The ACADIANS of LOUISIANA: A Synthesis [work in progress]
The “Synthesis,” as the name implies, attempts to unite
narrative history with genealogy in telling the story of the Louisiana Acadians.
Its temporal scope runs from the beginnings of French Acadia through the
Acadian diaspora, with emphasis on the Acadian experience in South Louisiana
from the 1760s through the 1860s.
The “Synthesis” consists of a dozen parts, or “books,” some of which are
narrative history, others genealogy, and most a combination of the
two.
Before the “Synthesis” came the study called Acadians in
Gray, devoted to the role the Acadians of Louisiana played in the struggle for
Southern independence. Before such a
study could begin, however, several questions had to be
answered: Who are the Acadians of
South Louisiana? Which families of
the region are Acadian, and which are not?
And what exactly is a Cajun?
The attempt to answer these questions led to the creation of dozens of webpages
devoted to the families who emigrated to Louisiana from greater Acadia.
But something else was needed:
an historical context for Acadian genealogy.
This led to more questions:
Where is Acadia? When was it
created? Who created it?
When did the first European families go there?
How long did it endure? And
what of British Nova Scotia and the thing the Acadians called their
Grand Dérangement?
Where did the British send them?
How long did they stay there?
When and from where did some of them come to Louisiana?
For the past 10 years, since I retired from the classroom, I have
attempted to answer these questions.
The result is the “Acadians of Louisiana:
a Synthesis,” the “books” of which are described below:
Book One,
entitled “French Acadia,” mostly narrative history, begins with the European
exploitation of North America and ends with the British acquisition of French
Acadia in 1713. The only
genealogical component of this book is an introduction to the European families
who came to French Acadia from the 1630s to 1713 and built a world for
themselves on the Bay of Fundy.
Book Two,
entitled “British Nova Scotia,” is a history of that colony from 1713 to the
French and Indian War. Its primary
focus is on the Acadians’ attempt to maintain a precarious existence as “French
Neutrals” during the decades-long struggle between their British overlords and
their French compatriots in Canada and Île Royale.
The book also details the Acadians’ “golden age” from the 1730s into the
1740s.
Book Three,
entitled “Families, Migration, and the Acadian ‘Begats’,” is, except for brief
sociological analyses, genealogical as well as historical in form.
It offers outlines of hundreds of families who made a home in greater
Acadia from the 1630s to the 1750s.
It consists of two major parts:
family outlines of the colony’s socioeconomic elite, and family outlines of
the aboiteaux builders of the Fundy
basin—in other words, the rest of us.
Each of the two sections is organized chronologically by arrival date of
the family’s progenitor.
Book Four, entitled “The French Maritimes,” is, in its first part, a history of the French Maritimes colony of Île Royale, which included Île St.-Jean, today’s Prince Edward Island, from 1713 to the 1750s. Interwoven into the history of the colony are short histories of island families—considered to be “Acadians” in this study--who, before deporation, lived only in Newfoundland and on the Maritime islands, some of whom emigrated to Louisiana. The second part of the book consists of a detailed narrative of De La Roque’s survey of the two French Maritime islands in 1752, with additions and corrections. Here one can find details not only of Maritime families, but also of Acadian families from Nova Scotia who moved to the islands by 1752.
Book Five,
entitled “The Great Upheaval,” will be a detailed history of what Acadians call their
Grand Dérangement.
The narrative focuses not only on the Acadians who were deported to
British colonies and to France, but also on the Acadians who escaped the British
and fled to Canada and the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.
The book also details Acadian resistance
to British conquest during the Seven Years’ War.
Individuals and families will make their appearance, but the book is
largely narrative in form.
Book Six,
entitled “The Acadian Immigrants of Louisiana,” is the genealogical supplement
to “The Great Upheaval,” detailing the experiences of the dozens of Acadian
families who came to Louisiana from 1764 into the early 1800s.
The families are arranged alphabetically without regard to size or
arrival times.
Book Seven,
entitled “French Louisiana,” is a history of the colony from its beginnings
until the Spanish cession of the early 1760s.
The earliest years of the colony under Iberville and Bienville are highly
detailed. Also highlighted are the
colonials’ relations with Native peoples, the introduction of large-scale African slavery
during the Company period, and the evolution of Louisiana’s French Creole
culture beginning in the 1730s. The book
also has a geographical component. The
primary purpose of the book is to provide an historical, cultural, and
geographical context for
the strange new place hundreds of Acadian exiles would soon call home.
Book Eight,
entitled “A New Acadia,” details the arrival of the Acadians and their
assimilation into the polyglot culture of Spanish Louisiana.
Emphasis is placed on the expeditions from 1764 to the 1780s that brought
exiles to Louisiana from Georgia, Halifax, Maryland, French St.-Domingue,
France, and Newfoundland. Also
highlighted are the communities the Acadians created on the lower Mississippi,
the southwestern prairies, and the eastern bayous of South Louisiana.
Hundreds of families and individuals appear in the narrative, but the
book is largely history, not genealogy.
Book Nine,
entitled “The Bayou State,” will be a continuation of the history of the Acadians of
Louisiana from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 until the coming of civil war in
1861. Emphasis is on the
“Americanization” of Louisiana’s Acadians and the evolution of the state’s
unique Cajun culture. Again,
families and individuals, including biographies of prominent Acadians, appear in
the narrative, but the book is largely narrative history.
Book Ten,
entitled “The Louisiana Acadian ‘Begats’,” is the genealogical supplement to
Books Eight and Nine and the largest book in the series.
The first section includes histories of the 56 Acadian families who
came to Louisiana but did not create lasting lines there.
The second, much larger, section focuses on the 101 “foundational” families who created enduring lines in South Louisiana. The
families in each section are arranged alphabetically.
Book Eleven, entitled “The Non-Acadian ‘Cajun’ Families of South Louisiana,” will supplement Book Ten with historical sketches of non-Acadian families of the region who intermarried with Acadians and helped create the Cajun culture. Inclusion in this book is based, generally, on the number of times members of a non-Acadian family took Acadian spouses from 1766 through 1861. The family histories are arranged alphabetically by surname and consist of two parts: "Cajun" families whose surnames have not been found in Acadia (e.g., Aillet); and non-Acadian families whose surnames can be found in Acadia but were not Acadian in Louisiana (e.g., Arcenots from Canada).
Book Twelve, entitled “Acadians in Gray,” as anyone who frequents this website knows, is its original focus: a history of Acadian—or, more accurately, “Cajun”--participation in the struggle for Southern independence. This book, like six of the others, will be largely narrative history that includes many individuals, both prominent and humble, who played a part in this nation’s deadliest conflict.
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Here are suggestions on how to make the most of the
family genealogies and histories in the “The Acadians of Louisiana:
a Synthesis”:
First, throw together a five-generation ancestor chart.
If you’re not a Baby Boomer, you might want to push it back six
generations. This is because the histories and genealogies in the “Synthesis” end
about 1870.
Anything after 1870 you likely will not find in the “Synthesis.”
Once you have determined who your ancestors are back to 1870, go to the Acadian family’s page. The information on the family pages also ends essentially at 1870. On each family page, hyperlinks take you to the family’s place in Books Three or Four, Six, and Ten.