Volume 2, Chapter 38, The Persecution of the Acadians
Thus the British, during 1755, went down on many fronts to ignominy and crushing defeat.
However, the British took advantage of their lone victory in Nova Scotia to exert their power over
the hapless French citizens of British Acadia. Frustrated by their lack of victory over French
In their arms, they presumably decided to levy barbaric vengeance on helpless and peaceful French citizens in their midst.
Acadia had first been settled by Frenchmen in 1605, but was sacked and destroyed by Virginia's Captain Argyle in 1613.
French settlement regained Acadia during the 17th century, but it was seized from France along with Newfoundland at the Peace of Utrecht, ending Queen Anne's War in 1713.
A treaty provided that the French population of Acadia would have liberty for at least a year to emigrate from Nova Scotia with their property, presumably to nearby Cape Breton Island, which remained in the hands of France.
The treaty also provided that Acadians choosing to remain would, upon taking an oath of allegiance
to Britain, enjoy complete religious liberty. Many Acadians applied for permission to leave
as promised by the treaty, but the British authorities preemptorily refused. Colonel
Samuel Vetch, governor of Nova Scotia, had financial interest in the island and urged
The Board of Trade not to permit its labor force to leave.
The Acadians were prohibited from using British-owned vessels to leave.
When the desperate Acadians began to build their own small boats to sail to Cape Breton,
the new governor, Francis Nicholson, brutally confiscated the boats and prevented them from
departing.
By that time, the supposed year of grace for the Acadians was over, and they were from
from then on prohibited from leaving the island. Since the year was up, the British presumed
to prohibit Acadian emigration with complete self-righteousness. After this British display
of bad faith capped by hypocrisy, the Acadians naturally, though courageously, refused to
take an oath of allegiance to the new King George I. In 1720, the new governor of Nova
of Scotland, Richard Phillips, ordered the Acadians to take the oath in four months or
leave the island, but taking with them no more than two sheep per family.
When the despairing Acadians, deprived of all boats, tried to leave by cutting a road
to nearby Cape Breton by land, Phillips forced them to stop. He too did not want to lose
I want to lose the benefits of Acadian labor, that is forced labor, since the Acadians were
forced to stay on this alien-run island. During the same year, Phillips sent Lieutenant Governor
Paul Mascarine to London. Mascarine converted the Board of Trade to a diabolic plan. Eventually,
the Acadians should all be coercively expelled from the island, where they were too much
under the influence of wicked French priests. But this should not be done until the French
could work to build up and complete English fortifications on the island. The Acadians,
meanwhile, were neither allowed to leave the country nor permitted to settle down as full
citizens. Instead, they were forced to supply the needs of the British troops and to strengthen
and the fortifications of their British masters. Despite these provocations, the Acadians remained
peaceful. In 1726, Lieutenant Governor Lawrence Armstrong, a tough, hardliner, forced a public
oath of allegiance on the Acadians of Annapolis, Port Royal, capital of Nova Scotia. The following
In the same year, however, the issue arose again with the ascension to the throne of
George II. Armstrong sent naval troops to enforce a loyalty oath on the Acadians, but
the persecuted Frenchmen continued to refuse. At least they would not lend their public
sanction to their own tormentors. The day was saved for the heroic Acadians by ensign
and Robert Roth, who, on his own initiative, promised the Acadians freedom of religion,
exemption from the draft, and freedom to leave the island. In return for these rights, the
Acadians took the oath of allegiance. Governor Armstrong, of course, angrily refused to ratify
these unwarrantable concessions, which had already been promised them at the Peace of
of Utrecht. Having gained the public oath, however, Armstrong vaguely and grudgingly
promised the Acadians the liberties of English subjects. The Acadians of Annapolis had not
yet taken the oath. When ordered to do so by the governing council, the leading men
in Annapolis resolved instead to follow the other Acadians in taking the oath only under
with the Roth Conditions. The Council called this action insolent and defiant, and arrested
the four leading accating deputies for contempt and disrespect to the King. Lieutenant Governor
Armstrong then announced that the four prisoners had been guilty of several enormous crimes
in assembling the inhabitants in a riotous manner, contrary to the orders of the government,
In framing a rebellious paper, three of the prisoners were promptly clamped into prison.
In consideration for his advanced age, Armstrong graciously allowed the fourth, Abraham Borg,
to leave Acadia, of course without any of his property. The rest of the people of Annapolis
were punished by being prohibited from fishing on any British coast. To cap his crimes, Armstrong
Armstrong pillaged the church of Abbey-Bressley and forced the priest to flee. For a blissful
interlude, Governor Phillips returned to the peninsula, permitting Bressley to return home
and promise the Acadians religious freedom. In response, the grateful Acadians of Annapolis
and the rest of Nova Scotia took the oath of allegiance. Soon, however, Armstrong was
in charge again. He promptly violated the British promises. He began by expelling two
French missionaries and then insisted on requiring his approval of all priests in the province
and on barring all priests immigrating from Quebec in French Canada. During King George's
War, the Acadians, despite three decades of betrayal and oppression, remained strictly
The French were very neutral in the war between England and their homeland. When the English captured the French fortress in Louisbourg in 1746, they promptly deported all the French citizens to France. The worried Acadians were reassured by Governor William Shirley, but Shirley omitted any pledge of religious freedom and indicted several Canadians for high treason against Great Britain. After the war ended in 1748,
Today, Great Britain embarked on a new phase of its program for Nova Scotia. It decided
to settle Englishmen on the peninsula, as yet inhabited only by French settlers and
British soldiers. In that way, military benefits would accrue for the expected future war with
France, and a population and labor force would be available to replace the Acadians, who
and by that time might be expelled. Several thousand English colonists were settled in
this way. The new governor, Edward Cornwallis, on instructions from the Crown, embarked on
a new policy of repression of the Acadians. He was instructed to force another oath of
allegiance and to permit Acadians to leave but never with any of their property. They
They could not, for example, sell their lands and leave with any of the proceeds.
Cornwallis also prohibited the Acadians from trading with the French, or from accepting
religious jurisdiction from Quebec.
Further, he embarked on determined efforts to force Protestantism upon the devoutly Roman
Catholic populace.
Acadian exemption from the draft was removed, no priest was permitted in the province without
1,000 Akkadians reacted by protesting their faithful service as subjects of the Crown, and proposed instead to renew their oath on the old conditions granted them by Governor Phillips. Cornwallis, in turn, bitterly denounced Phillips for not doing his duty, unable to win renewal on the Crown.
In the middle of the Phillips conditions, the Acadians in the spring of 1750 decided to leave Nova Scotia.
The Board of Trade, however, decided that the time was not yet ripe, as the French might entice them to Cape Breton and use them in the next war.
Cornwallis, therefore, patrolled Nova Scotia to keep the Acadians as prisoners on the peninsula.
The desperate Acadians, however, managed to slip through the patrols aided by the French
and the missionaries. 800 Acadians managed to reach Prince Edward Island during 1750.
Cornwallis hastily built more forts to prevent more Acadians from leaving. A peaceful and
happy lull ensued, however, during 1752-53. Under the governorship of Peregrine Hopson,
The Acadians enjoyed religious liberty and were permitted to take the oath under the
old conditions. The peace was not to last long. The active imperialist and hardliner
Charles Lawrence soon became acting governor. Lawrence regarded the Acadians as part and
parcel of the French enemy and treated them accordingly. In August 1754, Lawrence denounced
the obstinacy, treachery, and ingratitude of the incendiary French priest.
The evil Arcadians, he thundered, persisted in trading with the French and with the Indians.
What is more, here was an ominous warning indeed, they possessed the best and largest
tracts of land in this province.
Not surprisingly, since the French had settled these lands.
Beneath the mock surprise were the words of a man getting ready to loot the hard-earned
property of others. Lawrence warned the Acadians of expulsion should they not take an unconditional
oath. Lawrence then proceeded to prohibit all export of corn from the province. The
order served to prohibit the sale of corn to the French and Indians, and thus to force
was a sale at a far lower price to the British town of Halifax in Nova Scotia.
The next step in the English exploitation of the labor of the French Acadians was the order
by Lawrence to bring in wood to the British fort. The Acadians protested that their oath
of allegiance did not require them to supply wood to the fort. The British reply to this
eminently reasonable claim was to denounce the evil influence of Abbé Doudon over the
minds of the Acadians and to hold the Abbé and five of the Acadians in Halifax. The Abbé
protested that the people are free and should be contracted with for firewood and not be
treated as slaves. The Council of Nova Scotia's reply was to reprimand the protesters and
ordered the Acadians to bring in wood under pain of death. Abbé d'Aldin, in the meanwhile,
was expelled from the province and the hapless Acadians agreed to comply with the forced
labor decree. Of all the British campaigns during 1755, the only successful attack was,
we have seen, the capture of Fort Beaux-Ajours and the consequent reduction of the New Brunswick
Area. Naively, the Acadians took at face value the English claim that their hostility
stemmed from worry over the Acadians as potentially subversive allies of the French. With the
French threat greatly reduced, the poor Acadians actually believed that the English would ease
their oppression. Accordingly, they requested Lawrence that they once again be allowed use
and the use of their canoes for fishing, and that they again be allowed to bear arms for hunting and general self-defense.
Lawrence denounced the petition as impertinent and insolent, and ordered once again an unconditional loyalty oath for all Acadians.
In fact, he ordered the deputies who had presented the petition to take the full oath on the spot.
They, of course, insisted on the old conditions.
Not only did Lawrence and his council insist on the immediate oath, but they also informed
the deputies that once anyone refused to take the oath, he would not be allowed another
chance and would be summarily expelled from Nova Scotia.
When the frightened deputies then offered to take the oath, they were informed that
that this act would now be coerced and therefore not sincere. Hence, they could not have even
this chance. Incredibly, the deputies were then promptly arrested and branded popish
recusants and subjects of France. It was now clear that for the British on Nova Scotia,
the reduction of the French power in the area combined with the continued state of war provided
and an excellent opportunity for the final solution of the Acadian problem without further
worry about the Acadians becoming a war threat by joining the French.
Lieutenant Governor Lawrence and his council now move to the climatic stroke, an order
for the expulsion of every Acadian from Nova Scotia's soil.
The order was issued illegally, without authority from Britain, or from the absent Governor
Hobson, but with a pliant legal opinion handed down by Chief Justice Jonathan Belcher, Jr.
The grand genocidal design for eradication of the Acadians from the land they had built
was now underway. By a ruse the Akkadian men were assembled together and were then suddenly
denounced as rebels by the authorities and taken prisoner without warning. All the land,
the cattle and the corn of the Akkadian people were confiscated by the Crown. Only ready
cash and furniture could be removed from the province. All the Akkadian villages and many
Many farms and homes were burned and destroyed by the British troops, who also used every
possible method to flush out any Acadians hiding in the woods.
Imposequit, the British troops arrogantly courted themselves in a Roman Catholic church
and took the precaution of ordering the Acadians to furnish them with provisions before rounding
them up.
To ensure submission, the young male prisoners were coercively separated from their families.
The massive expulsion of the Acadians began in early October 1755, and ship after ship,
separating families and friends, conveyed the unfortunates to all parts of the hemisphere.
Shortly after the expulsion began, Lawrence received the King's order NOT to molest the
The Acadian Reasoning as the typical bureaucrat, Lawrence
rationalized his disobeying the king's order. Once begun, even if in error, the expulsion
process could not be reversed. By the end of the year, over 6,000 Acadians were deported
in their property, confiscated or destroyed. A remnant remained hiding in the woods. Some
Some of the ships were decimated by smallpox. The Acadians were shipped to Georgia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, with Lawrence
instructing their governors to dispose of the refugees in such a way as to prevent them
from remaining together as a people. In some of the colonies, the younger Acadians were
were conscripted as indentured servants for a few months.
Typical of the cold treatment of the Acadians in the American colonies was that of South
Carolina, where about a third of the Acadians were sent. They were immediately thrown into
custody. Soon after, they were compulsorily disfursed, quotas being sent to all of the
parishes of the colony. Finally, they were given permission to go where they wished.
The bulk of them deciding to migrate to French Canada.
Pennsylvania's treatment of the hapless refugees was particularly ill-natured and was capped
by bitter attacks by Pennsylvania's Governor Robert Hunter Morris and New Jersey's Governor
Jonathan Belcher, father of Nova Scotia's pliable Chief Justice.
Morris and Belcher raised the alarm about an imminent, giant, subversive Roman Catholic
Conspiracy in the Colonies' Midst, an unholy potential alliance of Acadians, Irish and
German Catholics. All these groups were attacked by the governors as rebels and traitors. Besides,
the colonies had too many strangers already. Only the generosity of the Quakers made the
New York led in seizing Acadian youth and forcing them into the bondage of indentured
service. All the men were placed under arrest and dispersed by quota among the various districts
in the province. Massachusetts received over one thousand Acadians, many filtering down
A tract of land was set aside for Acadians in Worcester, but when many began to move
to Boston, the city's select men expelled them to the outlying districts. Virginia expelled
all of its Acadians, most of whom moved to French Louisiana. Some Acadians who had left
and virtually no food. Many died from smallpox. After the British conquered Quebec later in
the war, many Acadians were seized and shipped as defeated prisoners of war to Halifax, where
they were forced to work on the roads. Only in Maryland, where Catholics were not unknown
monsters, were the Acadians treated with courtesy and kindness in the Americas. They were treated
were voluntarily housed in private homes and were able to find work and build homes in
Baltimore. Many Acadians had voluntarily emigrated to Prince Edward Island, and by 1755, 4,000
former Acadians had settled there. Upon the final British capture of Louisbourg and Prince
The British deported them all to France, two of the ships sinking, with 700 Acadians aboard.
A few of the Acadians managed to hide successfully in the woods of Nova Scotia, and there they
teamed up with dissident Indians to wage guerrilla war upon their tormentors. Two hundred of
were rounded up by January 1756 and shipped to South Carolina. The prisoners managed to take over the ship and sailed to Canada, where they became privateers for the French.
After the war in America was over, however, the British captured this community and carried off the inhabitants as prisoners to Halifax.
Charles Lawrence's defiance of the King's order not to expel the Acadians went unpunished.
Shortly afterward, war between England and France broke out officially and Lawrence only
seemed to be a premature patriot.
The tragedy of the poor Acadians was not over, even with the end of the war in America in
1760. By 1761, Jonathan Belcher, Jr., now Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, professed
to mist the Acadians. Who could now repair the dykes? Yet when Acadians began to drift
back to Nova Scotia, their very presence changed Belcher's mind, and he and the Council expelled
them once again. Unfortunately, they were deported to Massachusetts, which refused to
receive the five shiploads of Acadians and sent them back again.