The Acadian Exiles

The Acadian Exiles-A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline is a classic Canadian/Nova Scotia history text by Arthur G. Doughty.The name Acadia, which we now associate with a great tragedy of history and song, was first used by the French to distinguish the eastern or maritime part of New France from the western part, which began with the St Lawrence valley and was called Canada.The Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion, the Great Deportation and Le Grand Dérangement, was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island- parts of an area also known as Acadia. The Expulsion (1755-1764) occurred during the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War) and was part of the British military campaign against New France.The British first deported Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and after 1758 transported additional Acadians to Britain and France. In all, of the 14,100 Acadians in the region, approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported (a census of 1764 indicates that 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony, presumably having eluded capture). During the War of the Spanish Succession, the British captured Port Royal, the capital of the colony, in a siege. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which concluded the conflict, ceded the colony to Great Britain while allowing the Acadians to keep their lands. Over the next forty-five years, however, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During the same period, some also participated in various military operations against the British, and maintained supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Fort Beauséjour. As a result, the British sought to eliminate any future military threat posed by the Acadians and to permanently cut the supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by removing them from the area. Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been neutral and those who had resisted the occupation of Acadia, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered them to be expelled. In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies