Nova Scotia (20 page)

   
The governing council of Nova Scotia and the meddling
Massachusetts governor, William Shirley, suspected the Acadians of
ill will. New Englanders were making suggestions to the British
that the so-called “nest of traitors” should be somehow
removed.

   
After the English captured Louisbourg in 1745, the French
counterattacked the next year by trying again to recapture Fort
Anne. This attack and a subsequent one in 1747 failed and while
these were actions undertaken byub French military men, the
peaceful Acadians were once again under suspicion. In 1748 some
British troops were killed in the Grand Pré region. Acadians were
blamed, though evidence of their involvement was slim. In that year
the war was over, Île Royale was again returned to France and the
mainland Acadians were quite willing to continue their lives under
British rule. This created an odd predicament for the British, for
now Nova Scotia was officially English but predominantly populated
by people of French descent.

Herded Like Cattle

The building of Halifax in 1749
under the direction of Governor Cornwallis signalled a shift of
British attitudes; it was not just an effort to create a city but
also to create a powerful military presence. Hundreds of Acadians
began to take the hint and a few migrated to Cape Breton (the poor
farming there notwithstanding) and several hundred to Île
Saint-Jean. Cornwallis now demanded a full oath of allegiance and
the Acadians refused to accept the terms, raising his ire. He
responded by establishing new military posts in Acadian areas. The
next Halifax governor, Peregrine Hopson, softened the hard line and
was willing to accept an oathh of allegiance that would not require
Acadians to fight against the French, but he left Halifax by 1753
and the next year Charles Lawrence (for whom my own community of
East Lawrencetown is named) was appointed
lieutenant-governor.

   
Lawrence was more than leery of the Acadian population. There
were too many of them and they were too settled, too entrenched
and, to his mind, too dangerous. Lawrence saw the threat of the
French all around him – Quebec, *Louisbourg and the loyalty of the
Natives to the French. France also had control of the Mississippi
and Ohio River valleys. Lawrence felt that he had inherited a
vulnerable and weak position and he wanted to do whatever he could
to strengthen the English position.

   
There were 10,000 Acadians under Lawrence’s jurisdiction in
Nova Scotia and this number weighed heavily on his mind. He was
also fearful of a possible attack from the French to the west. So
with the support of nearly 2,500 troops sent up by Governor
Shirley, the British attacked Fort Beausejour in the Tantramar
Marsh at the head of the Bay of Fundy. More than 300 Acadians were
found inside; some had been coerced into fighting against the
British. This fact would help seal the fate of a broad sweep of
Acadians. Many claimed they were threatened and forced into
fighting the English by the French, but this was not enough to
quell the growing mistrust of all Acadians and it gave the impetus
to Lawrence to take stronger measures against these “traitors from
within.” *

   
The New England troops went further and seized guns from the
Acadians in the entire Fort Beausejour area. The Acadians thought
this was going too far – guns were necessary for hunting – so a
group of delegates went to Halifax to try to sort things out. Once
again they were asked to sign a very strong oath of allegiance to
the British. They refused and were imprisoned on George’s Island in
Halifax Harbour. Later, in July 1755, a second group of Acadians
came to Halifax and again the issue of the oath was put before
them. Like their predecessors, they refused to agree with the
British definition of allegiance and the possibility they would be
forc*ed to fight against the French. Undoubtedly, the threat of
expulsion had been put before them but they felt certain the
British would not follow through. They had been living with this
threat since the first time it had been put forward in
1713.

   
From a pragmatic point of view, one wonders why the Acadian
leaders did not simply swear the oath and go back to their farms –
after all, they had no desire to become embroiled in anybody’s
battles. They wanted to be left alone. Alas, the concept of being
obliged to fight against the French must have seemed too much. The
British, on the other hand, would have been foolish to send
Acadians into battle against the French, as they would no doubt
turn out to be very poor opponents of their own
countrymen.

   
Undoubtedly the business of the oath was really part of a
larger agenda which had already been set. Fear had been growing
among British leaders since the Mississippi River valley had
recently been lost to the French. So on July 28, 1755, the Halifax
governing council, which included Lieutenant*-Governor Charles
Lawrence, Admiral Boscawen and Chief Justice Belcher, called for
the deportation of the “French Inhabitants.” Later the British
govern*ment in London would claim that it did not know of
Lawrence’s decision on expulsion and if it had, it would have
quashed such a measure. If Lawrence is the man most damned with the
guilt of having caused such monumental grief, it’s worth noting
that British colonial leaders were in a new panic about the
prospect of the French conquering much of North America. Powerful
Boston leaders like Phipps and Shirley were also urging Lawrence to
offset any potential attacks against New England from the French in
the New Brunswick region.

   
Orders went out to Chignecto, Pisiquid (near Windsor),
Beausejour and Fort Anne. Livestock and land would be turned over
to the Crown. Families could take only what they could carry with
them, as they would be sent off on ships brought in from the
colonies along the Atlantic Coast from Massachusetts to Georgia. By
August 11, the operation had begun at Fort Beausejour. The men were
held in custody until the ships arrived. It is reported that some
men tunnelled out of the fort, collected their families and escaped
to freedom in the wilderness.

   
The most populated settlement, Grand Pré, heard the
deportation orders in early September of that year. It came as a
complete shock. Despite events at Beausejour, no one in Grand Pré
expected the deportation of a group of families whose lives were
entirely dedicated to agriculture. They had been out working in the
fields just the day before. But in Grand Pré and nearby Pisiquid,
the men were brought together and told that they were about to lose
their land and their livestock.

   
At Grand Pré, Colonel John Winslow was the officer in charge
of the expulsion. His diary reveals that he felt badly over the
fate of the Acadians. He knew that he did not have enough men to
forcibly remove everyone from their homes without bloodshed and he
wanted to avoid a confrontation. Before the Grand Pré* villagers
were aware of what was about to happen, Winslow installed himself
in the priest’s house and asked the people to take mall the
religious ornaments out of the church. He intended the church to
become a temporary military prison and did not want religious
fervour over sacred objects to further complicate his already
difficult task. More than 400 men and boys aged ten and older were
ordered to gather inside the church, where they learned they were
now prisoners and that soon they would be deported, along with
their families. It would be a long, tense wait for the necessary
ships to arrive. Each day twenty men were allowed to go back into
the community and bring back food. However, if they did not return,
the other prisoners would be shot.

   
Winslow, hoping to reduce the possibility of an uprising,
ordered the young men to leave on the first five ships. With some
refusing to leave without their fathers, soldiers marched them at
bayonet-point to the boats asy mothers and sisters stood by and
watched in tears.

   
Before more ships could arrive, twenty-four men did escape.
Winslow decreed that if they did not return, the entire village
would be burned immediately. Twenty-two men did return, while the
other two were shot in pursuit. Within a few months, everyone was
herded onto ships and the Acadian community of Grand Pré had been
depopulated. By December of 1755 more than 2,200 Acadians were
shipped away from their homes in and around Grand Pré alone.
British troops burned barns and houses so there would be nothing
for the Acadians to return to. They knew how strongly these people
felt about their land and they wanted to do the utmost to
discourage them from corming back.

The Tragedy of Exile

Families were separated in many
cases – not so much out of cruelty but more a result of the
bureaucratic nightmare of orchestrating the loading and dispersal
of so many unhappy souls. Some of those families would, of cours*e,
never be able to find their way back together. In all, about 6,000
Acadians were ripped away from the homes they loved and scattered
to Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Virginia and the Carolinas. Conditions aboard the Boston ships were
unhealthy and many died on the voyage.

   
Many Acadians accepted their fate and adapted to the ways of
AngloAmerican life. A new language was learned and names were
changed. But hundreds of others refused to give up on their
cherished homeland and did whatever nthey could to find their way
back to Nova Scotia. Still others moved on to Louisiana, French
territory, to begin a new life. Not all of the colonies were
hospitable toward the destitute immigrants who were to arrive.
Virginia refused to accept the 1,500 Acadians deposited there and
had them shipped to England as prisoners of war. After the Treaty
of Paris in 1763, those who were still alive were sent on to St.
Malo and Morlaix in France.

   
Not all Acadians were deported. It was a massive and complex
task that could never fully succeed. Acadians from Cape Sable were
imprisoned in Halifax and finally shipped off to France. Even as
late as 1762, more than fifty Acadian families were imprisoned at
Fort Edward in Windsor.

   
Others were luckier and escaped to the Restigouche, Miramichi
and Bay of Chaleur areas of New Brunswick. Still others made their
way to the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec and to the islands of St.
Pierre and Miquelon.

   
In 1760, after the fall of Montreal, France lost control of
North America and the British fear of the Acadians abated. By 1764
they were permitted to return – yet still they were required to
take the loathed oath of allegiance. They were also instructed to
settle in the more remote areas of the region. The move was not
entirely altruistic. Acadians were needed for labour in the fishing
industry and their farming and fur-trapping skills would also be
greatly in demand. On top of that, the Acadians had a good working
relationship with the Mi’kmaq, which might also be profitable in
the trade of furs.

   
British law asserted that only Protestants could purchase or
own land. It was a tough policy to uphold but it kept the Catholics
at a severe disadvantage. They might be permitted to hold land,
even live on it without title, but only if the land was not in
demand by a Protestant and in particular an Englishman. As the
Acadians found their way back to the Annapolis Valley and
elsewhere, they discovered that many of their farms had been given
to New England colonists known as Planters, who were not nearly as
skilled in working the land. A few families were permitted to
return to their own land in Pubnico in southwest Nova Scotia and on
Île Madame off the coast of Cape Breton.

   
The growth of the fishery led to Acadians being encouraged to
settle in Argyle, Clare, Cheticamp, Havre-Boucher, Île Madame,
Minudie, Nappan, Maccan, Pomquet, Tracadie and Chezzetcook. French
culture and language would survive most strongly in Clare and
Cheticamp, while other areas experienced a gradual assimilation
into English culture. Prejudice against the Acadians would
continue, however, and the tragedy of the exile could not be easily
forgotten by those families that had suffered severe hardship and
personal loss. It’s been estimated that, despite the deportation,
by the early nineteenth century, seventy percent of all surviving
Acadians (23,000 of them) had returned to live in the north – in
the Maritimes or in Quebec.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Of Cabbages and Kings

The belief in empire-building may
have been more the inspiration for the Seven Years’ War than any
real desire for control of more land. Underlying that notion was
the fact that England and France each wanted the entire North
American continent for its own. The war lasted officially from 1756
to 1763, but fighting had started in Ohio in 1754. By 1755, the
British had already captured Fort Beausejour and expelled the
Acadians. France knew that the fall of Louisbourg and Quebec would
mean the end of French power in North America and they were
prepared to fight. The English, however, were determined to capture
Louisbourg again.

   
Lord Loudon came to Halifax in 1757 and drilled his soldiers
for battle. To avoid scurvy, the men ate vegetables they had grown
themselves. As a result, Loudon’s contingent became known as the
“cabbage planting expedition.” His men camped near the base of the
Citadel, along with the American rangers on hand for the battle for
Louisbourg. Loudon himself was not well-cliked (some thought of him
as all pomp and no circumstance). On two occasions he was nearly
killed by “accidental” misfiring of American muskets. He also had a
habit of complaining about the quality of Halifax rum, which all
too often made his troops sick.