Expulsion of the Acadians

Expulsion of the Acadians
Part of French and Indian War
St. John River Campaign: "A View of the Plundering and Burning of the City of Grimross" (1758) Watercolor by Thomas Davies
Date August 10, 1755 – July 11, 1764 Location Acadia (present-day: Canada's Maritimes and northern Maine) Result Siege of Louisbourg Halifax Treaties Forced displacement of Acadian populace
Belligerents
Great Britain British America	France  New France  Acadian militia Wabanaki Confederacy  Mi'kmaq militia  Maliseet militia
Commanders and leaders
Robert Monckton George Scott Joseph Gorham Moses Hazen Benoni Danks Silvanus Cobb Charles Lawrence Alexander Murray John Winslow Andrew Rollo James Wolfe James Murray John Rous Charles Hardy Montague Wilmot Jedidiah Preble Roger Morris Jeremiah Rogers[1][2]	Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot Father Pierre Maillard Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope Joseph-Nicolas Gautier's sons Chief Étienne Bâtard Pierre II Surette Prudent Robichaud[a] Joseph LeBlanc[4] Alexandre Bourg[5] Joseph Godin Father Jacques Manach[6]
Units involved
40th Regiment 22nd Regiment 43rd Regiment Gorham's Rangers Danks' Rangers	Wabanaki Confederacy Acadian militia Mi'kmaw militia Maliseet militia Troupes de la marine

The Expulsion of the Acadians^[b] was the forced removal between 1755 and 1764 by Britain of inhabitants of the North American region historically known as Acadia. It included the modern Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, along with the U.S. state of Maine.^[c] The Expulsion occurred during the French and Indian War, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.^[d]

Prior to 1758, Acadians were deported to the Thirteen Colonies, then later transported to either Britain or France. Of an estimated 14,100 Acadians, approximately 11,500 were deported, of whom 5,000 died of disease, starvation or shipwrecks. Their land was given to settlers loyal to Britain, mostly immigrants from New England and Scotland. The event is largely regarded as a crime against humanity, though the modern-day use of the term "genocide" is debated by scholars.^[7][e] A census of 1764 indicates 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony, having eluded capture.^[9]

In 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the British captured Port Royal, capital of Acadia. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded the territory to Great Britain while allowing the Acadians to keep their lands. Reluctant to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain, over the following decades some participated in French military operations and helped maintain supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Fort Beauséjour.^[10] 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.^[11]

Without differentiating between those who had remained neutral and those who took up arms, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered all Acadians to be expelled.^[f] In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British North American colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, and from there a significant number migrated to Spanish Louisiana, where "Acadians" eventually became "Cajuns". Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island), and Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island). During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported.

Along with the British achieving their military goals of destroying the fortress of Louisbourg and weakening the Mi'kmaq and Acadian militias, the result of the Expulsion was the devastation of both a primarily civilian population and the economy of the region. Thousands of Acadians died in the expulsions, mainly from diseases and drowning when ships were lost. On July 11, 1764, the British government passed an order-in-council to permit Acadians to return to British territories in small isolated groups, provided that they take an unqualified oath of allegiance. Today Acadians live primarily in eastern New Brunswick and some regions of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec and northern Maine. American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the expulsion in the popular 1847 poem, Evangeline, about the plight of a fictional character, which spread awareness of the expulsion.

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