Early Acadia                                                                                                  

             The history of Cape Breton’s Acadians begins with the history of Acadia. The territory of Acadia was never clearly defined throughout the one hundred and fifty years of dispute for its control (1604-1755). The French patent for Acadia granted in 1603 included present-day Maine and extended north to the islands in the gulf of St. Lawrence and west to the St. Lawrence River. The English at the beginning of the seventeenth century included much of France’s “Acadia” in their Virginia claim.¹ In 1713, when the French ceded Acadia to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht, the boundaries were left unclear. The French interpreted the terms of treaty as giving modern mainland Nova Scotia to the British, the British thought that they had control of southern New Brunswick as well. This remained in dispute until after the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). The origin of the name “Acadia” is credited to the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (1480-1527), who had the Greek term “Arcadie”, meaning land of plenty, written on the entire Atlantic coast north of Virginia on his sixteenth century map. Acadia is also related to the Mi’kmaq term for “place,” pronounced “akatie,”and the Malecite term “quoddy,” also meaning a “fertile place.”²

            When the Sieur de DiPreville, a French surgeon and botanist, wrote his account of his visit to L’Acadie in 1699-1700, he wrote for the first time the term acadiens, meaning the descendants of the Europeans who had settled in Acadia.³ In a supplementary volume of the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, published in France in 1776 however, the term acadiens was used only in reference to the native people of Acadia.⁴ The English did not use the term until after 1755, viewing all French as essentially the same. In the eighteenth century they referred to the French in British-controlled Acadia as “the neutral French” or the “inhabitants.” The modern concept of Acadians prior to 1755 describes a way of life, as well as a group of people. Early Acadian society reflected the colonists’ heritage, French and Catholic, and adaptations they had made  to their new circumstances in North America. The resources of the land and sea shaped their occupations, as farmers, fishermen, and merchants, and their survival as a group through over a century of political turmoil shaped their attitude toward the imperial authorities.⁵

Early Struggles

            The first century of European settlement in Acadia saw as many failures as successes. The first settlers, a group of 79 men who spent the winter of 1604-1605 at Île Sainte-Croix, near the present-day Maine-New Brunswick border, suffered from the unfamiliar climate and malnutrition. The survivors moved to a second settlement in 1605 at Port Royal. This settlement, however, had to be abandoned in 1607 because its founder, Pierre du Gua de Monts, lost his charter, which granted him a monopoly on trade, and therefore the support of his creditors. De Mons’ colleague Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt (1557-1615) returned to Port Royal in 1610 and settlement began again only to be sacked by the English from Virginia in 1613. After this only a small group of French remained in Acadia, lead by Charles de Biencourt(1591-1623), Poutrincourt’s son, and father and son, Claude de Saint Étienne de la Tour(c.1570-after1636) and Charles de Saint Étienne de la Tour(1593-1666).⁶

            During the first years that the French struggled to establish themselves in Acadia they benefited from the support of the Mi’kmaq, Malecite, and Abenaki in the region. Roman Catholic missionaries came with the first explorers to convert the natives, and Catholicism became an important link between the French and the Mi’kmaq that endured. The first converts were Chief Membertou (d.1611), and his extended family, who accepted Roman Catholicism at Port Royal in 1610. Economy, as well as religion, linked the Acadians and the Mi’kmaq. In the early seventeenth century the limited fishing and agriculture of the French settlers did not threaten the native way of life, so the two groups co-existed without conflict. In addition, the trade between the French and natives was mutually beneficial; the French received native knowledge of local food sources, medicinal plants, toboggans, canoes, and snowshoes, whereas the natives obtained European iron, copper, cloth, and firearms. Further, some European men in this period married native women, joining families within the two communities. This intimate connection with the native communities was an essential aspect of what would come to define the Acadian culture before 1755.⁷

            After 1613,  James I of England and VI of Scotland advanced a claim to “Nova Scotia,” and granted a charter to Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1577-1640). He established a Scottish settlement on the future site of the British Fort Anne in 1629.⁸ During this period Claude de la Tour was captured by the Scottish Kirke brothers and taken to England. While there he transferred loyalties and accepted Nova Scotian baronetcies for himself and his son Charles, who did not immediately accept his father’s change in allegiance.⁹ In 1629 James Stewart, Lord Ochiltree of Scotland, established a fort in northeastern Cape Breton, at Baleine. Captain Charles Daniel, of the French Compagnie des Cent-Associés, saw Lord Ochiltree’s activities as in conflict with the claims of his company and attacked the fort, ending that Scottish attempt at settlement a few months after it had started.¹⁰ The Scottish settlement on the Bay of Fundy lasted until 1632 when Acadia was returned to France, but some of those settlers remained in Acadia with the French who had persisted from the early settlements and new settlers in the mid-century who came from France, the Basque regions, and Portugal.¹¹

French Immigration to Acadia

            In 1632  Isaac de Razilly (1587-1635), appointed Lieutenant-General of New France and governor of Acadia, brought a group of 300 settlers to La Have in western Nova Scotia, including his cousin, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay de Charnisay (1604-1650) and Nicolas Denys (1598-1688). After de Razilly’s death in 1635, d’Aulnay took command and moved most of the settlers to the Annapolis Basin around Port Royal. Nicolas Denys left the settlers and set up fur-trading establishments in the Baie de Chaleur and in Cape Breton, at Saint-Pierre (St. Peter’s). He later came in conflict with the other French entrepreneurs and although he spent years building trading posts and settlements, he eventually saw his work destroyed by competitors, creditors, and finally, fire in 1668.¹² Denys wrote a detailed account of his life in Acadia, Description géographique et historique des costes de l’Amérique septentrionale, published in Paris in 1672. In it he described in detail the land and people of seventeenth century Acadia, an important legacy of his years of struggle to settle Acadia. He observed that the group who had gone on to Port Royal had grown considerably in number by the late seventeenth century. William F. Ganong, Denys’s translator maintained that these early settlers were the ancestors of the present Acadians.¹³ Other researchers argue that these people were not settlers but transient labourers since the group did not include women.¹⁴

            Charles de la Tour’s claim to a seigneury in Acadia, dating from prior to1632, conflicted with Razilly’s commission. After the death of Razilly in 1635, d’Aulnay challenged de la Tour’s place in Acadia, and later that of Denys. D’Aulnay and de la Tour fought a battle for control of Acadia for 15 years, ranging from Paris to Boston to the mouth of the Saint John River and Port Royal. D’Aulnay won but in 1650 he drowned in the river at Port Royal. De la Tour returned to Acadia from Québec, married d’Aulnay’s widow, and resumed control of Acadia.¹⁵

            The conflict over the leadership of Acadia resulted in the slow growth of the colony. In 1644 d’Aulnay brought 20 families to Acadia, reputedly from the seigneury of d’Aulnay, near Loudon in central France.¹⁶ During this period the settlers introduced the technique of desalinating marshy land, leading to the establishment of successful agriculture in Acadia. For the first half of the seventeenth century, Acadia had depended on the fur trade and fishery. With the arrival of the Loudonaise and the development of local agriculture, the colony became self-sustaining, its agricultural production supplemented by trade, largely with New England as well as France.

            Acadia fell under British rule from 1654 until 1667. In that period the Acadians were allowed to remain, and Charles de la Tour was even to able to invoke the baronetcy his father had received to maintain his own territory. A 1671 census, conducted after the French had  returned to Port Royal, listed 441 inhabitants. In 1686 there were 851 people in Acadia, and the population had spread to new communities in Les Mines and Chignecto. There was another invasion from New England in 1690 but again the Acadians remained and the New Englanders did not even leave a garrison to secure their conquest¹⁷

Acadians and Île Royale after 1713

            The Acadians were in British-controlled territory after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. They were faced with the choice between remaining on their lands or moving to a French-controlled area, either Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) or Île Royale (Cape Breton). Throughout the seventeenth century Acadians had stayed on their lands through political turmoil, developing more attachment to “Acadia” and the way of  life they had been able to build in the new world than to any outside claim on their loyalty. Between 1714 and 1734 approximately 500 Acadians moved to Île Royale. There is also evidence that some Mi’kmaw families chose to move their permanent settlements to Île Royale, or at least away from Annapolis Royal.¹⁸ The Acadians who sought farmland in Île Royale were disappointed but sixty-six families settled at Port Toulouse (St. Peter’s) in 1717. These were younger men without land, former soldiers, and a few widows. Of these Acadian households, one third of the heads of family were born outside of Acadia, but all of their wives were Acadian.¹⁹ They were less interested in farming than in fishing, conducting the coastal trade between Acadia and Louisbourg, and receiving aid that the French crown was offering. They sold firewood to Louisbourg and developed local shipbuilding and by 1726 Port Toulouse had a predominantly Acadian population of nearly 300.²⁰

            After 1720 Louisbourg also attracted some Acadians. Artisans and tradesmen such as the carpenter Joseph Dugas, who lived on Rue Royale, were drawn to the new town. As well, many young Acadian women came to Louisbourg as servants. Several Acadian women who had married business men and military officers at Port Royal before 1710 also came to Louisbourg.²¹ Through these connections other Acadian women may have followed, the marriage records of Louisbourg contain 52 brides who had been born in Acadia.²² Some Acadian women had important places in Louisbourg society. The daughter of a prominent Acadian, Anne Le Borgne de Belleisle (b.1690), came to Louisbourg as the wife of Jean-Baptiste Rodrigue, a Portuguese-born merchant who rose to prominence in Louisbourg. As his widow, she was also active in business at Louisbourg.²³ Marie Mius d’Entremont, daughter of one of the founding families of Acadia, came to Louisbourg as the wife of the officer François Du Pont Duvivier (1676-1714), who had served at Port Royal. Marie’s sister, Jeanne Mius d’Entremont, married Louis Du Pont Duchambon (1680-1765), François’ brother. Louis rose to the post of acting Commandant of Île Royale in 1744.²⁴ Jeanne also served the administration at Louisbourg by acting as an interpreter for the Mi’kmaq.²⁵

            Throughout the first half of the eighteenth century Louisbourg was, to a degree, the metropole to the rural communities of Acadia.²⁶ Although Acadia was British territory, Louisbourg served for some Acadians in the role of capital or mother country, in as much as they viewed any place in that way. Its urban economy attracted Acadian labourers, its policy considered Acadian affairs, and its market for goods influenced Acadian agricultural production. At the same time, the French at Louisbourg viewed Acadians as distinct from themselves. Their appearance and their speech would have set them apart; in Louisbourg documents Acadians were regularly differentiated from the French.²⁷

            Most Acadians remained in British territory because of the lack of land suitable for their style of agriculture in Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean, and their belief that they could maintain their way of life under British rule, as they had in the past.²⁸ Many chose to move to settlements at Les Mines or Beaubassin, farther from the capital at Annapolis Royal. They were initially successful, their population grew tremendously; from approximately 2,500 in 1713 to 12,500 in 1750, and through trade with New England and illegal trade with Louisbourg their communities were prosperous.²⁹ They had been able to remain neutral with the British, keep their way of life, and maintain their religious independence and identity³⁰.

The War of the Austrian Succession

            After the declaration of war between England and France in 1744, life for the Acadians in British-controlled territory became more difficult. François du Pont Duvivier (1705-1776), the son of François Dupont Duvivier and Marie Mius d’Entremont and a Captain of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine at Louisbourg, led a small force into Acadia to attack Annapolis Royal in 1744. He attempted to recruit support for the attack by enjoining the Acadians to fight with “leurs anciennes amis,” the French.³¹ He identified himself as Acadian, through his mother’s family, and counted on his family’s support.³² In spite of his pleas to the Acadians, Duvivier was not able to rally the support he needed and he had to abandon his assault.

            In 1745 Louisbourg fell to a force from New England and in 1746 disaster plagued a French fleet led by the duc d’Enville  to retake Louisbourg and then Acadia. After suffering from storms at sea and disease, the devastated fleet was unable to launch any attacks in North America and returned to France without having fired a shot.³³ In February 1747 a French force from Québec under the command of Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas Roch de Ramezay, and led by Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers, surprised a New England force stationed at Grand Pré and defeated them in a night-time skirmish, resulting in a considerable loss of life for the New Englanders and their capitulation at Les Mines (Minas). Some Acadians had provided the French with intelligence about where British troops had established themselves in Acadian homes, relatively undefended. Other Acadians had tried to warn the British, who did not heed their warnings.³⁴ In spite of the British defeat, the Acadians were still unwilling to risk their farms and livelihoods by taking up arms in support of the French.³⁵

            The status of the Acadians in Nova Scotia had been based upon a qualified oath of allegiance that they had sworn for Governor Phillips in 1730. Governor Phillips considered the oath, which allowed freedom of religion and excused the Acadians from bearing arms against the French or natives, as an acceptable compromise. As he had not informed his superiors of the details of the oath, the compromise was only effective while he was in office. After 1749 the Acadians’ position had changed considerably. Only a few Acadians had chosen to side with the French during the war but the tension caused by these activities and the discomfort of New England with the return of Louisbourg to France, under the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, as well as the continued unwillingness of the Acadians to swear an unconditional oath upset the delicate balance that had endured for forty years. The new colonial administration in Halifax was determined to resolve the Acadian question.

            The growing tension in the 1750s caused approximately 6,000 Acadians to emigrate from mainland Nova Scotia. The largest numbers went  to Île Saint-Jean and to the region north of the Missaguash River, eastern New Brunswick, as well a smaller group came to Île Royale. The French were also increasing pressure on the Acadians to move. In 1750 the Catholic missionary, Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre (1709-1772) incited the natives to burn the village of Beaubassin (near modern Amherst) to force the Acadians to the French side of the Missaguash.³⁶ The French authorities demanded that Acadians who relocated to French territory swear allegiance to the French crown and swear their willingness to defend that crown.³⁷

Acadians in Île Royale after 1750

            The Acadians who came to Île Royale settled in the Baie des Espagnols (modern Sydney), Mordienne (Port Morien - Cow Bay), L’Indienne (Lingan), and Port Toulouse (St. Peter’s). Only the last two communities had any previous Acadian settlers.³⁸ Most of this group of 100 settlers intended to farm but found little success. The French had promised aid to the Acadians who resettled in Île Royale but the administration at Louisbourg did not deliver it. ³⁹ The governor of Île Royale in 1751, Charles DesHerbiers, Sieur de la RaliPre (1700-1752), criticized the Acadians for their lack of obedience, alleging that their attitude was the source of their difficulties.⁴⁰  DesHerbiers thought that Acadian qualities such as independence and a willingness to defend their collective interest should be abandoned upon return to French soil. Few of these new Acadian settlers remained in Île Royale when the French and Acadian residents of Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean were deported to France in 1758.

The Deportation, Le Grand Dérangement

            In 1755 Charles Lawrence (1709-1760), the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, ended negotiations with the Acadians and the governing council of Nova Scotia issued the order that the entire population be expelled from the colony and dispersed throughout British North American territory.  The deportations of Acadians from mainland Nova Scotia began in the fall of 1755 and continued until 1762. During this period approximately 6,000 Acadians were deported from mainland Nova Scotia and southeastern New Brunswick to the American colonies, as many as 1,250 perishing in the process because of harsh conditions on board the vessels and exposure to disease.⁴¹ The British troops destroyed their homes and villages and took their livestock as provisions. The Acadians who had fled to Île Saint-Jean and Île Royale were deported to France or to prisons in England after that colony was defeated in 1758. Of the Île Saint-Jean group, it is estimated that 1,600 died in the crossing, during which two of the transport vessels, the Violet and the Duke William sank.⁴² Many attempted to avoid deportation by hiding in remote areas of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. Some managed to escape deportation, others did not as they were pursued and the deportations continued until 1762. Some succeeded in making their way to Québec.⁴³

            Between 1755 and 1764 the Acadians that had been distributed among the British North American colonies struggled against distrusting host governments to reunite their extended families and relocate to more welcoming environments. Massachusetts was the only colony that had prior notification of the coming shiploads of Acadians. Most colonial administrations were unprepared and  unsure of how to cope with the impoverished and weakened refugees. Being French and Catholic at a time of war between France and Britain, the Acadians were viewed with suspicion and their movements were regulated throughout the period of the war. One exception was Maryland, where the Irish Catholic population received them with hospitality. Virginia, however, refused to resettle the refugees and sent them on to England the following spring.⁴⁴

            The refugees from Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean were returned to France, or taken to prisons in England. Acadians were among those deportees who disembarked from Louisbourg at La Rochelle in 1759. Among the approximately 240 households listed, there were 28 passengers identified only as servante accadienne,(female Acadian servant) and another 11 merely as servante. There were also four domestiques accadiens (male Acadian servant) listed. These passengers may not have been identified by name because they had only been with their employers for a short time and were not considered part of the household. Louis le Neuf de la ValliPre, an officer from Louisbourg, named the slaves with his family, Charlotte and Jeanne Vital, but not the servante accadienne. One domestique acadien and one commis (clerk) were named: Denis Joseph and Morin LeJeune. Gabrielle Commeau and Marie Boudreau were the only female Acadian servants named on the list.⁴⁵ These Acadian servants, separated from their families in a country strange to them, were completely dependent on their employers but in the crisis of the 1750s they had few options.

            Scattered throughout the British colonies and in France, Acadians began to try to reunite their families and improve their living conditions. In Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Acadian exiles successfully opposed policies of binding out their children to servitude. Through this period some Acadians moved on to Louisiana and the Carribean hoping to find environments where they could reunite with neighbours and extended families, rebuild their communities, and practise their faith.  They held on to their ideas of Acadia in spite of the dispersion that was intended to end their community and culture. Many resisted sacrificing their own way of living to adapt to the new environment, whether in Georgia, France, or Québec.⁴⁶

Acadians in Cape Breton after 1764

            After the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1764, the Acadians were allowed to return to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. From 1764 until the 1820s there was a steady flow of Acadians returning to Nova Scotia. These Acadians rejoined the few who had managed to elude deportation, including a group of about ten families who had lead a  nomadic existence in the vicinity of Isle Madame, Cape Breton. Isle Madame was one of only two places in Nova Scotia, the other being Cape Sable, where Acadians were allowed to return to lands they had previously occupied.⁴⁷ This was the first area of Cape Breton that the Acadians settled after 1764. A comparison of the French census conducted in 1752 and the Cape Breton land papers for the early 1800s, shows that 23 of the 41 surnames found in the St. Peter’s (Port Toulouse)/Isle Madame area on the 1752 census, were found there again in the early nineteenth century.⁴⁸ Distinct names stand out in these records, such as that of Belonia Bushey, a petitioner for land in 1804, who was Bellony Boucher, an eight year-old living in Port Toulouse in 1752.⁴⁹

            Many Acadians chose land bordering relatives, rebuilding some of the extended family ties lost during the period of the Deportation. This enabled them to act together to support their interests. Twice a group of families, including two Fougeres who had the same names as two brothers on the 1752 census, and a Joseph Degatts, who may have been their half brother, Joseph Dugas, also listed on the census, petitioned to limit the land claim of the merchant, William Kavanagh, in order to protect their families’ access to firewood.⁵⁰ The land petitions were mostly filed around or after 1800, freehold grants were only available for Loyalists until 1817, but the practice had changed in advance of the policy.⁵¹ Many of those who filed land petitions in the early 1800s said that they had been residents of Isle Madame for twenty years or more, others who gave their ages, indicated that they had been born there in the early 1760s. Two petitioners identify themselves as having been residents prior to 1758, Lewis Munier and Nicholas Petitpas, both of Discousse.⁵² Petitpas was born at Louisbourg. Two Petitpas families were at Louisbourg prior to 1758, but his name has not survived in the parish records. Nicholas Petitpas, probably his father, was employed as a pilot at Louisbourg in 1759, clearly indicating that this family remained after the deportation.⁵³

            Acadians who had lived on Isle Madame before 1758, Acadians displaced from elsewhere, and newcomers from France and the Jersey Islands re-established the fishing and coastal trading economy of Isle Madame. Philip and John Robin, Jersey Island Huguenots, established a fishery at Arichat. They were the brothers of Charles Robin (1743-1824) the most important fish merchant in the Gaspé region. The Robins, who would later establish a fishery at Chéticamp, recruited exiled Acadians to return from Europe and work for them.⁵⁴  The merchants of Isle Madame and later Chéticamp exercised control in these communities through trade monopolies and truck payments for the labour of their workers. During the nineteenth century this control was countered by collective action by the Acadian fishermen and eventually by the growth of the cooperative movement in these fishing communities.⁵⁵

            Acadian resettlement of Cape Breton spread from the Isle Madame area to the western side of the island and inland toward the end of the eighteenth century. During the period of the American Revolution (1776-1783), many Acadians fled Isle Madame to quieter waters on the west coast of Cape Breton and in the Bay of Chaleur. They were joined by Acadians who came from Prince Edward Island, where they were unable to have title to their land and were obliged to pay rent because of the tenant-farming system in place there.⁵⁶  At the end of the eighteenth century more Acadians and French came from St. Pierre and Miquelon and France, fleeing the restrictions placed on Catholics after the atheist French Revolution. Many Acadians from Prince Edward Island chose western Cape Breton because it offered some arable land superior to that of the Arichat region. They established a  small farming community around the fertile lowlands of the  Margaree River. Others among them and those from St. Pierre and Miquelon chose the new fishing centre that was being established further north at Chéticamp, and the small “French Village” at Little Bras D’or.⁵⁷ Acadians on the west coast of Cape Breton built their houses so that they would not be visible from the water; they did not want their new communities to be detected.

            Chéticamp had been known to French fishermen for over a century but there had been no permanent settlement there prior to the 1780s. In 1785 several Acadian families came to establish permanent residences. They were encouraged by offers of land from the British administration of Cape Breton and of employment from the Robins. Among the settlers in Chéticamp were former residents of Louisbourg, such as Jeanne Dugast who was the youngest daughter of the carpenter Joseph Dugas of Louisbourg.⁵⁸ Her husband Pierre Bois, who was the son of a coastal trader at Port Toulouse,⁵⁹ was among the first to settle at Chéticamp. Monseigneur Plessis wrote Jeanne Dugas’ description of the wanderings of her life when she was an 80 year-old widow in 1812:

...née B Louisbourg, avoir été de la B l’Acadie, au lieu nommé le Grand Pré, puis Ltre revenue au Cap Breton, puis avoir demeurée B Île Saint-Jean, ensuite B Remshic en Acadie, puis encore au Cap Breton, de lB encore B Remshic, de la B Restigouche, de Restigouche B Halifax, de lB B Arichat, puis aux isles de la Madeleine, puis B Cascapédia, et de Cascapédia B Chétican, et ne s’Ltre jamais couchée sans souper⁶⁰

              Prior to the deportation the Acadians had been a coherent group, bound by family and community, language and religion,. The meaning of “Acadian” changed as much as their circumstances had after 1764. Place was still important to their communities, but henceforth there were two places. One was a remembered place at the centre, unified and independent; the other was a new place where they were allowed to resettle, on the periphery, in scattered communities. 

Endnotes