The Acadian Saga: A People’s Story of Exile and Triumph by Dean Jobb is the second book I have read that is solely dedicated to Acadian history, following History of the Acadians from fourteen years ago. Jobb covered the history of Acadian settlement and its frequent conflicts with the British authorities. The Acadians, a professed neutral and peaceful people who regarded themselves as independent and not aligned, refused to take oaths of loyalty to the British sovereign. Supremacy over eastern Canada alternated between the British and French yet before the Treaty of Paris in 1763 which established British rule in Canada, the French-speaking Acadians, after decades of professing allegiance to no one, seemed more of a threat than a neutral and peaceful people. The Exile in the subtitle refers to the Great Expulsion, when over a nine-year period from 1755 to 1764 some 11 500 Acadians were forcibly removed from their homes.
Jobb presented the Acadian saga in a well-organized chronology in seven parts. The titles of these parts were succinct but revealing. The book started with part one, Paradise Lost, covering the years 1604-1743, then moved on to Pawns 1744-1749; then the more ominous Countdown 1749-1755; Le Grand Dérangement 1755; Deportations and Exile 1755-1783; A New Acadie; and ending with Resurgence. Sparse illustrations and maps were included, but for the most part this oversize paperback was page after page of solid blocks of text. That is not a criticism as I could not put this book down and often remarked during the six days I read it how eager I was to finish it. However the appearance of so much ink on paper over 222 pages might deter some, based on the book’s appearance alone. I wished there was an index, as it would have made the composition of this review a lot easier. I take notes as I read but often needed to refer to the text for additional material and had trouble finding it.
The Acadians were forced onto ships, destination unknown. Their cries to keep their families together were ignored. Families were misled to think that all the ships would be in a caravan headed to the same destination, yet stories were told of parents watching their children or spouses disembark while they were left helpless on other ships. Conditions onboard were brutal, and an enormous number perished of disease, starvation and unsanitary conditions. Ships were often overloaded and were unfit to travel in the first place. Jobb wrote of the startling number of exiles who died in shipwrecks:
“The deportation from Île Saint-Jean was a senseless tragedy. At least seventeen hundred people–more than half of the deportees–perished in shipwrecks or died of disease. The operation was poorly planned, rushed, and carried out at the most dangerous season for transatlantic crossings. It culminated in the sinking of Violet and Duke William, disasters that rivalled the horrors deportees had faced during the previous three years.”
The Acadians were expelled to other regions of the British empire, and ships dropped them off at various cities along the eastern American coast. It was surprising to read the official records documenting how unwanted these refugees were. While some of the French-speaking Acadians eventually headed to French territories such as Martinique and French Guiana, about 170 sailed to a most remarkable destination: the Falkland Islands:
“The most remote destination for the exiles–and rivalling Guiana as the bleakest–was the Falklands, a group of scattered and windswept islands three hundred miles off the tip of South America.”
It took four months for the first group of exiles, a mere nine, to sail there from St. Malo in France. The islands “may have been cold and bleak, but at least they were free of the tropical diseases that were ravaging exiles in the Caribbean and Guiana.”
As I read this I wondered about any Acadian descendants who might be living on the Falklands now. I had no time to contemplate this as Jobb continued:
“The harsh conditions wore down most if not all the Acadians, and they retreated to France in the early 1770s. The fate of those who left and any who remained has been lost to history.”
This surely deserves further enquiry, and I will contact the people I met in Stanley earlier this year to see if there remains any Acadian presence on the islands today. There were other failed resettlement schemes. In 1767 550 exiles settled on St. Pierre and Miquelon, but within months most of them headed back to France. Most but not all, so I wonder if any descendants are there now. I can ask for myself when I am back there this summer.
Just because the Acadians and French spoke the same language did not mean that the former would find a natural home on the European continent. The Acadians had little in common with their French counterparts:
“They considered themselves to be a distinct people–they often referred to themselves as a ‘nation’ in their petitions–and they were a distinct people. France would prove as foreign to them as the American colonies and the port cities of southern England. Saint-Domingue and Guiana would cost many of them their lives.”
The Cajuns of Louisiana are descendants of the Acadians, and Jobb outlined their settlement of Louisiana. A misconception of mine was that the Acadians were expelled from Nova Scotia and sent directly to Louisiana. Not so. They were exiled elsewhere first, like France or New York, and then made their way to Louisiana starting in the mid-1760’s. The author wrote at length about Cajun history and traditions yet unfortunately the Cajun French dialect is severely at risk of dying out. What I found saddening was that a sense of shame permeated the Cajun exile experience to this day. In several interviews Jobb or other historians wrote how the Cajuns never learned about their history from their elders, and when they researched their own genealogy:
“Since they grew up speaking French, they realized their ancestors must have come from France. Yet not one of the scores of men and women in their seventies, eighties, and nineties [Comeaux Trahan] interviewed had learned of their Nova Scotia roots from their parents. For generations, the subject was taboo.”
and:
“Comeaux Trahan remembers learning the bare-bones story of the deportation in school and asking her mother why she was never told about it. Her answer was “laissez ça tranquille“–leave that alone. It was a common attitude, one Comeaux Trahan suspects grew out of a lingering stigma that, somehow, the Acadians deserved to be banished from their homeland.”
That is an extremely controversial admission, akin to blaming the victim, but Trahan is not alone in uncovering a sort of collective guilt. Other Cajuns have admitted the same. One visitor to Halifax said:
“Growing up, we were not taught that we were deported. It was like a shame…no one wanted to talk about it.”
Jobb covers the forensics and tries to find out who ultimately was responsible for the deportation orders. Talks about deportation had been discussed for decades but nothing ever was done about it. The author lay most of the blame on merciless British governor Charles Lawrence, who is portrayed as sadistic in his orders to round up and deport the Acadians, paying no heed to whether or not whole families departed together.
One cannot write about the Acadian saga without a mention of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie, published in 1847. Although the story is fictional and a woman named Evangeline never existed, the poem created a new awareness of Acadian history and identity, and brought widespread attention to the deportation. Longfellow portrayed the Acadians as a peaceful people who were mistreated by the British, not deserving of their plight. I don’t think Longfellow could have foreseen that his poem served as the catalyst for the resurgence of an Acadian renaissance.
The end of the book featured nine pages devoted to Notes on Sources. This was no mere list of titles in a bibliography. Jobb wrote a paragraph about every book he consulted and recommended. Included was Bona Arsenault’s History of the Acadians.
One Response
Very interesting. It’s true that descendants did not talk about it. Probably why we knew so little. I had d’ Entremonts on my street and played with their children. Thanks for sharing. I read all of your review. Well done.