Acadia (French: Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River.

Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano is credited for originating the designation Acadia on his 16th-century map, where he applied the ancient Greek name "Arcadia" to the entire Atlantic coast north of Virginia.

[11] Samuel de Champlain fixed its present orthography with the r omitted, and cartographer William Francis Ganong has shown its gradual progress northeastwards to its resting place in the Atlantic provinces of Canada.

As an alternative theory, some historians suggest that the name is derived from the indigenous Canadian Miꞌkmaq language, in which Cadie means "fertile land".

In response to King Philip's War in New England, the native peoples in Acadia joined the Wabanaki Confederacy to form a political and military alliance with New France.

[24] During King William's War (1688–97), some Acadians, the Wabanaki Confederacy and the French Priests participated in defending Acadia at its border with New England, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine.

Two years later, New France, led by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, returned and fought a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy before moving on to raid Bristol, Maine, again.

[27][28][29] In the meantime, the French signalled their preparedness for future hostilities by beginning the construction of Fortress Louisbourg on Île Royale, now Cape Breton Island.

During the escalation that preceded Dummer's War (1722–1725), some Acadians, the Wabanaki Confederacy and the French priests persisted in defending Acadia, which had been conceded to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht, at its border against New England.

Towards the end of January 1722, Governor Samuel Shute chose to launch a punitive expedition against Sébastien Rale, a Jesuit missionary, at Norridgewock.

Under potential siege by the Confederacy, in May 1722, Lieutenant Governor John Doucett took 22 Miꞌkmaq hostage at Annapolis Royal to prevent the capital from being attacked.

Concerned about their overland supply lines to Quebec, they first raided the British fishing port of Canso on May 23, and then organized an attack on Annapolis Royal, then the capital of Nova Scotia.

Then, in mid-August, a larger French force arrived before Fort Anne, but was also unable to mount an effective attack or siege against the garrison, which had received supplies and reinforcements from Massachusetts.

To guard against Miꞌkmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, they erected fortifications in Halifax (Citadel Hill) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1751), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

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

[54] This was followed by the founding of Acadian newspapers: the weekly Le Moniteur Acadien in 1867[55][50] and the daily L'Évangéline in 1887 (fr), named after the epic poem by Longfellow.

[60] The second convention in 1884 adopted other national symbols including the flag of Acadia designed by Marcel-François Richard, and the anthem Ave maris stella.

[64][65] In 1917, the premier of Prince Edward Island resigned to accept a judicial position, and his Conservative Party chose Aubin-Edmond Arsenault as successor until the next election in 1919.

[68] The expansion of Acadian influence in the Catholic church continued in 1936 with the creation of the Archdiocese of Moncton[69] whose first archbishop was Louis-Joseph-Arthur Melanson, and whose Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l’Assomption was completed in 1940.

In 2000 a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada obliged the provincial government to build French schools at least in Charlottetown and Summerside, the two largest communities.

[[#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMacMechan190059'"`UNIQ--ref-0000008E-QINU`"'-96|[91]]] This appears to be in contravention of various British penal laws which made it nearly impossible for Roman Catholics and Protestant recusants to hold military and government positions.

In the Minas, Piziquid and Cobequid Districts the seigniorial fees were collected by the "Collector & Receiver of All His Majesty's Quit Rents, Dues, or Revenues".

[[#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMacMechan1900248'"`UNIQ--ref-00000092-QINU`"'-100|[95]]][96] Before 1654, trading companies and patent holders concerned with fishing recruited men in France to come to Acadia to work at the commercial outposts.

[84][98] A Parisian lawyer, Marc Lescarbot, who spent just over a year in Acadia, arriving in May 1606, described the Micmac as having "courage, fidelity, generosity, and humanity, and their hospitality is so innate and praiseworthy that they receive among them every man who is not an enemy.

[109] Much of the population surge on Île Saint-Jean took place in the 1750s, as Acadians left during the rising tensions on peninsular Nova Scotia after the settlement of Halifax in 1749.

[110] In addition, there is a diaspora of over three million Acadian descendants in the world, primarily in the United States, in Canada outside the Atlantic region, and in France.

Farmers grew various grains: wheat, oats, barley, hops and rye; vegetables: peas, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, chives, shallots, asparagus, parsnips and beets; fruit: apples, pears, cherries, plums, raspberry and white strawberry.

The fishery was pursued on a commercial basis as in 1715 at the Minas Basin settlements, when the Acadian population there numbered only in the hundreds, they had "between 30 - 40 sail of vessels, built by themselves, which they employ in fishing" reported Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Caulfield to the Board of Trade.

[118] Under English rule, the Acadians traded with New England and often smuggled their excess food to Boston merchants waiting at Baie Verte for transshipment to the French at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.

[120] As the Acadian population expanded and available land became limited around Port Royal, new settlements took root to the northeast, in the Upper Bay of Fundy, including Mines, Pisiquid, and Beaubassin.