A Critique of Nova Scotia’s Rationales for Expelling the Acadians

On August 10th, 1755, the Nova Scotia Government ordered the controversial Bay of Fundy Campaign. The purpose of the Campaign was to deport all of the Acadians out of Nova Scotia. Within a few short months, approximately seven-thousand Acadians were deported. In future deportation campaigns, between 1758 and 1764, an additional four-thousand Acadians were deported from the wider Atlantic Canadian region. For the most part, these additional deportations occurred in 1758 in the Deportation of Ile St.-Jean. By the end of all of the deportations, approximately eleven-thousand out of thirteen-thousand Acadians were deported. (1) Initially, in 1755, the Nova Scotia Government had several main reasons for deporting the Acadians. First, the Government argued that deporting the Acadians was a military necessity, citing in particular the Acadians who fought for the French at the Siege of Fort Beauséjour. (2) Second, the Nova Scotia Government argued that the Acadians had forfeited their British citizenship by refusing to provide an oath of allegiance to the Crown, which in turn meant that they no longer deserved their land nor any other benefit, protection, or service from the Government.(3) Third, the Government argued that the British Protestants would do more for the Crown with the Acadians’ land than the Acadians themselves. (4) Fourth, the Government argued that breaking Acadians into smaller groups would make them more likely to assimilate into British society. (5) Although the above reasons for why the Government ordered the initial 1755 deportation may seem compelling, were they sufficient? By proving that the reasons presented by the Government were either partly or wholly misconstrued, this essay will argue that the Nova Scotia Government did not have sufficient reason to order the initial 1755 deportation.

The main reason presented by the Nova Scotia Government for the initial deportation was that the deportation was a military necessity. The first justifications for this arguments was that the Government believed the Acadians had proved to be consistently rebellious. Governor Cornwallis wrote in 1749 that the Acadians “have openly abetted or privately assisted his Majesty’s Enemies… by furnishing them with quarters, provisions and intelligence, and concealing their designs from His Majesty’s Governor.”(6) Governor Cornwallis was referring to multiple examples of the Acadians being disloyal, although, Cornwallis did also state that this could be forgiven if the Acadians were to give an oath of allegiance instead of their usual oath of neutrality. However, by and large, Governor Cornwallis was wrong to assert that most Acadians were rebellious. Like most people, the Acadians were not interested in conflict that could end with the loss of their family, land, or their own lives. Even the Acadians from Beaubassin who joined the French because of the authoritarian rule of Governor Cornwallis vehemently opposed fighting for the French against the British.(7) Most Acadians did not want to fight for either side; they tried to remain neutral. When the Acadians did fight, only a few Acadians would ever be fighting from their own free will. For example, the Acadians were forced by threat of death by the Mi’kmaq to attack the British in Minas in December 1749. (8) Furthermore, the Acadian involvement in the 1755 Siege of Fort Beauséjour, which was touted as crucial evidence for the rebellious nature of the Acadians, was misrepresented by the Nova Scotia Government. The Acadians at the Siege of Fort Beauséjour were threatened under penalty of death to fight for the French. As a result of this death threat, British commanders Robert Monckton and John Winslow pardoned the Acadians, Winslow writing in his journal “That the Inhabitants be Left in the Same Situation as they were when we arrived, and not Punished for what they had Done Since our being in the Country.”(9) How then can the Siege of Fort Beauséjour be presented as crucial evidence for the rebellious nature of the Acadians? The evidence seems to suggest that it should not be. The second main justification for the military necessity of the deportation was that the Government thought that the Acadians did not respect their oath of neutrality and may, at any time, betray the British for the French.(10) However, as stated above, most Acadians did not want to fight and they remained neutral whether they lived in British or French lands. Additionally, the Acadians were in most ways both accommodating and subservient to the British. They allowed for British soldiers to occupy their towns, they sent their leaders into built-up British establishments, and they allowed, without resistance, for the Government to confiscate their firearms. (11) All in all, most Acadians, with their fertile land and prosperous trade opportunities, were huge beneficiaries of the status-quo and they had neither the will nor the firepower to attack the Nova Scotia Government: most Acadians were not a military risk.

In order for the Nova Scotia Government to cleanly deport the “Acadian military risk,” they needed legal cover. The Acadian refusal to provide the Crown an oath of allegiance was the primary legal justification for the Nova Scotia Government to deport the Acadians, take away their land, and revoke their British citizenships. From a legal standpoint, Chief Justice Jonathan Belcher charged the Acadians of being guilty of “recusancy”, which is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “an English Roman Catholic of the time from about 1570 to 1791 who refused to attend services of the Church of England and thereby committed a statutory offense.” Belcher cited both 1 George 1c. 13 (1715) and statutes from the Elizabethan era as past examples for when recusancy was treated as a crime punishable by deportation and confiscation of property. The law 1 George 1c. 13 (1715) demanded an anti-Catholic oath from all officials of state or church. However, this law only required officials of state and church to take this oath, and since most, if not all, Acadians fell outside of this definition, this law should not have applied to them. Furthermore, even if an Acadian was an official of state or church, the law did not state the ramifications of refusing the oath.(12) On the other hand, the Elizabethan statutes did include precedent for fines and loss of property for recusants; however, the statutes required the legal indictment and conviction of individuals as recusants and then additional legal authorization for the seizure of property by the Government. All of which was not done for the Acadians. Furthermore, there were no statutes or precedent law that carried convictions for a recusants family. The wives and children of the Acadian recusants should never have been held legally accountable and punished for the crime of recusancy.(13) Other than the above legal argument of recusancy, many of the arguments made by Belcher were political ones that closely mirrored the viewpoints of Charles Lawrence and his colleagues. In essence, the Government only had a faulty legal argument and some political views to substantiate the deportation of the Acadians. In other words, the Government did not have sufficient legal grounds to deport the Acadians.

The third reason cited in this essay for why the Nova Scotia Government deported the Acadians was that the Government believed that English Protestants could replace the Acadians and do more for the Crown with their fertile land than the Acadians could. The Government believed that replacement English Protestants would increase profit from the land,(14) and more loyally protect and reinforce British society.(15) Based on the other arguments made by the Government in favour of deportation, this assertion that English Protestants would be better subjects than the Acadians has more to do with their enhanced loyalty than their ability to boost economic profit. In fact, Governor Thomas Hopson, the Governor between Cornwallis and Lawrence, wrote to the Board of Trade in 1753 about how useful and necessary the Acadians were to the Nova Scotian economy, and how it would be “difficult, if not impossible,” to replace or persist without them. (16) The Government had been warned that their economy would suffer without the Acadians; however, regardless of these warnings, they still decided to go forward with the deportation. The economic result, as predicted, was a disaster. Historian Julian Gwyn wrote, “it was an act of econocide … unparalleled in pre-1815 British colonial history, and produced such economic devastation that it set Nova Scotia behind for perhaps at least a generation.”(17) Was this economic hit worth it? Was the loss of a generation of progress counterbalanced by the gains in loyalty? By looking at the above paragraph on the military necessity of the deportation, that provides ample evidence that, for the most part, the Acadians were loyal to the Crown, it seems like the benefits of the deportation did not outweigh its costs. The best-case scenario for the Government was that they deported a few hundred disloyal, outlier Acadians for the price of a generation of progress. As this is clearly not a good tradeoff, it is simply more proof that the Government had insufficient reason to deport the Acadians.

The final reason cited in this essay for why the Government chose to deport the Acadians was the argument of assimilation. The Government believed that the Acadians, once split up and surrounded by English Protestants, would assimilate into British society.(18) Perhaps if the Acadians, instead of being deported, had been treated with respect and surrounded in Nova Scotia by Protestants, which was the original vision Governor Cornwallis had for the Acadians, this may have occurred.(19) But, after the deportation and the poor treatment of the Acadians in the thirteen colonies, the Acadians did not want to assimilate.(20) “Seen from an ethnic or national perspective,” Historian Christopher Hodson believes that “the key storyline of the grand dérangement may indeed be the Acadians’ dogged refusal to assimilate.” And who could blame them? First, the Acadians were torn from their homes, robbed of their property, and subjected to the terrible hospitality of an overcrowded 18th-century sea voyage. Second, they were split from their communities and had no choice in their destination. Third, they were welcomed with extreme hostility, as can be seen from this extract of a letter from Charles Town, in South Carolina, dated November 25, 1755:

“Our Assembly has been sitting some Days, in order to determine what to do with the Neutral French brought here; and I believe we shall send them further. They are insolent Rascals, talk in a high Strain, call themselves Subjects of the French King, own they were Neutrals, and that they took up Arms against us, but allege for Excuse, that Col. Monckton used them ill.” (21)

Fourth, even when the Acadians were allowed to land, they did not receive good property or resources. The above reasons alone are rational enough to explain why the Acadians never assimilated, and they also prove that the Nova Scotia Government was wrong in their belief that the deportation would lead to Acadian assimilation.

In conclusion, the “military necessity” to deport the Acadians was at best over embellished and at worst fabricated, the legal arguments for the deportation were ill-founded, the economic ramifications for the majority of Nova Scotians were grave and not at all counterbalanced by any other type of societal benefit, and lastly, the idea that Acadians would assimilate better in smaller groups was incorrect. The main reasons presented by the Government for the deportation of the Acadians were not sufficient. Whatever benefits the deportation brought to Nova Scotia were outweighed by the economic losses alone. Unfortunately, the cruel treatment of Acadian men, woman, and children in the initial deportation were unjustified, and the subsequent deportations were even worse. In light of these disheartening conclusions, it is important for us all to remember to protest the othering of people different than ourselves. Hopefully, with education and courage, such events can be avoided in the future.

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Footnotes

1. Earle Lockerby, quoted in Earle Lockerby, “The Deportation of the Acadians from Ile St.-Jean, 1758”, Acadiensis, XXVII, 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 61.
2. Circular Letter from Governor Lawrence to the Governors on the Continent 11 Augt. 1755, quoted in T.B. Akins, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768”, in Records of the Deportation and Le Grand Dérangement, 1714–1768, ed. T.B. Akins (Public Documents of the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1869), 278.
3. Nova Scotia Government Council, quoted in T.B. Akins, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768,” 256.
4. Governor William Shirley, quoted in John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland (New York, 2005), 229; Anonymous Correspondent that wrote the “A Great and Noble Scheme” correspondent, quoted in John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 333.
5. Circular Letter from Governor Lawrence to the Governors on the Continent 11 Augt. 1755, quoted in T.B. Akins, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768,” 278.
6. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 252.
7. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 270.
8. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 262.
9. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 309.
10. Nova Scotia Government Council, quoted in T.B. Akins, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768,” 256.
11. Letter from JNO. Duport to Charles Lawrence signed by 207 Acadians, quoted in T.B. Akins, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768,” 261. ; John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 314–322.
12. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 320.
13. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 321.
14. Anonymous Correspondent that wrote the “A Great and Noble Scheme” correspondent, quoted in John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 333.
15. Governor William Shirley, quoted in John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland (New York, 2005), 229.
16. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland, 273.
17. John G. Reid, “Pax Britannica or Pax Indigena? Planter Nova Scotia (1760–1782) and Competing Strategies of Pacification,” The Canadian Historical Review, 4 (December 2004): pp. 678.
18. Circular Letter from Governor Lawrence to the Governors on the Continent 11 Augt. 1755, quoted in T.B. Akins, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768,” 278.
19. John G. Reid, “Pax Britannica or Pax Indigena? Planter Nova Scotia (1760–1782) and Competing Strategies of Pacification,” The Canadian Historical Review, 4 (December 2004): pp. 677.
20. Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 199.
21. The Pennsylvania Gazette; Date: 1755–12–18.

Bibliography

Acadian Heartland, “Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 1755–1768”, in Records of the Deportation and Le Grand Dérangement, 1714–1768, ed. T.B. Akins (Public Documents of the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1869)

Baxter, James P. What caused the deportation of the Acadians?, (Worcester, Mass: Press of C. Hamilton, 1899), n.p.

Faragher, John M. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland (New York, 2005), 209–335.

Fowler, Jonathan and Lockerby, Earle. “Operations at Fort Beauséjour and Grand-Pré in 1755: A Soldier’s Diary,” Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 12 (2009): n.p.

Hodson, Christopher, The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 197–212.

Johnston, A J B (John), “The Acadian Deportation in a Comparative Context: An Introduction,” Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 10 (2007): n.p.

Lockerby, Earle. “The Deportation of the Acadians from Ile St.-Jean, 1758”, Acadiensis, XXVII, 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 45–94.

Reid, John G. “Pax Britannica or Pax Indigena? Planter Nova Scotia (1760–1782) and Competing Strategies of Pacification,” The Canadian Historical Review, 4 (December 2004): pp. 669–691.

Reid, John G, Maurice Basque, Elizabeth Mancke, Barry Moody, Geoffrey Plank, and William Wicken. The ‘Conquest’ of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 127–154.

The Pennsylvania Gazette; Date: 1755–12–18.