History of the Acadians

Historically, the Acadians have been associated with the first settlers of Poitou, Angoumois, Aunis and Saintonge, however recent genealogical research has shown that many also came from northern France, from provinces such as Normandy and Brittany.

In the last century, Acadians have made achievements in the areas of equal language and cultural rights as a minority group in the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts built the Habitation at Port-Royal in 1605 as a replacement for his initial attempt at colonizing Saint Croix Island (present day Maine).

[5] There were also reported instances of Acadian settlers marrying Indigenous spouses according to Marriage à la façon du pays, and subsequently living in Mi'kmaq communities.

Governor Isaac de Razilly's administration at LaHave, Nova Scotia, prepared the ground for the arrival of the first recorded migrant families on board the Saint Jehan, which left La Rochelle on 1 April 1636.

[7] Nicolas Denys, who was stationed across the LaHave River at Port Rossignol (Liverpool Bay), acted as agent for the Saint Jehan.

With this ship, Acadia began a slow shift from being primarily a matter of explorers and traders, of men, to a colony of permanent settlers, including women and children.

[7] At Port Royal in 1636, Pierre Martin and Catherine Vigneau, who had arrived on the Saint Jehan, were the first European parents to have a child in Acadia.

[9] Kennedy (2014) argues that the emigrants from the Vienne and Aquitaine regions of France carried to Acadia their customs and social structure.

Led by Major Robert Sedgwick, a flotilla from Boston, under orders from Cromwell, arrived in Acadia to chase the French out.

La Tour, nevertheless, managed to find himself in England, where, with the support of John Kirke, succeeded in receiving from Cromwell a part of Acadia, along with Sir Thomas Temple.

During the English occupation of Acadia, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister, forbade the Acadians from returning to France.

The captain, Vincent de Saint-Castin, the commander at Pentagoet, married Marie Pidikiwamiska, the daughter of an Abenakis chief.

[16] Prior to the founding of Halifax (1749), Port Royal/ Annapolis Royal was the capital of Acadia and later Nova Scotia for most of the previous 150 years.

During Queen Anne's War, Mi’kmaq and Acadians resisted during the Raid on Grand Pré, Piziquid and Chignecto in 1704.

[19] During King George's War, Abbe Jean-Louis Le Loutre led many efforts which involved both Acadians and Mi’kmaq to recapture the capital such as the Siege of Annapolis Royal (1744).

)[21] Le Loutre and Broussard also worked together to resist the British occupation of Chignecto (1750) and then later they fought together with Acadians in the Battle of Beausejour (1755).

[17] (As early as the summer of 1751, La Valiere reported, approximately 250 Acadians had already enrolled in the local militia at Fort Beausejour.

During this time period Acadians participated in various militia operations against the British and maintained vital supply lines to the French Fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour.

[17] Acadians who were being deported from Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, on the ship Pembroke defeated the British crew and sailed to land.

[28] In the April 1757, a band of Acadian and Mi'kmaq raided a warehouse near Fort Edward, killing thirteen British soldiers and, after taking what provisions they could carry, setting fire to the building.

[29] Some Acadians escaped into the woods and lived with the Mi'kmaq; some bands of partisans fought the British, including a group led by Joseph Broussard, known as "Beausoleil", along the Petitcodiac River of New Brunswick.

The Province of Virginia under Robert Dinwiddie initially agreed to resettle about one thousand Acadians who arrived in the colony but later ordered most deported to England, writing that the "French people" were "intestine enemies" that were "murdering and scalping our frontier Settlers".

Returning Acadians and those families who had escaped expulsion had to settle in other parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, in most cases isolated and infertile lands.

Robichaud modernized the province's hospitals and public schools and introduced a wide range of reforms in an era that became known as the New Brunswick Equal Opportunity program, at the same time as the Quiet Revolution in Québec.

To carry out these reforms, Robichaud restructured the municipal tax regime, expanded the government and sought to ensure that the quality of health care, education and social services was the same across the province—a programme he called equal opportunity, is still a buzzword in New Brunswick.

Robichaud was instrumental in the formation of New Brunswick's only French-speaking university, the Université de Moncton, in 1963, which serves the Acadian population of the Maritime provinces.

In 2003, at the request of Acadian representatives, a proclamation was issued in the name of Queen Elizabeth II, as the Canadian monarch, officially acknowledging the deportation and establishing July 28 as a day of commemoration.

The date December 13 was chosen to commemorate the sinking of the Duke William and the nearly 2000 Acadians deported from Île-Saint Jean who perished in the North Atlantic from hunger, disease and drowning in 1758.

Northwestern New Brunswick and Témiscouata, Quebec, in Canada as well as Northern Maine in the United States joined hands to host the 5th CMA.