at Boishébert's camp at Miramichi, the place of so much misery. He probably did not know that these escapees, seeing the sad state of the camp, hurried back to the island to submit to deportation. He may have heard from the gossip of the British officers that Amherst and Boscawen were sending an amphibious expedition to Boishébert's, which arrived at Miramichi Bay on September 15 and spent three fruitless days trying to get to the camp, 10 leagues up the river. De Villejoin also reported that Rollo allowed two of the island's priests, Pierre Cassiet and Jean Biscarat, to go to Louisbourg "with a petition from the inhabitants of the island, requesting that they be allowed to remain on their lands." The request of course was refused. De Villejoin informed the minister "that seven hundred settlers had been made to embark when he had, and," strangely, "that they were still in the harbor of Port-la-Joie." Since Boscawen did not send additional transports to Port-La-Joye until early October, the 700 habitants held there with de Villejoin on September 8 could have been crowded aboard whatever schooners and other sea-going craft Rollo and his men could confiscate. Or, more likely, Earle Lockerby asserts, the 700 prisoners at Port-la-Joye described by the former commandant were the ones who had been sent out in the four transports with de Villejoin and his officers on August 31 and the commandant may have finished his letter to the minister at Louisbourg and dated it there September 8. De Villejoin informed the minister that "four thousand settlers remained to be deported, and expressed doubt that Rollo would succeed in taking them all that year. He also estimated that there were more than six thousand cattle on the island, the same number reported about a year earlier by Governor[-General] Vaudreuil in Québec."302
Wherever de Villejoin may have been on September 8, his letter to the minister was clear--the roundup on Île St.-Jean was only just begun. De Villejoin informed the minister that the British plan for removing the people of the colony was now clear--his wife and children, along with other families of Île Royale military personnel, were not, like their husbands, prisoners of war. They would be sent to France, probably to the naval base at Rochefort. De Villejoin, his officers and men, and the officers and men of the Louisbourg garrison, were, according to Amherst's articles of surrender, prisoners of war. They, first the officers and then the men, would be sent to England, where they would be held until the British saw fit to repatriate them to France. The thousands of habitants on the two islands, who were civilians and thus not prisoners of war, would be as quickly as possible repatriated to France, a place many of them had never seen.303
And so it happened. The first to depart Louisbourg were Governor Drucour, his family, and 53 of his officers from Île Royale on August 15, exactly four years after Drucour had assumed the governorship there. After the required stay in England, Drucour and the officers were repatriated at Dunkerque but "were in such wretched condition that they had to be given money to continue their journey home." Nineteen French officers and 24 other, probably officials, including de Villejoin, departed a few weeks later aboard the HMS York, Captain Hugh Pigot, which left Louisbourg on September 13. After a difficult passage, the York reached Spithead, near Portsmouth, by October 27. According to Earle Lockerby, "The French soldiers of the garrison at Port-la-Joie, numbering less than one hundred," also "were shipped from Louisbourg to England, as were roughly three thousand soldiers comprising the garrisons of Louisbourg and other military posts on Île Royale. While some of the military prisoners may have been detained in England, perhaps until the close of the Seven Years' War in 1763, many were transferred to France during the fall of 1758 and the first half of 1759."
After his repatriation to France in 1759, de Villejoin, who remained in naval service, received a number of promotions that verified his having received the Cross of St.-Louis for valorous service back in 1748. He was made garrison adjutant at Rochefort in 1759 and succeeded his predecessor on Île St.-Jean, Bonnaventure, as inspector of all colonial troops in May 1760, not long before the fall of Canada. In January 1763, on the eve of the signing of the Treaty of Paris and after his promotion to lieutenant-colonel, de Villejoin was named governor of Désirade in the French Leeward Islands. Three of his sons, after receiving commissions, joined him there. In 1768, when the government of Désirade was subsumed by that of Guadaloupe, de Villejoin returned to France and was promoted to brigadier-general that November. He retired soon after and ended his days at St.-Jean-de-Angély, near Rochefort, in Saintonge, southwestern France, in November 1781, age 72.304
The York was only one of many September crossings. For much of the month, through the 27th, at least nine transports, evidently unescorted, left Louisbourg laden with troupes de la marine bound for England and habitants from both islands bound for France. One, maybe two, of the transports held the bulk of the Acadians rounded up on Île St.-Jean by Rollo and his men. These vessels included the Duke of Cumberland, master Thomas Hurry, which left Louisbourg on September 4 with 327 "Fr. Prisoners," as Admiral Boscawen described them, bound for La Rochelle, where the vessel would pick up 38 "'English Prisoners in exchange and carry them to Plymouth.'" On September 10, the Richmond, with 284 aboard, and the Britannia, 312 passengers, left Louisbourg also for La Rochelle, where they would pick up 248 more British prisoners and "convey them to Plymouth." Also in September, the Antelope, 86 aboard; another, much smaller, Britannia, 89 aboard; the Duc Guillaume, 346 aboard; and the Queen of Spain, 108, aboard, all Louisbourg and Île Royale non-combatants destined for Breton ports. Aboard the Antelope, one passenger died at sea, 78 disembarked, and seven more died after arrival at St.-Malo on November 1. The smaller Britannia, headed for Brest at the western tip of Brittany, lost eight at sea, one in hospital after arrival on October 26, and seven died "without notation." The Duc Guillaume also reached St.-Malo on November 1 but barely. A mid-ocean mishap, probably an explosion, resulted in 148 of its 347 passengers dead at sea and 37 dying soon after arrival; only 283 of its many passengers survived the crossing. The Queen of Spain reached St.-Malo on November 17 after a difficult crossing, losing 58 dead at sea, more than half of its passengers. On September 27, the Sukey and the 600-ton Mary, master Alex Donaldson, the largest transport employed by the British, set off from Louisbourg "with more than 600 prisoners," an amazing 560 aboard the Mary, all Acadians from Île St.-Jean. Here was the victims of Rollo's first roundup, who had reached Louisbourg on September 4. The overburdened transport was destined for St.-Malo but got only as far as Spithead, near Portsmouth, which, after a five-week voyage, it had reached at the end of October "in great distress." In fact, it was reported, the ship's captain had "buried 250 to 260 passengers at sea, mostly children," half of the Mary's passengers, most, it seemed, having died from a contagious "Malignant Distemper." On November 1, an official at Spithead warned the Admiralty in London that "the Mary was very leaky, that her pumps were constantly going, and she was unable to continue the voyage." He also informed London that most of the survivors were still aboard the Mary, would remain there, and that those who had left the ship would be rounded up and returned. The Admiralty ordered that the stricken vessel be removed to nearby Ryde and that, after revictualling, two transports be sent to take aboard those passengers who were not too ill to travel. The Mary still lay at Ryde on November 12, when the Admiralty was informed that the crews of the two smaller transports had deserted for fear of contracting "Distemper." The remaining passengers still remained aboard the stricken ship, pleading to be sent to any port in France. On that day, a surgeon who had been aboard the Mary reported that "he did not believe the illness aboard the ship was contagious..., that the passengers' 'Disorders seem to proceed more from the want of the Necessaries of Life, than any other thing.'" Further consultation with the surgeon revealed to an Admiralty official "that the passengers appeared to be starving and were almost naked.'" In addition, he wrote to London, "'Their having been so much crowded, and breathing consequently foul Air, and lying Dirty, he (the surgeon) thinks to be the occasion of the Loss of such numbers as have already Dyed.'" Meanwhile, authorities in Spithead informed their superiors in London that Captain Donaldson "had not treated the passengers well on the voyage, and had been negligent toward them after arriving in England." The Admiralty's reaction was predictable: the naval bureaucrats were concerned not only with the health of the passengers, but also with their appearance, "some of the women and Children being Naked," which their French counterparts would not appreciate. To alleviate this embarrassment, it was suggested that the passengers be given fresh clothing, as well as a "larger allowance of Provisions." On November 12, the fear of contagion having been dissipated, the sickest of the passengers were placed aboard the tender Desire, now with a replacement crew, and the more able placed aboard the tender Bird, also with a replacement crew. Three days later, the Admiralty ordered that a French surgeon and some medicine be placed aboard both tenders and that the passengers, when they were able to travel, be taken from Portmouth to the nearest French port, which was Cherbourg in Normandy, under a flag of truce. The "packet boats," as the French called the tenders, reached Cherbourg in late November, the last of the September crossing to reach its destination. But the suffering of the Mary's survivors was not over. French authorities reported that the captain of one of the packet boats, the Desire, as soon as he dropped off the passengers at the Cherbourg dock, hurried back to Portsmouth "without unloading chests containing the prisoners' personal effects and some silver." Moreover, "Items stolen from the prisoners were found on the harbourmaster's premises at Cherbourg, implicating him in the affair." After an investigation, the Admiralty punished the captain and crew of the Desire for their thievery. Meawhile, Earle Lockerby notes, on November 17, Captain Donaldson of the Mary was ordered "to proceed with his vessel under convoy to the British port where the Mary would be discharged from Admiralty service. This appears to have been a routine order, not a censure or a disciplinary action."305
These September voyages cleared out most of the soldiers and civilians on Île Royale, which the British now called, again, Cape Breton Island, but British authorities had seriously underestimated the number of fisher/habitants on Île St.-Jean, now called St. John's Island. Hundreds more of them rounded up by Rollo and his men waited on the island for more transports. Admiral Boscawen admitted that he and other British officials "had estimated the total population" on the island "was only four or five hundred," but Rollo took only a few weeks to demonstrate that the number of island fisher/habitants actually was in the thousands, not the hundreds. On September 8, within days of the Rollo's transports returning to Louisbourg from Île St.-Jean, the admiral "'order'd 13 Transports to be supplied with two months provisions from the Commissary of Stores, for 3450 French Prisoners to received on board them at the Isle St. Johns.'" The new transports, also of them sustantial vessels, soon appeared as ordered and hurriedly took on commissary stores. They were, according to Earle Lockerby, the 343-ton Briton, master James Wilson, with eight guns; the 400-ton Duke William (not to be confused with the soon-to-be damaged Duc Guillaume), master William Nichols, 10 guns; the 239-ton John & Samuel, master William Dobson, six guns; the 193-ton Mathias, master Thomas Dobbins, six guns; the 234-ton Neptune, master John Beaton, six guns; the 424-ton Parnassus, also called the Narcissus, master William Johnson, seven guns; the 183-ton Patience, master Daniel Stephens, six guns; 177-ton Restoration, master Stephenson Haxton, six guns; the 380-ton Ruby, master William Kelly, six guns; the 189-ton Supply, master William Wallace, three guns; the 215-ton Tamerlane, master Charles Suttie, six guns; the 247-ton Three Sisters, master Christopher Douson, six guns; the 315-ton Violet, master Benjamin Suggitt, seven guns; and the 375-ton Yarmouth, master Samuel Henry, eight guns. By September 11, Boscawen "had directed Charles Hay, agent for the transports, to proceed under convoy of the Hind to Île Saint-Jean with fourteen transports to take on board all the prisoners." Once loaded with their human cargo, their destination would be St.-Malo in northeast Brittany, a major entrepôt for French trade with Britain and the rest of Atlantic Europe. There, as with the other transports full of Cape Breton prisoners soon to be sent to France, they would swap island "prisoners" for English prisoners and, in this case, convey them to London.306
The second round of deportations was well on its way. On September 14, the Hind led its convoy of 14 armed transports, plus "a schooner and another vessel," out of Louisbourg harbor, and headed down and around the Cape Breton shore to the Strait of Canso. Foul weather made it difficult for Captain Bond, still in command of the Hind, to keep the large convoy together, but they made it through the strait, where Bond counted several British vessels, cleared Saint Georges Bay, rounded Cape George, and reached Picto Island, between St. John's Island and the mainland, on the 26th. According to Earle Lockerby, the Hind and some of transports stood off the big island's East Point on the 27th, clearly off course. "There the Yarmouth grounded," Lockerby notes. Other transports came to the rescue, and the Yarmouth floated free the following day. Heading back south, by the 29th "squalls had pushed the Hind back into Saint Georges Bay," from whence it had come. Meanwhile, "authorities in Louisbourg," probably Boscawen, decided "that additional vessels were required at Île Saint-Jean." On September 18, as the Hind and its charges made their way down the Cape Breton shore, Boscawen added to Bond's flotilla the 252-ton Richard & Mary, master John Moore, five guns; the 95-ton Scarborough, master Jonathon Fellour, no guns; and another transport named Mary, not to be confused with the large transport that soon would leave Louisbourg harbor not for St. John Island but, carrying "prisoners" from that island, heading to St.-Malo, France--17 transports under Bond's command to take away the island habitants.307
By October 3, Captain Bond finally completed his mission--his flotilla of over a dozen transports lay at anchor in Port-La-Joye harbor. The following day and again on the 6th, Bond sent sloops up Rivière-du-Nord-Est, into the heart of the island, to round up cattle and bring them back down to the port. Meanwhile, much time and effort was spent loading more provisions onto the transports, as well as "'wooding the ships,'" as the sailors called it, which most likely meant loading each vessel with an adequate supply of firewood. Bond also put his tars to work brewing spruce beer. On the 14th, a schooner, perhaps the one that Bond had brought along, appeared with 50 habitants from Pointe-Prime, which lay along the southeastern shore of the island across a small bay from the entrance to the harbor at Port-La-Joye. Here was evidence that Rollo's roundup had spread beyond the valley of Rivière-du-Nord-Est. At Port-La-Joye, the Point-Prime Acadians, along with their pastor, Father Jacques Girard, were loaded aboard the Duke William, at 400 tons burden, one of the largest transports. Father Girard later noted that during the weeks before the roundup reached Pointe-Prime, he conducted many marriages in his parish, "as the deportees believed that single men deported to France would be forced to become soldiers, a fate they wished to avoid." On the 15th, Bond sent ship's boats from the Hind up Rivière-du-Nord-Est to bring down more habitants. The roundups, under Bond's and Rollo's supervision, continued for the rest of October.308
Meanwhile, hundreds of islanders refused to submit to British orders "to turn themselves in." They also refused to give up their cattle and provender. On October 10, Rollo sent a message to Admiral Boscawen back at Louisbourg that fisher/habitants at Malpèque on the north shore of the island had employed four schooners, one of them armed, to carry off not only people but also "great quantities of cattle" "to Canada," which may have meant across Mer Rouge to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. On the 12th, Captain Bond at Port-La-Joye reported the growing difficulty of getting the inhabitants to submit. Island Acadian defiance likely was a family decision, based on the location of their settlements and the resources they possessed for successful escape. Most of them, however, lived in settlements along Rivière-du-Nord-Est, which afforded them little opportunity for escape. Bond's dispatch also "mentioned that a French or Acadian armed schooner mounting six guns was assisting the Acadians to evade the British roundup by fleeing to the mainland." Unlike at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières three years earlier, there was no organized Acadian resistance on Île St.-Jean to attempt to disrupt the deportations, but Bond's six-gun schooner sounds supiciously like the work of an Acadian partisan, perhaps Beausoleil Broussard or Pierre Surette II or Nicolas Gauthier, fils, son of the richest man in Nova Scotia before King George's War who had sacrificed his wealth for the French cause and was banished to Île Royale for this troubles. By 1758, each of these enterprising partisans, along with many others, had received permission from Governor-General Vaudreuil in Québec to engage in privateering, and they likely did their best to rescue fellow Acadians from Île St.-Jean after the fall of Louisbourg.309
The new naval commander at Louisbourg, Boscawen's replacement, Rear-Admiral Philip Durell, would have none of this. Durell believed the armed schooner mentioned by Captain Bond in his dispatch was the same one encountered by the expedition out of Louisbourg under Brigadier James Murray against the Acadian base at Miramichi in September. Durell ordered Maximillian Jacobs, captain of the HMS Kennington to hurry "'to the Northward of the Island of Saint Johns, and use his utmost endeavor to destroy the said French Ship and Schooners, and after being upon the Station some days, to proceed to the entrance of the River Saint Lawrence.'" On the 18th, Durell also notified Rollo "of the action he was taking." After Jacobs secured a pilot who was familiar with the island, he set out on the 20th, but, after he cleared the Strait of Canso, he sailed not to the north shore of St. John's Island, where he was supposed to cruise for a week or so, but instead continued northward to the Magdelen Islands, a good ways northeast of "the Island of Saint Johns," which he missed entirely. He then proceeded to Gaspé, at the far end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, having encountered no "armed French Ship and Schooners."310
By the end of October, Rollo had secured 1,600 islanders on the waiting transports and informed Governor Whitmore that "600 remaining settlers would have to stay for the winter." Admiral Durell informed Admiral Boscawen that these remaining settlers were "'sickly and most of them Women and Children.'" Except for islanders in the Malpèque area at the northwest end of the island, "for which the British soldiers could not spare the time and resources to apprehend, very few inhabitants were left behind," or so Rollo reported. One suspects that most, of not all, of the Malpèque fisher/habitants, as well as the ones at Bédec across the western end of island, were already gone and living free at Miramichi and other refuges on the mainland. On November 5, Captain Bond reported that "two thousand inhabitants had been deported on sixteen transports (all that Bond had)." He noted that the transports had been sent to France as "cartel ships, meaning that they sailed under a flag of truce. Agents of Britain and France had mutually agreed that such vessels were not to be seized or interfered with while carrying out their mission of prisoner exchange." On November 6, Governor Whitmore informed Secretary of State Pitt that Rollo "had written that about 2,200 inhabitants" of the island "had been embarked." Whitmore also noted that Rollo had apologized for leaving "the Inhabitants of a whole Parish behind" because of the remoteness of their location viz. the other settlements on the island. He was talking, of course, about the Acadians at Malpèque and implying that his and Bond's men had rounded up the inhabitants in all the other island settlements. More details of the operation emerged in November. On the 11th, Whitmore provided Amherst with "more precise and up-to-date figures." Rollo had noted in a letter to the governor dated October 28 that 2,150 of the islanders had been "'ship'd off.'" Finally, in a letter from Whitmore to Amherst dated November 21, more information on Rollo's operation came to light: "'By the Returns I have recd from the Island of Saint Johns, Two Thousand four hundred & fifteen"--2,415--"persons were Embark'd for France.' This number was confirmed by Charles Hay, agent for the transports, upon his subsequent arrival in England," Earle Lockerby adds. "Presumably this figure also does not include the 692 taken to Louisbourg in September."311
In truth, by November 21 the transports full of islanders had not left North America. On November 4, "under fair skies and in moderate winds," the HMS Hind and its convoy of transports "unmoored and set sail." The convoy of 15 transports included Briton, Duke William, John & Samuel, Mathias, Neptune, Parnassas, Patience, Restoration, Richard & Mary, Ruby, Supply, Tamerlane, Three Sisters, Violet, and Yarmouth. Not all of the transports carried islanders. The Briton and Richard & Mary carried Rollo's redcoats not needed at Port-La-Joye and Fort Amherst. They and the Hind were destined for Louisbourg. The other ships, filled with islanders, were destined for St.-Malo, France. The convoy reached the western end of the Strait of Canso by the 5th. As they were maneuvering through the narrow strait on the afternoon of the 6th, "squalls developed," and Tamerlane was driven ashore. On the 7th, "strong gales also sent the Parnassus ashore," and the Hind's cutter came to its assistance. Bond's sailors were able to refloat the Tamerlane, but the Parnassus was too broken up to be salvaged. Its passengers, none of them lost, were divided up among several of the other transports, and the convoy went on its way. Meanwhile, on the 12th, after clearing the Gut and making its way northeastward towards Louisbourg, the 252-ton Richard & Mary with its load of redcoats "struck a submerged rock off Île Madame," off the southern coast of Cape Breton Island. "It displayed a distress signal," Earle Lockerby relates, "and subsequently ran in for the shore of Île Madame. The Hind attempted to approach the transport in order to to assist it, but failed because of an ebb tide. The Hind and Briton continued to Louisbourg, arriving there on November 14. Contrary winds prevented a rescue flotilla of sloops or schooners to leave Louisbourg until the 20th. Meanwhile, Whitmore sent rangers overland to make contact with the stricken vessel. He received word on the morning of the 22nd that though the Richard & Mary had sunk, all of its crew and redcoated passengers had gotten off safely. After an officer from the Richard & Mary had rowed back to the strait and found transports there that had not cleared the narrow passage, Charles Hay, now in charge of the convoy, moved the passengers aboard the Three Sisters to several other transports heading for France, placed aboard the Three Sisters most of the stranded redcoats, and sent it on to Louisbourg, which it reached on the 22nd. However, Earle Lockerby notes, several of the Richard & Mary's crew and its master, John Moore, however, transferred to the Duke William, still destined for France. Lockerby speculates that the Three Sisters did go on to France, "probably with deportees from Île Royale taken aboard at Louisbourg."312
Eleven St.-Malo-bound transports remained. After clearing the Strait of Canso, they sailed into nearby Chédabouctou Bay and regrouped. Charles Hay, still in charge of the operation, assessed the damages and depletions the convoy had suffered while fighting their way to the bay. "Because of the delays," Earle Lockerby explains, "provisions aboard the vessels had been depleted more than expected. Most of the vessels had lost anchors and cables and sustained sail damage because of the fierce weather encountered near the Strait of Canso. Consequently, Hay instructed the captains of the vessels to head for the nearest port in England to replenish their larders and obtain other critically needed supplies before going to Saint-Malo...." They then left the Chédabouctou Bay together on November 25, but not all of them made it.
As the convoy, now scattered by mid-Atlantic storms, approached the southwest coast of England, a late autumn gale struck them hard and destroyed three of the transports, two of them sunk, the other dashed to pieces. The Violet, with 400 or so islanders aboard, went down with no survivors on December 12. The Duke William, with 364 passengers, also taking on water, sank a few days later. The family of Noël Doiron of Cobiguit and Pointe-Prime suffered especially hard aboard the latter transport--perhaps the greatest loss of a single family during the entire Grand Dérangement. Now in his 70s, Noël, wife Marie Henry, five of their children, over 30 of their grandchildren, and "many of their great-grandchildren," had been loaded aboard the same vessel at Port-La-Joye. This included the families of oldest son Louis-Mathieu, his wife Madeleine Pitre, their oldest son Charles, his wife Anne-Gertrude Benoit, and their children; Noël's second son Paul, his wife Marguerite Benoit, and their children; Noël's fourth son François, his wife Madeleine Tillard and their children; Noël's youngest son Joseph, his wife Marguerite Tillard and their children; and Noël's oldest daughter Marie-Madeleine, her husband Michel Pitre, and their children. When all efforts had failed to save the Duke William and no other ship had come to its rescue, Noël Doiron embraced the captain, William Nicholls, and insisted that he and his crew take to the boats and save themselves. The Pointe-Prime priest, Father Jacques Girard, the ship's officers and crew, four passengers from the Richard & Mary, and four young Acadians, escaped in the ship's cutter, its longboat, and its jolly boat, but there was no room for the hundreds of other passengers, who, at 4:00 pm on December 14, went down with the ship. The three boats survived the storm and landed on the Cornwall coast a few days later, the longboat at Penzance, the cutter near Land's End, and the jolly boat with the four young Acadians managed to make it safety to Falmouth. The Ruby, with 310 passengers, was pushed by the gale to the Portuguese Azores, where it was driven on the rocks of Pico Island. Only 120 passengers were saved; 190 passengers died aboard this ship, either by illness on the voyage over or by drowning during the mishap on Pico Island. The Portuguese schooner Santa Catherina took 87 of the survivors to Portsmouth, England, which it reached on 4 February 1759. On February 10, these survivors left for France aboard the English tender Bird, the same vessel that had transported the survivors of the transport Mary back in late November, and reached Le Havre in Normandy on February 15.
Eight of the other transports did make it to French ports, seven to St.-Malo. The Neptune, with 179 passengers, reached Portsmouth on December 23 "in great distress," including being in "want of fresh Provisions and very Sickly." After being quickly refitted and revictualled, and taking on a French physician to treat the sick, the Neptune, battered by another storm, reached Boulogne-sur-Mer in northwestern France on December 26. Earle Lockerby says, "About a dozen passengers had died en route." The Supply, 163 passengers, reached Bideford, Devon, England, on December 20, 25 passengers having died at sea. One source says a few of the passengers, no longer willing to take a chance with an unforgiving ocean, went on to Bristol, but most of the survivors, 140 or so, remained with the Supply. After a lengthy refitting and revictualling, despite orders from Admiralty officials to speed the ship along, the Supply finally reached St.-Malo on 9 March 1759, the last of the eight remaining transports to get to the Breton port. Earle Lockerby says, "Evidently the majority of those who died [25?] succumbed between the time the Supply reached England and the time of its arrival at Saint-Malo" and says nothing about any of its passengers going to Bristol. Another source says that 19 of the 140 survivors died in local hospitals after they reached St.-Malo. The Tamerlane, with 56 passengers, including Charles Hay, when it departed Chédabouctour Bay, lost six at sea, spent some time at Plymouth, England, replacing or repairing its cable, anchors, and sails, and reached St.-Malo on 16 January 1759, the first of the convoy to get there. Then there were the Five Ships--the John & Samuel, the Mathias, the Patience, the Restoration, and the Yarmouth--with 1,033 Acadians aboard. Somehow, despite the December gale, they managed to remain together; one wonders in which port in England they revictualled. They reached St.-Malo on January 23 and unloaded between 665 and 690 passengers. The death toll on the Five Ships was horrific: 339 died at sea and 156 in hospitals soon after arrival, for a death toll of 495, or 48 percent.
In possession of some of the Five Ships survivors was a precious burden: the three registers for the parish of St.-Pierre-du-Nord, on the north side of Île St.-Jean; here were the records of the baptisms, marriages, and burials of many of their families from June 1724, when the parish was created, to August 1758; in contrast, Father Girard, who survived the sinking of the Duke William, lost the register for the parish of Pointe-Prime, which he was empowered to save. Two of the Five Ships, the Mathias and Yarmouth, sailed on to Downs, Kent, on the English Channel, without any exchanged British prisoners aboard. The French had refused to acknowledge the uprooted islanders as prisoners of war and so refused to accept them for purposes of prisoner exchange. Earle Lockerby suspects that none of these eight transports that reached French ports returned to England with exchanged prisoners. One suspects that the hundreds of islanders aboard these transport could have cared less if their arrival failed to free a single redcoat like the ones who had driven them from their homes. Stuck now in another corner of a growing Acadian disaspora, they would have to do their best to create a life for themselves in the scattered ports of coastal France.313
T
From the beginning, Governor Lawrence and his colleague, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, had envisioned a Nova Scotia free of "French Neutrals" and filled with Anglo Protestants. The coming of a new war and the systematic removals of the 1750s did much to make their imperialist dream come true. By the end of the second round of removals, in early 1759, the "Neutrals" were gone from the Fundy settlements--the trois-rivières, Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, Cobeguit, and the Annapolis valley, where the Acadians had been building their running dykes and aboiteaux since the late 1640s. Also cleaned out recently were the smaller settlements near Cap-Sable, on lower Rivière St.-Jean, and in distant Gaspésie, all now also open to whoever wished to resettle there.147
The first clearing-out offensive after the capture of Louisbourg occurred at the western end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, not only along its western shore around Miramichi Bay, but also along the southern shore of the Gaspé peninsula. Major-General Jeffrey Amherst's star brigadier-general, James Wolfe, was tasked with effort, and he performed it with the usual thoroughness. Three full regular redcoat regiments--the 15th, 28th, and 57th regiments of Foot--and seven Royal Navy ships under Captain Sir Charles Hardy, recently governor of New York colony, left Louisbourg on August 29 and made for Gaspésie, the southern coast of the Gaspé peninsula, on the other end of the Gulf. On September 4, Hardy's squadron anchored off Grand-Grave in Gaspé Bay, at the eastern end of the peninsula. According to an aide-de-camp on Wolfe's staff, when the big ships appeared, most of the fisher/habitants took to the woods. Some, however, were captured, and British officers attempted to use them to negotiate with the others, without success. Wolfe then revealed his real reason for his being there; he sent redcoats and blue jackets in detachments of boats to destroy all of the scattered settlements along the shore, down and around to the entrance of the Baie des Chaleurs. Nothing of value--no houses, churches, fishing sheds, fishing boats were spared. Another detachment of redcoats marched overland to Mont-Louis on the north shore of the peninsula and destroyed that settlement as well. Meanwhile, another detachment under Colonel James Murray was sent south in one of the warships to destroy the large Acadian refuge at Miramichi, along with other settlements they could get at. Murray's force destroyed all of the houses and boats they could find along Miramichi Bay, along with a stone church--still called Burnt Church today--but he could not get at the refuge itself. It was located too far up an unnavigable river on an island not even his longboats could reach. He then returned to Louisbourg. At Gaspésie, Wolfe's forces returned to the flotilla on September 25 and 25, and Wolfe returned to Louisbourg on the 30th. There Wolfe reported to Amherst that "'We have done a great deal of mischief,--spread the terror of His Majesty's arms through the whole gulf; but have added nothing to the reputation of them.'" He proposed that Hardy, with Wolfe and his redcoats, return to the Gulf and destroy the settlements in the lower St. Lawrence up to Québec and take the city if they could manage it, but Amherst refused to countenance the plan The fisher/habitants Wolfe captured at Gaspésie were sent to Halifax then, with captives from Cap-Sable, deported to Le Havre, France, in January 1759.147a
The fall of Louisbourg in July 1758 not only cleared the way for removing fisher/habitants from Île Royale, Île St.-Jean, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but also the habitants and descendants of seigneurs from two of the oldest, but also the smallest, of Acadian settlements. There had been a settlement near Cap-Sable and Pobomcoup, today's Pubnico, north of Cap-Sable, since the mid-1600s. The soil was generally poor there, so the upland forests had to be cleared for cultivation. However, at Bas-de-Tousket, below today's Tusket, west of Pobomcoup, dykable marshes lined the wide estuary and were put to use by the hand full of Acadians there. In this region, since July 1653, lay the seigneurie of Philippe Mius d'Entremont and his descendants, which encompassed the littoral and its hinterland from Pobomcoup down to Cap-Sable and around to Cap-Nèigre, including Port-La Tour. In September 1714, Denis and Bernard Gaudet of haute-rivière in the Annapolis valley reported three habitants at "the Passage de Baccareau," today's Barrington Passage, on the mainland north of Cap-Sable Island, but the Gaudets said these settlers had moved on to Île Royale. By 1750, Acadians had established a small settlement at Ministigueshe on the north side of Cap-Sable Island, though this may have been the same settlement the Gaudets had mentioned. Despite efforts by the descendants of Mius d'Entremont and Charles La Tour to lure Acadian farmers to their seigneurie, the Pobomcoup/Cap-Sable area remained lightly settled: 14 individuals in 1671; 15 in 1686; 22 in 1687/88; 24 in 1689; 32 in 1693, 40 in 1702, 53 in 1708; and only 15 to 20 Acadian families, as well as a few Indian families, by the 1750s. These were enough Acadians, however, to irk Charles Lawrence and his councilmen and to justify another strike with redcoats and rangers, but it did not come until the spring of 1756, when the transports full of Fundy habitants were well away.314
As they had done in the Fundy settlements during the summer and fall of 1755, the British struck the Acadians in the Cap-Sable area, determined to deport them to the seaboard colonies. In the spring of 1756, Massachusetts militia at Halifax, on their way home after a year of duty in the Fundy settlements, were given one last mission. They swooped down on Cap-Sable and nearby Pobomcoup and rounded up many of the habitants and fishermen there, loaded them aboard two sloops, the Mary and the Vulture, and sent them on to North Carolina, which they did not reach. The sloop Mary, master Andrew Dunning, with 94 Acadians, got no farther than New York City, which it reached at the end of April, and there they stayed. The Vulture, master Jonathan Scaife, with 72 exiles aboard, reached Boston during the second week of May. The Massachusetts authorities ordered the Cap-Sable refugees to be placed aboard the Leopard and sent on to North Carolina. The Acadians refused, and they were allowed to stay. Many of the Cap-Sable Acadians escaped the roundup, but their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of Louisbourg in July 1758, under the overall command of Colonel Robert Monckton of Fort Beauséjour fame, 400 redcoats led by Major Henry Fletcher of the 35th Regiment of Foot and Joseph Gorham's rangers, disembarked at Cap-Sable in late September to search for Acadians still in the area. Two sailboats manned by redcoats sailed along the shore above and below the cape "to prevent the vermin from escaping in canoes," one British officer commented. Luck had now run out for many of the Acadians still at Pobomcoup. The British burned all of the houses and other buildings in the area to deny the habitants shelter and sustenance. Rangers were sent out to roundup those who had eluded the redcoats, but many of the refugees--21 families comprised of 130 individual, "and 6 or 7 Indians"--got away. In late October, 68 Acadians who surrendered at Pobomcoup, plus their aging priest, Father Jean-Baptiste de Gai Desenclaves, were loaded aboard the transport Alexander II, which sailed from Cap-Sable to Halifax, arriving there the first week of November. They were held on Georges Island in the harbor. In December, the British sent them to France, along with the hundreds of Acadians they were deporting from Gaspésie and the Maritime islands. Cap-Sable and Gaspésie captives landed at Le Havre, Normandy, in January 1759. Meanwhile, several Acadian families who had escaped the rangers at Pobomcoup in October 1758 sought refuge in the woods near the village, but, after a hard winter, surrendered to British authorities the following June. They, too, were held as prisoners on Georges Island until November 1759, during which time eight of them died. Following the great storm of November 3-4, the British deported them to England and then sent them on to Cherbourg in Normandy, which they reached in January 1760.315
The British attack on lower
Rivière St.-Jean also did not commence until after the fall
of Louisbourg.
Lieutenant Charles des
Champs de Boishébert had commanded a force of
troupes de la marine, Canadian militia, and
Maliseet allies at the mouth of the river since the
governor-general of New France had sent him there in
1749. The young Canadian--he was only age
22--ordered his men to construct a fortification at the
mouth of the river, across from Charles La Tour's
old Fort St.-Jean. Boishébert dubbed the new
structure Fort Ménagouèche. In July of that year,
British Captain John Rous and his 14-gun sloop
Albany paid the site a visit, but all the potential
antagonists exchanged was bluster over which imperial
power controlled the big river and its tributaries.
While his successor in command of Fort Cumberland, Major George Scott, with his redcoats and rangers, was preparing to clear away what was left of Acadian resistance in the trois-rivières settlements, especially on the upper Petitcoudiac, Colonel Monckton and the main force struck what was left of French and Acadian resistance on the lower St. John. According to Carl Brasseaux, Monckton's force was an astonishing 2,000 regulars and rangers and that "Lacking the resources to assist them, Boishébert's much smaller force withdrew to Quebec, leaving the hapless Acadians to fend for themselves." In truth, on August 13, having returned from a failed effort to give assistance to Drucour at Louisbourg, Boishébert left Miramichi with 400 fighters for Fort George (present-day Thomaston, Maine) to attack a force of New Englanders there. "His detachment reached there on 9 September," his biographer informs us, "but was caught in an ambush and had to withdraw." By the time he returned to Miramichi, the British had done their business on the lower St. John. Only in the following spring, after he had abandoned the camp at Miramichi and established a new one at Restigouche, did he withdraw up the St. John portage to Québec, where, on 13 September 1759, he and a force of Acadians would fight on the Plains of Abraham under the Marquis de Montcalm, who cared little for the young lieutenant and his Acadian militia.
Meanwhile, under orders from
Major-General Jeffery Amherst,
Colonel Monckton, serving as a temporary
brigadier-general, sailed from the citadel on September
13 for the lower St. John, which he reached a week
later. With him were 900 or so "combat-effective
regulars": the entire 35th Regiment of Foot, some
of whom were with Major Fletcher at Pobomcoup, and the
second battalion of the 60th (Royal American) Regiment
of Foot, along with the usual light infantry and several
companies of rangers. He sent a small force of
light infantry, with an Acadian guide, to secure a
landing place near Boishébert's Fort
By now, of course, the larger Acadian settlements above Jemseg, including Ste.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas, had been fully alerted to the British raid on the river below. An Acadian prisoner informed the British that "other Acadians were fleeing west to Canada," but not all of them had gone. "'As for the Indians,' Monckton cheerfully reported, 'they are disposed to get terms from the English.'" The key to Maliseet compliance was the fort Monckton's men had just built at the mouth of the river. "The Indians could see that the blockhouse could just as easily become a trade house, and opposition to the Anglo-Americans guaranteed that their 'fishing and hunting would be cut off.'" In the years ahead, the Maliseet, along with their Algonquian brethren the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy, would prove willing to parlay with the new conquerors and declare themselves "Brethren of King George."318
Back at Fort Frederick, Monckton stationed five companies there, a substantial force, he sent five to Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal to protect it from the partisans and the Mi'kmaq, who were not yet "disposed to get terms," and two companies to Fort Edward at Pigiguit for the same purpose. All of the irregulars were assigned to Scott's command for the move against the upper Petitcoudiac, which followed in November with stunning success. But British depredations were not over on the St. John River. Monckton sailed with his river prisoners back to Halifax and left Major Robert Morris in charge of the fort. Back at Fort Frederick in February, Monckton sent a company of rangers under Captain John McCurdy to approach Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas on snowshoes. McCurdy died in an accident on the way, and command fell to Lieutenant Moses Hazen. When the Acadians at Ste.-Anne saw the rangers approaching, most of them retreated upriver to the Maliseet village of Ecoupag. Others did not, including the seigneurial family, the Godin dit Bellefontaines, whose ancestor Gabriel dit Châtillon, sieur de Bellefontaine, had founded Ste.-Anne in the late 1680s. The senior member of the family now, Gabriel's second son Joseph dit Bellefontaine dit Beauséjour, age 63 in 1758, served as the local militia leader with the rank of major. Two years earlier, in 1756, Joseph's oldest son Michel dit Beauséjour, a navigator and militia officer, at age 23, married Marguerite Guilbeau, a native of the Annapolis valley who had escaped the roundup there and found refuge with her family on the lower St.-Jean. The couple settled among Michel's many kinsmen at St.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas. When Monckton and his men raided up the lower river, some of the Godins fled north to Canada or east to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, while others remained at Ste.-Anne. As the rangers under Hazen approached the village, Major Godin and his militiamen ambushed them. The rangers quickly recovered, and then struck back. In the mélée that followed the destruction of the village, including two mass houses and 147 houses, the rangers fell upon a house that lay apart from the others, where they captured the elder Godin. Hazen and his rangers killed and scalped six Acadians hiding there, and captured six others. Five of the other Acadians hiding in the house got away. Though the British insisted that the dead habitants were all men, eyewitness depositions made to French authorities in Québec and France determined that the six Acadians who the rangers killed actually were two women and their four children, who Hazen tortured and then killed while trying to force Godin to sign an oath of allegiance. Instead, the old fighter escaped into the woods with two of his grandchildren but was later captured. One of the murdered women was Anastasie, Godin's daughter and the wife of Eustache Part. Three of the dead children belonged to this couple. The other murdered woman was Marguerite Guilbeau, son Michel's wife, and the other murdered child was the couple's infant son. The British transported the captured habitants, including the tough old major and the grieving husbands and their remaining children to the prison compound on Georges Island, Halifax. In November, Governor Lawrence shipped them off to England with other captives from the river, and the English sent them on to Cherbourg, France, which they reached in January 1760. Meanwhile, for the rest of 1759, the rangers clashed with Acadians and Maliseet up and down the lower river. Only after the fall of Québec later that year did the Acadians and Maliseet surrender, at forts Frederick and Cumberland.319
One more incident on the river, this one bloodless, revealed the completeness of the British victory on the lower St. John and the character of Charles Lawrence in his final days. Many of the refugees from the river had retreated not to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, to either Miramichi or Restigouche, but took the long portage up to the lower St. Lawrence, where they hoped to find asylum in Québec. Their timing was unfortunate: British General James Wolfe and his amphibious force soon besieged the Canadian capital. After the citadel's surrender in September 1759, "many of the fugitives decided to return to their adopted home" on the lower St. John "and reach an accommodation with the local British authorities." In October, "two Acadians representing 200 of their now demoralized countrymen visited British military installations along the lower St. John River and requested permission to remain on their lands if they took an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain." The request was referred to Governor Lawrence, who refused it. Moreover, he sent ships to the St. John "'for having them immediately transported to Halifax as prisoners of war, until they could be sent to England." In early January, area Acadians who had recently surrendered with their families at Fort Frederick also were placed aboard the transport. The Acadians arrived at Halifax in February 1760 and followed other river refugees to England and France. When word of it reached the Gulf shore, Lawrence's treachery "had a chilling effect on the refugee Acadians at Bouctouche, Richibucto, and Miramichi, who cancelled their promise to surrender at Fort Cumberland--to the chagrin of the British authorities, who could not rest until they had brought all Acadian rebels under total submission."320
There remained the Mi'kmaq and the Acadian partisans, roaming the countryside at will, ambushing small parties of redcoats when they could, and, in the case of the partisans, even engaging local British maritime commerce as fast-hitting privateers. By 1759, however, only Boishébert's new post at Restigouche, at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, offered the partisans a reliable base of operations ... from a veritable cul-de-sac! Nevertheless, on Christmas Day of 1758, Commander-in-Chief Amherst wrote to Colonel Monckton at Fort Frederick "that Nova Scotia finally appeared to have been cleared of Acadians and Indians and their only potential safe haven was along the Penobscot River" in Maine, which two British forces "were prepared to sweep" early in the New Year. "Affairs in Nova Scotia seemed so settled that Amherst ordered Monckton to send Gorham's and Dank's Rangers to Wolfe at Louisbourg," where he was preparing an expedition against Canada when the season permitted. Québec fell to Wolfe's forces on in September 1759 after a set-piece battle on the nearby Plains of Abraham that killed Wolfe and mortally wounded the French commander-in-chief, the Marquis de Montcalm. Word did not reach Nova Scotia of Québec's fall until October 20. At Louisbourg, Governor Edward Whitmore took advanage of the news by issuing "a proclamation offering the Acadian refugees an 'olive branch.' If they surrendered peaceably, he was 'ordered by His Majesty to assure you that you will continue in the enjoyment of all your goods, the freedom of your property, with the free exercise of your religion.' If they refused, however, he would 'replace the white flag of peace with a red flag of war.' Guerre mortelle--'fighting under the red flag'--was war without mercy; no quarter, no prisoners, no ransom.'" Whitmore's offer would be implemented on the Gulf shore by Colonel Joseph Frye, commander at Fort Cumberland, the same officer who had been defeated by these same fighters on the lower Petitcoudiac back in September 1755.
Less than a week after word reached the area about the fall of Québec, the Gulf shore surrenders began in earnest. Abbé Manach made his way to the Baie de Miramichi, where a British gunship, the Diana, under Captain Alexander Schomberg, had taken up station, and offered to surrender. A month later, on 16 November 1759, with another northern winter coming on, "several Acadians appeared outside the walls of Fort Cumberland." The Acadians, who represented "their remaining population of 190 persons," swore that "had had enough of fighting and privation." Two days later, another Acadian appeared and "claimed that he represented 120 Acadians at Miramichi who wanted 'to come in for they hant much Provision to carry them through the winter.'" He also represented refugees at Bouctouche and Richibucto. Among the partisans who accepted the offer were the Beausoleil Broussards. To insure the family's compliance, Alexandre Broussard offered to stand as hostage till his brother and the rest of the family came in the following spring. A "'great many more'" came in over the following days, Frye reported, but word of the treachery on Rivière St.-Jean prevented some of the refugees, including Joseph Broussard, from coming in the following spring. However, so many refugees did come in to Fort Cumberland during the late fall and winter 1759-60 that, by the following summer, Frye sent most of them to Fort Edward, and the commander there made them walk to Halifax, where they were held on Georges Island until prison barracks could be built for them in the city. Meanwhile, Lawrence and his Council debated ignoring Whitmore's amnesty and deporting all the refugees at Halifax to England. Whitmore himself gave some thought to the treachery, but then calmer heads prevailed. The refugees, at least the ones brought in from Fort Cumberland, remained at Halifax.
The Mi'kmaq were even more willing to parlay with their old enemy. on 26 November 1759, Abbé Maillard, having encouraged the Acadians and Mi'kmaq to surrender, along with Abbé Joseph-Charles Germain, gave themselves up to Captain Schomberg at Miramichi. The Mi'kmaq, "who had already broken into their winter hunting," did not come in until the following January, the first of them on the 11th. Frye "fed them and directed them to return to their families and friends to tell them that the Yankees would not harm them." To Frye's chagrin, the surrender of the Mi'kmaq proved to be a long affair. On 29 January 1760, Abbé Manach came in with two Mi'kmaq chiefs, Paul Laurence and Augustine Michael. "The Indians agreed to lay down their arms, then formalized the 'Treaty of Peace and Friendship'" with Governor Lawrence in March. However, treaties would have to be negotiated with 14 other chiefs named on a list the abbé submitted. The effort took the colonel over a year to complete the task. Still, by early 1760, John Grenier notes, "after five years of struggle for Joseph Frye and fifty years for the empire, it finally looked as if Anglo-American had a tabula rasa on which to draw Nova Scotia in their image."321
.
But then there was the privateer base at Restigouche that still had not surrendered despite the fall of Québec. Until this refuge, now under command of Lieutenant Jean-François Bourdon de Dombourg, Boishébert's successor, could be cleared out, the French would not have been completely removed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence region. Bourdon did not command only militia; he commanded gray-clad troupes de marine, regular naval troops, as well. Moreover, by early 1760, dozens of Acadian militia, along with loyal Mi'kmaq fighters, augmented his force, so that 1,500 fighters made up the garrison at Restigouche. Also available to him were "25 to 30 Acadian sloops and schooners from the Miramichi and elsewhere...," some of them privateers. So, along with Montréal and other enclaves in lower Canada, Bourdon's garrison was one the last of the French "strongholds" in North America and the last significant Acadian refuge on the Gulf.
And then, in a case of too little, too late following their bludgeoning in the Battle of Quiberon Bay off the south coast of Brittany in November 1759, the French knew that the only hope of saving New France was to send a fleet of warships, filled with troupes de la marine and tons of supplies, to recapture Québec--but only if they could get there ahead of the British resupply, which would be escorted by a Royal Navy flotilla. Captain François-Gabriel d'Angeac of Plaisance, Newfoundland, a chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, was given command of the naval troops, only 400, including some who had seen previous service in greater Acadia, instead of the 4,000 requested by Governor-General Vaudreuil. On 10 April 1760, a fleet of six warships, commanded by Lieutenant de Fregate François Chenard de la Giraudais, escorting a number of merchant vessels filled with provender, left Bordeaux, heading for the St. Lawrence. Once they debouched into the Bay of Biscay, Giraudais's ships and their escorts attempted to elude British Admiral Boscawen's blockade of the French coast and clear Cape Finisterre, at the northwest tip of the Iberian peninsula, past which they could cross the Atlantic Ocean and make for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Unfortunately, on the second day out, two of Boscawen's blockaders spotted the fleet and gave chase. To allow the rest of the fleet to escape capture, Giraudais, in his flagship, the frigate Machault, 500 tons burden, 32 guns, broke from the fleet and led the British ships on a 10 1/2 hour chase to allow the rest of the convoy to escape. When the fleet reunited, only two of the other vessels, the armed merchant ships Marquis de Malauze, 354 tons and 18 guns, and Bienfaisant, 320 tons and 22 guns, appeared, the former on April 12, the latter on April 17. Two of the other ships, the Soleil, 350 tons, and the Aurore, 450 tons, had been captured by the Royal Navy. The sixth warship, Fidélité, 450 tons, separated from the others, suffered a worse fate. It had been capsized by a wave on the twentieth day of the voyage; only the captain, 11 of the crew, the four officers of the troupes, and two soldiers, made their way safely to the Azores in an open boat; others on the vessel perished. The rest of the voyage was uneventful, and Giraudais's three ships made it to the mouth of the St. Lawrence by May 15. Here, on the 17th, off the Île-aux-Oiseaux on the mainland north of Anticosti Island, the French captured eight British supply transports, with 60 men and seven women aboard, heading up to Québec. From prisoners, Giraudais learned that a British fleet had preceded them up the river, and so their chance of recapturing Québec was lost. Giraudais and D'Angeac, ignoring the lieutenant's secret orders to move on to St.-Domingue or Louisiana if blocked from going to Québec, agreed to make for the nearest refuge, the Baie des Chaleurs, where he would await orders from the governor-general of New France. On May 18, rounding the eastern end of the Gaspé peninsula, Giraudais moved his flotilla carefully through the Warm Waters Bay towards the estuary of Rivière Restigouche. At first opportunity, Giraudais opened up communications with Montréal via a trustworthy troupe named St. Simon, who carried official dispatches from France to Governor-General Vaudreuil and the New-French commander-in-chief François-Gaston, Chevalier de Lévis. Walking overland through the mountains of the Gaspé peninsula and then along the south bank of the lower St. Lawrence, St. Simon reached Montréal in 25 days. Meanwhile, on May 19, the flotilla anchored on the north shore of the estuary at what the French would later call Pointe à la Batterie, today's Battery Point. Hundreds of Acadians would now be given another chance to prove their loyalty to France.322
Historians Judith Beattie and Bernard Pothier speculate that Giraudais ignored his orders to proceed to the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico for several reasons: first, that some of D'Angeac's troupes de la marine had not only served on Île Royale, but also were familiar with this corner of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including the Baie des Chaleurs; and second, and probably more compelling, that much of their rations had rotted on the Atlantic crossing and so they were in dire need of fresh food. Both commanders certainly were aware of Bourdon's force at Restigouche and that the Acadians there likely had provided food for themselves as well as the troupes there. The flotilla also was short on fresh water, which could be replenished at Restigouche. Unfortunately, as Bourdon could have told them, food was not a surplus item at this or any other Acadian refuge. Though the Acadians there had not suffered as much as they had at Miramichi a few winters earlier, Bourdon could write in April 1760 that "'The scarcity is so great that, after eating the domestic animals, we were obliged to eat the skins of cattle and beavers to survive.'" Shades of Camp Espérance! Soon after he could examine the nearby Acadian refuges, D'Angeac described what he saw in similar terms: "'In this place of misery, I found more than 1,500 souls, worn down by their tribulations and dying of hunger, having had to eat beaver skins all winter long. I had my crew supply them with half a pound of flour each day and a ration of beef, while waiting orders from Monsieur the Marquis de Vaudreuil. This small assistance pulled them back from the threshold of death, and I have been continuing this allocation up to the present."323
At Pointe à la Batterie, D'Angeac ordered his troops to set up camp. Some constructed ovens to bake bread, some built a battery, and others unloaded one of the prize ships, the Augustus, which would serve as a scout boat. It did not take long for the hungry Acadians in a recently constructed village nearby to get word of the flotilla's cargo of food, and soon many were standing around the camp waiting to be fed. Meanwhile, on June 12, Giraudais sent out the scout boat under the Machault's first lieutenant, Lavary le Roy. On June 17, in faraway Montréal, after officials there were alerted to the failed rescue mission from France, the governor-general composed a lengthy set of instructions comprising 24 "articles" for D'Angeac and handed it to the messenger, St. Simon, who retraced his route back to Restigouche. Many of Vaudreuil's instructions concerned the Acadians and the Mi'kmaq, who D'Angeac--Vaudreuil called him Danjac-- now commanded. He designated D'Angeac "commander in chief of all French posts and possessions in Acadia, the frontier of Canada," with headquarters at Restigouche. Vaudreuil directed that D'Angeac send "Monsieur de Niverville," in command of what was left of the French presence on Rivière St.-Jean, to Miramichi. He insisted that D'Angeac and his officers count all of the Acadians in his command, assemble them, and "omit nothing to recall those who are at Beauséjour [Fort Cumberland]" who had recently surrendered to Colonel Frye. Vaudreuil was especially keen on gathering as much evidence as possible on the missionaries who encouraged the Acadians and the Mi'kmaq to surrender. Proving himself a master of micro-management, Vaudreuil specified how D'Angeac would distribute the supplies aboard Giraudais ships and even detailed the exact rations to be given to his men, the Acadians, and the Indians, distinguishing between the fighters and those who were not. He directed that the Acadians be given no new clothes, regardless of their current raggedness, until the winter, and then only on orders from Montréal. He encouraged D'Angeac to issue the "six blank Admiralty commissions" given to Bourdon the previous winter to "those Acadians who were best able to engage" in privateering, especially to "Gautier and Beausoleil," the latter still recuperating from his wound, who he recommended "in consideration of their zeal and their services." He ordered D'Angeac to prepare a sea-going vessel chosen by Giraudais, fully armed and properly provisioned, to carry dispatches to France that Vaudreuil was about to send to him from Montréal. And he expected D'Angeac to share with Montréal any news from "papers or journals that may be found on the vessels that the Acadian corsairs shall take." According to Beattie and Pothier, "Several things are evident from this lengthy and detailed document. Vaudreuil expressed little concern that the fleet would be attacked"--it was, after all, anchored near the mouth of a river that was almost unnavigable, and the British probably were unfamiliar with the river as well as its estuary. Vaudreuil also believed predictions "that peace would be concluded shortly." Most significantly, he "also had no intentions of sending the fleet on to Louisiana or St. Domingue. His aim was to provide the basis of a French claim to Acadia by maintaining posts there and to guarantee a link between himself and the minister of colonies by the ships in the Restigouche." Moreover, " He decided to unload the ships 'and there establish a magazine for the King,'" something Giraudais and D'Angeac were already doing without instruction.324
In the end, however, all was moot. D'Angeac would not receive Vaudreuil's June 17 instructions for weeks to come--St. Simon did not leave Montréal with them until July 9. Meanwhile, the British had been alerted to the enhanced French presence at Restigouche and its threat to their interests in the region. They had been expecting the arrival of a French fleet to retake the Canadian capital, so they remained on high alert both at Québec and Louisbourg. After hearing of the presence of French vessels in the lower St. Lawrence and the Gulf, Commodore Alexander Lord Colvill, commander of British naval forces in North America, headquartered now in Québec, dispatched a squadron of three frigates and smaller vessels under Captain Samuel Wallis to search the lower river and the Gulf. Hearing of it, Vaudreuil at Montréal "gave little credit to the intelligence, saying "'I hardly think the English will send their largest vessels to attack ours which have arrived at Restigouche...." He did promise to warn the officers at Restigouche, but they would learn of British intentions soon enough. On June 17, the day Vaudreuil wrote his instructions for D'Angeac, Govenror Whitmore at Louisbourg had been warned by friendly Indians that the French had landed a substantial fleet at Restigouche. Royal Navy Captain John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, stationed at Louisbourg, was preparing to convoy troops to Britain. Whitmore cancelled the convoy and ordered Byron to destroy the French force "in Chaleur Bay" as soon as he was able, which was as soon as the wind allowed. Byron cobbled together three ships of the line--his flagship HMS Fame, 74 guns; HMS Achilles, 60 guns, under Captain Samuel Barrinton; and HMS Dorsetshire, 70 guns, Captain Campbell--along with two frigates--the HMS Scarborough, 20 guns, Captain Scot; and the HMS Repulse, 32 guns, Captain John Carter Allen--three smaller gunboats, more than enough for the mission, and sailed from Louisbourg in record time.325
Byron's flagship reached his destination, Miguasha Point on the north side of western end of the Baie des Chaleurs, across from present-day Dalhousie, on June 22. The rest of his fleet, however, true to his nickname, had been scattered by fog and foul weather. While waiting for the others, Byron sent out his longboats, which promptly captured the French scout boat Augustus, which originally had been a British schooner. Hearing of the arrival of the British ship-of-the-line and suspecting that more Royal Navy vessels soon would appear, Giraudais took it upon himself--"albeit reluctantly"--to defend his fleet, and the post at Restigouche, as best he could. Despite his reluctance, he was confident that he was defending "a position in which he unequivocally held strategic and tactical advantages." Besides his three French vessels and seven captured British transports, there were dozens of Acadian sloops and schooners, including armed privateers, "whose crews had joined the French when they learned of the fleet's arrival in the Restigouche." Nor was Giraudais wanting for ground troops. There were 200 or so troupes de la marine under D'Angeac's command; 300 Acadians under arms, "'all capable, but lazy and independent if they are not governed,'" lieutenant believed; and 250 Mi'kmaq fighters. "Nevertheless," Beattie and Pothier quip, "the capture of the reconnaissance schooner marked the inauspicious beginning of a particularly inept military effort by the French."326
On the morning of June 23, Byron weighed anchor and set out up the bay "in search of the enemy." His unfamiliarity with the channel, and the size of the Fame, compelled him to leave his flagship in the wider bay and resume the movement into its narrower, shallower reaches in his trusty longboats. He soon "'saw sevl ships & vessels at anchor above them about 2 leag near a point of land (on the Northern shore) ... a frigate ... 2 others seemed to be Merchant or Storeships the others sloops and shooners in all 10 or 12 sail...." What he had found was Giraudais's three French vessels and a flotilla of Acadian privateers anchored off Pointe à la Batterie. He proceeded no farther that day, but at dawn on the 24th he sent two boats farther up to make more soundings. The boats returned a few hours later with several Acadian ships in pursuit. Giraudais, meanwhile, at the point, "set his men to the rapid completion of the battery, being built en barbette" and facing the north channel of the bay. He ordered his sailors to move four 12-pounders and a 6-pounder from the Machault to the battery, and placed his second-in-command, Donat de la Garde, in the command of the fortification. Expecting action soon, Giraudais placed the Machault broadside in the middle of the channel, "close behind a chain of small sloops and schooners which he scuttled one-half cannon shot below the battery. He then, "for security reasons," moved the English captives--60 men and seven women--taken in mid-May in the lower St. Lawrence, from the Machault to the hold of a schooner, which he placed "under the cannon of the battery." This only increased the captives' suffering. He then ordered the armed merchant vessels, with their precious cargoes, to anchor at the mouth of the Restigouche out of harm's way, which was completed on the 27th. Meanwhile, on the morning of the 25th, Byron ordered the Fame to weigh anchor and move closer to the head of the bay, but around noon, at lowering tide, the big ship ran aground "'on a patch of mud....'" Amazingly, Giraudais did not take advantage of Byron's dilemma--"'... I thought we never should have got off again,'" the captain wrote later--and the big ship, with the help of the captured scout boat, the Augustus, along with a rising tide, was freed from the muck "after nine or ten hours of arduous effort and jettisoning one of her anchors." Evidently the size of the Fame--"a fully armed two-decker" ship of the line with a large crew and "formidable firepower"--compelled the young lieutenant to change his mind about sending a boarding party to seize the stricken vessel.327
Beattie and Pothier's evaluation of Giraudais's decision is appropriately nuanced: "The Fame's admittedly formidable firepower notwithstanding, the French held enough of the classic advantages of a war situation to virtually guarantee their success: they enjoyed adquate manpower, the advantages of a secure defensive position, mobility both on land and on water, surprise, and for at least two hours before the Fame was released from the shoals, darkness. Their only serious disadvantage, albeit an essential one, was the low morale of both officers and men. Disheartened by the events in both Europe and North America in the previous two years which undermined France's position, neither Giraudais nor D'Angeac, any more than their subalterns, possessed the energy or bold offensive spirit which, combined with their physical advantages, might have led to a decisive French victory on the Restigouche in 1760."328
After four days of battling wind and sea, the rest of Byron's squadron finally appeared off Miguasha Point on June 26. They at first provided little assistance to their patient commander. The captains of Achilles and Dorsetshire, also ships of the line, understand that they faced an unknown channel and wisely anchored off the point. The captains of the frigates Scarborough and Repulse "at first took the Fame to be French and endeavoured to get up to it." Fully ignorant of the vagaries of the channel, they both ran aground. The Scarborough was soon released with the help of the Fame, but the Repulse "was forced to spend the night on the shoals." On the 27th, Byron sent his longboats and the schooner Augustus to mark the channel. The two frigates and the Fame cautiously followed. Byron soon realized that the channel being marked "ran very close to the north shore and was therefore exposed to the French guns and musketry" in the fortification ahead. "It was also, as Byron put it, so narrow there was 'no room for a ship to swing.'" On the 28th, the Augustus ran aground in less than a fathom of water. The frigates also ran aground, within range of the French battery on the north shore. Giraudais ordered his men to open fire, "but the French action was limited to a rather passive and half-hearted effort and their fire caused little real damage to the English," who realized they had wandered into a watery cul-de-sac. A detachment of D'Angeac's troupes de la marine, along with Acadians and Mi'kmaq "hidden in the surrounding woods," made it difficult for the British to free the vessels, forcing Byron to bring the guns aboard the Fame "to bear on the French position as a cover for the grounded frigates and by evening the French musketry was effectively dispersed." Out of caution, Giraudais ordered the armed merchant ships, the Marquis de Malauze and the Bienfaisant, which had just taken up positions in the mouth of the Restigouche, to move as far up the river as they could manage to protect their cargoes. He moved the Machault to the mouth of the river where the transports had been, "slightly beyond the range of the English guns." He then transferred the English prisoners from the crowded schooner back to the hold of the Machault, where, one of the prisoners later claimed, the French sailors answered their complaints by threatening to hand them over to the Indians. Meanwhile, Byron observed the unimpeded movements of the Machault and its consorts and was determined to discover the secrets of the elusive channel. The soundings continued as surreptiously as possible and that night, the 28th and 29th, Byron's efforts paid off--his tars discovered "a new and promising channel ... close to the south shore of the Restigouche.".329
At daylight of the 29th, now a week into the operation, Byron ordered the captains of the Repulse and the Scarborough "to swing back and attempt the new passage, but further sounding soon belied his premature optimism." The passage--Giraudais called it "the false South channel"--led to another watery cul-de-sac, "which from an impressive seven fathoms had quickly fallen to nine feet before running into mud flats at low water." This south channel, however, before it petered out into the cul-de-sac, placed the British frigates well out of range of Giraudais's north channel battery, while the formidable Fame, going as far up the south channel as it could, could reach the French battery with big guns with no difficulty. Moreover, the big ship could fire at the unprotected flank of Giraudais's battery. "Although the French at first returned the Fame's fire, they were overwhelmed within a few days."330
By noon of July 2, the French battery was smashed to pieces. Giraudais ordered the battery abandoned and the remaining four guns spiked, split, and burst. Byron put ashore a landing party, which found no Frenchmen left to capture. The blue jackets took out their frustrations on a nearby refugee village, burning "between 150 and 200 buildings" there. The Acadians and Indians who lived there, of course, had abandoned the village during the four-day long bombardment of Giraudais's battery and moved upriver to the main refugee camp at Petite-Rochelle. Byron chose not to occupy Pointe à la Batterie but to push ahead with finding a navigable north-bank channel that would allow him to get closer to the French vessels and complete "the essential task of destroying the French squadron." After abandoning Pointe à la Batterie, Giraudais designated Pointe à Bourdon, also called Pointe à Bourdeau, well inside the estuary of the Restigouche, and site of Petit-Rochelle, as the unloading point for his "storeships." To prevent the British from reaching this point, Giraudais ordered the construction of two new batteries on both sides of the the estuary at Pointe de la Mission on the north bank, at today's Listuguj, Québec, and on the south side at Pointe aux Sauvages, today's Campbellton, New Brunswick, where the Restigouche estuary was at it most narrow. Giraudais's three ships now lay in the channel above the new batteries, the Machaut fartherest down stream at Pointe de la Mission, the Bienfaisant next in line, and the Marquis die Malauze farthest up and closest to Pointe à Bourdeau.331
On July 3, Captain Allen "dejectedly withdrew" the Repulse from its position in the south channel. That night, while he and Byron aboard the Fame were discussing alternative approaches to the French vessels, word arrived that "a new passage had been found close to the north shore where soundings had resumed the night prior to the French withdrawal from Pointe à Batterie." Byron promptly ordered the frigates Repulse and Scarborough, and the schooner Augusta, now sporting four 6-pounders and a crew of 50 men, to the newly-discovered channel. That night, the 3rd and 4th, the small squadron began moving towards the estuary of the Restigouche but had to wait two days, the 4th and 5th, "before a passage could be cleared through the chain of hulks the French had sunk below Pointe à la Batterie." On July 5, as soon as the English squadron had cleared the Acadian hulks, Byron ordered the Augustus to head across the estuary to fire on the "workmen he saw at the site of the new battery at Pointe aux Sauvages 'to annoy them all he could...." Unfortunately, Lieutenant Cummings, in command of the Augustus, "anchored too close to the shore, well within range of the deadly musketry which suddenly began to rain from the barely completed breastwork and the surrounding woods and was forced to draw back to safety. Cummings himself was seriously wounded, barely escapng with his life." Byron surely noted that this musketry did not come from the north shore this time but from the south shore, attesting to the number of troupes de la marine, Acadians, and Mi'kmaq in the area, who could fight him from either shore.332
On the night of the 6th and 7th, while construction of the new batteries were well along or finished, Giraudais ordered the sinking of more Acadian vessels, this time in the channel between Pointe aux Sauvages and Pointe à la Croix. On the 7th, Giraudais noted that the British "remained undaunted and showed every sign of continuing hard after the French." He ordered the transfer of the English prisoners once again, this time from the Machault to the Marquis de Malauze, which was farthest from the reach of the British guns. Meanwhile, the Augustus, under a new commander, made another run at the south shore battery. Two days earlier the battery at Pointe aux Sauvages had been incomplete, but now it sported three 4-pounders to blast away at the schooner, along with its cover of concealed musketry. Again, the Augustus was driven off. On the afternoon of the 7th, Giraudais's battery on the north shore at Pointe de la Mission, complete with barbette, was ready to open fire. Behind its earthen barbette stood three 12-pounders and two 6-pounders, a much stronger battery than its cohort on the south shore. Also behind the north shore barbette was a detachment of 30 sharpshooters, probably some of D'Angeac's troupes de la marine, along with the usual Acadians and Mi'kmaq fighters hidden in the nearby woods.333
During the night of the 7th and 8th, however, Byron's three-ship advanced squadron, using the cover of darkness, scored a major coup. With Augustus in the lead, the frigates, towed by long boats, "continued their advance and their survey of the channel. Although it is not clear how," Beattie and Pothier relate, despite desultory fire from the French guns and musketry all night, "the English managed to skirt the second chain of hulks" and place themselves upstream from the French obstructions "and face to face with the Machault." Dawn of the 8th revealed to Giraudais from the bridge of his flagship that the English frigates and the armed schooner "stood at anchor only one-half cannon-shot" down from Machault! "The engagement which the French had ardently hoped to avoid was inevitable and imminent." The advantage in firepower lay heavily with the British--the 32 guns of the Repulse, the 20 guns of the Scarborough, and the four six-pounders aboard the more maneuverable Augustus faced the Machault, still anchored across the channel, with only 10 12-pounders in its starboard battery, along with the smaller cannon and the musketry of the two shore batteries. Unfortunately for the French, the unloading of the two store ships was still underway, the completion of which was now a priority. All personnel not needed to man the battery guns or not guarding English prisoners were hurried to the store ships. Sharpshooters on both banks of the river prepared to do their deadly business.334
Shortly after 5 a.m., the Repulse, having manuevered in range of the south shore battery, "quickly drove the defenders from their positions," with only concealed sharpshooters able to return fire. As the frigates moved slowly upstream, they faced steady fire from the north shore battery and the Machault. "The French fire was so brisk that the Repulse, in the lead, was driven 'aground in a very bad position with her head on to the shoals.'" Giraudais, assessing the damage to the frigate through the smoke, was certain he had sunk it. There was no time for celebration--the lieutenant was informed that, despite the short duration of their firing, the flagship "was almost out of powder and cartridges." This was the result of Giraudais, "as a safety precaution," having transferred "part of his war stores to a small vessel..." He sent out one of this boats to find the vessel, but "the terror of the moment affected its crew," who abandoned the vessel with all of its precious munitions and "were never heard from again..." As a result of this amazing mismanagement, the Machault's fire "became more sporatic until it ceased at nine o'clock." By then, the flagship has taken on seven feet of water, so Giraudais chose to abandon his ship, which struck its colors at 11 a.m. Repulse, in the mean time, "managed to get off the shoals and, with Scarborough, resumed fire on the menacing north shore battery. Fire from the battery became desultory after the Machault struck its colors. The frigates, meanwhile, had proceeded up the channel as far as they could safely go. Captain Allen of the Repulse, certain that the French soon would blow up the stricken vessel rather than surrender its cargo to the enemy, refrained from sending his boats out filled with sailors and Royal Marines to storm the Machault and take it as a prize. As noon approached, Giraudais and D'Angeac, still aboard the Machault, made certain they fulfilled the honor of being the last aboard the vessel, "descended into a boat and made for the French camp at Pointe à Bourdeau," a good ways upstream and out of reach of the determined British. Around noon, the Machault "blew up with a 'very great explostion.'" Evidently "the charge had gone off prematurely," wounding several French sailors aboard. "Fifteen minutes later the Bienfaisant similary blew up, its entire cargo still in its hold." The Marquis de Malauze would undoubtedly have suffered a similar fate," Beattie and Pothier speculate, "had the prisoners not been within its hold." There were only 62 of the English prisoners left of the original 67. After hearing the two great explosions, their guards brought them "up on the deck and ordered" them "into an inadequate makeshift raft 'which would have sunk with one half of our number,'" one of them later related. Worst of all, however, was the spectre of being placed "into the hands of the Mi'kmaq on shore...." Half-crazed by the prospect, they "refused to move and finally prevailed upon their captors to admit that to force them to leave would amount to sacrificing them to the Indians. The French therefore left them to their fate, but not before marching them back into the hold where they were fettered and handcuffed anew and the hatches again secured above them." Their terror can only be imagined. They remained in the hold, fearing not only the prospect of being blown to bits but, still more frightening to them, being boarded that night and set upon by the Mi'kmaq. Determined to leave the hold, they knocked down a bulkhead near the ladder up to the hatches, forced open the hatches, and hurried back on deck. Though it was still early afternoon, the heavy smoke from the burning French hulks drifting down to them and the north shore line with Indian and Acadian sharpshooters firing down on them nearly drove them back into the bowels of the ship. Then a young fellow among them stepped foward and volunteered to swim to the Repulse, "a full league downstream," to warn the captain of their presence. "Passing under the guns of the Pointe de la Mission battery, he arrived safely at the English frigate. Captain Allen immediately dispatched" one of his officer, Lord Rutherford,"with nine boats escorted by" the Augustus "to the Marquis de Malauze to the relief of the prisoners. Notwithstanding brisk fire from the one remaining French position, the English prisoners were all released and brought to the Repulse" by mid-afteroon.335
Once the prisoners were rescued, Rutherford promptly set fire to the Marquis de Malauze, destroying all of its precious cargo, which included "'wine and brandy, bales of goods and warlike stores." Six of the British sailors, however, "tarried too long with the liquor and went down with the flaming hulk." As the first of the French north shore battery slackened, Rutherford and his men destroyed every French vessel they could get at, 22 or 23, most of them Acadian sloops and schooners, not counting the ten hulks sunk in the channel or the many Acadian vessels the French had destroyed that morning. Rutherford reported that when his men were done, "only one schooner and two sloops remained by nightfall." The hundreds of Acadians still at Restigouche were now essentially stranded.336
After nightfall, the three British vessels "swung around at 11 o'clock" that evening "and withdrew downstream" and out of range of the Pointe à la Mission battery. They then made their way back to Captain Byron and the Fame, waiting in the north channel above Pointe à la Batterie and near the remains of the burned out village. Satisfied that he had completed his mission, Byron anchored his ships off Pointe à la Batterie while, in keeping with Royal Navy tradition, he issued rum to the men. The following morning, Byron and his flotilla sailed back down the Baie des Chaleurs, following the north shore to Paspébiac, where, on July 14, he rendezvoused with Samuel Wallis' squadron from Québec City, "which had been searching the lower St. Lawrence and the gulf for the French ships..." on orders from Commodore Lord Colvill. Byron then took his three ships of the line and the Scarborough back to Louisbourg and sent the Repulse to Halifax for extensive repairs. Meanwhile, at Restigouche, Giraudais finally received his long list of instructions from Governor-General Vaudreuil, dated June 17, from the hands of the trusy courier St. Simon. By then, it was too late for Giraudais to implement any of them. But he refused to remain idle. He "fitted out some ships," probably the two Acadian sloops and the remaining schooner, "and plundered the trade in the area, captured several more prizes and even managed to send safely to France at least two ships," including "one under Giraudais which arrived in Santander," on the northern coast of Spain, "on 27 October," only days before the surrender of Restigouche.337
The surrender of Restigouche came after the fall of Montréal and Vaudreuil's surrender of Canada in September. Jeffrey Amherst did not contemplate another attack on the last remaining French stronghold in New France, but he was concerned about the number of French troops still there. Vaudreuil claimed to have information that the troops there had been returned to France, but Amherst did not buy it. He pressured the marquis to send an officer to Restigouche to urge the troops there "to lay down their arms according to the capitulation." Vaudreuil chose to send an officer named de Catalogne, who Amherst fretted was too low in rank. Vaudreuil issued his orders to de Catalogne on September 15, and he set sail from Québec City on the 23rd. With Catalogne were a British contingent consisting of "a field officer two Captains, four Subalterns, and one hundred and fifty men" under a Major Elliott aboard the Repulse, now refitted and still commanded by Captain Allen, the Racehorse, the transport Good Intent, and some schooners, under command of Captain Macartney of the Racehorse: "a sufficient force to meet a depleted and discouraged group of soldiers now in alien territory." The flotilla reached Restigouche on October 23, and Macartney "met with the Indians and the troops." It probably was then that he conducted with the Mi'kmaq the burying of "the Scalping Knife and Tomahawk" ceremony to seal the peace with the British. On the 29th, Macartney noted, "the French decided to surrender quietly." They included "one hundred and ninety six Regulars [troupes de la marine] under the Command of Monsr Don Jacque Captain," probably Jean-François Bourdon, still a lieutenant, "with Eighty Seamen Capt. Gramont Commr," who also yielded themselves up prisoners according to the articles of Capitulaton, and were put on board Good Intent Transport to be conveyed to France, agreeable to the notification in my orders." The following day, October 30, the French clerk Bazagier conducted a survey of the Acadians still at Petite-Rochelle, counting 1,003 men, women, and children. "The Number of Indians we could get no just account of but appears to consist of 3 or 400," Macartney reported. He counted nearly two dozen English civilian prisoners, "12 Men, 7 Women, and 4 children," captured by the privateers, and then oversaw the inventory of the fortifications, ordnance, munitions, and vessels, including two New English prizes taken by the privateers. Major Elliott specified the large quantity of ordnance "stores" his men loaded aboard the schooners and the Racehorse, bound for England.338
The Good Intent, heading to France with the surrendered troupes de la marine, left Restigouche on November 5. The rest of Macartney's flotilla did not return to Québec either but, after clearing the Baie des Chaleurs, moved southward down the Gulf shore through Mer Rouge and St. Georges Bay and into the Strait of Canso. "The little British fleet had more trouble in leaving than in coming," Beattie and Pothier relate, "for a severe storm arose immediately after their passage through Canso Narrow and the ships were scattered." The schooner Swan, with Elliott aboard, was driven by the storm onto Sable Island. "The passengers and crew reached shore, but all the equipment and supplies were lost." Two more ships, probably schooners, under a Captain Carter and a Lieutenant Shaw, moved on to New York, headquarters of the British army in North America. Captain Allen took the redoubtable Repulse back to Halifax without incident. The Racehorse made a successful crossing to England, as did the Good Intent to France.340
The Mi'kmaq at Restigouche, having "buried the hatchet," either lingered in the area or returned to their villages. Many, if not most, of the Acadians at Petite-Rochelle remained until the British authorities decided what to do with them. Tired of waiting, some families left Petite-Rochelle and made their way down the south shore of the Baie des Chaleurs to Nepisiguit and Caraquet, or followed the north shore to Gaspésie, where they attempted to establish new communities destroyed by Wolfe two years before. They, along with the Acadians on the bay, did their best to resume privateering with what resources they could muster. Others headed down the Gulf shore to Néguac, Miramichi, Richibucto, Bouctouche, and Cocagne. Some of those who could acquire a boat resumed privateering. Meanwhile, Indians and Acadians still at Restigouche "petitioned the British for attention," mostly in the form of sustenance. What little attention they received at first consisted of "administrative and commercial expeditions" in 1761, including a search party looking for British deserters. In mid-July, Pierre du Calvet, representing the British authorities in Québec, set out for the Baie des Chaleurs "in a large sloop, Ste.-Anne, commanded by Captain Joanis with an eight-man crew." Du Calvet's mission was "to take a census of the Acadians in the area for the Quebec government. This he carried out all along the Restigouche River and Chaleur Bay for by this time many Acadians had left Old Mission and Pointe à Boudeau and moved to sites along Chaleur Bay." Du Calvet finished his work in October and returned to Quebec. By then, in spite of the war, trade had resumed between New-English merchants and bay- and Gulf-shore Acadians, including an "expedition" by Gamaliel Smethurst "in a trading vessel fitted out in Marblehead, Massachusetts, seeking to trade with the Acadians and Mi'kmaq in the summer of 1761. Just as the Yankee trader was about to sail out of Nepisiguit in late October, "his vessel loaded with about 120 tons of dry fish and oil, he encountered an expedition from Fort Cumberland that ruined, for a time, the budding commerce in the area by removing many of the local customers.341
.
The Acadians' old nemesis, Jonathan Belcher, Jr., was now governor of Nova Scotia, which now included today's New Brunswick. He received reports that, despite the defeat of the French at Restigouche and their surrender there in October 1760, hundreds of Acadians many former resistance fighters and privateers, remained in the Baie de Chaleurs area and down the Gulf coast, where they "continued to equip and crew privateers that prowled Chaleur Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence." It was time to clear them out once and for all and hold them close to hand. In October 1761, on orders from Belcher, Captain Roderick Mackenzie of Montgomery's Highlanders, commander of Fort Cumberland, "having armed two Vessels at Bay Vert," the Boston Newsletter later reported, "proceeded as far to Northward as the Bay Challeurs, in order to break up a nest of French Vermin on the Coast, who have done so much Mischief these two or three Years past, in intercepting our Vessels bound to Halifax, Louisbourg, and the River St. Lawrence, which he happily affected; And having taken about 240 Men, Women and Children Prisoners, brought them to Bay Vert; together with 8 or 10 small Vessels loaded with their effects. All the other Craft upon the Coast be destroyed, so that there need be no Apprehension of any Interruption in going up the River next year, as all the Ringleaders of the Mischief hitherto done with their families, are now Prisoners." According to historian Dianne Marshall, one of the captured privateers was Joseph-Nicolas Gauthier II, who along with the Broussards and Surettes, had long menaced the Gulf coast region. Four years later, a census taken of the area revealed only 145 men, women and children remaining, attesting to Mackenzie's thoroughness. However, historian John Grenier asserts, "that accomplished little to lesson Anglo-American anxieties over the holdouts."342
Mackenzie's expedition was
the last of the many forays made by British officers to
corral the region's Acadians as close to the British
authories in Halifax as possible.
By the spring 1760, during the last year of his life, one of Governor Charles Lawrence's most cherished schemes, inherited from Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, was coming to fruition at Chignecto, Minas, and in the Annapolis valley: New-English "planters" began to occupy the Acadian lands in the vicinity of these settlements. Although the idea of filling Nova Scotia, including the Fundy shores, with Protestant Anglos was not a new one, its fulfillment would have been impossible with so many actual Acadians in the way. One could view Lawrence's expulsion of 1755, then, as a colossal land grab that largely succeeded, but it did not take the British long to see that clearing them out would not be enough. Though the Fundy Acadians were cleaned out and kept out by redcoats and Yankees stationed at forts Cumberland, Edward, and Anne, a determined Acadian resistance from the trois-rivières and the lower Gulf shore made Anglo occupation of the Fundy communities impossible. Only Halifax and its surrounding communities were safe enough for Protestant settlers, but even these were sometimes hit by partisans and Mi'kmaq fighters led by the likes of Beausoleil Broussard. This resistance lasted for years. Only the fall of the French citadel at Louisbourg gave any hope of success. On October 1758, three months after Louisbourg fell, Governor Lawrence, "anticipating an end to the guerilla resistance, ... published a proclamation in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia announcing that the former lands of the Acadians would soon become available for resettlement"--a virtual admission that the deportations of three years earlier were nothing less than a colossal land grab. He essentially declared that the Acadian resistance had been defeated, that "'the Enemy--who have formerly disturbed and harassed the Province of Nova Scotia and much obstructed its Progress--have been compelled to retire and take Refuge in Canada." Here was an opportunity, he proclaimed, "for the peopling and cultivating (of) the Lands vacated by the French...." Lawrence hinted in his proclamation that his government was now ready to create something he had long opposed--the creation of civil government, including an elected colonial assembly, to replace his military government that had been ruling Nova Scotia since its creation. Unlike the other 13 seaboard British colonies, which, since the creation of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1619, had colonial assemblies of their own, Nova Scotia had no such entity for the simple reason that when the British took over the reins of the colony in 1713, its population was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, every one of them disenfranchised by Britain's anti-Catholic laws. The creation of Halifax in 1749 and the establishment of other Protestant settlements nearby in the following years, increased the number of Protestants in the colony, but Lawrence, despite pressure from the Board of Trade, Governor Shirley, and Halifax residents, refused to give up the powers and privileges offered him by military rule. If he hoped to entice New Englanders to his province, the creation of a colonial assembly was essential.
And so, on orders from the Colonial Office in London, in May 1758 the Governor's Council in Halifax "passed an enabling act and issed a call for elections." The new assembly's first session, the following October, "passed a series of laws intended to institutionalize Acadian dispossession," which of course would now be pro forma measures. The "'Act for the quieting of Possessions to Protestant grantees of the Lands formerly occupied by the French Inhabitants,' declared ex post facto that from the time of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 until their dispossession in 1755, the Acadians had possessed no legal title to the lands they occupied, and that any rights they had supposedly acquired by prescription, transfer, or concession had been extinguished by the council's decision to remove them." Moreover, "'The Act for the establishment of religious public Worship' proclaimed the Church of England as the 'fixed form of worship," and while providing rights for dissenting Protestants, it excluded Catholics from the franchise or public office and banned all Catholic clergy from the province. Another act prohibited Catholics from owning land, and empowered authorities to seize any and all 'papist' property for the benefit of the crown." "These laws--," John Mack Faragher notes, "--passed by a popular assembly, not enacted by military fiat--laid the foundation for the migration of the Protestant settlers Lawrence hoped to encourage with his 1758 proclamation."344
Despite the legal set up and the "considerable interest in New England" generated by Lawrence's October proclamation, he felt compelled to issue a second proclamation, this one issued in January 1759 and more specific about what was available to the land-hungry Yankees. He proclaimed that the former Acadian "districts" of Annapolis, Minas, and Chignecto offered "100,000 acres of plowed land and another 100,000 acres of pasture, orchard, and garden lands," to be divided in townships near the major forts and garrisons, enhancing protection as well as opportunities "for traded and exchange." The land in these townships would be "granted in plots varying in size according to the ability of grantees to enclose and cultivate the land. Heads of families were entitled to receive up to 1,000 acres free of quitrents for the first ten years." After that, quitrents would be due at an annual rate of only one shilling for each 50 acres owned. To keep the land in perpetuity, the owners must "improve" one-third of it within 10 years, the second third within 20 years, and the final third within 30 years. "Moreover, Lawrence added, 'no Taxes have hitherto been laid upon His Majesty's subjects within the Province, nor are there any fees of office taken upon issuing Grants of Land.'" To tax-burdened New Englanders, these were sweet words, indeed. He reminded future land owners in his province that the Nova Scotia Assembly, as in the New-English provinces, "had passed legislation providing religious freedom for all Protestants, who could build their own meetinghouses and choose their own ministers, and had created governmental institutions 'constituted like those of the neighboring colonies.'"345
Not all historians agree that the Yankees soon to be pouring into Nova Scotia would be getting much of a bargain. According to Andrew Hill Clark, if these New Englanders hoped to find their agricultural paradise in Nova Scotia, they would have been sorely disappointed. "The expansion of Acadian agriculture was confined chiefly to the marshland areas," he reminds us. "Repeatedly their governors [had] urged them [the Acadians] to clear and farm the wooded areas, but with little effect. The great fertility of their dyked fields gave Acadian soils a reputation for richness which they were far from deserving and which led to continual disappointment as the post-Acadian colonists cleared the forests and made their farms," as they had done in New England. "Even had they made full use of the Acadian dyked lands, as they did not, those lands would have accommodated only a fraction of Nova Scotia's immigrants of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." None of this could happen in earnest, of course, regardless of the land's limitations, until the Acadian resistance and Mi'kmaq attacks were so thoroughly suppressed that it held no promise of resurrection. This had not yet happened by 1758 or even 1759, when Mother Nature reminded everyone in the Bay of Fundy region that she was still in firm control. The Fundy Acadians were gone, to be sure, "scattered to the wind," as Carl Brasseaux says, but their handiwork, their aboiteaux and running dykes, still waited to be repaired, rebuilt, or extended by the only agriculturists in North America who farmed below sea level. And then came the great storm of 3-4 November 1759, which, with its massive surge on top of the bay's prodigious tides, finished much of what four years of neglect had not already ruined.11
Nevertheless, succumbing to
the reputation of Nova Scotia's richness,
.
The hated
Lawrence died suddenly in October 1760, and his
Amid the rumors of French resurgence, the war finally ended with the Treaty of Paris of February 1763. Article IV of the treaty gave all persons dispersed by the conflict 18 months to return to their respective territories. In the case of the Acadians, this meant they could return only to French soil. The Acadian settlements in peninsula Nova Scotia had not been French territory for half a century; and the western half of the Chignecto isthmus, the trois-rivières, and the former French Maritimes islands now were part of British Nova Scotia as well. Colonial authorities refused, of course, to allow any of the Acadian prisoners to return to their farmsteads, now either occupied or intended for New-English "planters." If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas, away from their fertile lands along the Bay of Fundy, or they could continue to work as wage laborers on their former lands, but not as proprietors. If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance, without reservation, to the new British king, George III, nor could they vote in the colonial assembly or hold office of any kind, and they would have to practice their religion without priests, who, by decree of the colonial assembly, were banned from the province.
There was much to decide, but one thing was certain: They would not, could not, remain in Nova Scotia, despite enticements to do so. They must find a new home on "French soil." Like their fellow exiles in the seaboard colonies from Massachusetts down to South Carolina, the Acadians in Nova Scotia also received a copy of the duc de Nivernois's secret missive to the Acadians in England, offering to repatriate them to France. The copy of Nivernos's letter to the exiles in England that was meant for the exiles in Nova Scotia came from Philadelphia to Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, being held in Halifax, and a copy of that copy ended up in the hands of Joseph Broussard, then being held at Pigiguit. Broussard was "arrested on the spot" and hurried to Halifax, where, along with Le Maigre, he was brought before the colonial Council to explain himself. Nothing was done to Beausoleil and Le Maigre other than some hard time spent in the prison shed on Georges Island, since the papers taken from them were being widely distributed throughout the British colonies, though one suspects that Halifax officials watched the two old partisans even closer after they released them from Georges Island. Soon the Acadians at Halifax, as others had done in other colonies, prepared a detailed repatrition list--this one dated 12 August 1763 and containing "161 families covering 711 individuals, out of 232 families encompassing 1,056 persons present in Halifax and vicinity"--which, along with a petition pleading for the French to come and take them away, were hurried to the duc de Nivernois's secretary. Another repatriation list, containing 374 names, dated August 24, also was forwarded to the duc's secretary, this one via the governor of îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon. But, as with the plaintive requests of the French in the other colonies, nothing came of it.01d
As far as the French were concerned, the hard-pressed exiles in Nova Scotia were on their own ... again.
Most of the Acadians held in Nova Scotia were still there in the autumn of 1764, a bit past the 18 months the Paris treaty had given them to find other homes on friendly soil. In the summer of 1764, the province's new governor, Montague Wilmot, who had replaced Belcher in November 1763, responded to a royal decree of 11 July 1764 and "tender'd" to the Acadians "the oath of allegiance" as well as "offers of a settlement in this Country." Most of the Acadians rebuffed the oath as well as the offer. British leaders in Halifax, led by former governor and current colonial chief justice Jonathan Belcher, Jr., still felt threatened by the Acadian presence in Nova Scotia. They were especially fearful of the Beausoleil Broussards and other resistance leaders. Belcher encouraged Governor Wilmot to remove the Acadians from the province despite his July offer, orders from London to keep them there, and entreaties from the New-English "planters" to retain them as cheap but highly skilled labor. Wilmot resisted Belcher at first, so the chief justice hatched a scheme to send the Acadians from Halifax to Baskenridge, New Jersey, to work as indentured servants on an English nobleman's land; Belcher's father just happened to be the governor of New Jersey, and the nobleman was one of his father's political allies. Wilmot also received a proposal to send 30 Acadian families to New York colony to work as indentured servants there. Luckily for the Acadians, neither scheme came to fruition. Infected, finally, by Belcher's fear of Acadian treachery, Wilmot proposed to his uncle, the powerful Earl of Halifax, the deportation of the Acadian "prisoners" in Nova Scotia to the British West Indies, but the earl rejected his nephew's scheme, adding that "the king of England considered the Acadians as having the same status as his other Catholic subjects in North America, and thus they needed only to swear the appropriate oath of allegiance in order to settle in the colony and enjoy the same privileges and rights as other British subjects[!]. As British subjects, they could not be forbidden from leaving the colony or any British territory, if they so wished." But these words, no matter how short-sighted they were, fell on deaf ears. Determined to be rid of the Acadians, and in contradiction of recent royal decrees, Wilmot conceived a plan that he was certain would discourage them from remaining in Nova Scotia. First, he and his Council crafted a new ironclad oath for them that insulted their Roman Catholic faith. Most compellingly, and against every directive from his superiors in London, he gave the resistance leaders and their families a hard choice: either submit to deportation to the British West Indies or remain imprisoned in Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia was no longer a welcome place for the descendants of its original settlers. Too proud to work for wages, unwilling to work as indentured servants in colonies where they could lose their religion as well as their culture, unable to return to their precious farms in the upper Fundy basins, and determined not to take the hated oath, the Broussards and their kinsmen had to find a suitable place to put down new roots. The St. Lawrence valley seemed to be a poor choice; they were hearing stories of how the French Canadians treated with contempt Acadian refugees who had settled among them as early as 1756. Besides, Canada was as much a British possession now as Nova Scotia, and settling on the St. Lawrence would require them to take the unqualified oath. Nor was it likely that Wilmot would allow the troublesome Broussards and their partisan compatriots to settle as close as Québec to their former lands in greater Acadia. The Illinois country on the upper Mississippi was a viable option, but the British would not let them take the shortest route there via Canada, and France had just ceded the eastern part of Illinois to Britain. Moreover, Indian uprisings, including one led by the Ottawa chief Pontiac, were ravaging the western frontier, and the fighting there could last for years. But there were other regions of North America still controlled by France, such as the west bank of the Illinois country in today's Missouri, which they would have to reach via New Orleans. The French cession of western Louisiana to Spain, secured in a secret agreement between the allies at Fontainebleu, France, in November 1762, was still a well-kept secret in the early fall of 1764, but the Acadians in Nova Scotia would have been aware that French authorities controlled New Orleans and the west bank of the lower Mississippi in what was left of French Louisiana. France still controlled Martinique, Guadaloupe, and St.-Domingue in the French Antilles, where hundreds of Acadian exiles from the seaboard colonies recently had gone to escape British rule and live among fellow Catholics. However, letters from Acadians in St.-Domingue detailed the horrors of the climate and maltreatment there at the hands of French officials. There was always the mother country itself, where the British had deported hundreds of Acadians from the French Maritime islands during the war and to where the Acadians held in England had been recently repatriated. But even with permission from the French crown to go to the mother country, which they had not received, a cross-Atlantic voyage would be difficult and expensive, as would a voyage from Halifax to the French Antilles. There was much for the Broussards and their kinsmen to consider, and time was running out.
In May 1764, 76 family heads at Halifax "addressed a request to Wilmot ... reiterating the wish they had stated two weeks earlier, on 12 April, saying that they recognized no other sovereign but the king of France, and asking that they be furnished with provisions and vessels that would take them to France or French territory. They pointed out that, with the war ended, they were no longer prisoners of war and thus should enjoy the freedom to move to the country of their choice, following the model of the Acadians who had been kept prisoner in England and who had gone to France, or those held in Canada who had emigrated to Cap-Français in Saint-Domingue (Haiti)." Meanwhile, "during the summer of 1764, an invitation was circulating in the Halifax region, where the governor of the Caribbean Leeward Islands asked Acadians to transfer there."
After much deliberation, the old resistance fighters and their kin chose to accept the French governor's invitation and go to St.-Domingue. No higher authority planned their move from Halifax to the Caribbean Basin. Wilmot and the Council refused, of course, to pay for transports, though Wilmot was happy to provide them with rations for the long voyage down the coast. Pooling the money their sons had saved from months of labor on their former lands, the Broussard party left Halifax in late November 1764 aboard an English schooner--slightly over 200 men, women, and children crowding the chartered vessel, with 400 more Halifax exiles on their own leased vessels to follow in the weeks ahead. But some chose to stay. "When these families departed in the fall of 1764," Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc informs us, "several other families stayed in the Halifax region before dispersing to other parts of Nova Scotia and what would later," in 1784, "become the separate province of New Brunswick and even to French-held Miquelon off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Their descendants are still found in these places today."
The Broussard party reached Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, in January and could see even in that winter month that the island's climate was unsuitable for them. They had hoped to reunite with relatives there, but many of the St.-Domingue Acadians were either dead or dying from tropical diseases, starvation, and overwork. Others refused to endure another voyage, even a relatively short one. Just as disturbing, there was little chance of acquiring productive farm land in the island's plantation-slave economy. They could see no future for their children in St.-Domingue, despite its being a French colony. So, before resuming their voyage, the Broussard party welcomed aboard the few St.-Domingue relatives willing to join them. They then sailed west through the Florida Strait into the Gulf of Mexico and on to the lower Mississippi River, gateway to the Illinois country. They reached Louisiana in early or mid-February 1765, their arrival at La Balize at the mouth of the great river a complete surprise to the French caretaker government still in control of the colony. By the third week of February, they had completed the 100-mile upriver voyage to New Orleans, where they sanctified marriages and baptized children who had been born in the Nova Scotia prisons and on the months-long voyage from Halifax via Cap-Français. During the following months, more exiles from the prison compounds in Nova Scotia joined the Broussards in Louisiana, so that by the end of 1765 nearly 600 of them had found new, permanent, homes in the Mississippi valley colony.347
Acadian Exiles in England and France, 1756-1800s
Of the nine seaboard colonies to which Charles Lawrence sent Acadian exiles in 1755, Virginia was the only one that turned them all away. The Acadians, from Minas Proper and Pigiguit, six transports full of them, arrived there in November, December, and January, and were gone by the following May, about the time that Britain and France declared war on one another. The Fanny Bovey, with 204 Acadians, reached Falmouth, in Cornwall on England's extreme southwest coast, on 19 June 1756, and some ended up at nearby Penryn; the Virginia Packet, with 289 Acadians aboard, reached Bristol, also on the southwest coast, facing the estuary of the Severn River, the following day; the Bobby Goodridge, carrying 296 exiles, reached Portsmouth, on the south coast, on June 23; and the Industry, likely the same 86-ton sloop that had transported 177 Acadians from Minas the previous autumn, reached Liverpool, far up on the west coast, with 243 Acadians aboard on June 26. Acadians from Virginia also lived in Exeter, in Devon, between Plymouth and Southampton in the south of England. The total number of passengers on the four vessels was 1,032, compared to 1,149 who had come to Virginia on seven transports the previous autumn and winter. Here was a mortality rate of at least ten percent, though it likely was higher, for some of the women certainly had given birth during their five-month sojourn in England's Old Dominion.
English authorities were surprised by the arrival of these "French Neutrals" to their shores, expressing "much 'Displeasure and Disapprobation' as the transports suddenly appeared over a week's time. Before they left, Virginia Governor Dinwiddie handed a letter to the master of the Virginia Packet, the first transport to leave Hampton Roads (but the second one to reach an English port), in which the governor informed his superiors: "'The Danger we apprehended from such a number of Neutral French Roman Catholics being suffered to continue amonst us,' they resolved, made it imperative that they ' be immediately shipped to Great Britain to be disposed of as His Majesty shall think proper.... I hope this step will meet with your approbation ... as I could not shun consenting thereto from the general clamour of the whole Country.'" Their treatment upon their arrival in England resembled that of Acadian exiles who had been sent to the other seaboard colonies in North America, and their subsequent treatment at the hands of the English was far worse. "At Bristol," John Mack Faragher relates, "they were disembarked and left on the wharves for three days and nights before finally being put up in an old warehouse. At Liverpool, they were quartered in a cluster of abandoned workshops; at Southampton, in a dilapidated old barracks." Official reaction in London was predictable. "After sending a blistering letter of criticism to Dinwiddie, the government gave orders that the exiles be maintained by the Sick and Hurt Board of the Admiralty. In practice, they were maintained hardly at all, each family allocated only a few pence per week for food and shelter." Some of the exiles wasted no time in doing what they could to support their families, with limited success. "At Falmouth and Southampton some of the men found irregular employment," working odd jobs, "but," Christopher Hodson adds, "most were 'restrained' from doing so 'to prevent the Clamour of the laboring People." "[A]ll those at Liverpool and Bristol were kept in virtual imprisonment in conditions far worse than in any of the colonies." And of course the inevitable happened. "Almost as soon as they arrived," Faragher continues, "they were struck with epidemics of smallpox. At Falmouth, sixty-one Acadians were buried in a common grave in the Protestant cemetery at nearby St.-Gluvias Parish. Reports of the exiles' treatment reached the French, and in the fall of 1756 they filed a formal protest, charging that the Acadians were being inhumanely neglected. Admiralty officials responded that the accusation was 'false, indecent, and absurd,' as well as 'very dishonourable to the Nation,' and attributed Acadian mortality to 'their long voyage, their change of climate, their habits of body, their other disorders, and their irregularity and obstinancy.' The British government, the Admiralty maintained, had strictly observed 'the laws of nations and the principles of justice.'" The next seven years in the land of their enemies would reveal the true nature of these British claims.348
British historian Richard Holledge gives an idea of English society at the time the Acadians arrived in these four cities: "Considerable unrest was to be found" there, "which would come to characterize life in Britain for the duration of the war. Bread riots were a testament to the plight of the starving populace. The imposition of the Enclosre Acts drove country folk off their traditional command lands, which were to be given to new landlords. Millions of acres of land were swallowed up by the rich, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to the cities, where they lived in poverty."349
Christopher Hodson offers insight into how these exiles coped in a land so foreign and hostile to them: "Repeatedly and earnestly, Acadians sent from Virginia to Great Britain used their status as subjects of the British Empire to barter for rights, privileges, and connection to the power of the imperial state. Indeed, exiles projected themselves as a community of aggrieve subjects, separated by good political judgment from their rebellious neighbors." These were, in fact, Minas Basin Acadians, who, with the exception of resistance fighters like Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre of Grand-Pré, tended to be less anti-British than their cousins in Chignecto and the trois-rivières. Hoping British authorities would realize this and grant them relief, some wrote letters to officials in London detailing their personal history of political passivity and even instances of their helping the British back in Nova Scotia. Two Daigre brothers at Falmouth, representing the Acadian community there, beseeched the authorities to allow them to practice their Catholic faith, including the sacraments, as did British subjects of the same faith, even if it meant being sent to another place.350
By 1763, according to one count, only 786 Acadian exiles remained in England, down from 1,032 who had arrived in June 1756. According to Carl Brasseaux, "these Acadians had watched helplessly as half their fellow exiles died from epidemic diseases, particulary smallpox," so many more exiles must have come to England during the Acadians' seven years there. Then the war finally ended with the Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1763. After the English failed to coax them into becoming willing subjects of the British king, a French prisoner named Duplessis from Le Havre offered to help Acadians in Liverpool to address the French authorities in London about going to France. Having seen the plight of the Acadian exiles being held in England, the French ambassador to Great Britain, Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini Marazini, duc de Nivernois, sprang into action. On March 18, Nivernois penned a secret dispatch, entrusted to his emissary, Monsieur de la Rochette, that promised the exiles in England "the protection of King Louis X" in their efforts to return to French soil. In the letter, the duc "urged the exiles to cooperate with French diplomatic efforts to liberate them, stating 'your treatment in France will be still more advantageous than you expect.'" La Rochette met with groups of Acadians in some of their various communities. Some, like the Acadians in Liverpool, welcomed him. Others, especially in Southampton, remained non-committal. Some expected, naively, to return to Nova Scotia and their former lands, others to go to France, where so many of their kind had gone, and resume their lives as farmers there, as evidently promised by Nivernois. In the end, most, if not all, of them chose to go to France. In late May, Nivernois employed two French transports, the sloop L'Ambition from Southampton with 219 passenters, and the frigate La Dorothée from Bristol with 175, to send repatriated Acadians to St.-Malo in northern Brittany. In June, the French transport La Fauvette, with 159 exiles, sailed from Falmouth and Penryn to Morlaix, also in northern Brittany, along with another transport, L'Esturgeon, from Liverpool to Morlaix, with 200 or so passengers--759 exiles in all by one count. La Rochette complained about the Acadians at Penryn that "the embarkation of the group was not made without some difficulty, by reason of the relative 'integration' of the Acadians in the surrounding community: 'They are the wealthiest and most civilized of the whole band,'" La Rochette insisted. "'[T]hey are also the most stubborn and the least candid; they have given more trouble than I thought (they would). In addition, the town was in the middle of celebrating Pentecost Sunday, and the entire honorable corporation of Penyrn did not cease for three days to be drunk on cider and liquor from Nantes.'" Le Rochette also noted that "at the instant" LEsturgeon set sail from Liverpool, "five or six young men jumped from the boat," another example of "integration" by the Acadians into the local population. Families from England who went to St.-Malo settled in the Rance valley villages where their cousins had bee living since early 1759. Families who went to Morlaix chose to live at Ploujean, St.-Pol-de-Léon, Guerlesquin, and Tréguier near the city and in the parishes of St.-Martin des Champs, St.-Mathieu, and St.-Mélaine in the city. According to Gérard-Marc Braud, the Acadians who landed in Morlaix, despite the initial shortage of housing, "were integrated into the bosom of the Morlaix community." One of the first things they did when they reached the city was to confirm the baptisms of their infants and newborns. Many of Acadians in St.-Martin Parish, where most of them lived, were lodged on the Rue Bourret. Having come to France, Carl Brasseaux notes, these Acadians "expected special treatment," not only the six sols solde, which they immediately received, but "particularly resettlement upon fertile land and reestablishment of their pre-dispersal lifestye," but, Brasseaux tells us, "these dreams were shattered immediately upon arrival in France." In compensation, the city fathers "aided the Acadians in finding work and went as far as making it possible for the Acadian children to register for school without paying." It took the authorites at Versailles two and a half years to find land in the mother country for these Minas Basin farmers who had spent so many years away from the plow.13
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The exiles from England were not the first Acadians who "returned" to France. They were, in fact, among the last large group of them to come to the mother country from greater Acadia, in their case indirectly. The first documented exiles from greater Acadia arrived from Louisbourg, Île Royale, at La Rochelle in September 1758, only two months after the fall of the French citadel. Hundreds more followed later that month, arriving from Louisbourg not only at La Rochelle, but also at St.-Malo, Brest, and Rochefort. Not all of them, however, were Acadians. Then came the tidal wave of deportations from Île St.-Jean, the great majority of whom were Acadians. All of the trans-Atlantic transports from that island--11 of them--were destined for St.-Malo, which seven of them reached between December 1758 and March 1759, but one of them landed at Boulogne-sur-Mer in December, and survivors from another one finally reached Le Havre in February. Two of the transports were lost at sea. The few islanders who landed accidentally at Boulogne-sur-Mer, a good distance from their fellow islanders, tended to move on to St.-Malo, Morlaix, La Rochelle, and Rochefort, but the ones who lingered in the northern fishing center lived in St.-Nicolas and St. Joseph parishes in the city or at nearby Baincthun in Artois. Needless to say, the Ministry of Marine did not anticipate "these scattered arrivals, having given orders to the various ships' captains out of Louisbourg to land only at La Rochelle and St.-Malo. But here they were, scattered all along the French coast, from Picardie down to Aunis. The great majority of islanders who went directly or indirectly to St.-Malo, 850 of them at first, did not live in the walled port city. As ordered by the intendant of Brittany, after spending their first weeks in "temporary encampments" at nearby St.-Servan, the refugees were gathered together and then parcelled out to dozens of communities (by one count, 37) that lined Rivière Rance southward to the fortified city of Dinan, as well in the sprawling countryside east and west of the Rance. These suburbs and villages included, on the east side of the river, heading upriver or southward, from St.-Malo: St.-Servan-sur-Mer (432 families, St.-Jouan-des-Guérets, St.-Suliac (111 families), Meillac, Châteauneuf (25 families), Pleudihen-sur-Rance (78 families), Mordreuc, Paramé in the countryside north of St.-Malo (12 families), Bonnaban (6 families), St.-Coulomb (10 families), Château Malo, St.-Méloire-des-Ondes (10 families), and La Gouesnière (16 families); on the west side of river, across from St.-Malo and heading southward: St.-Énogat (today's Dinard) (50 families), St.-Lunaire, St.-Briac, St.-Cast, Lamballe, St.-Thual, Ploubalay (14 families), Pleurtuit (40 families), Tréméreuc (6 families), Langrolay-sur-Rance (9 families), Pleslin (18 families), Trigavou (16 families), Plouër-sur-Rance (90 families), Hirel, Taden, Dinan, and Corseul in the countryside west of Dinan. The refugees resisted this disbursement at first, perhaps fearing the consequences to their extended families of being so widely scattered, but after seeing Rivière Rance and its lovely valley for themselves, they realized that "they would still remain in the environs of Saint-Malo, sufficiently close to communicate with one another and to occasionally re-assemble without too much difficulty." Besides, here they could be farmers again, or work in the villages at whatever trade they had acquired back in Acadie. According to Jean-François Mouhot, by the early 1770s "About 1,700 to 1,800 Acadians were close to the banks of the Rance, especially the former inhabitants of Île Saint-Jean, or around 70 percent of the Acadians pensioned by the government," the largest concentration of Acadian refugees during their time in France. They became especially numerous in the suburbs of St.-Servan and St.-Énogat, on both sides of the Rance estuary and close to St.-Malo, and at St.-Suliac on the river not far above St.-Servan. Meanwhile, other Acadians transported to France were not islanders but captured denizens of the outlying Acadian communities of the Cap-Sable area and the lower Rivière St.-Jean valley, who were held at Halifax after their capture and then transported to France via England, about the same time the islanders went to the mother country. These Acadians landed at the Norman ports of Le Havre and Cherbourg in January 1759 and January 1760, and some made their way to their loved ones near St.-Malo.
Jean-François Mouhot points out that, upon their arrival in late 1758, French authorities said of the Acadians, in the words of Nicolas-René Berryer, comte de La Ferrière, then Minister of Marine: "'Their stay is only momentary; they are destined to return to America.'" "This opinion persisted for many years," Mouhot continues, "and was even reinforced with the signing of the peace of 1763," which brought more Acadians to France. In October 1761, soon after the Acadians' first arrival, Étienne-François, duc de Choiseul-Stainville, Minister of State, had replaced Berryer as Minister of Marine (while retaining other ministries). "The principal concern of Choiseul at that time," Mouthot explains, "was to divert attention from the French decline," such as in Canada, "by developing a new empire, and the Acadians were always the first to be considered as participating in populating the colonies envisaged." So here they were, in substantial numbers, to be used as Choiseul, and the King, desired.351
According to Carl Brasseaux, these transplanted island exiles, along with their fellow Acadians who came to France from Halifax and from England, "found themselves literally dumped in coastal cities, where, except for a small welfare subsidy (insufficient to pay either rent or food), they were abandoned by the crown. Indeed after being temporarily housed in makeshift reception centers (sometimes abandoned military barracks), many Acadians found themselves literally forced to live in the streets, with no prospect of improving their lot. The economics of the French coastal cities were devastated by the war and British blockade and this offered few job opportunities; the Acadians, on the other hand, generally lacked the job skills demanded by urban job markets and thus could not find employment where jobs existed.. Fully cognizant of the Acadians' plight, many unscrupulous French businessmen and landowners attempted to exploit the exiles ruthlessly. One landowner suggested that the government institute "workfare" and send the Acadians to work in his mines, while other 'land sharks and swindlers' attempted to have the Acadians reduced to the status of peasants and employed as workers on French estates." This compelled French officials in Paris and at Versailles to intervene in the exiles' behalf, resulting in emergency assistance, especially in the form of a daily dole, as well as several resettlement schemes not only in other parts of France, but also, as Choiseul envisioned, in remaining French colonies.
Meanwhile, as the records abundantly show, French authorities allowed individual Acadians and families to move about from port to port, wherever they chose, as long as they acquired a passport, to reunite with loved ones--spouses, parents, children, even their extended families--what Jean-François Mouhot calls "spontaneous regroupings." French officials, noticing this trend, not only allowed but also encouraged it. "[I]t would seem that ... there was a certain convergence between the spontaneous assembly of the Acadians and the intentions of the government," Mouhot notices, "since, to facilitate sending the refugees overseas at the time of the peace, it was better that they remained relatively grouped together." Also worth noting is that, "for the ministry, the regroupings facilitated the distribution of aid, taking of censuses, and general supervision. The government did authorize the inhabitants to move from one town to another and ordered that their payment be distrubuted to them wherever they might go. The Secretary of State," Choiseul, "only recommended that they not take on 'the habit of a wandering life' and that they not receive doubt payments," which showed how well he knew these people. "The government did not have to worry too much about this," Mouhot notes, "because the refugees themselves were convinced that they would soon leave France and, at that time, did not consider separating."352
The idea that they would soon be sent to "the colonies" comported with the administration's opposition to the Acadians' assimilation "into the local communities" at this time. This included employment. "Now and again the government was concerned with the economic integration of the Acadians in wanting them to find ... work, but the plans for their departure negated this effort by preventing them from making long term plans," Mouhot explains. Another consequence of planning to send the Acadians back to the colonies was the government's encouragement of young Acadians to marry their own kind--that is, to prefer endogamous marriages. That the Acadians overwhelming favored such marriages, for one reason or another, during their time in France, can be found in the three volumes of Albert J. Robichaux, Jr.'s study of the Acadian exiles in St.-Malo, as well as his single-volume studies of the Acadians in Poitou and at Nantes. Mouhot's study of this phenomenon also offers an interesting explanation for preferment of endogamous marriage: the majority of Acadian men prefered Acadians brides for, among other reasons, the likelihood that marrying a French woman might limit the amount of his unique compensation granted by the King's government.358
The bureaucratic organizations that provided assistance to the Acadians in France, especially the daily subsidy, were amazingly elaborate. First was the bureaucracy answering to the Secretary of State of the Navy, also called the Minister of Marine, who answered to the King and who, since the time of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, oversaw the French colonies as well as the French ports, eight bureaux in all in the Navy Department. The Bureau of Colonies, created in 1710, in the final days of Louis XIV, included "commissioners of divisions" for every port who answered to the general commissioners and intendants of each region. It was the commissioners of divisions, such as "one Isarn" at St.-Malo or Quétier at Morlaix and Cherbourg, or their designees, who engaged in direct contact with the Acadians near those ports and distributed assistance directly to them. The general commissioner for these ports was a nobleman named Guillot, who communicated directly with his superiors in Paris but not with individual Acadians, who, in his eyes, were people of "lower status." The individuals in the Bureau of the Colonies charged with "coordinating the administration of the Acadians," were Accaron, "counselor and first agent of the Navy," who held the office in 1763-64, and Le Roque, "also first agent, specifically charged with Acadian affairs" in July 1772. Also concerned with the Acadians of St.-Malo and Morlaix was "the States of Brittany," which also oversaw the Acadians on Belle-Île-en-Mer. On the local level, municipal councils also played a role in Acadian affairs. On a wider level, influential individuals, including nobles and members of clergy, also were granted supervistory roles over the Acadians. Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu, vicar general of the Bishop of Québec, was given a supervisory role over the Acadians in 1760, and then Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, of Acadian resistance fame, took over the role after Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu's retirement in 1763. One suspects that Le Loutre, who had caused so much pain and suffering for the Acadians in pre-dispersal Nova Scotia, became the guardian angel of the exiles in France as some sort of spiritual atonement. He even took under his wing a number of Acadian youths who studied for the priesthood under his guidance at Nantes. The abbé, in fact, continued in this supervistory role until his death at Nantes in September 1772. Unfortunately, Le Loutre, who became popular among the Acadians, was not replaced by another abbé (the one asked to be his replacement, the archdeacon of St.-Malo, refused) but by a commissioner of the navy Antoine-Philippe Lemoyne, who, beginning in 1773, gave way to various bureaucrats in the Contrôle Général, so that the personal touch provided by Le Loutre was lost to the Acadians. Nevertheless, the Acadians, never a shy people, did not hesitate to petition, often in person, ministers, members of the royal family, and even the King himself. One 1782 document claims, probably with exaggeration, that "'Every three months two of three fathers of families arrive who come in the name of all of them to seek the justice and goodness of the King. All of the individuals of the royal family have received and recommended their reports.'" Moreover, Jean-François Mouhot attests, "One finds in the texts many references to people who interfered in favor of the Acadians. These individuals sometimes interfered with the official orders, soliciting privileges or exemptions for the Acadians."356
Perhaps the most frustrating Acadian interaction with the French bureaucracy concerned the timely payment of the "pension" authorized by the Minister of Marine and the King himself--the six-sous or sols daily subsidy or solde, "slightyly more than a laborer's daily wage," given to them soon after their arrival and meant only for them. According to Jean-François Mouhot: "The administration knew how to demonstrate remarkable organization in cases of need, despite the difficulties of the period, but the Acadian question was, from all evidence, not a priority for the successive governments. This is the main reason for the delays in distribution of assistance, which weighed heavily on the Acadians." There was also the question of fairness to the French people. Why should able-bodied Acadians who had found work in their communities continue to receive this "charity," as Voltaire scornfully called it? This nagging question among French officials eventually led, in 1778, to the reduction of the solde from six sous to three sous per day per person. Nevertheless, the government was concerned enough about the plight of the Acadians to make certain that the families and individuals who received the solde were actual Acadians. In 1773, Commissioner Lemoyne was tasked to conduct a census of all the Acadians in the kingdom that included interrogations of anyone who had been receiving the solde but for some reason may not deserve it--not only a policy of fairness, but of cost-saving as well. The result was a count of 366 married men, 366 married women, 25 widowers, 110 widows, and 1,593 children and unmarried people found in 11 different locations: 2 at Boulogne-sur-Mer, 166 at Le Havre, 228 at Cherbourg, 1,727 in the St.-Malo area, 179 at Morlaix, 27 at Lorient, 79 at Rochefort, 42 at La Rochelle, 10 at Bordeaux, 103 on Belle-Île-en-Mer, and 3 at Paris--2,556 "true" Acadians.357
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As for the resettlement schemes created for the Acadians in France, the first involved the new French colony of Guiane, Guiana, or Guyana on the northeast coast of South America, solicitation for which began in early 1763. About the same time, solicitation began for the settlement of the Îles Malouines, today's Falkland Islands, in the far South Atlantic. Expeditions to those colonies left France with Acadians aboard beginning in the late summer of 1763 for the Malouines, and in the spring of 1764 for Guiane. For various reasons, these colonies failed utterly. However, a third attempt to resettle Acadians in French territory, more or less in France, was more successful than the earlier ventures, in part because of the Acadians' own efforts. Christopher Hodson explains: "With deep traditions of political petitioning in Nova Scota in their heads, eight years of exile under their belt, and a bewildering hodgepodge of colonial schemes in the air, the Acadians had no choice but to become savvy managers of their reputation." Begun in late 1765, the new settlement was created for the exiles recently arrived from England, most, if not all, of whom were farmers from the Minas Basin still lingering in the urban and suburban centers at Morlaix and St.-Malo who hoped to become productive farmers again.353
The Acadian settlement on Belle-Île-en-Mer, also called Belle-Île, "a rocky, wind-swept island" off the southern coast of Brittany, was, says Carl Brasseaux, the brainchild of French minister of state Choiseul, "an individual not generally known for his compassion." The duc, as much as anyone, shaped French policy before and after the Treaty of Paris, especially concerning the fate of what was left of the French empire. The failed attempt to settle Guiane was his, and the Falkland Crisis of 1770, for which he would be largely responsible, would result in his unwelcome retirement. Nevertheless, after his failure to lure many Acadians to the Malouines and Guiane, finding a place to resettle the Acadians became a priority for the minister of state. He employed the Controller-General, Henri-Léonard-Jean-Baptiste Bertin, to solicit intendants throughout the kingdom, especially in Normandy, for a suitable place to send them. As early as July 1763, only two months after the Acadians from England reached Morlaix and St.-Malo, the "States of Brittany" broached the possibility of sending these Acadians to Belle-Île-en-Mer to repopulate the island. At first the plan called for "the displacement of the islanders and the redistribution of lands," but then the plan was changed to assimilate the Acadians into the local population. This was when Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, the designated champion of the Acadians, stepped in. In a series of letters to Baron Richard de Warren, the new governor of the island, in early 1764, the abbé insisted that the Acadians be settled on the island together and that the government cover all the expenses of transportation, housing, and setting up the farms. The Controller-General of Finances agreed to paying expenses--56,000 livres to the States of Brittany "for supplies of material for the settlement and payment of the price of transportation of the Acadians"--but placing them in only one part of the island, favored not only by Le Loutre but also by the distant Choiseul, was another matter. "Le Loutre maintained that the Acadians wanted to be 'placed all together' and wanted to live 'as they lived, still neighbors and within a proximity of one another, and to not be mingled with the Belle-Île residents.'" He admitted that he had a "personal interest in this reassembly: 'I cannot hide from you, Monsieur, that I would prefer the Acadians (to be together) so that I could be amidst them, animate them, and encourage them to work...'" He also was well into his 50s and did not look forward to hours on horseback visiting far-flung communities. On hearing of the possibility of the Acadians settling on the island, a local government official stepped in, declaring that "most of the then-residents of the island were ... 'extremely lazy'" and would be benefitted by intermixing with the hardworking Acadians. Moreover, Le Loutre's plan to keep his Acadians together would have resulted in a reshuffling of land holdings on the island, against which the locals protested vigorously, despite an offer by the States of Brittany to give them "a general reimbursement." A further complication was that the islanders "were not owners of their lands" and never had been; they held a "fee-farm," what the French called afféagement, a kind of lease which required them to pay rents to representatives of the Crown to remain on their piece of island. This made them vulnerable to "expropriation," which the government of Brittany was now proposing. Moreover, the Acadians and the locals did not speak the same language! The Acadians spoke a dialect akin to seventeenth-century French, and the locals spoke a dialect of the Breton language, two very different tongues. Significantly, it was also agreed that in the distribution of land, the locals would have first choice, the newcormers second choice, and, of course, the Acadians also would hold their lands as "fee-farms." So even before the Acadians set foot on the island, the nature of their relationship with many of the locals, and the island itself, was already determined, and not always for the good.354
Belle-Île, called Vindilis by the Romans, for much of its modern history had been privately held, but in 1718, as a belated wish of Louis XIV, the island was ceded to the Crown. Peace had reigned on the island for decades, when mainland French mariners crossed to the island to take advantage of its location athwart an important trade route. Others did their best to bring life to the island's rocky soil, and many failed miserably. Then another war came. The decisive naval battle of Quiberon Bay, called the Trafalgar of the Seven Years' War, was fought within sight of Belle-Île-en-Mer on 20 November 1759, during Britain's so-called annus mirabilis. In 1761, the British seized the island as a base for future operations against the French coast. As a result, "half the population" of 5,000 or so "moved back to the mainland," creating many abandoned lands on the island. Belle-Île was returned to France in exchange for the island of Minorca in the treaty of 1763. The British left the island a shambles. After much effort on the part of Choiseul, Le Loutre, and others, by late 1765 Acadians from Morlaix, who had gone there from England two and a half years earlier, were resettled on Belle-Île. Carl Brasseaux notes that the venture "endured seven years and collapsed, the result of crop failure, drought, livestock epidemics, and the opposition of native Frenchmen." Other historians are not so harsh in their evaluation of French efforts there. The fact that "Much of the island's current population is descended from repatriated Acadian colonists" is a testament, at least, to a cultural success on the part of the Acadians who went to the island and refused to leave.355
The first Acadians to visit the island were a delegation of three from Morlaix--Honoré LeBlanc and Joseph Trahan from Liverpool, and Joseph-Simon Granger from Penryn--in July 1763. "They declared that nearly eighty Acadian families might settle on the island, leaving room for the original bellilois inhabitants." But these farmers from the Minas Basin "were not impressed" with everything they saw. "The climate was harsh, the soil inferior, and they feared that settling there would expose them to danger," especially to another British invasion. The government turned to Le Loutre for help, and the abbé--the Grand Muphti, the island's governor called him--performed his magic on the officials as well as the Acadians. As related by John Mack Faragher, Le Loutre "agreed to act as recruiting agent for the Belle-Île-en-Mer project, and persuaded a number of Acadians that on the island they might reestablish their traditional way of life. He also persuaded the government to sweeten its subsidy, giving to each family not only a concession of land" but also animals, tools for plowing, "a sum of 400 livres, and an exemption from all taxes for five years," among other benefits. Choiseul managed to squeeze credit from the Controller-General of Finance for the venture in February 1765, and in March the States of Brittany, meeting in Nantes, gave its approval for the settlement. Two delegates--Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre and Amand Granger--were sent ahead to see to the preparation of lodging for their fellow colonists. As delegate Joseph-Simon Granger had insisted, local masons agreed to help construct the Acadians' houses in stone; the Acadians themselves "were not expert in the use of this material, more accustomed, as in Acadia, to constructing houses of wood." In late September and into October 1765, Acadian families from Morlaix--55 of the 78 families there, numbering 363 individuals--reached Le Palais, the first by sea and some of the later arrivals via Vannes on the mainland. Le Loutre managed to coax 22 families from St.-Malo to join the venture as well. Despite preparations, the Acadians' island homes were not yet ready, so they were housed temporarily in the market hall at Le Palais. According to the contracts the family heads signed at Le Palais soon after their arrival, each family was promised "a house composed of two rooms and a loft, totaling about twenty-seven square meters. In addition, each family was to receive two oxen, a cow, [a ram,] and a horse, along with carts, spare axles, hoes, spades, and sickles." They should not have been surprised that, "Like peasants across the kingdom, Belle-Île's settlers owed corvée labor for the repair of roads, mills, bridge, and other structures, facing fines if they did not comply." Small dues and tithes to compensate royal officials and local clergy also were in the contract. However, the Acadians could keep their six-sous solde "'until they should have made a crop.'" One of the more palatable features of the contract was "If the new colonists managed to clear, till, and farm the land successfully, it became their private, inheritable, incontestable property." However, "Belle-Île's settlers could not sell their land until January 1, 1776," a decade hence, "nor could they leave it uncultivated. The penalty for both offenses was expulsion from the island. Perks notwithstanding," Christopher Hodson quips, "the Acadians had signed up for a decade-long hitch as glorified serfs."
By the time of their arrival, it had been agreed that the new habitants, for practical and humanitarian reasons, would not be clumped together but would be dispersed throughout the four island districts: Sauzon in the north (24 families), Le Palais in the east (12 families, "mostly Grangers"), Locmaria in the south (12 families), and Bangor in the west (30 families), each of which had a church of its own. It, in fact, was one of the rectors on the island who led a revolt of the locals against Le Loutre and the Acadians over the question of consolidation or dispersal, and so the "lazy" locals, and the "emulationists," won. Besides, measuring only 10 1/2 miles by 5 1/2 miles, any part of the island was easily accessible by foot, horse, or cart, so the Acadians would have had no problem visiting their loved ones even at the far end of another district. Each of the districts contained dozens of small villages, all of them surrounded by pastures and fields, now to be rearranged for the benefit of all. "Using new surveys," Christopher Hodson explains, "planners divided Belle-Île into 551 separate plots of roughly twenty journaux (plural of journée, a variable old-régime unit that referred to the area one man could plow or harvest in a day) each." The bellilois received 375 plots, the gourdiecs (a "Breton-language slur" that "referred to agricultural workers, fishermen, and artisans imported from the mainland to speed the rebuilding of the island") 108 plots, and the Acadians 78, one for each of their families. Gérard-Marc Braud notes that "In reality, the lot of each family varied with the size of the family, the age of the children, the proximity of the sea, etc. And, contrary to certain assertions, it has not been proven that the Acadians were gives less or poor land than the other colonists." Although these aboiteaux builders of the Minas Basin had no high tides to contend with here, the island was a farming community nonetheless that also offered fishing at least as a pastime. Moreover, the island's climate was warm-summer Mediterranean, or oceanic, with less rain and milder winters than on the mainland, but, being an island, the wind was ubiquitous. Despite the Acadians' tendency to avoid assimilation into surrounding communities wherever they settled, island authorities "strongly encouraged intermingling of the populations" despite the differences in culture and language. Inevitably, it happened, though not without difficulty, especially in the early days of the venture.359
So who were these Acadians? According to French historian Gérard-Marc Braud, "Many were fishermen or sailors, but there were farmers among them." Since most were from the Minas Basin, the great majority of them would have been farmers, and special farmers at that--aboiteaux builders of the Bay of Fundy shore, the only settlers in North America who farmed below sea level. There were 78 families among the new arrivals, 77 of them Acadians. One family, the Mossers, later Maugers, from Alsace, had, as French prisoners, joined the Acadians in England and stuck by them. Family head Jean Tierney was an Irishman, but he was married to an Acadian Hébert and was considered "Acadian" by the French authorities. Another family head, surgeon Louis Courtin of Blois, married an Acadian Martin dit Barnabé at Cork, Ireland, during captivity there, and followed her to England and France. Guillaume Montet of Périgord, probably a French prisoner, married Acadian Marie-Josèphe Vincent at Liverpool in 1763, the month before they left England for Morlaix. Acadian Jean Hébert's wife was Esther Courtenay, an Englishwoman, also considered to be "Acadian." Other non-Acadian families on the roster included Deline and Gendre, who likely had married Acadian women. The other islanders bore Acadian surnames: Aucoin, Babin, Billeray, Boudrot, Daigre, Doiron, Doucet, Duon, Gautrot, Granger (3 families), Hébert, LeBlanc (14 families), Melanson, Pitre, Poirier, Richard, Ségoillot, Thériot, and Trahan (12 families). At the time of their arrival, the Acadians and their allied families included 78 heads of families, of whom 4 were widowers and 7 were widows; 67 wives; 7 adult dependants; 94 children older than 10 years and born in Acadia, of whom 74 were orphans, 19 with no father or mother, 32 with no father, 21 with no mother, 2 whose status is unclear; 117 children younger than 10 years, of whom 49 were born in England, 2 during the crossing from England to France, 60 in Morlaix and St.-Malo, 1 during the voyage to Belle-Île-en-Mer, 5 born on arrival; among the 211 children, 116 were boys and 95 girls--363 persons in all, only 10 percent of the total population of the island, which was now 4,000 or so.372
In January 1767, "the States of Brittany ordered an oral
inquiry among the Acadians of the island to establish
the genealogies and parental ties among all the
refugees. The verifying of these genealogies had,
as its aim, a return to normal life, the verification of
marriages, and rendering legally 'vouchable' these
people who until then could be considered as, in effect,
vagrants." That is, it determined who among them was eligible for the
King's largesse based on their special identity as
Acadians. Beginning in February, each family head
was to go to his parish church and make a "declaration
of genealogy"
recorded by a government clerk, "'that will contain all
the details relative to the condition of the declarer,
that of his wife and children, with the most exact and
clear genealogy possible of the father and mother, of
the place of their births and marriages, and the place
of the births of their children." Abbé Le
Loutre was directed to be there as well to add whatever
knowledge he possessed of these families. A total
of 57 declarations were recorded. Among
the first "declarers" were Honoré LeBlanc,
Joseph-Simon Granger, Jean-Baptiste
Granger
The Acadians did tolerably well on Belle-Île-en-Mer until 1769, when a three-year string of bad harvests, as well as poor fishing, hit all of the islanders hard. On top of that, French officials refused to loan seeds for the coming season when the Acadians needed it. The officials also were not averse to increasing rents, driving some Acadians to leave the island, either returning to Morlaix or St.-Malo or moving to the Breton mainland. Moreover, from the beginning of their time on the island, many Acadians found much to complain about. They "found their plots of land disappointingly small. Raised amidst American abundance, they thought in terms of large tracts, rich soils, and abundant woodlots. They were unhappy as well with the limits the governor placed on hunting, fishing, and movement about the island. For these independent people, who had lived a relatively unrestricted life in pre-removal l'Acadie, it was difficult to adjust to the normal rules and regulations of rural France." As Carl Brasseaux has stated, the Belle-Île experiment lasted seven years before it "collapsed." When, in the early 1770s, a new settlement scheme, much larger in number of participants and geographical extent, was offered to the Acadians still in France, settlers on Belle-Île were given the choice of remaining on their holdings there or joining their fellow Acadians in the new venture in Poitou. Some left; some remained. According to Gérard-Marc Braud, the deadline of 1 January 1776, before which Acadians could not sell their cultivated land on the island, "caused a wave of the most important departures: fifteen families left their lands on that occasion." Again, in the early 1780s, when an even grander resettlement scheme was proposed to them, this one emigration to Spanish Louisiana, some islanders remained, but 125 of them in 29 families chose to put not only Belle-Île-en-Mer but also France behind them. Many years later, in September 1901, the mayor of Sauzon was asked by a fellow Frenchman about the Acadians still living on his island: They "were from the beginning mixed with the indigenous population," the mayor explained. "No memory of the latter's hostility remains. The Acadians were nicknamed crabs or sea spiders--perhaps in Breton--because of the length of their arms and legs. They were taller than the indigenous people; their descendants maintain this characteristic as well as their bronze skin.... Father Gallen," a noted author, "believed that it was they who introduced apples to the island. The Acadians took up the language and customs of the Belle-Île residents," the mayor added. So, at least for some, this long-ago island venture was a qualified success.361
.
Even while the Acadians from England were trying their best to bring life to their newly-acquired lands on Belle-Île-en-Mer, Choiseul, Le Loutre, and the like were looking for other regions of France in which to settle the remaining Acadians. These were in fact the majority of them, languishing in the suburbs and villages of the Rance valley or in scattered ports up and down the Atlantic coast. Le Loutre had convinced the minister and other officials that, if such a scheme came to fruition, it would be best to keep the Acadians as close together as possiblie within the confines of the new settlement. The question was: where could Le Loutre and the others find available land with sufficient potential to create new settlement for the Acadians? Suggestions and even plans were legion, most of them offered by influential individuals, usually members of the French aristocracy. They included a property belonging to the duc de Nivernois in coastal Poitou near Bouin and Noirmoutier, down the coast from the Loire estuary; the forests of Brix and Valognes near Cherbourg in Normandy, brainchild of Choiseul's influential older cousin, César-Gabriel de Choiseul, duc de Praslin, who replaced Étienne-François as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1761 and France's chief negotiator for the Treaty of Paris, an idea favored by the King; Combourg in northeastern Brittany near St.-Malo, offered by a nobleman named Chateaubriand; the Fôret de la Rocquette in lower Brittany; Blaye on the Gironde below Bordeaux; Compiègne; the island of Beauté; and, of course, Corsica in the Mediterranean, introduced in 1768, when the Acadians on Belle-Île were still struggling to make a go of it there. Upon hearing the details of the Corsican plan, Le Loutre dismissed it outright, but then the Corsica idea progressed so far in higher circles that Le Loutre and five Acadians visited the island to see for themselves. "Again," Jean-François Mouhot explains, "the question of legalities involving the ownership of the land reemerged, as did the problem of placing the Acadians all together...." The island's intendant reported in 1769 that "'The Acadians request placing four hundred families on the east coast, ... and, lacking the possibility to settle them all in his region, they request (other lands on the west coast)." Overwhelmed by these impracticalities, the plan was abandoned. The Corsican idea reemerged among the Acadians at St.-Malo in 1772 but again was rejected, and would be reintroduced and rejected again and again. In 1772, a marquis in Limousin proposed settling a hundred Acadian families at the rocky hamlet of Ussel, which a delegation of Acadians also visited and also rejected. The comte de Closnard proposed to settle a hundred Acadians on his estate near Bordeaux; it, too, was rejected. These failures only strengthened the notion of Choiseul and Praslin that, if they left the matter alone long enough the Acadians would disperse"spontaneously" from their Rance villages or the slums in the scattered ports, finding work wherever they chose "or at least ceasing to trouble the ministry."362
And then reality set in. In the summer of 1772, Jean-François Mouhot relates, "A change occurred in the attitude of the government ... when the settling of the Acadians became the subject of a discussion before the Council of the King." Evidently the discussion was sparked by a letter intercepted by the naval commissioner at St.-Malo from the Bailiwick of Jersey "urging the Acadians to desert France and return to the English colonies of North America." The ministers then "became preoccupied by the fear of a massive flight of the Acadians outside of France, which would amount to a shameful failure of French diplomacy and a consequent loss for the kingdom." There may have been another spark that rekindled the flame of government interest in Acadian "internal" resettlement. In March of that year, soon after the interception of the letter from Jersey, Jean-Jacques LeBlanc of Grand-Pré, while serving as "one of the Acadian representatives of the Saint-Malo department" and claiming to represent 300 families, had submitted a petition to the French government to pay for the emigration of these Acadian families to Spanish Louisiana. Like an earlier, similar, but less elaborate entreaty by other Acadians in 1766, LeBlanc's petition also was rejected, but, unlike the earlier missive, this one had been directed to the Minister of Marine himself, Pierre-Étienne Bourgeois de Boynes, and evidently influenced what was discussed in Council. The councilors, in fact, agreed to discuss the Louisiana idea at a later gathering. When they did, the King's response was predictable--the Acadians should not be surrendered to another nation but "attached to the soil" of France. The result was the settling of Acadians on marginal land belonging to an influential French nobleman--Louis-Nicolas, marquis de Pérusse d'Escars, whose estate lay near Châtellerault in the interior of Poitou.363
Pérusse was the beau ideal of a French nobleman turned warrior. Born in 1724 into a noble family of Limousin, he went into the army at an early age, dstinguished himself in a number of campaigns, and was a brigadier-general by the Seven Years' War. He also married well. His wife's dowry included "a château near Châtellerault, a great deal of land in Poitou, two houses in Paris, and a sum of money." Seriously wounded in 1760 in Germany, "he went to Châtellerault to heal in a home he had scarcely seen." With time now to inspect his vast estates in the countryside outside of the city, "What he saw disgusted him. His wife's vast inheritance consisted not of handsome fields tilled by plump peasants but of '15,000 arpents ... uncultivated, vacant, and held in common,' a scene of 'devastation ... caused by the want of inhabitants.' For a man still in his thirties, broken in body but alive in spirit, the conditions were appalling," Christopher Hodson relates. "Pérusse therefore vowed to foster better farming and 'repeople his land.'" A devotee of agromomy as well as the ideas of the influential physiocrats, who encouraged the reformation of French peasantry by "internal colonization" if necessary, Pérusse, who beheld the vastness of his empty estates before him, became a champion of rural repopulation and massive land clearance. In 1762, after corresponding at length with fellow army officer and agronomist Louis-François-Henri Menon, marquis de Turbilly, Pérusse hit upon the idea of importing Bavarians, whose qualities as farmers he had seen with his own eyes during the war, to transform his estate into an agronomists dream. He managed to recruit four families and, after exempting them from seigneurial dues and the corvée, granted each of them 25-arpent farms, and they promptly set to work. When the locals inevitably got in the way, Pérusse hired "'a number of valets'" to protect his hard-working Germans. According to Hodson, Pérusse's "little settlement became a lodestar for a French government eager to cultivate innovation." Pérusse promptly took advantage of the good press and beseeched the government for "a massive subvention," or grant, "of 450,000 livres" so that he could import more Germans to "allow him to 'lead (agriculture) to its perfection.'" But "France's war debt" spoiled the plan. In 1766, Henri Bertin, former Controller General of Finance and expert on all things agricultural, praised the Germans of Poitou and "retained a positive image" of the marquis's bold settlement. Pérusse, of course, was well aware of the Acadians' reputation for possessing the same qualities as his beloved Bavarians, but, for now, he remained focused on the welfare of his Germans and acquiring more of them.364
In the summer or fall of 1772, soon after the rejection of his earlier petition to the Minister of Marine, the indefatigible Jean-Jacques LeBlanc, according Christopher Hodson, led a delegation of Acadians from St.-Malo, this time claiming to represent 600 families, to the King's summer retreat in Compiègne. There, Hodson relates, LeBlanc informed Louis XV that Carlos III of Spain "had offered to settle them in Sierra Morena," in the mountains of southern Spain,"a scenario they preferred to more time wasted in France." Instead of turning the upstart Acadians away, Hodson continues, Louis XV "ordered his ministers to devise a French colony for the Acadians that would satisfy justice and 'discharge the state of the cost' of their upkeep." However, the King stipulated, "'Truly Acadian families' alone would merit the king's 'kindnesses.'" If this exchange actually happened, LeBlanc and his San Moreno-or-Louisiana cohorts would have been stymied by their clever monarch. As with the Belle-Île-en-Mer venture, "The promise of internal colonization, coupled with the guarantee of the Acadians' corporate privileges, seemed certain to attach them solidly to metropolitan France," to "attach them to the soil," as the King expressed it. Henri Bertin, now "the king's adviser on agricultural affairs," after searching "actively" for settlement possibilities, communicated with Pérusse "about the Acadians." Predictably, "The marquis leapt at the chance to receive them." He drew up detailed plans for the proposed settlement. Being familiar with navy commissioner Antoine-Philippe Lemoynes's recent census of the "true" Acadians in the kingdom, the marquis proposed that "the 1,347 Acadians who had self-identified as 'farmers' on Lemoyne's census, along with '153 others ... whose type of industry [was] most analogous to agriculture," be recruited for the settlement. The colonists would be divided into five villages of 30 households apiece; 10 habitants would live in each of the colony's 150 stone houses, "which included 'two rooms, one of which has a chimney, a cellar, a tool closet, and a barn.' Each household would receive four oxen, two cows, two plows, a cart, and animal feed for the first year. In addition to 6 sols per day until at least 1776, perks included full ownership of their cleared lands, tithes 'reduced to the fortieth' for fifteen years, total exemption from royal taxes and the corvée for at least a decade, free salt, and tobacco 'at the prices given to the troops.'" Meanwhile, between 1774 and 1776, "the king would defray these expenses with 600,000 livres in eight payments, after which the colony would sustain itself." Pérusse invited noted agronomist Sarcey de Sutières to inspect the soil of his estate and to grade it for quality. When only one part of his domain received a "mark of 'first quality,'" he convinced the bishop of Poitou and a convent of nuns near Poitiers to "donate" some of their land for his habitants. Meanwhile, officials circulated the details of his plan among the Acadians in the St.-Malo villages, but, to the marquis's dismay, recruitment "went nowhere." Pérusse also was acquainted with Abbé Le Loutre, champion of the Acadians, and invited him and a delegation of Acadians--Alexandre Trahan, Pierre Henry, and Alexandre Bourg--to tour his estate. Unfortunately, Le Loutre died suddenly at Nantes at the end of September on his way to Poitou, but the Acadian delegates continued on. Unfortunately for Pérusse, at least two of the refugees were not impressed, one of them scoffing that "This is not worth Acadia ... or the settlements proposed ... by the Spanish,'" another describing what he had seen near Archigny and Monthoiron as "'heaths'" that "'seemed very barren' to them , if not unhealthy because of stagnant water." Pérusse fretted that "the men then headed back 'to convince their brethren ... that the lands they had seen were a kind of marsh ... and that there was not a tree within twenty leagues.'" One of them confessed that their rejection of the land sought "'to avoid the just reproaches that our colleauges would make to us in that case, which would then pass down from one generation to another."
This would not do. The Minister of Finance accepted the Poitou plan in May 1773; Pérusse's venture now was official policy. Jean-François Mouhot points out that "If it seems that the marquis' plan was adopted by default, we should note that the opinion of the Acadians concerning the quality of the lands, though quite clearly expressed, was absolutely not taken into account." That summer, while the Acadians who had not left Belle-Île-en-Mer were struggling with their three-year-long string of bad harvests, Versailles sent Antoine-Philippe Lemoyne "to pitch Pérusse's project to refugees in northern seaports," who were nowhere near in numbers to the Acadians in the St.-Malo region. Despite the navy commissioner's half-hearted approval of the plan (he preferred to place the Acadians on lands belonging to his relatives or friends, or on public lands, like on Belle-Île-en-Mer) Lemoyne managed to convince Acadians in Le Havre and Cherbourg to sign up for the venture. In July, he went to St.-Malo to take on Jean-Jacques LeBlanc--"their confidence man, their orator," Lemoyne scoffed--along with the other doubters. The two headstrong men did not get along. LeBlanc referred to himself and his fellow delegates as "the heads of the nation," to which Lemoyne replied that he knew the "'Acadians only as French, as subjects of the king committed to obey him ... not as a foreign nation.'" "It was a rash statement," Christopher Hodson notes, "and it elicited a harsh response." He had touched upon a sore subject--the question of whether the Acadians should be settled together or dispersed throughout the kingdom, where they could assimilate more readily. Only one refugee signed up for the venture. "Fifteen hundred others said no." Lemoyne's continued efforts in the St.-Malo villages failed utterly. But he did notice one thing of value that would be useful for those who favored the project: "Beneath the veneer of Acadian consensus," Hodson explains, "he detected 'serious intrigues,' propaganda, and arm-twisting meant to 'force the government's hand' and drive the refugees toward 'the Mississippi.' So Lemoyne decided to fight chicanery with chicanery." In July, Lemoyne sent another delegation of Acadian leaders from St.-Malo to inspect Pérusse's lands and then return to their villages to coax their fellow Acadians to join the venture. Among them was not only syndic Augustin dit Justice Doucet, but also two of the leading nay-sayers, Jean-Jacques LeBlanc and Simon Aucoin, who Lemoyne made certain were kept in separate groups. Justice, as Lemoyne expected, reported favorably on what he saw. Depite his dit, he likely had been paid to exaggerate the quality of the soil on the marquis's estate. The tour of of the proposed settlement site was a tour-de-force of chicanery: "A secretary to the comte de Blossac, the province's royal intendant, guided the Acadians around Pérusse's estate in a fine carriage, while two locals ... were paid to testify to the Acadians of the land's fertility. At various points along the way, the group descended from the carriage to probe the dirt with sticks and grind clods into powder, discussing the soil's composition, color, and depth in meticulous detail. At the end of the day, the Acadians and their hosts drafted and signed a long document at Pérusse's château. It confirmed that the land they had seen featured 'six or seven thumbs of topsoil, dewy and light, and underneath a graying-yellow soil ... that seems to have both salts and substance; cold, but liable to be reheated by work and running water." Back at St.-Malo, Lemoyne circulated the report of the Poitou tour and its results, including the signatures of the Acadians who had gone there. A letter from Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu and sermons by parish priests in the Rance villages pushed the Acadians toward a resolution on the Poitou question. Meanwhile, Lemoyne did what he could to persuade them to go, threatening those who "'refused the king's graces' for 'reprehensible, even criminal motives,'" with the loss of their "prized allowance." He even revoked the privileges of a chief nay-sayer, Acadian Alexis Trahan of Morlaix, as an example of what could happen to those who refused the King's offer. Jean-Jacques LeBlanc and Simon Aucoin refused to give in, claiming that "the assessment of Poitou's soil had been forged, and that the government's warnings about the allowance were 'only threats.'" But their warnings convinced fewer and fewer of the compatriots. "Within a month of Lemoyne's visit," Hodson notes, "most of Saint-Malo's Acadians had agreed to settle on Pérusse's lands." Even LeBlanc himself, "sensing a shift toward Pérusse's colony" following testimony by Justice Doucet in favor of the settlement, and not willing to break up his Acadian "nation," signed on to the dubious venture and prepared his family for the trek to Poitou.365
In the fall of 1773, "great, disorderly caravans," as described by Christopher Hodson, "rolled into Châtellerault," filled with Acadians from the Rance valley above St.-Malo. Later, even more would come from St.-Malo, Belle-Île, Morlaix, Rochefort, La Rochelle, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and other Atlantic ports where they had been languishing for a decade or more but now yearned to be productive farmers again. The arrival of the first caravans caught Pérusse and his people by surprise. Few of the 150 stone houses he had promised were ready for the habitants, who had to be quartered with local families and wherever else room could be found for them in and around Châtellerault. By December, more Acadians had arrived than Pérusse had planned for, and more were coming in the spring. By June 1774, 1,461 of them had come to Poitou. Pérusse was pleased with what he saw: "'big, robust, hardworking, and very fecund,'" he exulted, "'almost all of the women arrived pregnant.'" He did notice that some of the new arrivals were "not Acadians at all" but "had sneaked into the mix. He labeled them 'very different' from the rest and thanked his stars their numbers were few." He also noticed among the Acadians sometimes not so subtle differences in attitudes based on where they had spent the past few years. He nevertheless, unlike Lemoyne, saw the Acadians as a united people and wanted them to remain together, implying that assimilation for these good people would not be an improvement. He even advocated giving them their own church "to thereby avoid a division of the population." Pérusse and his new tenants wasted no time in getting the colony in order. "Construction moved forward in the spring and summer," and more and more Acadian families "moved from Châtellerault out into the countryside, taking up residence in the six angular villages laid out by Pérusse the previous year." According to Gérard-Marc Braud, "The Acadians were used in the construction of their own houses. They were paid by the day, as was their habit since the time of English hegemony in Nova Scotia...." The villages containing these new houses lay south and east of the city, in a number of rural parishes, including St.-Sauveur, Cenon-sur-Vienne, Senillé, Leigné-les-Bois, Monthoiron, Bonneuil-Matours, Archigny, and Chauvigny, known collectively as the Grand Ligne or Ligne Acadienne. As Pérusse had promised, the Acadian villages were close to one another "not ... separated by rivers or streams." The locals of course "grew envious of the benefits lavished on the newcomers," but word spread throughout physiocratic circles of the wonderful things happening in the once-neglected fields of Poitou. The agronomist Sarcey de Sutières created a model farm near Archigny he called Champfleury to instruct the locals as well as the newcomers in the wonders of scientific farming.366
And then, in May 1774, King Louis XV died and was succeeded by his 19-year-old grandson, Louis XVI. The biggest change as far as the Poitou venture was concerned, were the changes in ministers under the new king, especially the new Controller-General of Finance, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, who "had hated Pérusse's project from the start." "From Versailles," Christopher Hodson notes, "the Acadian colony of Poitou--a 600,000 livres holdover from a previous, poorly-run administration--looked like a bad investment for a kingdom on the fiscal brink." Turgot also was an enemy of "privileges and exemptions," such as the ones granted to the Acadians by the previous monarch. Evidently a close observer of the refugees, he considered them ingrates and busybodies and viewed their latest efforts "less as a colonial innovation than as a costly eyesore populated by serial whiners." He wasted no time "overhauling the Acadians settlement to ensure either its transformation or its demise." He insisted that Pérusse impose on his new tenants various tasks the completion of which would determine if they remained in the colony or retained their privileges. As expected, "Acadian reaction to Turgot's assault was swift," including an appeal over Turgot's head to Queen Marie-Antoinette, who agreed to be their patroness! Turgot, aware of the cracks in Acadian unity, was not above using one of them to stir up trouble among the colonists. In November 1774, the smooth-talking Jean-Jacques LeBlanc managed to slip away from his Poitou farm and meet with Turgot at Versailles. One suspects that LeBlanc discussed with the controller general not only the problems plaguing his countrymen in Poitou, but also Acadian emigration. Despite his having gone to Poitou, Jean-François Mouhot reminds us, "LeBlanc constantly argued in favor of an emigration to Louisiana, an option that for him seemed as being the most politically acceptable for the government and thus the most likely to succeed." Turgot likely welcomed the Acadian's insights as well as his willingness to wreck the Poitou venture.367
Pérusse struck back. He pointed out to Turgot that LeBlanc had traveled from Poitou to Versailles without permission and the proper passport and had extorted funds from other Acadians to finance his travel. He even suggested that the errant Acadian spend a short stint in the local jail. "The order never came." After Pérusse warned Turgot that LeBlanc's visit to Versailles was "a plot against reform," Turgot revealed his true feelings about the subject by firing Sarcey de Sutières and threatening to ship him off to Spain "to direct farming in the Sierra Morena colonies." Pérusse, enraged, appealed directly to Louis XVI to save the services of the noted agronomist. Turgot then directed a crippling blow to the colony. He "suddenly ordered the colony reduced from fifteen hundred inhabitants to six hundred 'satisfied with their lot.' For the rest, a difficult choise awaited. 'His majesty is disposed to establish the others either on Corsica or on Île de France,'" today's Madagascar, "Turgot declared, demanding that Acadians decide promptly between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean islands. Those who waited until January 1, 1776, would, in Turgot's words, 'cease to enjoy the allowance that has been granted them ... and will not be able to aspire to any of the government's graces'"368
Back in Poitou, LeBlanc led a campaign to turn his fellow Acadians against their noble benefactor, the Marquis de Pérusse, and abandon the colony for the port city of Nantes, from where it would be more likely that the Acadians could quit the kingdom and emigrate to Louisiana or wherever they wished. LeBlanc and his fellow detractors knew that Turgot's dictum gave them a golden opportunity to finish off the Poitou venture. The Corsica idea had already been rejected, and the failure of the Guiane venture a decade earlier poisoned tropical ventures in the mind of Acadians. "Forcing Acadians to choose between two frightening destinations or the loss of their privileges, Turgot looked to trim his budget and encourage free markets," Christopher Hodson explains. "For Leblanc, the scheme promised to destroy the Acadians' status as a corps, leaving them no choice but to follow him toward the Atlantic." Pérusse noticed over the winter of 1774-75 and into the following spring that something akin to gang warfare had infested his colony. He suspected that Jean-Jacques LeBlanc and his "clique" were doing what they could to slow down or even stop essential farm work among the habitants. Turgot's mysterious agent, M. Dubuisson of Soissons, appeared in the colony in July 1775 and sowed more discord among the colonists and between them and the jealous locals, accusing Pérusse of having "falsified reports about his soil." Pérusse responded with a barrage of accusations, protests, and demands, but his status at Versailles was no match for the power the controller-general could wield. None of the colonists having agreed to resettle in Corsica or Île de France "and the situation in Poitou growing ever more chaotic," on 18 July 1775, Turgot offered to pay the Acadians' "way to the port of Nantes, even hinting at a continuation of the allowance for the departed." Pérusse did what he could to placate those Acadians who wished to remain, but, by late August, violence broke out in the Poitou settlements, one incident involving the ruffian Simon Aucoin accosting several fellow Acadians at a local church. In late September, Turgot ordered the Acadians who did not want to stay to leave Poitou. According to Gérard-Marc Braud, "This measure was welcomed as an order of expulsion, and the reaction was immediate in the bosom of the Acadian community." Jean-Jacques LeBlanc's campaign of intimidation had succeeded. "By late fall, Pérusse admitted, 'only nine families dared work the soil. The colony disintegrated that winter."369
Beginning in late October 1775, with official permission and even encouragement, 1,360 Acadians in Poitou retreated from Châtellerault down the Vienne and the Loire in four "convoys" to the port of Nantes. Although Pérusse had insisted that Jean-Jacques LeBlanc be the first colonist to leave, Jean-Jacques, wife Nathalie, and their children took the fourth and final convoy out of Châtellerault during the first week of March 1776. By May, only 497 Acadians remained in the settlement, and more were preparing to go. When the exodus finally ended, "Pérusse was left with three hundred tenants and no promise of funds to support them." Those who did resist the temptation to join their brethren in Nantes, ironically, enjoyed the full benefits of Pérusse's venture. There were so few of them left that they had a choice of which of the sturdy stone houses they wanted for themselves, as well as the choicest fields and pastures that they or others had cleared. Their assistance payments continued until the amount Pérusse and the government had promised them was exhausted, but by them they were able to subsist on their own. Some who had settled near Archigny had not come from the Rance villages, where they might have been "communitized," as Jean-François Mouhot calls it, but had been together with their families in one of the French seaports before going to Poitou and were determined to remain close to their families there. And, of course, as Mouhot reminds us, "Nearly all of the Acadian women who married young Frenchmen at the start of the colony of Poitou remained on site and started families." As with the Acadians of Belle-Île-en-Mer who chose to remain, descendants of Acadians who remained in Poitou can still be found in the Ligne Acadienne.370
.
"At Nantes," Gérard-Marc Braud informs us, "the welcome of the local authorities was warm." The Acadians who congregated there settled in a number of church parishes in and around the city on both sides of the Loire: St.-Similien, St.-Nicolas, St.-Jacques, Ste.-Croix, St.-Donatien, and St.-Leonard on the north bank, St.-Martin de Chantenay in the western suburbs, and St.-Pierre de Rezé south of the Loire. Acadians were especially numerous at Chantenay, its parish dedicated to St.-Martin of Tours, in the hamlet of Hermitage, named after the hermitage of the "Little Capuchin" order of monks, which in the eighteenth century was "a quarter apart, outside of Nantes, in the vicinity of the quarries of Misery." They also could be found in substantial numbers in the parishes of St.-Similien and St.-Nicolas in the city. According to Gérard-Marc Braud, when Acadians could not find adequate lodging in the city parishes or at Chantenay, they "found lodgings in the buildings constructed on the numerous bridges that crossed the Loire, such as the bridges at Pirmil, at La Madeleine, and at Le Belle-Croix." Nantes, with a population of over 80,000 when the Acadians arrived, dated back to pre-Roman times. Its location on the lower Loire, one of France's great rivers, guaranteed that it would remain an important port. According to Braud, Nantes was "at its apogee" in the 1770s "thanks notably to slave trading--also called the triangle trade or the ebony-wood trade--but also to merchant shipping...." Braud adds that "In 1780, the fleet of Nantes counted 259 long-voyage vessels, 271 merchant ships, and 775 other ships." Like New Orleans, where many of the Acadians hoped to resettle, Nanes was an upriver port, lying well above the Loire's estuary as New Orleans lay above the bird-foot delta of the Mississippi, but not nearly as far upriver as New Orleans from its river-mouth port at La Balize. At the head of the Loire estuary below Nantes, where Acadians from Poitou and Belle-Île also lived, was the small south-bank port of Paimboeuf, where ships too large for the upriver slog up could find room to maneuver.
Nantes, in fact, was the largest city in which the Acadians in France would settle in any numbers. According to Gérard-Marc Braud, "The city had begun, some years before" the Acadians came in droves, "to transform itself and had abandoned its medieval limits under the urging of a governor of Brittany, the Duke of Aiguillon, then especially thanks to the action of a remarkable architect, Jean Baptiste Ceinary. This latter set about rearranging the promenades, demolishing the ramparts, making the Erdre River navigable, and constructing magnificent dwellings on the edges of the wharves, giving the city the appearance of a great port open to the ocean and to the Americas. This was important because, if Africa played a great role in the enrichment of certain shippers of Nantes, relations with the Americas was important, notably those with the West Indies (Santo Domingo)," called also St.-Domingue, "and Louisiana. So important even that the city of Nantes, thanks to its port, played an essential role, well before the official opening of hostilities with England in 1775, in aiding the American revolutionaries who were struggling for their independence. At this time, the wharves along the Loire, and notably along the Fosse, served a mixed population, at once a working class performing all the tasks proper to ships that come and go, but also a middle class that included rich planters of Santo Domingo who strolled the promenades. Someone once said that "On the Fosse in the evening, there lingers a species of melancholy, the memory of those who have disappeared.' These notables, with their gold-headed canes, their silk suits, their white stockings, their clothes of a sparkling purity (which they sent to be washed from time to time in Santo Domingo because the waters there possessed, it seemed, an unequaled limpidity) gave the city an image of prosperity. By contrast, if certain quarters of the center, those facing the Loire and Ile Feydeau, were formed of great buildings that sheltered the bourgeoisie, others, just behind them, were comprised of numerous very decripit and unhealthful houses. One such area was St. Similien Parish, the tanners' quarter, bordering the Erdre and the Marchix, with its courtyards and labyrinthine alleyways. Equal to it, beyond the Fosse, on the hill of the Hermitage, which marked the frontier between Nantes and Chantenay, lay another, to the west, on the edge of the port. It was precisely in these somewhat rejected quarters that the Acadians found lodging, not without difficulty."
Though the great majority of the Acadians who would live at Nantes did not get there until the first convoy from Châtellerault arrived in late 1775, Acadian families began to appear in Nantes parish registers as early as the mid-1760s. Gérard-Marc Braud says a ship full of Acadians from Îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon, Les Deux Amis, came to Nantes in December 1765, perhaps to avoid overcrowding on the fishery islands. Among the passengers were René Poirier and his wife Anne Gaudet. René died in St.-Nicolas Parish, Nantes, in March 1766, age 47. Widow Anne and their children returned to Miquelon soon after his passing. René's nephew Joseph-Isidore Poirier, whose family had come from the Maritimes to Cherbourg in 1758, chose to move on to Nantes, where he married local woman Jeanne-Françoise Daudet in 1772. Meanwhile, Charles Boudrot of Minas died in the Hotel-Dieu at Nantes, age 30, in July 1767. Members of an Hébert family, that of Charles, a carpenter, appeared in the burial register at St.-Martin de Chantenay in late December 1769 and January 1770, victims perhaps of an urban epidemic. Louis Gaudet and wife Marie Hébert of Miquelon came to La Rochelle from the fishery island in 1767 and remained in France. They did not follow Louis's brother Pierre to Poitou in 1773 but moved to Nantes instead. Pierre joined them there two years later, when the second convoy from Châtellerault reached Nantes in November 1775. Unlike the other two great gatherings of the Acadians in France, near St.-Malo and in Poitou, where families were scattered in rural villages up and down the Rance or in rural compounds east and south of Châtellerault, at Nantes there were no rural settlements in which to place them. All of the Acadians there--over 2,000 of them by the 1780s--were, for nearly a decade, clustered into an intense urban environment, with its "insufficiency of hygiene" and its endemic ills, such as smallpox, typhoid fever, dysentery, and cholera--something experienced only by those who had lived in the English ports or the French Atlantic ports or had remained in Châtellerault during their short time there. In this urban environment, these superb farmers and fishermen found shelter and work as best they could. According to Gérard-Marc Braud, the women became domestics, waitresses, day laborers, sail makers, seamstresses, weavers, tailors, knitters, spinners, washerwomen, and lady's maids, as well as wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters. The became arquebusiers, calico makers, ship captains, masons, surgeons, seamen, shipbuilders, finishers, shoemakers, quarry workers, employees, tailors, blacksmiths, caulkers, farm workers, carpenters, manual laborers, clerks, laborers, rope makers, drillers, domestics, plant makers, grocers, tanners, gardeners, day laborers, chain makers, ship's lieutenants, cloth dyers, woodworkers, crew chiefs, faience painters, cooks, hoisters, entrepreneurs, stone cutters, and handkerchief makers, weavers, engravers, sail makers, butcher's boys, faience shift workers, printers, barrel makers, and ship's rope specialists, as well as husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers.371
Now that most of the Acadians in France again occupied a single place, the question arose anew among government officials, especially Louis XVI's new Director-General of Finance, Jacques Necker: should the Acadians be allowed to remain together, or should they be dispersed throughout the kingdom, where they could assimilate more readily? But there also was the nagging question among the Acadians themselves: should they remain in the mother country, to be dispersed at will by the new administration and become assimilated into French society; or should they emigrate together to Louisiana or to Île St.-Pierre and Miquelon or to Corsica or, if the Americans could retake it from the British, to Nova Scotia, where they had a better chance of maintaining their Acadian identity? Jean-Jacques LeBlanc's "victory" in Poitou must have motivated him to try even harder to gain approval to take his family to Spanish Louisiana. His name appears on another petition for emigration to the colony in 1777, but this petition also was rejected. After he died at Chantenay in November 1781, "the Louisiana destination gathered even less support among the Acadians than in his lifetime, as he had been the main promoter of this emigration." But the idea did not die with the silver-tongued Acadian. By 1783, after years of pondering the fate of the hundreds of Acadians still living in the kingdom, first turning to this idea, then turning to that, and with the American War for Indepence finally settled, Necker and the King's councilors came to the conclusion that the best solution for the Acadians was what Jean-Jacques LeBlanc had been advocating all along.
When Spanish officials in France learned of the new
French "policy," they promptly secured the approval of
Spanish authorities for a massive emigration to
Louisiana. On 22
October 1783, King Carlos III issued a royal decree, called a sedula,
approving a scheme suggested to Spanish officials by French
businessman and apothecary Henri-Marie Peyroux de la Coudrenière
of Poitou and Nantes, who may or may not
have been aware of LeBlanc's
efforts--the transportation of the Acadians in France to Spanish Louisiana
at the expense of the Spanish crown. There was one
requirement, however, that Peyroux
must meet; the Spanish government would finance the
expedition only if he could guarantee that at least 1,600
of the Acadians still in France would agree
to go to the Mississippi River colony. Both the Spanish ambassador to France, Don Pedro Pablo
Abarca de Bolea, Count de Aranda, evidently an
aquaintance of Peyroux de la Coudrenière, and the Spanish consul
at St.-Malo, Manuel d'Asprès, who had convinced their
king to sanction the scheme, sent copies of the royal
decree to the interim
governor
Their task, among other things, was to compile a list of Acadians in France who wanted "to go to Louisiana to establish themselves at the expense of His Catholic Majesty." Térrio circulated a petition, detailing his purpose, not only among his fellow Acadians in Nantes, but also at St.-Malo, Cherbourg, and other ports where Acadians could be found. But the Louisiana venture was never foreordained. Groups of Acadians were not averse to petitioning the French Court with repeated requests to emigrate to anywhere but Louisiana, revealing the lack of unity among the potential emigrants. And, of course, even more embarrassing, potentially "fatal," problems arose. Olivier and Peyroux learned that French authorities, specifically the Count of Vergennes, Louis XVI's Minister of Foreign Affairs, evidently were not fully aware of the Spanish project and had been pushing an alternative venture--emigration of the Acadians in France not to Spanish Louisiana but to the newly independent United States of America, now an ally of France; in fact, one Mr. Benjamin Franklin, American envoy to France, evidently was negotiating with the French government over the disposition of the Acadians around the same time the Spanish Court was considering the Louisiana venture. Aranda told Peyroux in January 1784 that King Carlos III would fully approve the venture only if he could be reassured that the French had not promised to "give" the Acadians to the Americans. As late as March, Peyroux was still hassling with Aranda and his trusty secretary, Hérédia, as well as French officials, over the matter of getting Versailles to release the Acadians to Spain. Pushed by Peyroux, Olivier Térriot sent Vergennes a petition that contained only 31 signatures of Acadians desirous to emigrate to Louisiana, and Peyroux did his best to explain the small number of signatures. Vergennes was at first reticent about approving the scheme, but, finally, in late March or early April, he submitted the request to the Minister of the Navy, who passed it off to the Controller-General of Finance, who succeeded in convincing King Louis XVI to agree to the release, which he signed on 25 April 1784. But word of it was slow to reach southern Brittany. A poorly informed Nantes sub-magistrate named Ballays almost wrecked the scheme, or at least the schemers, by intercepting a letter from Hérédia to some local Acadians. The official arrested and jailed Peyroux for secretly conspiring against the King! Térrio managed to escape the mounted gendarmes and notified Hérédia of the problem. The Spanish secretary promptly secured Peyroux's release so that he and Olivier could continue their efforts.
So in the
end, after months of effort, the Louisiana scheme won
out, mainly because it was attractive not only to the
Spanish and the debt-ridden government of Louis XVI, but also to many
of the Acadians in Nantes and St.-Malo, especially the
ones who had fallen deep
in debt. Peyroux and Terriot,
with help from the Spanish, did what they could to get
the French government to pay the Acadians the six months
of relief they owed them, which the French promised to
do in May
1784, soon after the King released the Acadians to Spain.
However, due to the labyrinthine French bureaucracy, the
matter was not fully resolved until the eve of departure
a full year later! Without the back pay,
Acadians could not pay their debts, and if they did not
pay their debts, local authorities would not allow them
to emigrate. Determined to resolve the problem, in
late September 1784, after months of meetings and
cajoling and promises, Peyroux could guarantee the
reluctant refugees that "'His C(atholic) M(ajesty),"
King Carlos III, "grants the Acadians up until their
embarkation the payment that they have received from
H(is) V(ery) C(hristian) M(ajesty)," King Louis XVI,
"beginning from the day that the court of France would
stop providing it to them," and gave them the source of
the Spanish payment. After more pleading,
cajoling, and even the exchange of fisticuffs, that same
month, Peyroux submitted to Aranda a list
of prospective emigrants living throughout the kingdom
who agreed to go to Louisiana, but the pleading, cajoling, and hassles
continued. Sadly, many of the Acadians at Nantes
and St.-Malo no longer trusted the French government to
do right by them, and, despite Peyroux and
Térriot's pleading, were unsure of the Spanish
government as well. Meanwhile, Acadians
from Belle-Île-en-Mer, having signed the petition and
sold their property, appeared at Nantes and Paimboeuf to
await the transports and expected to be properly housed
and fed till then. Despite their many problems, by the time of the
expedition's sailing, the scheming apothecary and the affable
cobbler had succeeded in coaxing hundreds of Térrio's fellow Acadians--70 percent of the
exiles in France by one count, only half by another--into
signing up for Spanish Louisiana, though they barely met
the 1,600 limit imposed by the Spanish king. Among the
signers was Nathalie Pitre, Jean-Jacques
LeBlanc's widow, and two of his teenage children.
"Finally," Gérard-Marc Braud relates, the Spanish Court gave their go ahead, and "the departure so long awaited was announced to take place during the winter" of 1784-85. In early 1785, Ambassador Aranda authorized Maneul d'Asprés, the Spanish consul in Brittany, to lease half a dozen vessels of substantial size for the expedition. Five contracts were made at Nantes from 6 May to to 25 July 1785, some only days before the transport's departure from Paimboeuf. The sixth ship, which would sail from St.-Malo, would also pick up passengers at Paimboeuf before it set out across the Atlanta. However, "due to bad weather, and to the fact that the negotiations were prolonged so long, the departure was delayed until spring, 1785."
The ever cautious, ever demanding Acadians used the extra time to extract more concessions from their future overlords. Having received a guarantee from the Spanish of paying what the French owed them up until their going, they turned on Spanish consul d'Aprés, now in charge of their departure, and demanded more concessions from the Spanish government, also in writing. "These condtions," Jean-François Mouhot explains, "stipulated that the Acadians would be transported to Louisiana," and nowhere else, "'without it costing them anything' and that, moreover, once on site, the king of Spain would offer to provide them 'lands and lodgings in proportion to the number of each family as well as tools suitable and needed for the clearing and cultivation of said lands, and, furthermore, to nourish them until every family would be in a condition to nourish itself.'" D'Aprés agreed to these terms in late March 1785, a few weeks before departure. And then there was the other sticky question, that of non-Acadian spouses for the Acadian men and women. Peyroux had addressed this problem the previous fall, urging the Frenchmen married to Acadian women to apply directly to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for permission to accompany their wives to Spanish Louisiana. The foreign ministry handed the question to Controller-General Charles-Alexander de Calonne, who, after due deliberation, granted the necessary permission a month before departure. Foreign Minister Vergennes also approved the decision, "just days before departure," to allow non-Acadians spouses to leave the kingdom freely for a foreign colony. Sadly, after the departure of the first transport on May 10, the two ministers reversed their decision, on "orders of the king," and refused to allow Frenchmen with Acadian wives to go to a Spanish colony. This of course caused much hardship among mixed-marriage couples aboard the other transports, which were leaving French ports as late as October 19.
Though they sailed from three French ports, each of the transports was destined for a single port--New Orleans, the capital of Spanish Louisiana. On the eve of departure, the passengers aboard each transport chose "two chiefs among each hundred persons," called bas officiers, or "under officers," to represent them to the ship's master during the voyage. The final preparation at Nantes before departure was to move the passengers from the city down the Loire to Paimboeuf, either on the roads and paths along the Loire's south bank or, more likely, "aboard the small boats used to carry goods to the ships" that could go no higher than the lower port. The first transport, Le Bon Papa, a 280-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on 10 May 1785 with 156 passengers in 34 families and reached New Orleans on July 29 after 81 days at sea. The second transport, Le Bergère, a 300-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on May 14 with 273 passengers, 260 of them Acadians in 72 families and including Nathalie Pitre and her two LeBlanc children, and reached New Orleans on August 15 after 93 days at sea. The third transport, Le Beaumont, a 180-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on June 11 with 176 passengers, all Acadians, including 8 nursing infants, in 46 families, and reached New Orleans on August 19 after 69 days at sea. The fourth transport, Le St.-Rémi, a 400-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on June 17 with 326 Acadian passengers in 78 families and 16 stowaways, the fiancés of Acadian women, and reached New Orleans via Havana on September 10 after 75 days at sea. The fifth transport, L'Amitié, a 400-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on August 20 with 270 passengers, including 12 stowaways, also fiancés of Acadian women, and reached New Orleans on November 8 after 80 days at sea. The sixth and originally the final transport, La Ville Archangel, a 600-ton frigate, the largest of the vessels, left St.-Malo on August 12 with 309 Acadian passengers in 52 families, picked up more passengers at Paimboeuf, including three members of the aristocratic d'Entremont family, and reached New Orleans via French St.-Domingue on December 3 after 113 days at sea. The seventh and final transport, La Caroline, a 200-ton brig, the smallest of the vessels, with 77 passengers--the "leftovers," who had either signed up at the last minute or for some reason could not make their original crossings, along with extra baggage--left Nantes on October 19 and reached New Orleans on December 17 after 64 days at sea.252
Gérard-Marc Braud captures the essence of these Acadian passengers: "Among these 'emigrants' who left for Louisiana, many did not know America; only a third were born on that continent. The population that left France in 1785 was a young population; passengers over sixty years old were rare--there were only eight! The majority of this population were under twenty, and many were young children. Thus, the majority knew Acadia only through the stories of their parents. In a general sense, the ships' lists leave the impression that the Acadians left in family groups, sometimes with three generations. Unfortunately, once again, some families were separated forever, and this new exodus of an entire people, however willingly they went, constituted a new ripping apart. Daughters or sisters married to Frenchmen and sons or brothers married to French women stayed in Nantes and in other parts of the region." Moreover, "Widows without children or with minor children also tended to say in France." Jean-François Mouhot adds this revealing note: "... we find among the refugees throughout the whole period of 1758-1785 deep divisions about the destination considered for new emigration. Indeed, while the majority seems to have wanted to return to Acadia of, if not, to the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, up until the very moment of embarkation to Louisiana (most of the refugees no doubt decided at the last moment, from sheer pragmatism), others, with more of a political instinct, decided in favor of the Mississippi beginning in the 1770s."373
No matter, after
a quarter century of living in a mother country
that was never quite certain what to do with its wayward
children,
nearly 1,600 Acadian exiles in France, most of them from
Nantes, sailed away to
an exotic place to begin a new life for themselves.
They knew that Louisiana had long been a colony of
France but now was a part of the Spanish realm.
They knew from letters they received from
relations there that most Louisianans, not just their fellow Acadians,
still spoke French and likely still considered
themselves to be "French." Just
as importantly, Roman Catholicism was still the official
religion of Louisiana, perhaps even more so under the
Spanish regime, so there would be priests aplenty to
minister to their spiritual needs. They also were
aware from letters they had received that many of their
relatives from the American colonies had been living in
Louisiana for decades. But before they left, they still had
many questions about going to such an exotic place,
descriptions of which were not always flattering.
There was slavery there, and tropical diseases (some
remembered all too well the disaster in French Guiane a
generation earlier). They wondered h
In spite of the largesse granted to them by the
Revolutionary assemblies, many Acadians who had chosen
to remain in France in 1785 suffered dearly for their
social conservatism during the darkest days of the
Revolution--they refused to accept the most radical
revolutionaries' insistence that the Roman Catholic
Church, a pillar of the hated Ancien Régime, be
torn out, root and branch, in every corner of the "new"
French nation. Acadians had suffered much for
clinging to their Catholicism in Acadie and during the
dispersal in Britain's Atlantic colonies, and this deep,
abiding loyalty to the faith of their fathers proved
fatal for some of them in France as well. Radical
French politics also caught up with at least one Acadian
stay-behind. On 23 November 1793, during the Reign
of Terror, Jean-Jacques Granger of
Rivière-aux-Canards, Minas, and Belle-Île-en-Mer, was
guillotined at Bordeaux "for having transported
Girondins in his boat." On 1 July 1794,
the Terror still on, Tranquille Prince's sister Anne, widow of Sylvain
LeBlanc of Pigiguit, and
Anne's daughter Anastasie LeBlanc, a nun, were guillotined by
Revolutionaries at Brest in western Brittany for having sheltered a
"non-juring" priest.
One wonders if Tranquille, who had gone to Louisiana and
was then living on upper Bayou Lafourche, ever learned
of his sister's fate
The emigration of 600 Acadians from Halifax to Spanish Louisiana in 1764-65 did not remove all of the refugees from peninsula Nova Scotia. First of all, these 600 were only some of the Acadians who left the Nova Scotian prison compounds and struck out on their own. A hundred or so held at Chédabouctou left for îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon south of Newfoundland by 1764, and, in August 1764 and October 1765, even more left for the Newfoundland islands from the compounds at Chignecto, Annapolis Royal, Pigiguit, and Halifax. Acadians from Halifax also resettled in French St.-Domingue and in other islands in the French Antilles.416
Others exiles remained in Nova Scotia or returned with the intention of remaining. Article IV of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 gave all persons dispersed by the conflict 18 months to return to their respective territories. In the case of the Acadians, this meant they could return only to French soil. The Acadian settlements in peninsula Nova Scotia had not been French territory for half a century; and the western half of the Chignecto isthmus, the trois-rivières, and the former French Maritimes islands now were part of British Nova Scotia as well. Colonial authorities refused, of course, to allow any of the Acadian prisoners to return to their farmsteads, either occupied or intended for New-English "planters." If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas, away from their fertile lands along the Bay of Fundy, or they could continue to work as wage laborers on their former lands, but not as proprietors. If they stayed, they must also take the oath of allegiance, without reservation, to the new British king, George III, nor could they vote in the colonial assembly or hold office of any kind, and they would have to practice their religion without priests, who, by decree of the Nova Scotia colonial assembly, were banned from the province. Despite these onerous restrictions, Acadians were determined to return to their former homeland.
Some of them settled in established communities on the Atlantic coast or on the North Shore. These included Chédabouctou, now Guysborough; Chezzetcook; Halifax; and nearby Dartmouth. The bore the surnames Blanchard, Bonnevie, Boudrot, Comeau, Cormier, Dugas, Gaudet, Landry, LeBlanc, Melanson, Robichaud, and Surette. A Girouard family settled at Tracadie on the North Shore. An Arceneau family resettled at Annapolis Royal, probably in the town, not on a farm. A number of Acadians families lived for a time at Windsor, former Pigiguit, but, because of the large number of New-English "planters" claiming land there, few likely stayed. They bore the surnames Arsenault, Doucet, Dupuis, Forest, Gaudet, Girouard, Granger, Guédry, Haché dit Gallant, Landry, Léger, Melanson, Poirier, and Robichaud. Several Acadian families returned to the Chignecto area, including Minudie, formerly Menoudy, south of the channel, and Nappan, now Amherst, north of it. They likely had to find farmland not occuped by the New-English "planters." They bore the surnames Bonnevie, Bourg, Forest, Haché dit Gallant, and Melanson.419
As soon as they could, Mius d'Entremonts and Mius d'Azys left Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, where they had been held since 1755, and returned to their homes at Pobomcoup, today's Pubnico, near Cap-Sable, in 1763. They no longer held the seigneurie there--that ended with their exile--but at least they were back to where their d'Entremont ancestor had received the seigneurie in the 1650s. No New-English "planters" had taken their land, and, if these aristocratic Acadians could prevent it, none would. Other communities in the Cap-Sable/Pobomcoup area where Acadians resettled included Bas-de-Tousket, today's New Tusket; Cap-Forshu, now Yarmouth; Cap-Sable; Pointe-à-Rocco, now Rocco Point; Pointe-des-Ben; Ste.-Anne-de-l'Anguille, now Ste.-Anne-du-Rousseau; and Tusket Wedge, now Wedgeport, and, besides the Mius families, included Acadians with the surnames Babin, Belliveau, Comeau, Corporon, Doucet, Duon, Hébert, LeBlanc, Melanson, Robichaud, and Surette.410
Another major resettlement, eventually the largest one in Nova Scotia, was in the area of Baie St.-Marie, today's St. Mary's Bay, where Acadians had not settled in any significant numbers before deportation. Here they mostly fished and farmed on a much smaller scale than they had done on the Bay of Fundy. The tides here were nowhere near those of the Fundy, and the upland soil was not nearly as fertile as the soil they and their fathers had created with running dykes and aboiteaux. Acadian communities created in the St. Mary's Bay area included Anse-aux-Belliveau, today's Belliveaus Cove; Bear River; Cap Ste.-Marie, now Mavillette; Grosses-Coques and Pointe-de-l'Église, now Church Point; Météghan; St. Bernard; and St. Mary's Bay itself, where Acadians with the following surnames settled: Bastarche, Belliveau, Bernard, Boudrot, Brun, Comeau, Doiron, Doucet, Dugas, Gaudet, Girouard, Gravois, Guédry, Hébert, Landry, Lanoue, LeBlanc, Martin, Melanson, Richard, Robichaud, Saulnier, Surette, Thériot, and Thibodeau.417
.
The British province of New Brunswick was created from
the northwestern part of Nova Scotia in 1784. Decades
earlier, two major areas of the new
province, the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, including the
Baie des Chaleurs, along the eastern edge of New
Brunswick, and the St. John River valley from its mouth to its upper reaches, saw hundreds of
Acadian exiles resettle in dozens of villages.
While still part of Nova Scotia, in fact, these areas
became, because of the size of their populations, the
"true" Nouvelle Acadie in the vast expanse of
the Acadian diaspora. In the early 1760s, after
the fall of the French stronghold at Restigouche at the
head of the Baie des Chaleurs, many of the exiles who
had taken refuge on the Gulf shore, including on the
southern and northern shores of the Baie des Chaleurs,
had been rounded up by several expeditions out of Fort
Cumberland, placed on British warships and captured
Acadian vessels, taken to Baie Vert at Chignecto or
around to Halifax, and parcelled out into prison
compounds there and at Fort Cumberland, Fort Anne, Fort
Edward, and Chédaboutou on the Atlantic shore above
Halifax. The refugees who remained on the Gulf and
Chaleur Bay shores, perhaps the majority of them, did
their best to make their presence there as unobtrusive
as possible. Meanwhile, some of t hem likely
slipped away to the St. Lawrence valley. Then the
war ended. Still a part of Nova Scotia, refugees
hiding on the Gulf shore were subject to the same
strictures their compatriots in the prison camps were
forced to endure: They were not allowed to return
to their farmsteads, either occupied or intended for
New-English "planters." If they chose to remain in
Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups
in previously unsettled areas, away from their fertile
lands along the Bay of Fundy, or they could continue to
work as wage laborers on their former lands, but not as
proprietors. If they stayed, they must also take
the oath of allegiance, without reservation, to the new
British king, George III, nor could they vote in the
colonial assembly or hold office of any kind, and they
would have to practice their religion without priests,
who, by decree of the Nova Scotia colonial assembly,
were banned from the province.411
The removal of nearly 2,500 Acadians from Île St.-Jean in the summer of 1758 practically cleared the island of inhabitants, but the Acadian presence on the island was not over, and never would be. Escapees, especially from Malpeque on the western side of the island, left with their priest, Father Dosque, that fall before the winter set in. Some of those few who wintered on the island likely left in the spring of 1759 for lack of provisions. Even while the British were rounding up the islanders the previous summer, M'ikmaq warriors had been busy rounding up the Acadians' cattle and moving as many as they could to the mainland, especially to Miramichi. To prevent the British at Fort Amherst from subsisting on the island's cattle, the Mi'kmaq slaughtered what they could not take, leaving the remaining islanders hiding in the woods short on meat as well. Informed that there still were Acadians hiding on the island, early in the spring of 1759 Governor Edward Whitmore at Louisbourg sent a chartered transport and two armed sloops with soldiers to Port-La-Joye not only to relief the redcoats at Fort Amherst who had over-wintered, but also to roundup what Acadians they could find. A Captain Johnson, in command at Fort Amherst, informed the governor that "'all the French were gone off to Canada just before our sloops gott round to that part of the Island,'" likely referring to the vicinity of Malpeque. "However," historian Earle Lockerby believes, "the majority of these [fugitives] simply went into hiding again, and thus escaped Whitmore's troops in 1759." Along with some of their Mi'kmaq allies, they remained in hiding, not only at Malpeque but in other parts of the island where fugitives could have easily hidden from the occasional redcoat patrol.408
Years later, in 1764, after the war had ended, Samuel Holland came to the island to begin his three-year survey there. Perhaps to his surprise, Holland "noted the presence of a small Acadian population: 'These poor people were left on the island after the surrender of Louisbourg, when the other inhabitants were transported to France, as they lived at a distant place and in the Woods, but surrendered themselves afterwards, and when indulged by some of the Commanding Officers of Fort Amherst to live on their Fishery and Gardening." A 1760 report from Fort Amherst, sent during the war, noted that six Acadian families had "come in" and "located themselves in the vicinity of the fort." Considering the distance of Fort Amherst from Louisbourg, Halifax, and the other British compounds on the Nova Scotia mainland, it made sense for the commander of the isolated fort to allow Acadians, skilled farmers and fishermen all, to provide provender, cut wood, and other necessities that would be slow in coming from the garrison's supply base. An even more liberal commander would allow trusted Acadians to take their firearms into the woods and marshes to hunt for deer and waterfowl, adding more to the pleasurable cuisine for the sedentary redcoats. But the reality of a dozen or more Acadian families ("roughly 100 people" in the fall of 1762) remaining on such a desolate island was considerably darker. During the winter of 1759-60, Captain John Adlam, commander of Forst Amherst at the time, reported to his superiors that he was compelled to issue provisions "'to support some of the French Familys of this Island, who came in and surrendered themselves and were in such a miserable Condition that they must otherwise have perished.'" The captain also noted that these charitable distributions resulted in the garrison's stores being reduced "to 'a low ebb' and resulted in the supply of butter being totally exhausted.'" Ah, to have saved some of those cattle. Compiling reports of such matters from his St. John's Island commanders, Governor Whitmore noted that between late May 1760 and late July 1761 the provisions distributed to the French on the island was substantial, hinting that the Acadians were closing to starving than their redcoated neighbors. "Deprivation obviously persisted for some time," Lockerby adds, "since in October 1762 the fort commander received an application for provisions from sixteen French families that 'must inevitably Starve if they continued on the Island without some assistance.'"413
The war having ended, "by 1763," Earle Lockerby notes,
"a few of those who had fled the Island began to make
their way back," most from the mainland at the eastern
end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where many of them had
fled before and during the roundup of 1758. Lockerby
points out, sadly, that "Very few Acadians who had been
deported to France from the Island returned to what had
officially been renamed St. John's Island." Most
of the Acadians allowed to return to the island tended
to resettle in several villages on the island's north
shore. A census taken in 1768, the year before St.
John's Island became a colony separate from Nova Scotia, reveals clusters of
Acadians at Malpeque Bay, Rustico, and St. Peter's
Harbour on the north shore, and at Fortune Bay on the
island's eastern end. By 1798, the year the
British renamed the island after Prince Edward, fourth
son of King George III, there were 51 Acadian families
at Mal
Earle Loc
After the fall of Louisbourg in 1768, the name Île
Royale disappeared, replaced by the big island's
original name,
Acadians, most of them new to the big island, settled in a handfull of other communities on Cape Breton, incuding L'Ardoise on the southeastern tip of the main island, across a channel from Île Madame, where a family of Landrys settled; Petit-Bras d'Or, on the Atlantic shore at the entrance to Bras d'Or Lake, near today's Sydney, where Benoits and Lejeunes settled.418
In 1782, a
According to historian Carl Brasseaux, Acadian migration
to the Newfoundland islands began in 1758, when "a small
number" of French refugees from Île Royale fled to the
islands after the fall of Louisbourg that July.
Evidently Acadians were among the refugees. The
problem was: the islands still officially belonged
to Britain. Not until after the signing of the
Treay of Paris in February 1763 did large-scale Acadian
emigration to the islands begin: as it turned out,
The arrival of so many people changed dramatically the demographic character of the islands, which in turn alarmed Versailles. "The Acadian migration to St. Pierre and Miquelon caused the French government a great deal of concern," Brasseaux explains. "The dearth of wood and sterile soil on the islands prevented the immigrants from supporting themselves by traditional agricultural means...," so these aboiteaux builders had no choice but to become fisher/habitants. Fishing, though it offered "a perennial bounty, was capable of supporting only a relatively small population"--only 300 or so at most, French officials believed. Then there was the perpetual worry about the British. "Knowing of the Acadian desire for reunification and the financial and logistical problems which their reunification on St. Pierre and Miquelon would entail, and fearing that the British would come to view the colony as a military threat if large numbers of hostile Acadians were massed on the islands near British Newfoundland, the French government directed Sieur Dangeac, first governor of the islands, to discourage immigration." He even encouraged them to join the new French colonial effort in French Guiana, but it did no good. Acadians poured into the islands anyway, and most refused to leave. Housing became short, as did wood for heat, and food. Conditions became so bad on the islands that in November 1765, no longer able to feed and house new arrivals, Dangeac was forced to send most of them to Nantes. In the spring of 1766, aware of the humanitarian crisis on the islands, the French Council of Marine notified the governor that, "on behalf of Louis XV, ... the unauthorized Acadian settlers," which was most of them, "must either return to Acadia or ... go to France, where they would receive the same modest benefits"--the six-sols daily solde--"extended to the exiles already in the motherland." Dangeac reported back that the degree caused the islanders much distress, many "having expended [their] meagre resources in building a house and making a garden." Some of them "actually have twelve schooners and ten fishing skiffs," Dangeac noted. "They are attached to France and do not wish to return to Acadia. Several among them would gladly go to Louisiana if we wished to transport them there." None, however, went to Louisiana, at least not from the islands at that time. In the end, most "decided to cast their lot with France"--between October and late December 1767, 763 islanders, nearly all Acadians, left St-Pierre and Miquelon, 586 to several French ports and 163 "to Acadia," that is, back to British Nova Scotia. "Most of the latter," Brasseaux says, "settled at Cape Breton Island, Ile Madame, and Cocagne, in present-day New Brunswick," where they resumed their lives as fisher/habitants, but, again, under British rule. In France, "merchants with a vested interest in maintaining the colony's larger population base," along with Acadians in Rochefort and St.-Malo, successfully petitioned Minister of Marine Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul to reverse the deportation order, which he did in early 1768, stipulating that the Acadians returning to the islands "were required to be fully self-supporting and to provide their own transportation. First to return were 37 Acadians from Rochefort aboard the Créole, an Acadian-owned schooner that had brought islanders to France the year before. The Créole and its passengers returned to Miquelon in early May 1768, followed in late June by 66 more Acadians aboard the Louise, and 219 others aboard royal supply vessels later in the year.403
The Acadian fisher/habitants endured life on the islands as best they could, even trying to raise livestock there, which failed. Before long, some islanders requested to be allowed to return to Nova Scotia. Not until markets for salted Newfoundland codfish developed in France and the French Antilles did life for island Acadians improve. "Economic growth produced a corresponding increase in the Acadian population," Carl Brasseaux relates. "In 1776, St. Pierre and Miquelon boasted a population of 1,894." Then the darkness came. Again, geo-political matters out of their control tore apart Acadian lives, and again, not for the better. During the War for American Independence, which broke out in the British Atlantic colonies in 1775, France allied itself with the American colonials, who had declared their independence in July 1776. Following France's declaration of war against Britain in February 1778, a Royal Navy force stationed in Newfoundland swooped down on the French islands "and laid to waste the Acadian settlements there. In scenes reminiscent of the deportations of 1755," Brasseaux laments, 900 of "the inhabitants of St. Pierre and Miquelon were forced aboard vessels, without being given time 'even to save their clothes,' while soldiers went from house to house, burning the structures and their contents. Once again, the Miqelonnais were forced to sail to France." As before, they were dispersed to different locations, landing at Nantes, La Rochelle, Rochefort, Cherbourg, and St.-Malo. "Unable to return to their homes for the duration of the American Revolution, these Acadians, who had been driven from their homes for the third time in a generation, were forced, once again, to live on the French dole." The war ended in May 1783 with another Treaty of Paris, this one in favor of the Americans and the French. Soon after the treaty's signing, 1,250 Acadians petitioned the French government to return to their island homes and received permission to do so--510 of them in 1783, and an additional 713 of them in 1784. Using lumber from the French concession in Newfoundland, they promptly rebuilt their homes and re-established their cod fishery.
A few years later, an event occurred on the long stretch
of ocean between Newfoundland and the Gulf of Mexico
that would have garnered little attention then but can
be seen in the perspective of the Acadian diaspora as a
remarkable feat indeed. On 11 December 1788, the schooner Brigite reached
Pass à L'Outre, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, and soon arrived at the Spanish outpost
of La Balize, a hundred miles downriver from New
Orleans. This vessel
had not crossed from France. The captain of the schooner was
49-year-old Joseph Gravois III, and he had sailed his little
ship from Île St.-Pierre on October 16, less than two months
earlier. Also aboard the schooner were Gravois's wife, Marie-Madeleine,
called Madeleine, Bourg, age 42, a native of Grand-Pré, and
eight of their children, six daughters and two sons, age 24 to 8. Accompanying the Gravoiss was Marine LeBlanc, age 52,
widow of Joseph Babin and, like Marie-Madeleine Bourg, also a
native of Grand-Pré. With Marine were five of her children,
two daughters and three sons, ages 25 to 15, none of
them married. Also aboard
was Marine LeBlanc's kinsman, Charles Babin, age unrecorded, and
Jean-Baptiste Boudrot, age 21, perhaps a cousin of Joseph
Gravois's wife. B
Back on the islands, darkness returned again and again. In May 1793, after war broke out between the French revolutionary forces and the monarchies of Europe and Great Britain, a British military force occupied Île Miquelon and, the following month, deported the small French garrison and the island's non-resident fishermen to Halifax. Meanwhile, the British tried to force the resident Acadians to fish for them, but the Acadians refused. In 1791, many of the fisher/habitants--at least 32 families--fled the island in their fishing boats to the remote îles-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the first to settle there, and another 360 retreated to Île Madame off the southeastern coast of Cape Breton Island, where some of their fellow Acadians had been enduring British rule since the late 1750s. Some of the islanders were deported to Halifax and Boston in September 1794. In September 1796, the British deported the rest of the fisher/habitants on the Newfoundland islands to Halifax, "from which they were sent to various fishing villages and forced to work on English fishing vessels in the Grand Banks." Again refusing to tolerate British rule, some demanded to be repatriated to France. The governor of Nova Scotia, admittng that he "'could derive no further advantage' from them," sent some of them off to Bordeaux in July 1797 and to Le Havre in August. Enduring life in Nova Scotia and France while the world around them remained embroiled in war, another Treaty of Paris, this one signed in 1814, allowed these hard-case refugees to return to their island homes. By 1820, with French possession and peace assured, "800 Acadians had become permanent residents" of the Newfoundland islands, where their descendants, still citizens of the French Republic, can be found today.405
Acadian families who settled on îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon bore the surnames Arseneau, Babin, Belliveau, Benoit, Bertaud, Bertrand, Blanchard, Bonnevie, Boudrot, Bourg, Bourgeois, Breau, Brun, Chaillou, Chiasson, Clément, Comeau, Cormier, Cyr, Daigre, D'Amours, David, Doiron, Doucet, Dugas, Dupuis, Gaudet, Gauthier, Gautrot, Gousman, Gravois, Guédry, Guérin, Guilbeau, Haché dit Gallant, Hamon, Hébert, Henry, Landry, LeBlanc, Léger, Lejeune, Martin, Melanson, Mouton, Moyse, Ozelet, Patry, Pinet, Pitre, Poirier, Quimine, Renaud, Richard, Roy, Saint-Étienne de La Tour, Talbot, Thériot, and Vigneau.412
Acadian Exiles in the Caribbean Basin, South America, and the South Atlantic, 1764-1800s
When the Treaty of Paris was signed in February 1763, France's remaining island territories in the Caribbean Basin included St.-Domingue, Martinique, Ste.-Lucie, and Guadeloupe, and France was lucky to have them. Of all of these, St.-Domingue, today's Haiti, the western third of the island of Hispanola, was, as Christopher Hodson relates, "the most lucrative of France's remaining colonial possessions." It also was the only one of its Caribbean holdings that had not been seized by the British and then returned to France. For these and other reasons, St.-Domingue received much attention from Versailles. First, the French Antilles or Leeward Islands, which included St.-Domingue, received a new governor-general, naval lieutenant-general Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Henri-Hector, comte d'Estaing, whose main job was to reinvigorate St.-Domingue's military government for the purpose of "keeping the colony secure in Louis XV's fold while using it to extend the king's power in the Caribbean." This included strengthening the colony's defensive as well as offensive capabilities in the inevitable war of vengeance to come. For this reason, a remote corner of the colony suddenly took on new importance.389
Môle St.-Nicolas lay on the western tip of the island's northern peninsula, a proverbial colonial backwater. The lack of roads through the area's rugged terrain kept it "far removed, both geographically and culturally, from the colony's centers of power," including the bustling port of Cap-Français, today's Cap-Hatien, off to the east along the colony's northern coast. Strategically, however, in early 1764 it was seen by one high-ranking French official as "'as essential to settle.'" "Jutting out past Tortuga," a large island off the northern coast, "toward the southern coast of Cuba, Môle overlooked a prime shipping channel," the Windward Passage, "to and from Jamaica and the western Caribbean. Properly colonized, the entire peninsula might become a base of operations for a resurgent French navy. Alternatively, if Môle was somehow seized by the British, it would provide great advantages to the enemy. As d'Estaing proclaimed, 'Môle St. Nicolas ... seems placed by nature to belong to the dominant naval power in the seas of America.'" However, the French were reluctant to use slave labor in such a remote part of the colony; they feared the creation of yet another haven for maroons in a colony where West Africans far outnumbered Europeans. Nor did colonial officials care to increase even more the number of disgruntled slaves in the colony. A rash of poisonings in the colony during the recent war made the European population even more paranoid about their enslaved workers. An attempt in the early 1760s to bring in French peasants to replace slave labor in certain corners of the colony failed miserably--those who could not find European wives turned to black and mulatto women for comfort; many of the immigrants died of tropical ailments soon after they reached the colony; and many who did not die soon returned to France. Inevitably, then, French officials turned to the Acadians.390
Their relationship with St.-Domingue began, tangentially, soon after the war finally ended in early 1763. Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini Mazarini, duc de Nivernois, French minister to the British court in London, was determined to repatriate to France the Acadians in England, most of whom had been sent there from Virginia in the spring of 1756. On 18 March 1763, Nivernois penned a secret dispatch, entrusted to his secretary, Monsieur de la Rochette, that promised the exiles in England "the protection of King Louis XV" in their efforts to return to French soil. And so they did, aboard several French transports, in May 1763, landing in northern Brittany at Morlaix and St.-Malo. "Copies of this communqué," historian Carl Brasseaux relates, "were subsequently smuggled" by the new arrivals via the Acadian grapevine "to friends and relatives" in the seaboard colonies. Upon receiving the document, Acadian leaders in the colonies reacted as quickly as they could to the welcomed opportunity. Exiles in nearly every seaboard colony where they still were being held--South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts--hurried petitions and repatriation lists to M. de la Rochette in London, but no ships appeared in the British Atlantic ports to take them away. Some Acadians sent petitions to the offices of French foreign minister Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul, at Versailles. Hearing of it, King Louis XV proposed to send ships from St.-Domingue and Martinique to the British colonies to repatriate Acadian exiles to the islands, but only after gauging British response to the proposal. The British informed the new French ambassador to London, M. de Guercy, that they opposed such a venture, so the French pulled back. Meanwhile, the colony's intendant, Jean-Bernard de Clugny, with Choiseul's approval, concocted a scheme to remove the Acadians in the Atlantic port cities surreptiously via French merchant ships. It did not take long for the Acadian grapewine to send word up and down the coast that the sugar colony was open to them. In late 1763, Acadians from South Carolina headed to Port-au-Prince to look into Clugny's offer but foul weather ruined the voyage. By early 1764, however, others from that colony and nearby Georgia were getting through, and in the following months, encouraged by Clugny and by a June 1764 proclamation by d'Estaing, exiles in other seaboard colonies--Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut--poured into Cap-Français and Port-au-Prince. In September 1764, the surreptious practice became official policy "when Versailles ordered French merchantmen engaged in the American/Antillian trade to exchange their cargoes of rum and molasses for Acadian passengers and lumber which could be used to construct dwellings for the transplanted exiles." The French government would pay for their passage. According to historian Gabriel Debien, when they arrived at the ports, "the Acadians were divided into two groups. One was sent to Môle St.-Nicolas, located about one hundred miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, and the other group was settled at Mirebalais in the western portion of the island," much closer to the administrative center.391
In January 1764, as Acadians were beginning to reach the colony, Intendant Clugny and Pierre-André de Gohin, comte de Montreuil, "a veteran of the Canadian theater of the Seven Years' War," commandant of the northern part of the island and acting governor until d'Estaing arrived, cobbled together a plan for Môle St.-Nicolas following a reconnaissance of the area by three French officers. The isolated backwater would be transformed by Acadian labor not only into a naval and military base, but also into a "breadbasket" for that part of the colony--"Acadians would do the farming, French regulars," 30 of them at first, would do "the fighting." No slaves would perform this miracle, only free-white laborers and farmers, who, Montreuil insisted, must be given "'absolute and incontestable rights for the land' granted them." They would live at first in camps using "'tents, covers, and hammocks such as those given to Negroes.' When these materials had been offloaded, the Acadians would erect 'barracks, a blockhouse, a hospital, and the officers' quarters.' In addition they would cut a road leading from the source of the Saint-Nicolas River to the sea, in order 'to transport by coach ... the supplies and tool necessary for the Settlement.'" The Acadians would live in surveyed square plots along the river, always near fresh water. "Those who 'refused to give themselves to the operations of the settlement' risked confinement in a prison constructed by their own hands.'" A curious provision in the instructions to Clugny and Montreuil was that "Slaves necessary to double the number of Acadians were to be gotten from the plantations of Jean-Rabel, the closest place to Môle."392
Acadians, "approximately 400 of them," reached Môle St.-Nicolas by sea from Cap-Français on 2 February 1764, two weeks before the Acadians from France sent to Île Malouines reached the site of their new settlement, and a few months before the first of the Acadians sent to Guiana, also from France, reached their disease-ridden destination. Unfortunately for the Môle St.-Nicolas Acadians, Clugny and Montreuil appointed Bertrand de Saltoris, "a grasping, career-minded naval scribe" and accomplished sycophant to manage the operation. The Acadians cooperated at first, but soon it became clear that Saltoris had no clue about the nature of his white workmen. In report after report to his superiors, he insisted that "His Acadians were 'the best people in the world,'" yet, without explanation, he banned hunting, fishing, "and washing in the river...," which puzzled the hard-working exiles. "'The Acadians love me and fear me,' he exulted, promising to continue 'to inspire in them these two feelings at once.'" Amazingly, only a few cases of diarrhea marred the first week of work among them. Then a storm hit, damaging the tents and boats and sacks of military hardtack that Saltoris demanded that they eat, but they continued to work without complaint, or so their foreman insisted to his superiors. On Fat Tuesday--Mardi Gras--the Acadians spent two days eating, dancing, singing, drinking, and celebrating 23 new marriages "to be 'renewed or contracted,'" some of them having been consumated in the British colonies, where there had been no priests. "Packing more than four hundred people under a makeshirt arbor, the Acadians displayed the kind of rustic sociability Saltoris knew only from [reading] Rousseau," Christopher Hodson relates. Saltoris was amazed that there was "no 'bad speech' or 'indecencies,'" during the boisterous festivities, which, with their children always around, was the Acadian way. "The Acadians were," the foreman concluded, "'not ordinary men.'"393
"Nor were they simpletons," Hodson notes. Ten of them, probably without permission, surveyed the soil along the St.-Nicolas River and were not impressed with what they found. Saltoris went upriver as well and saw that tree falls had essentially blocked the river's flow. He insisted that the Acadians add removal of the tree falls to their construction and farming work, without added compensation. Local officials had promised Saltoris slaves to help with the work of clearing the dead falls, but they failed to appear. "Healthy white workers demanded high wages," the Acadians reasoned. They also demanded money for their efforts, a clear violation of the original settlement plan, which stipulated that the Acadians, who would be subsisted by the government, "would not be paid a salary." Relations worsened between the Acadians and Saltoris as more Acadians were syphoned into the project and also demanded land of their own. Governor-general d'Estaing came to St.-Domingue in April 1764 and in July, along with the colony's new intendant, René Magon, visited the operation at Môle St.-Nicolas. What they found there was not even close to what Saltoris had been reporting to Port-au-Prince. The governor-general wrote: "'I found a few scattered men without shelter, dying beneath the Bushes, supplied in abundance with biscuit and salted meats that they could not eat, as well as tools they were in no state to use; they cursed an existence that, out of discouragement, they did not care to preserve. ... The greatest criminal would have preferred the galleys to a torture session in this plaque-stricken place.'" The Acadians suffered especially from diarrhea, dysentery, malaria, and scurvy. Intendant Magon was equally appalled by what he saw. "'Of the 556 Acadians sent here,' he reported, '104 had died,' with the rest well on their way to the grave." They fired Saltoris and ordered him banished to Cap-François. His replacement, a ship captain named Saloman, failed as well despite Magon's sending him African slaves with a fleur-de-lys burned into their faces to show that they belonged to the King. Saloman was replaced by botanist Jean-Baptiste-Christophe Fusée Aublet, who had recently endured the horror in French Guiana and whose family, his African wife and children, were still in Île-de-France, today's Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, ship loads of German survivors from the Guiana disaster arrived at Cap-Français. D'Estaing diverted them, a thousand in number, to Môle St.-Nicolas and placed Aublet in charge of them as well. The botanist, possessed of more common sense than his predecessors, as well as his superiors, sent the Germans, instead, to a new settlement several miles south of disease-infested Môle. Bombardopolis was named after the sieur de la Bombarde, one of Aublet's patrons. "While Bombardopolis made steady progress," Christopher Hodson relates, "Môle floundered." D'Estaing now realized that the Acadians left there were unable to work and that only Africans could complete the job; in other words, the free-white-farmer experiment at Môle was a failure. Aublet did what he could with the stricken Acadians who remained, but by September 1764 he, too, was exhausted. He officially retired and returned to France, and another director was sent to take his place. ...
By then, many of the Acadians still at Môle had reached their limit of endurance. According to Carl Brasseaux, "Of the 938 Acadians sent to Môle Saint-Nicolas in 1764, only 672 remained at the beginning of 1765." Permission to leave denied them by d'Estaing, some of the Acadians from Môle left anyway, moving to spin-off settlements at Plateforme, Jean-Rabel, and Mirebalais, where they hoped to become farmers again. Unfortunately, they found the conditions there as bad as they had suffered at Môle. Besides, Brasseaux explains, "Desertion offiered the life of a fugitive, and, even if they were granted asylum in another district, they would have to carve themselves a niche with essentially no resources. Most of the Acadians at Môle, on the other hand, had built houses, started gardens, and in some cases, began to acquire livestock. Many Acadians also found at least occasional employment as carpenters, masons, and laborers for the continuing construction of the naval base." Among the stay-behinds were carpenters Marin LeBlanc, Charles Cormier, Firmin Comeau, Anselme Poirier, and foreman Alain Daigre. "Such income proved increasingly important after the summer of 1766, when the government ceased to provide rations to the Acadians. It is thus hardly surprising," Brasseaux notes, "that the district's records indicate that, by the mid-1770s, the overwhelming majority of Acadians at Môle were artisans." Still, there were exiles who were determined to quit not only the naval base, but the entire colony. In early 1765, probably without permission, some of the Môle survivors managed to hook up with the Beauseleil Broussard party from Halifax that stopped briefly at Cap-Français in January. After accessing the state of the colony, including stories about the conditions at Môle and Mirebalais, the Broussards and their kinsmen decided this was no place for them. They took on any fellow Acadians who cared to join them, weighed anchor, and moved on to New Orleans, which, to the surprise of the French caretaker governor there, they reached in February. Other parties of Acadian exiles--more from Halifax later in 1765, and from Maryland in 1766, 1767, and 1768--also transshipped at Cap-Français on their way to Spanish Louisiana. They, too, likely picked up St.-Domingue "survivors" before going on their way. Meanwhile, despite the "frightful mortality" at Môle, more Acadians were sent there--180 from New England during the first four months of 1765.394
Meanwhile, Acadians from the seaboard colonies and France who came to French St.-Domingue were sent not to Môle but to Mirebalais in the colony's western interior. The first of the exiles to go there, 180 or so, reached Port-au-Prince from New England, including New York, in August 1764. The colonial authorities had recently created a settlement at Mirebalais in the hill country, 30 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, "where, it was hoped, the immigrants would establish truck farms and small coffee plantations." It did not work out that way. "These Acadians," Carl Brasseaux relates, "were furnished temporary housing in Mirebalais and at the plantations in the area until permanent housing was available," another instance of the colonial authorities' failure to prepare for the Acadians' arrival. The reaction of the locals was predictable. "Because of the opposition by local planters to the distribution of land to the exiles," lands that they coveted, "as well as an unidentified epidemic, forcing the immigrants to work as laboring on existing coffee plantations," essentially supplementing the labor of the local planter's slaves, "the Mirebalais community appears to have dispersed rapidly, with many exiles migrating to other areas where land ownership was possible. Some of these Acadians made their home, at least temporarily, at Boucan Carré, at the Capuchin canton, and, in larger numbers, at Montagne Terrible. Even here, however," Brasseaux explains, "the Acadians, lacking capital to start their own coffee plantations, were forced to seek employment as laborers and managers on established plantations." And others, like the fugitives from Môle St.-Nicolas, fled the colony entirely.395
Brasseaux concludes: "Numerous published sources, based entirely on speculation, had suggested that many of the Saint-Domingue Acadians left the colony for Louisiana in the mid-to-late 1760s. The documentary record in Louisiana, however, makes it clear that few, if any, Saint-Domingue Acadians migrated to the Mississippi valley. It is also highly unlikely that the Môle Saint-Nicolas and Mirebalais Acadians left for France or other French possessions. What is apparent is that, the Acadians, after sustaining frightening losses to tropical diseases, malnutrition, and scurvy, gradually adapted to their new and radically different surroundings. Compounding the problem of adaptation were the island's social structure, which effectively lacked a niche for yeomen farmers, the difficulty of securing sufficient land to launch a viable farming operation, and the necessity of adapting their farming practices to tropical crops. Unable to surmount these difficulties, many Acadians chose the path of least resistance and sought to integrate themselves into the island's socio-economic system as plantation laborers, plantation artisans, plantation overseers/managers, and, far more rarely, plantation owners. Over the years many of these Acadians intermarried with other French colonists of their economic caste thus solidifying their growing ties to the island and its plantation system."396
And then the darkness came. The slave revolt in St.-Domingue in 1791, inspired by revolution in France, overwhelmed the planter class and the French authorities in Port-au-Prince. In 1792, Revolutionary France went to war not only with much of the rest of Europe, but also with the royalits in its own colonies. Revolutionary forces seized Cap-Français in 1793, and a decade of almost constant warfare, with the British and the Spanish throwing in their weight, ensued in what the Black revolutionaries called Haiti, née St.-Domingue. Not until 1804, when the victorious Haitians declared their independence from France, did the warfare slacken, but it did not end. Meanwhile, some of the Acadians still in Haiti "made their way to ports on the Eastern seaboard" of the United States, which, under Jefferson, were determined to resist the upstart Haitians. Other Acadians still in Haiti chose to migrate to a closer refuge, to Santiago de Cuba on the southeast end of the island, across the Windward Passage from their old homes in St.-Domingue. In 1809, however, a year after Napoléon invaded and occupied Spain, the Spanish rebuked the French refugees at Santiago de Cuba and sent them on to New Orleans, now a part of the United States. Most of the exiles from Cuba, many still identifying themselves as Acadian, remained at New Orleans, but some chose to settle in predominantly Acadian communites outside of the city, especially in the Opelousas District out on the western prairies.397
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Martinique and Guadeloupe were settled by the French about the same time, in 1635. Ste.-Lucie, also called Saint Lucia, did not become a French possession until 1650. The British occupied all three Leeward islands during the Seven Years' War, some longer than others, but returned them to France in 1763.
The first Acadians to make their aquaintance with the French islands--in this case, Martinique--came aboard the transport Experiment, a 136-ton brig, master Benjamin Stoddard, that left Annapolis Royal on 8 December 1755, filled with 250 exiles from that place, destined for New York harbor. Soon after entering the Atlantic, the Experiment, along with an even larger transport, the Edward, bound for Connecticut, were blown off course and not able to land until they reached distant Antigua in the British Antilles. Antiguan authorities sent the Experiment and its load of exiles to nearby St. Kitts, where most of them spent the winter. The local government, meanwhile, "unwilling or unable" to care for all of the exiles aboard the stricken transport, sent some of them to the Dutch island of St. Eustache, where, according to Carl Brasseaux, they were "summarily abandoned." The British consul on St. Eustache "provided the Acadians with food, but in such small quantities that the exiles were forced to turn to private charity to survive." Meanwhile, the Dutch governor of St. Eustache appealed to the French governor of Martinique to relieve him of the Acadians who had been dumped in his colony. The Dutch governor's "appeal for aid was apparently honored by the Martinique government," Brasseaux asserts. Evidently 28 exiles "subsequently made their way to that French island. Upon arrival at Martinique, the exiles requested passage to either Cape Breton Island or Quebec...." Island officials "replied that they would 'avail (themselves) of the first opportunity to send them there,'" but they most likely remained in the Antilles.398
Then came the war and British attacks in the Leeward Islands, at Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1759, which, under former Nova Scotia governor Peregrine Hopson, now a major-general, was unsuccesful at Martinique but successful at Gaudeloupe after Hopson's death; and in 1762 at Martinique and Ste.-Lucie, which, under Brigadier-General Robert Monckton, also associated with Acadia, was successful. Some in France would say too successful. According to Christopher Hodson, "In 1759 ... the planters of Guadeloupe surrendered the island to the British navy after mounting a token resistance; in 1762, the rich inhabitants of Martinique did the same, cheerfully sacrificing the king's property to safeguard their own. 'Less attached to their reputations than to their wealth,' these tropical subjects provided a bracing illustration of slavery's political limitations in a world of belligerent empires." The British held the islands for the rest of the war, but all three of them were returned to France by the Treaty of Paris of 1763. Meanwhile, the slave-tended sugar fields on all three islands continued to fill the purses of their insouciant owners.399
The war over, Acadians in the British Atlantic colonies were, more or less, free to go where they chose. Hundreds of exiles still in Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New England, even Nova Scotia turned their eyes and their hopes to the French Antilles. The great majority of them, as we've seen, chose to go to St.-Domingue, but some preferred to resettle on the Leeward islands. The French had no interest in creating new settlements for them on their smaller Caribbean sugar islands as they would try at Môle St.-Nicolas and Mirebalais, in Guiana, and even on the faraway Îles Malouines. But Acadians went to the Antilles anyway, especially to Martinique. Acadians with the following surnames were among the exiles who went to communities on that island: Bastarache, Blanchard, Bourgeois, Comeau, Daigre, Dousset, Duon, Girouard, and Mouton to Champflore; Benoit, Brasseur, Breau, Corporon, Granger, Haché dit Gallant, Hébert, and Thériot to Fort-Royal; Benoit, Duon, Martin dit Barnabé, Renaud, and Richard to Le Mouillage; Blanchard, Boutin, Comeau, Gaudet, Girouard, Hébert, LeBlanc, Pellerin, and Savoie to St.-Pierre; Comeau and Hébert to Au Carbet; Hébert to Basse-Pointe; Martin dit Barnabé to Le Marin; and LeBlanc and Talbot, to other parts of the island. Acadians with the following surnames went to Guadeloupe: Benoit to Petit-Bourg and Basse-Terre; Bertrand to Pointe-à-Pitre; Comeau and Doucet to Basse-Terre; and Renaud to Le Moule. Acadians with the following surnames went to Ste.-Lucie: Martin dit Barnabé and Trahan to Le Carénage, today's Castries.400
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French Guiane, Guiana, or Guyana was almost as old as the other French possessions in the Caribbean Basin, but it was not nearly as successful as the others despite its slave-based plantation economy. Its principal settlement was Cayenne. "Slung across a coastal island near the mouths of the Montsinéry and Mahury rivers," Christopher Hodson relates, "the fortified town was the only bona fide settlement within the large claim known as Guiana or la France équinoxiale. Bordered by Portuguese Brazil, Dutch Surinam, and the Atlantic, Guiana theoretically extended French rule deep into the South American rain forest, but in reality the interior remained something of a mystery. Indeed, while Guiana had attracted French adventurers, religious zealots, and profit seekers throughout the seventeenth century, the colony had long been considered a failure by the crown. Dreams of mineral wealth had been dashed early on, leaving a sweat-stained residue of plantation owners, soldiers, and officials to contend with their own chattel and the region's still-powerful Galibi natives." In other words, "It was a cruel place to live." But the sudden loss of so much of France's American empire shone a new light on the South American colony. Physiocrats, whose ideas about the importance of agriculture were still popular among French philosophes, saw the kingdom's remaining colonies as a sure means to save what was left of the empire, especially if new settlements there could be freed from, or at least made less dependent on, the scourge of African slavery. For this and other reasons, French foreign minister Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul cast his eye on Guiana.377
Choiseul also cast his eye on the recently-arrived Acadians, whose daily allowance of 6 sols per day, the solde, promised by the King when they came to France, was burdening the royal treasury. But the Acadians' reputation as "'laborious, good farmers, in general proper for anything as they were obliged to do everything in their country ... building their own houses, chopping down trees, milling them, (and) constructing fishing boats'" set them apart from the typical French peasant. Here, languishing in Atlantic ports and in the suburbs and villages near St.-Malo, was proper material for an agricultural settlement in a fertile corner of French Guiana. In late 1763, Choiseul sent a M. de Francy to Acadian communities to entice exiles to join the new tropical venture. "For refugees on the dole," and that included most of them, "recruitment proved to be an unpleasant process. Using incentives that had worked in the past--a payment of 50 livres for each family, plus 10 livres per child and the promise of arable land in Guiana--de Francy pitched the plan" as enticingly as he could, but his success was limited. Only 75 out of the 200 he pitched accepted the officer, "then changed their minds over the next few days, apparently thinking better of a move to the tropics." De Francy's carrots having failed, Choiseul, upon hearing of the Acadians' recalcitrance, and ignoring his promise about forcing them to go anywhere, applied the stick. He declared that "those Acadians who refused to migrate would lose the solde and were, from that point on, 'free to become what they wished,' having misused the king's 'support and kindness.'"" The tactic worked. By June 1764, a hundred Acadians at Cherbourg were "destined for South America." "By summer," Hodson relates, "the would-be migrants had trekked from Cherbourg to Le Havre, where they waited aboard ships destined for Guiana. Still more prepared to sail from Saint-Malo, Morlaix, and Boulogne." Choiseul declared the affair "a success." "Acadians," he was happy to see, "were deployable, dependent, dependable, and, at only 50 livres per family, compared to 2,000 livres for a healthy African slave, cheap."378
The Acadians "volunteers" numbered 200 or so, but they were not the only "Frenchmen" going to Guiana. The year before, the chief instigator of the South American venture, Jean-Antoine Bruletot de Préfontaine, a wealthy plantation owner from Cayenne, 20 years in the colony, had rounded up a hundred French, Canadian, Savoyard, and Irish "pioneers." Along with two Acadian matrons, Marie-Madeleine Boudrot and Madeleine Lapierre of Chignecto, who had married Frenchmen, the party had gone on ahead to set up a new settlement on the coast of Guiana, called La Nouvelle Colonie, or the New Colony. After a closer look at the Maroni River, Préfontaine's original choice for the colony's location, he chose, instead, the Kourou River, "likely hoping to use the remaining buildings of an abandoned Jesuit mission. The group soon built a fort, drained marshes, and planted gardens. Counting on a 'gradual peopling,' Prétontaine surveyed the river, portioning out farmland for the two thousand additional colonists he expected within a year. Joined by a regiment of soldiers and a few concessionaires, the wealthy landowners recruited by Choiseul, the original colonists thrived," with a death rate of only 5 percent. Guiana's intendant, Jean-Baptiste Thibault de Chanvalon, inspected the settlement on Christmas Day 1763 and "waxed messianic about the Kourou colony."379
The year 1764 brought a horrific twist to the Guiana story. Reminiscent of the Regency Period in France back in the early 1720s, Choiseul authorized the recruitment of western Germans for the New Colony. In June 1763, he had chosen a Prussian aristocrat, Baron Louis de Bodelschwingh, who had fought in the German theatre during the recent war, to entice thousands of Germans, especially from the Palatinate, to go to South America. As 46 years before, when 4,000 Germans recruited by John Law's Company of the Indies trekked across France to Lorient in Brittany to take passage to French Louisiana, by early 1764 "nearly seventeen thousand German-speakers began marching across France to the sea," most converging on the naval port of Rochefort on the Bay of Biscay. When 11,000 of the Germans reached Rochefort, it doubled the port's population! Choiseul attempted to create six "staging points" along the coast, 150 miles or so apart, to receive the recruits, but the sheer numbers of German peasants crossing the kingdom could not be controlled. And tragically, as before, many of them did not make it to the sea. Christopher Hodsons explains: "the number of prospective migrants to Guiana doubled the annual outflow from Great Britain to its North American colonies during the boom years between 1760 and 1765, and outdistanced any single colonial migration in French history by a least a factor of ten." Fearing the outbreak of disease at the receiving ports, as had happened in 1720, Choiseul ordered the immediate transport of the German recruits to Guiana. Also caught up in the madness were the 200 Acadians who had signed up for the venture. In early 1764, they sailed from Rochefort in a fleet of transports carrying thousands of Germans. At least one ship full of Germans, the Duc de Praslin, left Marseille on the Mediterranean in late April and, after a six-week passage, arrived at Cayenne on June 10, but the harbor master would not let them land there. They were told to continue down the coast to Îles du Salut, "three rocky islands a few miles off the Kourou's mouth," where the ships with new settlers could disembark. There they met a dozen more ships, including the Roland from Le Havre "with a complement of Acadians aboard."380
The 13 transports at Îles du Salut carried over 3,000 immigrants, the great majority of them Germans. With Préfontaine and Chanvalon supervising, it took weeks to disembark so many migrants, many of them, like some of the Germans aboard the Duc de Praslin, also "diseased." As a result, while the disembarkations were taking place, a full-blown medical disaster decimated the new colony. Back in February, the frigate La Ferme had arrived with 400 Germans, the first of the thousands to reach the new colony. Chanvalon chose the Îles du Salut as the place to "set up makeshift camps" where the colony's doctors could separate the stricken from the healthy arrivals and send the latter on to Préfontaine's well-ordered plantation. By April, however, the sheer numbers of new arrivals, many of them ill, overwhelmed the intendant's makeshift plans. He begged Choiseul to halt the transportation of so many recruits, but communication with France was slow. Meanwhile, on Îles du Salut, migrants died in huge numbers from smallpox, typhoid, dysentery, diarrhea, and other ailments. "No one really knows how many people perished," Christopher Hodson notes. The following year, a British naval officer who visited Île du Salut guessed that "of 'fourteen thousand people who came out to settle the colonies ... ten thousand of them died.'" Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, later Controller-General of Finance under Louis XVI, came to Guiana in January 1765 and estimated that 9,000 had died there, including a dozen members of this own family. Two years later, Intendant Chanvalon "was moldering in prison on Mont-Saint-Michel," his personal fortune having been seized to fund a hospital at Cayenne. "Set against the devastation of Native Americans by Old World diseases and warfare, or the staggering toll of the slave trade," Hodson explains, "the Kourou colony's collapse seems small in scale. But for white settlers, it remains the deadliest single episode in the long history of European colonization in America."381
Among the "white" settlers who perished in Guiana were dozens of Acadians enticed to go there. However, as Chistropher Hodson points out, "they emerged better off than most," certainly better than the hapless Germans. "Indeed," Hodson notes, "nearly one hundred" Acadians "managed to avoid the overwhelming mortality on the Îles de Salut, making their way to a tiny settlement at Sinnamary, far to the north and east of the Kourou River." A number of them, in fact--brothers Joseph and Pierre Saulnier, Augustin Trahan, Jean Boudreau, and Joseph Lejeune--despite Turgot's threats to deny them government aid if they did not return to France, elected to stay at Sinnamary, determined to succeed there as humble, non-slaveholding farmers. But many of their fellow Acadians returned to France. In 1766, a French nobleman of Acadian birth and heritage was named governor of Cayenne. Louis-Thomas Jacau de Fiedmont, born at Plaisance, Newfoundland, to an Acadian mother, Anne Melanson of Grand-Pré, survived the capture of Fort Beauséjour in 1755, fought at Québec four years later, became a chevalier of the Order of St.-Louis for his service in Canada, and thought highly of his fellow Acadians, especially the ones who remained at Sinnamary and did succeed as yeomen farmers there. Jacau de Fiedmont went on with his impressive career, retiring as a major-general, while Guiana's "original Acadian core endured." But for those who returned to France, and the hundreds more Acadians who never set foot in Guiana, the name of that colony meant other things to them: not endurance and success but tropic heat, death, horrid diseases, more death, and failure.382
.
Îles Malouines, today's Falkland Islands, were French only for a short time; that they belonged to France at all was due to the ambitions of a world-class explorer the likes of which France had never seen. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and his older brother Jean-Pierre, sons of a Parisian notary, were as well educated as young French bourgeois could be. Jean-Pierre, seven years older than Louise-Antoine, was the true genius in the family, a mathematical prodigy, but a severe case of asthma plagued him for the rest of his short life. Louis-Antoine, on the other hand, was a robust young fellow who was as obsessive about the mysterious terra australis, the southern continent, as his brother. "Calculus had awakened Louis-Antoine's faculties," Christopher Hodson notes, "geography focused them, as he would later write, on sailing the 'French flag ... to the extremities of a new world.'" But exploration had to wait. At age 24, Louis-Antoine joined the mousquetairs noirs, "the personal army of the French king and a launching pad for ambitious men of the minor gentry." In 1755, Louis-Antoine's reputation as a scholar secured for him a place at the French embassy in London, where he was made a member of the Royal Society. When the Seven Years' War broke out a year later, he was sent to Canada as an officer of dragoons. Typically, he wrote his brother, he coaxed the captain of the ship that took him across the Atlantic to teach him the basics of sailing large vessels. In Canada, Louis-Antoine became an aide-de-camp to French North American commander-in-chief Louis-Joseph, marquis de Montcalm and saw plenty of action there, receiving a wound in the defense of Fort Carillon in 1758. He came to loathe Canadian-born governor-general the marquis de Vaudreuil and the colony's corrupt intendant, François Bigot, but he came to admire the tough Canadians and also the Acadian exiles he encountered in Canada. During the war, he was rewarded the Cross of St.-Louis and promoted to colonel. After the surrender of Montréal in 1760 and the end of the war in Canada, he returned to France as a prisoner-of-war and "received a warm welcome in the Department of the Marine." Since he could not return to action, he served as a diplomat, assisting in the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris. Louis XV's foreign minister, Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul, was so impressed by Bougainville that, after the war's end, he offered him the governorship of Cayenne. Bougainville refused the offer, "keeping his eyes on weightier matters. 'Seeing that the North was closed to us,'" Bougainville reasoned, "'I thought of giving to my country in the Southern Hemisphere what she no longer possesses in the Northern.'" So he "'searched and found the Malouine Islands,'"..."given in reference to intrepid sailors from Saint-Malo, on whose ventures Louis XV's claim rested. That city in Brittany," Hodson reminds us, "was also the home to more than a thousand Acadian refugees."383
Bougainville "proposed a settlement on the Falkland Islands in November 1762," while the war was still on. According to modern archaelogical evidence, the islands were uninhabited before the Europeans arrived. First reached in 1592 by English mariner John Davis while searching for a passage to Cathay, "Davis took shelter on the islands during a storm, but he was too scared to name them." Others followed, including French whalers. In 1690, Englishman John Strong, on his way to Peru to prey on Spanish treasure ships, made the first undisputed landing on the islands, which he named for Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, "William of Orange's treasurer of the navy," but the English did not appy the name to the archipalego until 1765, during a dispute over their possession between Britain and France. The Spanish, who claimed the islands based on the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, called them Islas Malvinas, derived from the French name, Îles Malouines, first used by Bougainville in 1764. By 1762, the islands possessed a bad reputation. To the few Europeans who knew of them, "They were a 'morsel of rock ... somewhere at the bottom of America,' a frigid outpost 'almost at the last confines of this hemisphere,' and as useful as the 'Dog Star and the Great Bear.'" The archipalego emcompassed two large islands, now East Falkland and West Falkland, and hundreds of smaller ones. Bougainville, eager to settle the islands before the victorious British did, proposed a modest fleet to establish a modest settlement on one of the islands to be used as a base from which to further explore terra australis. "The crown was willing," Hodson notes, "but its funds were lacking." Post-war debts and the rising costs of the Guiana venture limited French foreign minister Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul, to supply "only two ships and some artillery. He did, however, hint that the crown would support a private company's efforts in the South Atlantic." Bougainville agreed to the proposal, and he and brother Jean-Pierre, leaning heavily on the older brother's extensive connections among wealthy relatives, including rich cousin Michel-François Nerville de Bougainville, and other French aristocrats, put together a company beginning in early 1763. The result was the Compagnie des Malouïnes, funded with 200,000 livres. In the spring of 1763, the operation still more or less a secret so as not to alert British colonizers, Bougainville went to St.-Malo to oversee the preparation of his company's two ships, the frigate Aigle, to be captained by Nicolas-Pierre Duclos-Guyot, and the sloop Sphinx, under master François Chenard de la Giraudais. At St.-Malo, Bougainville carefully selected his crews, oversaw the ship's carpenters, and reaquainted himself with the Acadians, who he had observed in Canada during the war, including the trauma some of them had endured at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore during the winter of 1756-57. "If ... colonies in the South Atlantic were to 'cultivate the natural productions of the land,'" philosophe Charles de Brosses had written, "who better to deal with tricky soils and uncertain harvests than those who had already proved their physical resilience and their 'strong and faithful attachment' to France?" In any case," Bougainville reasoned, "... the raw weather of the Falklands might actually be a draw for the Acadians. Unlike recruiters for the Kourou colony (who were, at that very moment, twisting Acadian arms at Saint-Malo), he could tout a climate 'more or less the same as that of Acadia, their old home.'"384
He found his settler-recruits, no more than a few dozen, among the hundreds of Acadians still living in the St.-Malo area. Augustin Benoit, a 23-year-old baker from Pigiguit and Île Royale, wife Françoise Thériot, and their 2-year-old son Jean-Sébastien were among them. Geneviève Thériot, Françoise's unmarried sister, age 15, also signed on. Some of the other settlers were Frenchmen from Île St.-Jean and Île Royale, the islands soon to be renamed by the British. Also in the party were naturalist and writer Antoine-Joseph Pernety, or Dom Pernety, the expedition's "priest and chronicler." They sailed from St.-Malo on 9 September 1763, Louis-Antoine Bougainville still grieving over the recent death of brother Jean-Pierre. One wonders if his two ships crossed wakes with any of the many transports taking German and Acadian settlers from French ports to the new settlement in Guiana. When they crossed the Equator the crew of course staged the initiation of "Bonnehomme de la Ligne." The record shows that 2-year-old Sébastien Benoit squealed in terror as he witnessed the mock baptism of his aunt Geneviève and another unmarried Acadian girl. By December, they had reached Santa Catarina off the coast of southern Brazil, where Portuguese officials awarded them with "a gift of ten sides of beef." Then they sailed into autumn again. They reached Port St.-Louis on East Falkland Island on 17 February 1764, near present-day Stanley. "The colonists set to work at the base of a moss-covered hill, building barracks, some huts for the families, and the rudiments of an earthen fort capable of holding fourteen cannon." They also explored their environs when work permitted, noting the quality of the soil, the local flora and fauna, including the ubiquitous sea lions. There were no trees for firewood, but some of the sailors dug up peat from one of the bogs to be used as fuel, a procedure the Acadians would have remembered from their days building dykes using dug-up soil covered with marsh grass on the Fundy shore. On April 5, Bougainville conducted a formal ceremony of possession, an old European tradition, at Port St.-Louis, and then he and Father Pernety returned to France aboard the Aigle. They were back home by September 12, when King Louis XV formally ratified French possession of the islands.385
Back on the Malouines, the colonists, supervised now by Bougainville cousin Nerville, fared well, especially considering the limitations of their natural environment. Louis-Antoine returned to Port St.-Louis with the Aigle on 5 January 1765 and "found Nerville, the soldiers, and the Acadian colonists in fine shape. Only one of the original thirty inhabitants, a nameless Frenchman who fell in a hole while hunting, had died over the winter," during which they subsisted on hundreds of bustards, "a turkey-like, protein-rich bird" which they found on the island. The Benoits welcomed a second son, "while three other women had turned up pregnant, forcing an amused Louis-Antoine to perform some hasty marriages. 'The country is good for reproductions,' he concluded." Amazingly, the Acadians planted "little patches of grain and peas that adorned the settlement's outskirts," proving that the soil was fertile enough for subsistence agriculture. Bougainville had brought with him more Acadians, including Jean-Jacques Cyr, wife Marie-Josèphe Hébert, eight of their children, two of them married, and four grandchildren; and single men Paul Babin, François Henry, and Félix Breau. Back in France, Bougainville also had convinced French officials that if he could recruit enough of the 1,300 Acadians still in the St.-Malo area and get them to the islands, these productive people could transform the Malouines into "'the key to the South Seas,'"--into a whaling center, a fishery, a "sea-lion hunting hub," and "a launching pad for missions to terra australis"--but only if Port St.-Louis could become self-sustaining, and only the Acadians could make this happen. Meanwhile, more children were born to the Benoits, to Geneviève Thériot and her husband Guillaume Guichard, to Anne Cyr and Georges Charpentier of Île St.-Jean, and Marie Cyr and Joseph Granger, "all within a few years." This, as much as anything, gave promise that the settlement would endure. As Christopher Hodson notes, "Compared to what some of their former neighbors were enduring on the Kourou River, these Acadians had found a good, safe place."386
Then the darkness came. In January 1765, only days after Bougainville's return to Port St.-Louis, Royal Navy captain John Byron, grandfather of the poet, led two British warships, the Dolphin and the Tamar, into a harbor on West Falkland Island, only 70 miles from Port St.-Louis. Soon the British settlement of Port Egmont arose there, and a few months later a British officer found evidence in the form of a discarded bottle that "'some other Frenchmen had lately been here.'" "Word of the dueling colonies reached Europe in 1766." Bougainville was back in France, leaving Nerville in charge again, and he was he who faced Royal Navy captain John MacBride, who informed the Frenchman that the British had prior possession of the islands, dating back to "the reign of Elizabeth," and that they intended "to 'sustain their rights'" to what they called the Falkland Islands," as, of course, the British always did. They, too, intended to use the islands as a jumping off point from which to raid the Spanish treasurer fleets on the Pacific side of the continent. Bougainville, aware of the danger to his efforts in the South Atlantic, urged Choiseul to push back on the British claims, but, as Hodson points out, "Politics ... won out." Choiseul chose to transfer its rights to the islands to former ally Spain, who also had a claim to the archipalego, rather than risk another loss to the British. Bougainville, with a letter from Louis XV, returned to the Malouines via Buenos Aires aboard the Boudeuse, reaching Port St.-Louis in March 1767. With him were two Spanish ships with the new governor for Islas Malvinas. The King's letter in hand, Bougainville and Nerville assembled the settlers and explained why France no longer possessed their new home. The King, they said, "gave his 'royal word' that those who wished to stay in Spanish territory could, at any time, return to France and enjoy 'the rights and privileges of my other subjects.'" Or they could leave as soon as ships arrived "to carry them off."387
Most chose to leave. In September 1767, Nerville "sailed for France with 'the greater part of the French families,'" including the Benoits and the Guichards. Young Sébastien Benoit was age 7 now, all of his memories from his five years on the remote South Atlantic island. This was his second Atlantic crossing. He would make three more in his long life, the final one to a place called Louisiana. While Louis-Antoine Bougainville circumnavigated the globe, becoming, upon his return to France in 1769 the most famous of all French explorers, the Cyr clan remained on the island and did not return to France until 1772. They, like the Benoits, had to endure a different life there, subsisting as best they could on the old King's handouts and what work they could find. The Benoits did not go to Poitou in the 1770s, like most of the St.-Malo-area Acadians did. They emigrated, instead, to one of the French fishery islands off the southern coast of Newfoundland, so far away from Îles Malouines. During the American War for Independence, in which France became an ally of the United States, the British seized Îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon, forcing the habitant/fishermen, including the Benoits, to retreat to La Rochelle. Sébastien remained in France. Following his fifth Atlantic crossing in 1785, he settled in Louisiana, so, in spite of his family's decision back in 1767, he became a Spanish subject after all. He married twice in Louisiana and finished his days at present-day Lake Charles, at the western edge of the Opelousas prairies. One would be hard-pressed to find an Acadian exile who saw more of the world than the little two-year-old who squealed so loudly as he and his family crossed the Equator.388
Acadian Exiles in the Atlantic Colonies and the Eastern United States, 1763-1800s
The story of the Acadians in South Carolina would not be complete without recounting the fate of two of their orphans who chose to remain at Charles Town. Some of the Lanoues captured at Annapolis Royal in the fall of 1755 ended up in one of the southernmost colonies, with tragic consequences for one family. The British deported Élisabeth Lanoue and husband Tranquille Comeau; Rose Lanoue and husband Jean Poirier; and Marguerite Richard, widow of René Lanoue, and four of her younger sons--Jean-Baptiste, age 17, Grégoire, age 14, Basile, age 9, and François, age 5--to South Carolina aboard the British transport Hobson, the only vessel from Annapolis Royal to go to that distant colony. Marguerite and youngest son François died "of stranger's fever," probably smallpox, "at the plantation of a Mr. Vanderhorst" soon after they reached the colony, but the other three boys survived. Henry Laurens, the future hero of the American Revolution, became young Basile's patron and helped him become a tanner at Charles Town. Basile taught the trade to his older brother Jean-Baptiste. (One wonders what became of brother Grégoire.) Under the influence of the Laurens and other wealthy Carolinians, and remembering the faith of their Huguenot ancestors, the Lanoue orphans converted to Protestantism: Basile became a Huguenot, and Jean-Baptiste an Anglican/Episcopalian. Basile, in fact, became an elder in his Huguenot congregation and later became a member of the Circular Congregational Church, also called the Old White Meeting House. In South Carolina, their name evolved from Lanoue to Lanneau--Basile became Bazile Lanneau, and Jean Baptiste John Lanneau. They were among the relatively few Acadian exiles who remained in the British colonies after 1763. John died at Charles Town in 1781, in his early 40s. He did not marry. Basil became a man of substance in the new home he had chosen. He built a fine house on Elliot Street. A descendant, South Carolina historian Chapman J. Milling, notes that Bazile "became a wealthy and prominent citizen of Charleston. He served three terms in the Legislature of South Carolina, 1796, 1798, and 1802." Victoria Musheff also notes that Bazile displayed "the truest sign of colonial assimilation in Carolina"--by 1790, he owned 40 slaves. Bazile's first wife and their five children perished in a yellow fever epidemic and were all buried in the Huguenot churchyard. From his second marriage, Bazile created "an extensive progeny, the most distinguished of whom was his grandson, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, doubtless the greatest classical scholar America has produced." Milling continues: "In 1793, after the loss of his first family, Basil Lanneau made the tedious journey to his childhood home [Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia] in the hope of finding one of his elder brothers. He had nearly given up when he accidentally discovered his long-lost brother Amand, who had returned from exile" and settled on nearby Baie Ste.-Marie. "Through Amand he located the widow of his brother, Pierre IV , and after much persuasion she allowed her son, Pierre V, and her daughter, Sarah, to return with him to Charleston. From this Pierre, the fifth of the name, is descended the second branch of the family in South Carolina. Known in Charleston as Peter Lanneau, he was the father of Fleetwood Lanneau, the latter a prominent merchant, banker, member of the legislature, officer of Governor Gist's staff and Captain of the Palmetto Guard." One wonders if, in the years that followed, the Lanneaus of Charleston were even aware of the existence of Cadien kinsmen in South Louisiana.223
In Maryland in 1769, the remaining 200 or so Acadians still there, probably the largest number of exiles still remaining in any seaboard province, did their best to make a life for themselves in a colony where most of the people still roundly disdained them. The ones who remained tended to concentrate in Annapolis and especially at Baltimore, still only a village. It was here that Acadians, some having come down from Pennsylvania, created in the early 1770s "French Town," which came to be incompassed by Baltimore, or Market, Street to the north, Hanover Street to the west, Light Street to the east, and Euler's, later Frenchman's, Alley to the south, with Charles Street running north to south down the middle of the neighborhood. Acadian families who settled there were named White (originally LeBlanc) and Poirrier (later Porrie), living in Baltimore in 1763; Gold (formerly Doiron), Bijeau, Wedge (originally Aucoin), and Douilard from Pennsylvania; Mongeant, Célestin, Dupuis (later Wells), and Chameau from Annapolis; Guttros (originally Gautrot) and Lockerman (also originally Gautrot) from Newtown; Deschamps (later D'Shield and Deshield) and Lucas from Snow Hill. The first to settle there, in 1773, were Paul Gold and Lewis D'Shield, soon joined by Samuel Mongeant, Joseph and John Guttro, Oliver White, Joseph and John Wells, Peter Porrie, Paul Bijeau, mariner Simon Joseph White, Joseph Budrow (Boudrot), John Babine (Babin), Peter Deliar, John German, Joseph Grangeir, John Lockerman (whose wife was Marie Godreau), John Lashaway, Joseph Murphey, Simon Wedge (Aucoin), Olivier Gold (Doiron), Joseph White (Olivier's son), Joseph Babine, Peter Sollertine (Célestin), Daniel Granger, John Grangers, Francis Lucas, Francis Dashiel (Deschamps), Daniel Landrone (probably Landry), Anthony Celestine (a soldier), Paul Gold, Sixte Chameau, Joseph Paillotter, Cyprian Wells (Dupuis), Joseph Jandine, Mary Bouton (Boutin?), and Magdalin Monmillant. Most, if not all, of these "French Town" residents remained not only French speakers but staunchly Roman Catholic. Maintaining the language with so many family members and friends was easy enough, but practicing their religion was another matter. The church constructed on a piece of land bought from Charles Carroll of Annapolis in 1764, St. Peter's, the first and only Catholic church in the colony, "had to shut its doors temporarily: money was scrarce, its builders were in debt," and not even the pope in Rome would help them. A major blow was the suppression of the Jesuit order in North America in 1773, leaving the dozen or more Catholic missions in the colony without priests. Wood notes that "many Acadians were compelled to seek sacramental assistance of the Anglican Church for marriages." Meanwhile, the political conflict that had shaken the British seaboard colonies since 1765 caught up to Maryland in earnest in 1774, when, in mid-October, in protest against the Tea Act, Baltimore held a "Tea Party" of its own. Under pressure from the "patriots" in the burgeoning port, the brigantine Peggy Stewart was burned "by its very owner" and along with it a cargo of 2,300 pounds of tea. Another war came in 1775 and lasted even longer than the last one. Luckily for the "French Town" Acadians, this war--generally called the American Revolution and, more accurately, the American War for Independence-- did not touch Maryland directly. Unlike in the last war, the remaining Acadians in Maryland were not uprooted from their homes, and Acadians who chose to go off to war--bricklayer Francis Deshield; Lewis D'Shield; Martin Gutro and Anthony Selister, laborers; Joseph Bear (Hébert); and Peter Richards--did so voluntarily, even eagerly, though not all of them served honorably. In 1778, the legislature in Annapolis decreed that all citizens--no more "subjects," no more king, no more "colony"--take an Oath of Fidelity to the sovereign state of Maryland, in which "Supporters pledged to hold no allegiance to the English king, to defend the principles of independence, and to report all treasonous acts to the proper authorities." Most of the former "Neutrals" took the oath, but a few of them--"Moses Barbin, Simon Wedge, and several Grangers," Gregory Wood notes, "did not accept the terms." That same year, these reluctant Americans' ancestral country became a staunch ally of the revolutionary cause. In September 1781, French General Rochambeau's troops reached Maryland on their way down to fight the redcoats at Yorktown, Virginia. French officers took note of "the humble dwellings of French Town." One of them, an officer named Clermont-Crévacour, wrote of the Acadians in Baltmore: "There is a French quarter where some Canadians[sic] live, but they have not propered and look quite poor. They associate very little with the English[sic]. These are good folk who deeply regret not being under French rule any longer and who are so much attached to our nation that they would give their lives to come back." But these Acadians had spurned the chance to live in French territory. They were Americans now, for good or for ill. They could not know it, of course, but in 22 years their cousins in Louisiana, now under Spanish rule, also would become reluctant Americans by the flourish of a pen.247
The great majority of the Acadians in Pennsylvania left the colony after 1763. An exception was Charles LeBlanc, fils, son of the Charles LeBlanc who commander-in-chief of British forces in North America John Campbell, Earl of Loudon, had banished from the colony as a French agitator back in 1757 and, according to one historian, was "never heard from again." Charles, fils was only age 9 at the time of his father's disappearance. Their mother, Marguerite Vincent, having died of smallpox soon after the family arrived in the colony, and their father gone, the brothers were raised by an aunt. Still a child, Charles, fils hung out at the Walnut Street wharves and found work there at the Quaker shops. Meanwhile, brother François, a carpenter, followed other Pennsylvania exiles to French St.-Domingue, not to Môle St.-Nicolas but to the administrative center of Port-au-Prince, where he did well in construction and acquired property but unfortunately succumberd to a tropical disease before he could marry. Younger brother Charles, having learned of his brother's death, sailed to Port-au-Prince in the late 1760s or early 1770s, claimed his inheritance, and, later in the 1770s, perhaps before the American War for Independence broke out, returned to Philadelphia. Sometime before 1777, now calling himself Charles White, he opened a store in Water Street. His business not only survived but likely thrived during the British occupation of the city in the late 1770s. By 1790, White, having survived the war, owned more property on Water Street and became a landlord. Taking advantage of his French connection, beginning in 1793, he imported coffee beans from St.-Domingue to satisify "the prodigious demand for coffee" among this fellow Philadelphians. "By 1816," Christopher Hodson tells us, White was rich. Among other properties, he owned a fine brick house at Fourth and Spruce streets. He never married. He was active in the local Catholic community, attending mass regulary at St. Augustine's Catholic Church "but never took communion." Though he remained close to an Acadian immigrant cousin, née Blanchard, and her daughters, he did not get along with his Anglo neighbors. When Charles died without a will in 1816, age 70, the scramble for his estate, valued at $20,000, became a cause celebre of its day. In the end, it was the rescued parish registers of St.-Charles-des-Mines, brought by Minas exiles from Maryland to St. Gabriel, Louisiana, in 1767 that allowed a Philadelphia judge to divvy up the old Acadian's impressive estate, now worth $36,000, among at least 16 of his scattered relatives.376
Acadian Exiles in British Canada, 1763-1800s
Between 1755 and 1763, "approximately 1,850 Acadians sought refuge in Quebec. Between 1756 and 1759, 488 Acadians died in Quebec City, including 335 who succumbed to smallpox and famine during the winter of 1757-1758. About 200 of the survivors returned to their homeland in 1759. By the end of the period, the colony was home to approximately 1,162 Acadians." No more Acadians seemed to have come to Canada between 1760 and 1766, when the far-northern province permanently changed masters. Then the flood gates were thrown open, making British Canada, today's Québec Province, one of the central destinations of wayward exiles looking for a home. ...293
Fate of the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) in Post-Dispersal Acadia, 1763-1800s
The Acadian Diaspora by the early 1800s
This was the newly-made world the Acadians inhabited at the end of their Grand Dérangement. ...
Was the Acadian Grand Dérangement Genocide?
No, it was not. "Ethnic cleansing" perhaps, but not genocide. ...
BOOK ONE: French Acadia
BOOK TWO: British Nova Scotia
BOOK THREE: Families, Migration, and the Acadian "Begats"
BOOK FOUR: The French Maritimes
BOOK SIX: The Acadian Immigrants of Louisiana
BOOK SEVEN: French Louisiana
BOOK EIGHT: A New Acadia
BOOK NINE:
SOURCE NOTES - BOOK FIVE
01.
01a.
Faragher,
For a solid survey of these disparate "cultures" in the Acadian disapora, see Perrin et al.
01d. Quotation from
Hodson says that "Although numbers are hard to estimate, by 1763 upward of two thousand Acadians likely lived on the mainland west and north of Nova Scotia, while a handful remained imprisoned in Halifax or elsewhere on the peninsula." R.-G. LeBlanc's numbers are followed here.
03.
Quotations from
04.
Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian,
455-56
06.
Quotations from
Anderson says the Acadians viewed the proffered oath as "an oath of submission that would revoke their religious privileges and make them ordinary subjects of the British Crown. Thinking that this was just one more attempt to deprive them of their treaty rights by trickery--a tactic the English had tried before--the Acadians refused."
Marshall says the delegates were "placed in irons and taken to one of two prison sheds on Georges Island, 'a place of most security.'" This implies that the island was being used as a colonial prison for some time. LeBlanc, R.-G., 5, says the island had been used as a prison compound & adds, on 6, "It remains to be established where it [the site of the Acadian delegates' incarceration] was in the storehouse built during the summer of 1749."
08.
Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian,
457. See also
09. Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 457-58. Italics added.
10.
Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian,
458; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 126. See
also
Marshall, 125, says Boscawen's ships
appeared at Halifax
11.
Quotations from Clark,
Erskine says
Beaubassin was "the first settlement to be expelled and
destroyed, and was the first to be reinhabited by the
English," but he gives no date. He then offers a brief
description of the few archaeological remains at Chignecto,
including botanical evidence of Acadian settlement there.
Braud, 61, says Peyroux de La Coudrenière was "originally of Mortagne, in Poitou, where he had been a merchant and druggist" & returned from LA, where he went on business, in 1783. Mortagne is in the coastal area of Poitou called the Vendée. Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 208, 337 n25, offers some detail on Peyroux's life, including his having a brother in LA & another one in Nantes. Hodson, 194, says Peyroux, "a onetime apothecary in Nantes ... had established a thriving plantation near New Orleans during the 1770s" & that in 1783 he was "On a return visit to Nantes" when "he heard the story of Pérusse's failed colony and met up with an ambitious Acadian cobbler named Olivier Terriot. Together, the two convinced Spain's ambassador in Paris, the comte de Aranda, to forward to the king in Madrid a plan to settle all of France's Acadians on the fertile but vulnerable borderlands of Louisiana." Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 208-09, has Peyroux, who he describes in detail, recruiting Terriot before they approach Aranda, Peyroux having known Olivier's father, "Big Étienne" Terriot, a notorous tobacco smuggler at St.-Malo.
Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 209-11, details the bureaucratic hassle Peyroux, Térriot, Aranda, & Hérédia endured in getting both courts to approve the venture.
The 70% is from Brasseaux, & Hodson, 195. Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 134, followed here, says it was closer to half of the Acadians still in France.
13.
Brasseaux, 8, as does Mouhot, 276n32, say there were 866 exiles counted by La Rochette in England in 1763, & Brasseaux, 35, says that 753 Acadians were sent from England to France in 1763. Faragher, 422-23, says 1,225 Acadians had arrived in England in 1756 & that 778 were sent from England to France in 1763. Albert J. Robichaux, Jr. says 375 sailed aboard the the Ambition & the Dorothée; Braud, 17, says 394. Only Braud, 17-18, mentions the La Fauvette with its 159 passengers & L'Esturgeon, no number of passengers given, but it must have been 200 or so to reach the total of nearly 800. Braud, 18, says of that total, 150 were children "of young age born in England."
Hodson, 86, says Acadians were "transported to Southampton in convoys of rented 'wagons,' and spirited across the English Channel on a balmy spring day in 1763...."
For a detailed description of Morlaix, its history & human geography, see Braud, 20-23.
15.
Quotation from
16.
Quotations from
17.
Quotations from
21. Quotations from
22. Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459-60. See also Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 269; "Winslow's Journal 1," 231.
Lawrence did not receive "official" word of Braddock's defeat &
death until Aug 7, via a ship from New York, nearly a month after
the event. See
24. Quotations from
Sadly, we do not have the names of these delegates either.
26. Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 461.
Lex temporis, or, more fully, lex necessitatis est lex temporis, literally "the law of necessity & limitation," according to one definition, is a concept in law that "dispenses with things which otherwise are not lawful to be done." See Manby v. Scott (1672).
27. Quotations from
For the fate of the delegates from Minas, Pigiguit, & Annapolis
Royal held at Georges Island, see
28. Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 461-62. See also Book Two.
29. Quotations from
30. Quotation from
32.
33.
35. Quotations from
36. Quotation from
37.
38.
39. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 1," pp. 215
"Winslow's Journal 1," 243, copy of a letter from Winslow to
Lawrence, dated 18 Aug 1755 & addressed at Fort Edward, Pigiguit,
hints that Winslow did not know his command's final destination
until informed by Murray at Fort Edward.
Faragher, 337-38, offers insight into Winslow's famous Journal, "the single most significant document of the Acadian removal," which Winslow kept "for the edification of his descendants" during his entire time in Nova Scotia in 1755.
40. Quotations from
41. Quotations from
O
42. Quotations from
Lawrence's detailed instructions reveal that as early as Aug 11 he intended for Winslow & a part of the MA regiment to go to Grand-Pré, though Winslow himself would not learn of it until his conference with Murray at Fort Edward a week later. See note 46, below. Not until after Winslow conferred with Murray again, at Grand-Pré on Aug 29, did he inform his company commanders of their mission at Minas. See note 56, below. That Murray, a regular army captain, knew of Winslow's destination at least a week before Winslow himself knew of it, may reveal Lawrence's attitude towards provincial troops, as well as his obsession with security. Certainly Lawrence was doing his best to keep details of the deportation scheme from falling into the hands of the French & especially the Acadians, hence the limited number of officers he made aware of them, but Winslow was not only a former regular captain, he was the senior provincial officer in NS! One suspects that Monckton, a regular lieutenant colonel & Winslow's superior at Chignecto, also had known of Winslow's destination by Aug 11.
A maritime ton at that time was 100 cubic feet of capacity, so each passenger would "occupy" only 50 cubic feet of the ship's interior. According to Faragher, 361, this meant that every 2 people would share a space "four feet high, a little over four feet wide, and six feet long," a very small space indeed.
Apthorp & Hancock, owned by Charles Apthorp & son & Thomas Hancock, was the Boston firm that had provided loans to Lawrence & the NS Council during the winter of 1754-55, while Monckton was organizing the expedition to Chignecto in Boston. See Book Two.
George Saul evidently was a kinsman of Thomas Saul,
long-time supply agent, commissary, & financier at Halifax & a close
friend of Lt. Gov. Lawrence. See Hippen
43. Quotation from
44.
Faragher says that Robinson's Aug 13 letter took
longer than usual to reach Halifax, that it arrived 3 weeks after
Lawrence wrote a letter to the Lords of Trade on Oct 18. Not until
around Nov 9, then, weeks after most of the
deportation transports had sailed, did Lawrence hear from Robinson,
& he did not answer the letter until Nov 30. So by the time he
bothered to write his superiors, in Oct & Nov, Lawrence's deportation "operation was a fait accompli." See
45. Quotations from
A muster report dated Aug 14 shows 313 officers & men, including an
adjutant & a physician, from Winslow's command going to Minas.
Amazingly, Winslow's Journal includes the names of every man,
Coffin may have served in NS, likely with Winslow, perhaps as a militia officer. In a letter to "Mr. William Coffin, Junr., Merchant in Boston," dated Aug 22 & sent from "Camp at Grand Pre Mines," Winslow described Grand-Pré as "your old Ground at Mines." In the letter, Winslow again discussed Braddock's defeat & the role of New Englanders in the Crown Point campaign. See "Winslow's Journal, 2," 72-73 (quotation from 72). Was Winslow's friend William, Jr. the "Billy" who was eldest son of William Coffin, the affluent Boston tavern keeper & co-founder of that city's Trinity Church? If so, Billy was born in Boston on 11 Apr 1723, married Mary Aston, & was "an Addresser of General Gage," whatever that means. Along with many of his family members, Billy remained a Loyalist during the American Revolution. He died at Boston, MA, on 2 Dec 1803, age 80. See <http://www.geni.com/people/William-Billy-Coffin/6000000002354589950>. He & his family (except his older daughters, whose husbands were Whigs) likely were among the Tories of Boston evacuated by Gen. William Gage to Halifax, NS, in March 1776. Did he & his family remain in NS? When, & why, did he return to Boston?
45a. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 1," 238-39. See also
Moncreiffe's name is from "Winslow's Journal 1."
45b. After recording his exchange with Monckton, Winslow "proved" in his Journal, at least to his own satisfaction, that "I actually Marchd off with more men than I Left in Camp," meaning his unit colors belonged with the 4 companies going to Minas, not with the unit's remnants remaining at Fort Cumberland. Winslow also claimed "that it was Colo Lawrance order that I Should [go to Minas] and that I was to have 400 or 500 Man which I Exspected til the orders Came [that] cut for my Numbers," implying that Monckton, not Lawrence, did the cutting. See "Winslow's Journal 1," 239-40.
46. Quotations from
The list of provisions for 14 days, recorded on Aug 14, can be found in
Lawrence's letter in
46a. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 1," 243-44.
See also
47. See Faragher, A Great &
Noble Scheme, 340; "Winslow's Journal 1," 242, 245;
Lawrence's letter in
48. Quotations from
According to Johnson, "Chauvreulx," 3:120, Abbé
Lemaire
was a missionary from Île St.-Jean "whose mind had become deranged and whose
conduct was embarrassing his confrères," hence his lodging
with Fr.
49. Quotations
Lawrence's letter, given to Winslow by Murray on the 18th,
instructed Winslow to use the Grand-Pré church for his headquarters.
Winslow's letter to Monckton, dated Aug 23, described in brief his
movements from the time he left Chignecto until his arrival at
Grand-Pré & included what could only have been a dig at his former
commander over the flag incident back at Fort Cumberland: "...
and on Tuseday Landed & Incampt, between the Church & Church yard,
and Hoisted the King's Colours which are now Flying...." Does
this imply that Monckton returned the regimental colors to Winslow
before he left Beaubassin landing on Aug 16, or did Winslow somehow
acquire another stand of colors? See
51. Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211, counts 900 Acadians at Cobeguit at mid-century, before the first of the Acadian migrations began during the petite guerre of the early 1750s. See also Book Two.
53. Quotations from
54. Quotations from
55. Quotations from
The Endeavor's invoice of supplies for Winslow was endorsed
by Thomas Saul, Lawrence's supply-agent friend at Halifax, & dated
Aug 13. See
Murray's weekly ration, as conveyed to Winslow, was, per man, "7 lb.
Bread, Flower 1 lb. or half pinte Rice, Pork 4 lb. or 7 lb Beef,
pease 3 pintes, butter 6 ounces, if no Flower or Rice 8 lbs. Bread,"
all of which could be found in abundance at Minas. See
Jacques Thériot & his second wife Marie Robichaud soon
would be exiled to VA. There is no evidence that Jacques, who
would have been 64 in 1755, survived Le Grand Dérangement. He
may have died during the family's brief stay in VA or, more likely,
during
its 7-year stay in a disease-infested prison compound at
Southampton, England. Son Jean-Jacques, who turned 27 in Mar
1755, survived the ordeal in VA & Southampton, where he remarried to
fellow Acadian Marguerite-Josèphe Richard in c1762, was
repatriated to France aboard L'Ambition in May 1763, lived at
St.-Malo, where he fathered at least 9 children, including 2 sons,
both of whom died young, &, as a widower with 5 daughters, emigrated
to LA in 1785. He did not remarry again. He settled at
Bayou des Écores above Baton Rouge & then below Baton Rouge on the
Upper Acadian Coast, where he died at Manchac in Aug 1790, age 62.
Jacques Thériot's daughter Anne, from his first wife,
Marie-Marguerite LeBlanc, would have been 34 in 1755.
Anne ended up in MD with
55a. Quotations from
56. Quotation from Faragher, A
Great & Noble Scheme, 341.
The last quotation actually
is found in Winslow's letter to Lawrence, dated Aug 30, & addressed
to the governor, not to
One can be certain that Winslow's captains said nothing of the true nature of their mission to any of their men. Even the rumor of deportation would have sent many of the Acadians flying.
56a. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 88-89. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 342; Appendix.
57. Quotations from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 342
At the conclusion of a letter addressed to Lawrence on Aug 30,
Winslow, after promising the governor that he would do everything in
his power to affect the deportation, added: "as to Poor Father
Le-blond, I shall with your Excellency's Permition Send him to my
Own Place." See
Despite the strength of his picket lines, Winslow was so concerned
for the safety of his men that he issued an order requiring them to
acquire whatever water they needed only during the daytime.
See
58. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 342-43; "Winslow's Journal 2," 90. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 88-89, 91.
Who was surgeon de Rodohan's wife?
Winslow's Journal for Sep 3 contains the strange notation: "This Day had a Consultation with the Captains the Result of which was that I should Give out my Citation to the Inhabitants tomorrow Morning." See "Winslow's Journal 2," 91. Was he referring only to the inhabitants at Grand-Pré? This would have given them only a single day's notice of the meeting to be held on Sep 5. How quickly could the summons have been read in all of the many scattered Minas communities beginning in the p.m. of Sep 2?
58a. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 90. See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:156.
Fortier says the gathering was to be held on a Sunday, but Winslow's Journal is clear--it was Friday, Sep 5.
Note the lie about "his Majesty's Intentions." See note 44, above. One wonders why Winslow & Murray chose the age of 10, instead of emulating Monckton's age 16, in setting the age limit of who was compelled to attend the Sep 5 meeting.
59. Quotations from Faragher, A
Great & Noble Scheme, 343;
Crooker perhaps was a member of Winslow's staff.
In his Journal, Winslow placed Pvt. Jackson in "Colo Hopsons Regt.,"
which would have been the 29th. Hopson, governor of NS until
his resignation later in the year, was still in England, & Lawrence
was serving as his lieutenant-governor.
"Docter Rodion" was Alexandre de Rodohan, & the "Citation" he delivered to the inhabitants likely was Winslow's summons of Sep 2. Did Dr. de Rodohan read the summons in the outlying communities before he was ordered to read it to the residents of Grand-Pré? See Faragher, 342; "Winslow's Journal 2," 94.
60. Quotations from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 343. See also
The fight at Minas was in Nov 1749, early in Le Loutre's petit-guerre, when a force of Mi'kmaq, aided by local Acadians, attacked Cpt. John Handfield's redcoat garrison at Vieux Logis, near the mouth of Rivière Gaspereau. See Book Two.
61. Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 343. See also Arsenault, Généalogie, 1240, 1256; White, DGFA-1, 1013.
61a. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 94. See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:156.
Fortier says Winslow had 290 men "fully armed."
62. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 343-44. See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:156; Books Three & Ten.
Winslow did not complete his count of the Minas prisoners until a few days later. He had hoped to bag at least 500 of them but fell dozens short of that number. See "Winslow's Journal 2," 97, 114-22; Winslow's 1755 List; Winslow, "French Inhabitants."
63. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 344-45; "Winslow's Journal 2," 94-95. See also Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 28-29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 126.
I maintain here Winslow's quirky capitalization but defer to Faragher's spelling & grammar.
64. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 345.
65. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 95.
66. Quotations from
67. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 96-97. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346.
On Sep 5, Murray recited the same proclamation to the 183 men he rounded up at Fort Edward, which no doubt elicited the same response as the Acadians at Grand-Pré.
68. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 97. See also
69. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 98. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346.
69a. See Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211.
70. Quotations from
Faragher, 347, contributes much of Handfield's rise from ensign to major, as well as his membership on the colonial Council, to his Winniett connections. Handfield's biographer mentions the connection but attributes Handfield's rise to his leadership qualities. See Godfrey.
71. See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346, 348.
Faragher, 348, says Handfield, "it seems, was unable to keep his orders secret, not surprising in a community as porous as Annapolis Royal." Giving the major his due, it is unlikely that he revealed his orders to anyone but his hand full officers. He certainly would not have informed his wife or any of her relatives. True, Annapolis Royal did not lie directly on the Bay of Fundy, but it nevertheless was a busy port, at least by NS standards. There is no evidence that Handfield confiscated the valley Acadians' boats & canoes on the eve of Monckton's offensive at Chignecto, as Murray had done in the Minas Basin. Annapolis Acadians, then, likely were aware not only of the ships coming thru the Gut, but also of the sail traffic on the nearby Bay of Fundy. Moreover, there was a road/portage connection between the upper reaches of the haute rivière & the major settlements of the Minas Basin. This gave the Annapolis Acadians an advantage over their Minas cousins when it came to knowing what was happening in the region.
72. Quotations from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 346;
Marshall, 130, says "several British transports dropped anchor in Chignecto Bay" on Aug 31, but Winslow's Journal reveals that most of them had arrived days earlier.
Winslow at Minas, on an even larger scale,
also moved some of his prisoners to deportation transports on Sep 10.
See note
77. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 348-49.
The men of Tatamagouche, held in the same forts as the men of Chignecto and the trois-rivières, were deported with them to GA & SC on the same vessels--without their wives and children. The families at Tatamagouche, realizing, or having been told, that their men would not return, crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean perhaps with the exiles from Cobeguit who passed through the port from Sep 1755 into the spring of 1756 on their way to the island refuge. See LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 5n15, 7n23; note 92, below. One wonders if any of the Tatamagouche families reunited after 1763.
78. Quotations from
To emphasize the out-of-the-picture position of Boishébert in 1755, he & even the St. John River cannot be found in Fred Anderson's magisterial history of the Seven Years' War, cited above.
79. Quotation from
Marshall says Frye's Yankees struck "Petitcodiac" on Sep 1 before moving on to "Chipody." Blakeley's timeline is followed here. Marshall asserts: "At each farm or village, they [Frye's New Englanders] first killed the livestock, then set houses and barns ablaze, before taking Acadians (mostly women and children) into custody." One suspects that some of the livestock were spared & loaded aboard Cobbs's transports.
Jedediah Preble, a MA major still at Fort Cumberland, in a letter to
MA Lieutenant Colonel Winslow, dated 5 Sep 1755, reported "Only
Twenty Three" Acadians were nabbed at Chepoudy.
Marshall calls the concentration points for the Acadian women & children at forts Cumberland & Lawrence "prison camps." They were what they were--concentration camps. One also could view these camps as Monckton's attempt to keep Acadian families together before placing them aboard the deportation transports.
81. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 101; Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 350-51. See also
Both Maj. Preble & Cpt. Speakman called the surgeon "Doctr. March." See "Winslow's Journal 2," 100-01. Shoebottom intimates that the doctor's surname may have been Marsh.
82. See Faragher, A Great &
Noble Scheme, 351;
Boishébert reported 2 New Englanders killed & 45 wounded, which was only 3 more than the British reported. See Shoebottom, 6. Does this imply that all of the New English missing were wounded & not killed?
83. Quotation from Faragher, A
Great & Noble Scheme, 351. See also
84. Quotation from
85.
Evidently word of the incident spread fast among the Yankees.
Lt. Col. Winslow at Minas, in a letter to Monckton dated Sep 19,
echoes Maj. Preble's comments on the importance of New England in
the preservation of Nova Scotia: "... the acquisition of this
Province to the British Interest in Queen Anns time, was as much
owing to the New England troops as the reduction of Beausejour was
this year and without assistance of men from thence this Country
Must Inevitably Fell into the Hands of the French Last War, and
there is No other Seorse in time of Difficulty to be Depended on for
Soldiers but in the Same Channel and I Doubt [not] if the present
Set of Men are Slighted it will be impossible on a Future Occation
to raise men to assist Nova Scotia from New England, as one Great
Principal with out People is Honr and Good usage and the Consequence
of the reverse and what may happen next year I Cant be answerable
for."
87. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 123-24.
87a. Quotation from Winslow's Journal 2," 110.
88. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 128-30. See also
89. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 135-36. See also Books One & Two.
90. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 136-37.
91. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 155.
92. See
LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 7n23, citing Vaudreuil to the minister [of Marine], 19 Apr. 1757, series C11A vol. 102, f7r, AC, notes that "It is estimated that 225 refugees were still present in the Cobequid area in the spring of 1756." See Prévost to the minister, 6 Apr. 1756, series C11B vol. 36, f5v, AC. So if the New-Engish officers insisted that the entire settlement at Cobeguit had been abandoned by Sep 23, & an unnamed source reported to Gov.-General Vaudreuil that there were still over 200 refugees "in the Cobequid" area the following spring, then a substantial fraction of the Cobeguit exiles did not cross to Île St.-Jean in the late summer or fall of 1755 but escaped there later. A. H. Clark, 211, counts 1,000 habitants at "Cobequid and the Gulf Shrore" at mid-century. The dozens of Acadians living in the North Shore settlements at mid-century must be subtracted from that number, as well as the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Cobeguit Acadians who emigrated to Île St.-Jean to escape the chaos in British NS between 1750 and the summer of 1755. See Books Two, Three, & Four. If these 225 Cobeguit Acadians did linger near their destroyed homesteads over the winter of 1755-56, it must have been a terrible ordeal for them. Perhaps the unnamed informant included the North Shore ports as part of "the Cobequid area" when he made his count for the governor-general. Corroborating the governor-general's unnamed source, Table 6.3 in Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211, entitled "Judge Charles Morris' estimate of the number of French families in the Bay settlements in 1756," counts 120 habitants at "Rive Cobeguet Cheganois Shubnacadie & round Cobequet Bason," a count made perhaps after the spring of that year, though Clarks says, inexplicably, that Morris's count was made "for the period before deportation...." See A. H. Clark, 210, italics added. Note also that Morris's count does not include the North Shore settlements, only those "round the Cobequet Bason." See Book Two for details of those settlement locations.
93. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 104,
94. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 104, 107-08.
94a. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 108;
Faragher, 352, speculates that the a.m. incident may have been "An attempt to overwhelm the guard perhaps, or a try at escape."
94b. Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 352. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 113, 123.
94c. Quotation from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 352. See also
Faragher places the embarkation on Sep 11, but
95. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 109; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 352. See also Faragher, 353-54; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; "Winslow's Journal 2," 126.
Fortier says there were 4 transports, but Winslow's Journal says otherwise.
The young men's actual words are from Faragher, who has them & the women singing: "Let us bear the cross / Without choice, without regret, without complaint, / Let us bear the cross, / However bitter and hard."
Interestingly, Monckton at Chignecto, on a smaller scale, also had moved some of his prisoners to transports on Sep 10. See note 75, above.
96. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 110. See also "Winslow Journal 2," 126-27, 136.
For Winslow's ultimate awareness of the food transfer problem, see
Winslow to Saul, 20 Sep 1755, in
97.
98. Quotation from
99. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 111, 124-25. See also
Marshall tells the tale, undocumented, of the deputies' families walking to Halifax as soon as they had learned the fate of their loved ones. They set up camp on the Dartmouth shore opposite Georges Island & appealed to Lawrence for compassion. "Lawrence, however," Marshall relates, "had no sympathy for their position and said as much." The families then begged to be deported with their loved ones, but Lawrence refused this also. And then the tale becomes even more fantastic: "During the night before their scheduled departure, several of the deputies managed to break out of the shed and headed under cover of darkness to the beach, where they found a small boat. Just as they were pulling away from the island, however, they were spotted by a corporal's guard and another boat--this time filled with redcoats--went out after them. In the excitement of seeing their families again, the men were taken off guard by the arrival of the redcoats, and in the scuffle that followed several unarmed Acadians were shot and killed." Marshall does not provide the names of the "dead." She says only that the redcoats escorted the entire group of Acadians--men, women, & children--back to island & its prison sheds. The following morning--she gives no date--"the Providence, which had been moored just off the north shore of Georges Island, set sail with the deputies in its hold, while their distraught families watched anxiously from behind barred windows." Marshall goes on: "As soon as ships could be hired, they [the families of the deported deputies] faced their own deportation and very likely never saw their loved ones again." The problem with this wonderful tale is that it does not comport with what actually happened to the imprisoned deputies--a rare instance, to be sure, of sensitivity on Lawrence's part. LeBlanc, R.-G., p. 6n14, insists: "Contrary to what several authors have concluded, the deputies imprisoned on Georges Island were reunited with their families before the deportation of their home communities." One of those "several authors" undoubtedly is Marshall.
Milling, 34n5, writing in the early 1940s
& evidently unaware of Winslow's Journal, speculates: "The
special prisoners aboard the Syren may have belonged to this
group [the dozens of imprisoned Acadian delegates], naturally
considered the leaders, since the deputations were confined on a
small island until the end of October, by which time the
transportation was well under way." Milling, 6, further
states, again citing Édouard Richard: "Fifty of the imprisoned
delegates at Halifax were transported, aboard the ship Providence,
to North Carolina." The 50 deportees aboard the Providence,
which left Halifax on Dec 30, were not the Acadian delegates but
rather Acadians from Mirliguèche who had been rounded up &
imprisoned on Georges Island. See note
145, below. Winslow's Journal
reveals that the deputies likely were removed from Georges Island
not at the end of Oct but in Sep, about the time that
the Mirliguèche Acadians were sent there.
100. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 126-28. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 132-33; note 96, above.
101. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 124, 135. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 128, 133-34, 136; note 99, above.
The original number of Annapolis delegates held on Georges Island was 30. See note 22a, above. What happened to the other 3?
102. Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356.
103. Quotations from Marshall, Acadian
Resistance, 134-35; "Winslow's Journal 2," 177;
Petit René was son of René Richard dit Beaupré & Marguerite Thériot & had married Perpétué, daughter of Joseph Bourgeois & Anne LeBlanc, at Annapolis Royal in Feb 1749. Petit René, who was age 29 at the time of his escape, died at Memramcook in Feb 1811, age 87, so he did not go to LA with his cousin Beausoleil. Petit René's paternal grandfather was Beauseoleil Broussard's mother's older brother. See White. Acadian descendants in LA today--the Cajuns--are still fond of ironic nicknames like "Tee" to describe large men.
Monckton, in an Oct 7 letter to Lt. Col. Winslow at Minas in which he gave the number 86 & described the escape tunnel, added: "It is the worse as they are all People whose Wives were not come in & of Chipoudi Pitcoudiack & Memeramkook," which hints that many of them, like Beausoleil, were recently captured partisans.
104. See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 135-36; White, DGFA-1, 284, 1373.
Marshall, 135, says Catherine Richard was age 90, but she would have been 92. See White, 1373. Marshall, 136, adds: "Her sons carried out her last request by taking her body back to the cemetery at Chipoudy and burying her next to their father." The problem with this is François Brossard/Broussard died at the end of Dec 1716 not at Chepoudy but on the haute rivière near Port-Royal. Moreover, Stephen White, a careful scholar whose work is documented, gives no death date or place for Catherine. See White, 284, 1373.
For evidence of whose son Victor was, see books Three & Ten;
105. See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 136-37.
106. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356-57.
107. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 142, 146, 155. See also
Dr. Don Landry, in
107a.
The total number of transports sailing thru the Gut on Oct
27 was 23. From Chignecto: the Boscawen,
heading to PA; the Union to PA; the Dolphin to
SC; the Edward Cornwallis to SC; the Endeavor
to SC; the Two Brothers to SC;
108. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357; "Winslow's Journal 2," 187. See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; "Winslow's Journal 2," 159.
The storm of Oct 6-7 also delayed the embarkation at Minas. See note 122, below.
109. See
109a.
Faragher says the 8 transports held 1,782 Acadians. Delaney
110. See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357-58.
111. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 134-35. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 136.
112. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 136, 138. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 137, 142; note 96, above.
113. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 139.
114. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 141, 152. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 178.
Cobb was the miscreant whom Lt. Col. Monckton complained about to Winslow in a letter dated Oct 7. "At Gaspereau they have lost Several & Many ill, Since that Violent Storm" at the beginning of the month, Monckton informed the New Englander. "They attribute it to the Storm & the Badness of the Water," Monckton went on, "But by the accts I have I am afraid owing to Capt. Cobb, Who I am informed has been Dealing in Rum, Which he got from the French Houses." Monckton went on to say that he planned to relieve the ship's captain from his duties. See "Winslow's Journal 2," 178.
115. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 145. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 146.
116. See Anderson, Crucible of War, 118-23; "Winslow's Journal 2," 147-48; Book Two.
The battle Rous referred to was fought near present-day Lake George, NY, on Sep 8. The French-Saxon baron who commanded the French forces, in fact, was wounded & captured in the action. See Anderson.
117. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 148-50. See also note 42, above.
118. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 153-54, 157-58, 163. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 164-65.
119. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 155-56. See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 209, Fig. 6.2; "Winslow's Journal 2," 154, 157-58; note 97, above.
Winslow told Captain Rous in a letter dated Sep 29 that he had only
"one Third part" of the transports he needed. See
Was "Jean Dine's" actual name John Dean? One wonders what was the name of his Acadian wife & what she thought of remaining at Minas while the members of her family were sent to God knows where.
120. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 159. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 160-64; note
121. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 358; "Winslow's Journal 2," 164. See also note 120, above.
122. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 358. See also Faragher, 359; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 165-66, 168-69, 172.
Winslow does not name the vessels from which the young Acadians
escaped, but he does mention the ships' captains, Church & Stone.
See "Winslow's Journal 2," 165;
123. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 166; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 359. See also Faragher, 358; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 150; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 116, 128-29.
Two François Héberts from Grand-Pré ended up in MD: a father & a son. The father was 45 in 1755, the son only 17, so one suspects that it was the father whom Winslow accused of organizing the escape. François, père was son of Jacques Hébert & Marguerite Landry & had been born at Grand-Pré in Apr 1710. He married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of Jean Melanson & Marguerite Dugas, at Grand-Pré in Nov 1732, & they took 9 children with them to MD, 8 sons & a daughter. François, fils married Marie LeBlanc in MD in c1762. François, père & his family were counted by colonial officials at Georgetown & Fredericktown, on the Eastern Shore, in Jul 1763; François, fils & his wife were counted at Baltimore. When François, père reached LA in Jul 1767, he was a widower. François, fils also came to LA at that time & settled near his father at St.-Gabriel above New Orleans on what came to be called the Upper Acadian Coast. See Jehn; Wood; Book Six; Hébert family page.
124. See "Winslow's Journal 2," 166.
125. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2,"
166-67. See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 209, Fig.
6.2; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 360; "Winslow's
Journal 2," 168-69, 182-83;
"Winslow's Journal 2," 182, a letter from Winslow to Monckton,
dated 3 Nov 1755, refers to Pointe-des-Boudrot as "Budros Bank on
the Fork between the Rivers Cannard & Habitant."
125a. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 166-67. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 169, which makes it clear that Winslow agreed to forgive the miscreants if they promptly returned.
126. Quotations from
127. Quotation from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 360. See also Faragher,
359;
Faragher, 359-60, says old René was deported with his wife
as well as his 2 youngest children. One of White's
sources, "Pétition des Acadiens déporté à Philadelphie,"
in É. Richard, Acadia: Missing Links of a Lost Chapter in
American History, 2:380, published in 1895, claims:
"... René LeBlanc, the Notary Public ... was seized,
confined, and brought away among the rest of the people, and his
family consisting of twenty children, and about one hundred and
fifty grandchildren, were scattered in different colonies, so that
he was put on shore at New York, with only his wife and two youngest
children, in an infirm state of health, from whence he joined three
more of his children at Philadelphia...."
128. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 360-61; "Winslow's Journal 2," 171. See also Martin, F.-X., Louisiana, 1:328; "Winslow's Journal 2," 173; Books One, Two, & Three.
"Winslow's Journal 2," 171, says his men encountered a "French Deserter" on horseback, fired over his head to warn him, & when he refused to halt, 1 of his men shot to kill. The Yankee patrol then encountered "a Party of the Same People[,] Fired upon them, but they made their Escape into the woods." "Winslow's Journal 2," 173, adds, however, that "This Evening [Oct 13] Came in and Privately Got on Board the Transportes the remains of Twenty Two of the 24 Deserters and of whome I Took notice, the Other one accordg [to] the Best accts from the French Suffered yesterday with his Comrade." That is, he died. So he evidently was among the party fired upon who fled into the woods. One wonders what were the names of these dead Acadian "deserters."
129. See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 361; "Winslow's Journal 2," 170, 173.
130.
131. Quotations from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 361; "Winslow's Journal 2," 172.
See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 176, 178, 182-83; notes 42,
110, &
122, above;
"Winslow's Journal 2," 178, calls the Endeavor the Encheere.
132. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 173-74. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble
Scheme, 361-62; "Winslow's Journal 2," 177, 181-83;
note 130, above;
Faragher, 362, says Murray filled the 5 transports "at the rate of three persons per ton." Italics in the original.
133. Quotations from "Winslow's
Journal 2," 175, 179. See also
Monckton did not send the 3 transports, at least not before Winslow shipped off his 2,600+ Acadians on Oct 21. See "Winslow's Journal 2," 182.
Judging by the number of Acadians aboard the 5 transports that carried Minas
Acadians to CN, MA, & VA from 30 Nov to 20 Dec 1755, the number of
Acadians Winslow left at Grand-Pré when the 14 transports departed for Annapolis was closer to 755, not 500 or
even 600. See
134. Quotations from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 362. See also Clark, A. H.,
Acadia, 140, 209, Fig. 5.9, a map entitled "Northern and
Eastern Acadian Settlements as of the Early Eighteenth Century,
Modern Place Names," & Fig. 6.2, a map entitled "Mines and Pisiqud:
Population, 1714"; "Winslow's
Journal 2," 179;
The colonies of destination for the Chignecto & Minas/Pigiguit
transports leaving Annapolis in late Oct were, from north to south,
MA, PA, MD, VA, SC, & GA. In subsequent, smaller deportations,
from Annapolis, Minas, Halifax, & Cap-Sable, which ran from Nov 1755 thru Apr 1756,
Acadian exiles also would go to CN, NY, & NC. None would be
sent to NH, RI, NJ, or DE, likely because of the small populations
of those colonies. One suspects that NY was spared a large
influx of "French Neutrals" during the fall of 1755 because of the
military campaigning there under Johnson & Shirley in the upper
region of the colony. See
Book Two;
135. Quotations from
Lawrence responded to Winslow's letters of Oct 27 & 31 on Nov 5 with the words: "I approve of the Measures you have taken to get clear of the Inhabitants and am in hopes that you have had an Oppertunity of Shipping off the remainder in the Transports from Chignecto as they must undoubtedly have arrived before this." See "Winslow's Journal 2," 183. But Monckton never sent the 3 transports from Chignecto. See note 133, above.
136. Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 180. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 181-82.
137. Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 363. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 181-82; Faragher, 362.
The Pembroke famously did not reach its destination, NC, &
the Edward & the Experiment reached CN & NY,
respectively, in May 1756, only after being blown off course to
Antigua in the British West Indies. The other 2 transports who
left Annapolis Basin on Dec 8-- the Elizabeth &
the Hobson--reached their destinations--CN & SC--in mid- &
late Jan without incident. See
138a. Quotations from
Winslow's Journal 2," 184; Milling, Exile Without End, 11.
See also
139.
Faragher, 362, says that Winslow sent Adams's & Hobbs's companies to Handfield on Oct 31, but "Winslow's Journal 2," 182-83, containing letters from Winslow to Cpt. Adams & Winslow to Monckton, both dated Nov 3, show that he sent the force on that date, not the 31st. See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 190, Winslow to Gov. Shirley, dated Dec 19, which says he sent Adams & Hobbs "to Assist Majr Handfield" on Nov 3. Winslow instructed the 2 company commanders to remain with Handfield as long as they were needed, "And if it Should happen that you Should return here before the French Inhabitants are Embarked, to remain at this Camp [Grand-Pré] till Further orders. If otherwise to Proceed with your Party to Halifax," where they would join up with the rest of Winslow's command.
"Winslow's Journal 2," 182, a letter from Winslow to Lawrence, dated Oct 31, says "after Confering with Majr Murray it is agreed that the out Villages in our different districks be destroyed immediately, and the Grand Pre when the inhabitants are removed, Excepting Such the Germans Occupy as we Judge it unsafe to leave a Small Party there." Italics added. This implies that Murray destroyed the villages & mills at Pigiguit while Winslow was laying waste to the Minas settlements.
The "Mass House" Winslow's men destroyed in early Nov likely was the church of St.-Joseph-des-Mines at Rivière-aux-Canards, the only church other than St.-Charles-des-Mines (Grand-Pré) in that part of the Minas region. See Books One & Two; Appendix.
On Nov 12, before he left Pigiguit, Winslow received orders to
garrison Fort Sackville at Bedford, near Halifax, with 59 men.
See
"Winslow's Journal 2," 184. In a letter to Gov.
Shirley, dated Dec 19, Winslow says he left Minas on Nov 13 "with an
Officer and 54 Non Comission Officers and Private Men," reached
Halifax on the 19th, & "the Next Day my Party were Posted at
Dartmouth [across the harbor from Halifax] in Good Quarters."
He says nothing of their going to Fort Sackville. On Dec 9,
Preble, now promoted to Lt. Col., reached Halifax from Chignecto
"with a Detached Party." See
140. See note 118, above; Books One & Two.
141. Quotations from
One can imagine the chaos that would have ensued if Boishébert & even a part of his force of troupes de la marine & Acadian partisans could have crossed the Bay of Fundy in Nov & attacked Osgood's small force at Grand-Pré or Handfield's garrison at Annapolis Royal. But then how would Boishébert have spirited so many Acadian exiles across the formidable bay?
142. Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 185-86, 188.
143.
Osgood to Winslow, written from Grand-Pré on Dec 20, details the embarkation of the last 2 transports at Minas & adds that "There is a Considerable Quantity of Provissions left of Pork[,] Beef, Mutton & Bread." And although there were still a substantial number of cattle at Minas, there was not enough fodder keep them there over the winter. Many of the cattle, Osgood reported, were not "fit for humane Creatures to Eat." See "Winslow's Journal 2," 192.
144. See
Faragher, 366, states that "five or six thousand [Acadians] had
escaped the nets cast at Chignecto, Minas, and Annapolis Royal."
He also insists that "some five thousand refugees and inhabitants
were living" on Île St.-Jean "by late 1755." This implies that
there were as many as 17,000 Acadians in the region on the eve of
Le Grand Dérangement.
146. Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 364.
147. See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365-66; Book Two.
147a. Quotation from militaryheritage.com/wolfe.htm. See also Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 201; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 257n18; notes 290 & 315, below.
148. Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365. See also Faragher, 366-68; notes 17, 19, & 44, above.
149. Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 281, 283. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365.
150. Quotations from
151.
The italics in the first quotation are contained in Robinson's letter in Akins, ed.
152. Quotations from
153. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 367-68. See also Perrin, W. A., Acadian Redemption; note 151, above; Book Two.
Hence the Queen's symbolic apology of 9 Dec 2003 to the Acadian people. See W. A. Perrin.
154. Quotations from Faragher,
A Great & Noble Scheme, 370; "Winslow's
Journal 2," 186-87. See also
155. Quotations from
Two other transports full of exiles were destined to NC, from Cap-Sable in the spring of 1756, but did not make it. See note 257, below.
156. Quotations from
157. Quotations from
Pierre Belliveau's going to Miramichi, not to Québec, is hinted at by his standing as godfather for sister Marguerite's son Pierre-Philippe Lachaussée at Restigouche, at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, on 18 Mar 1761. See Arsenault, 1660.
159.
160.
Victims of the epidemic may have included: 2 sons of Paul Arseneau of Chignecto, who died at Québec in 1757; 6 children of Jean Breau of Chepoudy at Québec in 1757; 3 daughters of Pierre Saulnier of Petitcoudiac--Anne & Marie-Madeleine, perhaps twins, age 18; and Marie, age 15--at Québec in 1757; Amand Comeau of Minas, age 27, and his wife Marie-Claire Thibodeau, at Québec in 1757; Grégoire Comeau of Chepoudy, age 34, and his wife Marie Thibodeau, at Québec in 1757; Flavien Pitre of Chepoudy, age 11, at Québec on 25 Jul 1757; Jean dit Varouel Gaudet, age 67, at Québec on 28 Jul 1757; Ambroise Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 72, at Québec on 7 Aug 1757; Marguerite Comeau of Annapolis Royal, age 58, widow of Ambroise Melanson, at Québec on 29 Aug 1757; Charles Melanson, fils of Annapolis Royal, age 20 months, at Québec on 1 Sep 1757; Marie-Josèphe Martin dit Barnabé of Annapolis Royal, age 40, wife of Paul Blanchard, at Québec on 10 Sep 1757; Pierre-Jérôme Darois of Peticoudiac, age 56, at Hôtel-Dieu, Québec, on 12 Sep 1757; François Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 30, at Québec on 15 Sep 1757; Charles Melanson, fils, age 84, of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 19 Sep 1757; Joseph Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 40, bachelor son of Charles, fils who had died on 19 Sep 1757, at Québec on 1 Oct 1757; Jean-Pierre Dupuis of Annapolis Royal, age 60, at Québec on 15 Oct 1757; Anne-Marie Aucoin of Annapolis Royal, age 70, widow of Pierre Thibodeau le jeune, at Québec on 16 Oct 1757; Alexandre Forest of Chignecto, age 56, at St.-Michel de Bellechasse on 27 Oct 1757; Françoise Haché dit Gallant, age 29, of Chignecto, wife of Jean Doucet, at Québec in Nov or Dec; Marie-Josèphe Brun, age 52, widow of Michel Poirier of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 3 Nov 1757; Anne Mouton, age 30, widow of Joseph Richard of Annapolis Royal, 4 Nov 1757, at Québec; André Savary of Annapolis Royal & Petit-Ascension, Île St.-Jean, age 67, at St.-Jean, Île d'Orléans, on 8 Nov 1757; elderly sisters Marie & Marguerite Babineau, wives of Claude Landry, fils & Claude Melanson of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 20 Nov & 12 Dec 1757, respectively; Marguerite Doucet, age 40, of Chignecto, at Québec, 21 Nov 1757; Marie-Rose Thibodeau of Annapolis Royal, age 47, wife of Pierre Blanchard & daughter of Anne-Marie Aucoin, at Québec on 21 Nov 1757; Madeleine-Hedwige Blanchard, age 22, at Québec in 23 Nov 1757; Louis-René Daigre of Minas at St.-Michel de Bellechasse on 23 Nov 1757; Guillaume Girouard, age 72, of Annapolis Royal at Québec on 23 Nov 1757; François dit Lami Boudrot, age 47, at Québec on 24 Nov 1757; Marie-Madeleine Girouard of Chignecto, age 45, wife of Claude Gaudet, at Québec on 24 Nov 1757; Madeleine Gaudet, age 75, widow of Michel Caissie of Chignecto, at Québec on 25 Nov 1757; brothers René dit Renochet & Jean-Baptiste Bernard of Chignecto at Québec on 26 Nov & 19 Dec 1757, & Renochet Bernard's wife Anne Blou at Québec on 4 Dec 1757; Renochet's daughter Madeleine Bernard, wife of Jean-Baptiste Richard, at Québec on 28 Nov 1757; Marie Richard of Chignecto, age 34, wife of Pierre Bourgeois, at Québec on 28 Nov 1757; Françoise Blanchard of Annapolis Royal, age 25, Madeleine-Hedwige's sister, at Québec on 30 Nov 1757; David Mire of Pigiguit, age 14, at Québec in Dec; Félix Boudrot, age 35, at Québec on 1 Dec 1757; Anne-Marie Comeau, age 39, wife of Honoré Savoie, at Québec on 1 Dec 1757; Jean Comeau of Chepoudy, age 60, Anne-Marie Comeau's uncle, at Québec on 2 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Pitre, age 45, wife of Jean-Joseph Forest of Chepoudy, at Québec on 2 Dec 1757; Joseph Daigre of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 61, Louis-René's older brother, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 7 Dec 1757; Anne Gaudet, age 35, wife of Pierre Richard, at Québec on 6 Dec 1757; Marguerite Richard dit Boutin of Annapolis Royal, age 36, wife of Jean dit Jean-François Breau, at Québec on 8 Dec 1757; Marguerite Babineau of Annapolis Royal, age 63, widow of Claude Melanson, at Québec on 12 Dec 1757; Anne Comeau of Chepoudy & Petitcoudiac, wife of Pierre Crisac & widow of Joseph Levron, at Québec on 12 Dec 1757; Joseph dit Canadien Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 39, at Québec on 13 Dec 1757; Simon Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 36, unmarried, at Québec on 13 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Trahan of Minas, age 60, widow of René Saulnier, at Québec on 13 Dec 1757; François dit François Magdelaine Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 30, Simon's younger brother, at Québec on 14 Dec 1757; Madeleine Gaudet, age 45, wife of Pierre dit Perroche Hébert, at Québec on 14 Dec 1757; Jean Darois of Petitcoudiac, age 57, brother of Pierre-Jérôme who died at Hôtel-Dieu, Québec, in Sep, at Québec on either 16 or 17 Dec 1757; Charles Bourg, age 37, at Québec on 17 Dec 1757; brothers Étienne le jeune, age 40, and Guillaume Comeau, age 34, of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 17 Dec 1757; Simon dit Nantois Levron, age 37, of Minas, at Québec in 17 Dec 1757; Isabelle Guilbeau of Annapolis Royal, age 26, wife of Jean-Baptiste Richard, at Québec on 18 Dec 1757; François Doucet, age 66, of Chignecto, brother of Marguerite who died on Nov 21, probably at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe dite Josette Gaudet, age 22, younger sister of Anne & wife of Abraham Poirier, at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Ursule Gautrot, age 40, widow of Nicolas Barrieau, fils, at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Jean Bertrand l'aîné at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Élisabeth Melanson, age 40, of Chignecto and Chepoudy, wife of Olivier Thibodeau & daughter of Ambroise Melanson who died on 7 Aug 1757, at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Olivier Thibodeau, age 45, husband of Élisabeth Melanson who died the day before, and brother of Marie-Rose who died on Nov 21, at Québec on 21 Dec 1757; Charles Blanchard of Annapolis Royal, age 60, at Québec on 21 Dec 1757; Joseph Saulnier of Minas, age 37, died on 21 Dec 1757; Joseph Thibodeau of Annapolis Royal, age 46, widower, at Québec on 21 Dec 1757; Jean Bastarache of Annapolis Royal, age 59, at Québec on 22 Dec 1757; Jean-Joseph Forest of Chepoudy, age 54, borther of Alexandre who died on Oct 27, at Québec on 22 Dec 1757; Brigitte Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 36, at Québec on 23 Dec 1757; Jean-Baptiste dit Toc Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 64, at Québec on 24 Dec 1757; Anne Melanson, age 45, of Annapolis Royal, wife of Joseph Landry, daughter of Charles, fils who had died on 19 Sep 1757, & sister of Joseph who had died on 1 Oct 1757, at Québec on 24 Dec 1757; Joseph-Grégoire Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 33, at Québec on 24 Dec 1757; Marguerite Girouard of Annapolis Royal, age 44, wife of Alexandre Guilbeau, at Québec on 25 Dec 1757; Anne-Hélène Blanchard of Annapolis Royal, age 33, widow of Étienne Comeau le jeune who had died on Dec 17 & sister of Françoise who had died on Nov 30, at Québec on 27 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Savoie of Annapolis Royal, age 51, widow of Jean-Baptiste Poirier, at Québec on 30 Dec 1757; Claude Landry III of Annapolis Royal, age 43, at Québec on 31 Dec 1757; Charles Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 35, father of Charles, fils who died at Québec on 1 Sep 1757 & son of Marguerite Babineau who died at Québec on 12 Dec 1757, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 31 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Lanoue of Annapolis Royal, age 40, at Québec on 1 Jan 1758; Marguerite Thériot of Minas, age 46, widow of Joseph Surette of Peticoudiac, at Québec on 2 Jan 1758; Pierre Leprince of Annapolis Royal, age 36, at Québec on 4 Jan 1758; Charles Belliveau of Annapolis Royale, age 60, hero of the Pembroke affair, at Québec on 5 Jan 1758; Marie-Jeanne Bourgeois of Chignecto, age 64, at Québec on 7 Jan 1758; Charles Doiron III of Minas & Île Madame, age 42, at Québec on 7 Jan 1758; André Simon dit Boucher, fils of Annapolis Royal, age 46, at St.-Michel de Bellechasse on 7 Jan 1758; Angélique Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 60, wife of Jean Bastarache who had died on Dec 22, at Québec on 9 Jan 1758; Joseph Savary of Minas and Anse-à-Dubuisson, Île St.-Jean, age 36, son of André who died on Nov 8, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 9 Jan 1758; Claude Landry, fils of Annapolis Royal, age 68, at Québec on 11 Jan 1758; Marie-Françoise Roy of Minas, age 54, wife of Étienne Trahan, at St.-Pierre-du-Sud on 12 Jan 1758; Guillaume-Gaspard, infant son of Jacques Levron of Chepoudy, buried at Québec on 13 Jan 1758; René Blanchard, fils, age 33, at Québec on 13 Jan 1758; Antoine Barrieau, fils & his father Antoine, père of Minas & Anse-à-Dubuisson at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 17 Jan & 22 Jan 1758; René Roy dit Renaud dit Potvin of Annapolis Royal and Île St.-Jean, age 49, son-in-law of Joseph Daigre who died on Dec 7 & younger brother of Marie-Françoise Roy who died on Jan 12, at St.-François-du-Sud on 18 Jan 1758; Étienne Trahan of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 68, widower of Marie-Françoise Roy, who died a week earlier, at St.-Pierre-du-Sud on 19 Jan 1758; Jeanne Pellerin of Annapolis Royal, age 70, widow of Pierre Surette, at Québec on 27 Jan 1758; Marguerite Doiron of Minas & Île Madame, age 29, sister of Charles III, at Québec on 29 Jan 1758; Pierre Richard, fils of Chignecto, age 30, at Québec on 29 Jan 1758; Marie-Josèphe Landry, age 40, wife of Joseph Raymond of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 5 Feb 1758; Madeleine Gautrot of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 58, widow of Joseph Daigre who had died on Dec 7 & mother-in-law of René Roy who died on Jan 18, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 10 Feb 1758; Marguerite Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 74, widow of Jean-Baptiste dit Toc Landry who died on Dec 24 and mother of Marie-Josèphe Landry who died on Feb 5, at Québec on 12 Feb 1758; Jean-Baptiste Trahan of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 53, brother of Étienne who died on Jan 19, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse, on 14 Feb 1758; Brigitte Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 28, daughter of Marguerite Melanson, at Québec on 15 Feb 1758; Marie Boudrot of Minas & Anse-au-Matelot, age unrecorded, wife of Paul Trahan, brother of Étienne & Jean-Baptiste, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 21 Feb 1758; Marie-Madeleine Thibodeau of Annapolis Royal & Île Madame, age 40, widow of Charles Doiron III who died on Jan 7, at Québec on 27 Feb 1758; Marie Girouard & husband Jean Trahan of Minas & Baie-des-Espagnols, brother of Étienne & Jean-Baptiste, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 13 & 24 Mar 1758; Cécile-Marguerite Benoit, age 30, of Minas, wife of Joseph LeBlanc, at Québec on 17 Mar 1758; Madeleine Forest of Annapolis Royal, age 48, & wife of Pierre Guilbeau, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 27 Mar 1758; Pierre Guilbeau of Annapolis Royal, age 54, at St.-Charles-de-Bellechasse on 3 Apr 1758; Paul Martin of Petitcoudiac or Annapolis Royal, age 40, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 6 April 1758; Charles Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 25, son of Marguerite Melanson, at Québec on 8 Apr 1758; François Comeau of Chepoudy, age 58, Jean's brother, at Québec on 28 Apr 1758; Jean Melanson, age 46, of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 13 May 1758, son of Charles, fils who had died on 19 Sep 1757, brother of Joseph who had died on 1 Oct 1757, & of Anne on 24 Dec 1757, & father of Marguerite & Madeleine, who had died on 11 Dec 1757 & 11 Jan 1758; Pierre le Cadet Prejean of Annapolis Royal on 22 May 1758; Jean-Baptiste Brun of Annapolis Royal, age 42, at Québec on 23 May 1758; Jean-Baptiste Pitre of Annapolis Royal, age 57, at Québec on 8 Jun 1758; & Jean-Baptiste Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 5, son of Jean Melanson, at Québec on 1 Jul 1758, perhaps among the last of the epidemic's many victims. See Arsenault, 153, 492, 740, 760, 762, 830, 1033, 1138, 1420, 1444, 1543, 1565, 1567; White, DGFA-1, 66, 81, 116, 126, 128, 207, 210, 257, 292, 295, 373, 376, 385-86, 390, 448-49, 470, 523-24, 535-56, 601, 636, 638, 671, 673, 677, 683-84, 697, 700, 720, 723-24, 735-36, 781, 795, 940, 952, 959, 1094, 1131, 1138, 1155, 1158-59, 1164, 1239, 1279, 1320, 1323-25, 1352, 1379, 1386, 1388-89, 1391, 1393, 1425-26, 1455, 1458, 1469, 1476, 1500, 1516, 1518, 1520, 1538-39, 1541, 1544; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 43, 50-53, 68-69; White, DGFA-1 English, 235; Books Three & Six. 132
161. Quotation from
Brasseaux says 1,500 exiles were sent to VA but does not explain the origin of this grossly inflated number. Although SC was the destination of more transported exiles--1,167--the terrible death toll aboard the ship Edward Cornwallis on its way to Charleston--210 of the 417 aboard!--placed fewer in that colony than came to VA, where most of the exiles sent there arrived alive if not in good health. See note 174, below.
164.
Anderson, 761n3, says: The Burgesses' bounty on Indians scalps was L10 & "only served to encourage the murder of neutral, Christianized, and friendly Indians and was repealed as having not 'answer(ed) the purposes ... intended,' in 1758."
165.
Quotation from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 245.
See also
Hodson's quotation from Dinwiddie's letter to Robinson differs a bit from Millard's rendition. Hodson has the governor protesting how "disagreeable" it is "to have 1000 French imported, when many of the same Nation are committing the most cruel Barbarities on our Fellow Subjects in the back Country."
Wood points out that the 4 deportation transports sent from Minas & Pigiguit to MD arrived about the same time as 5 more transports from Minas reached VA. He also notes that parcelling out of the exiles to Hampton, Norfolk, & Richmond, but gives no dates.
166. Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246, 257n7. See also Millard, 248.
167.
See note 157, above;
168. Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 257n7.
169.
Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 250, 257-58n7.
Faragher, 382, also says that "Although the government kept most of the exiles aboard the transports for the winter, apparently some were placed in quarters on land...." The Council report of Nov 22 hints that most of the exiles were "placed in quarters" at 3 locations & only some of them remained aboard the transports.
170.
171. Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246. See also Deans, The River Where America Began; Millard, 247; Taylor, A., Internal Enemy, chap. 1; "Winslow's Journal 2," 192; online Wikipedia, "Shawnee"; Book Two.
The small party of "Neutrals ...
sent to So. Caro." & taken by the Shawnee to Fort Duquesne
likely included Alexandre Broussard dit
Beausoleil and his son Victor, who had escaped confinement
in SC in the late winter of 1756 & made their
way overland to the St. John River valley. Continuing
on to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, they reunited with their family
& joined the Acadian resistance led by Alexandre's
younger brother, Joseph dit Beausoleil. Or it
may have been the Bastarache dit
Basque brothers, Michel & Pierre, fils, who
also made a successful escape overland from SC about that
time. See notes 193a
& 193b, below.
Acadians would have known blacks & mulattoes among the crews of New-English merchantmen with whom they traded for nearly a century; the rare traveling Acadian merchant would have encountered not only Africans, but also black slaves, in any of the major Anglo-American ports where he would have conducted business; & there were free blacks & mulattoes among the New-English troops that helped round up the Acadians a few months earlier. See "Winslow's Journal 2"; Books One & Two.
172.
Quotations from
Perhaps in late winter Dinwiddie was aware that the governors of SC & GA were preparing to allow the Acadians sent to their colonies the previous fall to return to NS via water.
173.
Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246, 255n5. See also
Dodson states that "By the summer of 1756, none of the eleven hundred refugees sent to Virginia remained. Nearly a quarter had died of disease and malnutrition." He must be referring to the large number of deaths in England.
The first of the Acadians from VA reached Falmouth only a month after Britain declared war on France on 17 May 1756.
174.
Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme,
183; Milling, Exile Without End, 1.
See also
Rebellion Road is located just outside Charleston Harbor between present-day Fort Sumter & Mount Pleasant, off the northwestern tip of Sullivan's Island.
175. Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 1-2. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 383-84; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," vii, 44; note 43, above.
The Baltimore, under Captain T. Owen, did not leave
Annapolis Basin until Dec 8 with 7 transports bound for CN,
NY, NC, & SC. The Baltimore went to NY before
going to SC. See note
138, above;
176. Quotation from Milling, Exile Without End, 8. See also Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," viii-x, xx, 38-42, 45.
177. Quotations from
Milling, Exile Without End, 8
178. Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 384; Milling, Exile Without End, 9. See also Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 45-46.
179. Quotations from
Milling, Exile Without End, 9. See also
Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 384-85;
According to
180. Quotation from
Milling, Exile Without End, 9. See also
Milling, 40-42; notes
181. See Milling, Exile Without End, 40; White, DGFA-1, 513-26.
Milling first provides the given & family names of the heads of household as recorded by the ship's clerk, followed by his rendition of the names, some of which also are in error & are corrected here.
Milling translates Duram/Duran to Durand, but it likely was Doiron, a prominent family at Chignecto whose members possessed the given names listed here. Peter Gold was not a Gourde but another Doiron--Pierre dit Pitre dit Gould. See White, especially 518; Books Two & Three.
182. See Milling, Exile Without End, 41; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 49.
Was Louis a surname or a given name for Jean? Quessy is Caissie, followed here. Who were the progenitors of the Demers, Fournier, and Mayer or Douaire families at Chignecto, or are these misspellings?
Milling, 10, says the master of the Cornwallis
"reported three fatalities" on the voyage, but the
difference in numbers between the number who left the
Annapolis Basin--417--& the number counted at Rebellion
Road--207--hinted at many more deaths on that vessel during
the voyage. See
183. See Milling, Exile Without End, 42; note 75, above.
Who were the progenitors of the Aubin, Blanchet, Grenon, Jeanveau or Juneau, Ouellette, & Trudeau families at Chignecto, or are these misspellings? They sound more like Canadian than Acadian surnames.
184. See
185. Quotations from
Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians,
6-7; Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of
the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 280. See
200.
This author is proud to say that some of his direct ancestors were among the Acadians who were sent to NC aboard the Providence.
201. See Guidry,
202.
Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora,
60;
203. Quotations from
Note the true spelling of Lyttelton's name, which Musheff renders as "Lyttleton."
204. Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 61; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 91; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 12. See also Hodson, 63.
205. Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 16-18; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 61. See also Musheff, 68; Books Three & Six.
223. Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 31; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 93. See also Milling, 1011, 30, 48; Musheff, 92, 94; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten; Lanoux family page.
Musheff, 91, calls Basile's mother Mary. Arsenault's genealogy is followed here.
Milling, 48, includes Bazile Lanneau's fulsome epitaph at the Circular Congregational Church--the Old White Meeting House--in Charleston, SC.
224. Quotation from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 11. See also Wood, Frenchified Maryland, 1: 124-26; online Wikipedia, "History of Maryland"; online Wikipedia, "Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
225. See Wood,
Acadians in Maryland, 8; notes
122 &
130, above;
226. See
Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 15;
Brasseaux gives the arrival dates of the 4 transports as Sep
20 & 30, which would not have been possible. See
236. Quotation from
Wood,
Acadians in Maryland, 27. See
The count in Wood, 27-28, which breaks down orphans, widowers, and widows, gives 798 total persons in the July 1763 count.
Wood, 70-186, is a detailed analysis of the MD repatriation list of 7 Jul 1763 with Acadian families listed alphabetically.
Brasseaux insists that, "Victims of malnutrition and epidemic diseases, Maryland's Acadian community had actually declined by twenty-seven percent (913 to 667) between 1755 and 1763." Using the number 790 from the repatriation list, the decline from 1755 would have been ... 13 and a half percent. Where did he get the figure of 667 for 1763?
237. Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 28-29. See also Wood, Frenchified Maryland, chap. 4; note 222, above.
238. See Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 30-31.
239. See
Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," insists that "by the mid-1760s, the surviving Acadians desperately longed for an opportunity to leave the site of their captivity, while the native Marylanders were equally anxious to see them leave." He adds that "Those burdened with large families, particularly widows, often joined the exodus by virtue of subsidied granted by local government bodies," implying that the exiles had become recognized members of their community, but perhaps also affirming the eagerness of the locals to see them gone.
Usner hints that the Acadians from MD may have been assisted in their passage to LA by the Spanish. He states, on 119-20: "Reporting on the arrival of some two hundred Acadians in September 1766, Louisiana's first Spanish governor [Ulloa] minimized the returns that one should expect from the money spent to assist their passage: 'They are not able to cultivate indigo nor tobacco without having first a competent number of negroes to do the work and they will be reduced to owning a few animals and to cultivating grains and roots for their own consumption, with which they will be rich as far as they are personally concerned but will not enrich the colony nor contribute to the growth of its commerce, because it will never get beyond producing wood, indigo of very poor quality, and tobacco in small quantities and of ordinary quality.'" Nowhere in Ulloa's statement does it say that the Spanish paid for the passage of the MD Acadians to LA, so this may have been Usner's assumption.
240. See Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 426; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 31, 111-12; Appendix; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten; David family page.
241. Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 31-33. See also Appendix; Appendix; Books Six & Eight.
Wood, 31-33, contains the entire complaint of the Baltimoreans to Gov. Sharpe in spring 1767, as well as the petition of the Acadians from Frederickton in Cecil County in Mar 1767.
For the vessel taken by the Jul 1767 arrivals from
Baltimore, see Wood, 33. The Virgin, like earlier expeditions from Halifax &
MD to LA, did not sail directly to New Orleans
but went to "Guárico," the older, Indian/Spanish name for Cap-Français,
French St.-Domingue, where the Acadians lingered for 17 days, before they sailed on to
New Orleans. The voyage from Baltimore to New Orleans lasted a very long 78 days. See Voorhies, J.,
Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 430, quoting a Spanish official, who notes: "That during the 78 days
of navigation (including the 17 days at Guárico) from the harbor of Baltimore,
Province of Maryland till here [New Orleans], Armand Hébert, head of a
family and Maria Landry, a child, died and Oliver Babin
and Margarita Hernandez were born."
It is entirely possible that Acadians wanting to leave
St.-Domingue came to LA with this group as well. See
242. Quotations from Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81, xvii; Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 93. See also Book Eight.
243. Quotations from Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 110; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 34. See also Wood, 35; Appendix; Appendix; Book Eight.
Stanley LeBlanc's <thecajuns.com>, "Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana," does not name their ship, nor does he mention who their leaders were, but he does cite a Pennsylvania Gazette article of 8 Apr 1768, which says the ship carrying the "neutrals from Maryland" was a brig under Captain Rider. Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 82, says the party led by Alexis & Honoré Breau reached New Orleans in Feb aboard the Guinea. Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 34, concludes that it was the Jane. Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 200, offers a copy of "a consular certificate granted at N. Potomack, Maryland to the vessel Jane sailing to the Mississippi with 'one hundred and fifty French neutrals with baggages,' December 17, 1767." The ship reached New Orleans the following Feb. In a letter to his superior, the Marqués de Grimaldi, dated 11 Feb 1768, Gov. Ulloa mentions "the recently arrived Acadians." See Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 40.
Also accompanying the Breau party from MD was James Walker, who came to LA to scout out possible settlements for English Catholics. A letter from MD Catholic leader Henry Jerningham , M.D., dated 14 Dec 1767, introducing Walker to LA Gov. Ulloa, indicates that the ship carrying Walker, & probably also the Breau party, left MD soon after that date. See Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 39; note 244, below.
244. Quotations from
Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 39, 137-38;
Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 34. See also
Wood, 36, cites a letter from O'Reilly to his superior, in which he recounts the distribution of the Germans & Acadians, & also says: "'The English families have returned to Pensacola. They were mere vagrants." This does not sound like Anglos from Maryland but rather Anglos from "next door" in British West Florida who evidently tried to settle in Spanish LA.
245. See
Province Island is the location of today's Philadelphia International Airport.
For details on abolitionist Anthony Benezet & his affinity with the Acadians, see Hodson, 67.
252. Quotations from Braud, From Nantes to LA, 63-64; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 38; Mouhout, Acadian Refugees in France, 215-16. See also Braud, 65-69; Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 133-67; Winzerling, Acadian Odyssey; note 184, above; Appendix; Books Six & Eight.
The Spanish in LA fulfilled all the terms agreed between d'Aprés & the departing Acadians back in France. See Book Eight.
For specifics of onboard provisions, prices of passage, & personal possessions allowed for the voyage, see Braud, 63-64, 68.
253.
Quotations from Brasseaux,
"Scattered to the Wind," 20-21; Hodson,
Acadian Diaspora, 67-69. See also
271. See Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 84; notes 36, 43, 74, 76, 81, 83, 85a, 86, 104, 148, & 149, above; Book Two.
272. See Jehn,
Acadian Exiles in the Colonies,
273. See Jehn,
Acadian Exiles in the Colonies,
274. See Jehn,
Acadian Exiles in the Colonies,
275. See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 113-18; Book Three.
275a. See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Winds," 27; Braud, From Nantes to LA, 18; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 422-23; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28.
275b. Quotations from
Faragher, A Great & Noble
Scheme, 420-21; Buggey, "Belcher," in
In 1761, between the fall of Montréal & Restigouche in the fall of 1760 & the French attack on St. John's, Newfoundland, in the summer of 1762, while the war was still on, Col. Richard Gridley, having been granted a concession to the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, secured 17 Acadian exiles from Boston & took them to the islands to establish a fishery. These were the first, & certainly not the last, Acadians to settle on the remote archipelago. See Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 293.
276. See Jehn,
Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 119-20;
277. See Jehn,
Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 161-78;
For these routes, s
For geographical references, s
For t
J. Grenie
322. Quotation from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 23. See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 395; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; "François-Gabriel d'Angeac," online Wikipedia; "French frigate Machault (1757)," online Wikipedia.
The Machault, built in 1757 at Bayonne, France, was not a regular French naval frigate but a privateer owned by Joseph Cadet, arms supplier for New France, who had organized the venture to reclaim Québec.
323. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 13-14; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 30 . See also R.-G. LeBlanc, 29; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
324. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 15, 19-20. See also Beattie & Pothier, 14; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 29n146.
325. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 20-21. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
326. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 21, 23. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
327. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 23-24. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
328. Quotation from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 24.
329. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 25, 28. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; note 327, above.
330. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 28-29. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
331. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 31. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 414-15; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 29n146; Marshall, Acadian Resistance.
Beattie & Pothier imply that the village near Pointe à la Batterie was Petite-Rochelle, but R.-G. LeBlanc says, "This new camp of Petite-Rochelle was located close to the present-day National Historic Site of the Battle of the Restigouche, in a place also known at the time as the 'pointe à Bourdon,' now called Pointe-à-la-Croix, on the north (Québec) shore of the river, just where the Restigouche opens into its estuary. The British did not manage to attack this position, but they did assault and destroy a village downriver. The village had, by all estimates, anywhere from several to 150 or 200 houses, and a British officer mistakenly called it 'Petite-Rochelle.' It was apparently a refuge established in the spring of 1760, mainly by families from Miramichi, Richibucto, and other havens to the south of the Bay of Chaleurs. Actually, these families had flocked to the place in June 1760 when news came that French vessels had arrived...."
Faragher, 415, citing NS Council Minutes of 5 Aug 1760, says that in the attack at Restigouche, "the British destroyed the French vessels as well as the Canadian post of Petit-Rochelle[sic]," & that "Several hundred Acadian refugees were captured--Joseph Broussard and him men among them--and sent to Fort Cumberland." No other source, including Beattie & Pothier, R.-G. LeBlanc, & Marshall, notes the capture of this important resistance fighter, or "hundreds of Acadian refugees," in the entire encounter at Restigouche. Is Faragher confusing Byron's attack of Jun-Jul 1760, in which no Acadians were captured, with the surrender of the French garrison & the Acadian refuge there to Captain Macartney & Major Elliott from Québec the following Oct? Bazagier's survey of the Acadians at Restigouche at the time of the Oct surrender reveal no Broussards among them, but that doesn't mean they were captured by Byron; they could simply have moved elsewhere after Byron left in Jul or not been there at all.
332. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 31-32. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
333. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 32. See also Beattie & Pothier, 33; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
334. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 33. See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 395; Beattie & Pothier, 33; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
Anderson calls the line of sunken Acadian vessels "a chain boom."
335. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 33-35. See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 395; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; note 322, above.
336 Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 35-36. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.
337. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 36. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; note 324, above.
338. Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 37, 40. See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 415.
Faragher says that among the "Several hundred Acadians refugees" captured at Restigouche was "Joseph Broussard and his men," but Beausoleil does not appear in the Oct 30 census there.
339. See Micheline
D. Johnson, "Maillard (Maillart, Mayard, Mayar), Pierre
(sometimes called Pierre-Antoine-Simon)," in DCB,
3:415-16, &
For a detailed description of Cherbourg, its history & human geography, see Braud, 23-25. For St.-Malo, see Braud, 25. Braud calls St.-Servan St.-Malo's "twin city," but it was more a suburb of the great port. Today, because of the reconstructed walls of St.-Malo, which transformed it into an historical relic more than a city, St.-Servan is a sprawling modern suburb with little evidence of its past.
353. Quotation from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 160. See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 47-54; Braud, From Nantes to LA, 18; Hodson, 161; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 44-45; note 377, below; Book Six.
Hodson, 161, notes that 3 Acadians at Morlaix--Joseph-Simon Granger, Honoré Daigre, & Jean Hébert--petitioned the Breton government in Oct 1763, demanding an extension of the 6-sols daily solde the King had granted them, along with other benefits, if they agreed to go to Belle-Île.
354. Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 36; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 58-62. See also Braud, From Nantes to LA, 33; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 150-55, 160-62; Mouhot, 32, 57, 280n13, 281n40; "Belle Île," online Wikipedia; "Étienne François de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul," online Wikipedia; Book Six.
Hodson, 150-55, makes much of the French obsession with "emulation" in the context of repopulation & improved masculine vigor, &, pp. 152-53, highlights the Acadians' legendary fecundity before segueing into the French need for reclaiming idle land. See Books Two, Three, & Ten.
Le Loutre had been captured by the Royal Navy in Sep 1755 on
his way back to France, held under close confinement at
Elizabeth Castle on the Île of Jersey for 8 years, &
released in Aug 1763. After taking care of personal
business in Paris, he headed to Morlaix, his native city, where many of the
Acadians welcomed him as their interlocutor with the French
government. See
355. Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 36; "Belle Île," online Wikipedia. See also Braud, From Nantes to LA, 28; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 148, 156-60; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 32; note 354, above.
Hodson, 157-78, paints an especially grim picture of life on Belle-Île before the arrival of the Acadians, &, on pp. 159-60, details the siege of Belle-Île in Apr-May 1761 & the fate of the bellilois, as the natives are called, after the British took over the island & then returned it.
Mouhot's evaluation of the Belle-Île settlement is more judicious than Brasseaux's; he admits to "The relative success of the settlement of Belle-Île-en-Mer," attributing much of it to the efforts of the Abbé Le Loutre.
356.
When Brasseaux, 45, says "few, if any, Saint-Domingue
Acadians migrated to the Mississippi Valley," he, too, is
exaggerating, downward. There were, to be sure,
relatively "few" Acadians from St.-Domingue who found their
way to Spanish Louisana, but the record is clear that the
phrase "if any" does not fit the evidence. Again,
401.
Copyright (c) 2001-24 Steven A. Cormier