The ACADIANS of LOUISIANA: An Introduction [incomplete]

 

BOOK TWO:     The Great Upheaval

BOOK THREE:  French Louisiana

BOOK FOUR:   A New Acadia               

BOOK FIVE:     The Bayou State

 

BOOK ONE:  Acadia

 

The Age of European Exploitation

The usual place to begin the story of the founding of Europe's New World is with the commercial revolution that swept through the continent in the centuries that followed the great Crusades to the Holy Land.  In 1095, Pope Urban II stood before a council of bishops at Clermont in France and preached the First Crusade.  The pontiff had learned from the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire that a new breed of infidel, the Seljuk Turks, had seized the Holy Land and refused to allow Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Places.  He urged the warriors of Christendom to strap on their swords, take up the cross of their crucified Redeemer, and hurry to the Holy Land to drive these Muslim infidels from Jerusalem.  The knights of France and other Christian kingdoms took up the papal challenge, and four years later the Holy City fell to them in an orgy of blood and righteousness.

These Christian knights fought the Muslims of the Holy Land for material as well as spiritual gain.  As they conquered the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean, they created European feudal states to satisfy their lust for more territory.  For two centuries they clung tenaciously to their principalities in the Middle East, but the Muslims refused to let them be.  By the 1200s, as the Christians gradually lost their grip on the eastern Mediterranean, the Italian merchants who had provided them supplies and transportation for their Crusading expeditions had opened a lucrative trade between southwestern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.  By the 1300s, despite the loss of the Holy Land to the tenacious Muslims, Europe was benefiting materially and intellectually from the Crusading effort.  The Italian city-states of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice exploited the Mediterranean trade routes that had not seen so much use since Roman times.  New ideas as well as new products flowed through the ports of Italy and southern France, igniting a Renaissance of art and ideas that transformed parochial Europe.  Put off by Turkish dominance of the eastern Mediterranean, the Italians, especially the Genoese, opened new trade routes via the Strait of Gibraltar with northwestern Europe. 

Meanwhile, the crusading spirit compelled two Christian kingdoms in a once obscure corner of Europe to move southward towards the gold fields of west Africa.  In the late 1300s, the Portuguese began the conquest of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa.  The natives, called the Guanche, who had inhabited the island for thousands of years, fought desperately to preserve their way of life, but island after island fell to the determined invaders, who used the Guanche as slaves on profitable sugar plantations.  In the mid-1400s, the Castilians drove the Portuguese from the islands and continued the conquest of the Guanche.  By the end of the century, most of the Canaries belonged to Castile.  Eventually, Spanish-speaking natives of the Canaries came to be called Isleños

The Portuguese, encouraged by the king’s brother, Prince Henry the Navigator, turned their attention to other islands off the African coast--the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verdes--thereby thrusting their economic and strategic interests deeper into the Atlantic.  The Portuguese established sugar plantations, worked by slave labor of course, on Madeira.  Meanwhile, with the cooperation of local rulers, the Portuguese established fortified trading posts along the coast of northwest Africa, moving steadily southward towards the equatorial zone and the prosperous kingdom of Benin.  What they found in their exploitation of the African coast proved to be more compelling even than pagan souls—gold, ivory, jewels, pepper, fish ... and more slaves.  Their ultimate prize, however, was a spice trade with the fabled Orient via a route around Africa that would effectively outflank the Muslims.  In late 1487, the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern end of Africa and noted that the coast beyond the cape stretched away to the northeast.  Ten years later, Vasco da Gama repeated Dias's voyage, used the winds and currents of the South Atlantic to propel him into the Indian Ocean, and, after a long and sometimes difficult voyage, returned to Portugal with a cargo of precious Indian spices.  The Portuguese now claimed an all-water route to unprecedented wealth and power. 

It was an obscure Italian with a bold idea who brought Iberian exploitation of the Atlantic world to an entirely new level.  Cristoforo Colombo was born in Genoa in 1451, the son of a weaver who lost his boy to the lure of the sea.  Young Columbus, as we know him, worked in the merchant fleet of his native city and then switched his allegiance to Portugal.  Sometime in the late 1480s, after carefully (mis)calculating the circumference of the earth, he conceived his plan—to sail due westward and reach the Indies by crossing the Atlantic Ocean.  He was confident that his skills at navigation and command could overcome all obstacles he would surely encounter in this dangerous voyage, which would give Portugal a much shorter route to the spices, as well as the unconverted souls, of Asia.  He presented his idea to his Portuguese masters, but a maritime commission rejected his calculations and refused to entrust a fleet to him.  Undaunted, he moved to France, England, and then to Spain but met similar rejection there.  He refused to give up and eventually sold his idea to Queen Isabella of Castile, who, with her husband, King Ferdinand of Aragon, had just conquered the Moors and established a degree of domestic tranquility within their kingdoms.  Christian Spain was ready, Isabella believed, to compete in the Eastern trade and to bring the Asians to Christianity.  So Columbus became the admiral of a fleet of three ships which set sail from the Canary Islands via Palos in the late summer of 1492.  Two months later, on the sandy beach of San Salvador, in the present-day Bahamas, the history of the world was profoundly changed when Columbus reached "the Indies."  Though Columbus himself never acknowledged the existence of the New World he had stumbled upon, others did.  Spanish conquistadors exploited Columbus’s great discovery, and by the mid 1500s, gold and silver from America, as the New World came to be called, transformed Spain into the most powerful kingdom in Europe.

Portugal came upon the New World in 1500 when Pedro Alvares Cabral, on his way to India with a huge fleet to duplicate da Gama’s voyage, landed on the coast of present-day Brazil.  The papal Treaty of Tordesillas six years before had awarded Portugal that part of the Atlantic east of a certain line of longitude down the middle of the ocean.  The place where Cabral landed and which he promptly claimed for Portugal stood east of the treaty line.  So even the Portuguese now had claims to exploit in what Europeans soon realized was an entirely New World.

Meanwhile, another Italian navigator, John Cabot, as he came to be called, also had seized upon the idea of a cross-Atlantic voyage to the Indies.  Like Columbus, he sought sponsors in several kingdoms, in this case Spain and Portugal, before finding one.  By the mid-1490s, he had moved to England, and in 1496 he and an Italian sponsor coaxed King Henry VII into authorizing a voyage to the East.  Sailing from Bristol, Cabot reached terra firma at present-day Newfoundland in 1497 and explored the coast extensively, going ashore only once.  Nevertheless, the English now possessed an early claim to the Indies.  But the coast that Cabot had explored and that may have cost him his life on a subsequent voyage did not seem to possess the potential for exploitation as Columbus's and Cabral's discoveries to the south.  England thus failed to exploit its American claims for many decades, leaving Spain and Portugal the early winners in the imperial competition for the New World.

But if one were to award the true "discoverers" of North America, of its size, its intricate configuration, and its economic importance, the prize must go to the thousands of fishermen, whalers, and seal- and walrus-hunters who ventured there within a decade of Cabot's exploration.  Every coastal European people sent their sturdy sons across the cold, wide ocean.  Portuguese, French and Spanish Basques, Bretons, Normans, Englishmen from the West Country, Dutchmen, Danes, Norwegians--thousands of them ventured across  the dangerous North Atlantic to exploit the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.  "Together the whale and cod fisheries involved an annual trans-Atlantic migration of hundreds of ships and thousands of men.  Less spectacular than Spanish activities in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru, the fisheries in the northwestern Atlantic involved more ships and men."  By the 1550s, cod fishermen from northern France had perfected the wet or green fishery, which allowed them to fish the offshore banks early in the season, salt the cod in their holds and return to their northern European ports without having to make land fall.  But more extensively, and more importantly to our story, the cod fishermen developed the inshore or dry fishery for the southern European and West Indian markets.  This required them to build drying and salting stations along the North American coast.  Contact with the natives was inevitable, as was the exchange of goods and microorganisms.  The fishermen seldom used Indians in the labor-intensive drying operations, but they found a secondary market in trading with them, especially for furs.  This trade transformed Indian life permanently and profoundly, and someday it would rival fishing and whaling in economic importance to the Europeans.01

France in the New World

Except for its sturdy fishermen and a visit to Brazil by explorer Binot Paulmier de Gonneville in 1503-04, France was a relatively late comer to the competition for America’s riches.  "The Atlantic trade, except for a few piratical captains, was largely abandoned to the Iberians," a student of colonial France explains.  "The French crown prized far more the traditional Mediterranean trade with the Near East, and the enterprising Spaniards and Portuguese moved quickly to protect their tenuous Atlantic commercial advantage."  Papal interference contributed to this.  The papal bulls of Alexander VI--Inter caetera on 4 May 1493, and Dudum siquidem on 28 September 1493, ratified the following year by the Treaty of Tordesillas--divided the Atlantic world between the Iberian powers, not only for settlement and trade but also for exploration.  The papal interdiction was generally ignored, but France was not eager to test Spanish resolve in enforcing its claims in the New World.02a

Not until the 1520s did a French monarch, François I, authorize a voyage to America.  Yet another Italian navigator, Giovanni da Verrazzano of Florence, in his ship La Dauphine, explored the North American coast in 1524, seeking a Northwest Passage to the Orient for his clients, the silk merchants of Lyon.  Verrazzano charted the littoral from present-day Cape Fear up to Nova Scotia, calling what he saw Francesca, later Nova Gallia, and the northern part of it "Arcadia."  A decade later, in 1534, the Breton navigator Jacques Cartier of St.-Malo, searching for mines and the Northwest Passage, re-discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  On subsequent voyages into the early 1540s, he explored the magnificent river that flowed into the gulf as far up as the falls above present-day Montréal, proving that it was not the elusive passage to the Orient.  He and his men then spent a hard, cold winter at the Iroquoian town of Stadacona, the site of present-day Québec.  Meanwhile, attempts at establishing a French colony in North America came to nothing, but Cartier's explorations in the St. Lawrence region gave France a claim to that part of the continent.02

The Protestant revolt that had erupted in Europe a generation after Columbus’s discovery of the New World consumed France, as much as it did Germany and England, in a maelstrom of rancor and violence.  The French theologian Jean Calvin was as important a figure in the struggle against Catholic authority as was the founder of Protestantism, the German priest Martin Luther.  Having been run out of France in the year of Cartier’s first voyage to North America, Calvin took refuge in Geneva, but his ideas seeped back into this native country.  French Protestants, known as Huguenots, challenged the authority of the pope and preached what Catholics insisted were heretical doctrines.  As a result of these intractable theological differences and a bloody rivalry between noble families for control of the throne, a series of civil wars raged through France from 1562 to 1598.  "At times," a modern historian tells us, "they brought the French monarchy very low; the nobility came near to mastering it.  Yet, in the end, aristocratic rivalries benefited a crown which could use one faction against another.  Meanwhile, the wretched population of France had to bear the brunt of disorder and devastation.  In 1589 a member of a junior branch of the royal family, Henry, ruler of the little Spanish kingdom of Navarre, became (after the murder of his predecessor) Henry IV of France and inaugurated the Bourbon line whose descendants still claim the French throne.  He had been a Protestant, but now accepted Catholicism as the condition of succession, recognizing the religion most Frenchmen would stand by.  The Protestants were given guarantees which left them a state within a state, the possessors of fortified towns where the king’s writ did not run."03

Despite domestic upheaval, the Huguenots, at least, tried to establish French colonies in the New World.  In 1555, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, a powerful Huguenot leader, sent an expedition under Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon to establish a colony of his fellow Protestants on an island in the harbor of present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil--a refuge for oppressed Huguenots.  Coligny ignored the fact that Portuguese had long claimed the area.  The next year, Coligny sent 300 reinforcements to the Huguenot refuge, "many picked personally by Jean Calvin himself."  The colony languished, and in 1558 the Portuguese attacked the settlement and hanged all of its survivors.03a 

Undaunted, Coligny tried again, this time in an area claimed by Spain.  In 1562, he sent a lieutenant, Jean Ribaut, to plant a Huguenot colony in Florida, which would serve as a base "to prey upon Spanish galleons in the Caribbean and to watch for an opportunity to intervene in the West Indies."  Ribaut built a fort near present-day Port Royal, South Carolina, which he named Charlesfort after King Charles IX, and then he returned to France.  Not long after he left, the unhappy tenants of the fort turned on one another, murdered the officer whom Ribaut had left in charge, built a ship of their own, and abandoned the fort to the elements.  In 1564, Coligny sent another lieutenant, René de Laudonnière, to try again.  Fort Caroline in northern Florida, also named after the French king, stood on a hill beside the St. Johns River and fared better, or at least a bit longer, than Ribaut's fort up the coast.  Eventually, however, Laudonnière and his colonists quarreled bitterly, ran short of food, found no gold, and alienated the local Indians.  Even worse for the hapless Huguenots, Spanish authorities learned of the French incursion into their territory and resolved to rid the New World of these troublesome heretics.  In September 1565, a powerful expedition led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés attacked Fort Caroline and massacred most of the settlers, including the redoubtable Jean Ribaut.  Menéndez promptly erected a stronghold at nearby San Agústín, today's St. Augustine, 40 miles south of Fort Caroline, to keep Protestants away from the Catholic realm.  Seven years later, in August 1572, during the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, Catholic militants murdered Coligny along with other prominent Huguenots, "thus bringing to an end the first phase of French transatlantic expansion" and precipitating a fourth war of religion in France.04

The Founding of Acadia

Not until well into the reign of Henry IV did the French attempt another lodgment in America.  It is then that the history of Acadia begins in earnest.05

In November 1603, at the king's residence at Fontainebleau just outside of Paris, Henry IV granted Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, a distinguished member of his court and a Calvinist, "extensive rights to settlement, trade, and fishery" for 10 years in the area the French called La Cadie.  That Henry IV rewarded the monopoly and the title of lieutenant governor to a Huguenot gives some idea of how open-minded the French had become in religious matters, at least while Henry reigned.  To the French, La Cadie comprised not only the peninsula of present-day Nova Scotia but also what is now New England and New York, much of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, all of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island (called Île St.-Jean by the French), Cape Breton Island, Newfoundland, the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and much of what is today the Province of Québec.06

Like his fellow Protestant Coligny, Dugua established a settlement in territory claimed by a rival nation--in this case, England.  Unlike Coligny, Dugua chose not to remain in France but to go himself to oversee the establishment of his new holdings.  Also unlike Coligny, Dugua would establish a settlement in La Cadie not to create a "New France" in North America but only as a headquarters for his commercial venture.  Dugua had already spent a winter at Tadoussac, the fur-trading center on the lower St. Lawrence River, and sought a milder climate to the south for his new settlement.  Also, having witnessed the annual frenzy by French traders in the St. Lawrence valley to acquire beaver pelts from the Indians, he chose to set up his fur-trading monopoly not on the lower St. Lawrence but further down the Atlantic coast, where the natives had not yet been exploited by his fellow countrymen.06a

Dugua crossed to Acadia from Le Havre in early March 1604 in two ships--the Bonne Renommée, 150 tons, and the Don de Dieu, 120 tons--and a small unnamed barque or pinnace of 8 tons, with 120 men in the expedition.  No women and certainly no families accompanied this venture.  This was first and foremost a commercial enterprise bankrolled by an association of merchants, both Catholic and Protestant, from Rouen, St.-Malo, La Rochelle, and St.-Jean-de-Luz.  Large profits from trading for fur with the Indians was the main reason for the venture; everything else, including the local fishery, would be secondary to that trade.  With Dugua were Jean de Biencourt, sieur de Poutrincourt et de Saint-Just, an influential Catholic nobleman, who had come on the voyage "for his pleasure"; François Gravé, sieur du Pont, called Pontgravé, of Honfleur, Dugua's second in command, who knew North American waters well; and Samuel Champlain, an experienced navigator and geographer and friend of Dugua from their native region of Saintonge, who served as the expedition's cartographer.   Champlain also had spent some time in the St. Lawrence valley before 1604; he had explored as far up as present-day Montréal as well as several of the great river's tributaries.  It was his job to advise Dugua on the best place to set up the new trading center.06b

Dugua's little fleet reached Acadia in early May and landed in two places.  The larger ship, under Pontgravé, reached Canso, a fishing rendezvous on the Atlantic side of the Acadian peninsula, where it remained to intercept any contraband traffic, while the smaller ship and the pinnace, with Dugua and Champlain, landed at Cap de La Hève, now La Have, farther down the coast.  Unfamiliar with these waters, Dugua moved the ship carefully down the coast and anchored at Port-au-Mouton, where he waited while Champlain, with 10 men, took the pinnace to explore the coast to the southwest.  Champlain inched his way around Cap-Nègre and Cap-Sable and sailed north to the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, which the French called, appropriately, the Grand Baie Française.  Champlain hurried back to Port-au-Mouton, informed Dugua of what he had discovered, and Dugua sailed the Don de Dieu to present-day St. Mary's Bay, near the southern entrance to the great French bay.  Dugua now joined Champlain in the pinnace to explore the big bay thoroughly.  Along the south shore they came upon today's Annapolis Basin with its narrow gut, commanding hills, and spacious harbor, which Dugua granted to Poutrincourt.  They explored what was later called the Bassin-des-Mines, the name of which evokes the hope of finding valuable minerals in the area along with a plentiful supply of furs.  They sailed along the narrow Baie de Chignecto at the far end of the great bay and found more inlets and marsh-lined estuaries along both shores.  By then, they could see that the tides in the bay were by far the highest they had encountered anywhere in Europe and North America.  Northeast of the great bay's entrance they came upon the mouth of a large river which they discovered on June 24, the feast day of St.-Jean-Baptiste, and so Champlain called it Rivière St.-Jean.07

But Dugua chose another place to establish his settlement.  For a number of reasons--its security, its beauty, its mild climate, the fertility of its soil, the profusion of fish, clams, and mussels in the surrounding water, its proximity to the mouth of the great bay and to nearby Indians villages, and the lateness of the season--Dugua picked as the site of his new trading venture a five-acre island in a wide river along the northern shore of Baie Française, west of the mouth of Rivière St.-Jean.  The French called the island Île Ste.-Croixe and the stream on which it lay Rivière Ste.-Croixe.  Dugua landed on the island on June 26, and the post there took shape over the summer.07a  map

Pontgravé and Poutrincourt returned to France in late August with the ships and a load of furs "to take care of their affairs and, to plan for a later return, with more men, provisions, tools, seedgrain and livestock," leaving Dugua and Champlain on the island.  From early September to early October, Champlain explored the coast south to the Kennebec River in present-day Maine while Dugua supervised the construction at Île Ste.-Croixe, which included additional gardens and a grist mill on the mainland east and west of the island.  When Champlain returned to Île St.-Croixe, he found most of the settlement completed.  But the island soon revealed its inadequacies as a settlement.  The sandy soil held no water, so they could not sink a well.  Rain, which fell too infrequently, failed to nourish the garden crops.  Only wheat sown on the mainland, farther upriver, produced a crop.  The fish and shellfish became the staple of their diet.  Winter came earlier than expected.  Snow fell in early October, and by early December ice floated past on the river.  No more rain fell, only snow.  Deep snow that lasted through April, thick ice on the river, heavy winds, biting cold, and the poor condition of their boats--all made leaving the island nearly impossible.  If anyone had thought that moving the trading venture south of the St. Lawrence valley would mean milder winters, the experience at Île Ste.-Croixe proved otherwise.  In March 1605, a band of local Passamaquoddy Indians appeared and exchanged meat for bread, but this did little to improve the Frenchmen's diet.  By spring, which finally came in May, nearly half of the 79 men with Dugua and Champlain had died of scurvy.  Dugua had expected Pontgravé to return from France by April.  In May, Dugua ordered the construction of two more pinnaces, of 7 and 15 tons each, to take the survivors to Gaspé, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they were sure to find a ship to take them home.  Finally, in mid-June, Pontgravé appeared at Île Ste.-Croixe with two ships full of supplies and reinforcements.08

The colony was saved.  

For good reason, Dugua was dissatisfied with the island and explored southward all the way to Cape Cod to find a more suitable place to settle.  From June 18 to August 2, he and Champlain sailed one of the new pinnaces along the coast of today's New England, but they saw nothing promising.  Dugua chose as the site of his new post a place that he and Champlain had seen on their exploration of the great French bay the summer before--the beautiful, wide basin beyond the gut on the south shore of the bay, in the seigneurie he had granted to Poutrincourt.  There, in the summer of 1605, Dugua established Port-Royal, which became the oldest more or less continuously occupied French settlement in the New World and the heart of the French colony of Acadia.08a     

Dugua erected a small fort with several buildings on the north side of the basin, opposite Île-aux-Chèvres, today's Goat Island, near the Mi'kmaq village of chief Membertou, using materials from the structures on Île Ste.-Croixe.  The following winter, 1605-06, Champlain remained again with the settlers, this time with Pontgravé.  Dugua returned to France, where he remained.  Poutrincourt, who had remained in France in 1605, left La Rochelle aboard the 150-ton Jonas in May 1606 with more supplies and men for his settlement at Port-Royal.  To his chagrin, Poutrincourt found Port-Royal virtually abandoned when he got there via Canso in late July.09

After another hard winter with many deaths from scurvy, most of the Port-Royal survivors, led by Pontgravé and Champlain, had sailed to Canso, the fishermen’s rendezvous, where they were certain to meet ships from the homeland.  The fishing trade at Canso and other harbors along the Acadian coast had been flourishing for decades.  "First in dozens, then in scores, and finally in hundreds," notes an historian of the period, fishermen from western Europe "came to the coast of Newfoundland and gradually to the offshore banks and the coasts of Greater Acadia in search of codfish" throughout the sixteenth century.  "Norman and Breton, West-country English and Basque, Spanish and Portuguese, they gradually added to the technique of packing the cod down in heavy salt on their vessels (the ‘green’ or ‘wet’ fishery) the practice of curing their catch on shore, in the open air soon after catching, with much less salt.  This (the ‘dry’ fishery) made a more valuable product and required landing on, and learning the nature of, the rocky Atlantic shoreline.  Disembarking only briefly in the summers at first, they began to find the shore phase of their work important enough to require leaving men to winter in the new land in order to protect structures and to prepare for the following season….  We have records of many who virtually lived their lives in such a fishery and whose knowledge of the coasts of today’s Atlantic Canada must often have been profound.  [Marc] Lescarbot described a meeting at Canso, in 1607, with a French fisherman who was on his forty-second annual voyage to the area."10

But Poutrincourt was not in Acadia to establish a fishery settlement.  The fur trade was still the major pursuit of the Acadian venture, and he was determined to start an agricultural settlement on his seigneurie to support it.  He ordered the men back to Port-Royal to sow vegetables and grain to feed the trading post there.  "A lime kiln was built, a forge set up and charcoal made for it, and paths were cut from the settlement to the fields and the valley.  Tradesmen of many kinds spent a brief part of the day at their trades, the rest of it fishing, hunting, and gathering shellfish.  They had a good winter [1606-07], and toward the end of March [1607] started sowing seeds and building a water-powered gristmill to take care of the anticipated harvest."11

Then court politics threatened, not for the last time, the existence of the colony.  In the summer of 1607 news arrived in Port-Royal that the king had withdrawn Dugua’s concessions in Acadia.  The year before, "merchants and shipbuilders from Dieppe and La Rochelle succeeded in having [Dugua’s] 10 year trade and commerce rights in Acadia annulled just when the entire venture was beginning to look promising."  One of the charges brought against Dugua was that, during the three years since he received his monopoly, he had failed to convert a single savage to Catholicism.  Dugua gave up and stayed in France.  Without a concession from the crown to give him a monopoly on any profits to be made from the colony, he considered Acadia and the expense of its maintenance to be a liability, not an asset.  That summer, Port-Royal, "the longest and most elaborate post-Viking settlement of Europeans on the North American continent north of Florida[,] was abandoned—in the same year that Jamestown was established" by a company of English merchants 800 miles to the south.12

Champlain, however, remained in North America and directed his attention westward, to the interior of the continent.  The year after Dugua abandoned Acadia, Champlain founded a new trading post at Québec on the abandoned site of the old Iroquois town of Stadacona, where Cartier had wintered on the St. Lawrence River 70 years before.  Thus began the French colony of Canada or New France, which one day would thrive on the lucrative fur trade that Dugua had controlled so briefly.  Poutrincourt's little fort at Port-Royal lay abandoned for three years, watched over by Membertou and his Mi'kmaq ... until politics in France fashioned a new monopoly for Acadia, and the colony was resurrected.12a

Early Struggles to Maintain the Colony

This time it was Poutrincourt who would risk his fortunes in Acadia.  In June 1610, he brought to his seigneurie at Port-Royal at least 40 men and several head of cattle.  He also brought two of his sons, 19-year-old Charles de Biencourt de Saint-Just, the even younger Jacques de Salazar, and perhaps his wife as well.  Eager not to repeat Dugua's mistakes, one of the first things Poutrincourt did after he anchored at Port-Royal was to summon the local Indians.  Secular priest Jesse Fléché preached the Word to Membertou's band of Mi'kmaq and baptized 21 of them on June 24.  Only then could the French resume the business for which they had come.  Charles de Biencourt returned to France in 1611 with a cargo of furs and then hurried back to Port-Royal with reinforcements and two unwelcome Jesuit priests who had loaned him money to provision the colony and who now would share in half the profits.  It did not take long for Poutrincourt and the Jesuits to quarrel over religious as well as political matters.  Poutrincourt returned to France in 1612 on the annual voyage back to the homeland, leaving young Biencourt in charge at Port-Royal.  Biencourt also quarreled with the meddlesome priests, and again the colony was thrown into chaos.  Meanwhile, the ministers of Marie de Medici, widow of the recently-assassinated Henry IV and regent for her nine-year-old son, King Louis XIII, granted a concession in Acadia to the son of Pontgravé, who established himself on Rivière St.-Jean and promptly ran afoul of Biencourt's authority.  The queen mother also rewarded one of her favorites, Antoinette de Pons, marquise de Guercheville, who was a champion of the Jesuits, a generous grant in North America even larger than Poutrincourt's.  The marquise had provided invaluable support to the Port-Royal venture only because of the Jesuit mission there, but when Poutrincourt and Biencourt quarreled with the priests, she withdrew her support.  Poutrincourt ended up in debtor's prison, and for more than a year Port-Royal received no supplies from France.  In 1613, the marquise sent agents to Acadia to seize Jesuit assets from the Port-Royal habitation and to re-establish her priests on Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine.  Conflicting claims as well as politics in the mother country threatened once again the future of the Acadian venture.13

No sooner had these rival Acadian settlements put down roots than a greater menace came sailing up the coast, flying the flag of England.  Samuel Argall, a Welsh freebooter and the dangerous right arm of Jamestown’s new marshal, Sir Thomas Dale, sailed from Virginia in 1613 and destroyed the infant settlement on Mount Desert Island.  In November, guided by one of the captured Jesuits, Argall returned and fell upon Port-Royal, "looted and burned the … settlement, dispersed its people, and destroyed its livestock."  The incident would not be an isolated one.  It was, in fact, a foreshadowing of conflict over possession of Acadia that would haunt the colony for the next century and a half.  "This raid set the pattern for the future of the region," an historian of New France observes.  "Although blessed with rich natural resources[,] the Acadian marches, owing to their geographic position, were doomed to remain a buffer zone between the rival empires until one or the other prevailed."14

When Poutrincourt sailed back to Port-Royal in early 1614, he found only ashes and ruin at the old fort beside his lovely basin.  A decade of effort had produced little for him and his associates; like Dugua, he had his fill of this Acadian business, gave up, and returned to France, taking his younger son and most of the men with him.  But Charles de Biencourt and a handful of other Frenchmen refused to abandon the venture.  They had seen the rich potential of the trade in furs and were determined to supply the wealthy merchants of La Rochelle with the precious commodity.  Within a year of his return to France, Poutrincourt died in another bloody civil war, so Biencourt inherited his father’s title as well as his claims in Acadia.15

The next ten years of Acadian history were dominated by the efforts of Biencourt and others, including Claude de Saint-Étienne, sieur de La Tour and his son Charles-Amador, to profit from the fur trade.  The hardy young Biencourt "lived much like an Indian, roaming the woods with a few followers, and subsisting on fish, game, roots, and lichens."  However, he and the La Tours did not forget who they were and why they were there; they maintained trading posts at Fort Lomeron near Cap-Sable; on Rivière St.-Jean; and at Pentagouët, at the mouth of the Penobscot River, today's Castine, Maine, watched over by friendly Indians.  They also made frequent contact with the region's many cod fishing posts, from whence they could ship their furs to France via fishing vessel.15a 

Without the cod fishermen and especially the local Indians, the efforts of Biencourt and the La Tours to maintain the Acadian fur trade would not have been possible.  At first the French were no more impressed with the local Algonquian-speaking tribes than with any of the other natives they encountered.  The principal tribe of peninsula Acadia, the Mi’kmaq, whom the French called the Souriquois, "were a small group thinly scattered over a large area when the seventeenth century opened.  Contacts throughout the previous century, chiefly through fishermen, had prepared them for trading relationships with the French," but they were little acculturated to French habits and attitudes when Dugua and his associates first encountered them.  The Mi'kmaq numbered about 3,000 over the roughly 30,000 square miles of their territory.  The French put them to good use for their own purposes, and the Mi’kmaq responded in kind.  "The chief services of the Micmac to the French, consistent with the maintenance of their own basic culture patterns, were as guides, paddlers, hunters, and procurers of the furs and feathers for which a market existed in Europe, the St. Lawrence settlements, or the English colonies to the south."  This largely amicable relationship with the French was sealed by the efforts of Catholic missionaries.  "The slow, but ultimately universal, attachment of the Micmac to the Roman Catholic faith reinforced their ties to the French.  These ties were maintained assiduously by missionaries largely based on Quebec" who belonged to the order of Franciscan Recollets.16

Biencourt died near Port-Royal in 1623, and only the La Tours remained to carry on the Acadian fur trade.  Charles La Tour claimed that Biencourt had bequeathed to him his rights to the colony, but it almost did not matter anymore.  The English reappeared in greater force, and this time they came to stay.17  

The English Seize Acadia

Virginia, too, had endured its share of troubles after its founding in 1607.  From the beginning, the English colonists exhibited a remarkable ineptness in dealing with the Algonquian-speaking natives who lived in the vicinity of Jamestown.  In the first years of the settlement, mostly as a result of incompetent leadership and Indian depredations, the death toll among the settlers was astonishingly high.  The introduction of tobacco cultivation as a profitable venture and the conversion of Princess Pocahontas to Christianity after her kidnapping by the resourceful Argall were lucky strokes for the hard-pressed English during the administration of Thomas Dale.  In 1614, the princess married John Rolfe, the colony's secretary and the fellow who had introduced tobacco cultivation to the colony.  By 1619, the Englishmen at Jamestown managed to export the institution of representative government to Virginia and allowed a cargo of Africans who had arrived on a Dutch ship to become indentured servants.  But the peace that had followed the princess’s marriage to Rolfe was shattered in March of 1622 when the Indians under a formidable new leader massacred hundreds of the colonists in every settlement but Jamestown.  The king’s ministers soon took over administration of the colony from a defeated London Company.  By then, English Separatists had founded a colony of their own at Plymouth, near Cape Cod, in 1620, 15 years after Dugua and Champlain had explored the area.  Plymouth lay only 300 miles south of Port-Royal, closer to Acadia than to Virginia.  These "Pilgrims" were more adept at relations with the Indians than the Virginia pioneers had been.  And now two English colonies offered a potential threat to the tenuous French hold on Acadia.18

To make matters worse for the French in North America, in 1621 King James I of England (who also was King James VI of Scotland) rewarded one of his Scottish friends with a generous grant—Acadia and Canada!  In 1622 and 1623, Sir William Alexander, First Earl of Stirling and a prominent member of the House of Lords, ventured to the territory granted to him, which he called "Nova Scotia," that is, New Scotland, but he did not make landfall at today's Nova Scotia.  During the first expedition, he established a fisheries settlement in Newfoundland, which he visited the following year.  On his way home, he sailed along the south coast of present-day Nova Scotia, but, again, he did not make landfall there.  Not until 1628 or 1629, after his associate, David Kirke, had captured Port-Royal, did Sir William establish a Scottish settlement across the basin from the old French habitation there.  In 1629, the Kirkes struck again and forced Champlain to give up the crown jewel of French North America, Québec.  A third British settlement, Fort Rosemar, was established in the region that year, at Port-aux-Baleines on Cape Breton Island.  The story of French Acadia, and French Canada for that matter, could have ended in 1629, only a quarter of a century after it had begun, but the French, despite years of bad luck and neglect, were unwilling to give up their holdings in North America.  French Captain Charles Daniel, sailing under the behest of the newly-formed French Company of New France, attacked the English fort on Cape Breton Island as it was being built and carried its inhabitants to France as prisoners of war.  The Treaty of St.-Germain-en-Laye of 1632 ended hostilities between the two kingdoms and compelled England to return Acadia and Canada to France.19

In the meantime, life had become dangerously complicated for the hard-pressed La Tours.  Claude, the father, was captured in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by one of the Kirkes and taken to England.  Sir William rewarded him and his son titles of nobility in exchange for the outposts they controlled in Acadia.  This meant nothing to Charles, who seldom remained in one place.  "After the death of the … Sieur de Biencourt," wrote an enemy of Charles about his exploits during this time, "Charles Latour travelled the woods with 18 or 20 men, mingled with the savages and lived an infamous and libertine life, without any practice of religion, not even bothering to baptize the children they procreated and instead abandoned them to their poor, miserable mothers as the coureurs de bois still do today."  These half-breed children, called métis by the French in Canada, "became some of the staunchest allies of the first French families of Acadia."  Many of them were baptized by French missionaries and clung to the faith of their fathers.  They diligently pursued the trade in furs that sealed the relationship between the worlds of their parents.20

Razilly and d'Aulnay Resurrect the Colony

After Canada and Acadia reverted to France, Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful minister of King Louis XIII, organized an expedition to reestablish French presence in North America.  Heading the venture would be Richelieu's cousin, Isaac de Razilly of Touraine, a former associate of Champlain and a naval commander who had lost an eye in the siege of La Rochelle.  In May 1632, the King named Razilly "Lieutenant-General of all of New France (Canada) and Governor of Acadia."  The Company of New France, a powerful trading organization founded by Richelieu in 1628 to organize the cod fishing and fur trade in French North America but whose efforts had been stymied by English aggression, would direct Razilly's efforts, including the establishment of a new French colony to sustain these commercial ventures.21 

Razilly's expedition of three ships, holding 300 men, perhaps a dozen or so women, and supplies aplenty, all financed by his own trading company, departed Auray in early July 1632 and arrived at La Hève three months later.  He left most of the men and supplies at La Hève, until then just another fishing station on the Atlantic shore of Acadia but now his new headquarters, and hurried to Port-Royal to take possession of the old post from the surviving Scots, who he returned to Britain via France.  After 18 years of neglect and English interference, French suzerainty in greater Acadia finally was restored.21a

Razilly next had to deal with the troublesome Charles La Tour, who considered himself master of all Acadia and had considerable influence with the local Indians as well as powerful officials in France.  Razilly was forced to compromise with his clever compatriot.  La Tour and his men could retain their outposts at Cap-Sable and at Pentagouët and Machias in Maine, from which they could pursue the fur trade.  Razilly also granted La Tour a large concession centered on Rivière St.-Jean; La Tour already had built a fort near the mouth of the river to secure his rights to the area; fur-bearing animals were more plentiful in the woods of the mainland than on the over-hunted peninsula.  Razilly was determined to establish an agriculture-based settlement as well as an entrepot for furs and codfish at La Hève.  La Tour was interested primarily in the fur trade; the forts at Cap-Sable and on the St.-Jean were well-placed, well-protected bases from which to pursue his interests, but they likely had their agricultural components as well.22

Razilly brought with him two associates who also would play prominent roles in Acadian history.  Charles de Menou, sieur d’Aulnay de Charnisay, Razilly’s cousin and chief lieutenant, was 28 years old when he arrived at La Hève in 1632.  Nicolas Denys de la Ronde was age 29.  Razilly granted them concessions also, continuing the New World modification of what the French called the seigneurial system, whereby a land holder with sanction from the King could charge rent to the inhabitants of his seigneurie, as it had been done in France since the Middle Ages.22a 

D’Aulnay would direct the colony's principal agricultural effort at La Hève as well as the fur trade along the coast of Maine and on the peninsula.  As before, the agricultural component was secondary to the commercial one, "intended only to provide a supply base for the fur trade or the fishery," not "for colonization in the usual sense."  Nevertheless, as Nicolas Denys observed many years later, "'he [Razilly] had no other desire than to people this land, and every year he had brought here as many people as he possibly could for this purpose.'"  One of Razilly's biographers adds:  "In his letters to Richelieu, Razilly spoke in the most glowing terms of the land of Acadia and of the number of people then living and suffering in France who could dwell in comfort in this 'blessed land.'  'The soil,' he writes, 'is rich both on the surface and below; the sea abounds in fish that we are exporting to southern France.'"  Razilly established 40 allotments for the settlers at La Hève, and at least one successful wheat crop was reported there.22b 

Razilly and d'Aulnay chose to keep the agricultural settlement on the Atlantic side of the peninsula for several compelling reasons.  First, La Hève, with its excellent harbor, provided easier communication with France.  Nearby were the fisheries and also villages of friendly Mi'kmaq, who could help sustain the venture until it became self-sufficient.  Second, the soil at La Hève, derived from glacial drumlins, though not of the highest quality, was adequate to sustain a small agricultural community.  And then there was a characteristic of the Bay of Fundy, on the other side of the peninsula, that seemed to preclude any sustainable agriculture along its shores.  Geographer/historian Andrew Hill Clark describes it best:  "Around the Bay of Fundy and its various branches there are, roughly, some 120 square miles of salt marsh and associated bogs.  Its origin lies in the extraordinarily high tidal range of the Bay of Fundy area ... of thirty to forty feet at normal tides, and fifty feet or more at spring tides....  The ranges are still higher when gales are combined with spring tides...."   These amazing tides likely had been observed by Dugua and Champlain during their exploration of the bay in the spring of 1604, so this natural, and troubling, phenomenon would have been well known to Razilly and d'Aulnay three decades later.22c   map

Denys, a tireless entrepreneur, had little interest in agriculture other than as a source of sustenance for his many enterprises.  He took charge of the Acadian fisheries, a lumber enterprise at La Hève, and also shared in the fur trade.  His concessions extended along the south shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Canso all the way up to the Gaspé Peninsula.  He established his headquarters at Chédabouctou, now Guysborough, Nova Scotia, near Canso.  Encouraged by Razilly, Denys opened a fishing port at Port Rossignol, now Liverpool, Nova Scotia, just down the coast from La Hève.  In the 1640s, he built a post at Miscou, at the entrance to the Baie des Chaleurs in present-day northeastern New Brunswick, and his holdings eventually included Cape Breton Island, where he built Fort St.-Pierre, today's St. Peter's, in the early 1640s.23 

Under Razilly's vigorous leadership, the resurrected Acadian colony held every promise of success.  But two incidents during his short time at the helm of the Acadian venture threatened the colony's survival.  By 1632, the year Razilly commenced his settlement at La Hève, the English had established yet another colony along the wide swath of the North American coast—Massachusetts Bay in 1629.  The founders of this colony were dour, exceedingly righteous, extraordinarily hardworking Puritan dissidents whom the new English king, Charles I, was glad to be rid of.  He granted them a charter to establish their "City upon a Hill."  Boston, up the coast from the Separatist settlement at Plymouth, had a flawless harbor and thus every chance of permanence.  Other English settlements had appeared in the area--Wessagusett, now Weymouth; Merry Mount, now Quincy; and Naumkeag, now Salem--and were subsumed into the Massachusetts Bay colony after Boston was established in 1630.  New England was there to stay.  It was only a matter of time before these good Puritans clashed with their papist neighbors up the coast.  In 1633, a Massachusetts merchant named Isaac Allerton sailed to Machias, between Pentagouët and Rivière Ste.-Croix, to rescue three English traders whom Charles La Tour was holding there and to assert his claim to the outpost.  La Tour and Razilly informed the rescuer that English rights extended up the coast of  Maine only as far as the Kennebec River.  By 1635, Razilly felt secure enough to send d'Aulnay to seize the fort the English had built at Pentagouët.  This left that post, Machias, the Ste.-Croix, and the St.-Jean squarely in French Acadia … for now.24

The other incident occurred at the old fishing village of Canso, up the coast from La Hève.  Razilly had sent another lieutenant, Nicolas Le Creux du Brueil, to construct a stockade, Fort St.-François, at Canso to protect his interests there.  Meanwhile, back in France, Richelieu had granted one Jean Thomas permission to engage in cod fishing on the Grand Banks, but, respecting Razilly's concession in the region, forbade Thomas from engaging in any sort of  trade with the Indians.  In 1635, ignoring the minister's restrictions, Thomas set up his own operation near Canso and began a lucrative fur trade with the Mi'kmaq, who could care less about European points of law.  Even worse, "Thomas incited the Indians through talk and plying them with wine to attack and pillage the fort," which they did at the end of July.  Razilly acted swiftly.  He sent lieutenant Bernard Marot to Canso to capture Thomas and bring him to La Hève for judgment.  Holding Thomas in confinement, Razilly held two inquiries, in which he grilled members of Thomas's crew and residents of Canso about the fisherman's activities.  Adjudged guilty, Thomas was hustled back to France and imprisoned at La Rochelle.  In September, Thomas, who probably had friends at court, secured an early release on bail.  Wisely, he did not return to Acadia, where only a fool would have had the temerity to challenge Razilly's interests there.24a

Unfortunately for the colony, Isaac de Razilly died suddenly at La Hève in July 1636, and, again, Acadia was thrown into confusion.  Isaac, who was only age 49 when he died, had never married, so his brother, Claude de Launay-Rasilly, inherited his shares in the family's trading company.  To the chagrin of La Tour and Denys, Claude, who had spent little time in Acadia and who chose to remain in France, named d’Aulnay as his agent in Acadia.  La Tour insisted that Rasilly and d’Aulnay guarantee to him rights to the Pentagouët outpost, as Razilly had done.  Denys continued to develop the flourishing fisheries and the fur and lumber trades on his concessions.25  

Soon after Razilly's death, d’Aulnay moved his headquarters from La Hève to Port-Royal, where he believed there was more arable land to build up the colony's base of supply than on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.  During the late 1630s, most of the settlers still at La Hève, who had numbered less than a hundred in 1635, followed d'Aulnay to Port-Royal, where he settled them "on individual allotments on which they could contemplate some security of future...."  The ones who remained at La Hève most likely had taken Indian wives from local villages and were encouraged to remain with their métis families.  Genealogical records reveal that only two of the original settlers at La Hève established families at Port-Royal:  Pierre Comeau, a cooper, was 34 years old and still a bachelor when he came to Acadia in 1632.  Razilly's trusted lieutenant, Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, of Couperans or Conflans en Brie, was married and the father of two or three children when he came to Acadia, but he probably did not bring his family with him, at least not on the first voyage.26

In May 1636, a few months before Razilly's death and d'Aulnay's move to Port-Royal, the ship St.-Jehan arrived at La Hève from La Rochelle.   Aboard were the first recorded French families in Acadia.  They included 35-year-old farmer Pierre Martin of Saint-Germain de Bourgueil, in the Loire valley, his wife Catherine Vigneau, and sons Étienne age 5, Pierre, fils, age 4, and Urbain age 2; Guillaume Trahan, also 35, an edge-tool maker from Montreuil-Bellay in Anjou but living in Bourgueil when he left France, his wife Françoise Corbineau, two daughters, Jeanne age 7, and a younger daughter whose name and age have been lost to history, as well as a valet; and Isaac Pesseley, a merchant from Piney, Champagne, who may have sailed with wife Barbe Bajolet, age 28, and daughter Marguerite, age 3.  Also aboard the Mayflower of Acadia was Jeanne or Jehanne Motin de Reux, 21-year-old daughter of Louis Motin de Courcelles, an associate of Isaac de Razilly; she married the Sieur d'Aulnay at Port-Royal two years after her arrival.27a

According to Acadian historian Bona Arsenault, several other settlers came to the colony in c1636.  Jean Gaudet from Martaizé, near Loudun, at the southern edge of the Loire valley in northern Poitou, would have been a 61-year-old widower that year; with him were three children, Françoise, age 13, Denis, age 11, and Marie, age 3.  Antoine Bourg, a farmer from Martaizé, would have been a bachelor in his late 20s.  Vincent Brun from La Chaussée on the Loire near Blois, was another bachelor in his 20s who had been hired with other men from the area, probably including Antoine Bourg, "on a five-year contract as land clearers and laborers."  François Gautrot from Martaizé, who would have been age 23, came with his wife Marie, whose family name has been lost to history.  Although their names do not appear on the role of the St.-Jehan or any other ship that reached the colony that year, they certainly had come to the colony during d'Aulnay's proprietorship.27b 

These sturdy Frenchmen had been recruited by Razilly or his brother to enhance the colony's agricultural efforts, and they also joined d'Aulnay at Port-Royal.  Pierre Martin's sons Étienne and Urbain died at Port-Royal in c1636, soon after the family settled there--among the first French children to die in the colony.  By most accounts, Pierre Martin's fourth and youngest son Mathieu, born at Port-Royal in c1639, was "the first Frenchman born in Acadia"; during the late 1680s, Mathieu would pioneer the Acadian settlement at Cobeguit.27

D'Aulnay vs. La Tour, and the death of d'Aulnay

The move to Port-Royal put d’Aulnay’s headquarters perilously close to La Tour’s new seat on Rivière St.-Jean across the bay.  On 10 February 1638, the Company of New France, in the name of King Louis XIII, granted d'Aulnay the title "lieutenant general in Acadia with authority over Port-Royal and La Hève."  In that same year, La Tour’s powerful friends in Paris acquired for him the same title, lieutenant general of Acadia, with authority over his own domains, but the Sieur d’Aulnay would have none of that.  He and La Tour quarreled bitterly over who was in control of the colony.  Virtual civil war erupted in Acadia and lasted for nearly a decade.28

La Tour made the first move by seizing a ship d’Aulnay had sent to Pentagouët to assist the settlers there against English threats.  In 1640, La Tour took two ships to Port-Royal to capture the place, but d’Aulnay arrived from Pentagouët in time to capture La Tour and his men instead.  In July, d'Aulnay ordered an inquiry at Port-Royal into the actions of La Tour; three of the witnesses who appeared to testify against La Tour were Germain Doucet, Isaac Pesseley, and Guillaume Trahan.  The tables then turned on La Tour back in France.  By early 1741, d’Aulnay had returned to the mother country to inform the authorities of La Tour’s treachery and to shore up his hold on the colony.  It was during this trip that d'Aulnay sealed his financial and personal relationship with Claude Launay-Rasilly and established a financial partnership with Emmanuel Le Borgne, sieur du Coudray, a wealthy merchant from La Rochelle "who became at the same time the man responsible for fitting out [d'Aulnay's] ships, his banker, and his business agent."  The French court, now dominated by Cardinal Mazarin, revoked La Tour’s concessions and summoned him to Paris to answer charges against his conduct, which he refused to do.  Meanwhile, French authorities named d’Aulnay "Governor and Lieutenant-General of the entire coast of Acadia from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Virginia."  This left not only La Tour but also Denys at the mercy of d’Aulnay, who soon declared that Denys’s holdings along the Gulf of St. Lawrence now were his.  In 1642, with La Tour’s refusal to appear before the royal court, authorities in France authorized d’Aulnay to seize La Tour and force him to return.  With Le Borgne's assistance, d'Aulnay fitted out a fleet of four ships, including the Vierge, which he placed at the mouth of Rivière St.-Jean.  La Tour strengthened his fort on the St.-Jean and sought assistance from the English in Boston.  Under cover of night, La Tour, his wife, and some of his men slipped past d'Aulnay's blockade and sailed to Boston.  The ship La Tour used to make his escape, the St.-Clément, was manned by 140 Huguenots and had been sent to him by his merchant friends in La Rochelle.  The Boston magistrates at first were wary of the daring Frenchman despite his claim that he was now a Protestant, but La Tour charmed them into giving assistance in his struggle with d’Aulnay.  In July 1643, Bostonians manning four armed vessels joined La Tour and the crew of the St.-Clément in an assault on d'Aulnay's vessel at the mouth of the St.-Jean.  D'Aulnay's ship withdrew to Port-Royal, and La Tour and his contingent followed, but the English commander, an officer named Hawkins, realizing he had gone too far in assisting La Tour, refused to attack Port-Royal.  Meanwhile, 20 of d'Aulnay's men had taken shelter in a mill near the fort.  La Tour and his men, with Puritan volunteers, attacked the mill, "wounded several men, killed three others and took one captive.  They killed a quantity of livestock and took a ship loaded with furs, powder and food."  After La Tour burned the mill, "the Puritans returned home, having broken their orders and compromised their colony" by helping the volatile Frenchman strike his enemy.29 

D'Aulnay was more determined than ever to vanquish his rival.  He built a new fort at Port-Royal and then struck back, this time with words, not bullets.  After gathering statements from the colony's Capuchins and other supporters attesting to the treachery of La Tour, d'Aulnay returned to France "to request further help."  His efforts paid off.  On 6 March 1644, the French Court declared Charles La Tour an outlaw and a pirate.29a

With an even larger force, including the 200-ton frigate Grand Cardinal, carrying 16 guns, d'Aulnay hurried back to Acadia.  The object of his wrath was not only La Tour but also the outlaw's wife.  She had gone to France to plead for her husband's cause, failed, and managed to return to Acadia via England and Boston despite orders from the King to remain in France.  D'Aulnay and his associate, Bernard Marot, blockaded the St.-Jean again, waiting for their opportunity to strike with overwhelming force.  The moment came in April 1745, when they learned that La Tour was in Boston, intriguing with his old friends. Gathering up his forces, d'Aulnay assaulted La Tour’s stronghold on Rivière St.-Jean.  Madame La Tour and 45 of her husband’s men resisted valiantly.  After a three-day seige, d’Aulnay rushed the fort on Easter Monday, losing a number of men in the struggle.  Incensed by the valiant resistance of La Tour's compatriots, d’Aulnay hanged some of them "as an example and as a lesson to posterity of such an obstinate rebellion," and forced Madame La Tour to witness the atrocity.  She died in May, probably from injuries suffered in the assault.  La Tour "roved the Gulf of St. Lawrence as a privateer, before taking refuge in Quebec with Governor Montmagny."30

Having vanquished La Tour and made peace with the Puritans, d’Aulnay rebuilt the fort on Rivière St.-Jean, set up a profitable fur-trading venture there, and then turned on some of his other associates, including Nicolas Denys.  In 1646, d'Aulnay seized Miscou, on the southern end of the Baie des Chaleurs.  In 1647, he seized Nepisiguit, west of Miscou, which also belonged to Denys, and Fort St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island, which then belonged to Company of New France associate Guilles Guignard.31

By 1650, d’Aulnay’s control of Acadia stood unchallenged.  In February 1647, a decree of the new king, Louis XIV (for whom his mother, Anne of Austria, served as regent), had declared d'Aulnay Governor General and Seigneur of Acadia, his domains extending from the St. Lawrence all the way to Virginia.  The only glitch for d’Aulnay in this decree was that Denys retained his rights to what was left of his holdings.  Nevertheless, the assumption by d’Aulnay of La Tour’s lucrative empire brought him great wealth and undisputed power, though his relationship with Le Borgne soon deteriorated over unpaid obligations.  Keeping one eye on the fur trade and its promise of even greater wealth, d'Aulnay turned his attention to other enterprises, including lumbering and seal-fishing.  And he now could pay more attention to one of his original ventures, improving the agriculture settlements around Port-Royal.32

A successful innovation that d’Aulnay encouraged among the settlers was the dyking of the extensive tidal marshes along the Port-Royal Basin.  Using an innovative device the transplanted Frenchmen called aboiteau--"a sluice fitted with a clapet that was forced shut by the rising tide on the seaward side, then pushed open as the tide fell by water draining from the fields"--in a few years time this marvel of engineering could leech the sea salt from the soil behind the dyke and turn tidal marshes into hay fields and then into fields of golden grain or whatever else the farmers chose to grow there.  During the time it took the aboiteaux to leech the sea salt from the reclaimed soil, the dyked fields could serve as rich pasturage for the settlers' sheep and cattle, as well as a source of salt for the cod fisheries.33

Then disaster struck.  On 24 May 1650, a "dark and stormy day," d’Aulnay, accompanied only by his valet, paddled a birch bark canoe from Port-Royal, perhaps on a visit to one of the dyking operations.  Somehow his canoe foundered over a wide, deep mudflat, and he died of exhaustion trying to extricate himself from the icy mire.  A few hours later, Indians came upon d'Aulnay's body and the still-breathing valet.  They brought the valet and the governor's body to the north shore of the river and sent word to the fort of what had happened.  Father François-Marie Ignace de Paris, the superior of the Capuchin priests who had been so loyal to d'Aulnay, took the body to the fort and, after a solemn mass of the dead, buried it in the chapel "in the presence of his wife and all the soldiers and inhabitants."34

Suddenly the colonists had lost their most important leader.  To be sure, his ambition, greed, and aggressiveness had caused chaos throughout Acadia when he attacked first La Tour and then his other associates.  But it was d’Aulnay more than anyone who had insured the survival of the struggling colony.  He had encouraged families to put down roots in the Port-Royal basin to create an agricultural foundation on which to build a commercial enterprise that would endure.  Ironically, because of his indispensability to the colony, his sudden death left Acadia in great confusion.  His leadership was gone.  His creditors were many.  It was anyone’s guess who would replace him.34a

The death of d’Aulnay resurrected his old antagonist, Charles La Tour.  When the outlaw heard that d’Aulnay was dead, he left his refuge in Québec, where he had been "lodged" at the Chateau Saint-Louis by the governor, and hurried to France.  In February 1651, he secured not only a pardon for his misdeeds but also the governorship of Acadia, such was the fickle nature of the young French king and his chief minister Mazarin.  La Tour chose as his new lieutenant Philippe Mius d’Entremont, an army captain from Cherbourg, Normandy, and hurried back to Acadia.  At Port-Royal, La Tour found that the representatives of d’Aulnay’s powerful creditors already had visited the fort there.  Emmanuel Le Borgne, the wealthy La Rochelle merchant and former agent of the dead governor, insisted that the d’Aulnay estate owed him 260,000 livres!  In November 1650, Le Borgne had secured from d'Aulnay's aged father, René de Menou de Charnisay, "a formal recognition" of his claims on the dead governor's estate and sent an expedition to Acadia the following spring to satisfy the claim.  The Capuchin fathers at Port-Royal tried to protect the interests of Madame d’Aulnay, but Le Borgne’s men, led by the creditor's agent, Saint-Mas, pillaged the settlement anyway.  La Tour compounded the widow’s problems by demanding the return of his old fort on Rivière St.-Jean.  She was powerless to stop him, so in September 1651 La Tour returned to Fort St.-Jean to recoup his Acadian fortunes.  He ordered d’Entremont, who had recently come to Acadia with his wife and a daughter, to rebuild the trading post at Cap-Sable, leaving only Port-Royal and its immediate environs to the widow d’Aulnay.35

Le Borgne, still in France, was determined to recoup what the estate still owed them.  In June 1651, he may have sent his 11-year-old son, Alexandre de Bélisle, to Boston to improve relations with the New Englanders while asserting his father's claims.  In October, Le Borgne's men seized Chédabouctou, which belonged to Denys, burned La Hève, and swooped down on Fort St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island.  Denys and a brother were at the fort.  Le Borgne's men slapped them in irons and took them to Québec as prisoners.  Learning that d'Aulnay's widow, at the behest of the Capuchin fathers, had secured a powerful patron in France in return for two Acadian seigneuries, Le Borgne's men seized Port-Royal in 1652.  They imprisoned two Capuchins and the widow's agent's wife before taking them to France, but they left the widow d'Aulnay alone.37

La Tour, determined to stay clear of Le Borgne's henchmen and to solve the widow d'Aulnay’s financial problems as well, agreed to marry the good woman in February 1653; he was 60-year-old, and she was 38.  He brought her to Rivière St.-Jean, farther from the reach of her dead husband’s creditors, and there she added to the number of La Tours who called Acadia home.  "His marriage to the widow of the man who had ruined him and banished him from the colony as a pirate made Latour sole master of all Acadia, with the exception of the fief controlled by Nicolas Denys," one historian observes.  But financial matters are seldom solved so easily.36

Le Borgne himself came to Acadia in 1653 and, in July, compelled the widow d'Aulnay, now Madame La Tour, to verify his claims to her late husband's estate.  Le Borgne then seized Pentagouët, La Hève, Fort St.-Pierre, and Nepisiguit and imprisoned Nicolas Denys, this time in Port-Royal, before taking him back to France.  Securing the same powerful patron that d'Aulnay's widow had secured in 1652--the Duc de Vendôme, the King's uncle--Le Borgne returned to Acadia aboard the Châteaufort in 1654 to secure his and the duke's claims in the colony.  Denys, meanwhile, had returned to Acadia with a royal commission as "governor" of his former domains and had warned La Tour of Le Borgne's plans to seize him and his fort on Rivière St.-Jean.36a

But all of Le Borgne's efforts were for naught.  In the summer of 1654, the English re-appeared in force, and, again, they came to stay.

The English Seize the Colony Again

Much had transpired on the isle of Great Britain since the English and Scots last held Acadia in 1632.  In the 1640s, civil war erupted in England, pitting King Charles I against his recalcitrant Parliament, whose forces eventually were led by the dour Puritan, Oliver Cromwell.  By 1646, after much bloody fighting, Cromwell’s New Model Army decisively defeated the forces of the king.  Charles, however, was a stubborn Scotsman and refused to follow the reforms that Parliament had exacted from him.  He was arrested, tried, and convicted as an enemy of the state!  On 30 January 1649, he became the only monarch in England’s history to be executed by his own people.  His heirs, sons Charles and James, fled to France to escape a similar fate.  England became a Commonwealth, the monarchy was abolished, and by 1653, Cromwell had become England's Lord Protector.  Meanwhile, war had broken out between the English and the Dutch, which Cromwell ended successfully in 1654.37a

During that struggle, in 1654, an English seaborne expedition under Robert Sedgwick of Boston, a former lieutenant of Cromwell, was ordered to attack the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam, south of New England.  But before he could attack New Amsterdam, Sedgwick learned that the war against the Dutch had ended.  He sailed north, instead, to Acadia, where, in August, he seized Fort St.-Jean from La Tour, and La Hève and Port-Royal from Le Borgne  The garrison at Port-Royal was commanded by two Acadian pioneers, Germain Doucet and his lieutenant, surgeon Jacques Bourgeois, who may have been Doucet's brother-in-law.  Doucet designated Bourgeois as a hostage to insure that he fulfilled the articles of surrender, and then Doucet, as ordered by the English, returned to France.  Emmanuel Le Borgne, who claimed the seigneurie of Port-Royal, also signed the surrender document.  Sedgwick left Port-Royal in charge of a council of inhabitants headed by syndic Guillaume TrahanLe Borgne returned to France in the ChâteaufortLa Tour and Denys made deals with their new English overlords and continued their operations unmolested.  In the autumn of 1656, La Tour ceded Port-Royal, who he claimed was his, to two Englishmen, Thomas Temple and William Crowne.  The fort on the St.-Jean no longer his, La Tour returned to Cap-Sable, where his fortunes had begun, and died in 1666, at age 73.  Denys operated from Fort St.-Pierre and from Nepisiguit on the Baie des Chaleurs.  After securing an arrêt against the grasping Le Borgne, Denys remained in possession of his lucrative concessions, including the trade in furs.  In c1660, he established a new post at Chédabouctou, today's Guysborough, Nova Scotia, but lost it to another Frenchman, the Sieur de La Giraudière, in 1667.  Two years later, in 1669, Fort St.-Pierre was again destroyed by fire, prompting Denys to retreat into virtual retirement at Nepisiguit.  He did not remain there long.  By 1672, when he published his two-volume Description Géographique et histoire des costes de l'Amérique septentrionale, avec l'histoire naturelle du païs, he was back in France, and died probably at Paris in 1688, in his mid 80s.38

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Le Borgne used two of his sons first to placate and then to harass the English conquerors.  In late 1654, after the surrender of Port-Royal, Le Borgne left his oldest son, Emmanuel Le Borgne du Coudray, then 18, as a hostage in Port-Royal before returning to France.  He left his second son Alexandre, only 14, in charge of the family's interests at La Hève and other posts.  The English, under John Leverett, an associate of Robert Sedgwick, agreed to the arrangement.  Leverett and Sedgwick "enforced a virtual trade monopoly on French Acadia for their benefit, leading some in the colony to view Leverett as a predatory opportunist.  Leverett funded much of the cost of the occupation himself, and then petitioned Cromwell's government for reimbursement. Although Cromwell authorized payment, he made it contingent on the colony performing an audit of Leverett's finances, which never took place."  As a result, Leverett was never compensated for the expense.  Meanwhile, Sir Thomas Temple, heir to the Alexanders of Stirling, was named governor of Nova Scotia in 1656, replaced Leverett in May 1657, and consolidated his claims in the colony, including posts claimed by the Le Borgnes.  In December 1657, Emmanuel, père replaced Charles La Tour as proprietary governor of Acadia, but Emmanuel, père did not return to the colony; he sent son Alexandre to Acadia, instead.  In May 1658, Alexandre, only 18 years old, "at the head of a force of fifty men," retook the fort at La Hève and then attacked Temple's fort at Port-La Tour, near Cap-Sable.  Temple hurried to Acadia from Boston, counterattacked, wounded the young Le Borgne, captured him, and sent him to London as a prisoner of war, where he was "held captive for some years."  In September 1659, Temple agreed to return La Hève to the Le Borgnes.  In 1664, he "forced out some French fishermen at Port Rossignol and established himself there and at Mirliguèche...."  The colony then fell quiet.  In 1668, a year after the treaty of Breda supposedly returned the colony to France, Emmanuel Le  Borgne named his son Alexandre as governor of Acadia in his place.  Alexandre assumed the name Le Borgne de Bélisle and returned to Acadia in October 1668 to take up his family's claims there.  He retook the fishing settlement of Port Rossignol, on the Atlantic coast, but, after learning that England's King Charles II had instructed Temple not to surrender the colony just yet, Alexandre returned to France.  He did not go to Port-Royal until the English finally gave up the colony, but not as governor; as a result, Alexandre Le Borgne de Bélisle was the last proprietary governor of French Acadia.38a

The inhabitants of Port-Royal, meanwhile, continued to live as they had done since the first of them had arrived in the basin with d’Aulnay during the late 1630s.  A change in masters had not ended the trade that was essential to the colony's survival, it had only redirected it; commerce that had once linked them to France and Québec now centered on Boston.  As their numbers grew by natural increase, the settlers at Port-Royal moved farther up the basin and into the valley above it, creating new farm land from the marshes along the river with their sturdy dykes and clever aboiteaux.  While being held as a prisoner at Port-Royal in 1653, Nicolas Denys observed the remarkable growth of the settlement:  "There are numbers of meadows on both shores, and two islands which possess meadows, and which are 3 or 4 leagues from the fort in ascending," he wrote in his memoir published many years later.  "There is a great extent of meadows which the sea used to cover, and which the Sieur d'Aulnay had drained.  It bears now fine and good wheat."  He described how the settlers moved steadily upstream to get away from the prying eyes of the authorities at the fort and to create more farmland from the marshes.  "There they have again drained other lands which bear wheat in much greater abundance than those which they cultivated round the fort, good though those were.  All the inhabitants there are the ones whom Monsieur le Commandeur de Razilly had brought from France to La Have; since that time they have multiplied much at Port Royal, where they have a great number of cattle and swine."  Denys observed all of this about the time that the English seized the colony.  "Although we may accept Denys’s belief that [the inhabitants at Port-Royal] gave up their homes near the fort to move away from immediate English surveillance," one historian of the colony concedes, "the direction of the move was a natural one if they were seeking more marshlands and there is no evidence that the English paid much attention to them.  Certainly their new masters, whether from New or old England, had not the slightest interest in settling or actively developing the part of Acadia they controlled:  their interest was solely in furs and in the control of Indian attacks on New England, and the Acadians at least were protected from attacks from that area."  Back in France, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the powerful financial minister of King Louis XIV, ordered the inhabitants at Port-Royal not to abandon their settlements in the face of English occupation; he was confident the colony soon would be restored to France.  Some families defied Colbert’s order and returned to France or moved on to French-held Canada, but many, if not  most, of them refused to abandon their farms in the Port-Royal valley.39  

This was their home now.  They had begun the unconscious process of becoming Acadians, not just Frenchmen.  Their sons and daughters grew up and found suitable mates among their neighbors.  Married sons moved even farther upriver and, with the help of family and friends, wrested from the salt marshes new plots of ground on which to raise food for families of their own.  The older folks looked forward to the birth of grandchildren and the blessings of an extended family.  A spirit of independence and self-sufficiency had taken hold of these French farmers.  France, in spite of herself, had planted sturdy roots in the troubled soil of Acadia.39a

Resurrection of French Control and the First Acadian Census

Despite Colbert’s optimism, the English clung to Acadia, including the entire coast of Maine, even after 1667, when the Treaty of Breda finally restored ownership of the colony to France.  The English governor at the time, still Sir Thomas Temple, delayed turning over the administration of the colony to France until 1670, when the new French governor of Acadia, Hector d’Andigné de Grandfontaine, accepted the surrender of the English garrisons at Pentagouët, on the St.-Jean, at Port-Royal, and at Cap-Sable.  Following orders from France, Grandfontaine established his headquarters at Pentagouët, near the disputed border with New England.  Sixteen years of English occupation was over.  The colony was finally back in French hands, this time under royal governance; the often chaotic rule of the proprietors and concessionaires was over.40

The years of English occupation, ironically, had been beneficial ones for the Acadians.  During the time of English control, a lucrative trade had sprung up between Acadia and New England, and there had been a notable growth of settlement in the Port-Royal basin.  One historian records that "there was a substantially larger number of settlers up the Port Royal River above the fort than there had been sixteen years earlier; in Acadian terms almost a generation had grown up."  He adds:  "Documentation on the conditions of settlement and agriculture is almost completely lacking.  It has been inferred that after 1654 many of the French settlers moved on to Quebec or returned to France.  For those who remained (and they were, we think, the majority), we have to assume the gradual but inexorable increase of numbers and expansion of agriculture, the planting and reaping of grain, peas, flax, and vegetable crops, and the tending of sheep, swine and cattle.  If the period is largely a tabula rasa in the historical record, it was nevertheless one of consolidation and expansion of this nucleus of the Acadian population."41

With the full resumption of French control in Acadia under Governor Grandfontaine, immigration into the colony resumed in earnest, and the Acadians' illicit trade with New England merchants continued unabated.  Members of the Carignan-Salières Regiment arrived with Grandfontaine and his lieutenants, and some of them married Acadian women.  In the spring of 1671, Colbert sent 60 new settlers to Acadia aboard L’Oranger, which sailed from La Rochelle.  Other settlers arrived from Canada.42

That same spring, just before the L'Oranger reached Port-Royal, Grandfontaine ordered Father Laurent Molin to conduct a census of the colony’s inhabitants—the first Acadian census on record.  The good priest counted a total of 68 families and over 300 inhabitants at Port-Royal, as well as much smaller populations at Cap-Nègre, Pobomcoup, and Rivière-aux-Rochelois, also called Port Rochelois, now Port Razoir, near Cap-Sable; at Pentagouët in Maine; at Musquodoboit on the Atlantic shore; and at St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island.  Here was created a list of the First Families of Acadia, including families that had lived in the colony for over three decades.43 

The First Families of Acadia

Few of the men who fathered these first families were fur traders or fishermen, as in the early days.  Some were artisans, laborers, soldiers, sailors, clerks, and even high officials.  Most, however, were farmers, labourers, as the French called them, sturdy members of the peasant class who put down deep roots in the rich soil of Acadia--soil that they themselves literally created with their dykes and aboiteaux.44

In the first census could be found the names of two families whose progenitors had come to the colony with Razilly in the early 1630s: 

Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, had come to Acadia in his middle age and may have been alive in 1671 (he would have been in his late 70s), but he was not in Acadia.  After the English seized the colony in 1654, they compelled the "captain at arms" to return to France, and they would not have welcomed him back as long as they controlled the colony.  Counted in the 1671 census, however, were Germain's two grown sons, Pierre and Germain, fils, who had remained in the colony when their father returned to France.  Pierre had become a bricklayer and, when he was nearly 40, married Henriette, a daughter of Simon Pelletret and stepdaughter of René Landry l'aîné, in c1660, when she was in her early 20s.  Pierre was 50 years old at the time of the census, and Henriette was 31.  With them were five children, three sons and two daughters.  They lived on 4 arpents of land along the basin and owned 7 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Henriette gave Pierre 10 children, including five sons who created families of their own.)  Pierre's younger brother Germain, fils, had married Marie, daughter of René Landry l'aîné, in c1664.  Germain, fils was 30 years old at the time of the census, and Marie was 24.  They had three children, all sons, and lived on 3 arpents of land with 11 cattle and 7 sheep.  (Marie gave Germain, fils nine children, including five sons who created families of their own.)  Also in the census was Germain, père's older daughter Marguerite, called Marie-Judith by the census taker, age 46, married to gunsmith Abraham Dugas, age 55.  Germain, père's second daughter, her name lost to history, had married colonist Pierre Lejeune dit Briard in c1650, but they do not appear in the first census; they may have left Acadia by then, or both may have died before the first census was taken.43a

Pierre Comeau the barrel maker was still alive in 1671 and still working as a cooper at age 75.  He had married 18-year-old Rose Bayon in c1649, when he was 51.  Rose may have come to the colony as a child aboard the St.-Jehan in 1636.  Father Molin did not give her age, but she would have been about 40 years old in 1671.  Living with them on 6 arpents of land along the basin were seven unmarried children, five sons and two daughters.  They owned 16 cattle and 22 sheep.  (Rose gave Pierre nine children, including five sons who created families of their own.)  Also counted in the first census was their oldest son Étienne, age 21, who had married Marie-Anne, daughter of Martin Lefebvre of La Rochelle, the year before the census; she also was 21.  They were living with one child, an infant daughter, on "no cultivated land," but they did own 7 cattle and 7 sheep.  (Marie gave Étienne only two more children, one of them a son who created a family of his own.)

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A few of the passengers who had come to Acadia aboard St.-Jehan in 1636 were still living at Port-Royal when the first census was taken: 

Pierre Martin of St.-Germain de Bourgeuil was 70 years old and his wife Catherine Vigneau was 68 when they appeared in the first census.  They lived on 2 arpents of land along the basin and owned 7 cattle and 8 sheep.  Father Molin noted also that four of their children, a son and three daughters, were married--Marie, age 35, to Pierre Morin, age 37; Andrée, age 30, to François Pellerin, age 35; and Marguerite, age 27, to Jean Bourg, age 26.  Older son Pierre, fils, age 45, and his first wife, an Indian named Anne Ouestnorouest dit Petitous, age 27, whom he had married in c1660, were living with four sons on 8 arpents of land and owned 11 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Anne would give Pierre, fils nine children, including two sons who created families of their own.  Pierre, fils would remarry to Jeanne, daughter of Louis Rousselière and widow of Pierre Godin dit Châtillon, in the late 1680s, but she would give him no more children.)  Pierre, père's younger son Mathieu, age 35, was still single and living on an unspecified amount of land with 4 cattle and 3 sheep.  (Mathieu married in the early 1690s, in his early 50s, but he and his wife, whose name has been lost to history, had no children.  By the early 1700s, they were living on his seigneurie at Cobiguit in the Minas Basin.)

Edge-tool maker Guillaume Trahan of Montreuil-Bellay also was 70 years old in 1671; his first wife, François Corbineau, was dead.  One of their two daughters was counted in the census--Jeanne, age 40, married to Jacques dit Jacob Bourgeois, age 50.  Guillaume and Françoise's younger daughter, whose name has been lost to history, had married widower German Doucet, sieur de La Verdure in c1654, the year he was forced to return to France; she probably went with him.  Guillaume, too, had remarried in the colony, to Madeleine, daughter of Vincent Brun, in c1665; Guillaume was 65 years old and his bride only 19 at the time of the wedding; she was age 25 in 1671.  Living with them on 5 arpents of land along the basin were three young sons, ages 4, 3, and 1.  Guillaume and Madeleine owned 8 cattle and 10 sheep.  (She gave Guillaume seven children, including the three sons, all of whom created families of their own.  Third son Alexandre married Marie, a daughter of François Pellerin, at Port-Royal in c1689; she gave him 14 children, including eight sons who created families of their own.  Oldest son Guillaume, fils married Jacqueline dite Jacquette, a daughter of Martin Benoit and widow of Michel de Forest, at Port-Royal in c1691; she gave him eight children, including five sons who created their own families.  Second son Jean-Charles married Marie, a daughter of Charles Boudrot, at Port-Royal in c1693; she gave him a dozen children, including six sons who created families of their own.)

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Still alive in 1671 were some of the early arrivals who some historians insist were from the village of Martaizé in northern Poitou, where d'Aulnay and his mother had controlled "vast seigneuries" and where some of the passengers aboard the St.-Jehan may have been recruited: 

Jean Gaudet's son Denis, who had come to the colony with his parents and two sisters in the 1630s, was 46 years old in 1671.  He had married Martine Gauthier, six years his senior, in c1645; she was 52 years old at the time of the census.  Living with them were three unmarried children, two sons and a daughter, on 6 arpents of cultivated land along the basin.  They owned 9 cattle and 13 sheep, with "more lambs than mature sheep," Father Molin noted.  (Martine gave Denis five children, including two sons who created families of their own.)  Also in the census were two of Denis and Martine's married daughters:  Anne, age 27, counted with husband Pierre Vincent, age 40; and Marie, age 20, with husband Olivier Daigre, age 28.  In the census also were Denis's older sister Françoise, age 48, counted with her second husband, Daniel LeBlanc, age 45; and Denis's younger sister Marie, age 38, widow of Étienne Hébert.  Amazingly, Jean, père was still alive in 1671.  His first wife had died, and he had remarried to Nicole Colleson, probably a young widow, in c1652; she was 64 years old in 1671.  They lived "on 3 arpents of land at two locations," with 6 cattle and 3 sheep.  Living with them was an unmarried son, Jean, fils, age 18 (who married Françoise, a daughter of Pierre Comeau the following year; remarried to Jeanne Henry in c1680; and remarried again to Jeanne Lejeune dit Briard, a widow, in c1694; his three wives gave Jean, fils five children, only one of them a son who created a family of his own).  Father Molin noted that Jean, père was "the oldest inhabitant of Port-Royal ..., the venerable doyen of the colony ... then aged ninety-six years."  Jean died at Port-Royal a few years later, age 103. 

Antoine Bourg, a bachelor when he came to Acadia in the 1630s, remained in the colony and, in his early 30s, married Antoinette, a sister of fellow colonist René Landry l'aîné, in c1642.  He was 62 years old in 1671, and she was 53.  Living with them were seven unmarried children, two sons and five daughters, on 4 arpents of land along the basin.  They owned 12 cattle and 8 sheep.  (Antoinette gave Antoine 11 children, including fives sons who created families of their own.)  Also in the census were Antoine and Antoinette's three married sons and a married daughter:  François, age 28, was married to Marguerite, daughter of Michel Boudrot; she was 23 in 1671.  Living with them on 5 1/2 arpents of land were two young children, a son and a daughter.  They owned 15 cattle and 5 sheep.  (Marguerite gave François seven children, including two sons who created families of their own.)  Marie, age 26, was married to Vincent Breau, age 40.  Jean, age 24 or 25, was married to Marguerite, daughter of Pierre Martin; she was 27.  Living with them on 15 arpents of land were two young daughters.  They owned 3 cattle and 5 sheep.  (Marguerite gave Jean nine children, including two sons who created their own families.)  Bernard, age 23, was married to Françoise, daughter of Vincent Brun; she was 19.  They lived with a daughter, age unrecorded (she was still an infant), on "no cultivated land, " and owned 6 cattle and 9 sheep.  (Françoise gave Bernard 13 children, two of them sons who created families of his own.)

François Gautrot had lost his first wife, Marie, in the early 1640s, but not before she gave him a son.  Charles, who preferred to call himself a Gottreau, was 34 years old in 1671.  He does not appear with his father in the first Acadian census (though his name and age are recorded as belonging to the family) because he no longer lived in the colony.  In October 1665, Charles had married Françoise, a daughter of Martin Cousin, at Québec and did not return to Acadia.  (Françoise gave Charles six children, including three sons, none of whom married.)  Meanwhile, François remarried to Edmée, one of the Lejeune sisters, in c1644.  He was 58 years old in 1671, and she was 47.  Living with them were six children, five sons and a daughter; two of the sons--Jean and François, fils--grown but still unmarried.  (Edmée gave François, père nine children, including three sons who created families of their own, but their oldest son Jean was not be one of them.)  Also in the census were four of François, père's married daughters:  Marie, François's oldest child, age 34, was counted with her second husband, Michel Depeux dit Dupuis, age 37.  Another Marie, age 24, François's oldest child by his second wife, was counted with her husband Claude Thériot, age 34.  Renée, age 19, was counted with her husband, Jean Labat dit Le Marquis, age 33, whom she had just married.  Marguerite, age 17, was counted with husband Jacques dit Jacob Girouard, age 23; they, too, were newly wedded.  

Jean Thériot, who had come to Port-Royal with wife Pérrine Rau in c1637, was age 70 and his wife age 60 in 1671.  Living with them on 5 arpents of land along the basin was their youngest child, fifth son Pierre, age 17 (who married Cécile, daughter of René Landry le jeune, in c1678).  Jean and Pérrine owned 6 cattle and 1 sheep.  (Pérrine gave Jean seven children, including five sons, four of whom created families of their own.)  Also in the census were five of Jean and Pérrine's married children, three sons and two daughters.  Oldest son Claude, age 34, was counted with wife Marie, age 24, a daughter of François Gautrot.  Living with them on 6 arpents of cultivated land were four children, two sons and two daughters.  They owned 13 cattle and 3 sheep.  (Marie gave Claude 14 children, including three sons who created families of their own.)  Jean's third son Bonaventure dit Venture, age 27, was counted with wife Jeanne, age 26, a daughter of Michel Boudrot.  Living with them on 2 arpents of land was a young daughter.  They owned 6 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Jeanne gave Venture four children, none of them sons, but three of their daughters married.)  Jean's older daughter Jeanne, age 27, was counted with husband Pierre Thibodeau, age 40.  Jean's fourth son Germain, age 25, was counted with wife Andrée, age 25, a daughter of Vincent Brun.  Living with them on 2 arpents of land was a young son.  They owned 5 cattle and 2 sheep.  (Andrée gave Germain only three children, two of them sons who created their own families.)  Jean's younger daughter Catherine, age 20, was counted with husband Pierre Guilbeau, age 32.  Jean's second son, Jean, fils, who would have been age 32 in 1671, does not appear in the census; he may have taken his wife, who he had recently married, to Canada (her name, as well as the names of their children, if they had any, have been lost to history). 

François Savoie (Father Motin called him a Scavois) came to Acadia in the 1640s and married Catherine, the other Lejeune sister, in c1651.  He was age 50 and she was 38 in 1671.  Living with them on 6 arpents of land were eight unmarried children, three sons and five daughters, the youngest a daughter who was only a year and a half old.  They owned 4 head of cattle and no sheep.  Also in the census was a married daughter, Françoise, age 18, who was counted with her husband, Jean Corporan, age 25.  (Despite François and Catherine's many children, only their oldest son, Germain, age 16 in 1671, carried on the family line.  Germain married Marie, daughter of Vincent Breau, in c1678; she gave him a dozen children, including five sons who created families of their own.)

Daniel LeBlanc came to the colony in c1645 and married Françoise, a daughter of Jean Gaudet, in c1650.  Daniel was age 45 and Françoise 48 in 1671.  They lived on 10 arpents of land along the basin with six unmarried sons and owned 18 cattle and 26 sheep.  Also in the census was their second child and only daughter, Françoise, age 18, whom Father Motin counted with her recently-wedded husband, Martin, age 24, son of Jean Blanchard.  (Of the seven children wife Françoise gave Daniel, five of them were sons who took wives of their own and helped create what would become the largest family in all of Acadia.) 

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According to some historians, early settlers counted in the first census may have come to the colony from La Chaussée, another town in the Loire valley, near Blois, upriver from St.-Germain de Bourgeuil and Martaizé: 

Vincent Brun, like most of the bachelors who had come to the colony during the Razilly years, returned to France.  In the 1640s, he married twice at La Chaussée to Breau sisters and returned to Acadia later in the decade with his second wife, Renée, and two daughters.  Vincent was age 60 and Renée age 55 in 1671.  They were living on 5 arpents of land with two unmarried children, a son and a daughter.  They owned 10 cattle and 4 sheep.  Also in the census were three married daughters:  Madeleine, age 25, was the second wife of Guillaume Trahan, age 70.  Adrée, age 24, was counted with husband Germain Thériot, age 25.  And Françoise, age 19, was counted with husband Bernard Bourg, age 23.  (Son Sébastien, called Bastien, who was 15 in 1671, married Huguette, a daughter of Antoine Bourg, in c1675 and fathered seven children of his own, including four sons who created their own families.)

François Girouard dit La Varanne had come to the colony in c1640 with wife Jeanne Aucoin, who was from La Rochelle.  He was 50 years old and she was 40 in 1671.  They were living on 8 arpents of land with two unmarried children, a son and a daughter.  They owned 16 cattle and 6 sheep.  Also in the census were three married children:  Older son Jacques dit Jacob, age 23, was counted with wife Marguerite, daughter of François Gautrot; she was only 17.  They owned no land, but they had an infant son, 7 cattle, and 3 sheep.  (Marguerite gave Jacques dit Jacob 14 children, including nine sons who created families of their own.)  François older daughter Marguerite, age 20, was counted with her husband, Jacques Blou or Belou, age 30; he was a cooper.  They, too, owned no land but had an infant daughter, 7 cattle, and a sheep.  Younger daughter Marie-Madeleine, called Madeleine, age 17, was counted with her husband, Thomas Cormier, a carpenter, age 35.  (François and Jeanne's younger son Germain, who was 14 years old in 1671, married Marie, a daughter of Jacques Bourgeois, at Beaubassin, Chignecto, in June 1680.  She gave him only three children, one of them a son who created a family of his own.)

René Landry, later called l'aîné, came to the colony in c1640 and married Pérrine, sister of Antoine Bourg and widow of Simon Pelletret, in c1645.  René l'aîné was age 52, and Pérrine was 45 in 1671.  They were living on 12 arpents of land along the basin with three unmarried children, a daughter and two sons.  They owned 10 cattle and 6 sheep.  Two of their married daughters were counted in the census:  Marie, age 24, with her husband Germain Doucet, fils, age 30; and a second Marie, age 23 or 24, with her husband Laurent Granger, a seaman, age 34.  Also in the census were René' l'aîné's married stepdaughters:  Henriette Pelletret, age 30 or 31, was counted with her husband Pierre Doucet, age 50, half-sister Marie's brother-in-law; and Jeanne Pelletret, age 27, was counted with her first husband Barnabé Martin, age 35.  (Both of René l'aîné and Pérrine's sons, Pierre and Claude, ages 13 and 8 in 1671, married and created families of their own.  Pierre married Madeleine, a daughter of Étienne Robichaud, in c1682; she gave him six children, including five sons who created families of their own.  Claude married Marguerite, a daughter of Claude Thériot, in c1683; she gave him 10 children, including four sons who created their own families.) 

Clément Bertrand, a carpenter, came to Acadia in c1642.  He married Huguette Lambelot in c1645.  He was 50 years old and she was 48 in 1671.  They were living on 6 arpents of land along the basin and owned 10 cattle and 6 sheep.  They had no children. 

Antoine Belliveau came to Acadia in c1645 and married Andrée Guyon, widow of ____ Bernard, in c1651.  He was age 50, and she was 56 in 1671.  They were living on "no land" with two unmarried children, a son and a daughter, and owned 11 cattle and 8 sheep.  (In two years, son Jean married Jeanne, a daughter of Antoine Bourg, and remarried to Cécile, a daughter of Charles Melanson, in c1703.  His two wives gave him seven children, including four sons who created families of their own.)

Vincent Brot or Breau dit Vincelotte, whose sisters had married Vincent Brun back at La Chaussée in the 1640s, came to Port-Royal in c1652 and married Marie, daughter of Antoine Bourg, in c1661.  Vincelotte was 40 years old and Marie was 26 in 1671.  They lived on 4 arpents of land along the basin with four young children, two sons and a daughter.  They owned 9 cattle and 7 sheep.  (Marie gave him a dozen children, including five sons who created their own families.)

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Settlers from other parts of France who were counted in the first census had come to Acadia in the 1640s, during the years of struggle between La Tour and d'Aulnay: 

Abraham Dugast or Dugas of Chouppes, Poitiers, a gunsmith, came to the colony in c1640 and married Marguerite, a daughter of Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, in c1647.  In 1671, Abraham was 55 years old and Marguerite, called Marie-Judith by census taker, was 46.  They lived on 16 arpents of land with six unmarried children, three sons and three daughters.  They owned 19 cattle and 3 sheep.  Also counted in the census were two married daughters:  Marie, age 23, with husband Charles Melanson dit La Ramée, age 28; and Anne, age 17, with first husband Charles Bourgeois, age 25.  (All three of Abraham's sons married and created families of their own.  Oldest son Claude, who was 22 in 1671, married Françoise, a daughter of Jacques Bourgeois, two years after the census; she gave him a dozen children, including three sons who created families of their own; Claude remarried to Marguerite, a daughter of Bernard Bourg, in c1697, and she gave him 10 more children, including five more sons who created their own families.  Martin, who was 15 in 1671, married Marguerite, a daughter of Claude Petitpas, in c1677; she gave him only two children, including a son who created a family of his own.  Youngest son Abraham, fils, who was only 10 in 1671, married Jeanne, a daughter of Pierre Guilbeau, in c1685; she gave him six children, including a son who created his own family.)

Two Hébert brothers perhaps from La-Haye-Descartes, Touraine, came to Port-Royal in c1640.  Antoine, the older brother, was a cooper and had married Geneviève Lefranc in c1648.  He was age 50 and Geneviève was 58 in 1671.  They lived on 6 arpents "of cultivated land at two locations" with three unmarried children, two sons, both grown, and a teenage daughter.  They owned 18 cattle and 7 sheep.  (Two of their children, a daughter and a son, created families of their own.  Son Jean, the second with the name, married Marie-Anne, a daughter of Pierre Doucet, in c1676; she gave him 14 children, including seven sons who created families of their own.)

Younger brother Étienne Hébert had married Marie, a daughter of Jean Gaudet, in c1650, but died a year or so before the first census was taken; his age at the time of his death was not recorded.  Marie was 38 years old in 1671 and lived on 3 arpents of cultivated land with eight unmarried children, five sons and three daughters, the youngest a son who was only a year old.  The widow Hébert owned 4 cattle and 5 sheep.  Also counted in the census was her oldest daughter, Marie, age 20, with her husband Michel (originally Gereyt) de Forest, age 33, a Dutchman who had converted to Catholicism to marry his Acadian sweetheart.  Younger daughter Marguerite, age 19, had recently married Frenchman Jean-Jacques, called Jacques, LePrince, who would have been in his mid-20s in 1671, but they were not counted in the census; Jacques probably had taken her to another part of the colony where Father Motin did not venture, or perhaps they had gone to Canada (no matter, they returned to Acadia by the 1680s and settled near her younger siblings in the Minas Basin.  Étienne and Marie's eight younger children included five sons, all of whom created families of their own.) 

Jacques dit Jacob Bourgeois of Couperans-en-Brie, Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure's home village, came to Acadia aboard the St.-François in 1641 with his father Jacques, père, an army officer who had been recruited by Claude Razilly.  Jacques dit Jacob became a surgeon and married, Jeanne, daughter of Guillaume Trahan, in c1643; this made him a brother-in-law of Sieur Germain.  Jacques was 50 years old in 1671, and Jeanne was 40.  They lived with nine unmarried children, two sons and six daughters, on "more or less 20 arpents of cultivated land at two different locations" along the basin.  They owned 33 cattle and 24 sheep.  Oldest son Charles, age 25, was counted with wife Anne, age 17, a daughter of Abraham Dugas.  They lived with a young daughter on 2 arpents of land and owned 12 cattle and 7 sheep.  (Anne gave Charles four children, including two sons who created their own families.)  Also in the census was Jacques and Jeanne's married daughter Marie, age 18, who was counted with her first husband Pierre Sire or Cyr, a gunsmith, age 27.  (Jacques dit Jacob and Jeanne's two younger sons, Germain and Guillaume, ages 21 and 16 in 1671, also created families of their own.  Germain married Madeleine, a daughter of Antoine Belliveau, two years after the census; she gave him three children, including a son who created a family of his own; Germain remarried to Madeleine, a daughter of Abraham Dugas, in c1682, and she gave him 10 more children, including two more sons who created their own families.  Guillaume married Marie-Anne, a daughter of Martin d'Aprendestiguy de Martignon, in the late 1680s; she gave him a daughter who married a grandson of Daniel LeBlanc.)

Jean Poirier, a fisherman, also had come to the colony aboard the St.-François in 1641, with wife Jeanne Chebrat of La Chaussée, to work in the fisheries established by Nicolas Denys.  Jean died in c1654, 17 years before the first census was taken, but not before fathering a daughter and a son, both of whom appeared in the first census.  Their daughter Marie-Françoise had married Roger dit Jean Kuessy, Quessy, or Caissie, an Irishman, in c1668.  In 1671, Marie-Françoise was 22 years old, and Roger was 25.  Jean and Jeanne's son Michel was a 20-year-old bachelor in 1671.  He lived alone on "no cultivated land" but owned 2 head of cattle.  (Michel married Marie, a daughter of Michel Boudrot, in c1673, and she gave him 11 children, including seven sons who created families of their own.  Meanwhile, his mother Jeanne remarried to colonist Antoine Gougeon soon after his father Jean had died and gave Antoine a daughter, who would marry a son of Jean Blanchard in c1673.)

Michel Boudrot of Cougnes, near Le Rochelle, came to Port-Royal in the early 1640s with wife Michelle Aucoin, a sister of François Girouard's wife Jeanne.  Michel, who served as one of the first syndics at Port-Royal, was 71 years old in 1671, and Michelle was 53.  They lived on 8 arpents of land with eight unmarried children, six sons and two daughters.  They owned 20 cattle and 12 sheep.  Also in the census were three married daughters:  Françoise, age 29, was living with her husband Étienne Robichaud, age 31, but they had refused to give Father Motin any information about themselves.  Jeanne, age 26, was counted with husband Bonaventure dit Venture Thériot, age 27.  Marguerite, age 23, was counted with husband François Bourg, age 28.  (Michel's oldest son Charles, age 22 and still a bachelor in 1671, married his first wife, Renée, a daughter of Antoine Bourg, a year after the census was taken.  She gave him eight children, including three sons who created families of their own; Charles remarried to Marie, a daughter of Jean Corporon, in c1686, and she would give him a dozen more children, including five more sons who created their own families.  All of Michel's six younger sons created families of their own.  Michel, meanwhile, served as lieutenant général civil et criminal, or colonial judge, until his late 80s.) 

Jean Blanchard came to the colony by c1642, when he married Radegonde Lambert at Port-Royal.  He was 60 years old, and she was 42 in 1671.  They lived on 5 arpents of cultivated land with three unmarried children, two sons--Guillaume, age 21, and Bernard, age 18--and a daughter, age 15.  Jean and Radegonde owned 12 cattle and 9 sheep.  Also in the census were three of their married children:  Oldest child Madeleine, age 28, was counted with husband Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, age 41.  Anne, age 26, widow of François Guérin, was counted with five young children (she remarried to Pierre l'aîné, son of Denis Gaudet, the following year).  And son Martin, age 24, was counted with his new bride Françoise, age 18, daughter of Daniel LeBlanc.  They lived on 15 arpents of land with no children, but they owned 5 cattle and 2 sheep.  (Françoise gave Martin three children, including a son who created a family of his own; Martin remarried to Marguerite, a daughter of Pierre Guilbeau, in the mid 1680s, and she gave him eight more children, including four more sons who created their own families.  Martin's younger brother Guillaume married Huguette, a daughter of Antoine Gougeon, two years after the census, and she gave him a dozen children, including five sons who created their own families.  Brother Bernard survived childhood but did not marry.)

René Rimbault came to the colony in the early 1640s and married Anne-Marie, surname unknown, widow of a settler named Pinet.  Anne-Marie may have been a métisse, or half-breed.  René was age 55 in 1671, and Anne-Marie was 40.  They were living on 12 arpents of land with five children, including Anne-Marie's son Philippe Pinet, born at Port-Royal in c1654, who was being raised by his stepfather and using the Rimbault surname in 1671 (but he go by his biological father's surname, Pinet, probably after her married).  René and Anne-Marie owned 12 cattle and 9 sheep.  (Anne-Marie gave René seven children, including a son, François, who married Marie, a daughter of Antoine Babin; however, François and Marie had no children of their own, so, except for its blood, this line of the Rimbault family did not survive in the colony.)

Philippe Pinet, René Rimbault's stepson, married Catherine, a daughter of Étienne Hébert, in the late 1670s.  She gave him a dozen children, including six sons who created their own families. 

Robert Cormier, a master ship's carpenter from La Rochelle, signed an indenture for three years with an associate of Nicolas Denys in early 1644.  That spring, he, his wife Marie Péraud, and their two young sons, Thomas and Jean, sailed to Fort St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island aboard Le Petit St.-Pierre.  After Robert fulfilled his contract, he evidently took his family to Port-Royal, but he did not remain there.  He likely returned to La Rochelle with his wife and son Jean in the 1650s, perhaps to escape the turmoil then brewing in the colony.  Robert's older son Thomas, however, who was a teenager in the early 1650s, remained in the colony, where he, too, worked as a carpenter.  In his early 30s, he married Marie-Madeleine, called Madeleine, a teenaged daughter of François Girouard, in c1668.  Thomas was 35 years old in 1671 and still being described as a carpenter; Madeleine was only 17.  Father Motin counted only one child, a daughter, in their household.  They owned 6 arpents of land along the basin with 7 cattle and 7 sheep.  Madeleine probably was pregnant with their oldest son, François, when the good priest came around.  (Madeleine gave Thomas 10 children, including four sons who married granddaughters of Daniel LeBlanc and created families of their own.)

Claude Petitpas, sieur de La Fleur, a clerk who became a notary, came to Acadia in c1645 and married Catherine, daughter of Bernard Bugaret, at Port-Royal in c1658.  In 1671, Claude was 45 years old, and Catherine was 33.  Living with them on 30 arpents of land were seven young children, four sons and three daughters.  They owned 26 cattle and 12 sheep.  (Catherine gave him 13 children, including three sons who created families of their own.  One of their sons, Claude, fils married a Mi'kmaq and became an agent of the British; Claude, fils's oldest son, Barthélémy, also served as agent-interpreter among the Mi'kmaq and befriended the British; later, he turned against them and died in a Boston prison.)

Pierre Lejeune dit Briard of Brie, as his name reveals, came to Port-Royal by c1650, when he married a daughter of Germain Doucet whose name has been lost to history.  She gave him two sons, Pierre dit Briard, fils, born in c1656, and Martin dit Briard Labrière, in c1661.  Father Motin counted none of them at Port-Royal in 1671.  They either were living in another Acadian settlement, or they were living outside of the colony.  (The two sons and their families would be counted at La Hève, on the Atlantic coast, in 1686, so the family remained in Acadia.  Pierre dit Briard, fils married Marie, a daughter of Pierre Thibodeau, at Port-Royal in the late 1670s, and she gave him nine children, including four sons who created families of their own.  Martin dit Briard married Jeanne, also called Marie, Kagigconiac, an Indian, in c1684, and she gave him five children, including a son who created his own family; Martin dit Briard remarried to Marie, daughter of Jean Gaudet, in c1699, and she gave him seven more children, including three more sons who created families of their own; Martin dit Briard's third wife, Marie Arnault or Renaud dit Grislard, whom he married at Grand-Pré in October 1729, in his late 60s, gave him no more children.)

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Two soldiers who had come to the colony in the early 1650s with Emmanuel Le Borgne remained in Acadia, married, and became prominent settlers.  Also establishing a family in the colony was Le Borgne's second son, who had come to Acadia with his father in the 1650s; because of his actions against the English, however, the young Le Borgne was forced to return to France, but, unlike his brothers, he did not remain there: 

Alexandre Le Borgne de Bélisle, the last proprietary governor of French Acadia, would have been 31 years old in 1671.  Father Motin did not count him in the census, though he had returned to the colony in 1670.  When he did return, Alexandre, now calling himself Bélisle or Belle-Isle, was recognized as the seigneur of Port-Royal, though Governor Grandfontaine "told the people to regard [Bélisle] as a simple habitant."  According to his biographer, "Very little is known about Belle-Isle's activities in connection with Acadia between 1670" and his death at Port-Royal in c1693.  Evidently he did not get along well with some of Acadia's royal governors.  Grandfontaine did what he could to limit Bélisle's powers, and François-Marie Perrot, who governed during the mid-1680s, insisted that Alexandre "was addicted to wine.  When drunk he was capable of granting the same piece of land to several settlers at once, which could not but cause the farmers considerable vexation."  Louis-Alexandre des Friches de Meneval threw him in prison in November 1689, "because of irregularities of this nature."  Joseph Robinau de Villebon, who was governor in the early 1690s, also had problems with the Port-Royal seigneur.  During most of that time, heirs of d'Aulnay and Charles La Tour contested Alexandre's and his family's claims in Acadia.  Meanwhile, in c1675, Alexandre married Marie, daughter of Charles de Saint-Étienne de La Tour and Jeanne Motin de Reux, but they were not counted at Port-Royal until 1686.  (Marie gave him seven children, including two sons who created families of their own.)44b

Pierre Thibodeau, born in Poitou in c1631, married Jeanne, a daughter of Jean Thériot, in c1660.  He was a miller by trade, so he built a mill at Pré-Ronde above Port-Royal and soon became prosperous.  In 1671, Pierre was age 40 and Jeanne age 27.  They were living on 7 arpents of land with six young children, a son and five daughters; the son was only a year old.  They owned 12 cattle and 11 sheep.  (Jeanne gave Pierre 16 children, including seven sons who created families of their own.  Pierre founded the Acadian settlement at Chepoudy, on the upper Bay of Fundy, in c1700.) 

Michel Richard dit Sansoucy of Saintonge married Madeleine, a daughter of Jean Blanchard, in 1656.  In 1671, Michel was age 41 and Marguerite 28.  They were living on 14 arpents of land with seven children, including a set of twins who were only a few weeks old.  They owned 15 cattle and 14 sheep.  (Madeleine gave him 10 children, including four sons who created families of their own.  In c1683, Sancoucy remarried to Jeanne, a daughter of Antoine Babin, and she gave him two more sons, who also created their own families.)

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Many of the Acadians who were counted in 1671 had come to the colony during the English occupation of 1654-70, when immigration to Acadia from France and Canada was supposed to have been curtailed.  At least two of them were Englishmen, one was a Dutchman in English service, one an Irishman, and another from Flanders.  The others came from France, one of them perhaps from La Chaussée, another a Huguenot: 

Antoine Gougeon married Jeanne, daughter of Antoine Chabrat, probably at Port-Royal in c1654.  In 1671, Antoine was age 45, and Jeanne was 45 also.  They were living on 10 arpents of land with their only child, daughter Huguette, age 14.  They owned 20 cattle and 17 sheep.  (Huguette married Guillaume, younger son of Jean Blanchard, in c1673, when she was only 16 years old.  She gave him a dozen children.  In the late 1690s, Guillaume helped pioneer the Acadian settlement at Petitcoudiac.  Their sons settled there, too, at what became known as Village-des-Blanchards.)

Pierre Melanson dit La Verdure, a French Huguenot in English service, came to the colony in the spring of 1657 with his English wife Priscilla and three sons, who had been born in England.  Evidently Pierre dit La Verdure served as tutor of former govneror d'Aulnay's children.  When the English abandoned the colony in 1670, Pierre dit La Verdure, his wife, and their youngest son John retreated to Boston, but the two older sons remained at Port-Royal, where they had converted to Catholicism and taken Acadian wives.  Older son Pierre dit La Verdure, fils married Marie-Marguerite, called Marguerite, a daughter of Philippe Mius d'Entremont, seigneur of Pobomcoup, at Port-Royal in c1665, in his early 30s.  In 1671, Pierre was age about 39 and was listed as a tailor, and Marguerite was 21.  However, Father Molin noted, Pierre and his wife refused to answer any questions about their farm or their family.  Pierre and Marguerite would have been living with their three oldest children, two sons and a daughter, but the size of their farm in 1671 remains a mystery.  (Marguerite gave him 11 children, including four sons who created families of their own.)44c

Pierre dit La Verdure Melanson, père's younger son Charles dit La Ramée married Marie, a daughter of Abraham Dugas, at Port-Royal in c1663.  Charles was a little more cooperative with the census taker than his older brother.  He was 28 years old in 1671, and Marie was 23.  They lived with four small children, all daughters, but they did not give the size of their farm.  They did admit that they owned 40 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Marie gave Charles 14 children, including five sons who created families of their own.)

Laurent Granger of Plymouth, England, also in English service, came to Acadia during the late 1650s, converted to Catholicism, and married Marie, a daughter of René Landry l'aîné, at Port-Royal in c1667.  In 1671, Laurent, listed as a seaman, was age 34, and Marie was 24.  They were living on 4 arpents of land with two small children, a daughter and a son, the youngest only 9 months old.  They owned 5 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Marie gave him nine children, including five sons who created families of their own.)

Jean Pitre, an edge tool maker probably from Flanders, came to the colony in the late 1650s.  In c1665, he married Marie, a daughter of Isaac Pesseley, former major of Port-Royal who had been killed during the civil war between La Tour and d'Aulnay.  In 1671, Jean was age 35 and Marie age 26.  They were living on "no land" with three young children, a son and two daughters, the youngest one only 9 months old.  They owned no sheep, but they did own 1 cow.  (Marie gave him 11 children, including four sons who created families of their own.)

François Guérin (Father Molin called him a Gudcin), who may have been from the Martaizé area, came to Port-Royal by c1659, when he married Anne, a daughter of Jean Blanchard.  François died just before the first census was taken, but not before fathering five children.  In 1671, Anne was 26 years old and living with those children, three daughter and two sons, the youngest one, a son, only 2 years old, on 6 arpents of cultivated land.  She owned 6 cattle and 3 sheep.  (The older son, Jérôme, called Frivoline in the census, perpetuated the family line in spades by fathering 13 children, including five sons who created their own families.)

Geyret de Forest of Leyden, Holland, came to Acadia in c1659 as a soldier in English service.  He, too, converted to Catholicism, and married Marie, a daughter of Étienne Hébert, in c1666.  In Acadia, the "de" in his name did not survive, nor did his given name.  In 1671, Michel, as he was called in Acadia, was 33 years old, and Marie was 20.  They were living on 2 arpents of cultivated land with three young children, all sons.  They owned 12 cattle and 2 sheep.  (Marie gave him six children, including four sons who created families of their own.  In c1686, Michel remarried to Jacqueline dite Jacquette, a daughter of Martin Benoit, and she gave him another daughter who also survived childhood.)

René Landry le jeune, a cousin of René l'aîné, reached the colony by c1659, when he married Marie Bernard, a native of Port-Royal and a stepdaughter of Antoine Belliveau.  Strangely, Father Molin did not count René le jeune and Marie in the 1671 census, but they did appear in the second Port-Royal census of 1678; this counting did not give any ages or the names of their children, but it did give the size of their farm.  Other colonial records, including later censuses, provide their ages and the number of their children when the first census was taken.  René le jeune would have been about age 37 and Marie about age 26 in 1671.  They would have been living with 6 children, four sons and two daughters, the youngest a newborn.  In 1678, they owned 22 acres of land and 20 cattle, so their farm in 1671 probably was larger than most.  (Marie gave him 15 children, including eight sons who created families of their own!  The result would be an even larger branch of the Landry family in Acadia.) 

Antoine Babin arrived by c1662, when he married Marie Mercier, a granddaughter of Jean Gaudet.  In 1671, Antoine was age 45, and Marie was 25.  They were living on 2 arpents of cultivated land with five young children, two sons and three daughters, the youngest only a year old.  Another daughter was born to them soon after the census was taken.  They owned 6 cattle and 8 sheep.  (Marie gave Antoine 11 children, including three sons who created families of their own.)

Pierre Vincent came to Acadia by c1663, when he married Anne, a daughter of Denis Gaudet.  In 1671, Pierre was age 40 and Anne age 27.  They were living on 16 arpents of land with four young children, two sons and two daughters.  For some reason, their younger daughter, who would have been only 3 years of age and who survived childhood, was not counted.  They owned  18 cattle and 9 sheep.  (Their youngest son, Clément, was not born until c1674.  Like all of his older siblings, he, too, survived childhood, and, like two of his older brothers, he created a family of his own.  Interestingly, many of Clément's 12 children would use the dit Clément as their surname instead of Vincent.) 

Michel Dupuis (Father Molin called him a Dupont), perhaps from La Chaussée, came to Port-Royal by c1664, when he married Marie, a daughter of François Gautrot and widow of ____ Potet.  In 1671, Michel, whom Father Motin called a Dupont, was age 37, and Marie was 34.  They were living on 6 arpents of cultivated land with three young children, two sons and a daughter, the youngest, a son, only 3 months old.  Also living with them was 14-year-old Marie Potet from Marie's first marriage.  Michel and Marie owned 5 cattle and 1 sheep.  (Marie gave him five children, including three sons who created families of their own.)

Étienne Robichaud came to Port-Royal by c1663, when he married Françoise, a daughter of Michel Boudrot.  Father Motin noted in the census that Étienne "did not want to see me.  He left and told his wife that she was not to tell me the number of his livestock or land."  Nor did Françoise reveal the names and ages of their children.  In 1671, Étienne would have been 31 years old and Françoise 29.  They would have been living with three young children, two sons and a daughter, the youngest one, a son, only 2 years old.  Thanks to Étienne's stubbornness, the size of his farm and the numbers of his livestock in 1671 will forever remain a mystery.  In 1678, however, he owned 1 acre and 19 cattle, so his farm was small, but the number of his animals was respectable.  (Françoise gave Étienne seven children, including four sons who created families of their own.)

François Pellerin came to Acadia from Québec by c1665, when he married Andrée, a daughter of Pierre Martin, père.  In 1671, François was age 35, and Andrée was 30.   They lived on 1 arpent of land with three young children, all daughters, the youngest only 2 days old.  They owned 1 sheep.  (Andrée gave him seven children, including a son who created a family of his own.)

Guyon, son of Pierre Chiasson or Giasson dit La Vallée and Marie Péroché of La Rochelle, came to the colony by c1666, when he married Jeanne Bernard, a stepdaughter of Antoine Belliveau, at Port-Royal.  Guyon and Jeanne were not listed in the 1671 census because they had moved to Mouchecoudabouet, now Musquodoboit Harbor, near present-day Halifax, soon after they married, and they were still there in late 1674.  Not long afterwards, they moved to Canada and then returned to Acadia, this time to Chignecto, with Michel Le Neuf, sieur de la Vallière, the seigneur of Beaubassin, probably in the late 1670s.  Jeanne died at Chignecto in the early 1680s.  Guyon remarried to Canadienne Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Pierre Martin of Sillery, at Québec in October 1683, and returned to Chignecto, where he died in the late 1680s or early 1690s.  (His four sons were by his first wife.  They all created their own families.  The two older sons settled at Chignecto, but his younger sons, one of whom called himself a Giasson, settled in Canada.  Second wife Marie-Madeleine remarried to Michel Deveau dit Dauphiné at Chignecto in c1693.)

Olivier Daigre came to the colony by c1666, when he married Marie, a daughter of Denis Gaudet.  In 1671, Olivier was age 28, and Marie was 20.  They lived on 2 arpents of cultivated land with three young children, all sons.  They owned 6 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Marie gave Olivier 10 children, including two sons who created families of their own.)

Barnabé Martin, probably no kin to Pierre Martin of St.-Germain de Bourgeuil, came to Acadia in c1666, when he married Jeanne, a daughter of Simon Pelletret.  In 1671, Barnabé was age 35, and Jeanne was 27.  They lived on 2 1/2 arpents of land with two young children, a daughter and a son, who was only 8 months old.  They owned 3 cattle and 2 sheep.  (Jeanne gave Barnabé eight children, including two sons who would help create an even larger branch of the Martin family in Acadia.  Barnabé's descendants, especially those from older son René, tended to use their father's given name as a dit to distinguish themselves from the other Martins in the colony.)

Pierre Lanoue, a "young scion of a noble Huguenot family in France," after converting to Catholicism, came to Acadia in c1667 as a cooper and settled at Port-Royal.  When asked his age, Pierre told Father Molin that "he felt fine but would not give an answer."  Pierre also refused to give the size of holdings.  In 1671, Pierre would have been only 23 years old.  He was still a bachelor, so he may have owned no property.   (Pierre does not appear in  the Port-Royal censuses of 1678 and 1686, but he remained in Acadia.  He married Jeanne, a daughter of François Gautrot, at Port-Royal in c1682.  She gave him only one child, a son, Pierre, fils, who married Marie, a daughter of Laurent Granger, at Port-Royal in November 1702; Marie gave Pierre, fils nine children, including six sons who created families of their own.)

Jean Corporon came to the colony in the late 1660s and married Françoise, a daughter of François Savoie, only a year before the census.  In 1671, Jean, whom Father Molin called Jehan, was age 25, and Françoise was 18.  Their daughter, "6 weeks of age," the priest noted, was "not yet named."  They would call her Marie.  Jean and Françoise lived with little Marie on "no cultivated land," but they owned 1 cattle and 1 sheep.  (Françoise gave Jean 15 children, including three sons who created families of their own.  Little Marie survived childhood and married a son of Michel Boudrot.)

Pierre Guilbeau (Father Molin called him a Guillebault) came to Acadia by c1668, when he married Catherine, a daughter of Jean Thériot.  In 1671, Pierre was age 32, and Catherine was 20.  They lived on 15 arpents of land with a 2-year-old daughter and owned 6 cattle and 5 sheep.  (Catherine gave Pierre seven children, including a son, Charles, who married Anne, a daughter of Bernard Bourg, at Port-Royal in c1701; she gave him nine children, including four sons who created families of their own.)

Roger dit Jean Caissie, an Irishman, came to the colony probably during the late 1660s as a soldier in English service.  After his enlistment ended, he married Marie-Françoise, a daughter of Jean Poirier, at Port-Royal in c1668.  Roger, whom Father Molin called a Kuessy, was 25 years old in 1671, and Marie was 22.   They lived on "no cultivated land" with a 2-year-old daughter, but they did own 3 cattle and 2 sheep.  (Marie-Françoise gave Roger seven children, including four sons who created their own families.  An historian of the Acadian experience says that Roger may have introduced fruit trees to the Beaubassin settlement, where he and Marie-Françoise moved probably in the late 1670s.  Some of Roger's descendants would use his given name as a dit, which would evolve into the surname, Roger.)

Pierre Cyr, an armurier or gunsmith, came to the colony by c1670, when he married Marie, a daughter of Jacques Bourgeois.  Pierre, who Father Molin called a Sire, was age 27, and Marie was 18 in 1671.  They lived on 5 arpents of land with their 3-month-old son, Jean.   They owned 11 cattle and 6 sheep.  (Marie gave Pierre only two more children, both of them sons.  However, they and their oldest brother created families of their own.) 

Also in the 1671 census was long-time settler Philippe Mius, sieur d'Entremont (Father Molin spelled it Landremont), the seigneur of Pobomcoup, now Pubnico, at Cap-Sable, on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.  Philippe was age 62 in 1671.  Father Molin did not give the age of Philippe's wife, Madeleine Hélie Du Tillet, whom Philippe had married in France in c1649 on the eve of their coming to Acadia, but she would have been 45 years old in 1671.  Father Molin did say that Philippe and Madeleine lived with four children, two sons and two daughters, ages 17 to 2, and that they owned 26 cattle, 29 sheep, 12 goats, and 20 hogs on their barony at Pobomcoup.  Their oldest child, daughter Marguerite, age 21, was counted at Port-Royal with her husband Pierre Melanson dit La Verdure, fils, age 39.  (Philippe and Madeleine's sons Jacques dit Pobomcoup, Abraham dit Pleinmarais, and Philippe d'Azy, created families of their own, and, as his name implies, oldest son Jacques inherited his father's seigneury.)44a

Also in the colony in 1671, but not counted in the first census, was Poitou native Jean Serreau, sieur de Saint-Aubin and seigneur of Ste.-Croix and Passamaquoddy, site of the original Acadian settlement on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy.  Jean had married Marguerite, daughter of René Boileau or Boisleau, sieur de La Goupillière and Joachine Ferrand of St.-Jean Dersé, or Dercé, Diocese of Poitiers, in c1663.  Marguerite gave the seigneur four children, including two sons, born at Québec, who created families of their own in France.  Their younger daughter Geneviève married first to Jacques, son of Claude Petitpas, probably at Port-Royal in c1690, and then to Barthélémy Bergeron dit d'Amboise in c1695. 

Other Early Families in Acadia

In late 1678, French authorities conducted another census at Port-Royal.  Unlike Father Molin's counting of 1671, however, the census taker in 1678 gave only the names of family heads and their spouses.  Most of the families who had been counted in 1671 were still living along the basin, and some had moved on to other settlements, including the new one at Chignecto.  Most interestingly, a few new family names appeared in this latest counting, hinting that the Acadian population continued to grow not only by natural increase but also by immigration.   Some of the new settlers had come to Acadia aboard L'Oranger, which had reached Port-Royal in 1671, only months after the first census had been taken.  Others had arrived on ships from France whose names have been lost to history.  Some had come to Port-Royal via Canada.  

Half a dozen years later, in 1685-86, Jacques de Meulles, seigneur de La Source, intendant of New France, on orders from his superiors in France, spent months conducting a tour of Acadia.  His primary mission was "to report on the resources of the area and particularly on the possibility of establishing sedentary fishing stations, which would provide employment for the Canadians and a market for [Canada's] agricultural produce."  He also was tasked with conducting a detailed census of the Acadian population, which he began in early 1686.  Again, as in the 1678 census at Port-Royal, familiar names were found in the colony in even greater numbers, and many new names appeared.  Happily for historians and genealogists, the census of 1686 was as detailed as the first one.  Even more significantly, the intendant counted Acadians not only at Port-Royal but also at the newer upper Fundy settlements of Chignecto and Minas; at the Atlantic-shore settlements of Pobomcoup/Cap-Sable, La Hève, Mirliguèche, Canso, and Chédabouctou; at Pentagouët, Passamaquoddy, Rivière Ste.-Croix, and Megais in Maine and on the lower Fundy shore; and at Miramichi, Nepisiguit, and Île Percé along the south shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.45

Many of the new settlers appearing in de Meulles's census would create family lines in Acadia: 

Pierre Arseneau of Rochefort came to the colony on L'Oranger and married Marguerite, a daughter of Abraham Dugas, in c1675.  Pierre does not appear in the Port-Royal census of 1678 because not long after their marriage he and Marguerite moved to the new Acadian settlement at Chignecto.  Pierre remarried to Marie, a daughter of François Guérin, in c1686.  That year, in his census, De Meulles's noted that "Arsenault, who resides in Port-Royal[,] owns in the seigneurie of Beaubassin [Chignecto] 1 gun, 30 arpents, 8 cattle, 4 sheep, 6 hogs."  De Meulles insisted that Pierre was age 40 in 1686, and Marie was 24.  They were counted at Port-Royal with Pierre's two sons by his first wife (who created families of their own.  Second wife Marie gave Pierre seven more children, including four more sons who created their own families.)

Jean Doiron likely came to the colony on L'Oranger.  In c1671, either in France or at Port-Royal, he married Marie-Anne Canol.  They do not appear in the 1678 census.  In 1686, de Meulles called him a Douaron and said Jean was age 37, and Marianne was 35.  They lived at Port-Royal with seven children, six sons and a daughter.  De Meulles did not give the size of their farm, but he noted that they owned 1 gun, 7 cattle, and 1 sheep.  (Marie-Anne gave Jean four more children, including two more sons.  In the early 1690s, Jean remarried to Marie, a daughter of Guillaume Trahan, and she gave him eight more children, four sons and two daughters--so he fathered 19 children in all, including 11 sons who created families of their own!)

Jacques, also called Jean-Jacques, LePrince came to Port-Royal by 1671, perhaps aboard the L'Oranger, and married Marguerite, a daughter of Étienne Hébert, the year of the first census.  They were not counted at Port-Royal in 1678, but de Meulles found them there in 1686.  He recorded that Jacques was age 40, and Marguerite was 35.  They lived with four children, who de Meulles did not name, and owned 5 sheep and 3 hogs.  (Marguerite gave Jacques six children, including three sons who created families of their own.)

Martin Benoit or Benoist dit Labriere, probably of Rochefort, may have come to the colony aboard L'Oranger and married Marie Chaussegros at Port-Royal in c1672.  They were counted at Port-Royal in 1678 and again in 1686.  In 1686, Martin, called a Benoist, was age 42, and Marie was 30.  They lived with six children, four sons and two daughters.  De Meulles did not give the size of their farm, but he noted that they owned 4 hogs.  (Marie gave him 10 children, including five sons who created families of their own.) 

Martin Aucoin, half-brother of the Aucoin sisters who had come to the colony decades before and married Michel Boudrot and François Girouard, was a son of Martin Aucoin of St.-Barthélémy, La Rochelle, and his second wife, Marie Sallé.  Marie, interestingly enough, had been counted in the first Acadian census of 1671, age 61, widow of Jean Claude, her second husband, and living at Port-Royal alone, and again at Port-Royal in 1678, still a widow, no age given, when son Martin Aucoin, fils would have been ages 20 and 27, respectively.  However, Martin, fils appears in no Acadian census until 1686, and not at Port-Royal but at Minas.  He married Marie, a daughter of Denis Gaudet, at Port-Royal in c1673, but they did not appear in the 1678 census.  Evidently they were among the early settlers at Minas.  De Meulles noted that Martin, fils was 35 years old in 1686, and Marie was 27.  They lived at Minas with eight children, four sons and four daughters, the youngest one, a daughter, only 7 months old.  They owned 1 gun, 15 cattle, 10 sheep, and 6 hogs.  (Amazingly, Martin, fils's mother, Marie Sallé, was still at Port-Royal in 1686, age 86, living alone.  Marie Gaudet gave Martin 19 children, including nine sons who created families of their own!)

Julien Lord, also Laure and L'Or, dit LaMontagne married Anne-Charlotte, called Charlotte, a daughter of François Girouard, in c1675.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Julien was age 33 and Charlotte 26.  They were living with four children, the youngest one, a daughter age 1.  The intendant did not give the size of their farm of the number of their animals.  (Charlotte gave Julien nine children, including four sons who created families of their own.) 

Étienne Pellerin, born in c1647, was, according to one authority, François Pellerin's younger brother (but another authority on the Acadians, followed here, disagrees).  Étienne came to Acadia after the first census and married Jeanne, a daughter of François Savoie, at Port-Royal in c1675.  They remained in the Port-Royal area.  At one time Étienne owned Hog Island on Rivière au Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, near Port-Royal.  (In August 1714, soon after the British took over the colony, Étienne was among the Acadians who traveled to Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, aboard the King's vessel La Marie Joseph to look at land with the possibility of removing to the French territory.  Evidently he did not like what he saw on the island and returned to Port-Royal, enduring British rule there.)  Jeanne gave him 10 children, including five sons, all born at Port-Royal, four of whom created families of their own.

Dominique Gareau, born in France in c1626, was a sergeant in the King's forces when he married Marie, daughter of Jean Gaudet and widow of Étienne Hébert, at Port-Royal in c1676.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Dominique, called Garault, was age 60; Marie's age was unrecorded.  They were living with two of Marie's Hébert sons, ages 20 and 16, and with their only child, daughter Marie, called Elarie, age 9, on three arpents of land.  They owned 4 sheep and 3 hogs.  (Dominique's family was counted at La Hève in 1693.  Daughter Marie, who settled at Minas, married twice, first to ____ LaChapelle in c1693, and then to Jérôme Darois in c1698.  Sadly, she died on a prisoner ship in Virginia during Le Grand Dérangement, when she was in her late 70s.)

François Levron dit Nantois, probably of Nantes, married Catherine, a daughter of François Savoie, in c1676.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  François was age 33, and Catherine was 20.  They lived with four small children, a son and three daughters. The intendant did not record the size of their farm, but he noted that they owned 8 cattle and 7 sheep.  (Catherine gave François 10 children, including three sons who created families of their own.) 

Étienne Rivet or Rivest married Marie-Jeanne or Marie-Anne, a daughter of Pierre Comeau, in c1676.  De Meulles them at Minas in 1686.  Étienne was age 34, and Marie was 24.  They lived with three small children, two sons and a daughter.  The intendant did not record the size of their farm, but he noted that they owned 3 cattle and 1 hog.  (Marie gave Étienne five children, including a son who created a family of his own.  In c1691, Étienne remarried to Catherine, who surname has been lost to history, but she gave him no more children.  Étienne remarried again--his third marriage--to Cécile, daughter of François Joseph dit Lejeune, in c1694.  She gave him three more children, including another son who created a family of his own.  Older son Étienne, fils married Anne, a daughter of Jacques LePrince, in c1708.  She gave him eight children, including four sons who created their own families.) 

François Brossard, later Broussard, perhaps from Anjou, France, married Catherine, a daughter of Michel Richard, at Port-Royal in c1678.  De Meulles found them still at Port-Royal in 1686.  François was age 33, and Catherine was 22.  They lived with three children, a son and two daughters, the younger daughter "not yet ... baptized" at 11 days old.  They owned 1 gun, 7 cattle, 6 sheep, and 5 hogs.  (Catherine gave François 11 children, including five sons who created families of their own.  The activities of two of those sons, Alexandre and Joseph dit Beausoleil, would write the family's name large in Acadian history.) 

Louis-Noël, called Noël, Labauve married Marie, a daughter of René Rimbault, in c1678.  De Meulles counted them at Minas in 1686.  Louis-Noël, called de la Boue, was age 27, and Marie was 22.  Living with them a single arpent of land were four young sons, the youngest one only 2.  They owned 1 gun, 1 cow, 3 sheep, and 3 hogs.  (Marie gave Noël a dozen children, including six sons who created families of their own.) 

Michel, son of Pierre Larché of St.-Pierre parish, Montdidier, Picardie, France, and an unidentified Indian woman, was born at Trois-Rivières, Canada, in c1653.  Michel came to Acadia as a young servant of Michel Le Neuf de La Vallière, the seigneur of Beaubassin, between 1678 and 1682.  De Meulles counted him as a servant in the seigneur's household at Chignecto in 1686.  Michel was age 22 and single.  (He remained at Chignecto and married Anne, a daughter of Thomas Cormier, in c1690.  She gave him a dozen children, including six sons who created families of their own.  The family's name evolved into Haché.  Michel's sons used his dit, Gallant, which, in some of their lines, evolved into a surname.)

François Léger, age 55, probably another Canadian, also was counted as a servant in the seigneur of Beaubassin's household in 1686.  There is no evidence, however, that François created a family of his own. 

François Lapierre dit Laroche married Jeanne, daughter of René Rimbault, probably at Port-Royal  in c1680.  De Meulles found them at Minas in 1686.  François was age 38, and Jeanne age 24.  They were living with three children, two sons and a daughter, ages 5, 3, and 1.  De Meulles did not give the size of their holdings, but he did note that they owned a gun.  (Jeanne gave Laroche 10 children, including three sons who created families of their own.) 

Claude Guédry dit Gravois dit La Verdure married first to Kesk8a, an Indian, in c1680, and then to Marguerite, daughter of Claude Petitpas and widow of Martin Dugas, in c1681.  They lived at Mirliguèche, on the Atlantic side of the peninsula, as well as at Port-Royal and Chignecto.  De Meulles found them at Mirliguèche in 1686.  Claude, called La Verdure, was age 35, and Marguerite, whose given name was not recorded, was 25.  They were living with one child, whose gender and age was not recorded.  Claude's daughter Jeanne by his first wife (their only child) had been born at Beaubassin in June 1681, so she would have been 5 at the time of the census.   Only three of his children by Marguerite--sons Claude, fils, Jean-Baptiste, and Charles--would have been born by the time of the census.  Of these four children, only the second son, Jean-Baptiste, seems to have survived childhood, so the child counted at Mirliguèche may have been Jean-Baptiste.  (Marguerite gave Claude 11 children, including four sons who created families of their own.  Jean-Baptiste was one of them, but his fate was not a pleasant one; along with his oldest son and three Mi'kmaq Indians, he was hanged at Boston, Massachusetts, in November 1726 for piracy.) 

Pierre Godin dit Châtillon, an Canadian, born at St.-Vorle de Châtillon-sur-Seine, France, in May 1630, was descended from Belgians who lived at Namur.  Pierre's grandfather, a dyer, settled at Châtillon-sur-Seine in Burgundy in the late 1500s.  Pierre's father Claude was a carpenter.  Pierre emigrated to New France in his early 20s and married Jeanne, daughter of Louis Rousselière of Moëze, diocese of Saintes, France, at Montréal in October 1654.  They were living at Charlesbourg, below Québec, in 1666, and at Verdun, near Montréal, in 1681, before moving on to Acadia, where Pierre worked as a carpenter at Chignecto probably in the employ of the seigneur of Beaubassin, Michel Le Neuf, sieur de la Vallière.  Pierre and his family, in fact, lived with Irishman Roger Caissie at Chignecto while completing his work there.  Pierre also owned property at Port-Royal., probably where he died before 1686.  That year, at Port-Royal, de Meulles counted Pierre's widow, Jeanne, age unrecorded, living with three unmarried children, two grown sons and a teenage daughter: Gabriel dit Châtillon was age 25, Pierre dit Châtillon dit Desrochers was 20, and Anne, the youngest child, was 13.  De Meulles did not give the size of Jeanne's farm or the number of her animals.  Also counted in the census were two of Pierre and Jeanne's married children.  Son Laurent dit Châtillon dit Beauséjour, called Laurens, was age 32, and his wife Anne, a daughter of François Guérin, was 32.  Living with them were three young children, two sons and two daughters, the youngest, a daughter, only five months old.  De Meulles did not give the size of their farm, but he did note that they owned 7 cattle and 7 sheep.  Laurent was a miller, which may explain why the intendant did not give the size of his farm.  (Laurent took his family back to Beaubassin in the early 1690s.  Anne gave him 13 children, including three sons who created families of their own; all of the sons, however, and six daughters who married, "returned" to Canada with their father, who remarried at Pointe-Claire, near Montréal, in June 1719.)  Also counted in the 1686 census was Pierre and Jeanne's fourth daughter, Marie-Madeleine, age 20, with her husband Robert Henry, age 43, and their four young children.  (Pierre and Jeanne's second son Gabriel dit Châtillon, like older brother Laurent, also returned to Montréal after the 1686 census and married Andrée-Angélique, daughter of Robert Jeanne or Jasne, there in July 1690.  She gave him a dozen children, including eight sons who created families of their own.  Gabriel's oldest son and a married daughter remained in Canada, but the younger sons and two younger married daughters returned to Acadia and settled on Rivière St.-Jean and at Minas.  Pierre and Jeanne's youngest son, Pierre dit Châtillon dit Desrochers, returned to Canada and married Marie-Jeanne, daughter of Jacques Cochon, at Château-Richer, below Québec, in July 1689.  They remained on the St. Lawrence.  Marie-Jeanne gave him three children, two daughters and a son; the daughters married at St.-Antoine-de-Tilly, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence just above Québec, and the son, Jean-Baptiste, died there in February 1723, age 18 and still a bachelor.)

Robert Henry of Rouen, France, raised a Huguenot but a convert to Catholicism, also came to Acadia from Canada, where he was counted at Trois-Rivières in 1666 and 1667.  He married Marie-Madeleine, a daughter of Pierre Godin dit Châtillon, probably in Canada in c1678 and followed her family to Acadia.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Robert was age 43, and Marie-Madeleine was 20.  They were living with four small children, including two sons and a daughter, the youngest child, only a baby, gender and name unrecorded (probably daughter Geneviève, born in January), who had not yet been baptized.  De Meulles did not record the size of their farm, but he did say that they owned 1 gun, 4 cattle, and 10 sheep.  (Marie-Madeleine gave Robert 13 children, including six sons that created families of their own.  One of their daughters, Madeleine, gave birth to a son whose father is unknown; the boy survived childhood, called himself an Henry, and also created his own family.) 

Nicolas Barrieau, also called Barriot, Bariault, and Barillot, came to the colony by c1682, when he married Martine, a daughter of Étienne Hébert.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Nicolas, called a Barillot, was age 40, and Martine was 28.  They were living with a two-year-old daughter.  The intendant did not give the size of their farm or the numbers of their animals.  (Martine gave Nicolas nine children, including four sons who created families of their own.)

Jean Préjean dit Le Breton, evidently from Brittany, married Andrée, a daughter of François Savoie, in c1683.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Jean was age 35, and Andrée was 21.  They were living with a two-year-old daughter on an arpent of land.  They owned 2 guns and 1 hog.  (Andrée gave him a dozen children, including eight sons who created families of their own.) 

François Amireau dit Tourangeau married Marie, a daughter of Jean Pitre, in c1683.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  François, called Tourangeau, was age 42, and Marie was 22.  They were living with a daughter, age 2.  De Meulles did not give the size of their farm or the number of their animals.  (Marie gave François 11 children, including five sons who created families of their own.)

Mathieu, fils, son of Mathieu D'Amours, sieur de Matane and Marie Marsolet de Saint-Aignan, was born at Québec in March 1657.  Mathieu, père, sieur de Matane was a member of the Conseil sourverain de Québec, and his wife was from a prominent Canadian family, so it was expected that their surviving sons, Louis, Mathieu, fils, René, Charles, and Bernard, also would receive seigneuries in New France; all five of them, in fact, received land grants on Rivière St.-Jean, in present-day New Brunswick.  Louis received his seigneurie at Jemseg in 1683 and became Louis D'Amours, sieur de Chaffours et de Jemseg.  Mathieu, fils's grant, which he received in September 1684, lay along an upper stretch of the river between Jemseg and Nashwaak; with the grant came the title, sieur de Freneuse.  In October 1686, at Québec, the sieur de Freneuse married Louise, daughter of Simon Guyon and widow of Charles Thibault, a sister of Mathieu, fils's older brother Louis's wife Marguerite.  De Meulles counted the D'Amours brothers on Rivière St.-Jean in 1686.  Louis, sieur de Chaffours, was age 32, but wife Marguerite's age was unrecorded.  The intendant found them with no children.  Mathieu, fils, sieur de Freneuse, was age 28, but wife Louise's age was not recorded, nor did de Meulles record them with any children.  Also in the census, on Rivière St.-Jean, was Louis and Mathieu, fils's younger brother, René, sieur de Clignancour, still a bachelor.  De Meulles did not give the young sieur's age, but he would have been 26.  (Mathieu, fils and Louise had five children, all of them sons, three of whom married into the Léger de La Grange, d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, and Coutard families.  Mathieu, fils died in October 1696 probably at Québec; he was only 39 years old.  One of his grandsons, Jean-Baptiste, son of his second son, Louis de Chauffors, who married a daughter of captaines de sauvages Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie, third Baron de Saint-Castin, settled on his grandfather's seigneurie along Rivière St.-Jean, used the surname D'Amours dit de Louvière, the latter name an honorific used by some of his cousins, married Geneviève, a daughter of Michel  Bergeron dit de Nantes, and created a large family of his own.)

Jean or Joannis Bastarache or Basterretche dit Le Basque of the Basque region of southern France married Huguette, a daughter of Pierre Vincent, at Port-Royal in c1684.   De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Jean, called Jean de Bastarache, was age 25, and Huguette was 22.  They lived with a daughter who was only 7 months old.  De Meulles did not give the size of their farm or the number of their animals.  (Huguette gave Jean five children, including three sons who created families of  their own.)

Pierre Bézier dit Joan dit LaRivière married Madeleine, daughter of Vincent Brun and widow of Guillaume Trahan, in c1684.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Pierre, called Joan, was age 60, and Madeleine was 47.  They lived with six of her unmarried Trahan children, ages 19 to 9, and their own child, a daughter, Susanne, age 2 months, on 8 arpents of land.  They owned 10 cattle, 10 sheep, and 2 guns.  (Susanne was Pierre Bézier's only child; she married Pierre, a son of Jean Comeau l'aîné, at Port-Royal in January 1704, so his blood lived on.)

Claude Bertrand, no kin to the childless Clément, married Catherine, a daughter of Jean Pitre, in c1685.  De Meulles counted them at Port-Royal in 1686.  Claude, called Bertran, was age 35, and Catherine was 18.  De Meulles noted that "they live at Cap de Sable."  He counted no children with them at Port-Royal.  (Oldest child Claude, fils was born the year of the census, so they probably were childless when De Meulles counted them.  Catherine gave Claude 10 children, including four sons who created families of their own, but oldest son Claude, fils was not one of them.)

François Michel dit La Ruine married Madeleine Germon in c1686, on the eve of de Meulles's census.  He lived with her briefly on Rivière-Ste.-Croix, but De Meulles counted them at La Hève in 1686.  François was 35 years old, and Madeleine was 40.  They had no children, but "a servant," Charles Gourdeau, age 40, lived with them.  (Madeleine gave François no children.  He remarried to Marguerite, daughter of Jean Meunier, in c1695.  She gave him a dozen children, including two sons who created families of their own.)

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Also in the colony in the 1680s were men who did not appear in de Meulles's census but who would create significant family lines in Acadia.  One of them, in fact, was a high colonial official who fell in love with an Acadian girl: 

René Lambert, an indentured servant to a rich widow, lived on the lower Rivière St.-Jean after his term of service ended, moved to Port-Royal, and married in c1680 to a woman whose name has been lost to history.  They do not appear in the 1686 census, so René may have returned to Rivière St.-Jean.  René's wife gave him two sons, the older one, René, fils, born in Acadia the year after de Meulle's census.  The younger son, Jean, also was born in Acadia, date unrecorded.  Both sons survived childhood and created families of their own. 

Louis Saulnier, a sailor, married Louise Bastineau dit Peltier in c1684, but they, too, were not counted in the census of 1686, probably because they were living in the new Acadian settlement at Minas.  Louise gave him 14 children, all born at Minas.  Five of them were sons who created families of their own. 

François Moyse dit Latreille, perhaps of Arcasson, France, married Madeleine, a daughter of Pierre Vincent, in c1685.  They also were not counted in the census of 1686 perhaps because they had settled on Rivière St.-Jean.  Madeleine gave François six children, including three sons who created families of their own. 

Jean Roy dit LaLiberté of St.-Malo, France, married Marie-Christine Aubois, also called Hautbois and Dubois, an Indian, perhaps a métisse, in c1686, evidently after de Meulles's census.  They were living at Cap-Sable in 1693 but returned to Port-Royal later in the decade.  Marie-Christine gave him nine children, including four sons who created families of their own. 

François Savary, a mason and stone cutter, was indentured to Antoine Héron "for the company of Acadia" in 1686.  In c1689, free from his contract, he married Geneviève Forest probably at Port-Royal.  She gave him a son, André, who married Marie-Marthe, a daughter of Bernard Doucet, at Port-Royal in February 1712.  Marie-Marthe gave André 11 children, including three sons who created their own families. 

Nicolas Babineau dit Deslauriers, probably a soldier, married Marie-Marguerite, a daughter of Laurent Granger, in c1687.  She gave Nicolas six children, including four sons who created families of their own.  They remained at Port-Royal. 

Nicolas's younger brother Jean Babineau married Marguerite, a daughter of Michel Boudrot, in c1693.  She gave Jean two daughters but no sons.  They, too, remained at Port-Royal. 

Mathieu de Goutin, born in France in c1663 to a family of the lesser nobility, ingratiated himself to an influential marquis and came to Port-Royal in the late 1680s to serve as the King's lieutenant général civil et criminel, or "general representative for justice," replacing the aging Michel Boudrot in August 1688.  He also served as écrivain, or colonial secretary; as conseiller, or counselor; and as trésorier, or paymaster, at Port-Royal.  Despite the disapproval of Acadian Governor Menneval, Sr. Mathieu married an Acadian girl, Jeanne, a daughter of Pierre Thibodeau, at Port-Royal in c1689.  In 1691, Mathieu was granted a seigneurie at Mouscoudabouet, today's Musquodoboit, on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.  He served at Port-Royal until the British took over the colony in 1713.  Jeanne gave him 13 children, including two sons who created families of their own.

Guillaume Le Juge married Marie, daughter of ____ Mercier and Françoise Gaudet and widow of Antoine Babin, at Port-Royal in c1688.  Marie gave Guillaume two children, both daughters.  Older daughter Élisabeth, or Isabelle, married first to Pierre le jeune, son of Martin Benoit, in c1703, and then to François, son of Jacques Michel, widower of Marie-Anne Léger, at Port Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in November 1751. 

Joseph Prétieux, later Précieux, of Charente, France, married Anne, a daughter of François Gautrot, in c1688.  She gave Joseph two children, including a son who created a family of his own.  Daughter Anne gave birth to a son, Jacques, two years before she married Pierre Lalande, alias Blaise des Brousses dit Bonappétit.  Jacques's fate is unknown. 

René Bernard, probably not kin to the other Bernards in the colony, married Madeleine, a daughter of Pierre Doucet, in c1689, probably at the new Acadian settlement at Chignecto.  Madeleine gave René eight children, all born at Chignecto, including three sons who created families of their own. 

Sr. Jacques Michel dit Saint-Michel, perhaps a brother or cousin of François dit La Ruine of La Hève, married Catherine, a daughter of Étienne Comeau, at Port-Royal in c1689.  Catherine gave Sr. Jacques 13 children, including four sons who created families of his own. 

Pierre Cellier, also called Le Solier, dit Normand married Marie-Josèphe, also called Aimée, Lejeune in c1689.  They settled at Minas.  Marie-Josèphe gave Pierre 10 children, including two sons who created families of their own.  Their daughter Cécile married Jacques Guénard dit Gaudereau, originally James Gainier, an Irish soldier, at Beaubassin, Chignecto, in July 1712. 

Jean Ozelet of La Tremblade, near Rochefort, France, emigrated to Newfoundland, then a part of greater Acadia, probably in the 1680s and became a fisherman and petit habitant there.  He married Madeleine, daughter of Louis Beaufet, at Plaisance, now Placentia, Newfoundland, in c1692.  Madeleine gave Jean eight children, all born at Plaisance, including a son, also named Jean, who married a daughter of François Moyse and created a family of his own. 

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During the 1690s, despite nearly a decade of warfare between France and Britain, more settlers appeared in greater Acadia and established families of their own:

An Allain, who given name had been lost, came to Acadia by the mid-1680s and married, but he created no lasting family line.  Louis Allain, a blacksmith, probably no kin to the other Allain, married Marguerite, a daughter of Antoine Bourg, in c1690, and built a sawmill on the river below Port-Royal.  Marguerite gave Louis two children, including a son, Pierre, who married a daughter of Antoine LeBlanc and created a family of his own. 

André Célestin dit Bellemère, another blacksmith, married Pérrine Basile in France in c1685.  They came to Acadian in c1690 and settled at the new community of Minas.  Pérrine gave André seven children, including two sons who created their own families.  The older son Jacques's descendants used the family dit Bellemère as their surname.  The younger son Antoine and his descendants continued the surname Célestin

Alain Bugeaud of Bois, Saintonge, France, in turn a churchwarden, surgeon, and notary, came to Acadia in c1690, married Élisabeth or Isabelle, a daughter of Pierre Melanson, in c1695 and settled with the Melansons at Grand-Pré, where he held so many positions.  Élisabeth/Isabelle gave Alain six children, including four sons who created families of their own. 

Pierre Brassaud or Brassaux married Gabrielle, a daughter of Michel Forest dit Michel, at Port-Royal in c1691.  Gabrielle gave Pierre nine children, including a son who survived childhood, married, and may have created a family of his own. 

Joseph Gravois married Marie, daughter of André Mignier dit La Gassé, in c1691.  Marie gave Joseph a son, also named Joseph, who survived childhood, married a daughter of Pierre Cyr, and created a family of his own.  They settled at Chignecto. 

Vincent Longuépée married Madeleine, a daughter of René Rimbault, at Port-Royal in c1692.  They moved to Minas and then moved again to an even newer settlement at Cobeguit.  Madeleine gave Vincent six children, including a son, Louis, who married Anne, a daughter of Pierre Brassaud, in c1720, and created a family of his own. 

Louis Mezerrolet or Mazerolle dit Saint-Louis married Geneviève Forest, 29-year-old widow of François Savary, at Port-Royal in c1692.  She gave Louis four children, including a son, Joseph, who married first to Marie-Josèphe, a daughter of Jean Doiron; she gave him a son named Simon.  In his late 30s, Joseph remarried to Anne, a daughter of Joseph Daigre, at Minas, and there they remained. 

Pierre Lavergne, servant of the Père du Breslay of Port-Royal in the early 1690s, married Anne Bernon at Port-Royal in c1693.  Anne gave him five children, including a son, Jacques, who married Françoise, a daughter of Claude Pitre, at Annapolis Royal in February 1727 and settled at Tintamarre, Chignecto. 

Michel Deveau dit Dauphiné married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Pierre Martin and Joachine Lafleur of Sillery, near Québec (Canadians, not Acadians), and widow of Guyon Chiasson dit La Vallée, probably at Chignecto in c1693.  Marie-Madeleine gave Michel six children, including four sons who created families of their own. 

Jean Lamoureux dit Rochefort, of Rochefort, France, married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Abraham Pichot, at Plaisance, Newfoundland, then part of greater Acadia, in c1693.  Jean was a fisherman and served as a major of the Plaisance militia.  Marie-Madeleine gave him five children, including a son, Jean-Baptiste dit Rochefort, who created a family of his own. 

Barthélémy Bergeron dit d'Amboise, a soldier from Amboise, Indre-et-Loire, France, reached Canada in c1685 and accompanied Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, the future pioneer of the Louisiana colony, on an expedition to Hudson's Bay during King William's War.  Barthélémy went to Acadia with Iberville in 1696, while the war was still on.  Barthélemy had married Geneviève, daughter of Jean Serreau, sieur de Saint-Aubin, seigneur of Ste.-Croix and Passamaquoddy, and widow of Jacques Petitpas, probably at Québec in c1695.  With his bride, Barthélémy settled at Port-Royal and became a merchant.  Geneviève gave him six children, including three sons who created families of their own.  Many of Barthélémy's descendants continued to use his dit, d'Amboise, though his second son, Michel, was called dit de Nantes.  The Bergerons were among the hand full of Acadian families who settled on Rivière St.-Jean. 

Jacques Léger dit La Rosette, a drummer in the sieur de Villeu's company, detachment of Marine, stationed at Fort Nashwaak (now Fredericton, New Brunswick) on Rivière St.-Jean, was born probably in France in c1668.  Around 1693, after his discharge from the King's service, Jacques married Madeleine, a daughter of Guillaume Trahan, père, at Port-Royal and took land on the south side of Rivière au Dauphin, above Port-Royal.  Jacques and Madeleine had 11 children, including four sons, all born at Port-Royal, three of whom created families of their own.

François Coste of Martigues, bishopric of Marseille, France, a carpenter, navigator, and coastal pilot, married Madeleine, a daughter of Barnabé Martin, probably at Port-Royal in c1695.  Madeleine gave François eight children, including two sons who created families of their own. 

Étienne Poitevin dit Parisien, evidently from Paris, married Anne, daughter of Olivier Daigre, at Port-Royal in c1696.  She gave Étienne a dozen children, including a son who created families of  their own, but this son, Jacques-Christophe dit Cadien, did not remain in Acadia; as his dit implies, he settled in Canada.  Étienne's younger sons, who did not marry, and his many married daughters remained in greater Acadia.  

Louis Chênet, Chenais, or Chesnay dit La Garenne, son of Bertrand, Sieur de Lothainville and Élisabeth Aubert, born at Québec in August 1678, moved to Port-Royal and married Jeanne, a daughter of Barnabé Martin, in c1697.  She gave him two children, including a son, Jean dit La Garenne, who married a daughter of Jean Pothier and created a family of his own. 

François, fils, son of François Viger or Vigé and a woman whose name has been lost to history, married Marie, a daughter of Philippe Mius d'Azy, probably at Pobomcoup in c1697.  They were living at Ouimakagan, near Pobomcoup, in 1705 and were counted at Cap-Sable, probably Pobomcoup, in 1708.  Marie gave François, fils seven children, including a son who created a family of his own.  Their oldest daughter Marie-Josèphe married Martin, son of Jean Corporon and widower of Cécile Joseph dit LeJeune, in c1718, and remarried to Paul, son of Pierre Benoit le jeune, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in July 1750. 

Jérôme Darois, also called d'Aroy and Darouette, of Paris arrived in Acadia by c1698, the year he married Marie, daughter of Dominique Gareau and Marie Gaudet, and widow of ____ Lachapelle, at Port-Royal.  They moved to Minas.  In 1706, during Queen Anne's War, the British held Jérôme as a prisoner in Boston, Massachusetts.  After the war, he returned to his home at Minas before moving his family to Petitcoudiac, northwest of Chignecto, still French territory, probably to escape British authority in peninsula Nova Scotia.  Marie gave Jérôme 10 children, including two sons who married Breau sisters and created families of their own. 

Jean Naquin dit L'Étoille, a master tailor, married Marguerite, a daughter of Jean Bourg, soon after the census of 1698.  They settled at Bélair near Port-Royal.  Marguerite gave Jean five children, including two sons who recreated families of their own. 

Jean Pothier, also called Poitiers, married Anne, a daughter of Michel Poirier, in c1699, probably at Chignecto.  Anne give Jean three children, including two sons who created families of their own.  Jean remarried to Marie-Madeleine, a daughter of Guyon Chiasson, in c1709.  They remained at Chignecto.  Marie-Madeleine gave Jean seven more children, including three more sons who created families of their own. 

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More future family progenitors arrived during the final years of French control of peninsula Acadia.  Most of the first decade of the new century, like the 1690s, was consumed by war, so it is no surprise that many of these new Acadians were soldiers and sailors: 

François Tillard married Marguerite, daughter of Jacques LePrince, probably at Port-Royal in c1700.  They later settled at Minas.  Marguerite gave François four children, including a son who created a family of his own. 

Jean-Joseph, called Joseph, son of perhaps Jean Boutin and Susanne Rocheteau of Québec, born perhaps at Québec, was a 25-year-old fisherman at Port-Royal in 1701.  He married Marie-Marguerite, a daughter of Pierre Lejeune dit Briard, at Port-Royal in c1708.  They moved to La Hève on the Atlantic side of the peninsula and then to Minas, but they did not remain there either.  Marie-Marguerite gave Joseph eight children, including five sons who created families of their own. 

Jacques Bonnevie dit Beaumont of Paris, a corporal in the King's service, married Françoise, a daughter of Philippe Mius d'Entremont, at Port-Royal in c1701.  Françoise gave Jacques five children, including a son, Jacques dit Jacquot dit Beaumont, who married daughters of Alexandre Lord, Jean Comeau, and Paul Melanson

Maurice, son of Paul Vigneau and Françoise Bourgeois of Ste.-Famille, Île d'Orléans, on the St. Lawrence, married Marguerite, daughter of Pierre Comeau l'aîné, probably at Port-Royal in c1701.  Maurice worked as a charpentier du roi.  Marguerite gave him 11 children, including six sons who created families of their own. 

Mathieu dit La Citardy spelled his surname Brasseur and sometimes Brasseux and LeBrasseur, so he probably was not a kinsman of Pierre Brassaud/Brassaux.  Mathieu  married Jeanne, teenage daughter of André Célestin dit Bellemère, at Port-Royal in c1702; Mathieu, interestingly enough, was 39 years older than his wife. They settled at Minas.  Jeanne gave Mathieu 11 children, including fives sons who created families of their own. 

Pierre Carret or Carré, a soldier, married Angélique, a daughter of Guyon Chiasson, probably at Chignecto in c1702.  Angélique gave Pierre 13 children, including four sons who created families of their own. 

Gabriel Moulaison dit Recontre of Limoges, France, arrived in Acadia by 1702, the year he fathered a daughter by Marie, daughter of Olivier Daigre and widow of Pierre Sibilau, at Port-Royal.  Gabriel dit Recontre and Marie did not marry.  (Their daughter married into the Henshaw family.)  In July 1706, at Port-Royal, Gabriel married Marie, daughter of Julien Aubois of the Cap-Sable area. They settled at Pobomcoup, today's Pubnico, near the cape.  Marie gave Gabriel nine more children, including four sons who created families of their own. 

Élie, son of Jean Gentil and Marie Jolet of St.-Nazaire-sur-Charente, Saintogne, France, married Cécile, a daughter of Barnabé Martin, at Port-Royal in October 1702.  Élie worked as a mason.  Cécile gave him two children, a daughter and a son.  Their daughter Anne-Marie or Marie-Anne married Jean-Baptiste, son of Michel Haché dit Gallant and Anne Cormier, at Beaubassin, Chignecto, in February 1719.  The fate of Élie and Cécile's son is unknown. 

Jean Clémençeau dit Beaulieu of Bordeaux, France, a sergeant in the King's service, reached Port-Royal before 1703, the year in which he ran afoul of Acadian Governor Jacques-François de Mombeton de Brouillan. The governor had authorized Clémençeau "to work on the distribution of the King's provisions and munitions" at the Port-Royal fort, but one of Clémenceau's superiors received word that Clémençeau "was involved in some malfeasance." The superior complained to the governor, who ordered the sergeant's arrest when Clémençeau returned to the fort, "but shortly thereafter he was released and his clothing was returned to him ...." Evidently the sergeant had found an ally in one demoiselle Barat, "who promised to represent him whenever and as often as would be necessary." Two years later, the war still raging, Clémençeau married Anne, métisse daughter of Jean Roy and Marie Aubois, in Boston, so the English must have captured him. Back at Port-Royal in 1706, Jean and Anne's marriage was blessed by a priest.  Anne gave him six children, including son son, Louis, who married a daughter of Jean Caissie and created a family of his own.  Jean remarried to Marguerite, a daughter of Jean Corporon, at Port-Royal in c1711.  She gave him another son, Jean-Pierre, who married daughters of René Martin and Claude Gautrot

Charles dit Champagne, son of Julien Orillon and Anne Roger of St.-Thomas de La Flèche, Angers, France, arrived at Port-Royal in c1703, early in Queen Anne's War, to serve as a soldier and mason in the garrison at Port-Royal and also as a servant in the home of Acadian governor de Bouillan. Not along after he reached the colony, Charles dit Champagne married Marie-Anne, daughter of Jean Bastarache, at Port-Royal in January 1704.  This gave him good reason to remain in the colony when the war finally ended in 1714.  Marie-Anne gave him nine children, all born at Port-Royal, including five sons who created families of their own. 

Jean, son of Antoine Mouton, maître d'hôtel de M. de Grignan, and Jeanne Merlasse of Marseille, France, arrived in Port-Royal in c1703 and married Marie, 16-year-old daughter of Alexandre Girouard, in January 1711.  They moved to Grand-Pré in c1712, where Sr. Jean earned his living as a surgeon, and then moved on to Chignecto.  Marie gave the surgeon 10 children, including five sons who created families of their own. 

Étienne DesRoches, a native of Ploubalay, France, near St.-Malo, married Gabrielle Le Manquet of Plaisance, Newfoundland, probably at La Baleine, Cap Breton Island, in c1703; he was in his early 50s and she in her early 20s at the time of the wedding.  Étienne worked as a resident fisherman, or habitant, at La Baleine.  He and Gabrielle had nine children, including four sons who created families of their own.  

Gabriel, fils, son of Gabriel Samson and Françoise Durand of la Pointe de Lévis, Québec, born at Cap-St.-Ignace on the St. Lawrence, married Jeanne, a daughter of Barnabé Martin and widow of Louis Chênet, at Port-Royal in April 1704.  Gabriel, fils was a constructeur, navigator, and carpenter.  Jeanne gave him 11 children, including three sons who created families of their own. 

Louis dit Poitiers, son of René Marchand or Marcheguy and Jacquette Gaillard of Bussière-Pointevine, Poitiers, France, a corporal in the Port-Royal garrison and a habitant-gardener, married Marie, daughter of Laurent Godin dit Châtillon, at Port-Royal in November 1705.  Marie gave the corporal five children, including two sons who created families of their own. 

Michel dit Le Rigeur, son of Michel Picot and Saintine Venarde of the bishopric of Chartres, France, married Élisabeth, or Isabelle, a daughter of François Levron, at Port-Royal in November 1705.  Élisabeth gave Le Rigeur two children, including a son, Michel III, who created a family of his own. 

Jean-François Flan of Paris, France, married Marie, a daughter of Michel Dupuis, at Port-Royal in January 1706. Jean-François served as clerk for the Port-Royal fortifications--commis des fortifications--and for a time oversaw the rebuilding of the town's defenses.  After the British gained control of Port-Royal and renamed it Annapolis Royal, the former commis des fortifications moved on to Minas.  Meanwhile, Marie gave him five children, only one of them a son, who probably did not marry.  Three of Jean-François and Marie's daughters did marry, into the LeBlanc and Landry families, so the blood, at least, of the Parisian Flans survived in Acadia. 

François dit Paris, son of Jean Testard and Jeanne Vignier of Beaumont in Picardie, not Paris, France, married Marie, a daughter of Jean Doiron, at Port-Royal in November 1706.  Paris worked as a carpenter and a navigator.  Marie gave him seven children, including a son, Jean-Baptiste dit Paris, who created a family of his own. 

Pierre dit La Forest, son of Pierre Part and Catherine Piouset of Mouzens, bishopric of Tulle, France, was a soldier in la compagnie de Falaise, serving in the garrison at Port-Royal, when he married Jeanne, a daughter of Claude Dugas, in February 1707.  Pierre dit La Forest became a blacksmith at Port-Royal after his term of service expired.  Jeanne gave him six children, including three sons who created families of their own. 

Louis, son of François Blin, also called Abelin, and Jeanne Barbier of St.-Pierre, Lachine, Montréal, Canada, married Marie, a daughter of Olivier Daigre, probably at Minas in c1707.  Marie gave Louis one child, a daughter born at Grand-Pré in December 1708.  After Marie's death, Louis left British-controlled Nova Scotia, returned to his native Canada, and remarried to Marguerite, daughter of Jean Mineau dit Lumina, at Rivière-Ouelle, on the lower St. Lawrence, in April 1709.  Marguerite gave Louis 14 more children, all born on the St. Lawrence.  Daughter Anne, however, by his first wife, returned to Nova Scotia and married Michel Picot III at Grand-Pré in February 1731. 

Jean dit La Giroflée, son of Claude Turpin and Anne Prission of Sancerre en Berry, France, was a sergeant in the compagnie de Duvivier at Port-Royal when he married Catherine, a daughter of Jean Bourg, at Port-Royal in January 1708.  Catherine gave the sergeant seven children, including a son whose given name and his spouse's name have been lost to history.  Three of Jean's daughters married into the Barrieau, Robichaud, and Comeau families, so his blood survived. 

Gabriel-Louis, son of Gabriel Rousseau, sieur de la Gorre et de Villejoin, gentlehomme servant son altesse royale Gaston de France, and Dame Marie Baudron, born at St.-Honoré, Blois, France, inherited his father's title, sieur de Villejoin, and served as an officer in the Detachment of Marines at Fort Louis, Plaisance, Newfoundland, then a part of greater Acadia.  Gabriel-Louis married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of Sr. François Bertrand, colonel of militia and a member of the Order of St.-Louis, and Jeanne Giraudet, at Plaisance in April 1708.  Their wedding must have been a big affair; Newfoundland governor Pastour de Costebelle and dozens of other distinguished guests witnessed the ceremony.  Marie-Josèphe gave Sr. Gabriel-Louis six children, including two sons who married daughters of fellow French aristocrats, and who also were their cousins.  Older son Gabriel de Villejoin, whose second wife was a daughter of Chignecto seigneur Michel Le Neuf de Vallière, was made a chevalier of the Order of St. Louis and died in France after serving the King as a brigadier.  Gabriel-Louis's younger son Michel d'Orfontaine married another daughter of Michel Le Neuf de Vallière

Pierre, son of Noël Surette and Françoise Colarde of Mauset, diocese of La Rochelle, France, was a sailor when he married Jeanne, a daughter of Étienne Pellerin, at Port-Royal in February 1709.  They remained at Port-Royal and settled in the parish of St.-Laurent on the haute rivière.  Although Pierre became a farmer along the upper Rivière au Dauphin, he also continued to work as a sailor.  Jeanne gave him nine children, including three sons who created families of their own. 

François Bodart of Brussels, a navigator, married Marie, daughter of Charles Babin, probably at Minas in c1709.  Marie gave François five children, all of them daughters.  Their fourth daughter Marguerite married Joseph, son of Michel Vincent, probably at Minas in c1745. 

Jean-Baptiste Dubois dit Dumont of Montréal married Marie, daughter of André Simon dit Boucher, at Port-Royal in c1710.  Jean-Baptiste died at Grand-Pré in c1713, but not before fathering a son, Joseph dit Dumont, born at Port-Royal in c1712.  Joseph chose as his surname not Dubois but his father's dit, Dumont, married a daughter of Jean-Baptiste Vécot, and created a family of his own. 

The Founding of New Settlements and the Growth of Old Ones:  Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, Cobeguit, Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, Memramcook, Rivière St.-Jean, Pobomcoup, and Port-Royal

Soon after the counting of heads by the new Acadian governor and the arrival of the L'Oranger in 1671, some of the inhabitants of the Port-Royal basin became pioneers again--"the first swarming of the Acadians to establish their hive," as one historian describes it.  "Not long after 1671," writes another historian of the colony, "Jacques Bourgeois, the former surgeon of d’Aulnay and a well-to-do farmer of Port Royal, decided to move...."  His new settlement stood nearly a hundred miles northeast of Port-Royal, along Rivière Missaguash just north of what is now the Cumberland Basin, an arm of the Baie de Chignecto that, in turn, is an extension of the Bay of Fundy.  Bourgeois "had known the area in younger days in the course of extensive fur-trading activities and his move was undoubtedly aimed at the freer activity of Indian trading as well as of farming.  But he persuaded five other families to go with him and the prospects of farming were certainly bright enough with a situation on the edge of the largest continuous expanse of dykable marshland in eastern North America [the Tintamarre].  Even without dyking, the resources of salt-marsh hay, and of grazing, must have seemed limitless.  Within five years the group was well established, other settlers followed, more and more land was reclaimed, and the flocks and herds increased."  The location of a new settlement so far from the prying eyes of French officials in Port-Royal doubtlessly was another incentive to settle the place.  The small ships of New England merchants could slip quietly past Port-Royal into Chignecto Bay and then up into the narrow basin, where they could anchor near the settlements and engage in the trade that was so important to the Acadians.  Also, as one historian points out, "the Shediac portage was an important relay station in the sea communications between Acadia and Canada and a strategic position commanding the isthmus and Baie Française."89

The other men who followed Jacques Bourgeois to this distant new settlement were his older sons Charles and Germain; his son-in-law Pierre Cyr and future sons-in-law Jean Boudrot and Germain Girouard; Germain Girouard's brothers-in-law Thomas Cormier and Jacques Blou, one a carpenter, the other a cooper; and Pierre Arseneau, a bachelor who had recently arrived at Port-Royal aboard L'Oranger.  In October 1676, Canadian Michel Le Neuf, sieur de La Vallière, son of a governor of Trois-Rivières and son-in-law of Nicolas Denys, secured seigniorial rights from Governor-General Frontenac to a 10-square-league area around the new settlement and named it Beaubassin after the narrow basin in which flowed several area rivers, including the Missaguash.  The collection of settlements that arose in the area also was known by the Indian name Chignecto, after the narrow, 15-mile-wide isthmus that these settlements straddled.  Acadian tradition insists that the grant to La Vallière specified that "he leave undisturbed any settlers there, together with the lands they used or had planned to use for themselves; the Bourgeois group was thus protected."  La Vallière "established himself on an 'island' of higher ground in the marshes," called Tonge's Island today.  In the late 1670s and early 1680s, the seigneur was the commander and then governor of Acadia, so Beaubassin served as the colony's capital until it returned to Port-Royal in 1684.  During the following years, Chignecto settlements appeared on either side of the Cumberland Basin and Rivière Missaguash--at Menoudy, Maccan, Nappan, La Planche, and Rivière-des-Hébert on the east, and at Veshak, La Coupe, Welicook, Aulac, Le Lac, Les-Richards, Tintamarre (also called Tantramarre), and La Coupe west of the Missaguash. Several church parishes were created for the area:  Notre-Dame-du Ban Secours, also called Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption-de-la-Trés-Ste.-Vierge, at Beaubassin; St.-Louis at Pointe-de Beauséjour; and St.-Anne at Tintamarre.90

With La Vallière came new settlers to the Chignecto area in the late 1670s, among them Guyon Chiasson dit Lavallée, then in his middle age and married to his second wife, and Michel Larché or Haché dit Gallant, a young servant of the seigneur who married Anne, daughter of Thomas Cormier.  From Port-Royal in the late 1670s and early 1680s came Michel, son of Jean Poirier; and Irishman Roger dit Jean Caissie, brother-in-law of Michel Poirier; an historian of the Acadian experience says that Roger may have introduced fruit trees to Beaubassin.  In the following years, other settlers in the Chignecto area bore the names Belliveau, Bernard, Boucher, Bourg, Brun, Carret, Clémençeau, Daigre, Doiron, Doucet, Dugas, Forest, Gaudet, Gravois, Guénard, Hébert, Hugon, Labauve, Lambert, Landry, Lanoue, Livois, Martin, Melanson, Mouton, Olivier, Orillon, Pothier, Quimine, Richard, and Thériot.91

Within a decade after the founding of the Chignecto settlements, the Acadians swarmed again, this time to a fertile basin half way between Port-Royal and Beaubassin.  The Bassin des Mines, or Minas Basin, 60 miles northeast of Port-Royal and 50 miles south of Beaubassin, took its name from a shiny metal substance found in the area that early explorers of the peninsula believed was copper.  Pierre Melanson, the elder son of a French Huguenot who had come to Acadia with the English, married a daughter of Philippe Mius d'Entremont and became one of the most prosperous settlers at Port-Royal; in 1680, Pierre sold his property there and moved his large family to Grand-Pré, which lay between two small rivers flowing into the basin, the St.-Antoine, later called Rivière-des-Habitants and now the Cornwallis, to the north; and the Gaspereau to the south.  Two years later, Pierre, the 26-year-old son of Jean Thériot, started another settlement, on Rivière St.-Antoine, not far from Pierre Melanson's homestead.  "Being a popular and generous man," one historian attests, Thériot "supplied wheat without interest and housed many while their homes were being built."  Thériot had married a daughter of René Landry le jeune in c1678.  They were not blessed with children, but Pierre's nephews Germain, Jean, Claude, and Joseph, sons of his older brother Claude, followed their uncle to Minas and spawned a huge extended family.  Soon the Melansons and Thériots were joined by other pioneers and their families from Port-Royal who settled along the many streams that flowed into the basin, including Rivière-aux-Canards, north of the St.-Antoine.  Antoine, Claude, and René, sons of René Landry l'aîné; Jacques, René, André, and Antoine, sons of Daniel LeBlanc; Étienne and Michel, sons of Étienne Hébert; their cousin Jean, son of Antoine Hébert; and Claude, son of Michel Boudrot, filled the basin with their progeny in the decades that followed, as did other colonists from Port-Royal and Chignecto, and new arrivals from France.  Two church parishes arose in the lower part of the basin:  St.-Charles at Grand-Pré, and St.-Joseph farther north on Rivière-aux-Canards.  Other settlers at Minas bore the names Allain, Aucoin, Babin, Bellemère, Bélisle, Benoit, Bergeron, Bertrand, Blanchard, Boucher, Bourg, Brasseur, Breau, Brun, Bugeaud, Clouâtre, ComeauDaigre, Darois, David, Doucet, Dugas, Dumont, Duon, Dupuis, Flan, Gautrot, Girouard, Granger, Labauve, Lalande, Lebert, Longuépée, Mazerolle, Mouton, Part, Pinet, Pitre, Précieux, Renaud, Richard, Robichaud, Saulnier, Semer, Surette, Thibodeau, and Trahan.92

As the number of new settlers at Minas attests, the place became an agricultural marvel.  "This area, which was to assume demographic and economic leadership among the three Acadian farming regions in the eighteenth century, was the last of the three major Acadian centers to get started," one historian reminds us.  "But its fine marshlands, the weakness of its nominal seigneurial control [claimed by the Le Borgnes], and, perhaps above all, its relative freedom from the attention of both New England raiders and French officials, allowed it to expand rapidly.  From only 57 people in the Grand Pré area in 1686 the population soared to more than 580 in 1707."  He goes on:  "There is no doubt that agriculture flourished in Minas beyond any experience at Port Royal or Beaubassin.  It was the better balanced than the latter; not neglecting livestock, in which Beaubassin rather specialized, it developed the best and most extensive arable farming in Acadia."  Another plus for the settlements at Minas was the fact that access to the basin from the Bay of Fundy was easy enough for the Acadians to continue their important trade with merchants from New England.93

Beginning around c1685, settlers from Minas and Port-Royal moved a few miles southeast of Grand-Pré into the upper stretches of what is now the Avon River just above its confluence with the smaller St. Croix.  They settled on both sides of the Avon around present-day Falmouth and Windsor, Nova Scotia.  The Acadians called the settlement Pigiguit, Mi'kmaq for "junction of the waters."  The first church parish there, Ste.-Famille, was founded in August 1698 and lay on the west side of the river; a second parish, dedicated to Notre-Dame-de l'Assomption and usually called L'Assomption, was founded in June 1722 for inhabitants living on the east side of Rivière Pigiguit, whose wide tidal flats made it difficult to cross to the west bank.  Settlers at Pigiguit bore the names Arsement, Babin, Barillot, Benoit, Boudrot, Boutin, Brasseur, Breau, Broussard, Bugeaud, Comeau, Corporon, Daigre, Doiron, Forest, Gaudet, Gautrot, Girouard, Guédry, Hébert, Landry, LeBlanc, Lejeune, Martin, Michel, Mire, Prince, Richard, Rivet, Roy, Savary, Thibodeau, Trahan, and Vincent.94 

In c1689, Mathieu Martin, "the first born Frenchman in Acadia," secured a seigneurie at the extreme northeast end of the Minas Basin, where he engaged in the fur trade.  Martin's seigneurie, called Wagobagitik or Wecobequitk (Mi'kmaq for "end of the water's flow," which refers to the present-day Salmon River), also Ouëcobeguy, St.-Matheiu, and eventually Cobeguit, lay 50 miles northeast of Grand-Pré and 55 miles southeast of Beaubassin.  Although Martin married, he and his wife, a fellow Acadian whose name has been lost to history, had no children.  As a result, Cobeguit was not settled until over a decade after Martin received his grant.  By 1701, Martin Bourg, Jérôme Guérin, and Martin Blanchard, all from Port-Royal, had moved their families to Martin's seigneurie, which became an important cattle-producing area.  The church parish there was dedicated to SS. Pierre-et-Paul.  During the following years, Cobeguit settlers also bore the names Aucoin, Benoit, Breau, Carret, Doiron, Dugas, Gautrot, Guédry, Guillot, Hébert, Henry, Lejeune, Longuépée, Naquin, Pitre, Robichaud, and Thériot.95

During the late 1690s and the early 1700s, another cluster of Acadian settlements sprang up in the region, this time only a dozen miles west of Beaubassin, in an area claimed by the seigneur of Chignecto, Michel LeNeuf de la Vallière, and his son-in-law, Claude-Sébastien de Villieu.  Chepoudy settlement, now present-day Hopewell Hill, New Brunswick, joined the constellation of Acadian communities after Pierre Thibodeau, who had come to Acadia with Emmanuel Le Borgne de Bélisle during the early 1650s and married into the Thériot clan, explored a stretch of marshy coast on upper Baie de Chignecto during the spring of 1698.  Believing he had secured a seigneurie from the colony's commander, Joseph Robinau de Villebon, who had sent him to the area, Thibodeau prepared to establish a settlement at the Chepoudy estuary.  Three of his sons wintered at Chepoudy in 1699/1700 and traded furs with the Indians.  Hearing of it, de Villieu protested their presence on his father-in-law's seigneurie and called them squatters.  Despite a question of their claim to the land, Pierre, his sons, and some of their neighbors from Port-Royal built at Chepoudy a flour mill and a sawmill, using machinery they had purchased from New Englanders.  The church parish at Chepoudy was dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation and was also called Notre-Dame-des-Neiges.  Meanwhile, Guillaume Blanchard of Port-Royal, younger son of Jean, also believed he had secured a seigneurie from Villebon, on the Petitcoudiac River near present-day Hillsborough, New Brunswick.  Blanchard started his new settlement about the same time that his friend Pierre Thibodeau settled at Chepoudy.  Pierre dit Pitre Gaudet and René Blanchard were the first settlers in the valley of the Memramcook, east of the Petitcoudiac.  In the years that followed, the settlers at Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, and Memramcook, called by the inhabitants the trois-rivières, also bore the names Allain, Babineau, Bertrand, Breau, Broussard, Brun, Comeau, Daigre, Darois, Doucet, Dubois, HébertLabauve, Lalande, Landry, LeBlanc, Léger, Martin, Pitre, Préjean, Saulnier, Savoie, Surette, and Trahan.96

While Acadians on the peninsula were establishing settlements at the head of the Bay of Fundy and in the Minas Basin, another, much smaller Acadian community, at least in population, arose along the middle Rivière St.-Jean, or, rather, came into its own.  This was the area once controlled by Charles La Tour and his lieutenants and for a time was the center of the fur trade in greater Acadia.  During the late 1600s and early 1700s, agricultural settlements grew up along the river above the old fort at Jemseg: at Ste.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas, now Fredericton; Ekoupag or Meductic, now Maugerville; and at Nashwaak.  The La Tours were still there, in the third generation, as were the descendants of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin and his half-breed son Bernard-Anselme, who once held sway at Pentagouët in Maine.  Joining the La Tours and the Saint-Castins, some with seigneuries of their own, were families that bore the names Le Borgne de Bélisle, Bergeron dit d'Amboise, D'Amour or D'Amours de Louvière, Dugas, Godin dit Beauséjour, dit Bellefeuille, dit Bellefontaine, dit Boisjoli, dit Châtillon dit Préville, dit Lincour, and dit Valcour, Henry, Part, and Roy.  The church on the upper St.-Jean, located at Meductic, was dedicated to Ste.-Anne.97 

Another Acadian community that had sprung up in the early 1600s also came into its own late in the century.  Cap-Sable, at the southwestern tip of the peninsula, was once controlled by the La Tours.  The most populated settlement near the cape was Pobomcoup, now Pubnico, north of the cape.  Philippe Mius, sieur d'Entremont of Cherbourg, childhood friend of Charles La Tour, had received the seigneurie of Pobomcoup from the governor in the early 1650s.   Half a century later, his family was still there, in the third generation, and still in possession of their ancestor's seigneurial rights.  The d'Entremonts had coaxed families from France, and especially from Port-Royal, to settle on their lands at the cape, where they engaged in limited agriculture as well as in fishing.  The largest family at Pobomcoup were the Amireaus.  Families there also bore the names Landry, Moulaison, and Viger.  Despite its relatively small population, two church parishes arose in the Cap-Sable area: Ste.-Anne at Cheboque, northwest of Pobomcoup, and Notre-Dame at Pobomcoup.99

Meanwhile, the Acadians who remained in the Port-Royal valley built more dykes on both sides of the river above and below the fort, claiming more arable land from the basin.  Settlers moved as far upriver as the terrain and the salt marshes allowed, and others fanned out along the many tributaries that flowed from the uplands into the basin.  New settlers arrived, took up new land, and married into the families already there.  Despite living under the noses of the French officials who ran the colony, Port-Royal Acadians went about their business much as their cousins and compatriots were doing in more distant settlements.  Two church parishes served the Port-Royal area:  the original parish for the colony, St.-Jean-Baptiste, in the village near the fort on the lower river, and St.-Laurent on the upper river.  A high-ranking French official, Mathieu de Goutin, the colony's head clerk or recorder and conseiller du roi, who served from the late 1680s to 1710, married into an Acadian family, the Thibodeaus, at Port-Royal.  Some settlers built houses near the fort and engaged in legitimate commerce, among them Abraham Boudrot, a son of De Goutin's predecessor as lieutenant général civil et criminel, Michel Boudrot.  During the final decades of French rule in Acadia, Alexandre Le Borgne de Bélisle and his descendants, who used the family name Bélisle, held the seigneurie at Port-Royal.  Other families at Port-Royal, old and new, also bore the names Babineau, Bastarache, Belliveau, Blanchard, Bonnevie, Bourg, Bourgeois, Breau, Broussard, Brun, Comeau, Doucet, Dugas, Duon, Dupuis, Forest, Gaudet, Gautrot, Girouard, Gousman, Granger, Guédry, Guilbeau, Hébert, Jeanson, Landry, Lanoue, Lavergne, LeBlanc, Léger, Levron, Martin, Martin dit Barnabé, Melanson, Michel, Moyse, Orillon, Part, Pellerin, Préjean, Prince, Richard, Robichaud, Roy, Savary, Savoie, and Thériot.98

The Acadians and Their Seigneurs

A creation of France, Acadia from its earliest days was burdened with French institutions more suitable for the mother country than the North American wilderness.  One of these was the medieval institution of feudalism, especially its component, manorialism, which in New France was called seigneurialism.  A seigneurie, like the Old World manor, was a grant of land from the King to a vassal.  In France, only nobles held seigneuries.  Not so in North America.  Grants were made to military officers, successful merchants, and to favorites of governors and intendants.  Along with land came other feudal rights enjoyed by the seigneur.  It was assumed that a seigneur would attract to his land settlers known as censitaires or habitants.  As part of the essential feudal arrangement, the seigneur was empowered to collect from his inhabitants cens et rentes, or taxes for use of the land.  The seigneur also could impose inheritance taxes called lods et vents and require his habitants to work for him for three days of the year, usually on projects beneficial to everyone living on the seigneurie. 

In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu, in the name of King Louis XIII, imposed a seigneurial system on New France.  In 1665, Canada's first intendant, Jean Talon, as direct representative of King Louis XIV in the colony, was given the power to grant and oversee the many seigneuries that lined both banks of the Fleuve St.-Laurent, "the Highway of New France."  Talon demanded that the seigneurs actually live on their "long lots" beside the St. Lawrence.  Following French custom, women were allowed to inherit their husbands' or fathers' seigneuries. 

There was nothing in Acadia like Canada's St. Lawrence, with its miles upon miles of long-lot seigneuries lining both banks of the river.  No great fleuve ran for dozens of leagues into Acadia's interior, serving as a great highway, both of communication and commerce, for the colony.  There was the Bay of Fundy, to be sure, with its smaller bays, its inlets, and its wide, marsh-lined basins, but the generally rocky coast of La Grand Baie Française, as Dugua and Champlain called it, precluded settlement along its shore. 

Dugua himself had been the first "seigneur" of Acadia, though the institution did not take root there until many decades later.  As holder of the King's concession, he possessed the power to grant seigneuries.  His first grant was that of Port-Royal to his lieutenant, Jean de Biencourt, sieur de Poutrincourt et de Saint-Just.  Upon Poutrincourt's death, his oldest son, Charles de Biencourt de Saint-Just, inherited the seigneurie.  After Biencourt's death, Charles La Tour claimed the young bachelor's seigneurial rights not only to Port-Royal but to all of Acadia.  After Isaac de Razilly became governor of New France and Acadia, he granted Port-Royal to his cousin and lieutenant, Charles de Menou, sieur d’Aulnay de Charnisay.  Another of Razilly's lieutenants, Nicolas Denys de la Ronde, held wide-spread seigneuries at Fort St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island; at Canso, Chédabouctou, and Port Rossignol on the Atlantic side of the peninsula; and along the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore all the way up to Gaspé.  Charles La Tour was granted, or, more accurately, confirmed to have been holding, seigneuries at Cap-Sable, on lower Rivière St.-Jean, and at Machias in Maine. 

After Razilly's untimely death in 1636, his successor, the Sieur d'Aulnay, assumed his cousin's hold on the other concessionaires in the colony, even going so far as to destroy or seize some of their holdings when they resisted him.  Meanwhile, d'Aulnay transferred the colony's agricultural operation from La Hève to Port-Royal.  There, perhaps under the seigneur's supervision, the habitants began the practice of reclaiming the salt mashes lining the basin with extensive dykes and aboiteaux.  Not only the construction but also the maintenance of these mounds of earth and the delicate wooden clapper valves that kept the salt tides out and allowed the rain water to cleanse the soil behind the dykes required the collective effort of the habitants.  Three days a year of required collective labor made no sense to these hard-working farmers.  They worked together, neighbor helping neighbor, not at the behest of a pushy seigneur but when necessity required it, which was often.  This collective labor, along with their kinship networks, not seigneurial obligations, became the glue that bound them tightly together and helped to create a unique Acadian culture. 

After the death of d'Aulnay in 1650, the Acadian seigneurial system was shaken up again.  Charles La Tour granted a seigneurie at Cap-Sable to his boyhood friend and lieutenant, Philippe Mius d'Entremont, whose descendants retained it for nearly a century.  One biographer insists that Mius d'Entremont was among the few Acadian seigneurs who not only lived on his manor but also encouraged immigrants from France and especially Port-Royal to settle there and engage in agriculture.  La Tour, meanwhile, could not hold on to Port-Royal, even after marrying d'Aulnay's widow.  The largest settlement in the colony fell into the hands of d'Aulnay's chief creditor in France.  Emmanuel Le Borgne, a wealthy Huguenot merchant from La Rochelle, secured the seigneurial rights to the basin and its environs and passed them on to his second son, Alexandre de Bélisle.  The seigneurial rights in the Minas Basin were long disputed by the heirs of La Tour and Le Borgne, some of whom had conveniently--or perhaps inconveniently--married one another.  The Le Borgnes, La Tours, and Mius d'Entremonts, like other Acadian seigneurs, held their rights even after the colony was lost to England in 1654, and their descendants were disputing seigneurial rights in the Minas Basin long after the British took permanent possession of the colony in 1713. 

Meanwhile, the governors-general of New France, who after 1670 held sway over Acadia, awarded Acadian seigneuries to their favorites.  Sometime in the 1670s, Michel Le Neuf de la Vallière, who would serve as commander and governor of Acadia during the late 1670s and early 1680s, received the seigneurie at Chignecto, which he called Beaubassin.  He then became Michel Le Neuf de la Vallière et de Beaubassin.  Tradition has it that Vallière was ordered to respect the rights of the Chignecto settlers already established there, but this proud Canadian likely would have ignored any diminution of his seigneurial powers, if the caveat ever existed.  In the 1680s, the sons of Mathieu D'Amours, seigneur of Matane, a prominent member of the Québec sovereign counsel, received seigneurial grants along the middle stretches of Rivière St.-Jean in present-day New Brunswick, then a part of greater Acadia.  The D'Amourss managed to lure a few families from the Port-Royal basin to their holdings along the St.-Jean. 

During the late 1680s and 1690s, several habitants from Port-Royal with no claims to nobility received seigneuries in other parts of Acadia.  Mathieu Martin, one of the first Frenchmen born in the colony, received the seigneurie of Cobeguit at the northeastern corner of the Minas Basin.  Pierre Thibodeau became the seigneur of Chepoudy, and Guillaume Blanchard of Petitcoudiac, and both soon ran afoul of La Vallière of Beaubassin, who insisted that his seigneurie included those two settlements. 

These habitants-turned-seigneurs were no more successful in collecting cens et rentes from their habitants as their aristocratic "betters" in other parts of the colony.  Acadians were known as a hospitable people, clever in trade, hard-working, devoted beyond measure to their wives and children, ready and willing to help their neighbors, who more often than not were siblings, cousins, or in-laws.  But they also were a  stubborn lot, contentious, litigious, jealous of the few rights they enjoyed as Frenchmen.  Paying rent to a seigneur, even if he was a kinsman, was not an obligation they practiced with any frequency.  Still, the obligation was real, and it did not go away.  After 1713, the British, who possessed their own fair share of medieval institutions, respected Acadian seigneurial rights ... until Acadia was no more. 

It was Razilly who had brought the first "permanent" families to Acadia in the mid-1630s.  Historian/geographer Andrew Hill Clark notes:  "Every Frenchman of the seventeenth century, at least every Frenchman north of the Roman Law area, must have believed that the only way to hold land was, as always, from a lord, a seigneur, who held it in turn from the king.  There is no reason to suppose that this was not true of the Acadian emigrés from France.  With whatever freedom they took land in the Port Royal area, or moved to the new lands to the north, on which they settled and farmed, they must still have assumed always that their use of it was, somehow, by way of concession from some individual or institution who, or which, in turn, held it from the crown." 

And:  "The degrees of reality in the seigneurial forms and procedures, such as they were, were largely restricted to the settled areas of Port Royal and its river, Minas, Beaubassin, and, to some degree perhaps, in the Pisiquid, Cobequid, and Pubnico areas.  These were, of course, the only agricultural settlements.  It is probable that the other seigneurs had been more interested in fish or fur then in agricultural lands in any event." 

Clark further observes:  "One may conclude that the Acadian seigneurs, such as they were, performed few if any of the traditional seigneurial functions, even in the emasculated form in which these were represented along the St. Lawrence.  There is no record that they built mills, or bake-ovens, for example, or, indeed, did anything but act as landlords whose only role was that of rent-collector.  One the other hand they do appear to have confined their demands largely to cens et rentes, with perhaps occasional lods et ventes (the seigneur's commission on the sale of a roture, in effect, a fine of alienation).  We do not hear of corvée [forced labor], of charges for fishing, for timber cutting, or the use of a common.  One hesitates to be too certain about many of these things because we are so grievously lacking in evidence.  Much of what paper record may have existed from the activities of the notaries of Port Royal, Beaubassin, and Minas has not been found and very likely has been destroyed.  But we do suspect that official correspondence would have contained more hints if the 'system' had been more elaborate or had had deeper impact on the people.  Yet, flimsy and fragmentary as the institution undoubtedly was, it provided the only framework in which the Acadians could indentify the land they held for right of occupation, for devisement to their heirs, or for sale and exchange, and, as such, it may have performed a vital service for the settlers."100

The Acadians and the Indians

An interesting and seemingly unique aspect of life for these Acadian inhabitants was their relationship with the local Indians.  Unlike the English and Dutch colonists down the coast, whose burgeoning settlements rose up suddenly where the Indians also dwelled, the Acadian settlements never became populous enough to threaten the Indians' way of life. 

The Mi'kmaq, who occupied present-day Nova Scotia, eastern New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island when the Europeans came, were hunters, gatherers, and fishermen, not agricultural Indians, and numbered about 3,000 during the first decade of the 1600s.  Although they spent most of their time along the seacoast and the shores of the Bay of Fundy "taking advantage of the wealth of food available there throughout all but about six weeks of the year," the Acadian homesteads along the dyked marshlands did not intrude on their nomadic way of life.  Thus, in Acadia, Natives and Europeans did not compete for precious land, nor did they compete for other valuable resources.  To be sure, there was potential competition in the acquisition of furs, and the Acadians were just as eager to acquire this precious commodity as were the English and the Dutch who settled in the region or their fellow Frenchmen in the St. Lawrence Valley.  But, as has been explained, from the beginning the French and the Indians in peninsula Acadia chose cooperation, not competition, in the mutually beneficial fur trade.  The Indians trapped and skinned the animals and traded the pelts for goods that only Europeans could provide them.  This was much easier for the Acadians than trapping the fur-bearing animals themselves, and it guaranteed an eager market for their trade goods.  So, while colonists in Virginia, New York, and New England died by the score in Indian uprisings during the seventeenth century, the Acadians, for most of their history, knew only peace with the Mi'kmaq bands who lived all around them.139 

Genealogical records, as well as tribal oral history, reveal that the relationship of the Acadians with the Mi'kmaq was more than socioeconomic.  Many Acadian families--d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, Aucoin, Blanchard, Bourgeois, Cellier, Clémenceau, Damours/Louvière, Denys de la Ronde, Doucet, Guédry, Haché dit Gallant, Labauve, Lambert, Landry, LeBlanc, Lejeune, Martin, Mius, Pellerin, Petitpas, Roy, Saint-Étienne de La Tour, Serreau--can count members of the tribe among their ancestors.139a

The Mi'kmaq were part of a group of Algonquian-speaking Indians that included the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy of present-day New Brunswick and Maine, and the eastern Abenaki and Penobscot of Maine--the so-called Wabanaki Confederacy.  These tribes, in turn, were related by language and culture to other Algonquian-speaking tribes in the region, such as the Ottawa of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River valley.  These Algonquian tribes also had in common an ancient rivalry with the Iroquois tribes of upper New York.  Champlain had interjected the French into this ancient rivalry by accompanying the Ottawa on the warpath against the Iroquois in 1609 and forever earning the enmity of that powerful nation.  In historical times, at least, the Iroquois did not raid as far east as the Acadian peninsula, but they enthusiastically fought their fellow Iroquois-speaking Hurons and the Abenaki and other Algonquian-speaking tribes that threatened their hegemony in the region.  In these wars along the Indian frontier, the French Canadians played their part as allies of the Algonquian people.  The founders of Acadia--Dugua, Poutrincourt, Biencourt, and La Tour--and later Razilly and d'Aulnay, emulated Champlain in Canada.  They, too, used the Indians not only to gather precious furs but also to provide a buffer of protection against the enemies of the colony, be they Indian or European.  The Indians were an essential weapon especially in the struggle against the English, whose colonies always far outnumbered the French settlements to the north.  French traders threatened to withhold their wares if the Indians refused to help them fight the English.  Missionary priests, especially the Jesuits, were keen to the realities of trade and security and took advantage of Indian vulnerabilities in order to convert them to Roman Catholicism.  It was not unusual for Algonquian bands to take to the warpath with one or two "black robes," such as Father Sébastien Râle, padding along to give spiritual sustenance to the painted warriors.  "Their methods were often cruel and ruthless, being based chiefly on political necessities, and the higher principles of the Christian faith were subordinated for the time being to these considerations," an historian has described these warrior-priests.  One doubts if these sturdy Jesuits were troubled by their consciences.  In their eyes, the English and the Dutch were unrepentant heretics who were worse than savages.140  

The traders and priests were not the only ones who maintained influence with the Indians.  Some of the so-called seigneurs of Acadia, especially on the mainland, were capitaines de sauvages, or captains of the Indians, "who," according to one historian, "trained Indians for the defence[sic] of territories put in their charge.  The most famous of the captaines de sauvages was Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie, third Baron de Saint-Castin, who came to Acadia as an ensign in the Carignan Regiment in 1665.  After his marriage to Mathilde, the daughter of Abenaki chief Madokawondo, in 1670, Saint-Castin founded a kind of feudal principality that was half Indian at Pentagouët on the Penobscot River.  He soon became the supreme chief of the entire Abenaki tribe, subjecting them to dictatorial rule."  The French governors of Acadia, like those of Canada, used these French-led Indians to protect their colony especially from the English.  "It was an ingenious defence system for the Acadian territory:  integration of the Indians into the organization helped the comparatively small Acadian colony against the more populous English colonies in New England, especially Massachusetts, bordering Acadia.  When war broke out, these captains ordered out the Indians who repelled attacks or carried out bloody raids directly into the heart of the English colonies."  But there was always a price to pay for such a scheme.  "Expeditions carried out by some of these captains and their Indian infantry into enemy territory often were for reasons other than mere defence; consequently, the peaceful Acadian colonists often suffered painful counterattacks as as result.  Furthermore, the raids built up animosity and hate for the Acadians among the Massachusetts settlers in particular."  This became manifest in the almost continuous warfare that erupted in North America towards the end of the first century of Acadia's existence.141  

The Acadians and Their Sun King

The settlers of Acadia had known only turmoil from the arrival of their first families in 1636 to when the English seized the colony in 1654.  Ironically, English control, which lasted 16 years, brought peace at last to the hard-pressed Acadians, and peace continued for 19 more years after the return of Acadia to France.  It ended suddenly, however, in 1689 with the coming of full-scale war with England.  For nearly a quarter of a century, until 1713, the peace-loving Acadians once again would live in a world gone mad all around them.

The end of the long peace had much to do with the man to whom the Acadians tried to be loyal subjects.  Louis XIV, who would fashion himself the Sun King, had declared upon the death of his regent, Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661 that "henceforth he would rule France without a chief minister, something no French king had done in living memory."  Through the application of will and calculated ruthlessness, Louis created for France a divine-right monarchy the likes of which Europe had not seen since the time of the Roman emperors.  During his long reign, he never once called into session the ancient national legislature of France, the Estates-General.  He did not feel constrained to answer to his people.  His rule, he and his ministers believed, was absolute.  His famous words, if they were ever uttered, L'état, c'est moi ("I am the state"), would not have been an idle boast of the Sun King.  He created his magnificent palace at Versailles not only to control his unruly nobles and provide a center for the arts, but also to erect a personal monument of glory and splendor worthy of an absolute monarch.  The heady atmosphere of Versailles, however, did not blind the king to the realities of the French character.  He "understood that he must rule within the constraints of the laws and customs of his kingdom.  Louis consulted widely with his nobles and ministers, and he met weekly with members of his high council.  He created an informal cabinet, which was eventually led by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, chief minister of finance."142

One of the goals of Louis's reign was to establish borders for France that he could defend against attack from his enemies.  The English with their superb navy were not the worst of these enemies.  He was especially vexed by the powerful Habsburg kingdoms of Spain and Austria, whose far-flung possessions--much of the Low Countries (today's Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), and most of Germany and Italy--hemmed France in on three sides.  The dangerous northern frontier in what was then called the Spanish Netherlands, which stood so close to Paris and Versailles, worried Louis most, and it was there that most of his wars were fought.  Coupled with his determination to secure defensible borders for France was Louis's ambition to place on the throne of Spain one of his Bourbon heirs.  Louis had married Marie-Thérèse, the eldest daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, in 1660.  "The marriage was arranged via a treaty that explicitly excluded Marie's heirs from inheriting the Spanish crown once Philip had paid her dowry.  However, the full dowry was never paid.  Consequently, Louis refused to relinquish his family's claim to the Spanish inheritance...."143

The result was almost constant warfare during the last three decades of Louis's long reign of 72 years.  

During the War of the Devolution (1667-68) that followed the death of Philip IV of Spain, Louis invaded the Spanish Netherlands to secure the vulnerable northern border and to assert his family's claim to the Spanish throne.  The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the fighting soon after it began.  Louis returned some of the fortified towns he had captured in Belgium and secured rights to the Spanish throne if Philip's Hapsburg successor, Charles II, should die without an heir.  This sudden French aggression along their southern frontier alarmed the Dutch, who had fought long against Spanish rule to secure their independence and refused to be threatened by the French as well.  War erupted between Holland and France in 1672 and lasted for six long years.  "In a sweeping campaign, Louis almost succeeded in conquering Holland.  To protect themselves, the Dutch opened their dikes, flooded the countryside, and turned Amsterdam into a virtual island."  During the struggle, in August 1673, the Dutch were joined by Spain, Austria, and Lorraine, but not England.  Louis had signed a treaty with London in June 1670 "to keep the English navy neutral."  It was this agreement with the English that had restored French control of Acadia in 1670.  But Acadia did not escape the war unscathed.  In the summer of 1674, a Dutch privateer captain, Jurriaen Aernouts, out of Curaçao in the Dutch West Indies, attacked the Acadian outpost at Pentagouët in Maine, which at the time was the military headquarters of the colony, and captured it after only a few hours of fighting.  The Dutchman took the wounded Acadian governor, Jacques de Chambly, prisoner, captured Jemseg on Rivière St.-Jean, and plundered the area around it before going on his way.144

The war with Holland ended with the Peace of Nijmegen in 1678.  "Louis had achieved a defensible perimeter around the core of his inheritance," but he also had alienated his northern neighbors, those Protestant stalwarts, the Dutch.  And he was not done with Spain.  In October 1683, Louis invaded the Spanish Netherlands ... again ... and France was at war with Spain until the following August.145  

But it was religion that led to the most important decision of Louis's long reign, one that would plunge France deeper into conflict with her Protestant neighbors, with far reaching consequences for her colonial possessions.  Cardinal Mazarin had taught Louis the intricacies of statecraft, but his mother, Anne of Austria, a devout Catholic like all of her Habsburg kin, had given her son his spiritual education.  "Throughout his life Louis remained devoutly religious and attempted to eliminate Protestantism in France."  His grandfather, Henry IV, had been a Huguenot before he declared that Paris was well worth a mass.  Henry had granted the Protestants freedom of worship and protection from persecution with his Edict of Nantes in April 1598.  Louis's father had honored his own father's edict, and, despite continued pressures from the Catholic majority to conform to Roman orthodoxy, the Huguenots thrived in the fortified cities that Henry had granted to them for their protection.  "Within these cities dwelled highly skilled Huguenot craftsmen, who were an integral part of Colbert's economic program," a program that kept France happy and prosperous throughout much of the first half of Louis's reign.146  

The Sun King was determined to rule absolutely in the spiritual as well as the temporal realm.  In 1685, two years after Colbert's death, while the Acadians thrived in the Port-Royal valley, at Chignecto, and in the infant communities of the Minas Basin, their king, without the wise council of his great minister, "by an extravagant act of piety and sovereignty," suddenly revoked the Edict of Nantes and plunged their mother country into economic turmoil.  Between 1685 and 1710, hundreds of  thousands of Huguenots fled France rather than convert to the Roman Catholic faith.  Most of them went to Holland and Britain, "where they were greeted as martyrs.  The loss of many highly productive citizens depressed the French economy."  By this time, "France was recognized as the dominant continental power, and its strength threatened other European nations.  The Catholic powers, especially Austria, were fearful of Louis's designs upon Spain's possessions.  Meanwhile, the Protestant states, especially England and Holland, worried about the revival of religious warfare."  The English were so worried about French designs on their North American colonies that in November 1686 they negotiated with the Sun King a treaty at Whitehall that guaranteed "a True and Firm Peace and Neutrality" between the North American colonies if war should break out in Europe.  Nevertheless, by the late 1680s, as a result of Louis's aggressions and the heated nature of religious intolerance, only a spark was needed to ignite the powder keg of frustrations that lay between France and her enemies.147

"The Glorious Revolution" and King William's War

The spark came with Louis's attack across the Rhine in September 1688 to intervene in German politics and England's so-called Glorious Revolution of the same year.  Three years before, in 1685, the year that Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes, King Charles II of England, who had been restored to the throne 25 years earlier, died without a legitimate child to succeed him.  His younger brother, James, Duke of York, became King James II of England and James VII of Scotland.  James had grown up a Protestant, had married a Protestant wife, Anne Hyde, daughter of an English earl, and raised his two daughters, Mary and Anne, as Protestants.  He converted to Catholicism, however, in 1668, when he was 35 years old and still married to Anne.  She died in 1671, and two years later James remarried to Mary of Modena, a devout Roman Catholic from Italy.  In 1677, he consented to the marriage of his daughter Mary to William, the Protestant prince of Orange, stadtholder, captain general, and admiral of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and the implacable enemy of Louis XIV of France.  Parliament declared Mary and William as next in line to the throne behind James, and the English Protestant majority breathed a sigh of relief that James would not be able to create a Catholic dynasty for England.  James's succession to the throne in 1685 was peaceful.  However, his attempts to rule autocratically like his father, coupled with his policy to place Catholics in influential positions, fueled his opposition and ruined what little popularity he had with the people.  The birth of a son to him in 1688, insuring that his heir would be Catholic, precipitated the so-called Glorious Revolution.  Staunch Protestant nobles, with the consent of Parliament, invited William of Orange and an army of 15,000 Dutchmen to land in northern England, march to London, and seize the throne from the hapless James, who could muster virtually no support.  James fled, was captured, and allowed to escape to France, and in 1689 William and Mary ruled jointly as William III and Mary II.  Louis XIV, ever the staunch Catholic, refused to recognize the legitimacy of William and Mary and clung to the fiction that James and not William was the legitimate king of England, Scotland, and Wales.

It was William who had opened the dykes in Holland back in 1672 to save Amsterdam from the invading French.  After the conclusion of the six-year struggle with the Sun King, William had strived to build a European coalition against Louis to block further French aggression on the continent.  This effort came to fruition in 1689, the year William succeeded to the English throne, when he created a Grand Alliance with Austria, Holland, Spain, and Savoy to halt the French offensive in western Germany.  For the next eight years, war raged between William's alliance and the forces of Louis XIV.  But the conflict was not confined to Europe and the high seas.  It erupted also in America despite the Treaty of Whitehall... and war came to Acadia again.148

The English made the first aggressive move that brought war to French Acadia.  Soon after ascending to the throne, James II had revealed his autocratic tendencies by abolishing self-government in the New England colonies.  He appointed a fellow autocrat, Sir Edmund Andros, as governor of a new colonial entity that would be ruled by decree, not assembly--the Dominion of New England.  This new dominion subsumed the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Haven, Connecticut, and New Hampshire--that is, New England--and eventually New York and East and West Jersey.  The people of these colonies were very unhappy, not only with the loss of self-rule but also with the despotic personality of Sir Edmund.  Political chaos ensued, and Andros became even more tyrannical in his treatment of the colonists.  He also alienated the Indians of the region and looked for any excuse to antagonize the French, violating the spirit of the treaty that guaranteed neutrality for the colonies in America if war should break out in Europe.149

In the spring of 1688, while James II still occupied the English throne, Andros descended on Pentagouët on the coast of Maine.  During the governorships of Grandfontaine and de Chambly (1670-78), Pentagouët had been the capital of French Acadia.  Though subsequent governors moved the capital to Beaubassin and then back to Port-Royal, the French considered Pentagouët an important part of the colony.  Jean-Vincent de Saint-Castin was still the seigneur there, and his hold on the Abenaki in the area was still absolute.  Andros insisted that the Penobscot River region belonged to his dominion, and he used this boundary dispute as an excuse to commence hostilities with the French and their Indian allies.  After seeing the ramshackle condition of Saint-Castin's fort, however, Andros changed his mind about holding Pentagouët.  But before he returned to New England, he plundered Saint-Castin's house and thereby antagonized the old Frenchman and his fierce Abenaki relatives.  Further depredations by English officials against the Indians in Maine and the establishment by Andros of new English garrisons along the coast of that province stirred the Abenaki against the English, and in 1689 the war exploded in earnest.150  

The first English town to suffer at  the hands of the Abenaki was Dover, New Hampshire, on the border with Maine.  In late June 1689, warriors from two bands sneaked up on the village during the night and massacred many of the settlers.  After subduing the men, the Indians burned the garrison-houses and forced many of the women and children into captivity, where they were kept or sold as slaves, as the English had done to their people years before.151

Saint-Castin, meanwhile, planned his revenge against the English.  In early August 1689, he fell on Pemaquid, now Woolwich, Maine, at the mouth of the Kennebec River, the farthest English outpost along the Maine coast.  With him were two bands of Abenaki with their war paint on.  They completely surprised the settlers, killing many of them in the open fields, and the next day forced the surrender of the survivors who, fleet of foot, had managed to make it into their stockade, Fort Charles.  Again, the victorious Indians took women and children into captivity and treated them as slaves.  The English were appalled by such barbarity, though they, too, in previous wars with the Indians had acted just as barbarously.  That same August, in fact, their allies, the fierce Iroquois, 1,500 strong, descended on the Canadian town of Lachine, near Montréal, and butchered or captured nearly everyone in the place, prompting the French authorities to abandon some of their fortifications on the upper St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes.152  

In the weeks that followed, the Maine frontier erupted in almost continuous warfare.  So far, the fight there had been between the Indian allies of the French--the Abenaki bands of Maine--and the hapless New Englanders, first under the despised Andros, then, after his ouster when the New Englanders learned of the Glorious Revolution, under the new governors of the restored, independent colonies.  In the summer of 1689, however, word arrived in Boston that, in the spring, war had officially been declared between England and France--the War of the Grand Alliance, called King Williams's War in the colonies.  Word of the war came to Québec in July, and in October the newly-arrived governor-general of Canada, 69-year-old Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de Frontenac, stood poised to jump into the fight against the English colonies alongside his Indian allies.153

Frontenac, an old soldier of formidable talents, chose late winter as the moment in which to surprise the English colonies from his base on the St. Lawrence.  From Montréal, using the relatively swift route via the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and Lake George, 300 Canadian militia, coureurs de bois, and "Christianized" Iroquois, led by French officers, hit Schenectady, then called Corlaer, New York, on a frigid night in February 1690.  The result can be described as nothing less than a massacre.  The New Yorkers suffered so keenly from the raid that it essentially took them out of the war, leaving New England to fight it out alone.  Another, smaller column of Frontenac's fighters, this one from Trois-Rivières, struck Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, near the burned-out village of Dover, in late March and destroyed that settlement, too.  The third of Frontenac's expeditions, out of Quebec, hit in late May the Maine village of Casco, at present-day Portland, which was defended by ramshackle Fort Loyal.  Despite the neglected condition of the palisade fort, the survivors of the initial ambush defended Fort Loyal gallantly for three days before surrendering to the French officers in charge of the expedition.  The English commander asked for terms, but the French refused to hold back their Indian allies.  More Maine settlers, men, women, and children, became Indian slaves, and for the next several months, the Abenaki pillaged as many Maine and New Hampshire settlements as they could reach.154

After over a year of fighting in earnest in New York and on the New Hampshire-Maine frontier, King William's War was proving to be a disaster for the English.  It was time for them to devise a new strategy that would take the war to the enemy.  "Up to this time," notes a principal historian of the conflict, "the people of New England seem to have had no thought of invading Canada themselves, or felt much fear of being invaded from there.  Thus far the war, on their part, had been a purely defensive one.  But it was now clear to everyone that the real struggle was not so much between the English and Indians, as between the English and French, who kept the Indians constantly supplied with the means of carrying on hostilities, while enjoying entire immunity from its ravages themselves.  The relation was as close as that between the hand and the weapon.  Two flourishing provinces lay at the mercy of hostile incursions, which no power could foresee or prevent.  The entire depopulation of both was imminent.  All this continuous harrying of defenceless[sic] villages, with its ever-recurring and revolting story of captivity and massacre, was fast turning the border back into a wilderness, which, indeed, was what the enraged savages aimed at.  Every attempt to reach and destroy these vigilant foemen in their own fastness proved worse than futile.  New England was losing ten lives for one; and in property more than fifty to one."155  

Accordingly, in early May 1690, delegates from New York and three of the New England colonies met at New York City to plan an English offensive against New France.  New York pledged 400 men, and Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut a total of 350 militiamen for an attack on Montréal via Albany and Lake Champlain.  The Iroquois later promised to join the expedition with nearly all their warriors.  It would be Frontenac's turn to suffer the trauma of invasion.155a

But the New Englanders did not invade Canada first.  They chose instead a closer, much easier target which, in truth, contained Frenchmen who had done them no harm.  The New Englanders, however, did not see it that way.  "For years Acadia and its harbors had been a safe retreat for privateers and corsairs, who robbed and ill-used the New England fishermen until those seas were become no longer safe," the good Puritans believed.  "Bad as it had been, the evil was now made tenfold worse by a state of war.  For depredations of this sort, Acadia, or Nova Scotia, is remarkably well placed, and as New England subsisted mostly by her fisheries the alternatives were either to see them destroyed or to put them beyond the reach of future spoliation."  This was the same Acadia to which New England trading ships had sailed for years to ply their wares among the peaceful farmers of Chignecto and Minas.  Miraculously, those vessels had entered and exited the Bay of Fundy without being molested ... but truth is an enemy of rationalization.156

In late April, before the conference in New York and the attack on Casco, but after the French and Indian assault on Salmon Falls, an expedition of seven ships containing 700 New Englanders left Nantasket, Massachusetts, for Port-Royal, Acadia.  In command of this expedition was a remarkable fellow, 38-year-old Sir William Phips of Boston.  Phips had once been a humble ship's carpenter but, through luck and pluck, had risen to the rank of a gentleman in his native New England.  His most notable exploit, besides marrying a rich widow, had been the recovery of  a fantastic treasure from the hull of a sunken Spanish ship off the coast of Haiti, an effort which earned him his title.  His expedition arrived at Port-Royal on May 11, and 400 of his men hurried ashore to overwhelm the garrison of only 70 men under Governor Louis-Alexander des Friches de Meneval, who asked for terms.  After extracting from the New Englanders the promise that they would spare private property, leave the church untouched, and send him and his troops to Québec or to France, Meneval yielded without resistance.  To protect his force from the irate settlers who lived near the fort, Phips threatened to make them all prisoners of war if the men did not assemble in the church and swear allegiance to the King and Queen of England.  Most took the oath, and their property was spared.  Those who refused to take the oath had to stand by helplessly as the New Englanders plundered their belongings.  Discovering that some of the Port-Royal merchants had carried off property into the surrounding woods during the parley with Meneval, Phips nullified the surrender agreement and turned his New Englanders loose on the town.  "We cut down the cross," remembered one of the Puritans, "rifled their church, pulled down their high altar, and broke their images."  They also burned 28 houses near the fort as well as the church and left Port-Royal in charge of a council of settlers who were instructed to answer only to the government of Massachusetts.  Among the councilors were Alexandre de Bélisle (who, with Pierre Melanson, had acted as interpreters during the surrender negotiations), René Landry le jeune, and Daniel LeBlanc.  While Phips oversaw the destruction of Port-Royal, he sent an expedition under Captain Cyprian Southack to attack La Hève, Chédabouctou, and other Acadian settlements on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.  Another of Phips's lieutenants, Captain John Alden of Plymouth, who had already seized Saint-Castin's post at Pentagouët, took his sloop Mary into the Bay of Fundy to overawe the Acadian settlements at Minas and Chignecto, where the settlers were compelled to take Phips's oath of allegiance.  With Meneval, two priests, 21 cannon, and 59 captured French soldiers in tow, the victorious treasure hunter hurried back to Boston, leaving no troops to hold the Acadian capital.  A few months later, taking advantage of Phips's easy victory, English freebooters in two ships belonging to Jacob Leisler of New York descended on the defenseless town, plundered what was left of it, and hanged two unidentified Acadian settlers.157     [map]

Port-Royal was only a secondary objective for the determined New Englanders.  Their principal objective was Québec, which they would assault with an even larger force of 34 ships, including 4 men of war, and 2,200 men.  The Massachusetts council gave to the despoiler of Port-Royal the command of this formidable force.  Phips's expedition against Québec would cooperate with a land force from Connecticut and New York that would assault Montréal via Lake Champlain--the invasion of Canada that had been planned at the New York conference in May.  The land expedition met one disaster after another, however, and got no farther than the head of Lake Champlain.  Only a small party of 29 militiamen and 120 Indians under Captain John Schuyler of New York made it to the St. Lawrence valley, where they fell upon the settlement of La Prairie, across from Montréal, burned the houses, barns, and hayricks, slaughtered the cattle, and killed or captured 25 Canadians, including several women, before hurrying back to the main force on Lake Champlain.  Meanwhile, Phips's fleet took longer to assemble and leave Boston than he had anticipated.  He did not depart the rendezvous at Nantasket until August 9, and, because he failed to take along a St. Lawrence River pilot, he did not reach the river below Québec until mid October, late in the campaigning season.  Governor Frontenac and his lieutenants, meanwhile, made Montréal safe and transformed Québec into a fortress.158  

Phips was no match for the wily old Frontenac.  Having lost a substantial number of men on shipboard from a break out of small pox, Phips's first effort at Quebec was not military but diplomatic.  Before a single shot was fired, on the morning of his arrival, Monday, October 16, he sent an envoy with terms of surrender to Frontenac, who rebuffed such arrogance then invited the English commander to do his best to take the city.  That afternoon, Louis-Hector de Callière, the governor of Montréal, arrived with 300 fresh men, including regulars and hot-blooded coureurs de bois aching for a fight, raising Frontenac's force in Quebec to a formidable 3,000.  But Phips stayed, and for six days he and his militia commander, Major John Walley, menaced Québec from land and water.  Phips called another council of war and cobbled together a plan that he was certain would give him the fortress city.  Walley would land his 1,300 Massachusetts militiamen at Beauport, just downriver from Québec, swing his column around to a ford on the St. Charles River behind Québec and attack the city's rear, which Phips wrongly assumed was unprotected.  Walley's militiamen landed on the morning of Wednesday, October 18 and fought their way up the slope towards the St. Charles, driving off a small force of French sharpshooters sent out to delay them.  Before the New Englanders could cross the St. Charles, however, Phips lost patience and ordered his warships to open fire on Frontenac's defenses.  The exchange of cannon fire rumbled for two days, crippling Sir William's warships and doing little damage to the tough old count's defenses.  Walley, unable to regain contact with Phips's vessels because of the fierce bombardment, and, not equal to the task given him, waited helplessly in his camp above Beauport, his men freezing, starving, and suffering from the small pox that they had contracted during their long stay in the lower St. Lawrence.  On Friday, October 20, while Walley consulted with Phips aboard the commander's battered warship, Walley's officers pushed their Puritans to the ford on the St. Charles, where Frontenac met them with three battalions of French regulars and a Canadian flanking force under two of the Le Moyne brothers.  The New Englanders fought valiantly, but they were no match for the French regulars and the Canadian militia, who laid one ambush after another.  The following day, Saturday, October 21, Walley withdrew his militiamen from in front of Québec against token opposition; Frontenac and his Frenchmen were exhausted, too.  Phips and his beaten Puritans lingered aboard their ships for two days, the men resting, the officers counseling their harried commander, until Phips finally weighed anchor and fell back down the St. Lawrence on Tuesday, October 24.  Phips anchored several leagues below the Île d'Orléans to repair his battered ships so that they could be made seaworthy for the long sail back to Boston.  Leaving the English unmolested, Frontenac agreed to a prisoner exchange, mostly women and children captured in the fighting in Maine.  Phips's expedition suffered more damage at the hands of Nature when it retreated into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  A storm drove at least one ship onto Anticosti Island, and some of his vessels were blown down the coast all the way to the West Indies!  The only success of the expedition was Captain William Mason's assault on the French settlement of Percé, on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, which he destroyed with two frigates.159

The victory at Quebec saved Canada, but the English still clung to Acadia.

While Phips was dallying on his way to Quebec, a royal proclamation in London, dated 7 October 1690, decreed that Acadia was now part of Massachusetts.  Colonel Edward Tyng was named the new governor of English Acadia, and soon he arrived at his post in Port-Royal, though he did not stay there.  Meanwhile, the authorities in Massachusetts were determined to chastise the Abenaki.  They chose as the leader of a new expedition the noted Indian fighter from the old Pilgrim settlement of Duxbury, 51-year-old Major Benjamin Church.  Fourteen years earlier, Church had won fame by defeating the Wampanoag chief Metacom, whom the whites dubbed King Philip, during the bloodiest Indian war in New England history.  In September 1689, Church had fought the Abenakis in a small expedition in the Casco Bay area with mixed results.  He now took command of a force of 300 men and headed back to Casco Bay, which he reached on 11 September 1690.  This expedition, which lasted two weeks, was no more successful than Church's earlier venture against the Abenaki.  For the rest of 1690 and into 1691, the Abenaki still held the upper hand in the war along the Maine frontier.160

With the defeat of Phips at Québec, Frontenac turned his attention to the liberation of Acadia.  In 1691, he sent Joseph Robinau de Villebon, nephew of the sieur de La Vallière of Beaubassin, to seize Port-Royal from the English, who had left no garrison there, and to serve as commandant of Acadia in place of the captured Meneval.  Perhaps to spare the Acadian settlements anymore grief, Villebon chose the Rivière St.-Jean as his base of operations.  He moved up the river to a new, more easily-defensible site at Nashouat, across from present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick.  On the St.-Jean, he captured a prominent New England merchant as well as the erstwhile Governor Tyng and sent them to Québec as prisoners of war.  In the King's name, Villebon took possession of Acadia and joined Saint-Castin and his Abenaki in Maine with a contingent of Maliceet.161  

Villebon and Saint-Castin took the war to the enemy's door with as much energy and violence as Frontenac's attacks two years before.  In February 1692, a force of Indians from the Penobscot River, under the leadership of Jesuit Father Louis-Pierre Thury, laid waste the Maine town of York, massacring many of the settlers and taking more women and children into captivity.  In late May, a sea borne expedition of three ships that Phips has sent to destroy Villebon's new fort appeared in the lower St.-Jean.  Villebon was back at Nashouat, but most of his soldiers and Indians were still in Maine.  He prepared to meet the English with the small force at hand.  In early July, however, the English ships disappeared from the lower St.-Jean. They sailed across the bay to Port-Royal, instead, "where an effort was made to induce the settlers to submit to English rule, but no definite promise could be obtained from them.  With the announcement that a strong garrison would soon be sent from Boston, [the English] took their departure."162  

Meanwhile, in June, another force of Abenaki, this time led by Saint-Castin, with a hand full of Canadian officers under René Robinau de Portneuf, Villebon's brother, descended on the fortified Maine outpost of Wells.  This nut proved too hard to crack, however, and Portneuf and his force gave up the siege.  But they had done damage enough to liberate this part of Acadia from English occupation, except for Pemaquid, where, in late summer of 1692, at great expense, the New Englanders erected a sturdy edifice of stone which they named Fort William Henry.  In October, Frontenac sent a sea borne expedition under Canadian naval officer Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville to subdue the new fort.  At Mount Desert Island, up the coast from Pemaquid, Iberville interrogated a boat load of suspicious Canadian captives and concluded that the new fort's stone walls and a reinforced garrison, plus the presence of powerful New England ships in the area, likely would overwhelm his force, so he abandoned the proposed attack on Pemaquid.  In fact, the fort was unfinished and could easily have been captured, and the New England vessels in the vicinity had left the area against Phips's orders and returned to Boston.  Iberville granted permission to Saint-Castin and his Abenaki to besiege the fort at Pemaquid, then he sailed down the coast as far as Nantucket to harass New England shipping.  He even lay off the harbor at Boston, hoping to destroy more English vessels, before sailing on to France.163

The war died down that winter of 1692-93.  Villebon left another brother, Daniel Robinau de Neuvillette, in charge of the fort at Nashouat and spent the winter at Chignecto.  "There he was in constant communication with Minas and Port Royal and the other settlements.  He dispatched messages to the Indians in various parts of Acadia asking them to join him in the spring to take part in a new expedition."  Beaubassin had become the new headquarters of Acadia.  Villebon sent Abraham Boudrot, a pilot from Port-Royal disguised as a trader, on a spy mission to Boston.  Boudrot's job was "to obtain information about conditions there, and learn if any plans were being made."  Weeks later, the wily Acadian returned from Boston with much useful information.  In the spring of 1693, Villebon learned that a merchant from Boston who traded regularly with Port-Royal was coming to Chignecto.  Such was the importance of trade between Acadia and New England that not even a full-blown war could stop it.  "The settlers were in urgent need of various necessities," so the commandant "decided to make a trip to Minas so that he might not be present when the vessel arrived, for it would be impolitic for him to sanction such unauthorized trade.  When he returned at the end of April, he learned that the vessel had arrived, but, instead of unloading goods, a party of men had disembarked and fired on the settlers, leaving an impression that they were pirates."  This would not be the last time in this war that Englishmen molested the settlers of Chignecto.164

In August 1693, most of the Abenaki chiefs of Maine signed a peace treaty at Pemaquid with the new governor of Massachusetts, Sir William Phips.  They left five of their leaders with Phips as hostages to seal the agreement.  The French authorities in Canada were alarmed by this development and did their best to stir the Abenaki bands against their former enemy.  Meanwhile, the fleet the English had gathered at Boston for another go at Québec was sent, instead, to the West Indies to capture the French island of Martinique.  Tropical disease devastated the ranks of the English soldiers and sailors, and when the fleet returned to Boston, it was in no shape to take on Frontenac again.  Other than an expedition in the far north by England's Hudson's Bay Company that recaptured three posts in St. James Bay which Iberville had taken from them a few years before, the war seemed to be over.  Peace had finally come to mainland Acadia.  New England settlers, wanting to believe that the war was over, rebuilt and even expanded the farms and villages that the French and Indians had pillaged over the past four years.  New England authorities prudently strengthened their garrison towns along the New Hampshire-Maine frontier and waited to see if the Abenaki had truly buried the hatchet.165  

Peace had come to peninsula Acadia, too, or so it seemed.  The council of inhabitants that Phips had set up in Port-Royal three years before continued to run the town, and the English never bothered to send a garrison to Port-Royal.  The settlers there and at Chignecto and Minas went about their business of building new dykes and transforming more salt marsh into pasture and field.  In 1693, Commandant Villebon ordered a new census to be taken of the Acadian settlements from Pentagouët to La Hève.  Port-Royal, with its wide basin and gentle-flowing river, remained the largest settlement with 504 inhabitants, and this despite the recent depredations at the hands of the English.  The Minas settlements, which probably included Pigiguit, numbered 307 settlers, Chignecto 119, Cap-Sable 32, Rivière St.-Jean 21, Pentagouët 14, Passamaquoddy on the Ste.-Croix 7, and La Hève 6, a total of 1,022 men, women, and children counted in the colony, compared to 373 in the first census at Port-Royal in 1671 and not quite 900 in the census of 1686.  Contrast this with the number of Frenchmen in all of New France at the time, about 15,000, and in the English Atlantic colonies, over 100,000!166

Except for a bloody raid by several bands of Abenaki into New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the summer of 1694, an expedition that autumn led by Iberville to retake the Hudson's Bay posts, and sundry raids along the Maine coast the following summer, the uneasy peace between the New Englanders and the French and their Indians allies persisted for nearly three years.  In February 1696, however, an incident occurred outside the gates of Fort William Henry that ended the tenuous peace and set the Maine frontier aflame once again.  Three Abenaki chiefs appeared at the fort under a flag of truce to parlay for an exchange of prisoners.  Something went terribly wrong in their negotiations with the hotheaded new commander of the post, and in the resulting melee the New Englanders killed two of the chiefs.  Soon the inhabitants of the Maine-New Hampshire coast felt the wrath of the vengeful Abenaki.  York was hit again, and Portsmouth, and Dover.  King William's War was on again.167  

Even worse for the hopes of New England security, Governor Frontenac, with urging from the King, launched another sea borne assault against Fort William Henry.  The redoubtable Iberville set sail from Québec in two warships in July 1696.  One of the vessels was commanded by Germain, son of Jacques Bourgeois, founder of the Chignecto settlement a generation before.  On the way down to Pemaquid, Iberville waylaid two English men of war in the Bay of Fundy, driving off one and dismasting the other, which he refitted as a third vessel for his expedition.  Continuing on to his objective, he picked up a force of Indians under Governor Villebon at Rivière St.-Jean and a contingent of Abenaki on the Penobscot under Saint-Castin.  Iberville's flotilla arrived at Pemaquid on August 14 and quickly invested the stone bastion by land and sea.  Amazingly, only 100 men defended the fort, and they were still under the command of the hotheaded incompetent who had killed the Abenaki chiefs, Captain Pascho Chubb.  On the afternoon of the 15th, Iberville's batteries were ready, and he demanded that Chubb surrender the fort or be blasted out.  The New Englander retorted with defiant words, and French shells soon exploded inside the fort.  That was enough for the hotheaded New Englander.  Fort William Henry surrendered after Chubb and his New Englanders put up a cursory defense.  Only the intervention of the honorable Iberville prevented the Abenaki from massacring Chubb and his Yankees.  They were paroled, instead, and some were allowed to return to Boston.  The French dismantled the stout stone walls before returning to Penobscot.  From there, Iberville sent messages to the Massachusetts governor, William Stoughton, acting for Phips, offering to exchange the New England prisoners he still held for French prisoners languishing at Boston.  Stoughton ignored him.  Shrugging off the stubborn Englishman, Iberville released his remaining prisoners to Saint-Castin, who promised to return them safely to Boston.  Iberville then sailed his little flotilla to Newfoundland to launch another offensive against the English side of the peninsula.168

The authorities at Boston, meanwhile, had enlisted Benjamin Church to organize yet another expedition against the Abenaki.  When Chubb and his parolees returned from Pemaquid, the Boston fathers threw the hapless captain in jail, where he languished for nearly a year, and they urged Church to hurry up his preparations for a strike against the enemy.  Meanwhile, five armed ships hurried from Boston to intercept Iberville's flotilla, but the clever Canadian got clean away.  In September, Church and his 500 New Englanders, with 50 Indian allies of their own, finally sailed out of Boston and headed north for the coast of Maine.  They hurried to Pemaquid and then to Penobscot Bay and up the river as far as Bangor, searching in vain for Abenaki to waylay and destroy.  Somehow the wily Indians had got word of his coming.  Moving east to Mount Desert Island and finding no enemy there, the angry Church swung out to sea again and sailed northeast ... to Acadia.169  

This time it was the settlements at Chignecto that bore the brunt of New England vengeance and Church's frustration at not finding the Abenaki.  When Church arrived at Chignecto, Germain Bourgeois, back from his adventures at Pemaquid, met the old Puritan on the shore and "produced a document which indicated that Phips after the fall of Port-Royal in 1690 had promised immunity to those who swore fealty to King William.  Church accompanied Bourgeois to his house, but his men lost no time in plundering and burning the settlement while the settlers took refuge in the woods."  Church remembered the scene vividly in his memoirs.  The people of Chignecto, he wrote years later, "were troubled to see their cattle, sheep, hogs, and dogs lying dead about their houses, chopped and hacked with hatchets."  Church could not contain his Puritan righteousness in the face of his hapless enemy.  "The inhabitants, both French and Indian, fled at his coming, but some of the former returned upon promise of good usage.  After reading them a sharp lecture upon the barbarities practiced by the savages upon the English, and forcibly contrasting it with his own magnanimity in now keeping his Indians from knocking them all in the head, Church took his departure for the St. John River."  One must wonder if the sights and smells of their burned-out dwellings and barns, of their dead animals, even of their pets, lying butchered all around them, would have brought the word "magnanimity" to the minds of these simple farmers who would take years to repair the damage the old Puritan had done.170

On the St.-Jean, Church skirmished with some workmen who were building a fort at the mouth of the river.  He killed one and wounded another, who revealed where the big guns for the new fort were hidden.  Church secured the pieces and called a council of war to see what his lieutenants thought of the notion of heading up the river to attack Villebon's fort at Nashouat.  They agreed that the season was too late and the river too low, so they gathered up their spoils and headed back to Boston.  To Church's chagrin, on his way down he encountered a reinforcement coming up the coast to meet him and was replaced in command by Lieutenant Colonel William Hathorne, who outranked him.  Hathorne turned the force around and headed back to Rivière St.-Jean to destroy Villebon's fort and the capital of Acadia.  The French defenders sent them flying back to Boston, however, and so ended the latest New England expedition against the French in Acadia.171

Meanwhile, Iberville and his elusive flotilla rounded the Acadian peninsula and Cape Breton Island and sailed up to Plaisance, the French settlement on the west coast of Newfoundland.  Despite the machinations of the French governor at Plaisance, Jacques-François de Mombeton de Brouillan, at the end of November Iberville seized St. John's on the Atlantic side of the island, an essential port for New England's cod fishing fleet.  Iberville could not hold the place, however, because "no measures had been concerted to hold what had been gained."  Brouillan burned St. John's while Iberville and his Canadians destroyed the other English settlements on the peninsula.172

Frontenac, Iberville, Villebon, Brouillan, and their Indian allies could smile contentedly as 1696 came to a close.  "For the English this had been a year of disasters, with hardly one redeeming feature for which to build hope for the future.  At its close the advantage rested wholly with the enemy.  East and west, the hostile tribes were now acting together as one man.  Acadia had been lost, Pemaquid demolished.  Much had been expected from the expeditions of Church and Hathorne; nothing realized."  Such was the perception of the New Englanders and of Frontenac and his lieutenants.  The Acadians at Chignecto, however, would not have given such a rosy summation of the year's results.173

But for a bloody raid by Canadian Indians against Haverhill, Massachusetts, in mid-March, 1697 proved to be a much quieter year than the one before.  Then news arrived in Boston during the summer that a fleet of warships had left France a few weeks before and was heading to North America to do the New Englanders no good.  It looked like Louis XIV was determined to end the war by destroying Boston itself, and there was some truth in the observation.  In late winter 1697, Louis, through his Minister of Marine, Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, appointed the Marquis de Nesmond to gather together in Brest and Rochefort a squadron of 13 warships and four fire ships to sail to North America for the purpose of laying waste the New England coast from Boston up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Meanwhile, one of the Le Moyne brothers would take five other warships from Rochefort to Plaisance and, after rendezvousing with brother Iberville, head north to Hudson Bay to recapture the valuable fur-trading posts that Iberville had seized twice during the war but that the English had again reclaimed.  Pontchartrain sent Frontenac secret orders to prepare 1,500 men, a formidable force in Canada, to move to at a moment's notice when he should receive further orders, the purpose of the expedition not revealed to him in order to maintain strict security.  Nesmond would sail first to Plaisance, where Frontenac would meet him, capture St. John's, Newfoundland, to protect his rear, and then end the war in North America once and for all by destroying Boston.  Luckily for the New Englanders, Nesmond's fleet did not reach Plaisance until July 24, he did not appear before St. John's until the end of August, and he failed to capture the place.  By then it was early September, too late in the season to move on Boston, so Nesmond returned to France.  The New Englanders nevertheless prepared for a climactic battle that never came.  Summer turned to fall with only the usual Indians raids marring the relative quiet of this ninth year of war.174

Peace came at last with the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick that autumn of 1697, news of it reaching North America by early December.  Some territory had been won and lost in Europe, but little had changed in America other than that Acadia was guaranteed as a French possession despite English claims to it, and, thanks to Iberville's end-of-the-war exploits, the French controlled the posts in Hudson Bay.  The New Englanders celebrated the end of the war as wildly as Puritans allowed such things, as well they should have, for the war had cost them dearly.175  

The war had cost Acadia, too, at Pentagouët, Port-Royal, and Chignecto, but it was minor compared to New England's loss.  The Acadians nonetheless had learned a few valuable lessons from the long struggle with England.  The most bitter lesson was an ironic one.  They could see that the thing which made possible their peacetime trade with the English, the New Englanders' dominance of the coastal waters, could turn against them during wartime when their erstwhile trading partners--"our friends, the enemy"--turned into implacable foes.  They also learned that when danger should come from the sea again, they should be ready to defend themselves, not to submit meekly, otherwise their homes and possessions would be destroyed for nothing.  The New Englanders also remembered, among other important lessons, that, despite a long history of trade with the peace-loving Acadians, these Papist Frenchmen still were the enemy, still a part of the complex killing machine that sought to destroy their homes and families and their way of life.  With peace, trade would resume in earnest between these two very different people, but they would never look at one another quite the same again.175a

Queen Anne's War and the End of French Rule in Peninsula Acadia

The peace that followed the end of King William's War was frustratingly short and tenuous.  Indian raids continued along the New England frontier into 1698.  No treaty that was negotiated an ocean away could solve the Indians' most pressing problem of losing land to the aggressive New Englanders.  In Acadia, new settlements soon appeared near Chignecto at Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, and Memramcook, but, again, these habitants hugged the tide lands of the upper bay and did not threaten the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet who lived above them.176

A sticking point unresolved in the Treaty of Ryswick was the boundary between French Acadia and New England.  The English claimed the Ste.-Croix River, while the French claimed the Kennebec.  In 1700, the contending parties compromised and named the St. George River as the boundary between the two provinces.177

A new century greeted the Acadians in 1701.  In a few years it would be a full century since Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons and his companions had left their homes in Europe and founded Port-Royal and the Acadian venture.  And it was in Europe again that events piled one atop the other to threaten the peace that had finally come to this corner of New France.  

On 17 September 1701, James Stuart, England's former king, died in exile at St. Germain near Paris at the age of 67.  At least one account placed Louis XIV, now 63 and in the 59th year of his reign, at James' deathbed.  Louis promised the dying king that his son, James Francis Edward Stuart, whom Louis insisted was the Prince of Wales, would be recognized as the new English monarch when James breathed his last.  Eleven years before, early in the War of the Grand Alliance, in an attempt to keep William III from leading troops to the Continent, Louis had supported a counterrevolution in Ireland that he hoped would restore James to the throne, but the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 had frustrated that effort.  And although one of the provisions of the Treaty of Ryswick was French recognition of William III as the legitimate ruler of England, if the story of James's deathbed encounter is accurate, Louis obviously had not given up on his hopes of restoring a Catholic monarch to the thrown of England.178

In March 1702, the Sun King's most hated rival breathed his last.  William III died in London from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse, Sorrel.  He had ruled alone since the death of Mary in December 1694, and she had given him no surviving children.  He was succeeded by Mary's Protestant sister, Anne, with whom he and Mary had fallen out early in their joint reign.  Louis XIV opposed the accession of Anne, of course, but the Sun King's principal concern at the time was who would be successor to the childless Hapsburg king of Spain, Charles II.  Louis feared that if the Austrian Hapsburgs regained the throne of Spain after the passing of Charles II, France would again be surrounded by implacable enemies.  After years of negotiations involving Louis's oldest son and then his oldest grandson, it was the grandson, Philip of Anjou, who, upon the death of Charles II in November 1700, ascended to the Spanish throne as Philip V.  Now the Bourbons ruled Spain as well as France, and Louis's southern flank was secure.  Moreover, new Spanish and French customs policies were keeping English and Dutch merchants from exploiting the lucrative Caribbean trade, especially in slaves--the coveted asiento.  The English, the Dutch, the Austrians, and many of the German states would have none of this.  By early 1702, Louis's enemies had formed a new Grand Alliance against him, and in May England declared war against France and her allies, Spain, Portugal, Bavaria, and Savoy.  The resulting conflict, which lasted this time11 years, was called in Europe the War of the Spanish Succession and in America Queen Anne's War.179

The war along the North American frontier got off to a much slower start this time, but when it did, the same savage pattern of warfare erupted between New England, whose population had risen to 120,000, and Canada, with its much smaller pool of settlers and a dwindling number of Indian allies.  The Abenaki and other Algonquian tribes, despite the recent treaties they had made with the New Englanders, were as eager as ever to aide their French benefactors.  There were just fewer warriors to take up the tomahawk this time because of New England retaliation in the previous war and European diseases.  When the war began in Europe and he was certain that it would spread to the colonies again, Philippe de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil, the new governor-general of New France who had replaced the dead Frontenac, ordered the Abenaki to fall back into Canada and take up villages on two rivers along the south side of the St. Lawrence between Québec and Montréal.  This would give Canada a buffer of protection if the New Englanders struck the first blow.  Acadia, under Governor Jacques-François de Brouillan, his headquarters back in Port-Royal, was left as usual to its own devices, with no protection from attack by sea.180

The first "confrontation" between the Abenaki and the New Englanders, strangely enough, was not a bloody raid but a peace conference in which only words were exchanged.  The new governor of Massachusetts, Joseph Dudley, invited the Abenaki chiefs to parlay with him at the new fort at Casco, and several of the chiefs arrived there on 20 June 1703.  Promises were made by both parties, and they held a ceremony at a pile of rocks called the Two Brothers, which stood near the fort.  When the council was breaking up and each side fired its customary salute, the English fired first, using blank cartridges, but they noticed that some of the Indian celebrants used real bullets when they fired their salute.  Years later, after the war had turned bloody, Dudley sent a letter to the then governor of Acadia, Daniel d'Auger de Subercase.  In the letter, Dudley laid bare what he considered to be the treachery of Subercase's predecessor, Brouillan.  An historian of the conflict notes:  "Subercase had accused the provincial troops of committing a sacrilegious act in digging up the heart of Brouillan from the place where it was buried.  Dudley responds in these terms:  'About five years since[,] I had gone to Casco Bay to make an agreement with the Indians of my government.  There came to that place two Frenchmen of Port Royal, to whom M. de Brouillan had promised two hundred pistoles to kill me.  These Frenchmen came to Casco Bay disguised as Indians, and were present when I was making my agreement, but their hearts failed them in what they had undertaken.  Some time after, one of the two, being a prisoner, and brought here [to Boston], acknowledged it to me, in my house, on his knees.'"  One wonders who the two cowardly Acadians might have been, especially the humble penitent ... or if they really existed.181

Two months after the conference at Casco Bay, on August 10, the frontier war erupted again when Abenaki, Canadians, and so-called Mission Indians, under Lieutenant Alexandre Le Neuf de Beaubassin, attacked coastal villages from Wells east to Falmouth along the coast of Maine. After nearly a week of fighting, the French and Indians had killed or captured 130 settlers and destroyed most of the coastal settlements of the province.  Meanwhile, other bands of Abenaki attacked settlements in New Hampshire.  Governor Dudley beseeched the other New England colonies to help him throw together a retaliatory force.  Connecticut sent a troop of cavalry, but Rhode Island ignored the plea.  In October, a contingent of New Englanders, 360 strong, marched into upper Maine to chastise the treacherous Abenaki, but they lost their way on the seldom used trails, and nothing came of the venture.  Meanwhile, the Abenaki struck again and again, and English retaliation remained feeble.  In exasperation, the Massachusetts authorities in September offered a bounty of twenty pounds for each Indian scalp a settler would bring in.  At least one Puritan clergyman heartily applauded the measure!  This action led to the formation of at least seven companies of rangers who scoured the Maine woods for the grisly trophies that winter.  The rangers, or "snowshoe men" as they were called, enjoyed limited success, but they brought a new level of intensity to the fighting that would characterize the rest of this war.  Indian attacks continued, with persistent savagery, into early 1704.182

In Québec, Governor-General Vaudreuil, no doubt mindful of the successes of his predecessor in the previous war against England, set into motion a plan of attack against the Massachusetts settlements in the Connecticut River valley.   At least 250 Canadian rangers and probably a larger force of Indians, including Iroquois and Abenaki, under Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, braved an especially severe winter to get at the valley settlements.  On the early morning of 28 February 1704, they fell on the snow-covered town of Deerfield, burned most of the houses, killed 50 or so of the inhabitants, and took into captivity perhaps 100 more, 19 of whom perished on the long, cold trail back to Canada.183

The New Englanders were understandably horrified.  Retaliation was sure to follow.  Again, the hero of Duxbury, Benjamin Church, promoted to colonel, was empowered to lead an expedition against the French.  And, again, peninsula Acadia was chosen as the target of retribution.  But Port-Royal would escape violence this time.  Massachusetts "Governor Dudley would not sanction an attack on Port-Royal, though Church strongly desired to destroy that nest of contraband traders, among whom, it was whispered, some New England merchants might be found, base enough to turn the enemy's wants for carrying on the war against them to their own profit."184

In April, Church gathered a force of 550 men, including friendly Indians who were incorporated into the colonial companies.  Many of the men were armed with fine new muskets that had just arrived from England.  To convey them up the coast, Church secured two British warships and a Massachusetts armed vessel.  Aboard these larger vessels were numerous whaleboats that would be used to land the troops at any point along the coast.  There were enough of these boats to propel half the command against any point at once.  "In short, the expedition in all respects was as well, if not better, equipped as any that had been sent out on the same errand."185  

The colonel's strategy was predictable.  "Church was too old a campaigner not to know that the prospect of coming upon the hostile Indians unawares was poor indeed.  Burning their deserted wigwams might be compared with burning so much old brushwood.  They were almost as easily rebuilt as destroyed; and it was too early in the season to lay waste the Indian cornfields.  Church therefore had proposed to himself the rooting out of as many of the French trading and fishing stations of Nova Scotia as he should have time to visit, satisfied in his own mind, as he was, that it was there he could do the enemy the most harm.  It being impracticable to reach Canada, he argued that the next best thing to do was to strike where the enemy was most vulnerable--that is through Nova Scotia.  This was rude strategy, to be sure, but it was the only means left of making reprisals for such murderous raids as that of Hertel de Rouville."  Governor Dudley ordered that "all homes in Acadia be burned, that dikes protecting recovered land be smashed and that everything that could be carried be taken along with as many prisoners as possible."186

Sailing up the coast in early May, Church picked up reinforcements in New Hampshire and then fell upon the French settlements on Penobscot Bay.  Next, he attacked Mount Desert Island and then Machias, where he continued to scout out any French settlement he could destroy.  But Mount Desert and Machias were deserted.  In early June, his expedition reached the French settlement in Passamaquoddy Bay at the mouth of the Ste.-Croix River.  One of his units scoured nearby Campobello Island, the future summer home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  A small French settlement up the treacherous Ste-Croix--Gourdain's--fell to Church's force on June 8.  The hand full of Frenchmen who had the temerity to resist Church's men were "knocked in the head" on the old colonel's orders before he moved the force up to the falls of the Ste.-Croix, where he destroyed a tiny French fishing settlement.187

Church next turned on his primary target, peninsula Acadia.  In early July, he sent the large ships to blockade Port-Royal and then led his whaleboats up the peninsula to the Minas Basin.  They arrived at evening low tide and had to wait overnight for the morning flood before they could run the boats into the basin.  Meanwhile, the Minas inhabitants drove off their cattle to keep them out of the hands of the New Englanders.  Church's men pursued the Acadians, who waited in ambush for the incautious Yankees.  A Lieutenant Baker and a private died in the confrontation--Church's only fatal casualties in the entire expedition.  That evening, Church ordered his men to burn the Minas settlements and to destroy the precious dykes, and with them the Acadians' ripening crops.  Lands that had taken the Acadians years to reclaim from the basin were again covered with salt water.  Church rounded up as many hostages as he could find, threw them aboard the whaleboat transports, and hurried back up the peninsula to Port-Royal.188

Amazingly, Church and his much superior force simply lay before Port-Royal and did not attempt to take the fort that guarded the heart of Acadia.  The little garrison put on a brave demonstration, but mostly they held their collective breaths and waited for the onslaught that surely would doom them.  It never came.  In late July, Church burned and pillaged what he could along the basin, rounded up more prisoners, and headed back up the Bay of Fundy, to Chignecto, which he had attacked eight years before.189

On 28 July 1704, Church fell on Beaubassin during a heavy fog.  This time, however, the Chignecto Acadians did not attempt to negotiate with the old Puritan.  Having heard of Church's attacks down the coast and suspecting that they soon would be his next target, they drove their cattle out of harm's way and prepared to resist the invaders.  Church landed his force and deployed his men.  The Chignecto defenders fired a few shots and then disappeared into the countryside.  Again, the New Englanders plundered and burned an Acadian settlement before rounding up more unlucky hostages to be used in negotiating for the release of the New England captives the French were holding in Canada.  The old soldier and his men returned to Boston the way they had come, stopping at Passamaquoddy, Mount Desert, and Penobscot again to chastise any French and Indians there, but this time they found no one.  At Casco, Church found orders directing him to attack the French mission at Norridgewock, up the Kennebec, but, responding to his men's' desire to return to their homes, he did not bother to go there.190

And so ended Colonel Benjamin Church's final raid on Acadia.  The New Englanders had expected him to take Port-Royal and expressed keen disappointment when they learned that he had not.  When it became public knowledge that Governor Dudley had discouraged Church from taking the Acadian capital before the expedition had even begun, a cloud of gloom and frustration settled over the Bay colony.  In late July, the French and Indians from Canada struck in force again along the Connecticut River valley and massacred more settlers in western Massachusetts.  The war had degenerated into another stalemate and promised to drag on as long as the last one.191

The winter of 1704-05 offered hope for an end to the fighting when the belligerents in Boston and Québec opened a dialogue for an exchange of prisoners.  Governor Dudley took advantage of this lull in the fighting to offer Governor-General Vaudreuil a treaty of neutrality, which would essentially have ended the war in the colonies.  These negotiations continued into 1706, and the frontier between Canada and New England enjoyed a peaceful respite.  A number of prisoner exchanges during this period, some no doubt involving Acadian settlers, gave colonists on both sides reason to hope that the war at last was over.  But the spring of 1706 brought not only a renewal of nature but also a resumption of hostilities.192    

The French and Indians from Canada struck the first blow in raids along the western Massachusetts frontier that continued into summer.  At Port-Royal, meanwhile, a small merchant vessel arrived from Boston under a flag of truce ostensibly for a prisoner exchange.  The New Englanders who owned the vessel, however, were just as intent on trading goods with the Acadians, who were eager to receive them.  An exchange of prisoners was made, and soon the New Englanders returned for another trade.  The dubious business ended when the good Puritans back in Boston learned of the contraband trading.  A public scandal erupted, followed by a trial that imposed heavy fines on all of the merchants involved.  Even Governor Dudley was implicated in the scandal.  As the strong public feeling against trading with the enemy revealed, the war was far from over.193

In the spring of 1707, Governor Dudley sought to redeem himself by organizing yet another assault against Port-Royal.  There would be no trading in goods this time.  The New Englanders were intent on destroying the place.  Colonel John March, who had been successful in earlier fighting against the French and Indians in Maine, took command of a force of two regiments of militia infantry raised in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, and a battery of militia artillery.  March's force numbered 1,100 men, twice the size of the expedition that Church had taken to Acadia three years before.  The force would have been even larger if the governor of Connecticut had cooperated with his fellow New Englanders.  Still, it was unusual for three New England colonies to join in such a venture.  The size of the force and the perceived quality of its leadership gave every promise of success.194

Acadia, meanwhile, had received a new governor when Brouillan died on his way back from France in 1704.  Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, former governor of Placentia and recent recipient of the Order of St.-Louis, would prove to be the last French governor of Acadia.  Alerted evidently by his intelligence system, Subercase was ready for March when the New Englanders dropped anchor in the Port-Royal basin on 26 May 1707.  In the fort at Port-Royal on its imposing hill overlooking the countryside was not only the small force of French regulars under Subercase, but also Acadian militia from the surrounding settlements; 150 Abenaki under Bernard-Anselme de Saint-Castin; and 60 Canadians from Québec under naval officer Louis Denys de La Ronde, brother of Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure, who had run the colony before Subercase arrived from France.  March's New Englanders greatly outnumbered the defenders, but the Frenchmen made up for it with the twin advantages of standing on the defensive behind prepared works and, in the case of the Acadians, fighting to protect their own homes.195

On the afternoon of the 26th, March landed a thousand men in two columns seven or eight miles below the fort, one on the north shore, across from the fort, to serve as a covering force, the other, commanded by March himself, on the south side of the basin, on the direct approaches to the fort.  Unfortunately for the New Englanders, because of the late hour of its landing this main column could not reach the fort before darkness fell.  Subercase sent out skirmishers to delay both columns, and armed inhabitants swarmed to the area to ambush any New Englanders they could find.  Meanwhile, women and children hurried to the fort to seek its protection.  The next morning, the 27th, a ragtag force of Acadians ambushed March's advance along Allain's Creek, inflicting a number of casualties and further delaying its arrival at the fort.196

When March's column finally reached its objective on the afternoon of the 27th and threw itself into battle lines beneath the ramparts of the fort, the New Englander hesitated to assault Port-Royal with its sturdy walls and 40 guns, including some 36-pounders.  He chose, instead, to hold back his infantry and to knock down the fort with his artillery.  The artillery that could do that was not his, however, but belonged to the Royal Navy, whose officers insisted that their big guns could not be landed under the fire of the fort, and so it was not done.  Even March's own artillery commander refused to bring up his guns under the fire of the fort.  March lay siege to the fort, instead, and the morale of his colonials plummeted with every swipe of the pick and shovel.  On May 31, after investing the place for only four days and consulting yet another council of war, March concluded that Port-Royal was just too strong to subdue by siege.  A week later, on June 6, March lifted the siege, re-embarked his men, and retreated to Casco, Maine.  There he awaited further orders from the authorities in Boston, to whom he sent three of his officers, including his troublesome artillery commander, to inform them of his failure.197

News of the disaster at Port-Royal reached Boston before March's officers arrived in the city.  A virtual mob of colonists greeted them at the dock and on the streets, mocking their military bearing and shouting, "Port Royal!  Port Royal!"  Governor Dudley was mortified by the official news and chose to send March right back to Port-Royal to finish it off properly this time.  Two prominent civilians accompanied the hapless colonel as advisors and with the power to overrule him if necessary.  Some of March's original force refused to accompany him on the second venture--men mostly from Plymouth and New Hampshire; and, again, Connecticut did not join in the venture--but his force remained largely intact and arrived before Port-Royal on August 10.  Subercase, meanwhile, had strengthened his position by erecting field fortifications where March's besiegers had camped beneath the guns of the fort.  The Acadian governor was surprised to see the New Englanders back so soon, but, again, his soldiers and Acadians, with the help of Saint-Castin's Abenaki, stood ready to repulse another English assault.198

March landed all of his troops on the north side of the basin this time, evidently with the object of using his artillery from that side to reduce the fort at a distance.  Subercase seized the initiative, however, and kept a steady fire on March's camps with his big guns, limiting their ability to maneuver during the day, while his skirmishers ambushed and harassed any New Englanders who ventured out into the countryside to gather provisions or to reconnoiter the approaches to the fort.  The besiegers soon became the besieged, with a predictable result.  Breaking under the strain of another failure, Colonel March relinquished his command to a trusted subordinate, Colonel Francis Wainwright of Massachusetts.  Wainwright wasted no time putting his troops into action.  He moved a column of infantry up the river to a point above the fort, with artillery to follow under cover of darkness.  His plan was to cross at night with the infantry and artillery and fall upon the rear of the fort the following morning.  Subercase learned of the movement from a loose-lipped New England prisoner and foiled the crossing by setting bonfires all along the upper river.  Wainwright pulled his force back to a point opposite the fort, but Subercase shelled him out of the position.  Wainwright then moved farther down the basin, out of the range of the fort's big guns.  Desperate to get at the fort and overwhelm it with raw numbers, on August 20, ten days into the siege, Wainwright crossed the lower basin with his entire force to attack Port-Royal from the south side, as March had tried to do two months before.  The ever watchful Subercase sent Saint-Castin's Abenaki to ambush the New Englanders as they approached his lines.  Wainwright hoped to draw Subercase's entire force out of the fort and into a knock-down, drag-out fight in the open, but the wily Frenchman refused to budge.  Wainwright ordered his men back to their boats, and soon the big English ships opened their sails and headed back to Massachusetts.199

Thus ended the third siege of Port-Royal in as many years, each a humiliating defeat for the New Englanders.  Would there be a fourth, or would the Englishmen finally relent and leave the Acadians alone?  In 1707, Governor Subercase conducted a census of the colony.  The result showed "a continued advance in numbers" in Acadia's major settlements:  570 were counted at Port-Royal; 271 at Chignecto; 585 at Minas, including Pigiguit; and 82 at Cobeguit, for a total of slightly over 1,500 colonists, probably an undercounting.  One historian estimates that the "total for all of Chignecto and the peninsula would be between 1,700 and 1,800" in 1707.  The following year, another census counted 53 at Cap-Sable, 15 at Port Rachelois, and 42 at La Hève and Mirliguèche.199a

The war dragged on into its sixth and seventh years with more pillaging and murder along the New England frontier.  The hapless village of Haverhill, Massachusetts, was the hardest hit when French and Indians from Canada swooped down on its inhabitants in late August 1708.200  

Meanwhile, the Acadian settlements remained unmolested.  The war again seemed to be a distant thing, although the settlers at Minas had only to look at their dykes to be reminded of how quickly that could change.  New houses appeared there and at Port-Royal and Chignecto to replace the ones that the New Englanders had burned.  Families grew, new settlers arrived, more land was reclaimed from the marshy wetlands, and Acadian life went on.  Governor Subercase was not lulled by the interlude of peace that followed the retreat of Wainwright's force.  He beseeched the French Minister of Marine to send him funds, reinforcements, and provisions without delay so that he could be ready for the New Englanders when they returned, as he was certain they would do.  The only assistance he received, however, were two small ships loaded with Parisian boys, and provisions too meager to feed his garrison.  He received indirect assistance from French privateers, including Denys de La Ronde, who preyed on English shipping along the Atlantic coast and used Port-Royal as a base of operations.  Unfortunately for the Acadian farmers in the Fundy settlements, the success of the privateers ruined what little trade there was between New England merchants who ignored the war and Acadians who were always eager to trade for English goods.  Worse yet, these depredations against New England's primary industry fueled the angry Bostonians' resolve to destroy the Port-Royal menace once and for all.201

In the spring of 1709, two colonial shakers and movers, Colonels Samuel Vetch and Francis Nicholson, returned to Boston from London with orders from Queen Anne herself to end the war in the colonies.  It would be done not by negotiation but by force of arms, and Canada would be the primary objective, Port-Royal a secondary one.  For the first time since Phips's failed attempt to take Quebec 19 years before, the English would try to capture Montréal and Québec, again with overwhelming force.202  

No two more interesting men could have been chosen to lead the venture.  The 41-year-old Vetch was a native of Scotland who had settled in Albany 10 years before and established a successful trade with the Indians.  In 1706, he, too, had been implicated in the illegal trade with Port-Royal and fined heavily.  His conviction, however, had been overturned by a friendly court ruling, and he remained in the good graces of the English authorities in London.  The plan of campaign was essentially his.  The queen's government empowered him to raise the necessary force in the colonies to subdue New France.  Nicholson, who was age 54 at the time, was one of the most distinguished colonial administrators of the age.  He had served as lieutenant governor of the ill-starred Dominion of New England two decades before and had fled with Sir Edmond Andros to England when a revolt in New York toppled Andros's regime in 1689.  The next year Nicholson returned to the colonies as lieutenant governor of Virginia.  He governed Maryland from 1694-98 and returned to Virginia in 1698 as governor general.  Quarrels there led to his ouster in 1705.  He nevertheless remained a favorite of Queen Anne and her ministers, was made a colonel and placed in command of the Canadian operation.203

An historian of the war describes the objective of the expedition:  "In brief, the plan of operations was this:  The campaign was to be opened by a combined attack upon Quebec and Montreal, both by sea and land.  The fall of Canada would, of course, involve that of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and all the rest of the French possessions on the continent, which would then come definitively under British rule, once and forever."  To this end, Massachusetts would supply 1,000 militiamen, Rhode Island 200, for the attack against Québec by sea from Boston.  The larger force for the sea borne operation would consist of five regiments of redcoat regulars, 3,000 men, for a total of 4,200 men in the attack upon Québec.  For the land expedition against Montréal, to be commanded by Nicholson with Vetch as his second in command, Connecticut would raise 350 men, New York 800, Pennsylvania 150, and New Jersey 300, a total of 1,600 militiamen to rendezvous at Albany in May.  The combined force of nearly 6,000 regulars and militiamen and hundreds more sailors and marines was over twice the size of Phips' expedition of 1690.  Surely if all went well for the English, both Canada and Acadia would be theirs at last and they would dominate North America.204

Things went terribly for the hapless British.  Colonel Nicholson's part of the operation started badly when New Jersey and Pennsylvania refused to furnish the 450 men allotted to them.  Undeterred, Nicholson made this up by employing 600 Iroquois warriors and their families, keeping his total force for the attack on Montreal at a respectable 1,500 men.  He moved up the Hudson from Albany on schedule, cutting a road for his supplies and a possible retreat route, and halted at Wood Creek, which would take his force into Lake Champlain.  Here he waited for word of the larger movement from Boston, built canoes and waited for flat boats to be floated up the Hudson and dragged overland to his position.  At Wood Creek he skirmished with a small French force from Montréal, which quickly slipped away to alert the big French garrison.205

In Boston, meanwhile, Governor Dudley and his lieutenants, including Vetch, gathered their transports and waited for the British squadron filled with redcoats and marines to arrive from England.  Spring slipped quietly into summer, which gave way to autumn, and still they waited.  Nicholson's force waiting at Wood Creek dwindled with each passing day when dysentery struck the troops in their filthy camps.  Finally, a dispatch vessel from London arrived at Boston:  the English squadron and the redcoats the queen had promised them had been sent to Portugal instead.  The stout walls of Québec and Montréal would remain untouched by English fire.206

Colonel Nicholson would not give up.  "Unwilling to throw away what had cost so much time, trouble, and expense to get together, the New England governors met Nicholson, Vetch, and Moody at Rehobeth, October 14th, to see what was to be done.  It was unanimously decided to send the New England forces against Port Royal, provided the queen's ships then at Boston and New York would co-operate."  The Royal Navy balked, however, and there was nothing left to do but disband the entire force and send them home.207

And, again, Colonel Nicholson, Captain Vetch, and Governor Dudley refused to give up on an attack against the Acadian menace.  A recent historian of the conflict describes the preparations for yet another expedition against the French colony:  "Though deeply disappointed, the dogged New Englanders did not give up all hope of reprisal; once again they lowered their sights from Quebec to Port Royal.  England was again persuaded to provide ships, and in 1710 Massachusetts again rounded up its semidrilled throng of farmers, mechanics, plowboys, clerks and apprentices.  The soldiers of 1709 were asked to enlist again, this time lured by the promise that they might keep the muskets supplied them.  Once again, when volunteers fell below quotas, the colony calmly drafted the reluctant.  Seamen were impressed by the forefathers of that nation which would fight a war to protect its seamen from British press gangs, and the parents of those sturdy provincials who would make mock of the dainties in the elaborate war train of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne did not hesitate to vote 20 sheep, 5 pigs, 100 fowl and 1 pipe of wine for the table of General Nicholson.  A dinner was held at the Green Dragon Tavern in honor of Nicholson, Vetch and Sir Charles Hobby, the British squadron commander, and on the following morning, September 18, the expedition numbering about 40 ships, large and small, sailed for Acadia."  Nicholson commanded the expedition with Vetch as his chief of staff.  The New England force numbered 2,000 men, including a regiment of Royal Marines and four battalions of provincial militia commanded by colonels Sir Charles Hobby and William Tailer of Massachusetts, Colonel William Whiting of Connecticut, and Colonel Shadrach Walton of New Hampshire.  A force of Iroquois also accompanied the expedition.  Nicholson's ships reached the entrance to the basin at Port-Royal on September 24.208

Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, the successful defender of Port-Royal in 1707, still governed the Acadian colony in 1710.  In the fort this time were only about 260 French regulars, "the greater part of whom he was afraid to trust outside of the fort for fear of them deserting."  Worse yet, the fort itself was in a ramshackle condition, its ramparts hardly defendable.  When the English ships appeared at the entrance to Port-Royal basin, Subercase rushed a dispatch to the authorities in France stating that "if the garrison received no succor, there was 'every reason to fear something fatal.'"209

How true were his words.  Deserters from the French garrison met the English in the basin and revealed the weakness of the fort to the enemy.  Though one of Nicholson's ships ran onto the rocks at the entrance to the basin and sank with the loss of 26 men, his other vessels anchored safely in sight of the fort.  The next day, September 25, the English landed virtually unopposed.  They moved immediately against the fort, two battalions under Vetch attacking from the north, two under Nicholson attacking from the south.  Subercase did not sally out to meet them.  The only resistance to the English approach came from some of the Acadians living on the line of march who fired at the New Englanders from their houses before hurrying into the countryside.  Meanwhile, the English warships lobbed shells into the fort while Subercase fired what artillery he had at the approaching New Englanders.  Moving within easy artillery range of the fort, Nicholson brought up his field artillery and supervised its emplacement.  Three breaching batteries stood ready on October 1, when they opened fire on the dilapidated old fort from a range of only 100 yards. After a desultory fire, "Subercase asked for terms.  Once more the golden Bourbon lilies came fluttering down Port Royal's flagstaff; the French soldiers--about 250 men--came marching out with drums rolling, colors flying and arms reversed; the English troops went marching in, the Union Jack went up the pole, the Queen's health was drunk--and in the morning the distressed French ladies of the fort were treated to a breakfast by the English officers."210

No one could know it, but the fleurs-de-lis would never fly over Port-Royal again.  Then again, perhaps Francis Nicholson could see into the future when he renamed the place in honor of his queen.  One hundred and five years after Poutrincourt had christened the fledgling French settlement that he and Dugua had planted on the shores of the wide basin, the name "Port-Royal" slid quietly into history.  The village that clustered around the old French fort was re-christened Annapolis Royal and was often called simply Annapolis.  The British resurrected "Nova Scotia" as their name for the entire colony.211

Determined to punish the Acadians for their role in the war that had just gone terribly against them, Nicholson then turned on the inhabitants of Nova Scotia.  The terms of surrender provided protection only to those Acadians who lived within three English miles of the fort:  the 481 inhabitants dwelling in what was called the banlieue, who, to secure protection, were compelled to take an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne.  All others--those in the upper river above Port-Royal, at Minas, Pigiguit, Cobeguit, Chignecto, the trois-rivières, Rivière St.-Jean, Pobomcoup, and other settlements, that is, the great majority of Acadians--would be "treated as prisoners at discretion, or as subject to such penalties as the conquerors might see fit to impose."  Nicholson promptly sent envoys overland to Québec to inform the Canadian governor-general, still Vaudreuil, that Port-Royal was now in English hands.  He warned the Frenchman that "if the discriminate massacre of innocent women and children by his hired cut-throats was persisted in, then the Acadians would be treated in a like manner."  He left Vetch to govern the captured garrison, with a battalion of 450 Royal Marines and New Englanders to assist him.  No committee of citizens would be left to run the town as Phips had decreed 20 years before.  The French garrison took ship for La Rochelle.  A few Acadian families joined them.  Some families packed up and headed for Canada, but the majority of the Acadians stayed in their homes, determined to endure whatever else history threw at them.212

As autumn slipped into winter with its snow and ice and spring finally arrived with its welcome thaw, the Acadians became more and more agitated over the prospect of remaining under English rule.  One of the provisions of the hated terms of surrender dictated by Nicholson and Vetch was that "All French must be deported outside the country, save those who adopt Protestantism.  That it would be most advantageous for the Crown that this measure be effected with all possible speed and that they be replaced with Protestant families from England or Ireland ...."  The inhabitants within cannon shot--three miles--of Annapolis Royal were not affected by this decree, but every other settlement in Acadia fell under it.  The Acadians were devout Catholics who would never dream of converting to Protestantism or of giving up their land to foreigners.  They were not the sort of people who would sit idly by while the English destroyed their way of life.213  

An incident on haute rivière that winter no doubt soured relations between the British at Annapolis and the Acadians in the basin.  Historian John Mack Faragher relates:  "The first sign of Acadian resistance came in January 1711.  Vetch had sent the garrison's commander, a Huguenot from Bordeaux named Peter Capon, to negotiate the purchase of grain from Pierre Leblanc, captain of the Port Royal militia and chief inhabitant of the haute rivière....  As the two men sat talking in Leblanc's house one evening, a group of armed Acadians burst in 'with their firelocks cocked,' seized Capon, and dragged him out into the night.  Leblanc quickly put an end to the incident by going after them and arranging for Capon's release, paying a ransom of 20 pistoles; but Vetch kept the pot boiling by sending an officer and fifty armed men to Saint-Laurent chapel in the haute rivière the following Sunday morning to arrest Father Justinien Durand, priest of the parish of Saint-Jean-Baptiste [on the lower river], as well as a score of leading inhabitants--merchants Louis Allain and Germain Bourgeois along with their eldest sons; wealthy inhabitant Jean Comeau; François Broussard; and Captain Pierre Leblanc himself.  'This was done in reprizal of what they had Mr. Capon,' Vetch announced.  There is no evidence that any of them had anything to do with planning the incident, and Leblanc had been the one to rescue Capon.  But Bourgeois was well known as the man who had bravely confronted Major Benjamin Church and his invaders at Beaubassin in 1696, and Broussard was acknowledged to be a dissident, and would raise two sons who would become prominent leaders of the resistance to British rule.  The hostages would not be released, Vetch declared, until the Acadians delivered the persons responsible for Capon's abduction."  The aftermath likely was never forgotten by area Acadians.  "The men remained in the dungeon for several weeks, and Bourgeois died soon after his release, according to his family, as the direct result of his suffering.  [Father] Durand was sent to Boston, where he languished in jail for nearly a year before being released in a prisoner exchange with French authorities in Quebec.  But although numerous inhabitants surely knew the identity of the men responsible, no one informed the British."213a

The settlers at Minas and Chignecto heard, no doubt, about the arrest and imprisonment of their fellow Acadians at Annapolis Royal.  They also heard that the garrison of royal marines, who had not fared well over the Acadian winter, had been replaced by semi-drilled New England militiamen, and that sickness and desertion had reduced the ranks of the New Englanders by over half, making them vulnerable to attack.  The Acadians appealed to Anselme de Saint-Castin and his trusty Abenaki at Pentagouët to help them retake the old fort.  In late June 1711, Saint-Castin and his Abenaki crossed the Bay of Fundy undetected by the English and joined a group of armed settlers from Minas and Chignecto for a go at Annapolis.  They approached to within a dozen miles of the fort and fell upon a party of 70 Englishmen searching for building timber at a place still called Bloody Creek.  A sharp skirmish left over a dozen of the Englishmen dead and the rest captured.  With the garrison much reduced and more armed Acadians sure to appear, the chances of retaking the fort were even greater.  The Acadians and Saint-Castin appealed to Vaudreuil for reinforcements.  They also alerted the governor of Plaisance in Newfoundland, who promised to send them what cannon he could spare via the ship of a French privateer named Morpain.  June became July as the Acadians patiently waited for the men and cannon that never came.214  

Unfortunately for the Acadians, their timing was terrible, and the assault on Annapolis Royal never came off.  Only days before the clash at Bloody Creek, "the most formidable armament ever dispatched to these shores" began to drop sail in Boston harbor.  Colonel Nicholson, the indefatigable enemy of the Acadians, had done much to bring this virtual Armada to America.  Flushed with victory, he had returned to Boston after his easy capture of Port-Royal and soon sailed to England to stir up the Queen's government for another go at Québec and Montréal.  His timing could not have been better.  The Tories had just ousted the Whigs from power, and the Queen's new Tory ministers were "eager to discredit the Duke of Marlborough, whose stunning victories over the French and Spanish had made him the darling of the Whigs.  The Tories reasoned that if France could be evicted from America, it could be shown that this triumph would be of greater value to England than all Marlborough's victories, which were already being belittled as of more benefit to Holland and Austria than to Britain."  The Queen's new government cobbled together a force of 12,000 men, including seven regiments of Marlborough's veterans sent to England from Holland for the expedition, nine ships of war, two bomb ketches, and about 60 transports and supply vessels, 600 marines, and the requisite artillery, to be supplemented by 1,500 colonial militia to be raised in New England and commanded by Samuel Vetch.  Nicholson was given the same mission he had tried mightily to complete the year before, to move a large force of New York militia and Iroquois from Albany to Lake Champlain and to fall upon Montréal when the formidable force from England fell on Québec by way of Boston.  The armada began arriving in Boston on 24 June 1711, and, after turning Boston inside out for supplies and recruits, set sail for the St. Lawrence on July 30.  Commander of the fleet was an armchair admiral, Sir Hovenden Walker.  In command of the army forces was a political appointee who had never seen battle, Brigadier John "Honest Jack" Hill, brother of the queen's new favorite, Mrs. Masham.  It was this force that gobbled up the cannon headed from Newfoundland to Acadia and reinforced the ailing garrison at Annapolis Royal with a fresh contingent of New England militiamen.  Saint-Castin's warriors alerted the force of 200 Canadians marching to the aid of their Acadian brethren. Vaudreuil's men, reluctant to attack a fort without cannon, turned back, and the enterprise against Annapolis Royal was ruined.  Meanwhile, on the foggy night of August 22, as he approached the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, Admiral Walker allowed part of his fleet to be dashed against the treacherous north shore of the lower St. Lawrence.  At least 900 soldiers and sailors perished in one of the worst maritime disasters of the age.  Despite still having a large enough force to capture Québec easily and ignoring the entreaties of Colonel Vetch, Walker and Hill sailed back to England and blamed the disaster on the Bostonians, whose hopes of destroying the Canadian menace once and for all were dashed once again, and perhaps forever, this time literally on the rocks of the Île-aux-Oeufs.215

Queen Anne's War sputtered on along the New England-Maine frontier, but the Tories in London had had enough.  Peace negotiations began in earnest at Utrecht in Holland, where, in April 1713, Britain and France signed the first in a series of treaties that ended 11 years of warfare in Europe and America.  Among the complex provisions of the Peace of Utrecht was a clause that affected the Acadians in a most profound way.  Having won the recognition of a Bourbon to occupy the throne of Spain, the reason why the conflict in Europe was called the War of the Spanish Succession, France agreed, among other things, to cede some of its foreign territory to Britain--its holdings along the shore of Hudson Bay, the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, the region of Newfoundland, and, in the treaty's Article 12, Acadia "with the ancient boundaries."216

Unfortunately for everyone, especially the hapless Acadians, the treaty was vague about "the ancient boundaries" of the territory the French had called Acadia.  They would claim for decades that they had ceded only peninsula Acadia.  The British would insist that the Peace of Utrecht had "made them owners, not only of the Nova Scotian peninsula, but of all the country north of it to the St. Lawrence, or at least to the dividing ridge or height of land."  No matter, the deed was done.  Acadia now was Nova Scotia, a name the English and Scots adopted in the 1620s.  The great majority of Acadians lived on tidal lands bordering the deep inlets of the Bay of Fundy--along the shore that France clearly had ceded to Britain.  The long years of warfare with their implacable enemy, as well as the vaguely worded Peace that ended the conflict, sowed seeds that would bear terrible fruit for simple farmers who wanted nothing more than to be left alone.217

End of an Era:  The Passing of the Acadian Pioneers

By the end of French control in peninsula Acadia, most of the colony's first-family progenitors had breathed their last.  Many lived to a ripe old age, witnessing the birth of grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.  Some were not so lucky.  Most of them died on their farms along the basin near Port-Royal.  A few had moved on to Chignecto and Minas and passed their final days there:116 

Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, was forced by the English to leave Acadia in 1654, when he was in his late 50s.  He did not return to the colony, and his death date is unknown.  As far as is known, the first family founder to die in Acadia was the fisherman turned farmer Jean Poirier, who died probably at Port-Royal in c1654, age unknown.  Étienne, the younger of the two Hébert brothers, died at Port-Royal between 1669 and 1671, on the eve of the first census; his birth year is unknown, but he probably died in his middle age.  François Guérin probably was in his middle age, also, when he died before the first census. 

Other first-family founders died in the colony during the 1670s.  Jean Gaudet died in the middle of the decade, over 100 years old.  Several progenitors were counted in the colony in 1671 but not in 1678 or 1686, so they probably died during the 1670s.  Jean Thériot would have been in his 70s.  François Savoie would have been in his 50s.  Vincent Brun would have been in his 60s.  François Pellerin died in c1678, age 43.  Antoine Gougeon also died that year, age 52.  Pierre Martin, père died late in the decade, in his 70s.  René Landry l'aîné died between 1678 and 1686, perhaps in his early 60s.  Étienne Robichaud also died between 1678 and 1686, in his mid- or late 40s.  Pierre Lejeune dit Briard may have died during the decade, age undetermined.  Pierre Cyr died probably at Chignecto in c1679, age 35. 

More first-family founders died during the peaceful 1680s.  Pierre Vincent died perhaps early in the decade, in his early or mid-50s.  Guillaume Trahan died in c1684, age 83.  Vincent Breau died in c1685, in his mid-50s.  Pierre Comeau was counted at Port-Royal in 1686; the census taker, Sr. de Meulles, said he was age 88 at the time; Pierre died before the next census in 1693, in his late 80s or, more likely, in his early 90s.  Antoine Hébert died in the late 1680s or early 1690s, in his late 60s or early 70s.  Jean Blanchard died between the censuses of 1686 and 1693, in his late 70s or early 80s.  Olivier Daigre died about the same time, in his early 40s.  Barnabé Martin also died about then, probably in his late 40s.  Michel Richard dit Sansoucy died between 1686 and 1689, in his late 50s.  Jean Pitre died after the census of 1686, perhaps later in the decade, in his early 50s.  Antoine Babin died between 1686 and 1688, in his late 50s.  Antoine Belliveau may have died late in the decade, in his 60s.  René Landry le jeune died between 1686 and 1693, perhaps in his late 50s.  Michel Boudrot died between August 1688 and 1693, in his late 80s or early 90s. 

First-family founders died during the turbulent 1690s.  Antoine Bourg died between October 1687 and 1693, in his late 70s or early 80s.  Thomas Cormier died at Chignecto in c1690, in his mid-50s.  His father-in-law, François Girouard, died at Port-Royal in the early 1690s, in his early 70s.  Guyon Chiasson dit La Vallée died probably in the early 1690s, in his mid-50s.  Michel/Geyret de Forest died probably in the early 1690s, in his early 50s.  Claude Petitpas died in c1691, in his mid-50s.  Alexandre Le Borgne de Bélisle, former governor and seigneur of Port-Royal, died there in c1693, in his early 50s.   François Gautrot died in c1693, age 80.  Daniel LeBlanc died between 1695 and 1698, in his late 60s or early 70s.  Abraham Dugas died during the decade, in his late 70s or early 80s. 

First-family founders died during the final days of French control of peninsula Acadia, and a few were still alive when the British officially took over the colony in 1713.  Philippe Mius d'Entremont, retired seigneur of Pobomcoup, died probably at a daughter's home at Minas in 1700 or 1701, age about 91.  Charles Melanson dit Le Ramée, the younger brother, also died in 1700 or 1701, in his late 50s.  Jacques dit Jacob Bourgeois, founder of the Chignecto settlement, died probably at Port-Royal in 1701, in his early 80s.  Laurent Granger died between 1700 and 1703, in his late 50s.  Michel Dupuis may have died early in the 1700s, perhaps in his early 60s.  Pierre Guilbeau died in November 1703, age 64.  Pierre Thibodeau, founder of the Chepoudy settlement, died at Pré-Ronde, near Port-Royal, in December 1704, in his early 70s.  Jean Serreau, sieur de Saint-Aubin, seigneur of Ste.-Croix and Passamaquoddy, died at Port-Royal in March 1705, age 85.  Philippe Pinet died in October 1710, in his late 50s.  Pierre Lanoue died between 1707 and 1714, in his late 50s or early 60s.  Jean Corporon died in February 1713, age 66.  Pierre Melanson dit La Verdure, fils, the older brother and son-in-law of the old seigneur of Pobomcoup and pioneer of Grand-Pré, died there after the 1714 census, probably in his early 80s.  Roger dit Jean Caissie died probably at Chignecto, perhaps in the mid-or late 1710s, in his late 60s.  Five years after he was imprisoned by the British in Fort Anne, François Broussard died suddenly at his farm on haute rivière in December 1716, in his early 60s. 

Acadian Geography and Culture

By the time the British seized control of peninsula Nova Scotia in 1710, some of the oldest Acadian families were in their third and fourth generations.  They could be found at Pobomcoup near Cap-Sable, and at Mirliguèche and other small fishing settlements on the Atlantic side of the peninsula; in the basin above and below what the British called Annapolis Royal; at a dozen settlements in the Minas Basin, including Grand-Pré, Pigiguit, and Cobeguit; and in a half dozen more settlements, including Beaubassin, Rivière-des-Héberts, Maccan, Nappan, Vechkock, and Menoudy, east of the Missaguash at Chignecto.  Others could be found in territory claimed by both France and Britain west of the Missaguash, at Aulac, Tintamarre, Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, Memramcook, Shediac, and Miramichi; along the middle reaches of Rivière St.-Jean, northwest of Chignecto; along Rivière Ste.-Croix and the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay on the border of present-day New Brunswick and Maine; and along the Maine coast at Machias and other distant places, all the way down to the mouth of the Kennebec.  After three quarters of a century of settlement, these fecund Acadians, along with more recent arrivals, could be counted in the thousands.  Most importantly, during the times of peace and frequent conflict, they had created a culture of their very own.  Ironically, it was not until after a dozen-year war brought peace to greater Acadia that this culture entered a kind of Golden Age.  After the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, thirty years of relative peace descended on North America.  To be sure, seventeenth-century Acadia had seen years of quiet in the struggle between the imperial rivals--from 1632 to 1654, and from 1658 to 1689--but after a quarter century of nearly continuous warfare, burdening an entire generation, the Acadians welcomed another respite of peace, even under the rule of their former enemies.123 

.

By 1710 and for the next four and half decades, the major Acadian communities, as well as the so-called outlying settlements, possessed, or would come to possess, characteristics both unique and universal in the context of Acadian geography and culture. 

Annapolis Royal, described as "the old 'home' settlement of the Acadians," founded in 1605, two years before Jamestown in Virginia and three years before Québec in Canada, differed from the other Acadian settlements in several ways.  First, there was Fort Anne, which stood on a wide point of land along the south bank of the lower Annapolis River seven miles or so above Goat Island, which stood at the confluence of the river and the lower basin.  Until the summer of 1749, the fort was one of only two fortified garrisons in all of peninsula Nova Scotia (the other, on Great Canso Island, was so ramshackle an affair and contained so few troops that it hardly deserved the name of fortification, and, in fact, had no name).  A fort of some kind had stood on the site of Fort Anne, or close to it, since the time of the Scots in the 1620s, and d'Aulnay had built his fort on this exact spot during the late 1630s.  No place in Acadia/Nova Scotia had seen more military action than the site of this old fort; during the 1720s and 1740s, in fact, the old fort would see action again.  For the first four and a half decades of British occupation, Fort Anne held around a hundred officers and men, as well as a small community of officials.  Here, until 1749, the colonial council met.  Near the fort, in Annapolis village, dwelled several New English traders, who, along with the garrison, "lived a life apart from the general Acadian community, although a few Acadian families, generally those living near the fort," historian Andrew Hill Clark reminds us, effected a partial integration by marriage of their daughters to soldiers of the garrison."  Here, Clark observes, stood "a special sort of area that consumed and did not produce.  It provided a market for agricultural products, although the residents of the basin below the fort, and of the valley above it, felt that it was a forced market with prices kept at as artificially low a level as the garrison dared try to enforce."  No other major Acadian community lay farther in time and distance from French-controlled Canada and Île Royale, but none stood nearer to Boston and the rest of New England.  The water approach to Annapolis Royal required careful navigation, however.  Ships had first to negotiate the Gut, called today the Digby Gut and also St. George's Strait.  Here was a narrow, windy, tide-distracted, often fogged-plagued cut through the heights of the Granville Peninsula on the east and Point Prim on the west.  Once through the Gut and into the lower basin, a ship had to take care to approach Goat Island along its north, not its shallow south, channel.  There, however, the tides were even more dangerous than the ones plaguing the Gut, so a pilot likely would wait for a strong leading wind before negotiating the channel past Goat Island.  The five-mile stretch of water between Goat Island up to Annapolis Royal "formed a commodious harbor with six fathoms even at extreme low tide.  The river was navigable for small vessels about eighteen miles above the fort," to present-day Bridgetown.  Boats could continue the nine miles farther up to "the falls" if the tide allowed it and the boat was maneuverable enough to be beached when the tide pulled out.  Back at the colonial capital, thanks to commerce and the trappings of government, "Such hints of elegance or of exotic sophistication as there were in housing, clothing, and furniture, were confined closely to the banlieu of the fort," with perhaps one exception.  Bellaire, the home Joseph-Nicolas Gautier, a merchant born in Rochefort, stood on a capacious plot of land along the river above the fort.  Gautier's wife was Marie, daughter of blacksmith and landowner Louis Allain and his wife, Marguerite Bourg, so the merchant was connected to "regular" Acadians by marriage.  By the 1740s, Gautier, who operated a small commercial fleet of his own, was worth about 80,000 livres, making him one of the wealthiest men in the colony, if not the richest.  A hand full of Acadian merchants lived at Annapolis Royal, but their connections with Boston could not match that of their English contemporaries.  According to historian Andrew Hill Clark, from the 1680s well into the early 1700s, the Acadian population of the Annapolis valley tended to be older than in the upper Fundy communities, due mainly to the migration of recently-married couples into the newer communities, where, among other things, they could find more dykable marshland on which to start their own families.  Acadian farms dotted the basin and riverside from Goat Island "to as far as five leagues above the fort as early as 1720."  The location of the dykable marshland tended to create a settlement pattern of "nodes, almost hamlets, commonly of five to ten families."  The largest hamlet circled the Belle Île marsh, which lay six to eight miles above the fort; there, "within a space of two miles," dwelled 30 families of 150 to 200 people.  Annapolis valley Acadians, as they had since the late 1630s, engaged not only in farming but also in hunting, fowling, trapping, and fishing.  Some also engaged in lumbering and used mills of their own making, either tide- or wind-driven, to fashion their planks and shakes.  During the summer, between planting and the harvest, it was not unusual for younger men from large families who enjoyed a surplus of labor on their farms to hire themselves out to the cod fishery.  As in other Acadian communities, the farm houses of the Annapolis valley, as well as the houses of the Acadians in Annapolis village, were modest affairs, described by a 1745 visitor as "'... wretched wooden boxes, without conveniences, and without ornaments, and scarcely containing the most necessary furniture...."  Buildable stone and masonry skills were in short supply throughout the colony, so of course the Acadians' houses would have been made of simple, unprepossessing wood.  Two church parishes continued to serve the Acadians of the Annapolis area, St.-Jean-Baptiste on the lower river, and St.-Laurent above.  Both structures also were built of wood and were no more prepossessing than the parishioners' homes.128 

If one traveled up the Annapolis River, past "the falls" and the last of the Acadian dwellings, to the stream's farthest reaches, one would enter a rocky upland where there was no settlement for a number of miles.  Following the old Indian track eastward along the slope of North Mountain, over and then down an almost imperceptible divide, one would reach the headwaters of today's Cornwallis River, called by the Acadians Rivière-St.-Antoine in the 1600s and Rivière-des-Habitants in the 1700s.  If one followed this small, winding tidal stream down to its mouth, one soon would encounter more dykable marshes and, beside them, more Acadian dwellings.  Here was the center of the breadbasket of British Nova Scotia and the colony's most populous district--what Andrew Hill Clark calls Minas Proper, which comprised the eastern valley of the basin, "between North Mountain and the mouth of the Pisiguid (Avon) estuary."  Clark notes that, during the time that Britain controlled the colony, "Annapolis grew more slowly and Minas more rapidly than the Acadian average."  Rivière-des-Habitants was only one of five important tidal streams that flowed from the highlands west of the Annapolis valley into the Minas Basin.  Farthest north was Rivière Pereau, more a creek than a river.  A few miles farther south flowed Rivière-de-la-Vieille-Habitation, and then Rivière-aux-Canards north of des-Habitants.  The most southern of the four streams was Rivière Gaspereau, which drained the granite upland at the northern edge of South Mountain; this dramatic little stream flowed through a 500-foot gorge it had carved out of the granite upland before winding through its own series of tidal marshes, the first of which lay five miles above its mouth.  According to Clark, "There were settlements along all of these [streams] by 1714," the year in which Father Félix Pain conducted his census of British Nova Scotia for the governor of Île Royale.  In that year, Father Pain counted 530 settlers at Minas:  37 on Rivière Gaspereau; 287 at Grand-Pré, which lay between des-Habitants and the Gaspereau; 95 on led-Habitants; 76 on Rivière-aux-Canards; and 36 on Rivière Pereau and Vieille-Habitation.  The following year, acting governor Thomas Caulfield called Minas "'by much the best improvement in This Collony.'"  In 1720, colonial engineer and future lieutenant governor Paul Mascarene described Grand-Pré as "'... a platt of Meadow, which stretches along for near four leagues, part of which is damn'd in from the tide, and produces very good wheat and pease.'"  In Grand-Pré itself, Mascarene added, "'the houses which compose a kind of scattering Town, lyes on a riseing ground along two Creeks which runns betwixt it, and the meadow, and makes of this last a kind of Peninsula.'"  The marsh, or meadow, was at least a thousand acres in extent.  As many as 200 houses, spread along two or three miles atop the ridge overlooking the great meadow, comprised the village of Grand-Pré, which remained the largest population center in the district until the British destroyed it in 1755.  Here stood the church of St.-Charles-des-Mines, where New English Colonel John Winslow would detain the Grand-Pré men and boys in July of that terrible year before sending them and their families to the deportation ships.  On the lower Gaspereau were two settlements, called Gaspereau and Melanson, that sometimes were considered part of Grand-Pré.  It was here, in early February 1747, that Canadian officers encountered a wedding feast in the midst of a raging snow storm on their way to destroying a New English force billeted at Grand-Pré.  One of the few New English officer who survived the attack described the dwellings in Grand-Pré village as "'low Houses fram'd of timber and their Chimney fram'd with the Building of wood & lined with Clay except the fireplace below....'"  At the center of town were a few stone houses, in one of which the New English commander was shot in his bed.  "So scattered were the individual houses that '... our Quarters must have been extended above a mile (even) had we taken up the nearest houses in the thickest part of it....'"   The second most populous area in Minas Proper was Rivière-aux-Canard, also with its own church, dedicated to St.-Joseph.  Canard "had a comparable stretch of marshland in its broad river valley" and, according to Clark's estimation, boasted a population of 2,500 people by the early 1750s.  English engineer George Morris, who survived the Grand-Pré attack of 1747 and surveyed parts of the colony in the early 1750s, noticed at Canard an unusually large use of uplands for agriculture and reported that '... for the production of Grain (it) well answer'd their Labour; but not like their Marshes, but much more uplands are here improved then (sic) in any other District.'"  Historian Clark adds:  "Apart from homes, barns, and stables, the only buildings [in these villages] were the churches and mills."129 

South of Grand-Pré, at the southeastern edge of the Minas Basin, stood the scattered communities of Pigiguit, an area of settlement in the basin second only in size and population to Minas Proper.  Andrew Hill Clarks estimates its population in the mid-1700s at 1,400 to 1,500 individuals, a dramatic increase from the 351 people Father Pain counted there in 1714.  Here, Rivière Pigiguit, today's Avon River, flowed westward and then northward from the highlands of the central peninsula, and, after being joined by the Rivière St.-Croix and then the Rivière Quenetcou, now Kennetcook, two smaller streams emptying into it from the east, formed an impressive channel flowing slightly northwestward that emptied into the basin west of Grand-Pré.  The navigational approach to Pigiguit, then, was up the wide eponymous river, which did not produce dykable marshes until the confluence with the Kennetcook, on to a wide peninsula formed by the confluence with the St.-Croix; Pigiguit, in fact, was Mi'kmaq for "junction of the waters."  However, "The great tidal range created problems for water communication.  Large vessels usually had to lie well out and even then were usually aground at low tide, but small vessels could come up to all the settlements if they could withstand beaching.  Anchorage was also a problem so rapidly did the tidal race enter and leave the channel."  The largest concentration of settlement seems to have been up and down the west bank of the Pigiguit above and below today's Falmouth.  Here stood the parish of Ste.-Famille, or Holy Family, created in 1698, not long after the settlement was founded.  Along the east bank of Rivière Pigiguit and on both banks of the St.-Croix, above and below present-day Windsor and as far up as today's St. Croix, stood the parish of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, usually called L'Assomption.  This newer parish was created in June 1722 because of the difficulty faced by settlers living east of the river in crossing the wide, muddy tidal flats to the church of Ste.-Famille.  Acadians in the area tended to settle in "villages" named after a family or family head.  Along the St.-Croix stood, on the L'Assomption side of the Pigiguit, stood Village LeBlanc, Village Thibodeau, and Village Vincent.  Also on the L'Assomption side, between the St.-Croix and the upper reaches of the Pigiguit, stood Village Trahan, Village Breau, and Village Abraham Landry.  Farther down the Pigiguit, still on its east side, stood Village Pierre Germain Landry and Village Pierre Landry.  On the west, or Ste.-Famille, side of the Pigiguit stood Village Babin and Village Forest.  After 1749, the upper, or southern, hamlets at Pigiguit were the closest Fundy settlements to the new British base at Halifax, across the peninsula on the Atlantic.  Indian raids against Halifax and its adjacent Protestant settlements often came through Pigiguit, so British authorities blamed the Acadians there for these bloody attacks.  There was no question that settlers at Pigiguit aided the Canadians and Indians in their attack on Grand-Pré in February 1747, but, except when assisting Acadian partisans like Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, the habitants at Pigiguit usually were innocent bystanders during the bloody raids against Halifax.  British authorities punished the habitants at Pigiguit by forcing them to labor on the overland track between Halifax and Minas.  As a result, during the early 1750s, many Acadian moved away from Pigiguit and resettled at Chignecto, Tatamagouche, Île St.-Jean, or Île Royale--as far away as they could get from their British oppressors.130

At the northeast corner of the Minas Basin lay the sprawling community of Cobeguit.  According to Andrew Hill Clark, when the seigneur of Cobeguit, Mathieu Martin, died in 1724, "his rights [were] assumed by the Crown ..., but as far as we know the area never had been properly surveyed or assessed and the hand of the government from Annapolis, tentative enough in its reach at Minas and Pisiquid, scarely ever poked its fingers into Cobeguid's affairs."   In other words, Cobeguit, like Chignecto and trois-rivières, was one of those settlements to which Acadians could flee to escape the prying eyes of British officials.  Here, Clark says, "the settlers were much more scattered in pockets over more than a hundred miles of shoreline and had much less social cohesiveness than" other settlements, even those of the Annapolis valley.  Along the south shore of the bay, Cobeguit settlements ran from Tennycape eastward to the head of the bay, and along the north shore from Grosse Île, today's Parrsboro, to the the head of the bay at present-day Truro, which lies on the south bank of the flood plain of today's Salmon River, just above the river's mouth.  Tradition says that the Acadian name for the settlement at today's Truro was Ville Bois-Brûlé, or village of the burnt wood.  The original name for the Truro area was Wecobequitk, Mi'kmaq for "end of the water's flow" and from which the word Cobeguit evolved.  As at Rivière-aux-Canards across the Minas Basin, the relatively limited stretches of tidal marshland compelled some Cobeguit settlers to cultivate the uplands above the bay shore.  According to Andrew Hill Clark:, "The densest settlement was, naturally enough, close to the most extensive marshes," which on the south shore could be found from the mouth of Rivière Shubenacadie up to Wecobequitk, and on the north shore from Cove, also called Cap, d'Église, today's Masstown, up into Rivière Wecobequitk.  The Shubenacadie, which flowed northward from the interior highlands into the bay, was an important route into the interior and, via a portage, to the Atlantic coast community of Chebouctou, where the British built Halifax.  Cobeguit's church parish was dedicated to SS. Pierre et Paul, and included two churches, or chapels, at Wecobequitk and Cove d'Église.  A third church in the area could be found at the Ste.-Anne mission for Mi'kmaq 20 miles up the Shubenacadie, near present-day Stewiacke, south of Truro.  (From the late 1730s until 1749, except for the last few years of King George's War [1745-49], the Shubenacadie mission was run by the notorious Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre.  In 1749, after the British created Halifax, Le Loutre moved his mission to Chignecto to put distance between his Mi'kmaq and the new British garrison.)  Clark estimates that in 1748 the population of the Cobeguit region numbered about 900 individuals.  Starting on the south shore of the bay and moving eastward, there were 25 at Tennycape; 50 at Ville Noël; 25 at Ville Robert, today's Maitland; 25 on the west side of the Shubenacadie estuary; 100 along the Shubenacadie up to the Ste.-Ann mission; 180 from the Shubenacadie estuary east to Wecobequitk, including villes Percé, Bourq, Michel Aucoin, Jean Doucet, and others.  On the north shore of the bay moving westward from the mouth of Riviére Wecobequitk, there were 100 at Rivière Chiganois and Isgonish, today's Lower Onslow; 100 at Cove d'Église; 75 from Debert to Point Economy; 30 at the Five Islands; and 40 from the Five Islands westward to Cap d'Or, which lies on the northern shore of the entrance to the Minas Basin, west of and on the opposite shore from Cape Split.  Cobeguit lay only a few dozens miles south of the Mere-Rouge, today's Cumberland Strait, and was connected to the Gulf-shore settlements of Tatamagouche, Remsheg, and Baie Verte by overland tracks.  It was to Tatamagouche via the valley of Rivière Chiganois, along a trail that ascended to a thousand feet, that the settlers at Cobeguit ran their herds of cattle for transportation to the French fortress at Louisbourg during the 1740s--trade that was entirely illegal, of course, the entire time the British "controlled" the colony.131  

In the mid-1750s, there were a dozen families living in Gulf shore settlements that "must have spread through an extent of one hundred square miles along the present French and Waugh rivers" above Tatamagouche.  This was the far southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, not an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, so the tidal ranges here were not dramatic.  Consequently, there was little dykable marshland along the shore or on any of the rivers that flowed into the Gulf.  The habitants who engaged in farming here would have been forced to clear the forests and cultivate the uplands.  As a result, most Gulf shore settlers made a living more from "ferry services to Isle St-Jean and Cape Breton than in agriculture."  Andrew Hill Clark adds:  "Tatamagouche was second only to Baie Verte as a depot of illegal export and emigration, and the connection with Cobequid by land may have allowed greater secrecy for such movements than that from and via the Chignecto isthmus."  Future lieutenant governor Paul Mascarene observed this movement as early as 1720.  When war came to the region in 1744, Baie Verte became a staging area for Canadian forces operating in Nova Scotia.  On the eve of Le Grand Dérangement, a British official found at Baie Verte "four families who cut hay for their cattle in their 1,000-acre 'midden,' but who 'subsist wholly on their trade to and with Louisbourg and Canada.'"  In the Pictou area east of Tatamagouche "There was some exploitation of the forests ... by the French from Cape Breton...."  Clark reminds us:  "... whatever the English claims to the peninsula, the Gulf of St. Lawrence was a French sea and protests from Annapolis Royal or Canso," the only British garrisons in Nova Scotia until the end of the 1740s, "was ineffective."  Settlers at Baie Verte, Remsheg, Tatamagouche, and Cape John thrived on the illegal traffic to Île St.-Jean and Île Royale, but the lack of an agricultural base kept the Gulf shore population small and scattered.  During the early 1750s, small settlements appeared along the shore east of Tatamagouche: on Caribou Island, at Pictou, Little Harbour, Merigomish, and Antigonish, but, again, no agricultural base developed there.132

Second only to the Annapolis valley in tenure of settlement, the Chignecto isthmus lay in an area claimed by both imperial rivals after 1713.  Unlike the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where intensive agriculture was not possible, the southern end of the isthmus, touched by the Fundy tides, was an agricultural paradise only Minas could overshadow.  Following Andrew Hill Clark, one could use the name Chignecto Proper for that part of the isthmus facing what is called today the Cumberland Basin.  At the center of Chignecto Proper was Rivière Missaguash, which forms part of the present boundary between the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but no "boundary" between that which was French and that which was British existed there until the summer of 1750.  The oldest Chignecto settlement, Beaubassin, dating back to the early 1670s, lay just east of the Missaguash and was aptly named.  A British engineer counting Acadians for Lieutenant Governor Lawrence on the eve of Le Grand Dérangement observed that the area, with its "panorama of the ridges rising like islands or peninsulas in a sea of marshy grassland was '... one of the most Beautiful prospects the Bason of Chignecto affords in Summer for which Cause it is called by the French Beau Basin here may be seen a Number of Villages built on gentle rising Hills interspers'd with Gardens and Woods the Villages divided from each other with long intervalls of marshes and they at a great distance bounded by Hills covered with Trees the Natural growth of the Country here may be seen Rivers turning and winding among the Marshes then Cloath'd with all the Variety of Grain.'"  Both the French and British "were uniformly impressed with the potential of the area and recognized its strategic location for trade with the Indians and for commercial, military, or ecclesiastical intercourse with Quebec, Isle St-Jean, and Cape Breton."  The British noticed the coal deposits at present-day Joggins, overlooking the shore of the Baie de Chignecto west of Rivière-des-Héberts; "its veins could be seen in sailing by but the lack of labor and the range and rapidity of the tides made it difficult to exploit."  But Chignecto was especially noted for its agricultural potential.  At the northwestern edge of Chignecto Proper, in today's New Brunswick, lay the Tintamarre, also called the Tantramar, "the greatest of the North American Atlantic tidal marshes," drained by rivières Tintamarre and Aulac.  East of the Aulac flowed the Missaguash, and east of that, in today's Nova Scotia, flowed Rivière La Plance, all four streams running down from a divide southwest of Baie Verte into the Cumberland Basin.  South of the La Plance, flowing northward into the eastern arm of the basin, was Rivière Maccan and its tributary, Rivière Nappan.  Between the Maccan and the southeastern shore of the Baie de Chignecto, also running northward and into the eastern arm of the basin, was Rivière-des-Héberts, which, with the Maccan, formed a prominent estuary at the southeast end of the Cumberland Basin.  Along the lower stretches of each of these streams and along both sides of their estuaries stood miles and miles of dykable marsh--much of it still waiting to be exploited when Le Grand Dérangement came early to the eastern half of Chignecto Proper.  By the mid-1740s, settlements in the Chignecto area numbered over a dozen:  from west to east stood Westcock, also spelled Weskak, Wehehauk, Oneskak, and Peshkak, on the western arm of the basin; Pré des Bourgs, today's Sackville, north of Westcock; Prés des Richards, today's Middle Sackville; Tintamarre, today's Upper Sackville; La Butte; Le Lac on the Jolicoeur Ridge in the middle of the isthmus; Portage, at the head of the Missaguash near Baie Verte; Le Coupe; Aulac, just west of the Missaguash, overlooking the basin; Beaubassin, which today lies at the northwest edge of Amherst, Nova Scotia; Maccan, also spelled Makan; Nappan or Nepane; Rivière-des-Héberts; and Menoudie, also spelled Minudie, north of Rivière-des-Héberts on the peninsula formed by the arms of the Cumberland Basin.  Even more so than Cobeguit, the Chignecto settlements were a place to go if one sought to escape the watchful eyes of the colonial authorities at Annapolis Royal.  Chignecto's distance from the colonial capital also affected the accuracy of the censuses taken there.  Father Pain counted about 350 settlers at Chignecto in 1714.  In 1720, colonial engineer Paul Mascarene counted 450.  By 1748, population estimates in the area ran as high as 3,000 to 4,000.  Clark notes:  "In the late forties the situation became confused with the coming and going of armed bands and activity in trade and emigration by way of Baie Verte to Isle St-Jean and Cape Breton.  It was further complicated by [Abbé Jean-Louis] Le Loutre's policy of attempting to get all the Acadians in the area east and south of the Missaguash to move to de facto French territory."  Clark provides population estimates for the Chignecto area on the eve of the abbé's scorched-earth policy, which began in the fall of 1750:  175 at Menoudie, 125 on Rivière-des-Héberts, 75 on Rivière Maccan, 150 along Rivière Nappan, 50 along Rivière La Planche, and 275 at Beaubassin village, for a total of 850 east of the Missaguash; 225 along Beauséjour Ridge, 150 at Aulac and La Coupe, 150 at Tintamarre, 25 at Pré des Bourgs, 75 at Pré des Richards, and 25 at Baie Verte, for a total of 650 west of the Missaguash.  Clark also includes 100 individuals scattered around the Cumberland Basin. 133 

West of Chignecto Proper, well inside territory not only claimed but also controlled by Versailles and Québec, lay the settlements of the trois-rivières--Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, and Memramcook.  The first of these settlements was located between the mouth of Rivière Chepoudy, a small river that flowed westward into the Baie de Chepoudy, which, like the Baie de Chignecto to the east, was an arm of the upper Bay of Fundy, and the mouth of Rivière Petitcoudiac, farther up the coast.  The other two settlements stood along the Petitcoudiac and its tributary to east, the Memramcook.  These settlements had the distinction of the being the last ones founded in the Fundy region, during the early 1700s.  Here were some of the highest tides on the Bay of Fundy, creating dykable marshes in such numbers that many more Acadians could have settled there.  Here was the ultimate refuge for Acadians who sought to escape British authority in Nova Scotia without moving on to the Maritime islands.  Here were the largest percentage of Acadians who spurned neutrality and took up the gun as partisans.  Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, the most notorious Acadian partisan, whose fight against the British began in 1726, lived with his older brother Alexandre and their families at Village-des-Beausoleils, today's Boundary Creek, above the city of Moncton--as high up the Petitcoudiac as Acadians had settled.  In 1750, before refugees from Chignecto flooded into the area, Andrew Hill Clark estimates the trois-rivières population as 500 at Chepoudy, 400 along the Petitcoudiac, and 300 on the Memramcook, a total of 1,200 for the area.134

.

The so-called outlying settlements--those along the lower southern shore of the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic coast from the mouth of St. Mary's Bay south to Cap-Sable and back up the coast northeast to Canso--were spread over a vast area that circumscribed much of the peninsula.  Except at Halifax and its adjacent communities after 1749, each of these settlements contained small populations, and all of them were isolated from other population centers along the vast littoral.  Geographer Andrew Hill Clark points out that these Acadian settlements "were largely fishing and trading stations."  During the late 1680s, M. de Gargas, a French official conducting a census of the outlying settlements, found "that they were most precariously situated, depending for food on fishing, hunting, or what they could obtain from trading vessels," and recommended "that the settlers should be obliged to cultivate the soil and establish deeper roots," which proved to be more difficult than le Monsieur could know.239

Clark says of Acadian settlement patterns along the southwestern coast facing the Atlantic:  "It is ironic that we have no record of any pre-dispersion occupation or exploitation of St. Mary's Bay or the Digby Shore where the greatest post-dispersion concentration of Acadians in Nova Scotia was to take place."  This area lay at the juncture between the lower Bay of Fundy and the western Atlantic coast.  No settlement seems to have survived at Cap-Forchu, today's Yarmouth, although Commander Villebon found a small one there in 1699 supporting a cod fishery.  South of Forchu and still on the southwestern coast, an Acadian settlement arose at Chebouge, also spelled Tibogue, Tebak, and Thebok, in the 1740s, despite the refusal of British officials to grant permits to raise dykes there or even to farm the upland.  The Acadians who had applied to go there were allowed only to spend a season fowling or fishing.  Typically, they did what they pleased, and by 1748, a dozen families had settled at Point Chebouge.  A lack of dykable marshes forced them to clear the upland forests for agriculture.  Southeastward from Chebouge, farther down the same coast, there had been settlement at Pobomcoup, today's Pubnico, since the mid-1600s, where upland forests also had to be cleared for farming.  Here was the seigneurie of Philippe Mius d'Entremont and his descendants, which encompassed the littoral and its hinterland from Pobomcoup down to Cap-Sable and around to Cap-Nèigre, including the settlement at Port-Latour.  In September 1714, Denis and Bernard Gaudet of haute-rivière in the Annapolis valley reported three habitants at "the Passage de Baccareau," today's Barrington Passage, on the mainland north of Cape Sable Island, but the Gaudet's said that they had moved on to Île Royale.  Despite efforts by the descendants of Mius d'Entremont and Charles La Tour to lure Acadian farmers to the seigneurie, the Pobomcoup/Cap-Sable area remained lightly settled:  14 individuals in 1671; 15 in 1686; 22 in 1687/88; 24 in 1689; 32 in 1693, 40 in 1702, 53 in 1708; and only 15 to 20 Acadian families, as well as a few Indian families, by the 1750s.135

Above Cap-Sable, along the southeastern coast, lay settlements at Port Razoir and Port Rochelois, today's Shelbourne; Port Mouton; and Port Rossignol, today's Liverpool, each supporting the offshore fishery.  A small fur-trading settlement stood at Petit-Rivière, today's Little La Have River.  Jacques de Meulles, intendant of New France who conducted a colony-wide census of Acadia in the mid-1680s, was critical of the occupation of the hand full of settlers at Petit-Rivière, but he also was aware of their recent history.  "As he correctly pointed out," Clark relates, "the fur trade did not result in people's striking their roots in the country, as they would if they became farmers.  Although they liked to fish, they had been pillaged so many times they had pretty well given it up."  Colonial Commander Villebon, during the late 1690s, believed that La Hève retained the qualities that Isaac de Razilly had seen there in 1636.  Villebon, engaging in a bit of hyperbole, reported that La Hève possessed "... the best harbor and the most magnificent situation on the east coast.  Like the others it is surrounded by hills but has much more land suitable for cultivation.  It is true that there is not much beach available for a large fishery industry, but it could be extended; moreover, flakes could be used, and they without question produce the finest quality of fish.  The old fort is at the mouth of the very beautiful river, and vessels of 50 guns can enter and anchor under its cannon.  Lumber mills could be built, for pine and spruce fir (?) are plentiful.  Two families are at present living there.  There is plenty of hunting, and many good things to eat, such as herring and mackerel in season, eels at all times, as well as plaice, lobsters, oysters and other shell fish."  By the mid-1700s, the largest settlement in the area was Mirliguèche, where, since the late 1600s, Acadians, mostly traders and boatmen, lived alongside Indian families, as they did at nearby La Hève.  Villebon's description of Mirliguèche was concise:  "... the soil was fair and ... there was a large number of red oaks."  Populations at La Hève and Mirliguèche, like at Pobomcoup/Cap-Sable, always had been small during French control of the colony:  13 individuals in 1686, 22 in 1687/88, 20 in 1689, 6 in 1693, 75 (including métis and Indians) in 1701, and 42 in 1708.   After the British took over the colony in 1713, the population of the two settlements seems to have shrunk; in September 1745, the governor-general and the intendant of New France reported only eight individuals at Mirliguèche and two at nearby Petit-Rivière.  A few years later, Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, chaplain of the Indians in the region, found a dozen "French" families at Mirliguèche, eight families at La Hève, and 200 to 300 "sauvages" in the area.  In 1749, Nova Scotia Governor Edward Cornwallis, founder of Halifax, visited Mirliguèche and reported:  "There are but a few families with tolerable wooden houses covered with bark--a good many cattle and cleared ground more than serves themselves....  (They) say they ... have their grants from Colonel Mascarene, the governor of Annapolis," who was Cornwallis's predecessor.  In June 1753, on the eve of Le Grand Dérangement, The British settled German Protestants at nearby Lunenburg, which quickly overshadowed the tiny Acadian/Indian community.  Farther up the eastern coast, Clark says "There are no references to Mahone Bay, the Chester area, or St. Margaret's Bay" in regard to settlement before 1755.136 

Along the eastern coast above St. Margaret's Bay only a hand full of small Acadian settlements arose--at Chebouctou, Chezzetcook, Musquodoboit, and Jeddore, all devoted to the offshore fisheries.  In 1686, census taker de Meulles found on three or four settles at Chebouctou.  A year later, Gargas found only a single house, three French settlers, and 33 Indians.  In the 1690s, Cadillac called Cheboutou "the most beautiful and best harbor on the coast."  Villebon evidently was not impressed.  That Chebouctou was indeed one of the finest harbors in North America, where an entire fleet of oceangoing vessels could take shelter from the storm, was demonstrated in the fall of 1746, during King George's War, when the remnants of the duc d'Anville's fleet took refuge in the harbor after a stormy passage from La Rochelle.  From the superb harbor ran two overland tracks, one, via a portage to the head of Rivière Shubenacadie, ran north to Cobeguit.  The other, a much shorter one, ran, eastward across the peninsula to the upper villages on Rivière Pigiguit.  Chebouctou also served as "a common resort" for Mi'kmaq bands.  Despite its many attributes, only a hand full of Acadians involved in the offshore fishery bothered to settle on Chebouctou Bay.  The same held true for Chezzetcook, just up the coast, where only "a man and his three children" were living in the summer of 1745.  By 1748, seven or eight families were reported there.  The first Acadian census of 1671 counted 13 people at Musquodoboit, where French colonial official Mathieu de Goutin would be given a seigneurie 20 years later.  Evidently he did not put much effort into populating his holding; only a few settlers were living there in the late 1740s, on the eve of British settlement at Chebouctou.  The demographics of the area changed dramatically when the British transformed Chebouctou into Halifax in June 1749.  Later in the year, another fortified British settlement arose at Bedford, west of Halifax at the head of its harbor.  In 1750, Dartmouth was founded across the harbor from Halifax.  In June 1754, a year before the Acadian dispersal, Lawrencetown appeared up the coast at Chezzetcook.137

Before the founding of Halifax, Canso and its fortified fishing post was the most important British "settlement" on Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast.  Perhaps the oldest "settlement" in peninsula Nova Scotia, Canso was the landing site of one of Dugua's ships in the spring of 1604.  When difficulties arose at Dugua's Port-Royal a few years later, the survivors retreated to Canso.  Even at that early date, Canso had long served as a rendezvous point and a drying station for offshore fishermen.  There, in 1607, the French writer Marc Lescarbot met an old Basque fisherman named Savalet who was on his fifty-second annual trip to the Acadian coast.  Canso's location guaranteed continued occupation and active service as a fishing station throughout the century of French control in Acadia.  In the late 1680s, Gargas reported that "Canseau is one of the best places for codfishing.  There are several fine beaches to dry the fish on and several small islands where ships can be sheltered.  In this place," he reminded the officials in France, the Company of Acadia "have established their fishing station."  Lack of dykable marshes, however, would have forced any farmers who chose to live there to cultivate the highlands.  As a result, the population at Canso remained relatively small and was almost exclusively devoted to the fishery.  New Englanders began fishing out of Canso two years after the British took control of Nova Scotia.  "[R]epeated difficulties with French and Indians in the next few years led to the fishermen themselves building a small fort and the detachment of a few of the Annapolis garrison to occupy it in 1720."  The fort with its small garrison lay on the western end of Great Canso Island, which overlooked Canso Harbor.  The fort also controlled the important watering station on the mainland facing the harbor.  "The fishery in the Canso area was simply an extension of the New England schooner fishery on the various banks (from Georges to Grand...) which had developed so strongly in the previous two or three decades," Clark tells us.  "No residents or byeboatmen were involved; there was virtually no shore-based boat fishery there in the period nor did fishing ships come from England.  The schooners came from New England in spring, from late March to early May, and returned home in late September or early October.  The voyages to the banks, fifty to one hundred miles away, lasted from ten days to a month, depending on the fishing and the weather, during which time they caught, split (headed and cleaned), and temporarily put down in salt 150 to 250 quintals (hundredweight) of cod.  This took a hogshead of salt for each ten or twelve quintals of fish.  Upon arriving at Canso the fish were washed out in the sea and then laid out on clean gravel beaches or roughly constructed tables, or 'flakes," to dry.  A rather elaborate process of repiling and respreading went on until the fish were completely hardened and cured.  Many entrepreneurs (usually with one schooner, but some operators had four or five) had some shore hands in the season but most of the work on land and sea was done by the five hands (rarely fewer or more) who, including the master, manned each vessel.  The schooner crews generally worked on a share basis.  From three to five trips to the bank and back from Canso might be ventured each season."  Here was employment for young Acadians as far away as the Fundy settlements whose labor could be spared on the family farm.  The number of New England schooners working out of Canso varied from a few dozen to over 200 a year.  The old fishing station also served as a center of trade "involving England, New England, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies."  Sack ships, as they were called, arrived from Britain or Boston each year, bringing supplies and returning with dried fish.  The largest market for the best of the dried cod were the Mediterranean countries of southern Europe; the lower quality fish found a market in the West Indies and the southern English colonies, where they fed the many slaves there.  "From four to a dozen sack ships came from England each year and as many as eight (perhaps also partly to fish) from the American colonies."  The physical plant for this activity, involving "many buildings to store gear, supplies, and fish and to shelter the shoremen during the season, dozens of stages for loading or unloading vessels, and acres of flakes for drying them, was spread over many miles of beach of both mainland and adjacent islands and must have been an impressive sight in mid-season."  The soldiers on Great Canso and the "half dozen or fewer permanent residents" lived away from the fishing plant and, during the season, their numbers were dwarfed by the fishermen.  During the winter, the local residents, including servants from southern Ireland and Newfoundland, occupied themselves by watching and repairing the flakes, stages, and buildings owned by the New Englanders.  There were 10 to a dozen licensed taverns to serve the locals and especially the fishermen, but many unlicensed grogshops also could be found in the storage buildings.  British officials also were troubled by the fishery based on Île Madame, only 10 miles to the north, which belonged to the French colony of Île Royale.  The Frenchmen were not supposed to fish in Canso waters, but they did so anyway.  A thriving smuggling trade also plagued officials of both colonies.  The boom years of the late 1720s and early 1730s ended in the late 1730ss with the coming of another imperial conflict.  After 1739, the French and Indians harassed the New English fishermen, who chose to go elsewhere.  As a result, "Canso became something of a ghost town during the many years of the open English-French hostilities of the forties and fifties, although some New England schooners continued to come each year."138

West of Canso lay Chédabouctou Bay, approached from Canso Harbor via narrow channels.  Geographer Andrew Hill Clark reminds us that "Chedabucto Bay ... was too open and deficient in coves to provide shelter" for a fishery, with two exceptions.  At Martingaud, present-day Whitehaven, just west of Canso, Cadillac found "a sedentary fishery" in c1690, but, he reported, "'the war has ruined their project and their means.'"  At the head of Chédabouctou Bay, "in the estuary now known as Milford Haven, behind a treacherously shallow bar, there was a natural harbor ... and soil more suitable for cultivation than at any place on the south coast east of Mirliguèche."  The site, today's Guysborough, the French named after the bay.  In 1682, directors of the Company of Acadia sent one of their associates, La Rochelle merchant Clerbaud Bergier, to Chédabouctou to build Fort Louis "with a storehouse and a barracks for the men."  Bergier, named the King's lieutenant of the colony in 1684, boasted that he "had sowed wheat, rye, and barley on May 28, reaped it on September 16," and took it to France to prove that Chédabouctou could provide an agricultural base for the area.  Bergier claimed that "he had taken out vines and all sorts of fruit trees from France and that flax, hemp, peas, beans, and all manner of vegetables did well.  He thought it comparably superior to Quebec."  Over the years, a dry-fish and seal fishery developed at the site, but later visitors were not impressed with what they found.  In 1686, de Meulles reported only 15 or 20 "domestics" and four families "working the land" at Chédabouctou.  In 1687, "Gargas was openly depreciatory; he thought the soil not very good and said little land had been cleared."  He did find the fishing "fairly good," and reported the presence of an iron mine.  Saccardy, the engineer, visited Chédabouctou in 1690 and found little to recommend the place:  "'There is no natural wood or wood for carpentering; nor are there three acres of meadow in ten leagues of the countryside.  It is scarcely possible to make a garden, for the sand is too dry and too light, and water is too scarce and too distant to be used.  The house (block hour, or fort) is built of stone and mud, and is about to fall down.'"  He found only seven settlers and 12 soldiers, "who depended entirely on imported food and other supplies."  New Englanders had sacked Fort Louis in 1688 and would sack it again in 1690.  The French abandoned it for a time, and the Company of Acadia disappeared with the fall of Port-Royal in 1710.  After 1713, taking advantage of the vagueness of the Treaty of Utrecht on the subject of imperial boundaries in the region, the French on nearby Île Royale asserted their sovereignty over Chédabouctou as the French Canadians were doing at Chignecto.  In September 1718, in the opening action of a new frontier war, Fort Louis, now home to some 300 fishermen, many of them Acadians, was attacked by a British warship, the HMS Squirrel, under Cyprian Southack.  On September 23, Southack pillaged and burned the village next to the old fort.  After the British left, the survivors abandoned Chédabouctou and moved on to Île Madame and Petit Degrat, off the south coast of Île Royale.  The British garrisoning of nearby Canso in 1720 discouraged anymore French settlement in the Chédabouctou area.238

Nevertheless, the entire Atlantic littoral, especially Canso, retained its importance in the eyes of European shakers and movers from the beginning of Acadian history; the offshore cod fishery was there in the beginning, and it never lost its significance.  Arthur Hill Clark provides the grand perspective:  "A final observation on the cod fishery is that in the eyes of officials in London and Paris it was of such critical nation importance as to make all the enterprises and activities of all the Acadians fade into relative insignificance.  Canso meant far more to London and Boston than Annapolis, Minas, and Chignecto combined.  As has been observed, there were many more men engaged in the fishery operating from Nova Scotia's Atlantic coves in any normal year than farmed Fundy's tidal marshlands.  Furthermore between the activities of the Acadians and the New Englanders the cod fishery made the whole coastline of Acadia known in much detail, even if it was not always adequately charted."240

Still, any detailed geographical survey of Nova Scotia reveals that from the time of d'Aulnay in the late 1630s until the great dispersal of the 1750s, the Bay of Fundy stood at the center of Acadian life, while the Atlantic and Gulf of St. Lawrence shores remained on its periphery, at least in relation to the Fundy's impact upon Acadian culture.  Interestingly, during the four and a half decades of British rule in Nova Scotia, no new Acadian settlements appeared in the Fundy region, though the many that existed grew dramatically in population mostly through natural increase.  But it was not overcrowding that drove more and more Acadians from the Annapolis Basin to the outlying settlements up the Fundy shore.  Living farther up the bay made it easier to engage in commerce, legal or otherwise, away from the prying eyes of colonial officials.  Andrew Hill Clark reminds us that "Above all, the Acadians sought to live their own lives in their own way and outward expansion had in it much of the same search for freedom and escape from restraint that sparked so much of the westward movement by other European settlers to the west and south in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries."  Wherever they did settle, the Acadians expanded their agricultural boundaries to the farthest limits of the tidal marshes, and farming remained their chief occupation.  "The economy of the Acadians in the major settlements did include fishing, hunting, lumbering, the building of boats and small vessels, a great many household industries, blacksmithing, trading locally with the Indians for furs, and trading their surplus livestock and grain to the New Englanders or to vessels from France for a wide variety of goods which they could not produce themselves," Clark tells us.  "But, for the vast majority, for most of each year, the occupation was farming and, so far as cropping was concerned, almost exclusively the cultivation of the tidal marshlands after these had been dyked in from the sea.  Indeed this had been so since soon after the reestablishment of settlement in the Port Royal area in the late 1630's."232

.

By the beginning of British rule, then, the Acadians had been dyking the marshes of the Annapolis valley for over seven decades; four decades at Chignecto; three decades at Minas; and two decades at Cobeguit and in the trois-rivières area.  As long as the Fundy tides delivered their water-born sustenance to the region's coastal marshes, the Acadians were certain they could count on Nature to provide more farmland for their growing families.  "The tides carry along with them great quantities of sediment (fine sands, silts, and clays) as they erode, transport, and deposit," a student of Acadia's geography has observed.  "In the tidal creeks this sediment is commonly up to 2 per cent by volume.  Unquestionably the high tides deposit the sediment across the flatter areas on their flood and they also take sediment out again into the deep parts of the bay on their ebb, but the very existence of the marshes supports the opinion that the tides deposit more than they erode:  one tide can deposit up to two inches of sediment.  Examination of the strata of the tidal marshes of the Fundy area indicate that, essentially, they have all been built up in this way.  Borings have indicated that in depth they may reach thicknesses of at least eighty feet...."  The region's tides had varying ranges, but none more dramatic than in the Bay of Fundy.  "The tidal range on the coast of the Strait of Northumberland," along the southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence," varies from more than two to less than five feet; at Halifax," which originally was called Baie de Chebouctou, "it is about four feet, at Cape Sable six feet, and at Yarmouth," originally Port-Forchu, facing the Atlantic north of Cap-Sable, "over twelve feet.  But it is within the bay that spectacular ranges of thirty to forty feet at normal tides, and fifty feet or more at spring tides, occur.  The ranges are still higher when gales are combined with spring tides...."  As the Acadians learned, the Fundy tides had their predictable seasons, but also their sudden, violent surprises:  "... the highest ranges occur in spring and fall and there is special danger of floods between August and November when the prevailing winds drive up the bay from the southwest sometimes reinforced by the tail-end effect of hurricanes which, every few years, can be felt even this far north along the coast."223 

Although major tidal flooding was rare, when it did come, it could be devastating.  Andrew Hill Clark tells us:  "In a report of 1706 [colonial official Mathieu] De Goutin described the great flood of November 5, 1705, that had overflowed 'tous ceux du pays sans exception [all of the country without exception].'  While the extent of the damage may have been exaggerated (he was arguing the turning of attention to the uplands), there is no question that the land flooded would regain its previous level of production only after a desalinization period following rebuilding of the dykes.  There is a good deal of disagreement on the length of such a period after chance inundation, doubtless depending upon how long the land had remained under salt water.  A mémoire of 1701 states that four years were necessary, but during that time drains could be dug and increasing use made of the marshes for hay and pasture, as the vegetation association changed rather rapidly."  The great flood reported by de Goutin occurred in wartime, a year and a half after Colonel Church and his New Englanders had destroyed the dykes at Grand-Pré and Beaubassin.223a

There was another price the Acadians were forced to pay for their intense dyking operations.  Andrew Hill Clark explains:  "Natural processes have been markedly affected by the dyking of the marshes to exclude salt water, the cutting of drainage channels on their surfaces, and the construction of sluice gates (aboiteaux), large and small, which allow the fresh water to drain out at low tide but exclude the salt water automatically when they close with the incoming tide.  When the dykes were built high enough and maintained well enough to keep out the salt water and its silt over long periods, the natural settling, together with the compaction attributable to the working of the land, brought them to steadily lower elevations.  The French [Acadians] rarely used deliberately the remedy that would have helped to maintain them best--that is, the compartmentalization of the marshes into polders with dividing dykes, and the periodic admission of silt-laden salt water to build up their level again.  To be sure, however, nature did the job whenever unusually high tides, neglect of the dykes, or their destruction by marauders from New England, admitted the salt water.  But clearly there was a good deal of interference with what could be called 'natural' processes.'"224

But there was good reason for the Acadians to embrace such labor-intensive agriculture:  "...under no circumstances existing since Europeans first attempted to use them for agriculture have any of Nova Scotia's soils, apart from the dyked tidal marshland, been considered of high fertility, and at no time has more than a small proportion of the province's surface been improved for agricultural or pastoral use."  D'Aulnay saw this in the late 1630s, and it was one reason why he moved the first families from La Hève on the Atlantic to Port-Royal on the Bay of Fundy.  Whether he taught them how to dyke the marshes, or they had experience in the process from their time in France, the first families resorted to dyking in response to the challenges of this particular frontier environment.  Their reasoning was clear:  They were farmers as well as trappers and fishermen; the upland soil was rocky, thin, and infertile; here stood the coastal marshes with their potential for fertility; so up went the dykes with their aboiteaux.  Without this innovation, farming would have been so impractical in the region that only a small population engaged in the meanest of subsistence agriculture could have survived there.  Acadia would have remained an industrial colony devoted to furs, fish, and lumber, not a agricultural colony with a settled population.224a 

The Sieur de Dièreville, a French botanist and surgeon, who visited Port-Royal in the autumn of 1699, was the first to describe the dyking process in detail:  "... it is done in this way; five or six rows of large logs are driven whole into the ground at the points where the tide enters the Marsh, & between each row, other logs are laid, one on top of the other, & all the spaces between them are so carefully filled with well-pounded clay, that the water can no longer get through.  In the centre of this construction, a Sluice is contrived in such a manner that the water on the Marshes flows out of its own accord, while that of the Sea is prevented from coming in.  An undertaking of this nature, which can only be carried on at certain Seasons when the Tides do not rise so high, costs a great deal, & takes many days, but the abundant crop that is harvested in the second year, after the soil has been washed by Rain water compensates for all the expense.  As these Lands are owned by several Men, the work upon them is done in common;  if they belonged to an Individual, he would have to pay the others, or give to the Men who had worked for him an equal number of days devoted to some other employment; that is the manner in which it is customary for them to adjust such matters among themselves."  Andrew Hill Clark points out that the first problem in dyke construction, regardless of where it was located, "was to get the dyke built in the face of the rapidly moving tides.  This was done by cutting deep sods (held together by the matted roots of salt-marsh grasses) in rectangular or trapezoidal shapes (rather like peat-turf) and erecting a barrier perhaps five feet high and with a base twice or more the width."  The peripheral shape of the dyke was dictated by the shape of the tidal marsh to be enclosed.  Some were built in narrow strips along a coast or a river, others in huge blocks, "where single units of up to one thousand acres of marshland existed," like at Grand-Pré at Minas, at Pré Ronde on the Annapolis River, and at Tintamarre at Chignecto.  The typical dyke stood up to two meters high, and some were four meters wide.  Isaac Deschamps, a native of Switzerland (some sources say England), came to Nova Scotia in 1749 and became chief justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court after the Acadian dispersal; while touring his new home, he was much impressed with what he saw of the Acadians' handiwork.  "'The dykes,'" he wrote in an unpublished, undated manuscript, "'are in General on the Main Rivers 11 and 12 feet thick at bottom and gradually slope till they become a foot & half thick at top, and are five feet in height.'"  They were so sturdy, in fact, that most of them supported foot paths along their crests.224b 

Andrew Hill Clark's research reveals that "The methods of dyking, the building of aboiteaux ... to drain the fresh water and exclude the salt, and the digging of intra-marsh ditches apparently changed very little from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth."  But there were changes in dyke construction over the years, and they revealed a mastery of physics, hydrography, and topographical engineering acquired by these largely illiterate farmers in the school of trial and error.  "The earliest seventeenth-century dykes had been 'running dykes' protecting small areas of river margin," Clark tells us, "closed off by local high spots or by turning the dykes inland and thinning them out up-slope.  But no considerable area could be so enclosed without some exit lest it become water-logged and swampy:  it had to be drained.  Many of the marshes had natural creeks that drained not only the uplands behind but the marshes themselves at low-tide.  The aboiteau was placed as near the sea on the creek as possible to provide the largest possible area of marsh behind and to minimize the amount of 'running dyke' required.  The more seaward it was placed the higher the bounding dyke had to be and the stronger the aboiteau itself to withstand the tide."  Deschamps stood before these marvels and described them for posterity:  "'Across the large Creeks are considerable dams composed of spruce Brush and sods from the salt marshes with large Sluices in which are two or three gates or valves for stopping the sea water and drawing off the fresh water, and the dimensions of the trunk is according to the size of the creek, or sluice.  From these dams the dikes run along the sides of the main Rivers.'"224c

The results of this labor were just as impressive as the dykes and aboiteaux themselves:  "The Acadians harvested for hay the grasses that naturally colonized the marsh areas.  When they had dyked a section ... they sometimes grew crops of wheat, peas, and other grains, pulses, or vegetables, and sometimes simply let volunteer grass colonize the area for grazing.  The silts were rich and, as the salt was slowly washed out and the water table lowered by ditching, the better grasses and clovers took over naturally.  Whether as permanent pastures or as rotational leys with other crops, these improved grasslands were important in supporting the livestock for which the Acadians became locally noted."   According to Andrew Hill Clark, "That the marshlands were of high and lasting fertility is attested abundantly."  George Morris, who surveyed parts of Nova Scotia in the early 1750s, proclaimed that "'They are Naturally of a Fertile Soil and produce (communibus annis) about twenty  Bushells of Wheat from an Acre English Measure and they are of so strong and Lasting a Nature that their Crops are not Diminished in ten or twenty Years Constant Tillage.'"  The amazing fertility of the dyked marshland allowed the Acadians to keep much of it out of cultivation at any given time, which, like crop rotation, only enhanced the soil's fertility.  Clark observes:  "It must be borne in mind that much more marshland was dyked at any one time than was actually in use.  The breaking of dykes, overflowing at excessively high tides, concentrating of salt in old fields, and the constant bringing of new land into production, with a desalination period under ordinary rainfall of two or three years, lead us to conclude that in any given year a substantial area cannot have been in crop.  Moreover some of it was used for pasture.  Perhaps as little as two-thirds of the dykeland was cropped in a given season. ...  One must also remember that much of the undyked marshland provided salt hay, cut at low tide and dried and cured on dry land, so that the use of dyked lands for grazing may not have been very extensive."225

The dyking operations had their critics, of course, mostly outsiders who were ignorant of Acadian geography.  A New English historian, describing Colonel Church's assault on Grand-Pré in the summer of 1704, during which the colonel ordered his men to destroy the local dykes, informed the reader that "They [the Acadians] made the mistake of cultivating the low meadows instead of the uplands, to avoid the labor of felling the timbers."  One could argue that it was no mistake to "cultivate the low meadows" as long as others did not tamper with the dykes, though, as in November 1705, there were times when Mother Nature emulated Colonel Church and his New England raiders.  Considering the prodigious effort it took to build and maintain these dykes and aboiteaux, the implication in the New English historian's statement that the Acadians were lazy because they avoided chopping down forests can be attributed to English prejudice against all things French.  The bias was shared by British officials.  Governor Richard Philipps, who spent little time in the colony but enough to imagine he understood the Acadians, was caustic in his evaluation of their farming practices as well as their collective behavior.  "Writing in 1734, he found them '... rather a pest & Incumbrance, than of an advantage to the Country being a proud, lazy, obstinate and untractable people, unskillfull in the methods of Agriculture.... they have not in almost a Century clear'd the Quantity of 300 Acres of Wood Land.  From their Corn and Cattle they have plenty of Dung for manure which they make no use of it but when it increases to become troublesome then instead of laying in on their Lands they get rid of it by moving their barnes to another Spot....'"  Two decades later, surveyor Charles Morris also revealed his ignorance of what he was observing throughout the colony.  He saw the Acadians as "'... but indifferent Husbandmen in General, and do no more labour than what necessity urges them to, and their Land being so easily Cultivated, it does not take up one third of their time."  Even their fellow Frenchmen had disdained the Acadians' reliance on dyking the region's marshlands.  A French official at Port-Royal disdainfully called the Acadians défricheurs d'eau, or "water clearers."  Another official complained that the Acadians "diked the marshlands because they were 'unwilling to clear the uplands (where) the work is too hard,'" also implying that the Acadians were lazy.  Governors, engineers, and census takers, French and British alike, echoed these official complaints.  Geographer Andrew Hill Clark concludes:  "There is an air of unreality about all the complaints regarding failure to use the uplands; the observers were making comparisons with France and with much better soils than the Nova Scotia uplands provided.  In the conditions of the time and place the Acadians followed what was, for them, the most sensible policy.  As long as there was productive marshland to be dyked they preferred to move to where it was easily available....  They were not afraid of axe-work as they amply demonstrated.  They simply observed the comparatively poor yields and short life of unfertilized upland soils and made, for their situation, a good judgment."  Clark found two studies from the early twentieth century which "estimated that there is ten times as much dyked marsh land around the Bay of Fundy as along the entire Atlantic coast of the United States."226 

Lazy, indeed. 

In truth, one cannot overstate the role of dyking in the creation of a unique Acadian culture.  The dykes even dictated the shape of Acadian habitation.  Andrew Hill Clark asserts:  "Every farm [in Acadia] that amounted to anything had its small parcel of marsh above an aboiteau."  The natural and therefore uneven distribution of dykable marshland contributed to a contour for Acadian farms that was unique in New France.  The rotures of Canada facing the St. Lawrence as well as the Chaudière and other tributaries of the St. Lawrence, were "of severely oblong rectangularity," says Clark.  This shape also could be found at Chéticamp on Île Royale, and along the lower Mississippi River after the founding of New Orleans.  However, as Clark points out, "The conditions that created and maintained parallel strips with dimensions of ten or twenty to one elsewhere simply did not exist in Acadia."  Moreover, the labor necessary to build and maintain the dykes and aboiteaux in these oddly-shaped tidal marshes required a substantial work force which, in warm climates, was provided by slaves imported from Africa.  In Acadia, the workers were not human chattel or even hired hands but rather sons and grandsons, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors.  Cooperation, not rugged individualism, sustained the Acadian way of life.  "Dièreville remarked that the dyked fields were sometimes jointly owned, sometimes the property of a single farmer, but always jointly worked.  Payment for labour might be in kind, the owner working in his turn for those who gave him labour, or in coin."226a  

The dyking process and what it produced also dictated the Acadians' seasonal routines.  During the final years of their tenure in British Nova Scotia, Isaac Deschamps described the Acadians' working of the land:  "They plougd the land Intended to be sown with wheat, between the month of august or middle of September, and the month of Decr. and if the whole intended to be sown was not plough'd by that time and that they found the Ground (which in some seasons was the Case) clear of snow in february, they ploughd more, and as soon as possible in the month of april they sewed wheat, & they laid it down as a rule, never to sowe Wheat, after the month of april....  There is a particular nicety required in ploughing them, & ploughs are constructed on purpose; about an inch and half is the depth of the first ploughing, and must never Exceed three inches, the Crop of Grass will yield two tons of hay to an acre."226b

What the Acadians grew on their oddly-shaped fields and on the land they cleared above the marshes provided plenty to eat and plenty to trade.  Antoine Laumet dit Lamothe, known as Cadillac, future founder of Détroit and governor of Louisiana, conducted a survey of Acadian farms in the Port-Royal Basin during the early 1690s.  He noted that the Acadians produced wheat and rye, which was "'sown about 15 of April, and is reaped towards the end of August,'" Indian corn, "'every kind of legumes (vegetables?) and pot herbs, especially headed cabbages....'"  According to Andrew Hill Clark, "Cabbages were grown so extensively as often to be considered a field crop but the residents also depended upon beans and a wide variety of other garden truck."  Cabbages and turnips were made into a soup.  "Interestingly," Clark says, "the turnips were stored in cellars (possibly usually under houses) whereas the cabbages were left in the fields after being pulled and covered with snow."  Joseph Robinau de Villebon, commander of French Acadia during the 1690s, noted that the Acadians grew in abundance cabbages, beets, onions, carrots, chives, shallots, turnips, parsnips, peas, "and a variety of salad greens."  Peas and wheat were especially important in the Acadian diet and were sown together.  Acadian grain fields held not only wheat but also oats, rye, and barley, but Indian corn was rare.  The Acadians grew flax, which the women could transform into linen, and hemp for rope, "but," according to Clark, "apparently less than enough for domestic needs."  "[M]ost farmers also kept pigs, sheep (for wool), and poultry.  Every farm had a kitchen garden."  During the 1700s, as new markets opened up to them, Acadians experimented "with a few specialty crops like tobacco."226c 

Cadillac also commented on the fruit the Acadians produced.  Known for the native blueberries and cranberries they grew on their dyked lands, they also maintained orchards of apple, plum, pear, and cherry on the borders of the marshland or on the higher ground above the marsh.  During the early 1630s, Razilly's habitants had planted apple trees above the fields at La Hève, and a visitor found these trees still flourishing in 1701.  Villebon described the Port-Royal valley as "'a little Normandy for apples.  They might have a great many more, and could easily make cider,'" he said of them, "'but apart from the fact that they are not very industrious and most of them work only enough for a bare living, they neglect the propagation of fruit trees for use as the country opens up.'"  At Port-Royal and the other settlements, the Acadians grew Calvilles, akin to Calvados, green or yellow Rambours, also called Rambures, Reinettes, "and three or four other varieties" of apple.  The Sieur de Dièreville noted that the Acadians at Port-Royal kept their apples "'carefully in their cellars to eat during the Winter.'"  Dièreville also compared the Port-Royal apples to the ones he had seen in his native Normandy, "but with the difference that the trees [in Acadia] were not grafted."  He was especially impressed with the Acadians' Calvilles, and observed the production of apple cider, though he made a bigger fuss over "the brewing of spruce beer (new tips [of the tree] fermented with yeast and molasses), a well-known anti-scorbutic of the seventeenth century that had apparently caught on in Acadia."  The Acadians also grew two kinds of cherries, red ones and red-and-white ones, though the more severe winters at Chignecto may have prevented their cultivation there.  As late as 1757, two years after the Acadian dispersal in Nova Scotia, an English observer noted the "extensive groves of apple and pear trees, the boughs bending under the weight of their fruit:  '... finer-flavoured apples, and greater variety, cannot in any other country be produced; there is also great plenty of cherry and plumb trees; but the fruit were either gathered, or had rotted and fallen off.'"227 

The Acadians were noted for their livestock; they raised hogs, sheep, horses, and cattle, including oxen for heavy pulling and dairy cows for milking, in each of their communities.  Chignecto was especially suited for cattle production, though beef was produced in the other Fundy settlements as well.  An observer noted in the 1680s the "vast extent of meadows, thought capable of supporting a hundred thousand cattle, and the upland borders with virgin forests" at the head of the Baie de Chignecto.  He also found there "More than a score of dwellings had been built on the borders of the marsh or on the 'islands' above the tide.  Each farmstead had many outbuildings and had perhaps a dozen to twenty cattle, a dozen pigs, and as many sheep.  The livestock were stabled only for two or three months in the winter or for fattening before butchering...."  The observer believed that this open-range method of cattle raising "resulted in undue loss from wolves."  Also, "The dependence on livestock had meant a neglect of field crops but he thought they had cultivated enough land to raise the hope that they might soon be independent in bread grains."  (That two gristmills appeared at Chignecto by the late 1680s attests to the habitants' success in the cultivation of bread grains as well.)  The number of cattle held at any given time was dictated by the seasons.  Winters were long and cold, so the cattle had to be taken in during the coldest months.  Winter fodder was always in short supply, so the autumn slaughter could be heavy.  This created a great demand for salt since the beef could not be kept frozen over the entire winter, as in the colder climate of Québec.  As a result of the autumn slaughter, "December counts may have been 30 per cent to 40 per cent less than those of the previous June in some years."  Geographer Andrew Hill Clark's research reveals that "The major role of cattle in supplying much needed surplus agricultural commodities for sale is stressed again and again."  Perhaps because of this trade, the number of cattle Acadians held in their various settlements tended to remain stable, while the numbers of their swine and sheep gradually increased.  Many British and New Englanders, however, especially the garrison at Annapolis Royal, were not impressed with the quality of Acadian beef:  "scrawny and poor would sum up the many comments," Clark tells us.  He adds:  "If these comments do not reflect simply the anti-French bias of the English garrison they describe a situation not unusual for colonial cattle during a winter season when, as wintering feed grew short, the least promising animals were butchered.  All reports tend to emphasize that adequate amounts of wild marsh hay were made but it was not a very nutritious feed.  However, there are other suggestions that the best animals were killed in the autumn to be salted away for sale or use, or were driven and shipped at that season to Cape Breton or sold to the New England trading ketches."227a

Evidently Acadian sheep were another matter.  Cadillac observed that they were "as fat and big as in the Pyrenees, and their wool is as fine....  The ewes bear young twice a year and have two young each time.'"  Dièreville also was impressed with the sheep he found at Port-Royal, insisting that they were "as big as those of Beauvais," which weighed as much as a hundred pounds.  He noted that since the Acadians kept their sheep for wool the sheep were rarely slaughtered.  Andrew Hill Clark explains:  "The function of sheep in Acadia was chiefly to provide wool, especially for caps, stockings, and other knitwear.  How heavily they depended on homespun woven clothe we don't know.  In their increasingly active trade the Acadians imported much cloth, including woolens and linens.  Sheep must have had some care to have allowed steady increases in numbers in the face of active predators such as wolves, bears, and wild dogs."   Dièreville noted that Acadian pigs were "wintered on scraps of turnip and cabbage and on the offal of slaughtering:  'The Acadians are great lovers of fat bacon ...," he observed, "which they prefer before partridges and rabits (sic)....  They never eat veal, nor lamb, but let them all grow up, and throw the sheeps heads, trotters and pluck to their swine."  Clark tells us:  "Swine, like sheep, were ubiquitous and apparently present in comparable numbers.  Pork was an important element of the diet; indeed with wheaten bread, peas, and cabbages it was one of the four mainstays of the daily fare.  The pigs appear to have had little attention and may have subsisted largely on offal, garbage, deadfalls, and other waste, together with mast and roots in the forest."  The Acadians also raised horses, but they did not become important until the eighteenth century.  This was due to "the infrequent use of plows ... and the very poor roads" in the colony.  Cadillac insisted:  "'The horses there are of fine build, broad-shouldered, well legged, with lasting hoofs, the head a little large, but no care is taken in raising them.,'" but he was the only one to comment so glowingly on Acadian horses.  Cadillac also "observed that 'there is also much poultry,' including geese and pigeons as well as barnyard fowl (coqs d'Inde)."  Dièreville also commented on the "plenitude of poultry but felt that, in a country of such abundant game, it did not serve much purpose."  Commander Villebon, noting that Acadian livestock had suffered from "long and unselective inbreeding," reported in October 1699:  "... another thing which appears indispensable is our need to obtain from them [New Englanders] mares and stallions for breeding purposes and for trade in the Islands [French West Indies], and cattle, so that the stock may be changed entirely.  The Acadian cows do not yield a third of the amount of milk which the cows of Boston give, and even that with difficulty."  Acadian butter "was not considered good; the settlers made and kept only a small supply, preferring to use the milk.  Of the latter Dièreville thought they were too fond:  '... on y aime trop le lait [they love milk too much].'  This desire for milk he saw as a major reason that calves were rarely killed for veal, for '... it is the peculiarity of the Cows in that Country, that if a Calf is taken from its Mother, her udder yields nothing more.'"  George Morris, a New Englishman who surveyed parts of Nova Scotia on the eve of dispersal, quipped about Acadian dairy products:  "'a little bad Butter but no Cheese.'"228

Livestock nevertheless remained an important part of Acadian agriculture.  "In all the settlements, cattle represented the major focus of livestock interest throughout" the late 1600s and early 1700s.  "In general sheep and swine are seen to have advanced in proportion slightly through the period.  Of the two, through time, swine declined and sheep increased in relative importance.  At any time swine were somewhat more prominent in the newer settlements than in Port Royal, sheep increasing in significance only as fields were abandoned to pasture from cultivation, perhaps, or as more forest land was opened, offering both more grazing and less danger of predators."  But "in any settlement at any time, there was a good deal of variation as between different farming families in the proportions of different livestock held."  And throughout the period, livestock, especially cattle, when held in surplus, served as an essential component in Acadian commerce with French Canada and especially New England.  As long as the Fundy Acadians lived close to water, whether on an estuary, as at Chepoudy; up a river, as at Port-Royal, Petitcoudiac, and Memramcook; or inside a basin, as at Port-Royal, Minas, Cobeguit, and Chignecto, their livestock, either alive or slaughtered, could be taken aboard ship and sent to distant markets, licit or otherwise.228a

Throughout Acadian history, water remained the chief means of transportation and communication as well as commerce.  Thus, "The stringing out of population along lines of communication was characteristic of a great deal of North American settlement, both French and English.  And in the Acadian areas it had a powerful incentive beyond the concentration of attention on the marshlands.  The roads or tracks along the river [or the basin] were slow to be made suitable for vehicles; the river [or the basin] itself was the major avenue of communication in all seasons--by canoe for most of the year, and by snowshoe when it was frozen over and snow-covered--and this perpetuated the stringing out" of the homesteads.  Only the Indians used the colony's inland trails with any frequency, but they, too, favored water-borne transportation.  They were, in fact, the ones who taught the Acadians how to build canoes and fashion snowshoes.  "The dependence of the Acadians on canoes and the skill of men, women, and children in using them was cause of frequent comment by observers.  Cadillac remarked:  'The creolles (i.e., the Acadians) ... travel most of the time by bark canoes.  Their wives do the same, and are very bold on the water.'"  Andrew Hill Clark describes this essential craft:  "The canoe had few distinctive features other than an inverted, double-cusp, undulating profile of the gunwale which suggests diffusion to or from Newfoundland where a similar peculiarity was noted in Beothuk canoes.  Essentially it was the same vessel made and used almost everywhere in North America that Betalus papyrifera [the paper birch] could be found in abundance.  Locally, slats were made of white fir, the ribs, of cedar; spruce roots were used to sew the bark, and spruce gum (or often an adhesive made by boiling the gum with animal or fish fat) to seal the stitches or tears that might appear.  A canoe might take a week or two to build and with reasonable care might last twenty years (spruce and birch for repair work was ubiquitous in ... Acadia)."  Meneval, who was governor during the late 1680s "described the use by Acadians of '... canots d'escorse comme les sauvages, ou d'autres petits canots qu'ils font eux mesme d'une troue d'arbre creusé.' [smaller versions of canoes like the ones the Indians made from hollowed tree trunks].  Longer and stronger boats of the fishing-skiff type were also used, especially for moving heavier goods."  During British control of the colony, "all vessels of five tons or more had to have an official license from Annapolis before engagin in trade."229

Water provided the Acadian not only with a means for transportation, communication, and seaborne commerce, but also with a good meal and, for some, a livelihood.  The cod fishery, as much as the fur trade, created the Acadian colony, but, by the late 1600s, most Acadians were living far from the fisheries.  If an Acadian wished to lead the life of a cod fisherman, he would have to move to the Atlantic side of the peninsula, to the so-called outlying settlements, especially Canso, where they would find "a shore-based boat fishery and ... drying grounds for fish caught on the offshore banks."  The great majority of Acadians, however, lived along the Fundy shore, where only in summer, and only at the mouth of the bay, did the codfish migrate in any numbers, but nothing compared to the Atlantic offshore banks.  Still, young Acadian men from large families, freed from work on the families' farms, sometimes hired themselves out to the Atlantic fishery until they were needed on the farm again.  Andrew Hill Clark found that, during the final decades of French control, "Sometimes the Acadians did go out to the open Atlantic to participate in the increasingly international fishery there.  Encouraged by Bergier [a La Rochelle merchant], of the Company of Acadia, who was established at Chedabucto [in the early 1680s], the inhabitants of Port Royal once fitted out six small craft for the fishery, but these were taken by New England buccaneers and although Acadians continued to have some interest in the Atlantic fisheries, it was a relatively haphazard one."  One historian hints that Pierre Landry of Port-Royal may have been one of these cod fishermen.  Undaunted, Acadians persisted in exploiting what cod fish they could find in Fundy waters, especially after 1713, when New Englanders became their fellow British subjects and no longer posed a threat to them.  Acting governor Caulfeild observed at Minas in 1715 "'between Thirty and fourty Sale of vessells which are employed in fishing, Built by themselves."  Clark reminds us that "The Acadians were intricately involved with the activity of the fishery and the fishermen, but they were not of them to any significant degree."  He adds:  "The number of New Englanders making fish along Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast in any summer season of the 1720's and 1730's, at least, was far greater than the total number of Acadian settlers there.  Although they were concentrated at Canso, they frequented many other coves as far as Cape Sable, despite the ever-present threat of Indian attack.  Although a scattering of Acadians lived in these same coves, their participation was relatively insignificant."  In the late 1740s, New English engineer George Morris described the Fundy Acadians' pursuit of the codfish, a seasonal pasttime they probably had enjoyed since the beginning of British rule:  "... they had some shallops, in which they employ'd themselves in the catching of Fish just upon their Harbours; being out but a few days at a Time; This was rather for their Home Consumption then foreign Market the Surplusage being no great Quantity was generally sent to Boston for a Market in the New England Traders.  The present Inhabitants being settled Chiefly in the Bay of Fundy are not conveniently situated for the Fishery.  It is only in the Summer Season that the Fish strike into the Bay they are then to be taken in the greatest plenty on two small Barks, one a league north of Grand Passage the other about three Leagues West of Long Island (Digby peninsula).  The Borders of the Shores afford fishing but they are not in so great plenty as to make any considerate Tairs."  The so-called "refuse codfish" from Acadian waters that made their way to the docks at Boston "went to tropical plantation areas as slave food."229a

Cod, of course, was not the only fish caught in Acadian waters.  In 1699, Commander Villebon visited Port-Royal and remarked that "'The settlers catch codfish for food, and there are small rivers opening into the Basin which yield many fish such as bass, shad, sardines, gaspereau and plaice.  Large numbers are taken in weirs built across the rivers so that the fish are caught when the tide goes out.'"  That same year, Villebon visited what would become the most populous Acadian settlement, Minas.  "He remarked on the lack of cod fishing but on the presence of shad and gaspereau (alewives) in the tidal streams."  The Minas settlement of Grand-Pré, in fact, lay north of Rivière Gaspereau, a stream named after Alosa pseudoharengus, commonly known as the alewife, a kind of shad.  One suspects that the Acadians not only at Minas but also in the other Fundy communities devoured these bony but delicious fish, baked Indian style over hot coals, during the spring spawning runs along the many streams flowing into the bay.  The gaspereau's natural enemies, the striped bass and the Atlantic salmon, both highly edible, also could be found in the bay and its tributaries, along with eels, herring, mackerel, and halibut.  Shell fish abounded in the mudflats, as did the American lobster in deeper water.  For centuries, all of these sea creatures, and fresh-water fish as well, had been important food sources for the Mi'kmaq and other coastal tribes.  As part of the local "Columbian exchange," the Indians taught the Acadians not only how to catch but also how to cook and eat these aquatic delicacies.  They could, in fact, serve as a kind of emergency food source.  "Although food shortages were rare in the settlements at Minas and Chignecto they did occur periodically at Port Royal where the garrison, officials, and merchants put an extra strain on the food supply.  No doubt when storms and unusually high tides flooded the dyked marshlands, or when English raiders disrupted the economy by cutting dykes and burning haystacks and harvests stored in barns, interest in fishing, as in hunting, took an upswing.  Indeed at such times local supplies of fish were of the utmost importance; once, of a population of 753 at Port Royal, one-third were said to be living on shellfish."47

The great majority of Acadians were never far from the sea.  The typical Acadian homestead lay "on the edge of the marsh and the few acres of dyked marshland that each [habitant] cultivated."  Although this arrangement, dictated by the vagaries of the marshland, did not lead to a series of uniform long-lots facing the nearest water course, as along the St. Lawrence or on the lower Mississippi above and below New Orleans, there generally was a greater depth than width in the configuration of the typical Acadian homestead.  As old maps of the colony reveal, the Acadians also tilled the higher ground above their homesteads if the soil was fertile enough and not too rocky, but, again, these patches of cultivation were miniscule in size and numbers compared to the dyked fields below.  Acadian domestic architecture likely evolved during the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century.  Andrew Hill Clark notes:  "Rameau [whose major study was published in 1889] describes housing in the colony in general at the turn of the [eighteenth] century; how much he depends on documentary sources not available to the writer and how much on his imagination or inference is uncertain.  Many houses, he says, were built by driving large piles (presumably side by side) in the earth and filling in the cracks with moss and clay.  The chimneys were built with posts and pounded clay and the roof covered with reeds, bark, or on occasion even with sod.  The better ones were built en pièce-sur-pièce, that is to say with stout logs, squared off, piled one on the other and interlocked (s'enchévetrant) at each corner.  These were easily built from the abundant wood and at the first alarm they could be abandoned without worry and lost without excessive regret, a matter of some importance in a place [Port-Royal] so frequently attacked.  We have nothing to go on for the houses of the farming community away from the town but presumably they were at least as roughly if perhaps more solidly built."  Historian Naomi Griffiths observes:  "... small houses place a premium on civil behaviour among those who live in them.  Acadian houses, like those of New England, were mostly a storey or a storey and a half, log-built, almost always with a basement, and the ground floor was rarely subdivided.  While more definite description must await further archeological research, it would be a mistake to imagine Acadian houses as all the same.  Dièreville rented one that he said was the largest in Port Royal, with three rooms on the ground floor, a basement, and a loft.  Further, many farming families would have outbuildings near or attached to the living quarters.  However, for much of the year, the ground floor of the house would be a crossroads of activity."230

Near their homesteads and villages, Acadians engaged in a basic form of industry related to farming.  Mills appeared at Port-Royal along Rivière Allain, just below the village, and also upriver; Pierre Thibodeau, for instance, built a mill at Pré-Ronde, halfway up the valley and did very well with it.  The first mills were current-driven, and, in the upper Fundy settlements, some may have been powered by the tides.  The Acadians also constructed windmills, "a sound idea, for an occasional summer drought (as that of 1707) stopped the water mills."  Evidently the French at Louisbourg and the New Englanders with whom they traded were not impressed with the quality of flour produced by these mills.  In the late 1740s, George Morris "reported flour of 'a moist Quality.'"  As a result, New England traders used Acadian wheat and flour "to make ship's biscuits."230a

Acadians used their water-powered mills not only for grinding grain but also for sawing timber.  In 1692, Cadillac noted that the sawmill at Port-Royal "was neglected because of a lack of market."  Nevertheless, "The Acadians could make planks of pine of any desired length, width, or thickness because of the height and diameter of the trees."  Cadillac reported that "They used cherry wood, the best wood they had and better than anything in France; it was a bit heavy but very durable.  Oak was rare but there was ample material for ship-building."  Andrew Hill Clark gives us the larger picture of lumbering in Acadia:  "All rural settlements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in eastern North America were heavily dependent on a  plentiful supply of wood, and that of the Acadians more than most.  From the forests came their fuel, their building material for houses and barns, furniture, sluice gates, fences (where they existed), and bridges, and most of the material for the construction of implements, tools, household utensils, carts, and sheds.  To the degree that they built their own boats and vessels the forest supplied most of the raw material.  Thus, although the Acadians cleared relatively little land for agriculture, they must have been felling timber constantly, and without its bountiful supply the relatively comfortable life they led would have been impossible.  Yet they made very little use of it as a raw material for export, a matter of some surprise since they had many sawmills scattered throughout the settlements and their economy was, indeed, commercial to a degree."  Clark explains:  "A major reason may be that timber for masts, chiefly white pine, was not plentiful near the Acadian settlements and it was masts, above all, which interested the French before 1710 and the British afterward."  In 1715, acting governor Caulfeild believed he found mast-quality trees at Chignecto, and pines for shorter masts could be found in the Cap-Sable area, but the tallest, straightest white pines in the region, perfect as main masts for naval ships and large merchant vessels, could be found on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and along the Gulf of Maine.  The Royal Navy was so determined to monopolize the trade in colonial white pines that Parliament passed the first of the "obnoxious White Pines Acts" in 1711; others followed in 1720, 1721, 1722, and 1729.  New Englanders were so stunned by this assertion of royal privilege, and the violation of their trading rights, that they did what they could to prevent the laws' enforcement.  The only wood in the settlements of British Nova Scotia that ever generated conflict between King and settler related to the firewood the Acadians provided for the garrison at Annapolis Royal; reacting to what they considered exorbitant prices, the colonial council insisted that "... his Majesty hath an undoubted right to the woods & they [His Majesty's settlers] only to the Herbage & Vesturage of the Lands And Entitled only to the benefit of Such Woods as they may have immediate Occasion for their own proper use of buildings'"--a tightfisted way for British officials to save a pound or two in their trade with Acadians.  It was hardly a cause célèbre that helped foment all-out revolution.  The French, meanwhile, found white pines adequate for their masts, and especially oaks that served well for ships' planking and timber for their fortifications, growing in abundance near Pictou, on the southeastern Gulf of St. Lawrence shore between Remsheg and George Bay.  This was British territory after 1713.  Nevertheless, in the early 1740s, French lumbermen from Louisbourg wintered at Pictou and harvested the trees in late winter before a Royal Navy man of war arrived at Canso in the spring for the annual resupply.  Trees along along the Fundy shore were not so valued.  In the late 1740s, George Morris insisted that in his thorough investigation of the settlements there he found not a single oat tree standing, which also helps explain the dearth in Acadian exportation of timber.  The Fundy Acadians, Morris tells us, were forced to use ash, beech, and maple to build their vessels.  As a result, Acadian fishing vessels, unlike their sturdy birch bark canoes, tended to last "not above four or five Years after which they are unfitt for any sea Voyage."241 

By the mid-1700s, a relatively small percentage of the Acadian population had congregated in villages.  Annapolis Royal remained the largest one, and Grand-Pré and Beaubassin also could boast a relatively substantial population.  Villages, or, more accurately, hamlets, tended to congregate around parish churches, which, on the eve of the Grand Dérangement, numbered a little more than a dozen in greater Acadia.  Acadian villages, however, were devoted more to agriculture, commerce, and industry than to worship.  "We know that there was much specialized activity and exchange of labor throughout the settlements and particularly in the village of Port Royal and the quasi-villages of Grand-Pré and Beaubassin," Andrew Hill Clark relates.  "Even the agricultural activities required a good deal of artisan skill at times, notably in planning and building of dykes and sluice-gates.  It is quite possible, indeed probable, that many of the tradesmen were also farmers and that farming may have absorbed most of their time in summer.  But in the winter season, when the varied household industries were unusually active, the specialists could make wider use of their particular skills."  Occupations found in the first census of 1671, other than farmer, included surgeon, weaver, cooper, farrier, gunsmith, joiner, mason, carpenter, tailor, and edge tool maker.  These occupations, and others, such as sawyer, shingle-maker, locksmith, nail-maker, stocking maker, and even shoemaker, could be found among the Acadians of subsequent generations.  Cobblers would have found less work in Acadia than the other specialists; "we know that to some degree the Acadians followed the Indian practice of using the skins of wild animals for moccasins," Clark continues, skin from the moose and the seal as well as from the deer.  What a sight it must have been to see an Acadian surgeon making his summer rounds in moose-skin mocassins.231

That they lived simply and with few material needs is a typical description of Acadian life, but, like most stereotypes, the actual picture was much more complex.  François-Marie Perrot, the Acadian governor who restored Port-Royal as the colony's capital in 1684, "painted a picture of a contended, if sparse and simple, pastoral existence among the Port Royal folk in the 1680's.  He reported that they lived better than the Canadians, and never were without meat and bread, although they were less industrious and never thought of saving against bad harvests or other disasters.  He attempted to gauge the meagerness of their life by an accounting of their dowries; seldom, he indicated, did a dowry amount to more than twenty or twenty-five francs in goods, a cow in calf, a ewe, a sow, and, in the case of the better-off families, perhaps a feather bed.  In the Acadian context this sounds quite satisfactory."  Another observer from the 1680s noted of the Acadians at Chignecto:  "The women made both linen and woolen cloth for clothing and, for shoes, both sexes wore Indian moccasins that they made themselves."  Andrew Hill Clark notes:  "The role of hunting and gathering in providing food (meat and berries), and articles for trade (feathers, hides, and fur) may have been very large.  Yet references by observers to such dependence on the wilds is rather infrequent and generally unfavorable when it appears.  This was 'la vie sauvage,' too much like that of the Indians and too distracting from a settled agricultural life to appeal to governor, trader, priest, or casual observer from France."233

But a simple life need not have been an austere life devoid of material comfort.  The Acadians did have material needs that their self-reliance could not provide; "even in their closely knit group of communities," the Acadians "were by no means self-sufficient. ..."  Andrew Hill Clark asserts: "The romantic picture of the self-sufficient Acadian household, which Longfellow's Evangeline has imprinted so firmly, needs a good deal of modification."  The Acadians, like other modern-age people, relied on trade to provide not only the luxuries but also the simple necessities of life.  To be sure, during the three decades after 1670 when the France "controlled" the colony, administrative officers from both Old and New France did what they could to encourage Acadian trade, ideally within the context of French mercantilism (though at least one governor, Meneval, during the late 1680s, engaged in lucrative trade of his own with Boston and tended to look the other way when the Acadians did the same).  "In so far as they gave any attention to the agricultural settlements at Port Royal, in Minas Basin, and at the heads of Chignecto Bay, [these French administrators] were concerned chiefly with trade.  They wished to encourage Acadian commerce with France and Canada and to prohibit or greatly diminish that with New England."  The Acadians, after all, were subjects of Louis XIV.  Their establishment at Port-Royal in the late 1630s had been for the benefit of a French commercial venture in fish and furs, not to provide another market for New English merchants.  In the eyes of French and Canadian elites, the fur trade was still the raison d'être for French presence in North America.  During those three decades after 1670, "The fur trade from the peninsula declined steadily but continued to yield cargoes for France up until the time of the British takeover.  On the Saint John and the other rivers leading from the Gulf of Maine into the interior the French interest in furs was more active.  The fur supply was diminishing there, too, but the strategic problems of attack and defense vis-à-vis the New Englanders were inextricably tied up with their relations with the Indians, who, in turn, remained closely associated with the trade."  The "water clearers" in Acadia, on the other hand, were just not as important.233a 

Perceiving the peripheral nature of their commercial relationship with old and New France, the Acadians tended to write off their fellow Frenchmen as viable trade partners.  They turned, instead, to nos amis les ennemis--"our friends the enemy."  Dating from the earliest years of Acadian settlement and continuing virtually unabated until the Acadians no longer were around to trade, such commerce, of course, had its costs, in more ways than one.  A French observer lamented in the 1680s that "The New Englanders were now the suppliers of Acadian needs, taking furs in exchange and thus depriving France of both furs and markets for manufactured goods.  The New England connection also led to Acadians' seeking work with the English, especially in the fishery, to pay off debts, or simply to earn the money that was so often in short supply" in French Acadia.  Except for the years when the English controlled the colony--1654 to 1670, and after 1710--this trade was illicit, and French officials did what they could to suppress it, though more often than not it was more convenient to look the other way.  When mercantilist policies were enforced, it only pushed more Acadians away from prying eyes and on to more distant settlements up the Fundy shore.  By the mid-1670s, there were enough settlers at distant Beaubassin to welcome New English traders to the upper reaches of the Baie de Chignecto.  At Minas, by the mid-1680s, "the small vessels out of Boston made the journey through the tidal race north of Cape Split, allowing themselves to be stranded far 'inland' at low tide for friendly trades as the privateers [larger ships] could hardly risk doing."  In each of their communities, the Acadians "imported a good deal in the way of tools, implements, and other hardware."  From the late 1600s into the 1700s, their basic farm tools "were still of the simplest:  pickaxes, spades, axes, hoes, sickles, scythes, flails, and wooden forks and rakes for the most part," the spade, pickax, and hoe being especially important for the dyking process.  Spades, especially, were "vital for dyking and making drains, but it also, with the hoe, was a major tillage implement."  Although they eschewed clearing the forested uplands, Acadians needed axes, saws, and other wood working tools as much as other North American frontiersmen.  Wood was essential for fuel and for building many of the things in their lives.  The dykes, framed with logs and planks, as well as the aboiteaux within them, required much timber that only axes, saws, and adzes could fashion.  The Acadians seldom used plows, but, until they had enough blacksmiths of their own, they likely traded for sickles.  Also important in their trade were "carpenters' tools, blacksmithing equipment, and bar iron with which some of the needed tools could be made.  Similarly the import of much of the necessary hardware, sails, and rigging for small vessels made their modest but vital building of boats and small vessels possible."  When the French, either from the homeland or from Canada, could not provide these essential tools and implements or the metal to make them, and they generally did not, the Acadians got them from New England.  In exchange for these essential products, the Acadians offered furs, timber, cattle, either on the hoof or transformed into salted beef, salted pork, wool from their sheep, and salted fish from their coasts and streams.  From Minas, the colony's bread basket, came wheat and other grains.  Acadian trade goods, however, were as varied as the products of their farms.  "Almost every year the Acadians shipped furs, feathers, wheat, and beef to New England," which remained their primary commercial market.  The New England trade network was so extensive that Acadian products found their way all the way down to the tropical West Indies (a cold irony for the French mercantilists who had long dreamed of, but never established, Acadian trade with the French Antilles), and products from the West Indies--brandy, sugar cane, molasses, among other things--found their way into Acadian homes through their New English suppliers.234 

After 1713, British officials in "control" of Nova Scotia found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to suppress illicit trade between the Fundy Acadians and the new French colony of Île Royale, centered at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.  This trade, via Baie Verte and Tatamagouche on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, was occurring at the same time that New English trading schooners, often without the proper license, found their way to the Fundy settlements in greater numbers.  Such competition increased the prices of Acadian agricultural products, which was a boon for the Acadians, but it was a problem for the commissary officers at Annapolis Royal, who were forced to pay ever higher prices to sustain the British garrison there.  Typically, the Acadians lost little sleep over the troubles and tribulations of their overlords.  "Such trading, especially to Cape Breton," Andrew Hill Clark explains, "is often referred to as clandestine although it was so widely known and so openly practiced that the adjective loses much of its meaning.  What is meant is that the trade to Louisbourg was completely, and that with the New England vessels, intermittently, illegal and contrary to the frequent proclamations of a governor and council powerless to stop it."  Along with the usual "textiles, metal goods, brandy, rum, [and] tobacco," the Acadians acquired from this vigorous trade something for which they had "developed a peasant passion that observers described as miserly"--precious specie, which, like in most colonies, was chronically in short supply and was essential in supplementing their barter trade.250 

.

The Acadians also enjoyed a rich internal life that reflected their common frontier experience.  Outsiders, engaging in what sociologists call cultural ascription, were quick to perceive certain stereotypical traits among these self-reliant farmers.  In 1701, Acadia's new commander and soon-to-be governor, Jacques-François de Mombeton de Brouillan, journeyed from Plaisance, Newfoundland, where he had commanded during King William's War, to his new post at Port-Royal.  Brouillan landed at Chebouctou on the Atlantic coast, today's Halifax.  Using the Rivière Shubenacadie portage, he traveled to Cobeguit, at the northeastern end of the Minas Basin, only then being settled, and on to the Minas settlements along the western shore of the basin before continuing on to Port-Royal probably via the portage from the head of Rivière St.-Antoine to the head of Rivière-au-Dauphin.  As a result, the new commander had an opportunity to observe the Minas Acadians at length.  After reaching Port-Royal, he reported to his superiors the impressive numbers of cattle and the quantity of wheat among the settlers at Minas, but he lamented that "the inhabitants were half-republican, of very independent character, and accustomed to deciding things for themselves!"  The arrogant Frenchman would learn soon enough that this "half-republican" independent-mindedness was characteristic of most Acadians.  Brouillan's predecessor, Joseph Robinau de Villebon, was among a number of French officials who had complained of the Acadians' "laziness," concluding that "they worked only to maintain themselves and showed little ambition to 'get ahead.'"  What an ambitious French aristocrat perceived as lack of ambition, the Acadian would have seen as contentment with his lot in life.  After 1713, "the easy going attitude of the Acadians mystified and irritated the observers from both New and old England."  Even French native Paul Mascarene, who understood the Acadians better than any other British official, believed of them in 1720, when he was serving in the colony as an army engineer:  "'... for the generallity [they are] very little industrious, their land not improved as might be expected, they liveing in a manner from hand to mouth, and provided they have a good feild of Cabages and bread enough for their familyes, with what fodder is sufficient for their Cattle they seldome look for much further improvement.'  He went on to point out that they spent their time in hunting and trapping," as if those activities were idle pursuits for farmers trying to feed their families.46 

Over the decades, Acadians developed another attitude that infuriated their social "betters"--an abiding sense of egalitarianism, also a consequence of their shared frontier experience.  To be sure, there were economic inequalities among them--their communities, after all, were human creations--but the gap between "rich" and "poor" was nothing like in the Europe of their day or in modern-day capitalist societies.  Again, it was the frontier, and geography, that made it so.  Their northern climate, well above the middle latitudes, precluded the production of lucrative cash crops such as tobacco, indigo, rice, sugar, or cotton.  What they could grow during the relatively short growing season had to be limited to grains and vegetables--healthy, even essential products to be sure, but nothing that could create a plantation economy with a master class and exploited labor.  As a result, slavery did not take hold in Acadia.  The Mi'kmaq were too powerful to allow Europeans to enslave them, and most Acadian families were so large and healthy, and their communities so tight-knit, that there never was a shortage of labor in their fields and pastures or out on the open sea.  Cooperation, not rugged individualism or the exploitation of others, was an essential element in the Acadian character.50 

But cooperation, even among the Acadians, had its limits.  Historian Andrew Hill Clark observes:  "The Acadians evidently had a very keen property sense from the number of boundary disputes that are reported.  If a more readily available legal apparatus had existed they might well have proved as litigious as their Canadian neighbors.  Thus they were careful to mark divisions between individual holdings on the upland with barriers or fences of wood--or at least piles of brush and trunks of  trees.  The marshland drainage ditches, shared with a neighbor, seem to have served such purposes admirably."50a

To the other important culture in the colony, boundary markers had no meaning.  Although not free from the typical prejudices of their times, Acadians looked upon the Mi'kmaq and other native tribes in the area as more or less their equals.  They learned much from these wandering tribesmen, and, thanks to the efforts of French missionaries, they shared a common faith with them.  Many families also shared a common blood.  Pierre Martin, fils, born at St.-Germain de Bourgueil, France, four years before he came to the colony with his parents in 1636, married Anne Questnorouest dit Petitous, an Indian woman, at Port-Royal in c1660; although Pierre, fils remarried 20 years later, all of his children came from his first wife.  Claude Guédry dit Grivois dit La Verdure, progenitor of an important Acadian family, married Kesk8a, an Indian, in c1680, before remarrying to Marguerite Petitpas, who gave him his sons.  Martin Lejeune dit Briard married Jean, also called Marie, Kagigconiac, an Indian, and lived in the métis community at La Hève during the 1680s; one of their sons married a Gaudet.  Amazingly, recent yDNA tests reveal that Germain, fils, younger son of Acadian pioneer Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, may have been a full-blooded Mi'kmaq adopted by the captain at arms and raised as his own; Germain, fils married a Landry and is the ancestor of many Doucets in Canada and the United States.  Such close ties among these and other families helped foster a kinship between the two people.  Thanks to imperial politics, Acadian-Mi'kmaq relations turned sour by the early 1750s, but when the British deported the Acadians in 1755, the Mi'kmaq were not happy to see them go.49 

A concomitant to their sense of egalitarianism was another stereotypical attitude that also derived from their relative isolation from the rest of New France--anticlericalism.  In the beginning, there were almost as many Protestants as Catholics in Acadia, but, as a result of Jesuit, Recollet, and Capuchin influences and the devout Catholicism of the Bourbon kings who succeeded Henry IV, when French families were finally established in the colony during the late 1630s, Protestantism had been largely purged from the Acadian population.  For the rest of French rule in the colony, Huguenots were not welcomed there.  Pierre Melanson dit La Verdure was a devout Protestant, but his presence in the colony during the 1660s was the result of English occupation.  When the English left in 1670, so did he; his two older sons, Pierre, fils and Charles, remained, but by then they had converted to Catholicism in order to take Acadian wives.  Laurent Granger, an Englishman who also came to the colony during the late 1650s, converted to marry his Acadian bride, a Landry.  So did Geyret de Forest of Leyden, Holland, who married an Hébert and changed his name to Michel.  Scotsman William "Billy" Johnson, who came to Acadia as a British soldier in 1710, had to denounce Protestantism before he could marry a Corporon even while the British controlled the colony.   Acadians clung to their Catholicism after the British took control of the colony in earnest in 1713.  But there were limits to their devotion.  An historian of the Acadian experience notes:  "Acadians had come to view the Catholic church in the same light as the colonial government--that is, an agency established solely to provide essential services.  Such services were to be provided without disruption of the parishioners' routine secular activities and without undue financial burden.  Any deviation from this conceptual framework precipitated spontaneous outbursts....  For many if not most late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Acadians, Catholic missionaries were shadowy figures who provided the settlers minimal contact with the church hierarchy.  Forced to fend for themselves, even to the point of conducting paraliturgical services, the [Acadians] ultimately came to divorce religion from the area's traditionally dominant religious institution.  Priests consequently became little more than petty religious administrators, stripped of their cloak of religious invincibility and vulnerable to personal criticism...."  Another historian of the Acadians has quipped:  "the Acadians were scarcely more willing to pay tithes than quitrents."  During British rule, "There were never more that five priests, at any one time, working within the colony and usually only three or four," so their influence, in both the ecclesiastical and the civil realm, was limited.  Among them, however, were priests who threw themselves into the imperial struggle with such enthusiasm and force, even violence, that they would use any means at their disposal to work their will on their hapless parishioners.  As a result, Acadian anticlericalism was only hardened by the activities of priests like Sébastien Râle, Pierre Maillard, and Jean-Louis Le Loutre, whose fanatical devotion to Mother France would cause the Acadians no end of trouble with the local Indians and British officials.48 

Acadian anticlericalism also extended into the secular realm.  The French had looked upon Acadia as a civil as well as a commercial backwater, and the Acadians took full advantage of this.  Deferring to their elders or their priests in everyday matters, they avoided as much as possible appealing to the colony's chief judicial officer or to the governor, who, if he did not reside in distant Pentagouët, Nashouat, or Beaubassin, often was absent from the colonial capital.  Under British rule, the Acadians continued their ad hoc form of self-rule, appealing to a colonial council in Annapolis Royal only if they could not resolve a local matter among themselves.  By the 1730s, however, unresolved squabbles between neighbors became more and more frequent.  Land disputes, complaints of unruly cattle destroying fences and other property, and habitants who did not bother to repair their dykes, provided much business for a commission set up by the colonial council to handle such disputes.  Lieutenant Governor Armstrong, no friend of the Acadians, complained to the Lords of Trade in London that "'... they are a Litigious Sort of people and so ill natur'd to one another as Daily to Encroach upon their Neighbours propertys....'"  This led to yet another stereotypical view of them which had a solid basis in fact:  they were a stubborn, independent-minded, even intransigent people accustomed to getting their own way.  That they were difficult to govern is an understatement, as their British overlords learned soon enough.51

Acadian intransigence was especially apparent in the realm of land tenure.  This problem had vexed seigneurs and habitants alike during the last 70 years of French control of Acadia and did not end when the British gained control of peninsula Nova Scotia in 1710.  If anything, under the British the question of land tenure became even more complicated.  British governors insisted that seigneurial payments be "made to the Crown, but with little success."  In 1730, Governor Phillips complained of the efforts of a La Tour heir, Agatha La Tour Campbell, wife of a British military officer, to assert her seigneurial rights at Annapolis and Minas, rights which Phillips refused to honor.  In 1733, the good lady, after pulling the right strings in London, won a substantial settlement in her favor and the right "to collect her own rents."  One would suspect that the Acadians of Annapolis and Minas observed the proceedings with some amusement.  Historian Andrew Hill Clark observes:  "Thereafter [1733] the collection of old seigneurial dues and some rents now clearly owed to the crown involved much discussion, accounting, and correspondence but never much cash or kind.  Various detailed accounts of cens et rentes and fines of alienation are scattered through the documents.  In 1734 rents due for the two previous years for the Annapolis district were thus recorded:  for cens, 20 deniers parisis, 72 deniers tournois, and 6 oboles parisis; for rentes, a  beaver tail, 4 partridges, 2 pullets, roughly 150 capons, 200 bushels of wheat, and a few small payments of cash.  Commuting to cash values in New England currency the amount due was only about L68 (including some L8 or more in fines of alienation) and of this some L48 was collected.  On this amount a little more than L7 was paid in commission, and the net yield of nearly L41, when converted to sterling at 260 per cent discount, amounted to only slightly more than L11 for the two years.  In 1745 [Lieutenant Governor] Mascarene observed that the settlers paid no taxes but '... only a small Quit-Rent for their Lands in Fowles and Wheat amounting in the whole to about L15 Sterling excepting what they voluntarily allow to their Priests....' Rents, seigneurial dues, and fines of alienation on land were no burden to the Acadians."  In the fringe settlements of the peninsula, especially in the Chignecto area, one would suspect that independent-minded habitants did not bother to pay even this pittance.119

Land squatting, in fact, was endemic among the Acadians.  A British official noted in 1748:  "'Their Title of Lands arise from Old French Grants, but these extend only to their Old Settlements; But since the Rendition of that Country (i.e., in 1713) many are settled contrary to the order of Government and have no other Title than the Law of Possession.'"  This was especially evident in the trois-rivières area--Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, and Memramcook--a favored destination of Acadians who, such as the Beausoleil Broussards, sought to put distance between themselves and British officials at Annapolis Royal.  That the trois-rivières area also was claimed by France meant little to these British officials, who believed that their imperial claims extended beyond the Chignecto isthmus into present-day eastern New Brunswick.  Moreover, the farther one lived from Annapolis Royal, the less likely ones land had been properly surveyed.  During the 1720s and 1730s, British efforts to settle Irish and German Protestants in Nova Scotia led to surveys of the proposed areas of settlement, but these surveys were halted when the settlement schemes fell through.  In 1731, Lieutenant Governor Armstrong proposed a general survey of the colony so that the inhabitants could be forced to pay taxes to the crown.  By December 1733, when Armstrong appointed Acadian syndic Prudent Robichaud, père to collect "all quitrents, fines of alienation, etc." along the Annapolis River, only that area of the colony had been properly surveyed.  During the years following, Armstrong, either through priests or deputies, instructed the Acadians at Minas, Chignecto, and even faraway Chepoudy, to submit to the council their land records, but few likely complied.120

Another indication of Acadian stubbornness and independence was the difficulty of British officials in controlling their movements within the colony.  Habitants were required to petition the colonial council to go anywhere in Nova Scotia even for a seasonal visit--a sort of internal passport system.  For example, during the summer of 1740, eight Acadians from an unspecified settlement applied for permission to winter at Chebogue on the western Atlantic coast, south of present-day Yarmouth.  They went there before permission was granted--that is, before they could be issued the required passports--"were called back, and finally allowed to go for the one season provided they engaged only in fowling and fishing and dyked no land."  In other words, they were not allowed to settle there, but they remained there anyway.  One suspects that if there had been a expanse of salt marsh suitable for dyking at Chebogue, yet another substantial Acadian settlement would have appeared on the peninsula, British officials and their quitrents be damned.121 

Andrew Hill Clark concludes:  "... the Acadians themselves had always had a rather specific conception of their own plots of land, that they were ready to argue with anyone about their limits, that they paid the token fees involved in seigneurial dues without too ill a grace, and that most Acadians, in 1710, had some sort of tradition of individual tenure of the lands they occupied and worked.  As the British intentionally or unwittingly destroyed or undercut the old system, the Acadians became increasingly uncooperative.  They appeared to associate the payment of quitrents to the British government with the hated oaths which they were being pestered to take.  The hope of restoration of French sovereignty remained strong and was fanned by officials of the nearby French areas of Cape Breton, Isle St-Jean, and Quebec, and by the French missionaries.  As with most conquered people they tended to act as independently as circumstances allowed and they very quickly discovered that British power as represented by the governor and council at Annapolis had little bit to it."122

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of Acadian life contributed to another stereotype based in fact, that the Acadians placed family above everything else.  Many of them did establish large, healthy families essential to sustaining their way of life, and many of them enjoyed a kinship network that reached into every corner of the colony.  The creation of large families began early at Port-Royal.  One study claims that, by the end of the French period, four families made up "the kernel of Port Royal society":  the Boudrots, the Bourgs, the Dugass, and the Melansons.  Historian Naomi Griffiths explains:  "All four families were neighbours of one another on either side of the Rivière-du-Dauphin, close to its mouth."  These families allied with many of the other early families:  the Boudrots with the Thériots and Landrys; the Bourgs with the Dubois, Robichaud, Gaudet, and LeBlanc families; the Dugass with the Bourgeois and LeBlanc families; and the Melansons with the Granger, Petitot, and Babineau families.  The same study claims that the extensive kinship networks created by these and other early families "was one of the reasons why Acadians assimilated newcomers after 1685 with a minimum of hostility.  Family connections were expected to provide help and support to the kin group.  Once married to an Acadian, a person quickly assumed the obligations and benefits of the partner's kin."  By the early 1700s, these networks, fueled by children and grandchildren who created families of their own, extended out from Port-Royal to Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, Cobeguit, and the trois-rivières, as well as to the so-called outlying settlements on the Atlantic coast and along Rivière St.-Jean.124 

Two stereotypes of Acadian family life--the frequency of consanguineous marriage and the rarity of extra-marital affairs--have solid bases in fact.  Andrew Hill Clark observes:  "The Acadian population has been supposed to have been rather highly inbred genetically and the records, especially those at Annapolis, tend to bear this out."  Records of St.-Jean-Baptiste parish between 1727 and 1755 reveal dispensations for consanguinity, especially between second cousins, in 44 per cent of the 297 marriages recorded.  "Pre-marital pregnancy, a standard reason for such dispensations and less than a major sin if followed by marriage, may have been the usual reason for the dispensation--the officiating priest or missionary often adds that it was for good reasons known to him."  Clark maintains that the "reputation of the Acadians for the avoidance of extra-marital liaisons" is "undoubtedly deserved" and "may have carried over to pre-marital experience between young lovers (although the latter is common enough in farming communities and generally condoned if followed by marriage).  What is reflected, unquestionably, is simply the degree of isolation, whether the marriages were forced or not, and the sheer difficulty of finding someone to marry who was not a second cousin."127

Most Acadians embraced with enthusiasm the creation of children within their church-sanctioned marriages.  Andrew Hill Clark explains:  "We have no evidence on which to base birth and death rates.  We conclude that there was no substantial loss of life in military action during the period [of British control of Nova Scotia] nor have we any record of epidemic disease or of serious shortages of food.  Most young people married at least by their early twenties and set up for themselves as soon as they could.  There were few spinsters over thirty and widows were quick to remarry.  However, the nominal censuses of [the French period] often included many young men and women in their twenties as children in families and so unmarried and the parish registers show very few marrying before eighteen.  Indeed, most Acadian girls were in their twenties when they wed.  Anything approaching child marriage was unknown."  Naomi Griffiths adds:  Acadian women, like their contemporaries in other North American frontier societies, tended to marry younger than their European contemporaries.  Acadian women who married before age 20 had an average of 10 children, between ages 20 and 24 an average of nine, and between ages 25 and 29 an average of seven.  Even more amazing was the survival rate of their children, reflecting, among other things, the quality of their diet.  "Thus, one of the most striking aspects of Acadia, at the close of the seventeenth century, was the omnipresence of children."126

Living on the North American frontier, Acadians raised their offspring not unlike members of other frontier cultures.  Naomi Griffiths explains:  "For both men and women, the parenting of children was a given.  Women, inevitably, were primarily responsible for the early years of child raising.  The birthrate would often mean that an individual woman had four children under six to look after; while she carried out the daily household routine.  Both parents, however, were closely involved in preparing the young for adult life.  As was normal in rural society until recently, even young children were given chores to do and the idle adolescent would be rare indeed.  Dièreville commented that children helped their parents from a young age, this allowing them to save the daily wages that otherwise would have been paid to casual labour.  Particular skills--weaving, woodworking, food preservation, and animal husbandry--were handed down through the generations.  Perhaps the most vital discipline that would be inculcated was the knowledge that one was at the beck-and-call of forces beyond one's control.  Sheep have their own timetable, cows need milking twice a day, and the weather dictates rhythms of sowing and harvesting.  No family, however successful in establishing itself, could survive without community support.  Interdependence was the crux of Acadian life, not only because of the demands of the dykes but also for the host of tasks that needed doing, from barn building to ploughing and harvesting.  Acadians valued children and the community gave considerable support to young parents."  The smallness of the typical Acadian farmhouse, however, required the establishment of close relations.  This would have been especially important in households that included three or even four generations.  "There would be little chance of solitude within the home.  If continual bickering and quarreling was not to be the norm, a conscious effort had to be made to establish an affectionate relationship.  The spacing of the children roughly two years apart meant that, for the first year or so, a child had a relatively secure and tranquil time, breast-fed and frequently nursed, although the pattern of babe-in-arms, toddler, and small child must have left many a woman physically exhausted.  Several lullabies, some traceable to France, others seemingly of Acadian origin, show adult pleasure in the new life.  Even if the infant was one of the younger siblings, there would still be a sense of intimacy in the household and, once the eldest sibling was seven or eight, an increase in the number of people ready to comfort the baby.  Further, words for toys and for group play, such as hide-and-seek and catch-as-catch-can, are part of Acadian vocabulary and argue for a tradition that accepted the right of children to amusements."125 

But there was a dark side even to this fulfilling part of Acadian life.  Naomi Griffith observes:  "... Acadian family life was not uniformly pleasant for all.  Even in a generally healthy community like Acadia, illness occurred and could produce great stress for the family.  Not only that, but in-laws could be oppressive as well as supportive; closeness could be suffocating as well as nurturing; and sibling relationships could result in bitter rivalries as easily as they could give rise to life-long affection.  While family size would mean that aging parents had greater possibilities for support when health failed and strength diminished, such support might come, often enough, with the loss of personal control.  My point, then, is not that the Acadians built an exceptionally loving community on the strength of their family connections, but that such connections did exist and were a crucial two-way conduit between choices made within the home and the level of support for those choices which was to be found in the community."  The strength of their family connections was often sorely tested, by land disputes, personal conflicts, and especially war, when some members of the family chose to cling to neutrality, while others took up the gun and became partisans.  The greatest test would come during their Grand Dérangement, which would reveal the stereotype's essential reality, that the Acadians' obsession with family was their principal weapon in the struggle to maintain their unique identity.114

More New Families in British Nova Scotia, 1710-55

An indication of British difficulty in administering Nova Scotia was the appearance of many new French families in the colony after the fall of Port-Royal in October 1710--something probably not welcomed by colonial officials at Annapolis Royal.  Most of the new settlers came from France, but a few slipped in from Canada, at least one from French-controlled Île Royale, and a Spaniard arrived at Annapolis Royal on the eve of the Acadian Grand Dérangement.  Many of these new families settled in the Minas Basin, which was clearly British territory.  Others settled at Chignecto in territory claimed by both powers.  During the so-called Father La Loutre's War of the early 1750s, the abbé and his Mi'kmaq warriors, after attacking the new British-German settlements on the Atlantic side of the peninsula, coaxed some of the French- and German-speaking Foreign Protestants, as they were called, to move to the Fundy settlements.  One wonders if any of the new families described below were among these disgruntled settlers:117 

François, son of merchant Jean Richard and Anne Christin, d'Auray of Vannes, Brittany, probably not kin to Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, married Anne, a daughter of Jean Comeau l'aîné, at Port-Royal in October 1710, only a few weeks after the fort at Port-Royal fell to a New English force from Boston.  François and Anne remained at Port-Royal, which the British promptly renamed Annapolis Royal.  Anne gave François five children, including two sons who created families of their own.  François remarried to Marie, daughter of René Martin dit Barnabé, at Port-Royal in October 1722.  Marie gave him three more children, including another son who created his own family. 

Pierre Lalande, alias Blaise des Brousses dit Bonappétit, a soldier in the King's service, married Anne, daughter of Joseph Prétieux, at Port-Royal in November 1710, only a month after the Acadian capital fell.  Anne gave Bonappétit eight children, including four sons who created families of their own. 

François dit Blondin, son of Nicolas Boisseau and Anne Bouchotait of Montargis, Orléanais, France, born at Paris, married Marie-Anne, daughter of Louis Saulnier, at Grand-Pré in the Minas Basin in October 1711.  Marie-Anne gave Blondin eight children, including three sons who created their own families. 

François Blanchard dit Gentilhomme from St.-Marc-le-Blanc, Brittany, France, no kin to Jean, reached Acadia in c1712 and married Anne Corne at Grand-Pré in c1719.  He remarried to Marguerite Carret of Chignecto in c1725.  He and his family moved on to Malpèque, Île St.-Jean, in c1737. 

Philippe Lambert, probably not kin to Radegonde and René Lambert but likely a native of France, married Marie-Madeleine, a daughter of Michel Boudrot, in c1712 and settled at Chignecto.  Marie-Madeleine gave Philippe five children, all born at Chignecto, including two sons who created families of their own. 

Jean-Jacques, son of Alexandre Nuirat and Anne Audier of Martigues, bishopric of Arles, France, married Marie-Jeanne, daughter of Charles Bourgeois, at Beaubassin in 1712 and remained at Chignecto.  Marie-Jeanne gave Jean-Jacques 10 children, including three sons who married, two of whom created families of their own. 

Jean-Baptiste dit Lyonnais, son of Jean-Louis Duon and Jeanne Clémenson of St.-Nizier, Lyon, France, married Agnès, 17-year-old daughter of Antoine Hébert, at Annapolis Royal in February 1713; Jean-Baptiste dit Lyonnais was 30 years old at the time of the wedding.  Jean-Baptiste served as a notary in Acadia, so he must have had some formal education.  Agnès gave him 13 children, including eight sons who created families of their own. 

Jean, fils, son of Jean Fougère and Marie Barré of Poupry, Beauce, Diocese of d'Orléans, France, married Marie a daughter of Abraham Bourg, at Port-Royal in November 1713.  Jean, fils worked as a navigator and a fisherman, as well as a farmer.  Marie gave him eight children, including two sons who created families of their own.  Jean, fils remarried to Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean Belliveau, at Port-Toulouse, Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, in c1728.  That is probably where he worked as a navigator and a fisherman.  Marie-Madeleine gave him 10 more children, including two sons who created families of their own. 

Jean Lebert dit Jolycoeur of Paris reached Annapolis Royal by May 1714, when he married Jeanne, 30-year-old daughter of Vincent Breau dit Vincelotte.  Jean dit Jolycoeur and Jeanne moved to Minas in c1720.  Despite her age, Jeanne gave the Parisian eight children, including four sons who created families of their own.

Jean-Baptiste, son of François Vécot, also called Veco, Vescot, Bécot, and Bécault, and Françoise Poirier of Boucherville, Canada, married Marie, daughter of Sébastien Chiasson, at Beaubassin, in June 1714.  Marie gave Jean-Baptiste a dozen children, including two sons who created families of their own. 

Pierre Bertaud dit Montaury, who, according to Acadian genealogist Bona Arsenault, was born in France, came to Nova Scotia in the early 1700s, where he worked as a fisherman and a maître de grave.  Pierre married Marie, daughter of Pierre Martin of Port-Royal, probably at Annapolis Royal in c1714.

Jacques, son of Daniel Quimine and Marie Torel of Pennemart, Nantes, France, born in the late 1690s, came to Nova Scotia by February 1715, when he married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of Gabriel Chiasson, at Chignecto.  Marie-Josèphe gave Jacques eight children, including two sons. 

Jean-Baptiste, son of Jean David and Jeanne Bell, and probably not kin to the other Davids in Acadia, was born at Château-Richer, Québec, in c1693.  He married Marguerite, daughter of François Lapierre dit Laroche, at Grand-Pré in March 1715.  They lived at Annapolis Royal in 1716-17 but settled at Minas in 1718.  Jean-Baptiste and Marguerite had 10 children, including three sons, all born at Grand-Pré, who established families of their own. 

Jacques, son of Étienne Dingle and Anne Laseux, a surgeon from Ville de Grauelline, Flanders, married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of Jean Landry, at Grand-Pré in July 1716.  They resettled at Louisbourg, Île Royale. 

Jean, fils, native of the isle of Guernsey, son of Jean Semer and Maguerite Héron, married Marguerite, daughter of Michel Vincent, at Grand-Pré in November 1717; the priest who recorded the marriage called Jean, fils a Lemer.  Marguerite gave him at least three sons, all born at Grand-Pré. 

Louis Arnaud dit Renaud or Renault dit Provencal, born probably in Provencal, France, son of Antoine Arnaud and Marie Samson of St.-Martin, Marseille, came to Nova Scotia by c1718, the year he married Marie, daughter of François Lapierre dit Laroche, at Grand-Pré.  They raised a large family of 17 children, 11 of them sons.

Ignace dit Saint-Jacques Carret, born in France, probably was not kin to soldier Pierre Carré, also called Carret, who had come to French Acadia in c1702.  Ignace arrived in Nova Scotia by c1718, the year he married Cécile, daughter of Robert Henry of Cobeguit.  They settled at Ste.-Famille, Pigiguit, in the Minas Basin, and had at least seven sons. 

Pierre Olivier, a tailor from the Parish of St.-Mederic, Paris, came to Nova Scotia by 1718, the year he married Françoise, daughter of Jacques Bonnevie, at Annapolis Royall. They had eight children, including three sons, all born at Annapolis Royal, who created families of their own. 

Louis Hugon, native of Villefagnan, Angouleme, France, married Marie Bourgeois at Chignecto in April 1720.  They had six children, four sons and two daughters. Two of the sons, both born at Chignecto, created families of their own. 

Jean-Michel, called Michel, Part, probably Apart, a native of France and probably not kin to Pierre Part dit La Forest of Port-Royal and Louisbourg, married Élisabeth, daughter of Michel Hébert, probably at Minas in c1720.  They had at least five children there, two sons and three daughters, before moving to Cobeguit in the 1730s. 

Pierre LeMire dit Mire, born in Paris, came to Nova Scotia in the 1720s and married Marie-Josèphe Forest in c1726. They settled at Pigiguit.  Marie-Josèphe gave Pierre two children, a daughter and a son.  Pierre dit Mire remarried to Isabelle, daughter of Claude Thibodeau, at Annapolis Royal in July 1738.  Isabelle gave him five more children, two daughters and three sons.

Pierre-Claude Arsement, born in France, married Marie-Josèphe Thériot in c1722 and settled at Pigiguit.  They had eight children, including four sons, one of whom was a twin to one of his sisters.

Pierre Cloistre dit Clouâtre, a gunsmith, reached Nova Scotia by 1722, the year he married Marguerite, daughter of André LeBlanc, one of the pioneers of the Minas settlement.  Pierre and Marguerite settled at Grand-Pré and had at least a dozen children, including five sons, all born at Minas.  

Toussaint, son of Jean Blanchard and Pétronille Ferrier of Évran, near St.-Malo, France, no kin to Jean and François dit Gentilhomme, married Angélique, daughter of Claude Bertrand, at Port-Royal in c1727 and also settled at Petitcoudiac.  Toussaint and Angélique had at least three sons:  Ambroise, born in c1734, Michel in c1741, and Joseph in c1746.  One wonders if any of them created families of their own.   

François Nogues of Piriac, Diocese of Nantes, France, married Madeleine, daughter of Jean Doiron, père and his second wife Marie Trahan, in c1728.  Madeleine gave him at least six children, two sons and four daughters.  In c1750, they moved on to Anse-du-Nord-Ouest, Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, where they were counted in the summer of 1752; with them was Madeleine's widowed mother, age 80. 

Pierre Bonnier or Bonnière, a tailor from Raqueil, bishopric of Rennes, Brittany, married Madeleine-Josèphe, daughter of Michel Forest of Pigiguit, probably at Pigiguit in c1730.  Madeleine-Josèphe gave the tailor turned farmer at least seven children, four sons and three daughters.  One Acadian historian insists that the family moved to Île St.-Jean in 1750; if so, they likely returned to the Minas Basin by 1755. 

Surgeon Claude-Antoine, son of Claude Duplessis and Marie Derivie of St.-Jean de St.-Quentin, Noyons, Picardy, France, reached Nova Scotia by September 1736, when he married Catherine, daughter of Pierre Lejeune and widow of Antoine Lanoue, at Grand-Pré; she was eight years older than he was.  In the 1740s, Claude-Antoine moved his family to Chignecto. Catherine gave him at least three children, two daughters and a son. 

Pierre Arostey or Arosteguy came to Acadia probably from Bayonne, Gascoigne, France, by May 1737, when he married Marie, daughter of Charles Robichaud dit Cadet, at Grand-Pré.  They settled on the Beauséjour ridge at Chignecto.

Jean, son of Guy Cousin of Dol, Brittany, France, reached Nova Scotia by November 1737, when he married Judith, 16-year-old daughter of Paul Guidry and Anne Mius d'Azy, at Grand-Pré.  Jean and Judith settled near her family at Ministigueshe, near Cap-Sable, where a daughter was born in c1748. 

Étienne-Michel, son of Jean David dit Saint-Michel and Madeleine Monmellian dit Saint-Germain of Québec and Louisbourg, born at the French fortress in c1720, married Geneviève, daughter of Michel Hébert, at Grand-Pré in January 1744.  Like his father, Étienne-Michel was a blacksmith. 

Pierre Boucher married Marie, daughter of Jean Doiron, probably at Chignecto in the early 1750s.  They had at least one child, daughter Marie-Anne, born "at Beaubassin" in c1754, on the eve of Le Grand Dérangement.

Jean, fils, son of Jean Gousman, père and Marie Granielle, born probably at St.-Nicolas, Andalusia, Spain, came to British Nova Scotia by c1755, when he married Marie Barrieau probably at Annapolis Royal.  She died without giving him any children.  The Spaniard's second wife, Rose, daughter of Acadian Jacques dit Jacquot Bonnevie dit Beaumont, fils of Port-Royal and Île St.-Jean, whom he married at Restigouche in January 1760 during Le Grand Dérangement, gave him at least two children, a daughter and a son. 

Joseph Marant, born in c1729, married Angélique Dugas probably at Chignecto in c1755. 

Joseph Dubois, a seaman, probably no kin to the other Duboiss in Nova Scotia, married Anne Michel in 1756.  They most likely lived at Cap-Sable, where they had at least one child. 

Pierre Noël, born in c1725, married Marie-Madeleine Barbe perhaps at Minas.  One wonders who his parents may have been and if the first of his family came to Acadia after the British took over the colony. 

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At least one new arrival from France went not to Nova Scotia but to Rivière St.-Jean, which the French had not relinquished.  Philippe de Saint-Julien Lachaussée, a surgeon, born in Picardie, France, married Françoise, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Godin dit Lincour, in c1754, settled with her on the river, and became the area's surgeon. 

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A circumstance perhaps only just tolerated by the British authorities was the settlement of their own soldiers in francophone Nova Scotia, with predictable results: 

In July 1712, nearly two years after the fall of Port-Royal to the British, James, son of Andrew Gainier and Margaret Benard of Dublin, Ireland, was serving as a soldier with the British army when he married Cécile, daughter of Pierre Cellier of Minas, at Chignecto.  James later called himself Jacques Guénard dit Gaudereau, signifying his entrance into Acadian society.  Jacques and Cécile had three children, including a son, Timothée, who created a family of his own.

William, called "Billy," Johnson, a native of Scotland, came to Port-Royal in the autumn of 1710 as a British soldier.  He got into trouble with his superiors, who branded him a thief.  Billy escaped to the nearby Acadian community, denounced Protestantism, and became a Catholic.  (How he eluded the British authorities, who retained their hold on the area after Billy's escape, is anyone's guess.)  In c1714, he married Isabelle, a daughter of Jean Corporon, at Annapolis Royal and "became" an Acadian.  Among his Acadian in-laws he was called Guillaume Johnson dit Jeanson.  Isabelle gave him four children, all sons, all of whom created families of their own.  Each of them retained their father's dit, Jeanson, as their surname.  ...

French Maritimes Acadia:  Île Royale and Île St.-Jean

The treaties signed at Utrecht in 1713 did not grant all of French Acadia to the victorious British.  France continued to claim two large Maritime islands:  Cape Breton lay east of peninsula Nova Scotia across the narrow Strait of Canso and, like the Atlantic and Gulf of St. Lawrence shores, remained on the periphery of Acadian life.  Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, lay at the southern end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and was only a day's boat ride across the Mere Rouge, now Northumberland Strait, from Baie Verte.  The French renamed Cape Breton Island Île Royale and created a colonial administration for their Maritime islands at a fishing port on the Atlantic side of Île Royale, Havre-à-l'Anglois, or English Harbor, which they renamed Louisbourg.  But, because of the Utrecht treaty's failure to establish clear-cut boundaries for the region, the new Maritimes colony existed at first where there was only a claim of territory.  This changed in September 1720, when French diplomats, "with the Regent's full support, insisted that Canso Island was a part of Île Royale, and the British accepted that any islands lying north of the mainland (i.e., peninsular Nova Scotia) and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence were French possessions."245  

The new Maritimes colony played an important role in French imperial plans for North America.  First was the resettlement of Frenchmen in French-controlled territory, particularly the Acadians of British Nova Scotia.  The islands also would serve as a base from which to protect the lucrative cod fisheries in the region, guard the approaches to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which was the gateway to Canada, and check British power in peninsula Nova Scotia.  Beginning in 1719, at great expense, the French constructed fortifications around Louisbourg based on Field Marshall, the marquis de Vauban's most elaborate configurations.  By the early 1740s, Louisbourg had become one of the most formidable, and expensive, fortresses in the New World.

Evidently the need to escape British authority in Nova Scotia, as well as a desire for new opportunities, overcame any compunction some Acadians may have had about moving to a new colony.  It was, after all, French.  But there were compelling reasons not to resettle there.  In September 1713, Father Félix Pain, a Recollet missionary, shared with the governor of Île Royale reasons why Acadians were reluctant to go there:  "'It would be to expose us manifestly (they say) to die of hunger, burthened as we are with large families, to quit the dwelling places and clearances from which we derive our usual subsistence, without any other resource, to take rough, new lands, from which the standing wood must be removed....  One-fourth of our population consists of aged persons, unfit for the labor of breaking up new lands, and who, with great exertion, are able to cultivate the cleared ground which supplies subsistence for them and their families.'"  The following June, in fulfillment of the Utrecht provision which allowed Acadians to resettle in French territory within a year of the treaty's signing, Acadian heads of family were granted permission to go to Île Royale and inspect the settlements there.  In August, French authorities sent the ship Marie Joseph to Nova Scotia to transport to Île Royale the Acadian families who liked what they had seen there.  As Father Pain's letter anticipated, most of the Acadian migrants returned to Nova Scotia, but others chose to remain on the island, not only at Louisbourg but also at Port-Toulouse, formerly Fort St.-Pierre.  Although the rocky island could never become an agricultural paradise like the settlements along the Fundy, agriculture was possible there, not only grain cultivation but also livestock production; huge stands of timber on the island waited to be exploited; and many island Acadians, as some had done in Nova Scotia, turned to the sea for their living.  They worked not only as fishermen but also as navigators, coasters, and ship builders.  Port-Toulouse was especially well-positioned for the ship-building trade.242 

In 1716, colonial officials conducted a census at Port-Toulouse.  Settlers' names included Étienne Comeau; (Jean-Baptiste?) Corporon, age 39?; François Coste, age 45; Joseph Dugas; Étienne Hébert; the Widow Landry; Antoine, age 54?, Jacques, age 65?, and René LeBlanc, age 59?; Nicolas Petitpas; Jean Pitre, age 36; the Widow Richard; and Étienne Rivet, age 33--all peninsula Acadians who had chosen to resettle on the island; the first-families of Île Royale, one could say.  During the following decades, more Nova Scotia Acadians settled at a dozen other places on Île Royale:  at St.-Esprit, L'Ardoise, La Briquerie, Rivière-aux-Habitants, Pointe-à-La Jeunesse, Baie-des-Espangnols, Baie-de-L'Indienne, Baie-de-Mordienne, Rivière-de-Miré, Anse Darambourg, and on Île Madame, including the islet of Petit Degrat, off the big island's southern coast.  In June 1745, a large force of New Englanders captured Louisbourg, and the French surrendered the rest of Île Royale to the victors.  The British deported most of the population of Louisbourg to France, but some managed to escape and find refuge on Nova Scotia.  The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in April 1748, restored Louisbourg and the Maritime islands to France.  By 1752, Acadians on Île Royale also bore the names Allain, Arceneau, Barrieau, Benjamin, Benoit, Blanchard, Boucher, Boudrot, Bourg, Boutin, Braud, Broussard, Carret, Cousin, Daigre, Doiron, Fougère, Gaudet, Giroir, Guédry, Guérin, Henry, Labauve, Lambert, Langlois, Lapierre, Lavergne, Lejeune, LePrieur dit Dubois, Longuépée, Marchand, Mius, Olivet, Ozelet, Pinet, Poirier, Préjean, RoySamson, Sauvage, Sire, Testard, Thériot, Thibodeau, Trahan, Turpin, Vigneau, and Vincent.  Some of them had come to the island from Chignecto in 1750-51 to escape the growing conflict in that part of Nova Scotia.246  ...

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During the late 1710s, the Compagnie de l'Île St.-Jean, headed by a consortium of investors led by the Comte de Saint-Pierre, created a settlement and fishing station at Havre-St.-Pierre, on the northeast shore of the island, facing the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  The community later was called St.-Pierre-du-Nord, after the parish church that was built there.  The "First inhabitant of the said island," that is, the first permanent European settler, is believed to have been François Douville of St.-Denis-le-Gratz in Normandy.  Douville, like many Normans of his day, may have worked in the cod fishery on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence before the Compagnie de l'Île St.-Jean hired him.  Still a bachelor in his mid-30s, he settled on his first claim at Havre-St.-Pierre in 1719.  Three years later, at age 38, he married Marie, daughter of Gabriel Rogé or Roger of La Rochelle, one of the first merchants at Havre-St.-Pierre.  Marie gave François 11 children.  In 1752, a French official found the couple at Nigeagant, near St.-Pierre-du-Nord.  Living with them were seven of their children, four sons and three daughters, ages 24 to 3.  The census taker addressed François as le sieur and Marie as dame, so the 62-year-old fisherman, navigator, and ploughman, and his 42-year-old wife, who owned 8 oxen, 8 cows, 4 heifers, 8 calves, a horse, 22 ewes, 9 pigs, 4 geese, 50 fowl, and 20 turkeys, were upstanding members of the island's middle class.  The census taker noted that François owned two other parcels of land, at nearby Le Fond des Étangs, which included a flour mill, and at Pointe-du-Havre-St.-Pierre-du-Nord, which had been granted to him in 1736.  François also owned a garden and a beach front for drying cod, which he caught with a fishing bateau and two boats.  Sadly, the census taker also noted that the family had recently suffered "a fire in which they lost all of their effects and their house was burnt." 

Next door to François and Marie lived Le Sieur Louis-Charles, son of Nicolas Talbot and Marguerite Aubry of St.-Georges-de-Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine, born in the parish of St.-Benoist, Paris, who, in November 1739, had married Marie-Françoise, called Françoise, the Douvilles' oldest daughter.  In 1746, Louis-Charles and his family were counted at Québec, but they returned to Île St.-Jean.  Françoise gave Louis-Charles eight children, all born on Île St.-Jean.  The census taker in 1752 called Louis a fisherman and said that he had been "in the country twenty years."  Louis and Françoise owned only a single parcel of land, at Nigeagant, but they owned even more animals than Françoise's parents, and they owned two boats as well. 

François Douville lived to a ripe old age.  He died at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in January 1757, age 72--nearly two years to the day when his widow and children landed at St.-Malo, France, as exiles from their beloved island.  Members of the family were allowed to return to North America, but not to Île St.-Jean; they resettled, instead, on the French-owned islands of Île St.-Pierre and Île Miquelon, off the southern coast of Newfoundland.  One of François's grandsons served as a lieutenant in the Continental Navy during the American Revolution.249

As François Douville and other early settlers proved, Île St.-Jean gave every promise of becoming another agricultural paradise.  Many of the island's inlets and rivers were lined by steep sandstone cliffs, but farther inland, where the cliffs gave way to more gentle shores, the soil generally was rich enough for growing wheat, peas, and fodder, and some of the island's many bays were bordered by extensive coastal marshes, ready for dykes and aboiteaux.  Like Île Royale, this island also was ideal for those who made a living from the sea; in fact, like the island's original settlers, some of the Acadian farmers, especially along the island's north shore, owned their own boats, or a share in a boat, and fished for cod when they were not farming.  And, like on Île Royale, the virgin stands of timber on Île St.-Jean gave promise of a lucrative lumber industry. 

Acadian emigration to Île St.-Jean came a few years after their kinsmen began settling on Île Royale, but it began only a year after the original French settlement appeared on the north shore of the island.  Michel Haché dit Gallant of Chignecto was one of Île-St.-Jean's "first European settlers," and perhaps the first Acadian to go there.  Around 1720, he and his wife, Anne Cormier, built their new home on a red sandstone cliff now called Rocky Point, overlooking a promising harbor.  The settlement they helped establish, Port-Lajoie, often rendered as Port-Lajoye, stood across the channel from today's Charlottetown, the capital of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.  Michel dit Gallant remained on the island and died after falling through the ice at the mouth of Rivière-du-Nord, near Port-Lajoie, in April 1737; he was 74 years old.  Other Haché's came to Île St.-Jean during the next quarter century and settled mostly at Rivière-du-Nord-Est, closer to the north end of the island.243

During the following decades, many more communities appeared on Île St.-Jean, most of them settled by Acadians.  These settlements included Rivière-du-Ouest, Rivière-du-Nord, Rivière du-Nord-Est, Rivière-de-Peugiguit, Rivière-du-Moulin-à-Scie, Anse-au-Compte-St.-Pierre, Anse-au-Matelost, Grande-Anse, Grande-Ascension, Pointe-au-Boulleau, Anse-de-la-Boullotière, Pointe-Prime, Anse-à-Pinet, Havre-la-Fortune, Trois-Rivières, Tranchemontagne, Pointe-de-l'Est, Le Nigeagant, Tracadie, Étang-des-Berges, Malpec or Malpèque, Bedec, La Traverse, Rivière-des-Blonds, Rivière-au-Crapaud, Anse-du-Nord-Ouest, and Anse-au-Sanglier.  During King George's War, Île St.-Jean surrendered to the British in August 1745, two months after the fall of Louisbourg.  A "group of Acadian insurgents from Île St. Jean" joined the force of Canadians, Indians, and Acadians who destroyed a garrison of New Englanders at Grand-Pré in February 1747.  The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored Île St.-Jean to France in April 1748, and migration from Nova Scotia resumed.  Beginning in October 1750, the disruption of Acadian settlements at Chignecto led to a mass migration of settlers from that area to Île St.-Jean; 600 or 700 of them came to the island in October 1750 "in pitiable condition"; during the rest of that year and into 1751, a total of 1,188 Acadians migrated from mainland villages to Île St.-Jean, leading to severe overcrowding in the settlements there.  By 1752, the population of Île St.-Jean stood at 2,200, so approximately half of the Acadians counted on the island that year were recent refugees from the mainland.  Acadians from Nova Scotia who followed the Hachés to the island, both before and after October 1750, bore the names Allain, Apart, Arceneau, Arsement, Aubin, Aucoin, Babin, Barrieau, Belliveau, Bertrand, Beurit, Blanchard, Blanchard dit Gentilhomme, Boisseau, Bonnevie, Bonnière, Boudrot, Bourg, Bourgeois, Brassaud, Brasseur, Braud, Broussard, Bugeaud, Caissie, Carret, Cerié, Chauvel, Chenel, Chênet, Chiasson, Clémenceau, Clément, ComeauCorporon, Daigre, Darois, Deschamps, Deveau, Dingle, Doiron, Doucet, Dugas, Duplessis, Dupuis, Forest, Gaudet, Gautier, Gautrot, Giroir, Granger, Guédry, Guérin, Guillot, Hébert, Henry, Hent, Labauve, Landry, Langlois, Lapierre, LaVache, Lavergne, LeBlanc, Léger, Lejeune, LeJuge, LePrieur dit Dubois, LePrince, Longuépée, Lucas, Martin, Martin dit Barnabé, Mazerolle, Melanson, Michel, Mius, Naquin, Nogues, Nuirat, Olivier, Oudy, Pinet, Pitre, Poirier, Poitevin, Pothier, Prétieux, Quimine, Raymond, Richard, Renaud, Robichaud, Roy, Saulnier, Savary, Savoie, Sellier, Simon, Sire,Thériot, Thibodeau, Tillard, Trahan, Tureaud, Vécot, and Vincent.247

.

New arrivals from France and Canada settled among the itinerant Acadians on the Maritime islands.  The earliest of these new families came in the 1710s, not long after the French established the colony.  They were still coming to the islands on the eve of, and even during, the Grand Dérangement:118 

Jean David dit Saint-Michel, a Canadian, probably not kin to the Canadian Davids who settled at Minas in British Nova Scotia, became a master blacksmith and married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Monmellian dit Saint-Germain, probably at Québec in c1717.  They settled at Louisbourg, Île Royale, where he worked his trade.  Marie-Madeleine gave the blacksmith 13 children, including nine sons, all born between c1718 and c1737, most, if not all of them, at Louisbourg.  Son Étienne-Michel, born at Louisbourg in the early 1720s and a blacksmith like his father, left Île Royale in the early 1740s and married Geneviève, daughter of Michel Hébert, at Grand-Pré, British Nova Scotia, in January 1744. 

Pierre Arbour dit Carrica, native of Bayonne, France, married Susanne Moreau probably in c1721.  They settled at St.-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean, and were among the first Acadians to settle there. Pierre and Susanne had four daughters and at least three sons. 

Laurent, son Jean Neveu and Catherine Cayer of Santon, La Rochelle, France, a widower, married Jeanne, daughter of Pierre Robin of St.-Jean, La Rochelle, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in November 1721.  Laurent and Jeanne settled at Havre de Tracadie on the north shore of the island.  

Louis Closquinet dit Dumoulin, a carpenter, born at Verrier, Reims, France, married Marguerite Longuépée at Louisbourg in c1722.  In c1737, they resettled at Rivière-du-Nord-Est on Île St.-Jean.  They had at least eight children, most, if not all, of them born on Île St.-Jean. 

Charles, fils, son of Charles Fouquet and Claude Duvivier of St.-Jean-de-la-Roise, Avranches, Normandy, France, came to the French Maritimes in c1722.  He married Marie-Judith, daughter of Étienne Poitevin, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, in September 1724.  They settled at St.-Pierre-du-Nord and raised nearly a dozen children. 

Joseph LaForest, later La Forestrie and De La Forestrie, born at Angers, France, reached St.-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean in c1722.  Four years later, he married Marie, daughter of Guyon Chiasson dit La Vallée of Chignecto and widow of Jean Pothier.  They had three sons, all born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord.  Two of the sons married, but only one of them seems to have fathered a son of his own. 

Robert, son of Gilles Heusé or Huezé and Jeanne Rose of Presde, Dole, France, came to the French Maritimes by February 1724, when he married Françoise, daughter of Pierre Gatinant of St.-Nicolas, La Rochelle, France, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean.

In 1724, Jean dit Arnaud, son of Pierre Renaud and Marie-Madeleine Gainné of Rochefort, France, came to Île St.-Jean, where he married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean Pothier, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in October 1733.  Jean dit Arnaud and Marie-Madeleine settled at Havre au Sauvage and, from 1734 to 1758, she gave him at least 10 children.

René, son of Jean Rassicot and Marguerite Crosnier of St.-Jean-Ursin, bishopric of Coutances, France, reached Île St.-Jean in the late 1720s.  He married Marie, daughter of Michel Haché dit Gallant and Anne Cormier of Chignecto and widow of François Poirier, at Port-Lajoie on the island in October 1729.  Marie gave René six children, five of them sons, at least two of whom created families of their own. 

Brothers Michel and Pierre, sons of Jean Grossin and Pérrine Pétain of Carolles, Avranches, France, came to Île St.-Jean and settled at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in the late 1720s.  Michel married Marie, daughter of Jean Caissie, probably at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in c1730.  Pierre married Cécile, daughter of another Jean Caissie, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in July 1733.  Both brothers raised large families, including five sons each. 

Christophe Delaune, born at Periers, Avranches, Normandy, France, probably no kin to Jean Delaunay of Brittany, came to the Maritimes in c1729.  He settled at Havre-la-Fortune on Île St.-Jean, where he married Marguerite Caissie of Chignecto in c1738.  They had seven sons and three daughters, all born on the island.

Charles Lacroix dit Durel, son of Pierre Lacroix and Jeanne Deville of St.-Denis-Le-Gast, Coutances, France, married Judith, daughter of Gabriel Chiasson of Chignecto, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean in September 1730.  Judith gave him a son and five daughters, all born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord.  Charles's descendants used his dit, Durel, as their surname. 

Brothers Louis and Julien DesRoches of Avranches, Normandy, settled at Malpèque on Île St.-Jean.  They probably were not kin to the other DesRochess in the region.  Louis married Marguerite, daughter of Pierre Arseneau, probably at Malpèque in c1731.  They had at least eight children, including three sons, all born probably on Île St.-Jean:  Eustache in c1736, Alexandre in c1740; and Joseph in c1743.  Julien married another Arseneau, Marie, daughter of Jacques, probably at Malpèque in c1743. They had at least six children, born probably at Malpèque:  Julien, fils in c1745, Félix in c1747, Joseph in c1750, Jean in c1754, Basile in c1755, and Mathurin in c1756.

Jean Hamon or Hémond, born probably in France, married Marie Blanchard and settled probably on Île St.-Jean.  They had at least three sons, born probably on the island, the first one in c1732.

Émilien dit Sans-Chagrin, son of Dominique Ségoillot of St.-Pierre, Autun, Bourgogne, France, and Marie Boulet (one authority says Étiennette Ducharme), served in the Louisbourg garrison as a senior sergeant in the Troupes de la Marine beginning in the early 1730s.  Probably after he retired from the King's service, he moved to Île St.-Jean and married Élisabeth-Blanche, daughter of François LaVache and Anne-Marie Vincent, at Port-Lajoie in September 1752.  Later that year, a French official counted them at Grande-Anse on the island.  Élisabeth-Blanche gave Émilien dit Sans-Chagrin a son, François-Dominique, born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in July 1753.  The old sergeant remarried to Marguerite, daughter of Jacques Naquin of Cobeguit, at Port-Lajoie in September 1755.  Marguerite gave him a daughter, Marie, born probably at Port-Lajoie in c1756.

Jean, son of Eustache Delaunay, also Delaunois, born at St.-Ca or La Casse, St.-Brieuc, Brittany, France, probably no kin to Christophe Delaune of Normandy, married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Pierre Arseneau, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, in May 1735.  Marie-Madeleine's family was from Malpèque, also on Île St.-Jean.  Jean and Marie-Madeleine had 10 children, four sons and six daughters, all born on the island.

Jean, son of Oliver Hamon and Françoise Pireau, of Reintembault, near Dol, France, probably not kin to Jean Hamon of Île St.-Jean, emigrated to Louisbourg, Île Royale, by January 1736, when he married Marie, daughter of Joannis Daguerre, at Louisbourg.  Jean may have been a soldier stationed in the garrison.  He and Françoise had at least six children at Louisbourg, including three sons.

Jean-Baptiste dit Ladouceur, son of François Massier, later De La Mazière, and Marguerite Lemoine of Véraise, bishopric of Saintes, France, was a soldier in the détachement de la marine when he came to the Maritime colony.   He married Marie, daughter of François Poirier of Chignecto, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in February 1737.  Marie gave the soldier at least five children, including two sons, all born on Île St.-Jean. 

Pierre Livois, born at Drago or Drayé, Normandy, France, came to the French Maritimes in c1740.  He married Anne, daughter of Denis Boudrot, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in May 1751.  They had a single child, daughter Marie-Anne, born at Port-Lajoie in March 1752.  Pierre remarried to Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Michel Poirier, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, in January 1753.  Marie-Madeleine gave him three more children, a son and two more daughters, all born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord:. 

Louis dit Langevin, son of René Valet or Vallée and Marie Jouis of St.-Pierre, bishopric of Angers, France, was a soldier in la compagnie de Dangeac when he married Marie-Brigitte, called Brigitte, daughter of Noël Pinet, at Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, in October 1740.  Brigitte gave the soldier six children, one of them a son. 

Guillaume, son of Louis Patry and Mathurine Mahez of St.-Cloud, St.-Malo, France, born at Thiou, married Françoise, daughter of Gabriel Chiasson and widow of Guillaume Gallet, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean in October 1741. Guillaume and Françoise gave Guillaume four children, two sons and two daughters, including a set of twins, all born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord.  Guillaume remarried in France. 

Pierre Darembourg, born probably in France, married Marie, daughter of Louis Mazerolle of Port-Royal, and settled St.-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean, where Pierre died in May 1742.  They had at least four children, all born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord. 

Louis Dantin dit La Joye, born in Paris, married Marguerite, 25-year-old daughter of Marc LaSonde or LaSoude, in c1741 and settled at Port-Toulouse on Île Royale, where Marguerite was born and where her father had held land for many years.  Louis and Marguerite had at least 10 children, all born probably at Port-Toulouse.  In 1752, a French official counted Louis, Marguerite, and five of their children there.  Between 1752 and 1758, five more children were born to them.

François, son of Mathurin Legendre and Marie Morel of Maillard (some sources say St.-Malo), France, came to Louisbourg perhaps in the 1740s and worked as a pécheur en chaloupe, or fisherman, there.  He married Marguerite, daughter of Antoine Labauve of Grand-Pré, at Louisbourg in April 1750.  They settled at Saint-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean by 1751 and had at least three children there, including a son.

Louis Latier, or Lasté, married Anne, daughter of Étienne Trahan and widow of Jean-Baptiste Benoit, at Louisbourg, Île Royale, in c1751.  An historian of the Acadians notes:  "Louis Latier seems to have been part of the military at Fort Louisbourg ...." 

André Templé, a Norman sailor, born at Menibeaux, Avranches, France, settled at Port-Toulouse, now St. Peter's, on Île Royale, probably in the late 1740s.  In c1751, he married Marie, daughter of Pierre Devaux of Chignecto, probably at Port-Toulouse.  They had at least four children, two sons and two daughters, all born at Port-Toulouse.  André remarried to Marguerite, daughter of probably François LeBlanc of Minas and widow of Charles Breau, in France, and she gave him 13 more children, including 11 more sons. 

Claude-Joseph, called Joseph, son of Jean-Claude Billeray and Anne-Monique Godard, born at Vermier-Fontaine, Diocese of Besancon, France, married Brigitte, daughter of Michel de Forest, fils, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in June 1752.  Joseph and Brigitte had at least two children at Port-Lajoie, a daughter and a son.

Pierre, fils, son of Pierre Neveu and Jeanne Tarando of St.-Pierre-de-Sales, Bordeaux, France, probably not kin to Laurent of La Rochelle, came to Louisbourg by November 1753, when he married Catherine, daughter of Jean Vinette of Rochefort, France, at the French fortress.  They had at least one child, Catherine, born at Louisbourg in 1754. 

Yves, son of Guillaume Crochet and Julienne Durand, born at Megrit, Brittany, France, perhaps was a soldier or a sailor when he settled at Louisbourg in the 1750s.  In February 1758, he married Pélagie, daughter of Acadians Claude Benoit and Élisabeth Thériot of Pigiguit, at Louisbourg.  Not long after their marriage, the British deported them to France. 

The "French Neutrals"

The treaty signed at Utrecht in 1713 decreed that the French inhabitants of Nova Scotia who "are willing to remain there and to be subject to the Kingdom of Great Britain, are to enjoy the free exercise of their religion according to the usage of the Church of Rome, as far as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same."  If any of them chose to leave the colony and forgo British rule, the treaty gave them a year to do it.218  

At first, many Acadians gave serious thought to abandoning the colony and moving to Canada or some other French possession.  In 1714, the King's lieutenant of the new French colony of Île Royale, Joseph de Monbeton de Brouillan dit Saint-Ovide, sent two French officers, Louis Denys de La Ronde and Jacques d'Espiet de Pensens, to Nova Scotia to solicit Acadians for Île Royale.  During the following months, 139 family heads at Minas and 17 at Cobeguit succumbed to de La Ronde's eloquence and signed on to the venture.  "But," being Acadians, "they were canny enough to send a few of their number to Cape Breton to look things over.  This group was not impressed:  the main body did not move and then it was ruled that the time for allowing them to do what probably very few of them wanted to do had elapsed."  The British, meanwhile, had contemplated a policy of deportation to rid the province of these troublesome Frenchmen, but, as their response to Saint-Ovide's efforts reveal, they rejected that radical measure.  Sensing this, most Acadians decided to remain, for several compelling reasons.218a  

First was the confusion created in North America by the Peace of Utrecht.  The treaty also said that "all of Nova Scotia or Acadia comprised in its ancient limits, as also the city of Port Royal" now belonged to the victorious British.  A provision of the treaty empowered commissioners from Britain and France to determine the exact boundaries between the two nations in the region around the Bay of Fundy.  The commissioners argued for months over what exactly were the "ancient limits" of Acadia.  Did the old French colony include not only peninsula Nova Scotia but also Maine, the valley of the Rivière St.-Jean, Île St.-Jean, Cape Breton Island, and Newfoundland as well?  Such was the view of the British commissioners.  The French commissioners saw things differently.  They conceded to the British only Newfoundland and the peninsula of Nova Scotia; the rest of old Acadia--the region east of the Kennebec in Maine, including the Ste.-Croix and St.-Jean valleys, and all of the Maritime islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Île St.-Jean and Cape Breton Island--still belonged to France.  In the end, nothing was settled, and for the next half century the boundaries remained a bone of contention between the two powers.  Kept informed of this dispute by their parish priests, the inhabitants of Chignecto and the trois-rivières insisted that they still resided in French territory.  The inhabitants of the Minas Basin were confident that, although they clearly resided in territory awarded to the British, their new masters in Annapolis Royal would be able to control them no more effectively than the French officials had done from Port-Royal.  Moreover, who could say that the British would remain in "control" of the peninsula?  They had "ruled" it before and given it back.  Why would this time be different?219

There was also a strong psychological reason for Acadians to remain in British Nova Scotia:  despite the lure of French Canada and the kinsmen who had gone there, as well as incentives for them to resettle in the new French colony of Île Royale, Acadians still viewed their Fundy settlements as the heart and soul of their identity as a people.  Their roots were deep there.  By 1713, some families had lived in the colony for nearly three-quarters of a century.  The pioneers of Beaubassin had farmed the Chignecto peninsula for over 40 years. The inhabitants at Minas had been transforming that incomparable basin into an agricultural paradise for three decades now, time enough to see their children produce children of their own.  They had expended so much time and energy wresting their pastures and fields from the bay and its tributaries, why would they want to abandon their lands simply because of a temporary change of masters?  Queen Anne, in her final days, had given them incentive to stay.  In late 1713, Louis XIV, in a rare fit of compassion, had "emptied France's prisons of all Protestants jailed because of their religious beliefs.  Queen Anne was so moved that she felt compelled to reciprocate, and she wrote her new governor in Nova Scotia 'to continue our subjects, to retain and enjoy their said lands and tenements without molestation, as fully and freely as our other subjects do or to sell the same, if they shall rather choose to remove elsewhere'"--a clear rejection of deportation.  A few families sold their land to fellow Acadians or even foreigners and abandoned the colony, but most of them remained.  They would take their chances with the British, come what may, as their ancestors had done before.220

There was a price to pay for staying, however.  After the year of decision was up, the treaty authorized the British authorities in Annapolis Royal to impose on the remaining habitants an oath of allegiance to the new British monarch, George I, who had succeeded his cousin Anne upon her death in 1714.  In their attempts to compel the Acadians to take this oath, British officials learned first hand how stubborn these putative Frenchmen could be.  Refusing to take up arms against their fellow Frenchmen, the Acadians resisted taking an unconditional oath of allegiance to the British crown, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with their foreign overlords.  This game went on for over four decades and was played skillfully by these simple farmers, until history once again came crashing down on them.221

At first the mouse had certain advantages over the cat.  For nearly four decades after the fall of Port-Royal, the only British presence of any consequence in Nova Scotia were two small garrisons at Annapolis Royal and on Great Canso Island on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.  Sustaining these garrisons with annual resupplies from Britain or even New England would be expensive and inefficient.  Even more onerous would be the trouble and expense of resettling Nova Scotia with British Protestants, even New Englanders.  And where would the Acadians go if they were compelled to leave the colony?  Many likely would move to Canada, but most of them probably would resettle on Île Royale, thus strengthening the French presence in the region.  If the Acadians remained in Nova Scotia, they could serve as "a settled farming population to supply the garrison" at Annapolis Royal.  And so they did.222 

It did not take the Acadians long to see that Britain was neglecting its Nova Scotia colony as much as France and New France had eschewed Acadia in their day.  From the beginning, British governance at Annapolis Royal was riddled with confusion and corruption.  Port-Royal's conqueror, Francis Nicholson, was formally named governor of Nova Scotia and Placentia in Newfoundland in October 1712 and also appointed royal commissioner to audit the accounts of the failed Walker expedition against Québec.  Typically, Nicholson performed these duties in Boston, while Samuel Vetch served at Annapolis Royal.  Meanwhile, military engineer George Vane, who had been serving at Annapolis since 1711, accused Vetch of extorting money from the inhabitants and treating them "more like slaves then[sic] anything else."  Nicholson supported Vane, turned on Vetch, and accused him of "maladministration."  Vetch evaded charges by fleeing to Britain in April 1714, leaving behind his wife and two children.  British authorities named Major Thomas Caulfeild, who also had been serving at Annapolis since 1711, to replace the ousted Vetch.  Again, Nicholson remained at Boston, and Caulfield served at Annapolis.  Nicholson was at Annapolis from August to October 1714 to oversee Acadian resettlement on Île Royale, but then he was summoned to London to answer charges laid against him by Caulfeild and Vetch.  George I had only recently ascended to the throne of Great Britain and appointed a Whig ministry.  This was unfortunate for Nicholson, who was a noted Tory.  The Whigs replaced him with Samuel Vetch in January 1715.  Vetch, who was never popular with the Acadians, was governor of Nova Scotia, in absentia, until 1717.  Again, Thomas Caulfeild served at Annapolis, and it was he who dealt with the Acadians on a regular basis.  In August 1717, Richard Phillips, colonel of the 40th Regiment, succeeded Vetch as governor of Nova Scotia, but, during the 32 years that Phillips held the post, he spent most of his time in England.  A series of lieutenant governors, "sometimes without the title and usually without the emoluments of office, sometimes two at once (at Canso and Annapolis Royal), sometimes overlapping in terms of appointment, and sometimes without command of the troops with whose presence, weak although they invariably were in numbers and morale, the actual power lay"--John Doucett from 1717 to 1725, Lawrence Armstrong from 1725 to 1739, Alexander Cosby in 1739 and 1740, and Paul Mascarene from 1740 to 1749--acted for Phillips, who spent no more than five years in the colony.222d

The confusion extended to participation in colonial governance.  The British created for Nova Scotia a colonial council, to sit at Annapolis, "for which the governor when in residence, the lieutenant-governor, or the senior councillor present (in the absence of either of the above) served as president.  This body, as well as it could, exercised not only the executive but the judicial and ... "de facto legislative powers of the province."  Unlike its sister colonies to the south, Nova Scotia was not given a legislative assembly.  The reason was simple--the great majority of the population were French, not English, and, more importantly, their religion "barred the inhabitants from assuming any of the duties upon which the design of government, to be modeled after Virginia, was based.  The Test and Corporation Acts forbade their taking oaths allowing them to vote for, or serve in, the required elective assembly."  As in Virginia and the other British colonies, Roman Catholics were barred from voting and thus serving in any elective or appointed capacity.  "Excepting Celtic Britain and, possibly, the beginnings of New York and Jamaica overseas, this was the first attempt of a British government to rule a large number of alien people."222e 

This form of governance certainly was novel for the British, but the Acadians had grown accustomed to it during the decades of French rule.  They had no assembly then; after 1670, Acadian governors answered to the governors-general and royal intendants in Québec, and Canada's Supreme/Superior Council had no equivalent in Acadia, which the French looked upon as a civil as well as a commercial backwater.  Nor was French Acadia given anything like the Superior Council that the new proprietary government for Louisiana had recently created.  As a result, the Acadians had more or less "governed" themselves, looking to their elders and especially their priests in everyday matters before appealing to the colony's chief judicial officer--the King's lieutenant général civil et criminel--or even the governor himself, if a matter could not be resolved locally.  Under British rule, the Acadians did what they had always done, but this time they appealed unresolved local issues to "a largely military council [composed of British officers and officials which] had to meet on call in a civil judiciary capacity to decide matters of meum and tuum ... usually brought to them by deputies who were elected, or otherwise chosen, to represent each district."  This "quasi-representative system" was created informally in 1710 by Captain Paul Mascarene, formalized by 1714, and continued even after the British moved the colonial administration to Halifax in 1749.  By that time, "the system had become formalized and elaborated:  according to Mascarene, eight deputies were chosen from eight districts on the Annapolis River and Basin and sixteen others from the outlying districts around Minas and Chignecto."  These deputies were generally appointed at first, and so the inhabitants viewed them as simply another arm of the colonial government.  To compel the Acadians to take their own deputies and, with them, the colonial government, more seriously, in 1730, Phillips's lieutenant governor, Lawrence Armstrong, insisted that all of them be elected.  By the late 1730s, on the local level, "in theory at least, there was also in each district a messenger called a constable and a notary, who acted as a recorder of legal documents and receiver of quitrents.  At Canso, justices of the peace were appointed from the garrison soldiers or the three or four settlers wintering there."222f 

In 1748, Massachusetts Governor William Shirley sent one of his militia officers, Captain Charles Morris, "to survey land in the Bay of Fundy area for English settlement."  Morris's report included a description of the Acadians' "quasi-representative system" as seen through the eyes of a disdainful New Englander:  "Indeed they have some officers of Publick capacity call'd Deputys, but they have no Power Committed to them being only servants to the People, they are annually chosen by the several Districts ....  The use of these Deputys is to call the District together, to Publish Proclamations and orders to receive the minds of thee People and to transmit their results to the Govr and Councill....  Besides the Deputy they have a Register or Clark in each District ... to record orders of Government, Deeds and Conveyances and to keep the Publick papers, besides these I know of no other Civil Officer among them....'"222g

An element of political life in British Nova Scotia involving another kind of "Civil Officer" greatly troubled the Protestant overlords sitting at Annapolis Royal.  Captain Morris' prejudice against the Acadians was especially discernible when describing the role of Canadian missionaries in Acadian life.  Morris "thought the priest's judgment ('Sentence') '... generally Definitive, for if the offending Party comply's not he excommunicates them which to a People so Superstitious is very terrible ....'"  British and New English prejudice against the "Superstitions" of Roman Catholicism blinded these devout Protestants to the true nature of Acadian anti-clericalism, but perception was more compelling than truth.  Although the Treaty of Utrecht guaranteed the free exercise of their religion according to the usage of the Church of Rome, as far as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same," the British viewed their Acadian subjects as simple-minded people who were pawns in the hands of troublesome French clerics.  These priests, no more than five of them at any one time, and sometimes only three or four, answered not to British authority at Port-Royal but to the Bishop of Québec or to ecclesiastical superiors residing at Louisbourg.  British officials at Annapolis Royal "were confident, with reason, that the missionaries were not always careful to distinguish between inculcating loyalty to the Roman Catholic faith and to His Most Christian Majesty in France."  This mindset, communicated to the ministers in London, led to orders that all missionaries in Acadia be approved, if not selected, by Annapolis authority "and that their location and movements should be closely regulated by British orders."  Lieutenant governors on numerous occasions attempted to expel troublesome priests--Father Félix Pain of Grand-Pré among them--but the pastors generally ignored the expulsion order and went about their business.  Sometimes they appeared before the colonial council to endure a verbal reprimand, and only rarely did any of them spend some time in the dilapidated prison inside Fort Anne.  "Perhaps the greatest pressure came from refusal to allow new churches to be built or old ones to be repaired.  Yet somehow the churches got built and the government did not risk having them torn down."222h

To be sure, the missionaries performed a substantive role in Acadian communities, but they, too, had to contend with Acadian reluctance to submit to distant authority.  Geographer/historian Andrew Hill Clark explains:  "The chief civil function performed by the priests, and one which profoundly irritated the governors, was the settlement of a host of minor civil differences between their parishioners.  Presumably their ukase was usually accepted gracefully; when it was not and the priests resorted to ecclesiastical penalties the reaction sometimes reached Annapolis.  Certainly the Acadians who felt put upon were not above appealing to Annapolis from the discipline of the church.  [Lieutenant] Governor Mascarene wrote menacing letters to Abbé Desenclaves, one of the missionaries, because he refused absolution to some individuals who did not wish to make some retributions he had ordered them to do.  But since there was almost no workable alternative to the clergy acting as substitute minor civil magistrates, it is clear that they continued to do so.  The criteria they applied in their judgments came from the only bodies of law they knew, those of the church and the ancient coûtumes of France, which often differed sharply from the precedents of English common law."222i

British and New English prejudice against all things French and papist resulted in two attempts to eliminate these influences among the Acadian population.  One proved to be an utter failure, the other an annoying accommodation.  Authorities in London, Boston, and Annapolis Royal failed miserably in their repeated attempts to convert the Acadians to Protestantism.  Also an utter failure were efforts "to bring in substantial numbers of Protestants to be settled among them to dilute their faith and allegiance...."  Not even the creation of a British enclave at Halifax at mid-century, on the Atlantic side of the peninsula, achieved this grand ambition, much to the detriment of the Acadians.222j  

The other attempt was less draconian but hardly more successful:  the administering to the Acadians of an oath of allegiance to the present British monarch.  Oaths of allegiance were "nothing out of the ordinary for the subjects of either France or England.  It was also a common enough procedure both in New France and in Britain's North American colonies.  Admittedly, in the latter, the issue was a little more complex.  Since there was considerable variation of belief among the various settlements--in principle Virginia was Anglican, Massachusetts was founded to foster a particular form of Protestant belief, and Pennsylvania was committed to allowing all variations of Protestant doctrine--the linking of an oath of allegiance and oaths involving a more specific religious creed was to be avoided.  But, that said, oaths of allegiance on the transference of a colony from one empire to another was an accepted practice of international law, in North America and Europe alike."  This meant little to the typical Acadian, whose actions were dictated by his own peculiar circumstance, not by imperial custom, international law, or his relationship, cultural or political, to the imperial powers who proposed to rule him.  Historian Naomi Griffiths insists:  "A distinct Acadian identity was unimaginable to those, whether British or French," who attempted to rule these people.  As a result, both the British and the French failed to grasp the nuances of Acadian identity, including an evolving Acadian sense of "neutrality" in the struggle between the imperial powers.  An integral but as yet unarticulated part of their collective identity by time Port-Royal fell to the British, Acadian neutrality was based on "the belief, which had developed from the days of first settlement and particularly between 1670 and 1710, that they were the rightful inhabitants of the land on which they lived, not just negotiable assets to be moved about as pawns for the purposes of a distant empire."  This unarticulated perception, after 1713, evolved into a policy of Acadian neutrality, "something that was never fully accepted as a reality by either British or French."222l

As to an unqualified oath to a distant British monarch, in 1713 and 1714, following the dictates of the Treaty of Utrecht, Acadian attention was focused more on the decision to remain on their traditional lands or to move on to Île Royale, where their fellow Frenchmen promised them new lands.  After 1714, when deputies stood before the council at Annapolis representing the majority of Acadians who remained in Nova Scotia, "any request from the British officials was transmitted to the generality of the inhabitants through men who had been approved by the British; of these, some had also been selected by the British, but most were chosen by their villages.  Thus, when the question of an oath of allegiance arose" after 1714, "it became a subject of debate between the Acadians and the British, rather than a matter of immediate compliance.  All the responses that the Acadians gave reaffirmed their conviction that they had a group existence and the right to debate the political conditions of their lives.  Indeed, the very fact that they were represented by deputies meant that their response to the demand for the oath was more than the expression of the opinions of a number of separate individuals; it was an expression of group opinion.  And the oath of allegiance demanded of the Acadians was at the centre of their political relationship with the British."  The oath, in fact, took center stage in the struggle to maintain their sense of "neutrality."222k 

After taking Port-Royal in 1710, Colonel Nicholson had forced an oath to Queen Anne upon the residents of the Port-Royal banlieue, and the Acadians took it without protest.  When word reached Nova Scotia of Queen Anne's death, another oath was demanded of the residents of Annapolis Royal in the winter of 1714, this time to the new monarch, George I.  In January 1715, instructions containing the text of an oath to George I, to be administered by Lieutenant Governor Caulfeild to all the inhabitants of Nova Scotia, was sent to the colony.  It read:  "We the french inhabitants whose names are underwritten now dwelling in Annapolis Royal and the adjacent parts of Nova Scotia or Lacadie formerly subjects to the late french King who by the peace concluded att Utrecht did by articles therein deliver up the whole country of Nova Scotia and Lacadie to the late Queen of Great Britain, wee doe hereby for the aforesaid reason and for the protection of us and our Familys that shall reside in Annapolis Royall or the adjacent parts of Nova Scotia or Lacadie, now in the possession of his most sacred Majesty George, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, and doe declare that we acknowledge him to be the Sole king of the said country and of Nova Scotia and Lacadie and all the islands depending thereon and we likewise doe declare and most solemnly swear before God to own him as our Sovereign King and to obey him as his true and Lawfull subjects in Witness whereof we set our hands...."   The Acadian response probably surprised the lieutenant governor:  they created conditional oaths of their own!  In these oaths, they acknowledged George I as their sovereign, but they included such qualifications as "as long as I stay in Acadie or Nova Scotia and it is permitted that I shall go there where I judge proper with all my moveable goods and effects when I judge it right without being hindered by anyone."  The Acadian at Minas included a similar qualification, adding that "while we remain here, in Acadia, to do nothing against His British Majesty King George."  During the next few years, whenever the official oath was pressed on them, the Acadians responded with similar conditions, refusing to take an unqualified oath to a King who soon might no longer be their sovereign.  By 1720, the qualification included not only the possibility of emigration to French territory--"we promise you we shall be equally as faithful as we have hitherto been and that we shall not commit any act of hostility against any right of his Britannic Majesty, so long as we shall continue to remain within the limits of his dominions"--but also a stipulation about taking up arms--"they will Oblige themselves to be good subjects in every respect excepting that of taking up arms against the King of France."  Following a war with the Wabanaki Confederacy during the early 1720s that included a failed attack by the Indians on the fort at Annapolis Royal, the new lieutenant governor, Lawrence Armstrong, called local deputies to a council meeting in September 1726 and asked them to retake the oath of allegiance, which he himself had fashioned.  The Acadians after hearing the oath read in French, "requested that a clause be inserted into it 'whereby they might not be Obliged to Carry Arms.'  Armstrong responded by saying that 'they had no Reason to fear Any Such thing as yt it being Contrary to the Laws of Great Britain yt a Roman Catholic Should Serve in the Army.'"  Nevertheless, Armstrong reluctantly "'Granted the same'--the right not to bear arms 'to be writt upon ye Margent of the french Translation in order to gett them over by Degrees.'"  After receiving word of the death of George I in 1727, Armstrong took advantage of a new king's elevation by sending Ensign Robert Wroth to the Fundy settlements to secure new oaths from the habitants there.  In his report to the council in November, the ensign acknowledge that he had "succeeded by giving the following written assurances:  that they would have the free exercise of their religion and missionaries to instruct them in the beliefs of Roman Catholicism; that they would never be required to bear arms under any circumstances; that their rights and those of their heirs to their lands were recognized; and that they were at liberty to leave the province as and when they wished."  The council was not pleased with so many concessions to the habitants and declared the oaths null and void.  The council soon relented, but Armstrong was determined to punish the Acadians for their insolence.  He denied them permission to trade with English merchants for their grain.  In November 1729, Governor Phillips made a rare appearance in the colony.  After hearing the Acadian's many complaints about Armstrong's heavy-handedness, Phillips made a verbal agreement with them that the oath they had taken before Armstrong three years before would exempt them from bearing arms in any future conflict.222m  

Here was a policy of neutrality that most Acadians could cling to.  But it was a policy that had its drawbacks, as well as its terrors.  Andrew Hill Clark reminds us:  "The Acadians continued to live on their ancestral lands for the next four decades without any resolution of the vexing questions of their right to the lands they farmed or their duties to their new sovereign and his representatives.  There was no lack of pronouncements, ordinances, warnings, and exhortations, but until mid-century either the will or the means (or both) were of insufficient strength to enforce the political anglicization of the population."  And what of the annoyance of playing the scapegoat?  During the decades under British rule, many of the forays conducted by the Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia "were often charged to the Acadians' account.  And should the Acadians have decided to sacrifice their friendship for the Indians to their fear of British accusations they ran, themselves, the risk of becoming victims of the 'hit and run' raids which the Micmac, despite their limited population, could manage so successfully, easily foiling retributive pursuit by dispersing in the forested, lake-strewn interior wilderness."222c 

Just as dangerous was an element among the Acadians themselves, always a minority of the population but troubling nonetheless--habitants who refused even the pretense of neutrality.  "That there was widespread sympathy and even passive support for the French among many of the Acadians is unquestioned," Andrew Hill Clark tells us.  "[U]nderstandably this was greater in Minas than Annapolis, stronger in Pisiquid and Cobiquid than at Grand Pré, and most evident in the Chignecto settlements.  Indeed the principal support for the authorities in Canada and Cape Breton (and through them for France) lay in the Chignecto region--the Acadian fringe and the doorway to Quebec and Cape Breton Island."  The Acadians most supportive of the French lived in the trois-rivière settlements.  When Samuel Vetch attempted to overawe the residents of the haute rivière in early 1711, one of the habitants he ordered arrested and jailed was 58-year-old François Broussard, married to a daughter of former soldier Michel Richard dit Sansousy and the father of a large family.  Two of Broussard's sons, Alexandre and Joseph, both called Beausoleil, were 12 and 9, respectively, at the time of their father's imprisonment.  Alexandre married a granddaughter of Pierre Thibodeau at Annapolis Royal in February 1724, and Joseph married his brother's wife's sister in September 1725.  The younger brother, Joseph, was a natural-born leader and not a man to cross.  In 1723, he was brought before the council at Annapolis, charged first with consorting with local Mi'kmaq, which the British considered a criminal offense.  Found guilty, he spent time in the same dungeon that had held his father a dozen years before.  A few months after his marriage, Joseph faced charges of assaulting a fellow colonist, but unusual circumstances at Annapolis led to the charge's dismissal.  A year after his marriage, Joseph again was hauled before the Annapolis council and charged, this time, with fathering the illegitimate granddaughter of Marie Daigre and refusing to provide for the child's care.  Again, he spent time in custody while details of the matter were being worked out.  Joseph's standing in the community now ruined, he and Alexandre took their families to Chepoudy, which their wives' grandfather had founded two dozen years before.  After quarreling with their neighbors over land claims, the Broussards moved on to the upper Petitcoudiac, where they founded Village-des-Beausoleil, near present-day Moncton, by 1740--a quiet refuge from British authority in Nova Scotia.  The Broussards and many of their neighbors in the trois-rivières area would have nothing to do with neutrality.  They lived in a region claimed by both imperial powers, and no British official would have the temerity even to offer an oath of allegiance to them.  If--more likely, when--another war broke out between Britain and France, there was no question that they would become a part of it, not as neutrals but as fighters.222n 

The Acadians' choices were not happy ones during the unending struggle between the imperial rivals and their Indian allies.  The three-decade-long peace before the early 1740s was, in truth, a hit and miss affair.  Although conflict did not burst directly upon them during that usually quiet time, sometimes it came uncomfortably close.  And it usually involved their oldest neighbors, the Mi'kmaq and their fellow Wabanaki.  

Father Râle's War and the Acadians, 1718-25

The European diplomats who negotiated and signed the treaties at Utrecht in 1713 ignored an important player in the rivalry for North America.  No representative of the Wabanaki Confederacy was invited to take part in the treaty negotiations, nor did any of the imperial officials take it upon themselves to give Native wishes much heed.  Representatives of the Confederacy did sign the Treaty of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with Massachusetts and New Hampshire representatives in 1713, but, again, no definitive boundaries were set, at least none acknowledged by the signers.  The Confederacy chiefs at Portsmouth insisted that they, not the French, and certainly not the British, owned Lnue'gati--that is, greater Acadia.  European refusal, on both sides of the Atlantic, to acknowledge ancient Indian claims in the region served only to sour relationships between the Confederacy and New England. 

With the coming of peace, New Englanders in Maine pushed their trading posts and resulting settlements into the disputed area between the Kennebec and the Penobscot.  The French responded by fortifying their Catholic missions at major Confederation villages in the disputed territory--at Nanrantsouak, today's Norridgewock, on the Kennebec, the major eastern Abenaki village; at Indian Island on the lower Penobscot, where the Penobscot lived; and at the Maliseet village of Meductic on Rivière St.-Jean, above the Acadian settlements. 

By the 1710s, the French had established a fourth Wabanaki mission in the region, this one in British Nova Scotia--Ste.-Anne's for the Mi'kmaq on Rivière Chibenacadie, more commonly called Shubenacadie.  Ste.-Anne's lay south of the Acadian settlement of Cobeguit, athwart "a major route from the Atlantic coast to the Bay of Fundy."  From Shubenacadie, Mi'kmaq warriors could strike new British outposts in peninsula Nova Scotia wherever they appeared.  In May 1715, Englishman Cyprian Southack had established a settlement on the southeast end of the peninsula at what he called Cape Roseway, today's Shelbourne, Nova Scotia, near the former Acadian settlement of Port-Razoir.  The few Acadians who had lived on the little harbor had abandoned the site after enduring privateer raids in 1705 and 1708, during Queen Anne's War.  Southack hoped to establish a permanent fishing station at Cape Roseway, but in July, Mi'kmaq, probably from Shubenacadie, burned him out.  Southack was determined to avenge the destruction of his fishing station.  When he acquired the wherewithal to do it, he chose a place that he had successfully attacked a quarter of a century before, during the early months of King Williams' War.222a 

On 17 September 1718, in what is considered to be the opening action of a new frontier war, Southack, aboard the HMS. Squirrel, attacked the settlement at Chédabouctou, on the northeast side of the peninsula, in what is called the Squirrel Affair.  Most of the 300 fishermen who lived at Chédabouctou were Acadians, and it was they who manned the fort protecting the harbor, Fort St.-Louis, which Southak had reduced so many years before.  On September 18, British marines landed at nearby Lasconde's Grave and sealed the entrance to the harbor.  Southack besieged the fort for three days, taking aboard the Squirrel Acadians in the area who had not taken refuge inside the fort.  He executed some and imprisoned others, so his goal was to destroy this Acadian settlement as thoroughly as the Mi'kmaq had destroyed his fishing station down the coast three years before.  On September 19, British troops from the Squirrel landed at nearby Salmon River and worked their way around to the rear of Chédabouctou village.  Meanwhile, the Squirrel attempted to enter the harbor but was driven back by cannon fire from the fort.  The redcoats captured the village later in the day, cutting the Acadians' escape route.  On the following day, the Squirrel managed to force its way into the harbor and battered the walls of Fort St.-Louis with its cannon.  On September 23, Southack pillaged and burned the village, loading his plunder onto several Acadian vessels he had captured in the harbor.  But the Englishman was not done with the hapless Acadians.  He transported his prisoners to the Canso islands and left them stranded there without food or extra clothing.  The survivors made their way to Île Madame and Petit Degrat, off the southern coast of Île Royale.222b 

Southack encouraged Nova Scotia's new governor, Richard Phillips, to fortify Canso.  In August 1720, in retaliation for the raid on Chédabouctou, a force of 50 to 73 Mi'kmaq, probably from Shubenacadie, with French and Acadian fishermen from Petit Degrat, attacked the British fort at Canso while it was still being built by Phillips's New Englanders.  But the cycle of conflict did not end there. 

At Norridgewock in present-day Maine, the priest assigned to the eastern Abenaki was Jesuit Father Sébastien Râle (sometimes spelled Rasle), born at Pontarlier, Diocese of Besançon, France, in January 1657, who had come to New France with Frontenac in 1689.  Father Râle had served at the Abenaki mission of St.-François, near Québec, mastering their language and compiling a dictionary of their tongue, before moving on to the mission at Kaskaskia in Illinois.  By the early 1690s, he was back with his beloved Abenaki at St.-François.  In 1694, in the midst of King William's War, he established a mission for them at Norridgewock on the Kennebec, in the heart of their ancestral land.  During the rest of King William's War and especially during Queen Anne's War which followed, the middle-aged priest accompanied his Abenaki on several of their raids against New England towns.  After the especially bloody raid on Wells, Maine, in August 1703, the New Englanders offered a bounty for the priest's head.  In the summer of 1704, New England Colonel Benjamin Church, following his raid against the Fundy Acadians and the French settlements along the Maine coast, was ordered to move up the Kennebec and attack Norridgewock, no doubt to finish off Father Râle.  To the chagrin of the Boston authorities, however, Church did not bother to go.  By 1713, now in his late 50s, Râle had become one of those black robes who considered the English nothing more than heretic demons encroaching on ancestral Indian land.  He did not welcome the peace that came with the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1713, in which the New Englanders insisted that the Abenaki had sworn allegiance to Britain.  He was especially disturbed by an agreement to allow New England trading posts on coastal Abenaki land.  When land-hungry New Englanders began moving to the trading posts along the lower Kennebec, Father Râle encouraged his charges to retaliate.  The result was a resumption in 1720 of the frontier warfare that had plagued the region during the previous two conflicts between Britain and France.  The death of the old Abenaki chief soon after the resumption of warfare led to entreaties by the new chief to stop the fighting.  He offered the New Englanders compensation in beaver pelts for damages to their homesteads and agreed to send them hostages to guarantee peace.  Enraged by this virtual surrender, Father Râle continued to incite "his" warriors against the New Englanders, and the frontier conflict resumed. 

In the summer of 1721, Abenaki reinforcements from the St.-François mission arrived at Norridgewock.  Ominously, they were painted for warfare and carried a French banner.  Father Râle, along with his missionary superior, Father Pierre de la Chasse, led a flotilla of 90 canoes to the Maine coastal settlement of Georgetown, on an island in the Kennebec estuaries, where he demanded the return of the Abenaki hostages and withdrawal of all New English, traders as well as settlers, from Abenaki land.  If they refused to comply, they would be killed and their settlements destroyed.  The New Englanders retaliated in January 1722 when Colonel Thomas Westbrook and 300 militia surrounded Norridgewock for the purpose of capturing the troublesome priest.  Luckily for them, Father Râle and most his people were on a hunting expedition, but Colonel Westbrook found the priest's papers, in which was a letter from Governor-general Vaudreuil at Québec promising assistance in the fight against New England.  Râle and his Abenaki sacked Brunswick, near Georgetown, and other villages in retaliation.  In July 1722, Governor Samuel Shute of Massachusetts declared war against the Wabanaki Confederation.  The resulting conflict, which spread from the Kennebec into other parts of Maine, down into Massachusetts, into far-away Vermont, and even to the shore of the Bay of Fundy, goes by many names--Lovewell's War, Drummer's War, Greylock's War, the Three-Years' War, the Fourth Indian War, The Wabanaki-New England War of 1722-25 ... and Father Râle's War. 

The end came for Father Râle and his Abenaki mission in August 1724.  A militia force of only 80 men, guided by three Mohawks and led by Captain Jeremiah Moulton, surprised Norridgewock mission in the middle of the afternoon.  Amazingly, the priest had allowed the mission stockade to fall into disrepair, and at the time of the raid the palings were gone.  The Abenaki, and Father Râle, put up a spirited resistance, but the element of surprise and cool, steady fire of the New Englanders left 26 dead and 14 wounded, including women, children, a sachem, and one of the old chiefs.  Among the dead was the 67-year-old priest, shot in the head while reloading his musket.  The New Englanders and the Mohawks scalped the dead, including Father Râle, and returned downriver from whence they had come.  A Mohawk returned to fire the village, which the surviving Abenaki soon abandoned.  By 1725, they had relocated to St.-François and Bécancour on the St. Lawrence.

Although the major Acadian settlements along the Bay of Fundy stood 300 miles east of the Kennebec, disturbances in Maine between the Indians and the New Englanders always affected the Acadians.  Moreover, the Mi'kmaq, with the Abenaki and the Maliseet, belonged to the confederacy of Algonquian tribes, so the enemy of one was the enemy of all.  Mi'kmaq warriors, some perhaps from the mission at Shubenacadie, raided the British installation at Canso in 1720, 1722, 1723, and 1725, and even captured New England trading vessels in the Bay of Fundy in 1722, bringing the conflict between the British and the Wabanaki Confederacy much too close to home.  And then the war came to the Fundy shore. 

In the spring of 1724, two French priests--Fathers Charlemagne Cuvier of Annapolis Royal and Félix Pain of Grand-Pré--called a special "service" at the church at Grand-Pré, which was attended by Acadians from all along the Fundy shore, including Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil of haute rivière; the year before, Broussard had been charged and convicted by the Annapolis council of consorting with the Indians, so his presence at Grand-Pré surprised no one.  As soon as they got there, the Acadians were apprised of the priests' true intentions:  they wished to confiscate the Acadians' canoes and boats to assist a force of nearly a hundred Mi'kmaq and Maliseet to free 22 Mi'kmaq hostages being held at Fort Anne!  The priests recruited several young Minas Acadians to gather subsistence for the expedition.  Some of the Indians, meanwhile, refused to go on, but a force of 60 or 70 pressed the attack.  They ambushed a small detachment of soldiers unlucky enough to be away from the fort when the Indians approached; the Indians killed and scalped two of the soldiers, including a sergeant, and wounded four.  The attack on the fort was easily repulsed.  During the attack, the Indians burned two English houses near the fort and captured two soldiers and an English woman and two of her children.  Before fleeing the area, the Indians turned their captives over to the Acadians, who promptly returned them to the fort.  After the Indians no longer were a threat, Lieutenant Governor Doucett and his officers called a council meeting, and their response was swift and brutal.  The dead sergeant, a fellow named McNeil, had been served as aide to the lieutenant governor, who regarded the sergeant as a friend.  Doucett ordered that one of the Mi'kmaq hostages, who had been held in the fort for two years and who had nothing to do with the raid, be taken out to the place where Sergeant McNeill had fallen.  There, the hapless warrior was shot and scalped in similar fashion.  In July, Doucett ordered an inquiry into why none of the inhabitants had warned the fort about an impending attack.  Witnesses were interviewed, including Father Cuvier and several Acadians from Grand-Pré.  Also appearing to answer questions were two troublemakers from the Annapolis area, Jacques Michel, fils and Joseph Broussard.  Beausoleil was summoned not only because the officials suspected his involvement in the attack but also because he had been accused of assaulting a fellow colonist, newcomer Louis Thibaut.  Broussard's remarkable defense was that, at time of the alleged assault, he had not been at Annapolis but at Minas, with the priests and the Indians!  The council concluded that the priests had organized, or at least approved, the attack and ordered their removal from the province.  Doucett brought no charges against any of the settlers, not even against Broussard, whose assault charge he conveniently ignored.  Doucett knew that if he imprisoned Acadians for helping the Indians, he did not have the resources to quell a rebellion, especially one stirred up by the troublesome Broussards and their neighbors along the haute rivière.  The lieutenant governor rationalized, with some justification, that sending their priests out of the colony would be punishment enough for the Acadians.248 

The affair at Annapolis complicated life for all the Fundy Acadians; British officers and soldiers hardened their attitudes not only against the Indians but against the inhabitants as well.  For a decade now, Acadians had been trading legally with New England merchants, but they feared now that their trading partners might perceive them as belligerents once again.  The Acadians had always been reluctant to disturb their generally happy relationship with the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet; resumption of warfare so close to their settlements complicated this delicate balancing act and risked attack from their well-armed neighbors.  What more could they do but to go about their business and cling tenaciously to their policy of neutrality? 

King George's War and the Acadians, 1744-48

For decades after the British acquired the colony in 1713, the Acadians had insisted that they were "neutrals" in the interminable struggle between France, Britain, and their Indian allies.  They steadfastly held on to their culture, their French language, their French customs, and their Roman Catholic faith, but most of them scrupulously avoided aiding their fellow Frenchmen when conflicts erupted between the imperial rivals.  Still, the Neutral French, as they came to be called, were not above trading illegally with Louisbourg.  They drove entire herds of cattle from Chignecto to the southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the cattle could be loaded on ships bound for the French fortress.  Distrustful of these Frenchmen with their foreign ways and their clever trade arrangements, British officials at Annapolis Royal tried mightily to compel the Acadians to take an unqualified oath of allegiance to the British crown.  The Acadians refused to take such an oath and clung stubbornly to neutrality.  For the most part, the British governors shrugged off the matter; only the Acadians and their fecund farmsteads could guarantee steady subsistence to the garrisons in Nova Scotia.  The Acadians lived as they had always done, constructing more dykes to create new grain fields and providing the necessities of life for their trading partners as well as for themselves.  They prospered and multiplied under generally benevolent British rule, which they believed would remain benevolent as long as they maintained a strict neutrality.57  

This handy arrangement began to unravel with the coming of another war in North America between Britain and France in May 1744.  The British were alarmed to learn that not-so-neutral Acadians, especially in the Chignecto/trois rivières area, were eager to aid their fellow Frenchmen in the fight against Britain.  But they should have been pleased that, during the four-year conflict, the great majority of the Acadians in Nova Scotia remained scrupulously neutral in their relations with the imperial powers. 

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The seeds of this new war had been planted in Europe not long after the War of the Spanish Succession had finally ended.  The Sun King, after reigning for 72 years, breathed his last at Versailles in September 1715.  His successor, a great-grandson, Louis, duc de Anjou, was only five years old.  After the usual maneuvering, a Regent was chosen for the young king--his uncle, Philippe, duc d'Orléans, who wasted no time reversing many of the policies of Louis XIV.  The Regent created a Triple Alliance between France, Britain, and Holland.  This led to a brief war between France and its former Bourbon ally, Spain, in 1719.  In October 1722, the young King Louis XV, now 12, was officially crowned at Reims.  The Regent died in December 1723, replaced as chief minister by the duc de Bourbon and then by the King's former tutor, André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, known as Cardinal Fleury, who assumed office in 1726.  The cardinal expended much effort in the improvement of life in France, and foreign trade increased exponentially, but, as usual, the Court generally ignored its remaining colonies.  Fleury, when he gave any thought to the colonies, seemed interested only in throwing more money into the fortress at Louisbourg while maintaining the shaky alliance with Britain and pursuing reconciliation with Spain.  Peace, of course, was a good thing, especially for neglected colonies, but in 1733, Louis XV, having married a Polish princess in September 1725, threatened the European peace by intervening in the Polish War of Succession.  The only happy result for France was the seizure and retention of the duchy of Lorraine, which had been falling under Austrian Hapsburg influence.  Peace returned in November 1738 with the Treaty of Vienna, but it did not last. 

In Britain, George II succeeded his father to the British throne in June 1727.  Like his father, George II retained his title as Elector of Hanover; unlike his father, the second George was a militarist, always eager for war.  Britain fought Spain from 1727 to 1729 during the first years of the new king's reign.  During the Polish War of Succession, Britain supported Spain and France against Austria but only diplomatically; the war was essentially a continuation of the struggle between the Hapsburg and Bourbon dynasties for influence on the Continent.  In October 1739, again over the issue of commercial dominance, war broke out between Britain and Spain--the so-called War of Jenkins's Ear.  The fighting lasted until the early 1740s and was confined to the Caribbean, Central and South America, Florida, and Georgia, but it soon merged into a greater conflict, yet another imperial world war. 

In 1740, Hapsburg Emperor Charles VI died and was succeeded by his daughter, Maria Theresa.  Sensing an opportunity, King Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in December 1740, precipitating a war with Austria--the War of the Austrian Succession.  Cardinal Fleury, now elderly and ailing, could not resist the anti-Austrian element at Court.  King Louis XV, who soon would rule without a chief minister, threw France into the fight on the side of Prussia.  In 1742, Maria Theresa found allies in Britain and Holland.  Britain joined the fight in 1743; King George himself led the allied army to victory against the French at Dettingen, Bavaria, in June of that year (the last British monarch to lead troops in battle).  France and Britain declared war against one another in March 1744, and the war soon spread to North America--called King George's War there.54 

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There had been many changes in the governance of Nova Scotia during these "quiet" years in Europe.  John Doucett, Richard Phillips's first lieutenant governor, whom the Acadians managed to tolerate, was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Armstrong in May 1725.  Doucett remained at Annapolis as a member of the the colonial council, but, despite this awkward situation, the two men worked well together, until Doucett died at Fort Anne in November 1726 after a short illness.  Doucett's replacement wasted little time alienating the Acadians.  During his long service of 14 years, Lieutenant Governor Armstrong clashed with the Acadians incessantly, especially over their trading rights and the status of their priests.  On the morning of 17 December 1739, Armstrong was found in his room at Fort Anne with five puncture wounds in his chest, his sword lying "carelessly" near him.  An inquest of officers concluded that Armstrong, in a state of "Lunacy," had committed suicide; the question of murder was never brought up.  After Armstrong's death, Alexander Cosby, Governor Phillip's brother-in-law, who also had quarreled incessantly with Armstrong, looked after Phillip's interests in Nova Scotia, but he did not succeed Armstrong as head of government in Phillips's absence.  A dispute arose as to the proper succession, and it was not until April 1740 that a new lieutenant governor could assume his duties at Annapolis Royal.55 

Their new lieutenant governor was a familiar face to the Acadians.  Thirty years before, it was he who had initiated the role of district deputies to represent Acadian interests before the colonial council.  A native of Languedoc, Paul Mascarene's parents were French, but, being Huguenots, they were banished from the kingdom in 1685 when son Jean-Paul was but an infant.  Paul, as he came to be called, was raised by relatives until 1696, when they smuggled him to Geneva.  He was educated in the Protestant city and emigrated to England in c1706, while in his early 20s.  He secured an ensigncy in the Regiment of French Foot, recruited from Huguenot immigrants like himself.  By April 1706, he was a lieutenant.  Three years later, he went to North America for the first time as part of the British invasion force gathered at Boston to invade Canada.  After drilling colonial troops for a planned offensive against Port-Royal, Mascarene was promoted to captain in the spring of 1710.  He participated in Nicholson's assault on Port-Royal in October of that year.  After Subercase's surrender, Mascarene "'had the honour to take possession of [the captured town] in mounting the first guard.'"  Thus began his long relationship with the place and with the Acadians of British Nova Scotia.

Mascarene's command of French, which after all was his native language, his "attention to detail, and a capacity for analysis," made him a valuable asset to the colonial government at Annapolis Royal.  He served under Samuel Vetch, for whom he acted as a kind of strongman in extorting money from the inhabitants.  His first experience with the Acadians was in November 1710, only a month after the fall of Port-Royal.  Sent to extract 6,000 livres in "tribute" from the habitants at Minas, he "could assemble only a small portion, the Acadians pleading poverty...."  He spent a week in the place and learned much about these people, who he soon understood were a class of Frenchman different from all others.  For the rest of his time in the colony, he served as Vetch's secretary and interpreter.  He followed Vetch to Boston in October 1711 and remained there for the next year and a half.  It may have been during this time that he married Elizabeth Perry of Boston, who gave him four children.  In early 1714, he returned to Acadia with a fellow captain to discuss terms with French officers from Île Royale about Acadian immigration to the new French colony.  For the next five years, he spent time in Boston with his family and at Placentia, Newfoundland, where he served as captain of infantry.  In August 1717, he was given a captaincy in the newly-formed 40th Regiment, whose colonel was Richard Phillips.  Mascarene's superiors considered him an accomplished engineer and artilleryman as well as a commander of infantry.  On a visit to England he was appointed as an engineer on the Board of Ordnance.  He returned to Boston in 1719 and, as an engineer, was sent to Annapolis to report on the condition of Fort Anne.  It was during that time that Richard Phillips, appointed governor of Nova Scotia in 1717, spent a winter in Boston and "gained his favourable opinion of Mascarene."  The governor and the engineer arrived at Annapolis Royal in April 1720, while Doucett was still lieutenant governor.  Phillips appointed Mascarene as the colony's chief engineer and a member of the colonial council.  Mascarene surveyed the coast, rebuilt the fortifications at Canso, and did what he could for crumbling Fort Anne.  As a relief from the onerous work of a colonial official, he visited his growing family at Boston as often as he could.

Mascarene was at Annapolis when Governor Phillips failed to exact an unqualified oath of allegiance from the Acadians in 1720.  It was Mascarene who was the first to express the true relationship between the pitifully weak garrisons at Annapolis and Canso and the scattered Acadian communities along the Fundy shore.  Phillips asked him to write a report for the Board of Trade on the condition of the colony.  Mascarene's analysis became a blueprint on how British authorities should best handle the Acadian situation:  "He recommended a stronger military force, to be divided among the major settlements, and the administration, once this force was sent, of an unqualified oath, with those who still demurred being moved to French territory.  English-speaking Protestant settlers should be introduced in any event.  He noted that the French authorities were themselves not anxious to receive the Acadians, since it was to their advantage to have a self-sufficient population on the mainland [peninsula], accessible to influence from Île Royale through their priests."  Here was a cold analysis of the situation, containing seeds of a harder policy that would be nurtured by conflict. 

Following the war with the Wabanaki Confederacy, Mascarene went to Boston in 1725 to represent Nova Scotia in peace negotiations with the Indians.  He returned to Nova Scotia in 1729, while Armstrong was lieutenant governor.  Affairs at Annapolis had become so chaotic during Armstrong's misrule that Phillips, who had returned to England in 1722, returned to Annapolis in November 1729 to set things straight in his colony.  Phillips alienated Mascarene by appointing his former brother-in-law, Major Alexander Cosby, as president of the council in May 1730.  Cosby lacked seniority in the governing body; his only qualification for president seemed to be his relationship with the governor.  To Phillips's surprise, the usually tractable Mascarene "objected strenuously" and spent as much time in Boston as he could manage to avoid the mess in Nova Scotia.  Having failed to overawe the Acadians and to end the chaos at Annapolis, Phillips returned to England in 1731, and Armstrong resumed his role as lieutenant governor.  While quarreling bitterly with Cosby, Armstrong used Mascarene as a go-between with Massachusetts governor Jonathan Belcher, Sr. in urging New Englanders to follow Mascarene's blueprint and move to Nova Scotia.  During the rest of the decade, Mascarene spent most of his time in Boston, "building his 'Great Brick house'" and raising his children, now motherless.  By then he had been promoted to major of the 40th Regiment.  He did not remarry. 

Hearing of Armstrong's suicide, Mascarene returned to Annapolis Royal in March 1740 and asserted his right to succession as the president of the colonial council and the colony's lieutenant governor.  Senior councilor John Adams, age 68, a petty merchant from Boston who had witnessed the fall of Port-Royal in 1710 and who had settled at Annapolis, opposed Mascarene's succession, complaining of his long absences from Nova Scotia (later, in his complaints to the Board of Trade, Adam also tried to use Mascarene's French nativity against him).  Upon Armstrong's death, Adams had been elevated to president of the council and thus the head of civil government.  "In a stormy meeting of the council on 22 March 1740, both Mascarene and Adams claimed the right of presiding."  The other councilors decided unanimously in favor of Mascarene, elevating him to the lieutenant-governorship; he was 55 years old.  Unfortunately for Mascarene, on the same day as the stormy council meeting, Alexander Cosby was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 40th Regiment, which made him Mascarene's superior officer.  This proved a complication for the new lieutenant governor until Cosby's sudden death at Annapolis in December 1742.  Mascarene was promoted to lieutenant colonel in Cosby's place. 

War having broken out again in Europe, and Britain's war with Spain, now in its second year, likely to lead to war also with France, Mascarene looked to the colony's sad state of defense.  Fort Anne was falling apart again, and the garrison at Canso "had scarcely a roof over its head."  In June 1740, soon after he became lieutenant governor, Mascarene warned the Duke of Newcastle, the British secretary of state, that "He did not think that the Acadians 'could be depended upon in the event of war with France, it is as much as can be expected if they can be kept from acting against the government.'  He went on to say:  'The Government of Cape Breton [Île Royale], by means of emissaries may stir them up, and to their bigotry to the Romish religion may contribute.'  Mascarene pointed out that 'there are not above half a dozen English families in the Province, except those belonging to the garrison here and at Canso, so that there are at least thirty French to one British subject, including officers and soldiers in both garrisons.'"  Despite his wording in the missive to Newcastle, Mascarene believed that the Acadians were British subjects, "however imperfect their behaviour might be...."   He was especially concerned about the Acadians at Chignecto, who lived farthest from the British capital, but he did what he could to appease them, as well as their cousins in the other Acadian settlements.  Ignoring his blueprint of the 1720s and remembering the failures of his predecessors, he did not push for an unqualified oath; he believed "that the matter of the oath of allegiance had been settled ten years before," when Phillips had assured the Acadians that they would not be compelled to take up arms.  Ever the pragmatist, Mascarene would give them good reason to cling to their neutrality by "administering impartial justice ..., and in all other respects treating them with lenity and humanity, without yielding anything wherein His majesty's honor or interest were concerned.'"  He warned them through their deputies that the coming of war would complicate their relationship with the British Crown and urged them not to give His Majesty's government any reason to suspect their loyalty.  The Annapolis Acadians assisting in the repair of Fort Anne seemed to be proof of loyalty at least in that community.  Mascarene was concerned about the missionary priests, who he insisted were "in the colony as foreigners, on sufferance from His Majesty's government."  Eschewing Armstrong's confrontational style, he opened communication with Fathers Claude de La Vernède de Saint-Poncy, Charles de La Goudalie at Minas, and Jean-Baptiste de Gay Desenclaves of the Fundy settlements, and even Jean-Louis Le Loutre at Shubenacadie.  He met with them and attempted to befriend them, hoping to mitigate their influence over the habitants.  His "wide experience of life in France, Great Britain, and Massachusetts" allowed him to believe "strongly that he would be able to bring the Acadians to a state of contentment with British rule, 'to wean them from their old masters,' although he admitted that 'to do this effectually a considerable time will be required.'"56 

As to the state of the colony's defenses, Mascarene faced the same attitude in London towards Nova Scotia that he had witnessed over the previous three decades.  Seeing no help from that quarter, he turned, instead, to the new governor of Massachusetts, William Shirley, for assistance in preparing Nova Scotia for war.  Mascarene hoped that Shirley could raise a force of New English militia that could overawe the Acadians if they abandoned neutrality.  The governor responded to Mascarene's proposals sympathetically; for the actual raising of troops and the dispatch of supplies, however, much depended on Shirley's control of the assembly in Boston.  Both Shirley and his assembly were very much aware, of course, of the importance of Annapolis Royal in protecting New English shipping from the depredations of French privateers out of Île Royale.  Shirley, like Mascarene, thought regionally, not locally, which had much to do with the depth of their relationship; time would show that the grand-strategic vision of the Massachusetts governor would greatly influence the history of the Acadians of Nova Scotia.76

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Meanwhile, at Louisbourg, the governor of Île Royale, Jean-Baptiste-Louis Le Prévost Duquesnel, received instructions from Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Comte de Maurepas, the French Minister of Marine, to attack the British in Acadia as soon as war was formally declared.  Duquesnel had before him two attacks plans, one written by François Dupont Duvivier, fils, a great-grandson of Charles La Tour and Philippe Mius de'Entremont, who was a captain serving in the Louisbourg garrison.  In his memorandum, Duvivier was certain that his fellow Acadians would be eager to assist the French in recovering Acadia.58 

News of a war declaration reached Louisbourg in early May 1744, before it reached Annapolis Royal.  Duquesnel wasted little time in commencing hostilities.  His first target was the British fishing station at Canso, from which British guard vessels for years had attempted to interdict trade between Acadia and Louisbourg.  That spring, in fact, Louisbourg had suffered a food shortage because of this harassment.  After fighting commenced, possession of Canso would secure Duquesnel's only reliable supply base--the north shore of peninsula Acadia.  On May 23, Duvivier, a 39-year-old French captain with no combat experience, left Louisbourg with two privateers, including the Succés, a supply sloop, and 14 fishing boats carrying 20 Swiss and French officers, 80 French soldiers, 37 Swiss mercenaries, and 212 sailors; it would be the first combat operation not only for the expedition's commander but also for the Louisbourg garrison.  The British commander of the fortified fishing post, Captain Patrick Heron of the 40th Regiment, surrendered his 87 officers and men soon after Duvivier's flotilla appeared on May 24.59 

Duquesnel then gathered a force for the inevitable attack against the Nova Scotia capital; he "planned a combined land-and-sea assault on Annapolis Royal and he waited upon ships from France."  Mascarene, meanwhile, had learned of the war declaration at the same time he learned of the fall of Canso.  Concerned about Mascarene's efforts to suppress Acadian trade with Louisbourg, Duquesnel urged Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre to use Indians and Acadians to stop Mascarene's efforts.77 

Son of papermaker Jean-Maurice Le Loutre Després and Catherine Huet, daughter of a paper maker, Jean-Louis Le Loutre was born in the parish of St.-Mathieu, Morlaix, Brittany, in September 1709.  In 1730, his parents now dead, Jean-Louis entered a seminary in Paris.  Seven years later, his studies completed, he transferred to the Seminary of the Foreign Missions to fulfill his dream of serving the Church in some foreign land.  During the late 1730s, most of his fellow priests from the Paris Foreign Missionary Society were being sent to Asia, but Father Jean-Louis was tapped, instead, for a mission in New France, so he prepared to go to the New World.  He arrived at Louisbourg in the fall of 1738, the replacement for Abbé de Saint-Vincent.  Before moving on to his mission station at Shubenacadie, Le Loutre spent time at Malagawatch, now Merigomish, on the Gulf shore of Île Royale, to learn the Mi'kmaq language from Abbé Pierre Maillard, who, with Le Loutre's help, developed a written form of the Algonquian tongue.  Abbé Le Loutre, as he was now being called, left Île Royale for Mission Ste.-Anne four days after his twenty-ninth birthday.  His enthusiasm for the work and love for the people made him immediately popular with his Native charges.  Like the hand full of other priests in Nova Scotia, Le Loutre served not only as a spiritual guide to Acadians and Indians but also as an informal military agent for the French.  Abbé Maillard and the French officials on Île Royale no doubt had apprised the new priest of regional politics, including their views of the Acadians and their character.  The late 1730s was still a time of peace in the region.  The Acadians, having taken their "Oath of neutrality" at the start of the decade, clung stubbornly to the concept, which the new missionary to the Mi'kmaq respected, at least at first.  By 1744, Le Loutre had been named vicar general of the Bishop of Québec in "French Acadia."  When war broke out in the region that year, he no longer tolerated Acadian neutrality.237 

Not until the second week of July was Le Loutre able to gather a force of 300 Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Acadian partisans under Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil for an attack on Fort Anne.  By then, Mascarene and his 150 officers and men had been given two months to prepare their defenses.  On July 5, a week before Le Loutre's attack, Governor Shirley had come through for Mascarene and sent reinforcements to Annapolis.  The ship then carried the fort's women and children to safety in Boston.  Le Loutre's attack, when it came, "was a desultory affair."  On July 16, another ship, the Prince of Orange, arrived from Boston with 53 additional soldiers for Mascarene.  Lacking heavy weapons and receiving no reinforcements themselves, Le Loutre's force returned to Minas.  After the Indians and partisans retreated, Mascarene was pleased when Annapolis Acadians helped restore the garrison's provisions and "'testified their intention to keep to their fidelity along long as the fort is kept.'"  Meanwhile, a force of Mi'kmaq "were molesting the Acadian farmers in the Beaubassin area, killing cattle and looting instead of harassing the English."  This alienated more Acadians from the French, who the Acadians believed were responsible for stirring up the Indians.  The following October, New England declared war against the Mi'kmaq nation, which only served to stir up deeper fears among the neutral Acadians, especially those who shared blood with the local Indians.60

In late July, one of the ships from France, Le Caribou, reached Louisbourg, and Duquesnel's force finally departed for Nova Scotia, its mission the conquest of the British province.  Duvivier, the hero of Canso, at the head of 50 colonial regulars, 100 or so Mi'kmaq from Île Royale led by Abbé Pierre Maillard, about 30 Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia, and 70 or so Maliseet from Rivière St.-Jean, landed at Baie Verte on August 8.  Abbé Le Loutre, though he was still in the area, did not join this expedition.  Mindful of his Acadian roots, Duvivier "cast himself as the Acadian liberator back among his own."  The typical Acadian would have viewed him in a different light:  a French aristocrat who considered the great majority of Acadians to be little more than common peasants.  Expecting to pick up a large reinforcement of Acadian fighters along the route of march from Chignecto to Annapolis, Duvivier, according to one account, "despite strong emotional appeals ... succeeded in detaching no more than a dozen Acadians from [their] strict neutrality...."   It was harvest time, so even if the Acadians had chosen to abandon neutrality, they could have provided only a small number of young recruits for Duvivier's polyglot force.  Without active Acadian cooperation, Duvivier could depend on no reliable source of resupply as he moved against the British capital, so he exacted from them a promise to "hold the region tranquil" and to continue their trade with Louisbourg.62 

Although Duvivier picked up few Acadian recruits at Chignecto, he did receive a substantial reinforcement, as well as subsistence, from an element of the Acadian population who spurned their cousins' neutrality.  A student of the Acadian partisan movement says that "many of the able-bodied men in the Petitcodiac region" followed Alexandre and Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil to the mouth of the Petitcoudiac, where they awaited transports that would take them across the bay to Minas for a rendezvous with Duvivier's force.  From the Missaguash valley at Chignecto, Pierre Surette, fils and his brothers Joseph, Paul, and Honoré, along with Jean and Michel Bourg, provided the boats that took the Petitcoudiac fighters across the bay.  The Acadians from Petitcoudiac and Chignecto also took along substantial supplies--"food, clothing and ammunition"--to sustain Duvivier's offensive.  Meanwhile, wealthy Annapolis Royal merchant Joseph-Nicolas, called Nicolas, Gautier dit Bellaire, who for years had served as a spy for the Louisbourg commanders, sent one of his vessels to Louisbourg to pick up supplies for Duvivier's force.  Gautier's ship sailed along the Atlantic shore, slipped into the Bay of Fundy, and joined Duvivier at Minas.  On board Gautier's ship "were fifty French marines and 170 Mi'kmaq and Malicite warriors, as well as supplies for the battle ahead."  Added to the 60 or so resistance fighters and Mi'kmaq reinforcements from trois-rivières and Chignecto, Duvivier's force numbered about 450 men.  At Minas, a hand full of local Acadian hotheads also joined the group.  They included Amand Breau and Joseph LeBlanc dit le Maigre, who, with the Broussards, had joined Fathers Cuvier and Pain and their Mi'kmaq warriors in an attack against Fort Anne in the spring of 1724.  LeBlanc served as Duvivier's impromptu commissary at Minas, purchasing 104 knives from two blacksmiths, four axes from local farmers, and employed a local gunsmith for the repair of French and Indian weapons.  Here was the hardcore of an Acadian resistance that could only grow larger as the habitants were forced by incessant war to choose one side or the other.63 

Despite the support of Acadians from trois-rivères, few Acadians at Minas joined Breau and LeBlanc in supporting Duvivier's mission.  Even the priest at Rivière-aux-Canards, Father Jean-Pierre Miniac, angered the French commander "by challenging his view that the laws of England were fundamentally anti-Catholic."  Duvivier dismissed the priest as "a little pope" and, showing his true nature, ordered the Minas deputies, "on pain of death," to gather the habitants to hear his commands.  He threatened the Minas Acadians with the usual reprisals if they did not provide him horses and powder.  He warned them that "disobedience would be treated as rebellion and those who did not obey would be given up for punishment to the Indians."  He then imposed "a pledge of fidelity" on the populace, refusal of which also would result in Indian reprisals.  He later claimed that his threats against the Minas Acadians were a ploy to protect them against future British reprisal, but the habitants would have viewed the Frenchman's threats in a different light.  Despite the larger population of the Minas Basin, Duvivier recruited no more reinforcements there than he had at Chignecto, so it was lucky for Duvivier that 70 Maliseet warriors from the mainland arrived at Minas while he was there.65

"After a few days rest and a much-needed blessing from the priests," on August 30 Duvivier's force moved against Annapolis by land and sea and arrived there a week later.  On the land route to Annapolis, 11 Minas Acadians "drove wagons loaded with general supplies, including munitions," which, according to one historian, "was probably the most important help Duvivier received" from the Fundy Acadians.  Duvivier hoped that the presence of fighters from trois-rivières, Chignecto, and Minas would stir the Annapolis Acadians to action, but, again, he misjudged their commitment to strict neutrality.  Some of them, in fact, helped the British during the siege.  One such collaborator was Louis, son of Prudent Robichaud, père; the elder Robichaud was an Annapolis syndic and judge who had a long history of cooperating with British officials; during the siege, Louis passed on information about the French and Indians to Lieutenant Governor Mascarene.  Not so Joseph-Nicolas Gautier, who, in spite of his French birth, considered himself an Acadian, at least by marriage; his father-in-law was Annapolis valley blacksmith and landowner Louis Allain, who married a Bourg.  Duvivier used Gautier's fine house, Bellaire, as his headquarters, and much of Duvivier's force encamped on Gautier's substantial property.  Duvivier naively hoped that the superiority of his force--approximately 400, as opposed to Mascarene's 250--would overawe the British commander, but Mascarene refused to surrender, though at the beginning of the siege he seems to have promise to lay down his arms when a French naval force expected from Louisbourg appeared in the basin.  From September 7, Duvivier struck the crumbling walls of Fort Anne in a series of "desultory attacks," but failed to exploit the tactical and psychological advantages afforded by the sad condition of the British fortifications and the low morale of Mascarene's men.  On September 15, Duvivier demanded an immediate surrender, but Mascarene demurred.  A week of parlaying followed, with Duvivier insuring the British commander that a flotilla of three warships carrying hundreds of reinforcements soon would arrive in the basin.  Duvivier resumed his attacks on September 23.  Three days later, two ships sailed into the basin, but, luckily for the British, the vessels were not French; Governor Shirley had dispatched more supplies and reinforcements to succor the Annapolis garrison.  Aboard one of the ships was Captain John Gorham and 60 of his fearsome Mohawk and New English "rangers."  Duvivier failed to stop the reinforcement, which worsened the morale of the besiegers.  On October 2, French Captain Michel de Gannes de Falaise arrived from Louisbourg via Baie Verte and informed Duvivier that the naval squadron had not yet sailed when he had left the French fortress.  He presented orders to Duvivier recalling him to Louisbourg and assumed command of Duvivier's force.64 

The French flotilla still not having arrived, on October 4, De Gannes, over Duvivier's objections, led the French and Indian force back to Minas, which they reached on October 10.  (Only later did they learn that Duquesnel had ordered the French naval vessels "intended" to rendezvous with Duvivier to protect, instead, the fisheries and local sea lanes from British privateers.)  They had received precious little sustenance from the Annapolis Acadians before they left the valley, so they were forced to forage for supplies at Minas.  Joseph LeBlanc dit le Maigre again came to the rescue; he secured food for the French and Indians and boats to ferry the Maliseet back across the bay to Rivière St.-Jean.  Other Minas Acadians helped the French, including Jean Landry and Pierre LeBlancDe Gannes's orders called for his 54 French regulars and 80 Mi'kmaq to winter at Minas, but the great majority of the habitants, clinging tightly to neutrality and fearing for the welfare of their families, refused to provide lodging and subsistence to the French and Indians.  Minas deputy and notary Alexandre Bourg dit Bellehumeur gave de Gannes a letter detailing the situation at Minas:  "The letter argued that, because the harvest had been much less prolific than expected, providing the French with the grain and beef requested would force the settlers to kill all their cattle and use up their seed grains for next year's crops.  The letter went on to express the hope that de Gannes could not wish to plunge them and their families into the misery of complete destitution and that, as a result, he would withdraw both the Indians and his troops from the settlements.  'We are,' the text continued, 'under an easy and peaceful regime and we have every reason to be content with it.'"  Undone by the Acadians' plea, De Gannes moved his men to Chignecto, which they reached on October 19.  Waiting for de Gannes there was a reprimand from Louis Dupont Duchambon, the new governor of Île Royale, who had replaced Duquesnel after the latter's death on October 9; unfortunately for de Gannes, Duchambon was Duvivier's uncle.  Duvivier, having been relieved of command, hurried back to the citadel, which he reached on October 23.  De Gannes returned via Port-Toulouse and reached Louisbourg three weeks later.  This gave Duvivier plenty of time to turn his uncle and the townspeople against his fellow officer, who produced Alexandre Bourg's letter in his defense, but to no avail.  Meanwhile, a small naval force commanded by Claude-Élisabeth Denys de Bonaventure, consisting of one merchantman and a privateer brigantine and carrying 50 reinforcements, reached the Annapolis Basin on the night of October 25-26.  Finding no French force there, Denys de Bonaventure returned to Louisbourg and reported the failure of the French offensive, which the new governor blamed on de Gannes.  In November, Duvivier returned to France with his uncle's dispatches and was so successful in touting his small successes in Nova Scotia that the King awarded him the coveted Order of St.-Louis at Brest the following May.61 

While the French at Louisbourg were pointing fingers of blame at one another, Mascarene informed his correspondents that the French offensive against Nova Scotia had failed for two reasons:  timely assistance from Governor Shirley, and the forbearance of the Acadians at Annapolis not to join their fellow Frenchmen in the attack on Fort Anne.  An historian of the Acadians avers:  "Mascarene held out at Annapolis with a decaying fort and a dispirited garrison 'only through a combination of personal courage, New England aid, poor French leadership, and the honest neutrality of the great majority of the Acadians.'"52 

Not all of the area Acadians had remained neutral, so, during late winter and early spring of 1744-45, Mascarene and the colonial council launched investigations of their own.  Acadian deputies and habitants were questioned about their actions during Duvivier's campaign.  The deputies from Cobeguit insisted that none of them joined "the enemy" or gave them sustenance unless they were forced into it.  Mascarene was especially interested in the illicit trade between the Minas and Chignecto Acadians and Louisbourg via Baie Verte and Tatamagouche.  The Cobeguit deputies reported that two Acadians, Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre and Joseph Dugas of Minas, were responsible for "two droves of black cattle and sheep" going to the French fortress.  Mascarene and the council clamped down on trade from Minas, especially in merchandise, such as blankets, favored by the Indians.  The council also decreed that all the Acadian deputies inform their communities that Nova Scotia was formally at war with France, Canada, and Île Royale and that no assistance to the enemy, including trade, would be tolerated.  The deputies also were tasked with informing their communities that they were obligated to forward information about French and Indians movements and to refrain from sharing information about the British with the enemy.  This was the council's way of reminding the Acadians that they "were British subjects who, even though they were to be considered as non-combatants in any war with France, nonetheless owed a measure of obligation to the British crown."  Closer to home, Mascarene uncovered the actions of Joseph-Nicolas Gautier before and during the siege and ordered his immediate arrest and the confiscation of all his property.  Gautier had fled, so Mascarene jailed the merchant's wife, Marie Allain, and son Nicolas, as well as Paul Surette, who also had helped Duvivier.  On New Years Eve night, the three of them escaped and joined a growing number of Acadians being forced into exile.66

War had changed many things for a people caught in the middle.  Historian Naomi Griffiths explains:  "As the winter months passed, the picture of the Acadian behaviour that emerged was of a people caught, unexpectedly, in a situation where political beliefs had immediate and uncomfortable consequences.  The colony had been without major strife for thirty-four years, and any settler younger than thirty-four had been born under the British regime.  But the influence of France was a part of their lives, intertwined with the religious practices of the majority.  During 1744, the existence within the villages of a minority who felt passionately about the political situation of the colony, whether those who had made terms with the British administration or those who cherished the links that remained with Louisbourg, raised the level of political consciousness of all Acadians.  Nothing was as certain or as simple in the fall of 1744 for the settlers as it had been earlier in the spring and summer.  Then, the public actions of particular individuals were very much their own affair and had only an economic or social, rather than a political, impact on the community; now, actions such as a trading trip to Louisbourg or supplying wood for the repair of the fort at Annapolis Royal were liable to be seen as representative of the political views of a much greater part of the community."  Governor Shirley and many New Englanders looked askance at the Acadians who had assisted Duvivier and began to doubt the population's commitment to the British crown; Shirley even broached the subject of Acadian deportation.  At the same time, French officials at Louisbourg, despite the continuing trade with the Nova Scotia settlements, were chagrined by the Acadians' refusal to give more support to Duvivier.  Mascarene alone remained open-minded about Acadian neutrality, but his forbearance had its limits.  His personal experience as "a member of a family that was ideologically split" gave him insight into the Acadian dilemma.  "He could appreciate the extent to which Duvivier's expedition was, for some of the Acadians, as much a civil conflict as a war between competing states."  However, after noting that area Acadians, at the point of the gun, furnished "guides, cattle, and nearly two hundred draft horses" to the French during the second attack against Fort Anne, the aging Huguenot speculated that "if the Acadians could be removed and Protestant subjects established in their place, the interests of Britain and New England would be well served."  Back at Village-des-Beausoleil on the upper Petitcoudiac, there were no political dilemmas.  Joseph Broussard, brother Alexandre, and many of their neighbors had learned much from their months in Nova Scotia, first with Father Le Loutre and then with the incompetent Duvivier.  The abbé, with his undisguised hatred of the Protestant interlopers and his hold on the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia, would loom large in their lives now that they were committed to destroying the farce of Acadian neutrality.  As the war continued and these forces collided, militarily as well as politically, the age of Acadian contentment, if there ever had been one, slowly, inexorably, came to an end.  Leaders on both sides, believing "that neutrality was an unacceptable moral choice," were determined to overawe the Acadian population, with force if necessary.67

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In May 1745, while Duvivier was being awarded a royal decoration he did not deserve, a force of several hundred Canadians and Mi'kmaq led by Paul Marin de La Malgue appeared at Annapolis Royal--the third attempt by the French and Indians to seize the British capital.  Marin had departed Québec in January at the head of 200 Canadians and Indians, including Abenaki, Algonquin, and Huron.  Moving down the St. Lawrence to Rivière-du-Loup on the southern shore, they followed the Lac Témiscouata/Rivière St.-Jean route to Chignecto, which they reached a month later.  At Chignecto, they waited orders from Louisbourg, which had promised to provide assistance in the way of a combined land-and-sea attack on Annapolis Royal.  Marin moved to Minas in early April and from there moved on to Annapolis Royal.  By then, Marin likely had been joined by a substantial force of local Mi'kmaq, and the size of his force may have risen to 700.  Mascarene received intelligence on the French force only a few days before it reached the Annapolis basin.  Marin did not remain long before Fort Anne; as soon as he reached the capital, he received word from Duchambon at Louisbourg that Shirley's New England force had appeared before the citadel.  Duchambon ordered Marin to come to his assistance.  After capturing two English schooners in the basin, Marin's force retired, and, for the third time, Mascarene and his garrison emerged triumphant.68 

Mascarene's struggle with the French from Louisbourg and Québec held the rapt attention of a man who would loom large in Acadian history.   Governor Shirley "had become convinced that the defence of Annapolis Royal, indeed the security of all New England, required the reduction of the French stronghold at Louisbourg."  This was not a new idea among British shakers and movers.  Earlier plans to capture Louisbourg, however, had posited a naval expedition from England with overwhelming British force and only a minor role for colonial troops.  Shirley was advocating a different sort of venture, one "financed, directed, and carried out by the colonies alone, with perhaps some support from the British naval units stationed in American waters."  The Massachusetts assembly was unenthusiastic at first, but pressure from colonial zealots, led by influential Maine merchants William Pepperell and William Vaughan, secured approval for the enlistment of 3,000 volunteers and whatever funds were necessary to capture the French citadel.  Pepperell, 50 years old at the time and a native of Kittery Point in Maine, had assumed control of his family's mercantile business at an early age, transformed it into one of the most successful maritime ventures in New England, had long served as judge and then chief justice of his native county court, and, most important of all for Temple's plan, had risen through the ranks of the Maine militia and now served as the region's commanding colonel.  Pepperell also was a member of the Massachusetts General Court.  Governor Shirley and Pepperell's fellow Yankees could see that "The task of raising an army, keeping it intact, maintaining a respectable standard of discipline, and keeping relations with the Royal Navy on an even keel demanded those personal qualities" for which Pepperell was noted, and so the governor beseeched the colonel to lead the expedition.  Pepperell demurred at first but then accepted the command.  He and his fellow militia commanders knew that colonial troops would be no match against French troupes de marine in open battle even if they greatly outnumbered them.  Their plan, drafted by Shirley with the assistance of other colonial leaders in February, called for a surprise attack against the French fortress and avoiding battle in the open field.  Pepperell's orders, however, gave him wide discretion on how to deploy his troops at Louisbourg.69 

Luckily for the New Englanders, the fortress at Louisbourg, like Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal, was in sad condition.  "The fort itself needed repairs, especially the barracks.  The solders were in poor condition, many old and sick, and the garrison generally needed supplies and reinforcements."  Morale was so poor in the French garrison, in fact, that the new commandant, Duchambon, had to quell a mutiny of French and Swiss soldiers in December 1744.  Part of the problem was the fortress's commissary agent, François Bigot, who sold the best of the troops' rations to the townspeople for his own profit and issued to the troops inadequate rations in both quality and quantity.  The rigors of winter, combined with the arrogance of the officers, only made things worse.  Two days after Christmas, the Swiss contingent in the garrison presented a list of grievances to their officers.  The troupes de marine soon joined the protest, and Duchambon, who was proving to be an indecisive leader, gave in to the demands of the mutineers.  As a result, the quality and quantity of their food increased, but, French officers and officials being who they were, morale still remained a problem for the garrison of 1,300.  This was not the worst of Duchambon's problems, however.  Louisbourg's chief source of supply was not an agricultural base in the vicinity of the fortress or even an annual resupply from France; the isolated French garrison derived the major part of its subsistence from trade with New England merchants and the Acadians of Nova Scotia!  One historian notes:  "In 1743 seventy-eight vessels from New England and Acadia traded with Louisbourg, a number not only greater than the fifty-eight ships from France but also greater than the number of ships, from France, New France (seven), and the French West Indies (thirty-two) combined."  One can be certain that these merchants noted every flaw in the defenses of the French fortress during their frequent visits to Louisbourg, information they passed on to Governor Shirley, who shared it with General Pepperell.  In France, Minister of Marine Maurepas, from the beginning of the war, had hoped to dispatch ships and reinforcements to Louisbourg, but French interests in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean held priority over those in North America.70 

In early 1745, not long after he had "quelled" the mutiny, Duchambon received word from Québec that preparations were being made in Boston for an assault against Louisbourg.  An historian of the Acadian resistance movement relates that Duchambon summoned both Abbé Le Loutre and Joseph Broussard to the citadel to consult on the use of the Mi'kmaq and Acadian partisans against a British attack.  When Broussard joined Le Loutre, probably at the abbé's Shubenacadie mission, 300 Mi'kmaq warriors were ready to take the warpath.  They hurried on to Canso, from which Duchambon's ships would ferry them up to the fortress.73

Pepperell's troops, aboard a fleet of transports, including smelly fishing boats commandeered for the purpose, left Boston for Canso on 24 March 1745.  After a stormy passage, the first of the New England vessels arrived at the former British fishing base on April 4, not long after Le Loutre and Broussard reached the area.  That morning, an Indian scout alerted the priest and the partisan of the arrival off Great Canso Island of many vessels flying the Union Jack.  Unable to rendezvous with Duchambon's vessels, Le Loutre and Broussard could only watch from concealment as more enemy ships arrived.  Here were contingents from New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island joining the Massachusetts vessels, followed by a British naval squadron of 11 ships, carrying 550 guns, commanded by Commodore Peter Warren.  After the arrival of Warren's squadron, Le Loutre was certain that the route to Louisbourg was closed to his force.  Unable to warn, much less help, their compatriots in the soon-to-be beleaguered fortress, the Indians and the partisans packed up their gear and left.74 

After the arrival of the other colonials, Pepperell commanded an estimated 5,000 men--one of the most formidable forces ever assembled in colonial North America.  They remained at Canso for three weeks, waiting for the coastal ice to break up.  During this time, the armed colonial vessels and Warren's warships drove off a French frigate, the Renommée, and blockaded Louisbourg's harbor, still choked with ice.  Pepperell's force arrived off Louisbourg at the end of April.  Governor Shirley's naive plan to surprise the enemy while they slept was quickly abandoned.  "With the help of good luck, good weather, and good boatmanship, nearly 2,000 men gained the beach at the head of Gabarus Bay within the space of eight or ten hours."  Pepperell's arrival was not a surprise, but his choice of landing place took the French unawares.  A French force under Pierre Morpain launched an ineffective sortie against the British lodgment.  Despite having taken fewer and lighter cannon than the French could use against him, Pepperell resorted to a formal siege.  The French expected the New Englanders to approach the fortress walls by parallel trenches and zigzag approaches, advancing their guns in slow, successive stages.  The New Englanders, ignorant of professional tactics, dragged their heavy guns through a marsh that the French were certain was impassable and moved more guns into position under cover of night and fog.  More successes followed.  "The second morning of the landing, a small party under William Vaughan discovered that one of the key points of the [French] defences--the Grand (Royal) battery--had been abandoned.  Vaughan occupied it, and soon the guns of the battery were brought into action against the town."71 

After so many early successes, Pepperell's siege dragged on longer than he had anticipated.  Commodore Warren's command of the sea and heavy foraging from the surrounding countryside sustained the New English force, but "several unsuccessful and costly attacks against the Island battery," which commanded the entrance to Louisbourg harbor, damaged New English morale.  When Pepperell's men "established a battery on Lighthouse Point, overlooking the Island battery," however, Warren's ships could enter the harbor with impunity, and the French fortress was doomed.  On June 15, Governor Duchambon asked for terms.  After two days of negotiating, the seven-week long siege finally ended.  "The terms of the capitulation included permission for the officers and townspeople to remain in their homes and to enjoy the free exercise of their religion until they could sail for France, and a guarantee that no personal property would be disturbed."  The surrender also encompassed the rest of Île Royale; Île St.-Jean fell in August; without their military base at Louisbourg, the French could not hold the colony.  In July, the captured troupes de marine were transported to France, to be exchanged for British prisoners of war; with them went the inhabitants of Louisbourg.72 

When news of the victory reached Boston, the townspeople celebrated as wildly as Puritan decorum allowed and of course attributed the fall of the French citadel "as affirmation that they were much favoured of God...."  London also celebrated the victory, more remarkable because of the nature of the besieging force.  King George II commissioned Pepperell a colonel in the regular forces, gave him his own infantry command--the 66th Regiment of Foot--and conferred on him a baronetcy; he now was Sir William Pepperell.  At Louisbourg, the victorious New Englanders chafed under orders against plundering and threatened to mutiny.  Relations between the colonials and the blue jackets deteriorated after rumors spread that the commodore was claiming chief credit for the victory.  The colonial troops simmered down only after Governor Shirley appeared at the citadel in mid-August and promised to deliver on the large increase in pay that Pepperell had promised them.  Reinforcements arrived, but most of Pepperell's men remained at Louisbourg.  The following winter and spring took a dreadful toll on the colonial garrison; the estimated number of deaths among them ranged from 1,200 to 2,000!53

Meanwhile, in late July, Pepperell summoned Abbé Le Loutre to Louisbourg, but the priest was too clever to fall into his trap.  Le Loutre went to Québec instead, taking several of his Mi'kmaq with him.  He would return to Nova Scotia only if Canadian authorities could promise him more power over French activities there and enough food and arms for his Mi'kmaq and the Acadian partisans to be effective against the stronger British presence in the region.  The Canadians informed him that France already was preparing a major expedition to recover Louisbourg and that Le Loutre, his Mi'kmaq, and the partisans were expected to play a significant part in it.  Meanwhile, in retaliation for the capture of Louisbourg, the Wabanaki Confederacy launched an offensive against New English settlements in Maine.  Le Loutre returned to Nova Scotia in September 1745 and learned that the British had placed a 100-livre bounty on his head.  Unconcerned, he traveled through the province whenever and wherever his business sent him and spent the winter of 1745-46 at Minas, from whence he kept a close eye on Mascarene at Annapolis Royal.75

 Not all of the priests in Nova Scotia shared Abbé Le Loutre's passion for the cause.  Abbé Jean-Pierre Miniac of Rivière-aux-Canards, who also served as the Bishop of Québec's vicar general in "English Acadia," "expressed great anxiety over the impact that LeLoutre's aggressive actions against the British were having on neutral Acadians."  Abbé Miniac believed that his colleague's and the partisans' attacks in Nova Scotia "had placed the Acadians in an untenable position."  French military leaders in Québec decried Father Miniac's calls for Canadian restraint.  The bishop, Henri-Marie Dubreil de Pontbriand, who had taken office in 1741, agreed with Abbé Miniac and fretted over the military involvement of his priests in the coastal provinces.  Abbé Le Loutre ignored his colleague as well as his ecclesiastical superior.  He would follow the orders of the governor-general, not the wishes of his bishop, and continue to wage war against the Protestant enemy.79

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When Minister of Marine Maurepas learned of the fall of Louisbourg in mid-August 1745, he cobbled together a plan to recapture the fortress and secured nearly universal support at the French court.  The governor-general of New France, Charles de Beauharnois de La Boishe, and the intendant, Gilles Hocquart, urged Maurepas to hurry along his plans to recover the fortress.  Maurepas instructed Beauharnois to send another force to the Chignecto area, "prepared to attack Annapolis Royal once a massive fleet had arrived in the region."  The fleet, commanded by Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, marquis de Roucy and duc d'Anville, who was chosen for his rank, not his experience, sailed from La Rochelle on 22 June 1746, its destination a fine harbor in Chebouctou Bay on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia.  Evidently the duc and his officers let the rumor circulate among the men that they were heading to Britain to aid Bonnie Prince Charles and his Jacobite rebels to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the British throne.  D'Anville commanded 45 troop transports, supply ships, and merchantmen, escorted by 10 ships of the line, a hospital vessel, three frigates, and two corvettes.  Aboard were 3,500 infantrymen and an artillery train.  Counting the many sailors and auxiliaries, the young duc's force numbered an astonishing 11,000 men "embarked in over 25,000 tons of shipping."  D'Anville's mission was the height of French hubris:  he not only would recapture Louisbourg but also liberate Acadia and Newfoundland, protect Canada, and ravage the New England coast from Maine down to Boston and beyond!  Five months later, what was left of the once-formidable fleet limped back to France or to the French Indies, none of its lofty goals accomplished.  It was, by any measurement, one of the most disastrous French failures in modern military history.  "Somewhere between a half and two-thirds of the eleven thousand men who had set sail had been lost."  Beset by storms in its trans-Atlantic crossing, the fleet took three months to cross to North America.  A quarter of the vessels never reached Nova Scotia, and those that did arrived at Chebouctou in dreadful condition.80 

The Canadian offensive against Annapolis Royal never materialized.  On June 5, seven ships commanded by Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas-Roch de Ramezay, carrying 700 Canadian marines and Abenaki, sailed from Québec to Baie Verte, which they reached on July 10.  Ramezay's orders from Governor-general Beauharnois and Intendant Hocquart "were drawn up in the belief that the Acadians were only waiting for the right circumstances to declare their wholehearted support for France."  On July 15, Ramezay sent Captain Louis de La Corne with 200 men to Minas to cut communications between those settlements and Annapolis Royal.80a

Abbé Le Loutre, back from Québec the previous autumn, also took a prominent part in the operation.  With him was an assistant, Abbé Maurice de La Corne, whose mission was to assume Le Loutre's post among the Mi'kmaq if someone collected the 100-livre bounty still placed on the head of his fellow priest.  After learning of Maurepas's plan to recapture Louisbourg and liberate Acadia, Le Loutre and his Mi'kmaq, along with trois-rivière partisans led by Beausoleil Broussard, took station at Chebouctou Bay to rendezvous with d'Anville's fleet and a smaller naval force from the French West Indies.  Le Loutre sent messengers to all of the Mi'kmaq villages in the area with orders to report to him at Chebouctou.  The Canadians, Indians, and Acadian partisans were eager not only to help recapture Louisbourg but also to attack the English stronghold at Boston.  Anticipating the size of d'Anville's force, Le Loutre oversaw the task of gathering food, especially fish, for the French armada.  Drying huts were set up on Île Raquette, future Georges Island, in middle of the harbor; firewood was cut, split, and stacked; and Mi'kmaq and Acadians herded cattle along an Indian trail that ran from Minas to Chebouctou.  Acadian partisans not only from trois-rivières but also from other Fundy settlements shook hands and exchanged stories at their campsites along the heights overlooking the beautiful bay.  The Broussards were joined by Pierre Surette, fils and his brothers Paul and Joseph, Joseph-Nicolas Gautier, no longer the wealthiest man in Nova Scotia, and the redoubtable Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, who was responsible for the herds of cattle coming up the trail from Minas.81 

Preparations at Chebouctou progressed to the point that Le Loutre could return to his priestly duties.  He returned to Chebouctou in time to see the arrival of two French frigates, L'Aurore and Le Castor, which had had been cruising in the area.  One of the Surettes piloted the big ships safely into the harbor, out of sight of any British vessels that might sail into the bay.  Le Loutre, seeing an opportunity, hurried a message to Ramezay suggesting that he attack Annapolis Royal immediately with the force he had.  Not bothering to consult their captains, the priest assumed that the Aurore and the Castor would be ready to raise sail immediately and rendezvous with Ramezay in the Annapolis Basin.  The Canadian ignored Le Loutre and sent a small expedition, instead, to Port-Lajoie on Île St.-Jean to recapture that post.  The raiders returned with 40 prisoners from the redcoat regiment occupying the island, and Ramezay eventually sent them under guard to Québec.  By the end of August, having distributed his forces from Baie Verte to Minas but moving only against Port-Lajoie, the inevitable consequences of remaining in camp too long during the hot summer months began to their their toll on Ramezay's men.  Illness struck them hard, and Ramezay was forced to detail men to guard British prisoners.  The deputies at Minas complained about having to feed La Corne's men as well as their own families; the Acadians were especially concerned about their livestock.  They also reminded Ramezay of what the British would do them if they abandoned neutrality.  Ramezay told them that he was only following orders and promised to forward their concerns to his superiors in Québec.  In hopes of securing more food for his men, Ramezay moved to Beaubassin on September 1, leaving a detachment at Baie Verte to guard his rear.  Unfortunately, the area was in the midst of a summer drought, so Ramezay's men found little food at Beaubassin.  The Acadians in the area also did their best to cling to neutrality, which meant helping this new invasion force as little as they could.  Other Acadians, of a very different sort, were unhappy with the incessant waiting.  At Chebouctou, Beausoleil Broussard and some of his men, joined by Mi'kmaq eager to fight the enemy, turned one of the supply schooners that accompanied the frigates into a privateer vessel and set out in search of British booty.  A few days later, to the cheers of their compatriots on shore, they returned to Chebouctou with two English prizes.  Le Loutre, perhaps not realizing the irony of his words, claimed in his memoirs that he was hard-pressed to protect the captives "'from outrages by the savages.'"82 

The French West Indian flotilla reached the rendezvous at Chebouctou in mid-summer and waited until the first of September for d'Anville's fleet.  By then, d'Anville's armada was a month overdue.  Le Loutre dispersed his Mi'kmaq, knowing that he could call them back to the rendezvous at a moment's notice.  He provided the Acadian partisans who chose to remain at Chebouctou the secret codes for communicating with d'Anville's warships and showed them the best places along the coast from which to perform lookout duty.  Le Loutre, the Broussards, and the remainder of their force moved overland to Chignecto in early September.  Soon after their arrival, however, they received a message from Chebouctou announcing the arrival of 44 of d'Anville's ships, including the duc himself, who anchored in the harbor on September 14.83 

Ramezay, his force reduced to 300 by disease and detachment, led his Canadians to Minas to prepare for a fourth assault against Annapolis Royal.  Le Loutre sent messengers to the Mi'kmaq chiefs, calling their warriors back to arms, and, with the Broussards and other partisans, hurried back to Chebouctou.  What they found there disheartened them.  Diseases of every kind--scurvy; pulmonary, venereal, and other infections; as well as typhus and smallpox--killed hundreds of the Frenchmen, en route as well as at anchor in the bay.  Thousands more were rendered hors de combat; so many sailors were too ill to perform their jobs that French naval officers, among the most arrogant of martinets, had to join the few able-bodied seamen in manning the lines that raised and lowered the sails of their ships.  "Using sails and spars, the French set up a make-shirt hospital on the shore of the inner bay of the harbour ... and the dying continued."  Le Loutre sent messages to all of the Fundy communities, beseeching them to hurry supplies to the French at Chebouctou Bay.  D'Anville himself was not immune to the terrors that plagued his venture--he died "of an attack of apoplexy" aboard his flagship on September 27, having just celebrated his 37th birthday.  Some suspected murder, others suicide.  The duc was buried on Île Raquette without ceremony.  His second in command did not succeed him, having attempted suicide, so command of the venture fell to the vice-admiral aboard the flagship Northumberland, the newly-promoted governor-general of New France, Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de La Jonquière, marquis de La Jonquière.  The marquis cancelled the attack not only against Louisbourg but also against Annapolis Royal, which he had set in motion by ordering Ramezay to invest Fort Anne.  Other than four of the transports, escorted by the warship Renommée, which went on to Canada, the remnant of the fleet, still commanded by La Jonquière, returned to France, the expedition an utter failure.84

At Annapolis, Ramezay, now joined by Le Loutre and the Broussards, stood before Fort Anne for three weeks, his force too weak for a direct attack.  Mascarene's garrison had been reinforced, was well provisioned, and the old fort's walls had been repaired again, so Ramezay had no choice but to wait for the fleet to arrive.  During the siege, Ramezay's force was sustained by a herd of cattle from Minas driven to Annapolis by Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre.  When Ramezay finally received a message from La Jonquière on November 3, the new governor-general informed him that he was returning to France and ordered Ramezay to abandon the attack on Fort Anne.  Ramezay returned to Minas by November 8 and waited there two weeks for an early snow storm to abate.  He and most of his force then returned by water to Beaubassin, while a detachment marched overland from Minas to Baie Verte, from which they could protect the rear of Ramezay's main force.  Frustrated by defeat and the rigors of campaigning, the Canadians, now only 200 of them, were certain that the local Acadians were informing the British of their miserable condition.84a 

Hearing of the arrival of a French vessel at Chebouctou after La Jonquière had departed, Le Loutre and the Broussards hurried back to the harbor, where they found La Sirène sitting at anchor.  The priest and the partisan beseeched the captain of the vessel to assist them in an attack on Annapolis Royal.  Learning of d'Anville's fate and seeing the paucity of Le Loutre's force, the captain refused to join in such a venture.  Instead, he took on stores and returned to France, taking the abbé with him.85

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D'Anville's expedition was so grandiose that the British had no trouble learning from their many spies the size and destination of d'Anville's fleet.  At Louisbourg, Shirley's and Pepperell's militia force, now much reduced, were replaced by British regulars under lieutenant colonels Peregrine Thomas Hopson and John Horsman of the 29th and 59th Regiments of Foot, and the New Englanders finally could go home.  At Annapolis Royal, Mascarene had little time to celebrate the withdrawal of Ramezay's force.  In November, he and his council learned that French plans for a fifth attack on Fort Anne were underway.  Shirley and the governors of Rhode Island and New Hampshire sprang to action, gathering a thousand troops at Boston and hurrying them on to Nova Scotia.  A storm and a French privateer turned back part of the fleet, but 450 men under Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Noble of the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment made it to Annapolis.86

By then, Acadian anxiety was running higher than ever.  They had heard that their cousins at Louisbourg had been deported along with the French garrison after the fall of the fortress the previous summer, and rumors were circulating that the Acadians of Île St.-Jean, which also had fallen, would meet a similar fate.  If Ramezay's Canadians and Le Loutre's Indians failed to capture Annapolis Royal, the Fundy Acadians feared similar treatment at the hands of the British.  Mascarene got wind of this disturbing rumor and knew that Ramezay and Le Loutre were behind it.  Mascarene reminded the authorities in London that British control of Nova Scotia could not endure if the Acadians, succumbing to pressure from the French, abandoned their neutrality.  The Board of Trade ordered Governor Shirley "to issue a proclamation effectively reassuring Acadians that they had nothing to fear from a British victory."  By then, Shirley, who had given serious consideration to mass deportation, "had changed his mind about the desirably of evicting the Acadians."  He issued a proclamation, signed on September 12, before d'Anville's fleet reached Chebouctou, "asserting that he knew of no intention on the part of the British ministers in London to deport the Acadians."  But his proclamation included these words:  "'those who shall do otherwise and join the Enemy, Especially those from Canada ... they may expect to be treated as his Majesty's English subjects are treated in the like provoking cases.'"  Mascarene, of course, did what he could to distribute the message in all of the Acadian communities.  In late November, Shirley reported to the Board of Trade that some of the couriers sent out to the Acadian communities had been intercepted by Canadians and partisans but that, through word of mouth, the Acadians had received his message.  He was confident they were reassured that they would not be removed from their lands.87

With Ramezay's Canadians still hovering at Minas, British control of the Acadians along the Fundy shore was difficult if not impossible.  To restore British dominance in the area, Lieutenant Colonel Noble, with Captain John Gorham and his rangers in tow, moved on Minas in late December and reached Grand-Pré on New Year's Day 1747.  Ramezay and the partisans, apprised by Mi'kmaq scouts of the New English movement, wisely remained at Chignecto.  After six months of fruitless effort, Broussard's partisans were tired and dispirited and wanted to rejoin their families during this coldest time of winter, so Beausoleil had to use all of his considerable powers of persuasion to keep most of them at Beaubassin for another go at the English.  At Grand-Pré, Noble rendezvoused with his ships from Annapolis, aboard which he had stacked pre-fabricated blockhouses to be used by his men to occupy the Minas villages.  The frozen ground prevented their erection until spring.  Noble then forced his remaining New Englanders upon the Grand-Pré Acadians, "while he and his officers took over a small stone house at the centre of the village."  Among his officers were commissary Edward How, who "had extended kin connections among the Acadian elite," and Nova Scotia councilman Erasmus James Philipps, whose task was to inform Mascarene of the state of neutrality among the Acadians.  In early February, Noble sent Gorham and his rangers back to Fort Anne with orders to return to Minas in the spring.88 

One of Noble's missions was to choose new deputies among the Minas Acadians and send them on to Annapolis as soon as possible.  Back in late November, deputies from Grand-Pré and Pigiguit had attended a council meeting at Annapolis to deliver a letter that gave an "'account of their Miserable state during the war with Acknowledgments of Obligations to govr Shirley for his Letter and Promises strictly to observe and adhere to their Oath of neutrality.'"  They described the French occupation of their villages, recently ended, and the impact it had on their lives.  Always concerned about their state of neutrality, Mascarene pressed them to name those individuals who cooperated with Ramezay and his Canadians.  The deputies demurred, reminding the lieutenant governor that they would be forced to name their own kin, and this they would not do.  Historian Naomi Griffiths explains:  "The Acadian sense of neutrality clearly encompassed a belief that individuals were not obliged to offer information, to either party, about the activities of others within their communities.  Family arguments about information given to either side, and about the amount of aid that would be offered to those faced with an armed force, were arguments within families and among the villagers.  To outsiders, whether French or British, Acadians proffered little about the activities of their kin."  Could even Mascarene have been so naive to think that new deputies would violate this code?108

By late January, snow was still falling and the streams were frozen, but Noble and his men should not have rested peacefully.  Walking among them were Acadian spies reporting everything they saw and heard to Broussard and Ramezay at Beaubassin.  On January 8, an Acadian spy reported to Ramezay that Noble's force numbered 220 or so and that 300 more were expected in the spring.  The spy also described the pre-fabricated blockhouses lashed to the deck of Noble's vessels.  He may also have reported the fact that Noble had left "the shot for the cannon on boats in the river rather than with the gun emplacements in the village...."  With this information, Ramezay threw together a plan for a winter attack on Noble's garrison.  He would use the Canadians still with him, the Acadian partisans, and as many Indians as abbés Maillard and Girard could assemble at Cobeguit in time to join him.  He also asked the priests to scour the outlying settlements for provisions.  His Canadians and Indians had been in the Chignecto area, off and on, since the previous summer, so provisions there were scarce.  His forward base at Minas was now occupied by hundreds of enemy soldiers, which also cut him off from any provisions he could have obtained from the Annapolis valley.  Recapturing Minas was essential for another strike against Fort Anne.  Without occupying Grand-Pré himself, Ramezy could not liberate Acadia.78 

Ramezay was suffering from an injured knee, so he handed the Grand-Pré operation to his second in command.  Captain Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers, age 39, was an experienced Canadian officer who had seen action against the Fox in the Lake Michigan region and had earned promotion for gallantry.  With Coulon de Villiers was another talented officer, Captain Louis de La Corne, now was second in command, who had operated in the Minas area under Ramezay's command a year and a half before.  La Corne was four years older than Coulon de Villiers, but, unlike the younger officer, had not seen combat of any note.  He nonetheless was respected by his fellow Canadians and would prove his mettle in the fight ahead.  Also with the attacking party would be Ramezay's 19-year-old nephew, Ensign Charles des Champs de Boishébert, who would play a greater role in Acadian history than any of the other Canadians there.  The Broussards and their fellow partisans also would go to Minas, where they would draw blood for the first time in many months.  Also coming to Chignecto were several dozen Mi'kmaq and Maliseet under Abbé Charles Germain, as well as "a group of Acadian insurgents from Île St.-Jean...," whose settlements had fallen to the British a year and a half before.101 

On January 21, Coulon de Villiers and his men began their journey overland from Baie Verte through Remsheg, Tatamagouche, Cobeguit, Shubenacadie, and Pigiguit, picking up Acadian partisans along the way.   The long line of men--Indians, Canadians, and Acadians--trudged cross country on snowshoes, using dog teams to haul wicker sleighs heavily laden with supplies and arms through blizzards that piled snow ever higher and turned every stream into an icy obstacle.  At Cobeguit, they were joined by Abbé Maillard and more Acadian partisans.  By then, Coulon de Villiers commanded 300 Canadians and dozens of partisans and Indians--substantially more than the New English force encamped at Grand-Pré.  The Mi'kmaq contingent would have been larger were it not for the epidemic that swept through their villages after they had stripped the clothing from the dead soldiers and sailors at Chebouctou the previous autumn.102 

Along Coulon de Villiers's line of march Acadian families provided them shelter against the wind and snow as well as food to fill their backpacks.  The Acadians at Pigiguit were especially accommodating.  Some expected compensation, others did not.  That a good part of the force consisted of Acadian partisans, many of them their cousins, must have stirred their ancient hatred of all things English.  Joseph Broussard, universally known if not universally respected, commanded the loyalty of many, who were eager to reveal to the partisan leader the exact location of the New English intruders.  As a result, "about a score of young men joined their ranks and acted, above all, as guides and as informants about the organization of the British force."  After a 17-day, 120-mile trek through ice and snow, the attacking party reached the vicinity of Grand-Pré on midday of February 10.  Determined to attack the enemy after nightfall, Coulon de Villiers awarded his men a few hours rest along Rivière Gaspereau, only two miles from Grand-Pré.  In the house where Coulon de Villiers and his officers chose to rest, Acadians were holding a wedding feast!  "The guests were much startled at this sudden irruption of armed men; but to the Canadians and their chief the festival was a stroke of amazing good luck, for most of the guests were inhabitants of Grand Pré, who knew perfectly the houses occupied by the English, and could tell with precision where the officers were quartered.  This was a point of extreme importance.  The English were distributed among twenty-four houses, scattered ... for the distance of a mile and a half" along a ridge overlooking the dyked marshes.  That such a large attacking force made it so close to the New English garrison without an alarm ringing out gives an idea of the quality of Noble's security and the loyalty of the local habitants.  Before darkness fell, some of the partisans slipped unobtrusively into the village to conduct a final reconnaissance.  While local spies pointed out to them which of the houses sheltered a certain number of Noble's New Englishmen, there can be little doubt that some of the Grand-Pré residents recognized their partisan cousins.103

What followed next was the most significant moment in King George's War for the Acadians. 

At three o'clock in the morning of February 11, in the midst of yet another snow storm, Coulon de Villiers led his force into the sleeping village, divided his men into 10 groups of 50 each, and directed them to follow the Acadian partisans to the houses where Noble's men were billeted.  Coulon de Villiers, with the Broussards and the Surrettes, crept up to the stone house where Noble and some of his officers slept.  The attackers already knew that the small cannon at the front of the building were unmanned.  When the signal was given, the Canadians, Indians, and Acadians raised their muskets, stormed each building, and opened fire on the soldiers within.  The result was a bloodbath.  Most of the New English killed or wounded were shot in their beds, Lieutenant Colonel Noble, his brother Francis, and three other officers being among the dead.  The attacking force lost six dead--an Acadian partisan, two Indians, and three Canadians.  Fourteen of the attackers were wounded, including Coulon de Villiers himself, whose left arm was shattered by a musket ball, and Ensign Boishébert, whose wound was less severe.  Coulon de Villiers fell wounded soon after the attack began, so it was Louis de La Corne who commanded the attacking force during most of the action.104 

The remaining New Englanders, under Commissary Captain Benjamin Goldthwait, resisted as best they could but were forced to surrender by afternoon of the following day.  When the dead and wounded were tallied, the engagement proved to be "the bloodiest fight ever to take place in the colony...."  Noble's garrison suffered from 154 to 174 casualties--76 dead, including six officers; 38 wounded; and between 40 and 60 captured.  Coulon de Villiers's "articles of capitulation" were generous:  the New English troops who had surrendered with Goldthwait must leave Grand-Pré within two days; they would be accorded "the honours of war" and given "six days of provisions, their knapsacks, a pound of shot and one of powder'"; those taken prisoner before the capitulation would remain; the boat and schooner in the basin would remain in Canadian hands, as would the British possession pillaged by the Indians; most generous of all, the seriously wounded and the sick would be taken to nearby Rivière-aux-Canards and cared for by the habitants there until Mascarene could collect them; finally, no one who had fought at Grand-Pré could serve at Minas, Pigiguit, Cobeguit, or Chignecto for the next six months (this essentially confined them to the Annapolis valley or compelled their return to New England).  On the eve of his departure, Captain Goldthwait invited the French officers to share an evening meal with him and his New Englanders "so that they all might become better acquainted over a bowl of punch."  On February 14, the New Englanders who could manage began their journey back to Annapolis Royal.  When he learned of the fate of Noble's force and how the Canadians had treated them, Mascarene "expressed his sincere gratitude for the chivalrous behaviour of the French" who had just killed so many of his men.105 

Such was the nature of eighteenth-century warfare. 

On February 19, less than a week after the New Englanders departed, the Minas delegates approached Captain La Corne and pointed out to him how difficult it would be to provision his force for the rest of the winter.  Accordingly, La Corne left Grand-Pré on February 23, and most of his men had reached Baie Verte by March 7.  By then, Ramezay had received orders to send most of his officers and men back to Québec, via the long, grueling overland route via Rivière St.-Jean this time.  Ramezay would remain at Beaubassin with a part of his force until June.  Frustrated over his failure to hold Grand-Pré and having failed to liberate the province, he sent a message to the Minas Acadians, reminding them that they now were under French jurisdiction and would suffer reprisal if they communicated "'with the inhabitants of Port Royal'"--that is to say, their cousins.  The priest at Annapolis Royal, Abbé Desenclaves, concerned with the welfare of the Acadians at Minas, urged them to remain neutral.  The good father need not have bothered.  Most of the Acadians had seen this cycle of conflict and retribution before:  the British were certain to retaliate, and any abandonment of neutrality would be duly noted and used against them, even as a pretext to send them out of the country!  Acadians in all of the Minas settlements sat down with his families and neighbors to discuss their predicament.  Most of them would have concluded that even the perception of movement towards one side or the other could result in dire consequences for all of them.  Mascarene and his garrison had not been defeated; no Acadian in the province could ignore that.  The Canadians, despite their signal victory at Grand-Pré, were the ones who quit the country, leaving the habitants to the mercy of the British once again.  Such was the inescapable logic of their circumstance.  It was best to cling to neutrality as if it were life itself.106 

In March 1747, sure enough, a hundred New Englanders under Captain John Rous returned to Grand-Pré, and Minas was part of the British realm again.  The Minas deputies communicated with both Ramezay, to whom they explained their predicament, and to Mascarene, to whom they pledged their loyalty to the British crown.  Ramezay response was unwelcome:  he ordered the Minas settlers to remove themselves to Chignecto, where they would take up arms against Britain "or face certain death."  Having heard this threat before, few, if any, complied.  Mascarene demonstrated his usual constraint, but his mentor, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, now the most influential governor in New England, "was more than ever convinced that only the establishment of garrisons throughout the peninsula could provide 'an effectual Security to the Province against the enemy and oblige the Inhabitants in a little time to contribute towards the protection & Expence of the Government....'"  The governor also revealed his darker side.  Hearing of the role played by Acadian partisans in the attack on Grand-Pré, during late autumn 1747 he "issued a proclamation declaring twelve of them outlaws and offering a reward of L50 sterling for the capture of each, if delivered within six months."  He offered a pardon to any of them who turned in the others, revealing a towering ignorance of the Acadian mindset.  The dozen outlaws named in Shirley's proclamation were Beausoleil Broussard, Joseph-Nicolas Gautier, his sons Joseph and Pierre, Armand Bigeau, Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, Pierre Guédry, Charles and François Raymond, Charles and Philip LeRoy, and Louis Hébert.  Mascarene believed that the Acadian partisans who had helped the French were "chiefly outlaws" from "the Island of St. John and from St. Peter on Cape Breton."  When the offer of pardon expired the following spring, neither Mascarene nor Shirley held a single Acadian partisan in any of their dungeons.  But by then it did not matter so much--King George's War was over.107 

A Tenuous Peace and the Construction of Halifax

The War of the Austrian Succession, despite the amazing victory of a New England militia force that captured Louisbourg in June 1745, proved as indecisive as the earlier world conflicts between the imperial powers.  It ended with a treaty signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in April 1748.  By this treaty, Nova Scotia remained in British hands ... but the Maritime islands--both Île Royale and Île St.-Jean--were exchanged for Madras, India.  The fortress at Louisbourg was back in French hands, and they were determined to make the most of it.    

Dramatic changes had occurred in New France during the final months of King George's War.  Charles de Beauharnois de La Boische, marquis de Beauharnois, had served as governor-general of New France since August 1726.  In 1747, Beauharnois was age 76, having been born at his family's chateau at La Chaussée near Orléans in the year the first Acadian census was taken!  His replacement was Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de La Jonquière, marquis de La Jonquière, age 62, a native of Albi, France.  It was La Jonquière, as a rear admiral, who had come to Nova Scotia with the duc d'Anville in September 1746.  After succeeding the duc in command of that disastrous expedition, La Jonquière had returned to France that autumn, intending to take his post as governor-general at Québec as soon as he could manage it.  In May 1747, he left Île d'Aix with a division of three frigates and two ships of the line, including his flagship, the 64-gun Sérieux, and a convoy of merchant vessel.  Only four days out, a British squadron under Vice-admiral George Anson, whose second in command was Rear-admiral Peter Warren, the victor at Louisbourg, waylaid the marquis and his vessels off Cape Ortegal, Spain.  The merchant ships managed to escape, but the British engaged the French men of war, who were great overmatched, in a five-hour exchange of fire and blood.  Anson and Warren captured all of the French warships, as well as the admiral/governor-general, who had been wounded in the fray.  La Jonquière spent the rest of the war at Portsmouth, England, and was unable to take up his post at Québec until August 1749, nearly a year and a half after the peace was signed.109 

Back at Québec, La Jonquière's place was taken by Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière, a native Rochefort, who had first come to Canada in 1711 while still a midshipman.  He, too, was a naval officer, the son of a lieutenant-general of naval forces, and, on his mother's side, was a nephew of Michel Bégon, intendant of New France.  La Galissonière spent most of his naval service at his native Rochefort, but he also sailed to Canada and Île Royale during his time at sea.  In May 1738, more as a result of family connections than distinguished service, he was awarded the coveted Cross of St.-Louis.  He saw much service during the War of the Austrian Succession, holding the rank of captain.  His administrative skills were such that he was offered the governor-generalship of St.-Domingue in early 1747, but he refused the office, preferring to continue his naval career.  A few months later, after the capture of La Jonquière, Minister of Marine Maurepas offered La Galissonière the interim governor-generalship of New France, and the marquis reluctantly agreed to take it.  He left Rochefort for Québec aboard the Northumberland in September 1747.  He had been to Canada a number of times, but he knew the place only as a sailor.  He consulted with his predecessor, Charles de Beauharnois, who, because the war was still on, had not yet returned to France, and with Intendant Hocquart, who was staying.110

Although the war was going well for the French in Europe, it had not gone well for them in North America.  After evaluating the condition of New France, the new governor-general chose a purely defensive policy--there would be no more expeditions against Annapolis Royal or Louisbourg, only the strengthening of positions still held by the French.  In Canada, La Galisonnière believed that an alliance with the Iroquois would do much to strengthen the colony's defensive position.  In order "to draw the Indians into the French orbit," he dusted off part of La Salle's old plan of joining Canada and Louisiana with "a line of posts along the Ohio valley...."  Unfortunately for such an expensive scheme, the colony's finances were in shambles.  There were no funds available, for instance, to mount on the fortifications of Québec and Montréal new guns that had been authorized two years before after the sudden loss of Louisbourg!111 

When the war ended in April 1748, La Galissonière was still serving as interim governor-general.  Clinging to his idea of fortifying the Ohio country and winning over the Indians there, in June 1749 he sent Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville from Montréal to the Lake Ontario and Ohio region to evaluate Indian alliances and British influence there.  Céloron, who had fought with Bienville against the Chickasaw in Louisiana a decade before, was well acquainted with the area.  He reported that British influence in the region was increasing, primarily because of the growing activity of the Ohio Company, which offered cheaper trade goods to the Indians than any Canadian trader could match.  The colony's finances were still precarious, and peace had come, so La Galissonière concentrated on building a single post, on Lake Ontario, from which the Canadians could lure the Iroquois from British traders.  The Great Lakes and the Ohio, and the growing British influence there, would occupy French attention for years to come.112

La Jonquière finally reached his post at Québec in August 1749.  Unfamiliar with New France, he conferred with La Galissonière, who had been recalled to France.  La Jonquière agreed with his predecessor's policies, especially towards the Indians.  He also had to contend with the fallout from the diplomatic coup that returned Île Royale and Île St.-Jean to France.  For the strengthening of the fortifications at Louisbourg and the projection of French power into the Maritimes region, including British Nova Scotia, he deferred to the new governor of Île Royale, fellow naval officer Charles Des Herbiers de La Ralière, who had reached Louisbourg in June 1749.  By then, British reaction to the return of Louisbourg had created a new element of danger and intrigue in that part of New France.113

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Reaction in New England to the loss of Louisbourg was "immediate and visceral."  Not only the governors but also the people were appalled by the diplomatic surrender.  Men from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island had captured the French citadel, and hundreds of them were buried there, lost during the brutal winter of occupation.  British diplomats, and King George himself, could brush off New English sacrifice, but the colonials could not, and talk in Boston turned to revolution.  The reaction of the British Lords of Trade and Plantations to the outrage in New England changed dramatically the geography of the imperial conflict in North America.  Moreover, there would be no peace in spite of the "peace" signed in a city on the far side of France.  In June 1749, without having notified the French at Louisbourg and spurning negotiations with the Mi'kmaq elders, the new governor of Nova Scotia, Colonel Edward Cornwallis, arrived with 13 transports and the HMS Sphinx at Chebouctou Bay.  Aboard the transports were not only British regular troops but also 1,176 settlers--most of them so-called Foreign Protestants who would transform the area into a British stronghold facing the French at Louisbourg.  Some of the settlers were from the British Isles, but recruitment there had not gone well--the poor of Great Britain and Ireland had every reason to emigrate to the New World, but most preferred more southern climes.  Cornwallis had lured most of his new settlers from the upper Rhine principalities of western Germany, especially Württemberg, from the Protestant regions of northeastern France, especially Montbéliard, and from Switzerland and the Netherlands.235

On the west side of the deep inlet flowing into Chebouctou Bay, beneath a commanding height, Cornwallis ordered the construction a new stronghold, which he named Halifax, after George Montague-Dunk, second Earl of Halifax, president of the Board of Trade and Plantations.  Atop the commanding height, promptly dubbed Fort Hill, Cornwallis built a wooden palisade he called Fort George.  The following year, the British built another fortification to protect their new stronghold from sea-borne attack, on an island at the entrance to Halifax harbor.  Cornwallis named the new palisade Fort Charlotte, after Britain's Queen, and the glacial drumlin on which the new fort stood he named after the King himself--Georges Island.235b 

Not satisfied with this, Cornwallis imported more colonists, again all Protestant, mostly Rhinelander Germans, to populate several more settlements along the coast above and below Halifax.  Bedford, with its Fort Sackville, was built at the narrow head of Halifax harbor to give the area defense in depth from attack via the interior.  Dartmouth arose in 1750 between Halifax and Bedford.  Lunenburg, founded by an Englishman but, as its name attests, populated by Germans, began in June 1753 on a wide bay down the coast from Halifax near the site of the old but sparsely-populated Acadian settlement of Mirliguèche.  Lawrencetown was built in 1754 on an inlet above Halifax near the Acadian fishing village of Chezzetcook.

Lawrencetown was named for Lieutenant Colonel Charles Lawrence, who, as a 40-year-old major, had come to Halifax in July 1749 soon after the new headquarters was established.  Lawrence was unmarried when he came to Nova Scotia and remained a life-long bachelor.  He had been commissioned in the 11th Regiment of Foot in 1727 and served in the West Indies during the 1730s before returning to London to work in the War Office.  He was promoted to lieutenant in 1741 and to captain in 1742.  Three years later, in May 1745, he fought in the Battle of Fontenoy, Belgium, and was wounded.  After his recovery, Lawrence was promoted to major in the 45th (Warburton's) Regiment and joined it at Louisbourg in 1747 as part of the occupying force.  His rapid rise in rank was due mainly to his competence as an officer--"He was popular in the army and was known to be strong, energetic, and direct in his methods," one of his biographers tells us--but Lawrence also enjoyed the patronage of the second  Earl of Halifax through a family connection.  At Halifax, he served as a company commander in the 40th Regiment beginning in December 1749.  No one could have known it, but the new British major would soon play a major role in Acadian history.235a 

Once British troops cleared land and built appropriate shelter at the new headquarters, Cornwallis moved the colonial capital from Annapolis Royal to Halifax.  Acadians who had to appear before the colonial council now had to travel to the Atlantic side of the peninsula, dozens of miles from their major settlements.  But the new governor's next move was even more troubling for the Fundy habitants.  Within months of establishing Halifax, Cornwallis asserted his authority over the entire peninsula by sending redcoats from Annapolis Royal and Halifax to several of the largest Acadian settlements.  There they built palisade forts to house and protect what Cornwallis intended to be permanent new garrisons.  Fort Edward arose on a height overlooking the forks of the river at Pigiguit, on the l'Assomption side of the stream.  Near Grand-Pré, not far from the battlefield of February 1747, appeared Fort Vieux Logis, named for the site on which it was built near a landing on Rivière Gaspereau.  A year later, in the fall of 1750, a third palisade, named Fort Lawrence, was constructed at Chignecto on the site of the burned out village of Beaubassin.  Annapolis Royal already had its Fort Anne, which the British had improved as best they could since they seized Port-Royal in 1710.  Perhaps because of a lack of troops, Cornwallis did not bother to send a garrison to Cobeguit, at the northeast corner of the Minas Basin, where John Gorham's rangers had built a blockhouse during King George's War.236 

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Despite these troubling developments, most of the Acadians clung to their neutrality, trading with Louisbourg and the new French post at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, as well as the scattered British outposts in Nova Scotia, both old and new.  This was a dangerous game for the independent-minded habitants, but one that they were certain they could play indefinitely.  The fortress at Louisbourg had limited agricultural resources, so the French there paid good prices for cattle and grain transported from Chignecto via Baie Verte and Tatamagouche.  Protestant settlers in the colony now numbered in the hundreds, but they could not yet produce enough food to provision the scattered British garrisons, which still depended on the Acadians for much of their subsistence.  To facilitate trade with Halifax, the Acadians widened an existing track from Minas, used only a few years before by Indians and Acadian partisans, down which they drove their cattle and grain-laden wagons to the new colonial capital facing the sea.236a 

The Acadian trade with Louisbourg angered the British, so, in August 1749, the new governor pressured the Acadians to take an unqualified oath of allegiance to the British crown.  As they had done so often with the other governors and lieutenant governors, the Acadians politely but firmly refused a new oath of allegiance.  Acadian deputies, bearing the signatures or marks of over a thousand of their compatriots, appeared at Halifax later in the month to remind Cornwallis of their previous oaths, which had exempted them and their posterity from taking up arms in future imperial conflict.  After talking in private with the deputies, Cornwallis allowed them to return to their homes.  There the matter stood, at least for now.  The war was over.  Peace had returned.  Some Acadians, responding to French blandishments, packed up their belongings, their animals, and their children, and slowly made their way to the French side of the bay.  But most of them remained and went about their business, expecting their new neighbors to do the same.115 

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BOOK TWO         BOOK THREE          BOOK FOUR           BOOK FIVE

NOTES - BOOK ONE

01. Quotation from Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 22, p.47.  See also ibid., 1: plates 21 & 28, for the evolution of the migratory bank fishery & the distribution of North American cod in Europe. 

Much of the information in this chapter is general knowledge that can be found in any good textbook, encyclopedia, or Wikipedia article dedicated to the Age of Exploration.  A recent detailed treatment of the subject is Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, chaps. 4-6.  

Taylor, A., American Colonies, 25-26, offers a review of Islam's triumph over the European Crusaders & further Muslim advances in southeastern Europe during the 15th century that created "a powerful sense of geographic and religious claustrophobia" among European thinkers, which, ironically, motivated them "to break out and circumvent the Muslim world."  Quotations from p. 26.  On p. 29, Taylor emphasizes the private, capitalistic nature of the Genoese & Iberian ventures down the northwest coast of Africa, including the discovery & exploitation of the Canaries, Madeira, & the Azores. 

The Norsemen or Vikings settled in North America during the early 11th century, perhaps even in present-day Nova Scotia, but nothing came of their discoveries other than temporary settlements in the region.  The rest of Europe did not hear of these ventures much less benefit from them economically or intellectually.  See Clark, Acadia, 7, 74.  On p. 5, he uses the term Ultima Thule, "an end of the world," for the Norse perspective of what became Nova Scotia. 

<Micmac History> asserts:  "The first known contact [between Mi'kmaq & Europeans] was made in 1497 by John Cabot who took three Micmac with him when he returned to England.  The Micmac may not have appreciated this, since Cabot disappeared in the same area during his second voyage a few years later."

Other early explorers of the region were the Portuguese Corte Real brothers, who sailed along the North Atlantic coast from Newfoundland down to Nova Scotia in 1500-01, not long after Cabot's voyage, and a Portuguese navigator named Fagundes who, in 1520 & 1521, sailed along the coast of Nova Scotia and into the mouth of the Bay of Fundy.  See the superb map in Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 19, which tracks the voyages of every known explorer of the North American coast from 1497 to 1632.  See also Clark, p. 75. 

For descriptions of the fishing & fur trading operations in the St. Lawrence region & along the Nova Scotia shore & their significance to the history of Acadia, see Clark, pp. 7-9, 22-24, 74-75, 78 note 6, 88; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 5; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, chap. 2; & below.  Mathé Allain, in her essay "Colbert's Colony Crumbles," in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 32, says that the Canadian fur trade was "Born of the fishing industry."  See also Taylor, A., pp. 94ff. 

The first Indians to make contact with European fishermen were the Beothuk of Newfoundland, Thule Inuits from Labrador who moved to the northern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Montagnais on the upper St. Lawrence coast, and Mi'kmaq on Cape Breton Island, peninsula Nova Scotia, and the Gaspé Peninsula.  See Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 20.  For a history of the natives of French Acadia, from Paleolithic to historical times, see Clark, pp. 5, 8-9, 56-70.  For a poignant description of the impact of European contact on native peoples in general, see ibid., p. 9. 

02.  See Clark, Acadia, 7-8.  Ibid., p. 74, asserts that, in his explorations of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Cartier visited present-day Prince Edward Island. 

For a discussion of the origin of the name "Acadia," see ibid., pp. 71-72, especially note 1; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 6; Parkman, France & England, 1:184n.  (One of Clark’s sources in this discussion is P. C. Cormier’s L’Origine et l’histoire du nom Acadie, avec un discours su d’autres noms de lieu Acadiens, published in 1966.)  Arsenault, History, 11, insists that Verrazzano “was so overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of the primeval forest reaching down to the sea that it reminded him of descriptions of Arcadia in ancient Greece.”  Current scholarship says that the French corruption of a Mi'kmaq word, La Cadie, which means "fertile place," not Verrazzano's "Arcadia," is the true origin of the colony's name.  Whatever.  The colony came to be called L'Acadie or Acadie &, most importantly, the colonists called themselves Acadiens/Acadiennes ... Acadians. 

François I did not believe that simply seeing territory constituted a claim to it, so all that Verrazzano did for France was seek the elusive passage to the Orient & map a part of the coast of North America.  See Allain, "Not Worth a Straw," 2.  Not until Jacques Cartier in the 1530s did France start making "claims." 

Verrazzano's name is variously spelled Verazzano & Verrazano. 

The attempted settlement of Canada led by Admiral Jean-François de la Rocque, sieur de Roberval, in the early 1540s came to nothing; Cartier for a time served as captain-general of the expedition.  Parkman, 1:145ff, gives a detailed account of the ventures of Verrazzano, Cartier, & Roberval.  On 1:149, he points out that the Frenchman Denis of Honfleur had explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence as early as 1506.  Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 12ff, provides a recent account of Cartier's voyages and his sojourn on the St. Lawrence.  See also Taylor, A., American Colonies, 92.  For an un-translated copy of Roberval's instructions from the French court, dated 1540, see Jerry A. Micelle, "From Law Court to Local Government Metamorphosis of the Superior Council of French Louisiana," p. 422 n. 32, in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in LA.  See Allain, "Not Worth a Straw," 2-3, for a summation of François I's & his Valois successors' ideas of legitimate claim & mention of the Roberval effort. 

Milner, "Chignecto," says that Diego Homen, "a Portuguese settled at Venice," ventured into the Bay of Fundy in 1558 & "made a map showing Chignecto Bay."  Milner goes on to say:  "It is probable that Portuguese and French fishermen cast their nets into these waters even before that date."  Milner implies that not until Dugua's appearance in 1604 did a European expedition sail along the Chignecto shore.  

02a.  Quotation from Allain, "Not Worth a Straw," 1, who mentions de Gonneville & the role of Breton, Norman, & Basque fishermen in French Atlantic commerce.  See also ibid., p. 2. 

03.  Quotation from Roberts, Europe, 230-31.  See also Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 17; Parkman, France & England, 1:175.  It was of course the Edict of Nantes of 13 Apr 1598 that gave the Huguenots these guarantees.

03a.  Quotation from Johnson, American People, 10.  Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 18, says the Portuguese attacked the Huguenot colony at Rio in 1560.  For the classic study of these Huguenot efforts in Brazil & FL, see Parkman, France & England, 1:33-123, whose dates & details are used here.  

04.  Quotations from Allain,"Not Worth a Straw," 3; Johnson, American People, 10.  See also Clark, Acadia, 78, note 6. 

Allain offers a broad view of Coligny's efforts in the context of French colonial policy, quoting another scholar as saying that Coligny "conceived of colonization as a tool of foreign policy," as "a factor in geopolitics."  She also says, pp. 3-4, that Queen Catherine de Medici's "fear of Iberian reprisals" was one of the reasons for the Massacre of 1572.  "Certainly Spaniards and Portuguese celebrated the demise of the admiral with a grandiose Te Deum." 

See Taylor, A., American Colonies, 76-77, 92, for a concise, more recent interpretation of Menéndez's actions in FL & their result.  

Unlike Ribaut, Laudonnière managed to elude the Spanish swords & return to France, where he wrote a stirring account of the fate of Fort Caroline & its inhabitants.  In 1568, a French expedition under Dominique de Gourgues attacked Fort Caroline, renamed Fort San Mateo, & killed most of the Spanish garrison in revenge for Menéndez's slaughter of Ribaut & the Huguenot settlers.  Gourgues, however, did not re-establish a French settlement in Florida; he was there only for vengeance; nor was he able to get his hands on Menéndez, who was in Spain at the time.  See Parkman, 1:124ff.

Samuel Wilson, Jr., "Colonial Fortifications and Military Architecture in the Mississippi Valley," p. 379, in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in LA, describes Fort Caroline as "a triangular timber structure with bastions and a symmetrical arrangements of buildings within."

05.  Clark, Acadia, 9, 77, mentions the failed attempts of Troilus, Marquis de La Roche de Mesgouez, to establish a French colony in the New World, first in 1578 & then in the late 1590s on Sable Island, employing convicts. On p. 78, note 6, Clark points out that de La Roche's "record of continuous failure" was "unrivaled in the history of the northeastern shores of North America."  Miraculously, the poor souls left by de La Roche on Sable Island survived there for five years, until they were rescued in 1603, probably by fishermen who frequented that coast.  For details of La Roche's Sable Island venture, see Parkman, France & England, 1:176ff, who says the convicts survived on the remote island for 12 years before being rescued.  Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 20, mentions a failed settlement at Tadoussac on the lower St. Lawrence River in 1600.  See Parkman, 1:179ff, for details of 3 failed attempts to establish a fur-trading settlement at Tadoussac in the early 1600s.

See Rudin, Remembering & Forgetting in Acadie, passim for the slow, even reluctant, recognition by Acadians themselves that 1604 was the "birthday" of their history.  

06.  Quotation from Parkman, France & England, 1:184, who notes that the French considered La Cadie to run from the 40th to the 46th degree of north latitude, "or from Philadelphia to beyond Montreal."  See also Clark, Acadia, 71-72. 

Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 20, says that Dugua received the title "Vice-admiral and Lieutenant General of New France" from the king.  Dugua's family name also is spelled du Guast.  See Parkman, 1:184.  For a discussion of the evolution of Dugua's name in Acadian historiography, see Rudin, Remembering & Forgetting in Acadie, 18, 281 note 3.  Most sources call him De Monts or a variation of that name.  George MacBeath, "Du Gua de Monts, Pierre," in DCB, 1:291-94, is a detailed treatment of Dugua's life.  

See Allain, "Not Worth a Straw," 8, for a review of Henry IV's use of commercial companies, the first one chartered in 1602 for Aymar de Chastes, governor of Dieppe.  Allain says that de Chastes had formed a partnership with Pierre Chauvin & Mr. Pontgravé in 1600 & sent Pontgravé & Champlain to explore Acadia in 1603.  After de Chastes's death in 1603, Dugua succeeded to the monopoly.  Allain points out that the de Chaste/Dugua venture was the first of 75 commercial companies established by French monarchs between 1599 & 1789. 

06a.  See Clark, Acadia, 8-9, 77-78; Parkman, France & England, 1:1071, 2:928-29; Ganong, Champlain's Island, 20.

Taylor, A., American Colonies, 92ff, gives a recent analysis of the historiographical debate over the nature of the Canadian fur trade & its place in the French settlement of North America.  It includes the role of Tadoussac in the trade. 

Clark, pp. 9, 77, mentions a religious aspect to France's exploitation of the fur trade in what became New France. 

For Acadia's strategic value to New France, see ibid., p. 77. 

06b.  Quotation from Ganong, Champlain's Island, 79, citing Champlain's narrative of 1613.  

A recent detailed account of the Dugua expedition is Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, chap. 1.  See p. 7 for the list of cities from which the bankrolling merchants came.  She lists, on p. 7, several of the merchant-investors, including Samuel Georges & Jean Macain of La Rochelle, & Corneille de Bellois of Rouen. 

Arsenault, History, 10, says more than 120 men crossed with Dugua; Clark, Acadia, 78, says 79; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 2, says 75; Parkman, France & England, 1:189; & Historical Atlas of Canada, 1:48, say 79; Ganong, p. 21, says "somewhat over 120."  It is likely that the original expedition contained 120 men, & that the expedition was reduced to 79 after Poutrincourt & Pontgravé returned to France in Aug.  

The name of the 150-ton vessel is from Griffiths, p. 7.  She says Dugua was on the smaller ship, so the larger one must have been Pontgravé's.  She calls the larger ship the Bon Renommé

Parkman, especially 1:180ff, is a good source for details of Champlain's life & adventures before he sailed to New France with Dugua, including an exploration of the upper St. Lawrence River under Aymar de Chastes, governor of Dieppe, a year or so before the Dugua expedition.  Parkman points out that de Chastes held the royal patent to settle New France before Dugua did, but de Chastes died before he could return to the St. Lawrence Valley.  The king then gave Dugua the monopoly on the fur trade & the concession to start a colony.  See 1:184.  Rudin, Remembering & Forgetting in Acadie, 18, points out that Champlain was not a nobleman, that he added the "de" to his name later to give the impression that he was from the nobility.  DCB, 1:186-99, is a detailed treatment of Champlain's life.  

Champlain was born in Brouage & Dugua in Royan.  

Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 151, calls Poutrincourt a Protestant.  Griffiths, p. 7, followed here, calls both Poutrincourt & Champlain devout Catholics. 

Arsenault, p. 10, calls Dugua's second in command Dupont-Gravé; Clark calls him Gravé du Pont; Faragher uses Pontgrave; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, prefers Gravé Du Pont; Parkman, 1:179ff, calls him Pontgrave.  Ganong's translation of Champlain's 1613 narrative favors Pont.  

Other names in Dugua's expedition, found in Ganong, are:  Sieurs d'Orville, Champdoré, Boulay or Boulé, Champlain's future brother-in-law, Genestou, Sourin, Beaumont,  la Motte Bourioli, & Fougery, none of whom established families in the colony.  That would not happen for another 30 years.  Griffiths, pp. 7-8, includes:  Jean Ralluau, Dugua's secretary; Sieur d'Orville; Sieur de Beaumont; Fougeray de Vitré; La Motte Bourgjoli; Nicholas Aubry, a Catholic priest; Daniel Boyer, a tile maker; François Rocques, a roofer; & Robert Lescuyer, a mason. 

Ganong is the source for use of the pinnace to explore the coast & the Bay of Fundy.  Dugua's expedition sailed in 3 ships of various sizes similar to Columbus's first voyage of 1492 & the VA expedition under Christopher Newport in 1606-07.  The taking along of a pinnace, which was little more than an open longboat with sails, was essential for exploration of rock-strewn coasts, shallow bays, & rivers, where full-sized ships could not go.  

07.  For the French name of the Bay of Fundy, see Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plates 29, 30, the standard for all Acadian and Canadian place name spellings here; Arsenault, History, 11; Clark, Acadia, 80; Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 20, 22.  The French name for the bay is so little known that, except in the case of context which calls for the French name, the more modern name for the bay will be used here.  See Clark, pp. x-xi, for his struggle with Acadian names, both geographical & personal. 

It is interesting to note that during the several weeks in which Dugua & Champlain explored the coast of present-day western Nova Scotia & southern New Brunswick before determining upon a settlement site, they laid eyes on the future sites of most of the major Acadian settlements--Cap-Sable; St. Mary's Bay, which would become a refuge for post-dispersal Acadians after the 1760s; Port-Royal; Minas; & Chignecto.  They probably observed the mouth of the river up which Cobeguit would be established, as well as the Chepoudy shore & the mouths of the Petitcoudiac & perhaps the Memramcook.  

The highest tides in the Bay of Fundy come in the spring, the time of year in which Dugua and Champlain first observed them.  Geographer Andrew Hill Clark writes:  "...it is within the bay that spectacular ranges of thirty to forty feet at normal tides, and fifty feet or more at spring tides, occur."  See Clark, pp. 24, 28, Fig. 2.4.  They also happen to be the highest tides on the planet. 

07a.  Île Ste.-Croixe, also called Dochet (pronounced DOE-shay) Island, Met-a-neg-wis, Isle Saincte Croix, St. Croix, Dosias, Doceas, Docias, Dochez, Doshays, Doucett, Douchette, Douchet, or Ducie Island, Big Island, Great Island, Neutral Island, Bone Island, De Monts Island, & Hunt's Island, is on the United States side of the St. Croix River estuary.  The best map of its location vis-à-vis the surrounding area is Ganong, Champlain's Island, 29, Fig. 4.  In a revised & expanded edition of a work published originally in 1902 that includes translations of many passages from Champlain's 1613 narrative, Ganong also provides a comprehensive history of the island & its brief time as the "capital" of Acadia.  Perrin, W.A., Acadian Redemption, 2, says, without citation, that "Dugua named the island St. Croix because it was near the confluence of rivers resembling the arms of a cross."  Ganong, pp. 22-23, 45, says that the story of the cross-shaped river originated with Marc Lescarbot, who came to Acadia after the Île Ste.-Croixe settlement was abandoned but was a companion of Champlain at Port-Royal in 1606-07 & visited the island in the latter year; see note 09, below.  Ganong also points out that the eventual name of the river, St. Croix, came from the island, not vice versa.  The original French version of the name--Ste.-Croixe--is used here for the time in which the settlement existed. 

08.  Quotation from Arsenault, History, 12.  See also Clark, Acadia, 78; Ganong, Champlain's Island, 24, 62-69, including maps from Champlain's narrative of 1613, 80, 82-86.  

The French called the Indians in the area of Île Ste.-Croixe the Etechemins.  Champlain in fact called Rivière Ste. Croixe the River of the Etechemins.  Only later did the river take the name of the island.  See Ganong, p. 63; map.  The actual Indians in the area were the Passamaquoddy, after whom the bay into which the Ste.-Croix flows is named.  See Rudin, Remembering & Forgetting in Acadie, 20.

The death toll during the winter on Île Ste.-Croixe was 34, 35, or 36, depending on the source, all of which agree that after Pontgravé & Poutrincourt left, 79 remained with Dugua and Champlain.  Ganong, p. 24, says 59 fell sick & 34 died.  Champlain's 1613 narrative says 35.  See also Ganong, p. 83.

08a.  A detailed account of Dugua's exploration down the coast from Nova Scotia to the Cape Cod area in 1605 is in Parkman, France & England, 1:191ff, taken largely from Champlain's 1613 narrative.  One account says that Champlain chose the name Port-Royal because he was so impressed with its spacious anchorage.  See Drake, Border Wars, 55n; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 10.  Parkman, 1:187-88, says that Poutrincourt was so impressed by the beauty of the basin that he named it in honor of the king.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 10, says Poutrincourt called the fort at Port-Royal his "manor house" because he owned it.  

09.  See Clark, Acadia, 79; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 1-9.  Clark, p. 80, Fig. 4.2, is entitled "Port Royal Basin and Valley in the Seventeenth Century." 

Faragher, p. 1, says:  "The French colonization of l'Acadie began in earnest on 13 May 1606, when the Jonas, a vessel of 150 tons, loaded with provisions and carrying forty men, weighed anchor at the port of La Rochelle and sailed for the infant outpost of Port Royal on the far side of the Atlantic."  This was Poutrincourt's return voyage.  The Jonas stopped at Canso before moving on to Port-Royal.  Parkman, France & England, 1:196-98, provides details of Poutrincourt's return to Acadia & the condition of the settlement in 1606.  

The French name for the Micmac or M'ikmaq (pronounced MICK-maw) was Souriquois.  See map.

Among the new personnel who came with Poutrincourt to Acadia in the summer of 1606 was Louis Hébert, an apothecary and horticulturist & a relative of Poutrincourt by marriage, whose surname one day would be added to the prominent families of Acadia, though Louis himself was not the progenitor of the Acadian Héberts (see Appendix).  Hébert moved later to Champlain's Québec, where he arrived in 1617 with his wife & 3 children.  He was in fact the first permanent settler of what was then only a fur trading post.  See Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 24, 34; Parkman, 1:305, 319.  (Throughout this narrative, Acadian family names in bold are the ones who lived in Acadia & LA, some, like the La Tours, going to the Mississippi valley colony only via their "blood.") 

Also arriving with Poutrincourt in 1606 was Marc Lescarbot, a gifted writer & friend of Dugua who also was Poutrincourt's lawyer.  After he returned to France in 1607, Lescarbot wrote a history of the Acadian colony which was published in 1609, 4 years before Champlain's history of the venture appeared.  For a copy of Lescarbot's imaginative map of Port-Royal, included in his 1609 publication, see Clark, p. 104. 

Clark, p. 89, asserts:  "Poutrincourt brought his wife briefly...."  Would this have been in 1606? 

An amazing result of Dugua's Protestantism was that the Port-Royal settlement harbored not only a priest but also a Huguenot minister.  The two clergymen, according to a disgusted Champlain, who was Catholic, often came to blows over theological differences.  As the story goes, when the contentious clergymen died, their fellow colonists buried them in the same grave in hopes that they could live in peace at least in the afterlife.  See Champlain's description of these characters in Milling, Exile Without End, 3, which claims that Acadia harbored a number of Huguenot adventurers & settlers well into the 17th century.  Milling, pp. 3-4, points out, however, that "no Protestant congregation survived" due to the influence of the priests and intermarriage with the Catholic majority.

10.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 79.  See also Parkman, France & England, 1:145-47.  The old fisherman Lescarbot met was a Basque named Savalet.  See Parkman, 1:205.

For the relative of importance of the fur & fishing industries in Acadia as late as 1632, see note 15a, below. 

11.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 79.  See also ibid., pp. 85-87; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 14.  

Despite the one good winter at Port-Royal, the severity of the winters in the Bay of Fundy region drove Poutrincourt & Champlain in late 1606 to try again to find a more southern location for the colony.  Parkman, France & England, 1:199ff, details their second exploration down the coast as far as present-day Hyannis, Massachusetts, & a fatal encounter with hostile Indians on the eastern shore of Cape Cod that discouraged further thought of settling south of Port-Royal.  Lescarbot was left in charge of Port-Royal when Poutrincourt & Champlain explored to the southward.  

Parkman, 1:200ff, using Lescarbot as his major source, describes the settlement at Port-Royal in fine detail, including Champlain's L'Ordre de Bon-Temps, or the Order of Good Times, which kept the notables of the colony well fed.  See also Faragher, pp. 15-16, who includes Membertou & his Mi'kmaq in the Order.

12.  Quotations from Arsenault, History, 13; Clark, Acadia, 79.  

Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 22, insists "The amount of furs obtained from the Indians was insufficient to offset the costs of maintaining the settlement at Port Royal."  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 18, agrees & adds that Poutrincourt beseeched some of his men to stay at Port-Royal but that all of them chose to return to France with him.  

It was Marc Lescarbot who reported that, in contradiction to the king's expectations, "after three years of enjoying the said privileges, he [Dugua] made no [Indian] converts as yet."  See Mathé Allain, "Colbert's Colony Crumbles," in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 34, for a discussion of the role of conversion in French colonization, including the statement:  "Evangelization of the natives was an obligation every charter imposed on companies or individuals granted a colonial monopoly." 

Parkman, France & England, 1:205-06, concludes about France's early efforts in Acadia and the role of religion:  "First of Europeans, they had essayed to found an agricultural colony in the New World.  The leaders of the enterprise had acted less as merchants than as citizens; and the fur-trading monopoly, odious in itself, had been used as the instrument of a large and generous design.  There was a radical defect, however, in their scheme of settlement.  Excepting a few of the leaders, those engaged in it had not chosen a home in the wilderness of New France, but were mere hirelings, without wives or families, and careless of the welfare of the colony.  The life which should have pervaded all the members was confined to the heads alone.  In one respect, however, the enterprise of De Monts was truer in principle than the Roman Catholic colonization of Canada, on the one hand, or the Puritan colonization of Massachusetts, on the other, for it did not attempt to enforce religious exclusion."

12a.  For Champlain at Québec, see Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 23ff; Parkman, France & England, 1:241-324.  Parkman calls the site of Québec Stadacone.  Historical Atlas of Canada calls it Stadacona.  See 1: plate 33.  

Parkman, 1:198, emphasizes the good relations of Dugua's settlers with the local Mi'kmaq, who were sad to see the Frenchmen go.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 9-14, details the good relations between the "Normans," as the Mi'kmaq called them, & the Indians at Port-Royal, with emphasis on the role of Membertou.  

Parkman, 1:266, also relates the efforts of Dugua to re-establish his monopoly on the fur trade in New France & its ultimate failure, made hopeless by the assassination of King Henry IV in 1610.

A. Taylor, American Colonies, 99-100, touts the superiority of Canada in the trade for furs but its inferiority in matters of agriculture & contrasts the "open access" of peninsula Acadia with the superior defensive geography of the St. Lawrence River valley. 

13.  See Mathé Allain, "Colbert's Colony Crumbles," in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 34; Clark, Acadia, 79-81; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 22-29.  

Clark, p. 89, says that Poutrincourt brought his wife to Acadia "briefly," but does not say when. 

Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 22, says that the Jesuit presence at Port-Royal in 1611 was the first mission of the order in New France.  Parkman, England & France, 1:216, concurs & devotes two chapters (1:207-23) to the efforts of the Jesuits to intrude themselves into the Acadian venture.  The 2 original Jesuits were Pierre Biard & Énemond Massé.  

For Biencourt's age when he arrived in Acadia, see Parkman, 1:210.  Biencourt's ship on this voyage was the Grace de Dieu.  

The younger Pontgravé, whose name was Robert, built his camp on the Rivière St.-Jean 6 leagues up the river.  See Parkman, 1:216ff. 

For a detailed account of the assassination of Henry IV, see Parkman, 1:210-11.  

Parkman points out, 1:221, 1071, that the Marquise de Guercheville's domains included all of North America from the St. Lawrence down to Florida, excepting only Poutrincourt's settlement at Port-Royal.  For details of the Jesuit venture on Mount Desert Island, called St.-Sauveur, see ibid., 1:224ff.  The 1613 Jesuit expedition, under La Saussaye, sailed in the Jonas, the same ship that Poutrincourt had hired for his return trip to Port-Royal in 1606.

14.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 81; Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 23.  

For details of Argall's character, his attacks on the Acadian settlements, & the fate of the French captives, see Parkman, France & England, 1:228ff; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 29-33.  

Argall's Jesuit guide was Pierre Biard, who had quarreled bitterly with Poutrincourt & Biencourt at Port-Royal.  

Jamestown was founded, of course, by a joint stock company of London merchants in the spring of 1607 after the English had failed miserably to settle their North American claims two decades before at Roanoke Island in present-day NC.  Parkman makes a strong case against "the lawless inroads" of Dale & Argall, whom he says had no authority to molest the Acadian settlements.  Quote from 1:1072.  Dale & Argall felt justified in destroying French settlements in territory claimed by the London Company charter.  

See Historical Atlas of Canada, 1:48, for a list of failed English settlements in Newfoundland in the three decades after the founding of Jamestown: at Conception Bay in 1610, Renews in 1617, Harbour Grace in 1617, Renews again in 1623, St. John's in 1624, & Ferryland in 1632, this last failed venture led by George Calvert, later Lord Baltimore, who founded Maryland 2 years later; & Ferryland again in 1638.  It took a while for the stubborn English to realize that sustainable agriculture was not possible in this frozen, forbidding land, only fishing and fur trading, so they concentrated their efforts farther south, along the Chesapeake and Cape Cod bays. For more details of English colonial efforts down the coast, see below.  The Newfoundland sites can be located on plate 22 of Historical Atlas of Canada, 1.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 37, on the other hand, says that the English settlement at Ferryland was well established by the late 1620s.

15.  See Clark, Acadia, 82; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 33.  

Louis Hébert was one of the Port-Royal settlers who returned to France with Poutrincourt.  

Parkman, France & England, 1:239, 1072, says that Biencourt rebuilt Port-Royal & built a fort at Cap-Sable called Fort Lomeron.  

15a.  Quotation from Parkman, France & England, 1:1072.  See also Clark, Acadia, 87. 

Claude La Tour's full name was Nicolas dit Claude Turgis dit de Saint-Étienne, sieur de La Tour.  For more on the La Tour family, who were from Champagne, see George MacBeath, "Saint-Étienne, De La Tour, Claude de," in DCB, 1:596; Arsenault, Généalogie, 1643-46; White, DGFA-1,1431. 

At Pentagouët, the local Algonquian-speakers would have been the Penobscot & Abenaki, & on Rivière St.-Jean they would have been the Maliseet as well as the Mi'kmaq, all part of what came to be called the Wabanaki Confederacy.  See Clark, pp. 57, 82.  René Baudry, "Menou D'Aulnay, Charles de," in DCB, 1:503, says that Claude de La Tour founded the Pentagouët post in c1625. 

Clark, p. 88, places the relative importance of agriculture, fur trading, & the fisheries in Acadia before 1632 in stark perspective:  "In numbers of men involved, the value produced, the areal distribution of activity, and the interest in Europe, it is clear that the agricultural experiments and even the fur trade remained of very minor importance in comparison with the cod fishery.  The events on which the majority of the historians of the area have focused most of their attention were economically and demographically rather incidental.  The overwhelming significance of the apparently inexhaustible codfish near the shores and on the offshore banks, and of the hundreds of miles of deeply broken Atlantic coastline offering innumerable coves for shelter, refreshment, and the erection of drying flakes, cannot be overlooked in any geographical assessment of the area.  Indeed, the fur-trading and settlement activities, such as they were, were heavily dependent on the ease with which small vessels could move along the coast, from Havre à l'Anglois (Louisburg[sic]), to Cape Fourchu (Yarmouth), or even around the shores of the Bay of Fundy, 'hopping' from one of the closely spaced harbors to another." 

16.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 58, 67-69.  See also ibid., pp. 82, 87. 

For a thorough history of the Mi'kmaq, see <Micmac History>.  For a recent discussion of the Frenchmen in Acadia at the time of Biencourt's leadership & their relations with the Indians, especially with Indian wives & children, see Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 34-37.  For Mi'kmaq numbers & the approximate range of their territory during the first decade of the 1600s, see Clark, p. 58. 

The only French missionaries in Acadia at the time were Franciscan Recollets, who, from 1620-24, established posts at Port-Royal, on Rivière St.-Jean, & at Miscou on the Baie des Chaleurs, as well as in Canada.  The Jesuits had abandoned their efforts in Acadia when Poutrincourt abandoned Port-Royal, & they would not return to New France, & then only to Québec, until 1625.  When the English held Québec from 1629-32, only a single Jesuit remained at the post.  With the restoration of Canada to France in 1632, the Recollets were entirely replaced by the Jesuits, who turned Québec into a mission post as well as a center for trade with the Indians.  See Arsenault, History, 20; Parkman, 1:309-10, 328, 403ff.  Clark, p. 83, note 21, adds that "In the period 1619-24 four Recollet missionaries spent some time in the area." 

17. Arsenault, History, 18, says that Biencourt died in 1624 and was buried at La Prée Ronde (Round Hill), near Port-Royal.  Clark, Acadia, 82-83; & Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 37, say that Biencourt died in 1623.  Clark adds that after Biencourt's death the headquarters of the Acadian venture moved from Port-Royal to the Cap-Sable area, where Charles La Tour held sway.  See also ibid., p. 87. 

18. The history of early VA & the founding of Plymouth Colony in present-day MA, like the discussion of Columbus and other early explorers of the New World, are too well known to document here.  Consult any good encyclopedia for details of these important historical events.  See Parkman, France & England, 1:312, 314-15, for a classic, & entirely biased, expression of the contrast between authority-ridden New France & liberty-loving New England.  

One must also keep in mind that in the early 1600s the Indians of VA were part of a powerful Indian confederacy that had escaped the white man's diseases until the English came, but the Indian tribes of the Massachusetts Bay area had been devastated by European diseases by the time the Separatists appeared on the scene.  It was easier for the Pilgrims & the Puritans to overawe the MA Indians because there were so few of them left.  

For a recent study of the VA & New England colonial ventures that does justice to Native & African contributions, see Taylor, A., American Colonies, chaps. 6-9. 

19. See Clark, Acadia, 83-84; Arsenault, History, 19; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 40-43; Parkman, France & England, 1:1071-72.  

Clark, p. 83, note 22, says that Cape Breton Island & today's Prince Edward Island were taken from Alexander's fiefdom & given to another Scotsman, Robert Gordon of Lochinvar.  On pp. 83-84, he attributes the Port-aux-Baleines settlement to James Stewart, Lord Ochiltree.  René Baudry, "Daniel, Charles," in DCB, 1:248, calls Ochilltree's settlement Fort Rosemar. 

Clark, p. 91, says the Scottish fort at Port-Royal was built adjacent to the old French one.  However, Griffiths, p. 43, says that the younger Sir William Alexander, who chose the site, built the Scots fort "close to what would be the site of the later Fort Anne, on the banks of what would be named the Allaine (or Lequille) River," that is, near present-day Annapolis Royal, across the basin & upriver from the old French fort.  See Historical Atlas of Canada, 1:29.  Clark, p. 84, note 24, hints that there may have been women, that is, families, in the Scots settlement.  On p. 89, he says that 3 women "may have accompanied the Alexander settlers of 1628 or 1629."  On p. 100, he speculates that "Perhaps as many as seventy [settlers] wintered in one year, but the numbers are believed to have fluctuated widely and, generally, to have dwindled progressively during the four years [1628-32]." 

Leckie, Wars of America, 14, places the 1629 English expedition against Québec into the context of Europe's Thirty Years War of 1618-48.  According to Leckie, Champlain had "only 16 starving men inside his rickety fort when Lewis Kirke sailed up the St. Lawrence and summoned him to surrender."  Champlain was taken to England as a prisoner and released after the treaty of 1632 was signed.  Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 33-34, details the activities of the Kirkes in Canada, says their names were David and Jarvis, & that they were brothers.  Parkman, 1:316-17, says that Gervase, not Jarvis, Kirke led the family group that included his sons David, Lewis, & Thomas.  Clark, p. 84, note 24, agrees with Parkman, who offers the most detailed narrative of the plight of Québec at the hands of the Kirkes.  See 1:316ff.  Griffiths, p. 40, says that there were 5 Kirke brothers, David, Lewis, Thomas, John, & James.  

Griffiths, p. 42, details the Daniel expedition on Cape Breton Island.  Clark, pp. 84-85, says that Daniel established Fort Ste.-Anne, at present-day St. Ann's, on Cape Breton Island after he expelled the Scots under Ochiltree at Port-aux-Baleines.  For more on Daniel, including the establishment of Fort Ste.-Anne, see Baudry, "Daniel," 1:247-48.  Baudry says that after he destroyed Ochilltree's settlement, Daniel took the Lord & 17 prisoners to France via England, where he dropped off one of the officers.  Daniel returned to Fort Ste.-Anne & used it as his base for trading operations, ranging from Miscou to Tadoussac, for the next 4 years.  In the 1630s, Daniel was an associate of Charles La Tour in the Acadian fur trade.  Clark, p. 96, note 51, in a discussion of Acadian geography, says that "it is not known whether [today's Baleine, Cape Breton Island, NS] was the same site [as Ochilltree's settlement] in the early seventeenth century." 

20. Quotation from Arsenault, History, 20, citing Charles de Menou, sieur d’Aulnay de Chanisay, who clashed with La Tour during the 1630s-40s over control of the colony. 

For the capture of Claude La Tour, see Arsenault, p. 19.  Parkman, France & England, 1:1072-73, says that the elder La Tour, a widower, married well in England, &, being a Protestant, renounced his French allegiance.  Sir William made the La Tours "baronets of Nova Scotia."  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 43-44, details the life & adventures of the elder La Tour & points out that son Charles refused to accept the English honor & remained loyal to French interests in Acadia.  See also MacBeath, "Saint-Étienne de La Tour, Claude," 1:596-97. 

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 103, says "The term, métis, was never employed in Acadia."  He goes on to say:  "The degree to which peaceful relations between Acadian settlers and Mi'kmaq people were consolidated by marriage and similar unions is unclear."  See also Clark, Acadia, 89. 

21. Quotation from Arsenault, History, 21.  See also Clark, Acadia, 91, note 36; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 48-49.

Parkman, France & England, 1:1074, calls Razilly Claude, not Isaac; Claude, whose full name was Claude de Launay-Rasilly, was Isaac's brother.  Massignon, "Trahans of Acadiana," 119; & Griffiths, p. 48, call him Claude de Launay-Razilly, but White, DGFA-1 English, 289, followed here, spells Claude's surname de Launay-Rasilly.  White, DGFA-1, 1369, says that Isaac de Razilly's parents were François de Razilly & Catherine de Valliers, that he was born at the chateau d'Oiseaumelle in Touraine on 5 Jul 1587, calls him the colonizer & governor of Acadia, says he was capitaine dans les troupe de la Marine, & that, according to G. de Rasilly, a descendant, died at La Hève on 2 Jul 1636.  Isaac, then, was age 45 when he came to Acadia & died 3 days shy of his 49th birthday.  White gives him no wife, so he evidently did not marry.  For more details on his life, see George MacBeath, "Razilly (Rasilly), Isaac de," in DCB, 1:567-69.  Ibid., 1:567, calls brother Claude "a ship's captain and commodore." 

Ibid., 1:567, says that Razilly, who was a knight of the order of St. John of Jerusalem & a distinguished naval officer, lost an eye in the attack on the Huguenot bastion at La Rochelle in 1625 "when one of the vessels in his fleet blew up."  MacBeath says that supplies for Champlain at Québec & La Tour at Cap-Sable, organized by Razilly, naval commander for Richelieu's Company, were intercepted by an English squadron in the spring of 1628.  Ibid., 1:568; & Baudry, "Daniel," 1:247, say that Richelieu's Company sent Razilly to Morocco to protect French shipping from Moorish pirates in the Mediterranean; they give no dates of this deployment, but it probably was in c1630.  

MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:567, points out that in 1626, 2 years prior to Richelieu's founding of the Company of New France, the cardinal asked Razilly, by then a respected naval officer with vast experience, to write a report on the state of French commerce.  MacBeath writes"  "The report that resulted stated frankly that the nation's trade was at a low ebb owing to the government's mistaken notion that trade was not vital to the country's welfare.  Refuting this idea, Razilly went on to observe that mastery of the sea would also bring France great power on land.  In the section dealing with New France, he proposed that a large trading company with capital of 300,000 livres be organized, that steps be taken to block any English encroachment north of the 36th parallel [approximately the middle of Chesapeake Bay], and that three to four thousand colonists be placed on the land both as a means to developing resources and to further ensure a hold on the country."  MacBeath asserts:  "This report from a man of renown and high reputation was received favourably by Richelieu who set about putting the various proposals into force."  In other words, Razilly had much to do with the creation of the Company of New France.  As to the "three to four thousand colonists," neither the Company nor any other French entity ever came close to that number, especially in Acadia. 

Griffiths, p. 39; & Parkman, 1:313, offer details of the founding of Richelieu's Company of New France.  In 1632, Richelieu also reclaimed Québec from Thomas Kirke, who had held it since its capture in 1629.  The Héberts, sans patriarch Louis, now dead, had remained at Québec under English rule.  Champlain returned to command at Québec in the spring of 1633.  He died there on Christmas Day, 1635, at age 68.  See Parkman, 1:320, 326ff.  

Allain, "Not Worth a Straw," 9, says that Richelieu created the Company of Morbihan, or Company of the Hundred Associates, in 1626, but that opposition from ports outside of Morbihan doomed the effort.  Richelieu then created the Nacelle de Saint-Pierre Fleurdlisée Company in 1627.  The Company of New France, "specifically to colonize," under Isaac de Razilly, followed in 1628.  Allain notes that Razilly was chosen not because of his kinship with the cardinal but because Razilly "had ample experience already with Champlain."  Allain, pp. 9-10, then provides deep background to French use of commercial monopolies in their colonies. 

Clark, p. 91, points out that the Scots' activities in Acadia & Canada during the late 1620s delayed the Company's efforts in Acadia.  On pp. 90-91, he insists that none of the 17th-century proprietary companies authorized by either French or English monarchs met the settlement quotas written into their charters.  On p. 91, he is especially tough on Richelieu's efforts to colonize Acadia:  "Between 1632 and 1635 some 3,700,000 arpents of land in Acadia were granted to the Company, but for all of their interest in land as such it might as well have been 3,700 arpents, or very little more." 

MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:568, offers this detailed nuance of Razilly's activities on the eve of his going to Acadia:  "Early in 1632 Cardinal Richelieu invited Razilly to accept the post of lieutenant-general of New France, but he declined, requesting instead to serve as a ship's captain under Champlain 'because he is more competent in colonial affairs.'"  But the cardinal would not be dissuaded.  "On 27 March," MacBeath continues, "Razilly and Richelieu signed an agreement by which Razilly was to take possession of Port-Royal ... for the company and France under terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and to make Acadia a French colony.  Necessary authority to undertake this action was given Razilly in a royal commission dated 10 May.  While the company also wished Razilly to begin settling the country, the losses it had suffered in the recent war with England had left it short of funds.  The solution arrived at was to accord a part of its trading privilege to companies on condition that such groups participate financially.  So it was that Razilly and some of his friends formed a private trading association that came to be known as the Razilly-Condonnier company.  While the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France provided an equipped vessel and the sum of 10,000 livres for the 1632 expedition to Acadia, it was Razilly's private trading group which advanced the greater part of the money required.  On 19 May, the company named Razilly lieutenant-general for the king in New France and granted him a tract of land at Sainte-Croix measuring 12 leagues by 20 leagues."  Baudry, "Menou," 1:503, says that the Razilly-Condonnier Company was not organized until 1634. 

21a.  White, DGFA-1, 1171; & White, DGFA-1 English, 251, say that Razilly "came to Acadia" on 4 Jul 1632.  Parkman, France & England, 1:1074, says he & his expedition reached Port-Royal in August.  MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:568, says that Razilly's expedition left Auray on 23 Jul, "were joined by a ship from La Rochelle," & reached Acadia on 8 Sep.  Clark, Acadia, 91, says Razilly left France on 4 July in L'Esperance à Dieu, "shepherding two transports," & arrived at La Hève on 8 Sep.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 49, agrees with Clarks's dates, used here. 

Why did Razilly's expedition sail from Auray, which is in southern Brittany, west of Nantes?  Was this the headquarters of the Razilly-Condonnier Company? 

Razilly named his settlement & its fortifications at La Hève Fort Ste.-Marie-de-Grace.  See Griffiths, p. 50.  La Hève is now La Have, near present-day Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.  MacBeath, 1:568, adds:  "On the site of the present village of Riverport [a few miles southwest of La Have, in the opposite direction from Lunenburg & also in Lunenburg County], Razilly built a habitation consisting of his own residence, a store, and Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace.  A chapel for the Capuchins and other buildings for the families and the unmarried workmen were erected nearby.  It was here at La Hève, too, that the Capuchins opened the first boarding-school in New France, one that was for the use of the colonists and especially the Indians." 

As to women with Razilly, Professor Griffiths, whose study is recent & thoroughly researched, points out on pp. 48, 50-51, that it still cannot be determined by the historical record if there were women & children in the 1632 expedition.  She concludes: "It seems most unlikely that women were part of this particular expedition. ... No women are reported as passengers on any of these ships."  Clark, p. 91, says that Razilly's 1632 expedition consisted of "mostly men."  He notes on pp. 88-89 that the lack of women, if allowed to continue, would likely have doomed the agricultural component of the colony:  "But it may be that one notable lack in the 'equipment' of the settlements was primarily responsible for their failure.  In the history of the transference of people, plants, and animals overseas from northwestern Europe to the mid-latitude lands overseas colonized by them, it has been abundantly demonstrated that an agricultural colony needs its own women and the stability of family life.  Poutrincourt brought his wife briefly, and two women may have accompanied the Alexander settlers of 1628 or 1629, but if there were any more we have no record of them."  Yet, on pp. 94-95, Clark estimates that there may have been "a dozen or fifteen women in the original group," & assumes that they had children at La Hève!  MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:568, says that "12 to 15 families of colonists were recruited" for the 1632 venture, which would have included women, perhaps the source for Clark's "a dozen or fifteen women."  MacBeath adds:  "In all '300 hommes d'élite,' including six Capuchins and a number of noblemen made up the expedition."

For the forced return of the Scots at Port-Royal to Britain, see Griffiths, p. 49.  MacBeath, 1:568, says that the takeover,which occurred in mid-Dec, was peaceful.  MacBeath even names the Scots settlement's commander:  Capt. Andrew Forrester.  MacBeath asserts:  "While a few of the Port-Royal settlers probably joined Razilly's colonists, most accepted his offer of passage home to England where they arrived in February 1632/33."  Clark, p. 91, is more specific; he says that "the Scottish settlement at Port Royal was taken over, and all but the possible one or two families who elected to remain departed...."  One wonders which "one or two families" this may have been.  White, DGFA-1, the most reliable source on early Acadian genealogy, reveals no Scottish family that remained at Port Royal.  White insists that there were no "permanent" families in Acadia before 1636.  Arsenault, History, 37, agrees.  Perhaps Clark is referring to the Melansons, who once were thought to be of Scottish ancestry but, in fact, were French Huguenots who did not come to Acadia until 1657.  See White, p. 1145; White, DGFA-1 English, 247. 

22. See Arsenault, History, 21-22; Clark, Acadia, 91-92, 95. 

MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:569, says that "Razilly had a good working relationship with Charles de La Tour who shared with him, under terms of the commissions issued by the Compagnie de La Nouvelle-France, control of the land and the coasts of Acadia." 

Clark, p. 92, note 38, gives the date 1633 for La Tour's "extensive privileges which were to last for six years."  Clark adds:  "There appears to be no definitive documentation but it is argued by the La Tour apologists that before his death, Razilly had set up three lieutenants:  the coast of present Maine west of the St. Croix River for d'Aulnay; from St. Croix to Canso for La Tour; and Canso to Gaspé for Denys."  Clark points out that "Denys became something of an apologist for La Tour," which makes sense in light of how d'Aulnay treated Denys after Razilly's death. 

Parkman, France & England, 1:1074-76, 1078, says that La Tour preferred the name Fort La Tour for his Rivière St.-Jean holding, but it was more commonly called Fort St.-Jean.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 44, 479 note 14, says it was called Fort Ste.-Marie & that Fort La Tour was the name of La Tour's establishment on the Atlantic coast.  Clark, p. 85, note 26, says that the fort on the Atlantic, near Cap-Sable, was first called Fort Lomeron & then Fort St.-Louis & then Port La Tour.  See also ibid., p. 92, note 32.  Arsenault, Clark, and others assume that La Tour's fort on the St.-Jean was located at Jemseg, about 70 miles up the river.  Parkman, 1:094, note 1, insists that the fort was located at the mouth of the river, specifically Portland Point, "on the east side of the St. John, at its mouth," and offers compelling evidence that is followed here.  Griffiths agrees & says that La Tour built his fort on the St.-Jean around 1630, 2 years before Razilly's expedition reached Acadia.  One of the fort's purposes was to give La Tour a place from which to keep a close eye on the Scots settlement at Port-Royal across the bay. 

Griffiths, pp. 44, 47-48, 52, also points out that Charles La Tour's commission as lieutenant general of Acadia dated from Feb 1631, which was more than a year before Razilly reached Acadia, & that La Tour's commission was not revoked after Razilly came to Acadia, probably the basis of their compromise.  

Clark, p. 92, says that La Tour moved his headquarters from Cap-Sable to Rivière St.-Jean in 1635, soon after Isaac de Razilly died, but the most reliable source says that Razilly died in Jul 1636.  See note 25, below. 

Clark, p. 95, says he found "suggestions in the mid-1640's of a hundred or more residents at the mouth of the Saint John River, near the fort or forts at Cape Sable, and at Pentagouët and other posts on the Maine coast.  Some of these would have been from the group of colons which La Tour brought with him in 1633, almost certainly as hands for his fishing or trading enterprises." So La Tour also had the sense to establish an agricultural base for his trading ventures.  How else could he have reduced his dependence on French merchants in providing sustenance for his men?  (Clark notes that "The distinction between colons and engagés was, simply, that the latter were indentured and the former were not.") 

Baudry, "Menou," 1:503, calls the La Tour outpost at Pentagouët the Vieux-Logis, though it was less than a decade old in 1632. 

22a.  Arsenault, History, 22, gives the ages of d'Aulnay & Denys as 36 & 34, respectively.  Baudry, "Menou," 1:502, says that d'Aulnay was born in c1604, so he would have been 28 in 1632.  White, DGFA-1, 487, 1170, gives the birth years of the 2 men as c1604 & 1603, respectively.  

Parkman, France & England, 1:1075, note 1, explains the variations in the spelling of d'Aulnay's name, using a descendant of d'Aulnay as authority for his version of the name, d'Aunay, which differs from Arsenault, Clark, Griffiths, White, & most other sources, which prefer d'Aulnay, like the French town in the Aunis region.   Chaunisay also is spelled Chaunizay; see White, DGFA-1,1170, & White DGFA-1 English, 251

Interestingly, d'Aulnay's biography in DCB does not use Chaunisay or any of its variants in his name, though the biographer says that d'Aulnay was born at the Château de Charnisay.  See Baudry, "Menou," 1:502, who says that d'Aulnay's parents were René de Menou, councillor of state under Louis XIII, & Nicole de Joussenard.  Baudry adds:  "D'Aulnay belonged to a very ancient noble family that originated in Perche.  His second name came from the seigneury of Aulnay, near Loudun, bequeathed to him by his mother."  Loudun, in northern Poitou, is on the southern edge of the Loire River valley.  Baudry says that d'Aulnay not only was a cousin of Isaac de Razilly but that in the navy he served as Razilly's lieutenant, so their relationship was based on experience as well as blood.  Baudry, 1:503, says that d'Aulnay recruited settlers for Razilly, perhaps from the Loudun area. 

Mathé Allain, "Colbert and the Colonies," in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 15ff, provides a discussion of the seigneurial system of Canada & LA which also could be applied to Acadia/Nova Scotia.  See also Clark, Acadia, 95, 106, who says on the latter page:  "Something has been made of the 'feudal' nature of the seigneurial grant to Razilly, and its inheritance by d'Aulnay, as the transference of an Old World system to Port Royal.  But it has been argued that this is a misinterpretation even for New France:  'A society in which everyone enjoys equal protection from the state, and in which everyone is on the same footing with regard to public duties is not feudal.'"  For a more extensive discussion here of the seigneurial system in Acadia, see note 100, below. 

22b.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 70, 77; MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:568.  MacBeath adds:  "Working towards the goal of establishing the colony on a solid basis, Razilly set some of the men to farming.  Land for this purpose was cleared at Petite-Rivière (Green Bay) [southwest of present-day La Have] and in the course of time some 40 people were settled there."  See also Clark, p. 98. 

See Clark, p. 95, for Razilly's allotments at La Hève.  The governor's assessment of the richness of Acadian soil attests to his being a much better sailor than he was a landsman. 

22c.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 24.  See also ibid., pp. 28, Fig. 2.4, which shows the highest tides at the far end of the bay, in the Minas Basin & Chignecto Bay.  Still, the tides at Port-Royal coming thru the Gut would have been substantial, especially higher up in the Port-Royal Basin, where lay extensive salt marshes as far as the tides could reach.  See Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29.  Clark, pp. 154-55, describes the agricultural potential at La Hève, c1686-88, when only a hand full of families, mostly Indians & métis, lived there. 

See Clark, p. 95, for the quality of the drumlin-based soil at La Hève. 

23.  See Clark, Acadia, 90-95, 98; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 50; MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:568.  

Clark, pp. 93-94, says Denys did not build the post at “St. Peters” until 1650.  During the short life of the French colony of Île Royale (1713-58), headquartered at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, St. Peters was called Port-Toulouse. 

24. For the founding of Massachusetts Bay & Boston, see Arsenault, History, 22; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 44.  

Parkman, France & England, 1:1078-79, says that Englishmen from Plymouth had established the trading post at Machias in the early 1630s.  There had been 5 Englishmen there, but La Tour had killed 2 of them when he attacked the place.  Ibid., 1:1079, says that Englishmen from Plymouth also built a trading post at Castine, which was Pentagouët, also spelled Pentagoët. 

Griffiths, pp. 52-53, says that Razilly sent d'Aulnay to seize Pentagouët "Later that year," that is, 1635.  MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:569, says that d'Aulnay captured the post in Aug.  Baudry, "Menou," 1:503, says that Charles La Tour had agreed to assist Razilly in retaking Pentagouët but refused to do so in league with d'Aulnay, which would have been an early warning of the the rivalry building up between the 2 lieutenants. 

24a.  Quotation from George MacBeath, "Thomas, Jean," in DCB, 1:642.  See also MacBeath, "Marot," in DCB, 1:490; MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:568-69.  MacBeath, in his bio. of Thomas, calls the Canso incident "the first Indian revolt against the French in Acadia." 

25.  See Arsenault, History, 22-23, 25; Clark, Acadia, 92-94; Parkman, France & England, 1:1075; White, DGFA-1 English, 251.  

Arsenault, pp. 22-23; Baudry, "Menou," 1:503; Clark, p. 92; & Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 53, say Razilly died in 1635.  MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:569, says Dec 1735.  White, in DGFA-1, 1369, & DGFA-1 English, 289, followed here, says 2 Jul 1636.  Arsenault, p. 23, says that Razilly was buried at La Hève but that his remains were removed to Louisbourg in 1749.  

Griffiths, pp. 53-54, points out the dubious nature of d'Aulnay's claim to Razilly's title & interests in Acadia.  Clark, p. 92, note 38, states:  "Razilly's intention with regard to division of authority between himself (and d'Aulnay), La Tour, and Nicolas Denys has been argued but not resolved."  White, p. 251, is clear that brother Claude inherited Isaac's estates but named d'Aulnay as his chief lieutenant in Acadia, which in turn led to the King's naming d'Aulnay lieutenant-general of the colony in Feb 1638.  Evidently Claude spent most of his time in France & let d'Aulnay represent his interests in New France. 

MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:569, cites 2 documents that he says "may indicate that Claude de Launay-Rasilly was in Acadia," implying that Claude, unlike his brother, did not spend much time there, & that there were questions about his spending anytime there at all.  MacBeath says that Claude was an associate of the Razilly-Condonnier Company as well as the Company of New France & 2 other ventures that were active in the St. Lawrence valley, which would have made him a very busy fellow.  MacBeath adds:  "When, in 1634, the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France was unable to repay the Razillys the money they had loaned, the company conceded them in the name of Claude de Rasilly the forts at La Hève and Port-Royal as well as half of the profits to be derived from the fur trade over the next ten years," so Claude was fixed up in Acadia even before his brother died.  After Isaac's death, evidently business interests required Claude to remain in France, hence the designation of d'Aulnay as his agent in Acadia.  MacBeath notes:  "However, he [Claude] remained actively interested in the affairs of the colony and in all probability it is he who was largely responsible for continuing his brother's successful experiment of establishing farmers in Acadia."  MacBeath says "it seems reasonable to suggest that some 120 permanent inhabitants were brought to Acadia by the Razilly brothers."  This would include the passengers of the St.-Jehan of course.  In early 1642, Claude "sold his interests in the Razilly-Condonnier company to d'Aulnay and, with this act, participation of the Razillys in affairs here [Acadia] ceased."  Baudry, 1:503, says that even before Isaac's death, Claude had been granted Port-Royal, La Hève, & Île de Sable "in his own name, and inherited his brother's shares in the Compagnie de Razilly-Condonnier.  His family responsibilities and his post in the navy prevented him from coming personally to Acadia," hence his naming cousin d'Aulnay as "his lieutenant in Acadia, while he himself looked after the company's affairs in France." 

26.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 103.  See also ibid., 92, 94-95, 97-98, 100; Arsenault, History, 25; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 54.  

Baudry, "Menou," 1:503, suggests that d'Aulnay made the move from La Hève not only because he believed the soil at Port-Royal was more fertile, but also because "it was hoped to establish salt-pans there, in order to be able to gather near at hand the salt needed for the fisheries."  See note 33, below, for speculation on how salt-gathering at Port-Royal may have contributed to the Acadians' adoption of dyking technology in the basin. 

On soil & weather conditions at Port-Royal compared to La Hève, Clark, p. 98, says:  "This decision to move from La Have was to be of critical importance for the changing geography of the Acadians for more than a century afterward....  [But] the motive of finding a more satisfactory spot for agriculture may have to be discounted.  As far as we know there had been no use of the Bay of Fundy's tidal salt marshes for agriculture before 1635 and the upland soils previously used in the Port Royal area were not significantly better (and may have been worse) than those around La Have estuary.  It is true that the shelter of North Mountain [above the Port-Royal Basin] from the prevailing northwest winds of winter has been advanced as an attraction, yet Annapolis [today's Port-Royal], in fact, has lower temperatures in January and February than has the Lunenburg coast [where La Have is found today]."  For a general discussion of the geology of Nova Scotia, including the nature of the soil on the peninsula & Cape Breton Island, see Clark, chap. 2. 

Continuing his discussion of d'Aulnay's move, Clark, p. 99, compares the harbors at La Hève & Port Royal & considers the latter to be superior in defensibility only if the French had employed elaborate defenses at the Gut & "a series of message relay-stations for warnings to the fort," which they never did.  He concludes:  "Indeed there are few harbors outside of the Mediterranean Sea that have had as sorry a history of vulnerability to sea attack as did Port Royal." 

Clark reminds us that d'Aulnay "was primarily interested in quick profits from the fur trade," so he moved his headquarters from La Hève to Port-Royal to be "nearer to the chief source of furs which was on the continent, not on the peninsula," an advantage that La Tour, on Rivière St.-Jean, already enjoyed.  See pp. 98-99, quote from p. 98.  Clark, p. 92, hints that another reason for the move from La Hève to Port-Royal was that La Hève lay in "La Tour country." 

Clark, p. 100, suggests that the move from La Hève to Port-Royal "perhaps was underway before 1635 and largely concluded by 1640."  Clark, remember, believed that Razilly had died in 1635, not in Jul 1636, followed here. 

D'Aulnay chose a different location for his headquarters at Port-Royal than the site of the old fort occupied by Dugua, Poutrincourt, & Biencourt in earlier days.  The old fort, as previously noted, was located on the north shore of the basin opposite Goat Island.  D'Aulnay chose a site 8 miles farther up, or east, of the old fort in a bend on the south side of the main river channel that flows into the basin, at the present site of Annapolis Royal.  The French called the river that flows into the basin Rivière-au-Dauphin & also Rivière Port-Royal; it is today the Annapolis River.  See Clark, p. 102, map, Fig. 4.3. 

Clark says on p. 85:  "In none of [the posts that existed in Acadia when Razilly arrived in 1632] was agriculture of any importance.  Yet agriculture had been practiced in the period, first most tentatively at St. Croix [in 1604], and then more extensively and intensely at Port Royal [1605-13 & 1628-32], with enough success to suggest that permanent colonies could be assured of self-support in food."  He goes on to detail the agricultural efforts at Île Ste.-Croixe & Port-Royal in the earliest days of the colony, especially the efforts of Marc Lescarbot at Port-Royal.  Clark also details the animals kept by the early Port-Royal colonists.  See pp. 85-86.  Clark says on pp. 96, 98:  "Perhaps there were members of the Poutrincourt-La Tour group at Port Royal each year from 1613 to 1628 [when the Scots settled there], and of the Razilly-d'Aulnay group from 1632 to 1635, but continuous agricultural settlement in this seedbed of the Acadian people dates from the firm establishment there of d'Aulnay's 'habitans' from La Have in the late 1630's."

Clark, pp. 94-95, says that Denys counted only 40 habitants at La Hève in 1635 but goes on to say:  "Apparently there were but a dozen or fifteen women in the original group.  Assuming that most of these survived, and that they had a reasonable number of children, we may estimate roughly a hundred people in all living at La Have in 1635."  White, DGFA-1, finds no "permanent" families in Acadia before 1636.  Arsenault, History, 37, agrees. 

For the métis community at La Hève, see Clark, pp..95, 128-29, the source for calling that settlement a métis community.  Clark, pp. 128-29, writing in 1968, notes:  "It has been observed before that the absorption of Micmac by the Acadian community has not been well studied.  There was a rather conspicuous métis settlement in the La Have-Mirligueche region which, Rameau [ in 1889] estimated, numbered seventy-five or more at the turn of the [17th] century.  This settlement had a continuous history from the arrival of Razilly's settlers in 1632.  It has been assumed that those who did not move to Port Royal later in the decade included many who had made alliances with Indian women; further recruitment may have involved daughters of the Port Royal settlement (especially those with Indian blood) or Indian girls from the interior.  It is likely that, in any event, this group became highly inbred, but that was a situation characteristic of the small Acadian groups everywhere."  Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 188-89, writing in 1987, makes the remarkable assertion that "offspring of mixed blood were generally exiled to the isolated Atlantic coast community of La Hève."  Italics added.  "Exiled" seems to be too-harsh a term for a community whose history predates the "white" community at Port-Royal by several years. 

For Pierre Comeau and his family, see Arsenault. Généalogie, 484ff; White, DGFA-1, 369-93; White DGFA-1 English, 83-88; Dave Comeau, descendant of Pierre.  Pierre Comeau did not marry until c1649, when he was 51 years old.  Age did not slow him down a bit; he fathered 9 children, the last one born when he was 67! 

For Germain Doucet and his family, see Arsenault, Généalogie, 505ff; White, DGFA-1, 526-51; White, DGFA-1 English, 112-16. White calls him sieur de La Verdure, which denotes membership in the lesser nobility.  Arsenault says simply dit Laverdure.  According to White, Doucet was married in France in c1620; his son Pierre was born in c1621, his daughter Marguerite (Arsenault calls her Marguerite-Louise) in c1625 (Arsenault says in c1634), so they would have been 11 & 7 if they had accompanied their parents to Acadia in 1632.  White does not say if Doucet took his family with him to Acadia in 1632; he probably did not (see above).  A second Doucet daughter, unnamed, was born about this time (she married at Port-Royal in c1650, so if she was 18 at the time of her marriage, she would have been born in c1632).  Doucet's second son, Germain, fils, was born in c1641 probably at Port-Royal (Arsenault says the second Germain was the son of Pierre & thus the grandson of the first Germain, but, according to White, Pierre did not marry until c1660).  According to White, all 4 of these children were from Germain père's first wife, whose name has been lost to history, as has the name of his second wife, whom Germain married in c1654 & who, according to White, gave him no children who survived in Acadia.  White, DGFA-1 English, 112-13, shows evidence, however, that Germain's second wife may have been the sister of surgeon & prominent settler, Jacques Bourgeois, who served as Doucet's "lieutenant" in 1654 when the English seized Port-Royal & who married Jeanne Trahan in c1643.  See Appendix for more on these Acadian pioneers. 

In the case of Acadian genealogy, whenever there is conflict of information between Arsenault & White, not an unusual occurrence, this author follows White, the more recent and more accurate of the two genealogical sources, unless otherwise noted.  Recent yDNA findings among nearly a dozen male descendants of Germain Doucet, fils, however, call into question the relationship between the 2 Germains.  The yDNA evidence tends to point to the conclusion that Germain, fils was a full-blooded Mi'kmaq whom Sieur Germain adopted, implying that Sieur Germain's second wife may have been a Mi'kmaq who had children by a previous Indian husband & that she was not a fellow French colonist's daughter. 

27.  Quotation from Arsenault, History, 44.  Griffith, From Migrant to Acadian, 193, calls Mathieu Martin "one [of] the first children born in Acadia, both of whose parents were European ..."  For Pierre Martin's family, see White, DGFA-1, 1125.  For the founding of Cobeguit, see note 95, below. 

27a.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, 673-74, 816; Arsenault, History, 37-38; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 54-55. 

For the importance of women & families to an agricultural settlement, see Clark, Acadia, 88-89. 

La Chaussée, in the Orleanais region, is 75 miles northeast of Martaizé.  Professor Barry Ancelet in Zachary Richard's video, "Against the Tide," asserts that many of the early Acadian settlers knew one another before they reached Acadia, that about 60 percent of them came from a 20-mile radius around a small community in northern Poitou.  He must be referring to Martaizé & Bourgueil, which are 20 miles apart.  For the significance of these towns in Acadia's early settlement, see the list in Appendex of the names, known dates of arrival, origins, & occupations of the pioneers of Acadia.  Note also the author's caveat about research on the origins of the first Acadians:  "The reader must keep in mind that the years of arrival and the origins of the patriarchs of Acadia given in this history come mostly from Arsenault, Généalogie, whose dearth of documentation renders the information not much more than speculation.  The arrival dates and origins in White, DGFA-1, based on more careful research, are used when they are available.  Arsenault's information is based largely on the research of Ms. Geneviève Massignon, whose findings have been questioned by Father d'Entremont (see his article reprinted in AGE, October 2003, pp. 66-68; May 2004, pp. 31-32).  Father d'Entremont reminds us that the Port-Royal church records before 1700, which could have provided the true origins of the Acadian pioneers, were burned, and this information is therefore lost to history.  He contends that Ms. Massignon's basic assumption about the origins of the early Acadians--that people with names similar to the early Acadians lived in the area from which the sieur d'Aulnay recruited the first settlers of the colony, particularly Martaizé and La Chaussée in the Loire valley--is a flawed assumption.  First, Razilly, not d'Aulnay, recruited the earliest Acadian families; second, the names of these families can be found in other regions of France as well."

Isaac de Razilly's brother, Claude de Launay-Rasilly, also recruited settlers for the colony.  See MacBeath, "Razilly," 1:569. 

Isaac Pesseley served as major of Port-Royal and died in Apr 1645 during the civil war between d'Aulnay & La Tour.  Pesseley's youngest daughter Marie, born at Port-Royal about the time of his death, is the matriarch of all the Pitres of Acadia.  See White, DGFA-1, 1288-89, 1318.  Pesseley's wife's family name also is spelled Barjolet, Bajol, Bayols.  She, too, was from Piney.  A recent article by Acadian historian/genealogist Father Clarence d'Entremont in AGE (May 2012), pp. 50-52, details the family's history in France & Acadia.  According to Fr. d'Entremont, Isaac likely brought his wife & daughter Marguerite to Acadia aboard St.-Jehan & says their other 5 children, 4 daughters & a son, were born in Acadia.  However, White, cited above, gives the couple 8 children in all, including a son Étienne, born at Piney in Oct 1630, Marguerite at Piney in 1633, and daughter Perrette at Piney in 1634.  It is possible that Étienne and Perrette died in France before 1636 & only Marguerite was alive when St.-Jehan sailed.  White gives no death dates for Étienne & Perrette, implying, perhaps, that they did not survive childhood.  Of Pesseley's 8 children, in fact, White shows marriages only for Marguerite (to Antoine Hervieu de Herviste at St.-Jean de La Rochelle, France, in May 1652), & Marie, to Jean Pitre in c1665, & to François Robin in c1690. 

Arsenault gives Guillaume Trahan's age in 1636 as 35, but he was 60 at the time of the first census of Acadia in 1671, placing his birth in c1611, so he was actually only 25 when he left France for Acadia.  Guillaume's second daughter, whose name has been lost, is the one who married Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure.  For a detailed analysis of the origins of the Martins & Trahans of Acadia, see Massignon, "Trahans of Acadiana," which also mentions, on p. 117, the birth of Mathieu Martin & his distinction as "first-born" in Acadia.  Massignon spells Françoise Corbineau's family name Charbonneau.  Françoise died by c1666, when Guillaume Trahan remarried to Madeleine, daughter of Vincent Brun, at Port-Royal.  See White, DGFA-1, 1536.  Massignon also notes, pp. 118-19, that Guillaume Trahan had been severely fined in 1634, 2 years before his passage on the St.-Jehan, for cutting down trees in the forest of Bourgueil, a possible motivation for his going to Acadia, where trees could be felled with impunity.  See Appendix for more on Antoine Bourg, Vincent Brun, Jean Gaudet, & François Gautrot.  Arsenault, History, 37, is the source for Jeanne Motin's heading the list of passengers aboard the St.-Jehan.  Her marriage to d'Aulnay is in White, DGFA-1, 1170.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 51, says they were married in France.  For details of Jeanne Motin's life, see George MacBeth, "MOTIN (Mottin), Jeanne," in DCB, 1:514.  

Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:547, 788, is the marriage of Pierre Martin & Catherine Vigneau on 30 Jun 1630 in France, & 1-A:203, 767, is the marriage of Guillaume, son of Nicolas Trahan & Renée Desloges, to Françoise Corbineau of the parish of St.-Étienne, on 13 Jul 1627, both in France.  See also White, DGFA-1, 1125, 1288-89, 1535-36; White, DGFA-1 English, 243, 323-34.  The St.-Jehan left La Rochelle on Apr 1, & its passenger role bears that date.  

Arsenault, History, 26, days that d'Aulnay married Jeanne Motin in 1636, which would have been soon after she reached Acadia.  Baudry, "Menou," 1:503, says d'Aulnay married Jeanne Motin in 1638.  White, DGFA-1, 1170, followed here, agrees.  Baudry, 1:503, adds that Jeanne was sister-in-law of another of d'Aulnay's associates, Nicolas Le Creux du Brueil, & that marrying her "was a clear indication of his intention to settle in the country."  She was age 23 at the time of the wedding; he was 34.  She gave him 8 children, none of whom married:  Marie, born at Port-Royal in Sep 1639, was named Dlle de Poussay in Lorraine in 1676; Charles, fils, born probably at Port-Royal in c1642, was still a bachelor when he died in military service; Renée became a nun in Touraine; Jeanne, born probably at Port-Royal in c1646, also became a nun; René, born probably at Port-Royal in c1648, also was a bachelor when he died in combat; Anne, born probably at Port-Royal in c1649, became a nun at Jouarre; & Paul, born probably at Port-Royal in c1650, the year of his father's death, became a captain in the regiment of Maréchal de La Ferté, was promoted to major, & died in the siege of Luxembourg in 1684.  See White, pp. 1170-72. 

27b.  Quotation from Taylor, D. J., "Bruns-Lebruns," 33.  Lucie LeBlanc Consentino's website <acadian-home.org> contains an English translation of the St.-Jehan's passenger list, found in the records of the Department of Charente-Maritime at La Rochelle & in the Paris archives.  On it can be found Isaac Pesselin (from Champagne), Pierre Martin (laborer ... from Bourgueil), & Guillaume Trahan (an "officer of the cavalry" ... also from Bourgueil), but not Antoine Bourg, Vincent Brun, Jean Gaudet, or François Gautrot.  Note that White, DGFA-1, 221-22, 289, 666-67, 691-92, does not include Bourg, Brun, Gaudet, & Gautrot as passengers aboard St.-Jehan.  Arsenault, Généalogie, Port-Royal section, 448, 554, 566, 718, says that Bourg, Gaudet, Gautrot, & Pesseley arrived in "c1636"; Arsenault includes only Martin & Trahan on the 1 Apr 1636 La Rochelle passenger list, but, unlike White, does not name the vessel.  Were the presence of Bourg, Brun, Gaudet, & Gautrot aboard the vessel simply family legend?  No matter, they were among the first settlers in Acadia. 

28.  Quotation from White, DGFA-1 English, 251.  See also Arsenault, History, 25.  Detailed accounts of the struggle between La Tour & d'Aulnay can be found in Parkman, France & England, 1:1075-95, part of chap. 1 & all of chap. 2 of his volume, The Old Regime in Canada, long a classic description of this era in American colonial history; Baudry, "Menou," 1:503-05; George MacBeath, "Saint-Étienne de La Tour, Charles," in DCB, 1:594-95.

Clark, Acadia, 90, who spares us the details of the struggle, says of the conflict between La Tour & d'Aulnay:  "The history of these twenty-two years [1632-54] has often been written as a sort of opéra bouffe libretto based on the vendetta between Charles de La Tour and Charles de Menou d'Aulnay for control of the fur trade.  It is true enough that the energies of the settlers were greatly occupied by that miniscule civil war between rival fur-trading seigneurs.  The struggle originated and persisted for many reasons:  because of the inconsistency and inaccuracy in the statement of terms of the grants, or the failure to annul earlier rights in granting new ones; because the responsible people in Paris knew little of Acadia and cared even less; because Acadia was too far away for adequate enforcement of authority from France or Quebec; and because in Acadia there was no single authority.  Of importance to us is that this armed feud diverted so much attention from the actual settlement and its agricultural activities that the few settlers brought out, when they were not drafted for service on attack or forced to be active in their own defense, were often left to fend for themselves."  Second set of italics added.  Clark, p. 93, note 39, writing in the late 1960s, says that "Feelings among historians partial to one side or the other still run as high as those of the early seventeenth-century antagonists themselves.  A bibliography of the literary feud would be long."  He then highlights some of more notable sources on the La Tour/d'Aulnay feud. 

29.  Quotations from Baudry, "Menou," 1:503; Arsenault, History, 25, 26; Parkman, France & England, 1:1090. 

Baudry, "Menou," 1:504, calls Le Borgne "a Huguenot merchant of La Rochelle...."  Mason Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," in DCB, 1:433-35, says nothing of Le Borgne being a Huguenot.  Parkman, 1:1102, calls him, simply, "a merchant of La Rochelle...."  Perhaps Baudry assumed that Le Borgne's being from La Rochelle made him a Protestant, but, according to Wade, Le Borgne was a native of Calais who married a woman from La Rochelle & settled there. 

Arsenault says the assault on Port-Royal was in Aug; Parkman, followed here, says Jul.  For the 14 Jul 1640 inquiry at Port-Royal, see White, DGFA-1 English, 113, 274, 324.

Baudry, 1:503, says that La Tour made the first aggressive move in the conflict by inciting the Indians against d'Aulnay, calls the struggle between the rivals "a minor war," says it "half ruined" both of them as well as burdened the colony, & points out that in 1640, during the conflict, "the Dutch made a number of forays on the Acadian coasts...."  Ibid., 1:504-05, details d'Aulnay's trip to France during 1641-42.  Arsenault, p. 25, says that "During his frequent trips to France, d'Aulnay recruited many families and hired hands for Acadia from around Touraine, Poitou, Anjou, Saintonge and Champagne," which would have made him a very busy fellow there. 

29a.  Quotation from ibid., 1:504-505. 

30.  Quotation from Arsenault, History, 27, who says that there were 50 men with Madame La Tour at Fort St.-Jean.  Parkman's number is used here.  Arsenault says that d'Aulnay lost 33 men in the assault.  Baudry, "Menou," 1:505, agreeing with Parkman's number of men with Madame La Tour, says that d'Aulnay lost 8 men in the siege/assault & "paid compensation to their families." 

According to Parkman, France & England, Madame La Tour was the former Marie Jacquelin, a Huguenot, "daughter of a barber of Mans," who "proved [to be] a prodigy of mettle and energy, espoused her husband's cause with passionate vehemence, and backed his quarrel like the intrepid Amazon she was."  Quotations from 1:1079, 1080.  Parkman's account of La Tour's adventures after his loss of the fort and "his indomitable wife" is found on 1:1098ff.  White, DGFA-1, 1433, calls her Françoise-Marie Jacquelin, daughter of nobleman & doctor of medicine Jacques Jacquelin of Nogent-le-Rotrou, & Hélène Lerminier, & says that Marie died in May 1645.  White says that she was Charles La Tour's second wife. 

Among those killed in the assault on La Tour's fort on Rivière St.-Jean was Isaac Pesseley, a merchant from Piney in Champagne and major of Port-Royal who had come to the colony with a wife & 3 children aboard the St.-Jehan in 1636.  Pesseley had testified against La Tour in d'Aulnay's inquiry at Port-Royal in Jul 1640 & remained a staunch ally of the governor.  Pesseley left behind a wife & 8 children, the youngest of whom was a newborn daughter named Marie.  Twenty years later, Marie married Jean Pitre, an edged tool maker who came to Acadia during the late 1650s, and with him created a vigorous line of Acadian settlers.  See White, DGFA-1, 1288-89, 1321-26; White, DGFA-1 English, 274.

31.  See Baudry, 1:505; Clark, Acadia, 93-94; Parkman, France & England, 1:1091-92, 1096-97, who details d'Aulnay's successful peace missions to Boston in 1644 and again in 1646 conducted by a Capuchin friar dressed as a gentleman, "one Monsieur Marie." 

D'Aulnay's seizures on the Gulf of St. Lawrence & on Cape Breton Island were challenged in the admiralty courts & at Paris, of course, but by then d'Aulnay was so well connected at Court that nothing was done to him. 

32.  See Arsenault, History, 28; Baudry, "Menou," 1:505; Clark, Acadia, 93; White, DGFA-1 English, 251.  Parkman, France & England, 1:1099-1100, concludes, p. 1100:  "Acadia, in short, was made an hereditary fief, and D'Aunay and his heirs became lords of a domain as large as a European kingdom."  Parkman & Baudry say nothing of the concession to Denys.  Baudry details d'Aulnay's forays in the mid-1640s against other competitors in the fur trade, including fishing vessels from the Basque region, Bordeaux, & Brittany. 

Baudry says that Le Borgne traveled to Port-Royal to confront d'Aulnay about the unpaid debts, amounting to 200,000 livres by 1648, but that d'Aulnay sent the merchant back to France with an empty ship.  D'Aulnay then found other suppliers among the merchants at Nantes & Bayonne. 

Louis XIV, born in 1638, had become king on the death of his father, Louis XIII, in 1642.  Because of Louis XIV's youth, his mother ruled as his regent until 1651, when her lover & the young king's godfather, Cardinal Mazarin, essentially took control of the kingdom as Louis XIV's chief minister.  This arrangement lasted until Mazarin's death in 1661, after which Louis XIV, now in his early 20s, ruled without a chief minister.

33.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 49.  Ibid., pp. 48-50, details the construction of aboiteaux, & also says on p. 49:  "Although [Nicolas] Denys attributed the diking to d'Aulnay, it is doubtful that the lieutenant-governor had much to do with it."  See Clark, Acadia, 53-55, for a discussion of dyking in the context of Acadian soil fertility.  In a review of subsistence farming in the Port-Royal valley from 1605-36, Clark says on p. 87:  "There is no evidence whatsoever of the dyking of the salt marshes, the successful establishment of fruit trees or, indeed, of any lasting improvements that could be part of the capital equipment of subsequent settlers," so the dyking operations did not begin until the late 1630s, that is, during d'Aulnay's time as Acadian proprietor.  Giovanni Cherubini, in his essay "The Peasant and Agriculture," in Le Goff, Medieval World, 115, notes:  "... in Brittany and Poitou ... peasants successfully drained the salt marches...," so the technique was well known in France.  For more details on the dyking process, see note 225, below. 

Clark, pp. 101, 103, published in 1968, adds:  "In speculation on the localities of the Acadians in France there has been little advance beyond Sulte's conclusion of 1905 that '... their dialect would indicate their place of origin to be in the neighborhood of the Bay of Biscay and the mouth of the River Loire,' except for the recent research of Geneviève Massignon [1962] which implies that the 1632 settlers and perhaps others introduced by d'Aulnay before mid-century, may have come chiefly from the Loudunais area in northeastern Poitou (the northern part of the present Département of Vienne).  The discussion of origins is amplified in the Appendix [his pp. 397-400], but the significance of Massignon's conclusions, if we accept them, is that few of the earliest settlers would have come from the vicinities where dyking of tidal marshes, recently introduced from the Netherlands, was in progress at the time they left France.  Yet we may also suppose that the men even of inland Poitou, perhaps occasionally following river tributaries flowing into the Loire and so to Nantes and the sea, may well have known of such activity along the coasts and estuaries from the Loire to the Gironde.  Certainly dyking got under way in the basin near the mouth of the Dauphin (Annapolis) River within the first decade or two after d'Aulnay's move to Port Royal."  Clark further adds on p. 103, note 66:  "In the reign of Louis XIII (1610-43) extensive reclamation of tidal marshlands by dyking had taken place near La Rochelle and in Saintonge and Poitou, under the supervision of Dutch engineers.  Many of the Razilly group (or others) might have been familiar with the techniques."  Thus, the early Acadians from those regions would have had knowledge of this process, either direct or observed, when they came to Port-Royal.  D'Aulnay certainly would have known if his farmers had such knowledge & would have encouraged their efforts, especially after he would have seen that the system worked.  See Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29, for a detailed depiction of the extent of salt marsh dyking in the valley of the Rivière au Dauphin by 1710.  (For a critique of the Massignon thesis, see Appendix.)

Clark, p. 103, says that at Port-Royal d'Aulnay "developed two large farms for his own use worked by his own engagés."  One wonders if he experimented with dyking the salt marshes on one or both of these farms. 

Baudry, "Menou," 1:503, hints that the dyking operation at Port-Royal may have been motivated not only by the lure of better soil in the basin but also by the need to produce an essential product--salt.  Baudry writes:  "He [d'Aulnay] very soon decided, no doubt in agreement with his chief [Claude de Rasilly, the dead Isaac Razilly's brother], to set up the colony's principal post at Port-Royal.  This site offered a double advantage:  it had fertile lands, which La Hève lacked, and it was hoped to establish salt-pans there, in order to be able to gather near at hand the salt needed for the fisheries.  Claude de Rasilly sent salt-makers, and the construction of the dikes was begun."  Baudry does not explain how sea salt leeching from the tidal marshes via an aboiteau would provide, with the use of salt-pans, the essential ingredient for the cod fishery.  Perhaps at low tides, after a hard rain, salt-makers, called sauniers by the French, could capture the salt from the water running out of the dyked fields via the sluices by the use of salt-pans, though, over time, the amount of salt thus captured would diminish, compelling the sauniers to move on to newly-dyked fields.  Waste not, want not, the Acadians would say.  Salt was a valuable commodity in France; so much so that the government monopolized its production & distribution.  Salt would not have been less valuable in Acadia, especially considering the importance of the cod fishery to the colony's economic well-being.  What Baudry seems to be saying is that d'Aulnay showed the settlers how to dyke the marshes to produce salt for the fisheries, or, more likely, encouraged the ones who understood the technique to commence dyking not only to create pasturage & grain fields with which to feed the colony, but also to help the sauniers capture salt for the fishery.  Or perhaps Rasilly's sauniers, encouraged by d'Aulnay, showed the settlers how to dyke the marshes & produce salt for the fisheries, & the settlers figured out for themselves how to create salt-free pasturage & crop soil using the dyking technique.  No matter, perfection of the dyking operation would have taken years & would not have been sustainable until dozens of families lived in the basin & could have provided the necessary manpower to build & sustain the dykes.  This was achieved by 1653, when Denys observed the operation & attributed it to d'Aulnay.  See note 39, below.  For details about the Bay of Fundy tides that made the use of aboiteaux possible, see note 223, below.  It is not possible to overstate the role of dyking in the development of a unique Acadian culture. 

34.  Quotations from Parkman, France & England, 1:1100.  Arsenault, History, 28-29, 31, says that d'Aulnay was traveling alone and that he died of exhaustion and exposure.  Baudry, "Menou," 1:505, does not mention the valet & says that d'Aulnay "was engaged upon clearing further tracts of land when he died suddenly," that "His canoe capsized in the Port-Royal basin, and he died of exhaustion after remaining an hour and a half in the icy water."   Moody, Acadians, 17, indicates that d'Aulnay may have been pushed from the canoe and thus murdered, an accusation this researcher has found nowhere else.  Parkman, cited above & followed here, says that d'Aulnay traveled with his valet, that they were "in a birch canoe in the basin of Port Royal, not far from the mouth of the Annapolis," and that d'Aulnay died "not from drowning but from cold, for the water still retained the chill of winter."  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 61, says d'Aulnay "drowned in a canoe accident on the Saint John."  All other sources this researcher has seen say that d'Aulnay died at Port-Royal.  See, e.g, Clark, Acadia, 93; Baudry, "Menou," 1:505; Parkman, cited above; Arsenault, cited above.

D'Aulnay was 46 at the time of his death.  He left his widow with 8 children, including 4 sons who perished on French battlefields and 3 daughters who became nuns.  See White, DGFA-1, 1170-72, DGFA-1 English, 251, for details of d'Aulnay's birth, marriage, & the lives of his children.  See also Parkman, p. 1103. 

Baudry says that d'Aulnay's father, René de Menou, became his grandchildren's guardian, which means that they likely were sent to France & lived out their days there.  See note 27a, above. 

34a.  Baudry, "Menou," 1:505-06, sums up d'Aulnay's contribution:  "What he achieved was appreciable.  According to the testimony of the earliest settlers, he had had three forts built, equipped with 60 cannon, and he maintained garrisons there.  He had fetched some 20 families from France, and in order to establish them he had brought grass-lands under cultivation, organized two farms at Port-Royal, and cleared stretches of land at Pentagouët and the Saint John River.  To supply his settlers, he had three or four ships come each year from France; he had two mills constructed, and built two small ships of 70 tons, five pinnaces, and several sloops.  He had also established two schools, and at his death he left a population of about 500 souls, divided among four posts and served by 12 Capuchins."  Baudry concludes:  "These results may seem rather slight, but they assume considerable proportions when one remembers that d'Aulnay obtained them by his own efforts, with no official help.  Such achievements betoken a high degree of intelligence and energy.  While his rivals were almost entirely concerned with trade, d'Aulnay's ambition was to establish a lasting colony, and he realized that this could be done only by settling families in the country and by giving them the means of subsisting on the spot and by themselves, through the cultivation of the land, through fishing, and through industry.  The colony that he left in Acadia was well rooted and vigorous enough to resist the English occupation and the 20 years of neglect that followed.  That is enough for d'Aulnay to deserve consideration as a great colonizer and as one of the first architects of the plan to give to the Atlantic provinces a European population."   

Parkman, France & England, 1101, sums up d'Aulnay's character:  "He seems to have been a favorable example of his class, loyal to his faith and his king, tempering pride with courtesy, and generally true to his cherished ideal of the gentilhomme Français.  In his qualities, as in his birth, he was far above his rival, and his death was the ruin of the only French colony in Acadia that deserved the name."  

35.  Quotation from Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:433.  See also Arsenault, History, 31, 32; Clark, Acadia, 93, who says that La Tour was "resting" at Québec & "stood off" Le Borgne; Parkman, France & England, 1101-03, who suspects that the proclamation naming La Tour as governor and lieutenant-general of Acadia was a fabrication.  Parkman is no more impressed with Le Borgne's claims to d'Aulnay's assets, which in Parkman's account sound more like extortion than a creditor's claims.  See especially p. 1102.  For a chronology of Le Borgne's dealings with d'Aulnay & Denys & his efforts to recoup the large debt, see See White, DGFA-1 English, 218.  For details of Le Borgne's progeny in Acadia, who eventually called themselves Bélisle, and also the descendants of Mius d'Entremont, follow the hyperlinks in Appendix.  

Parkman, 1:1102, implies that, soon after he secured acknowledgment of d'Aulnay's debt to him from the dead governor's father, Le Borgne himself went to Port-Royal to shake down d'Aulnay's widow.  Arsenault, Généalogie, 406, hints that Le Borgne did not go to Acadia, his two sons in tow, until 1654, the year of the English attack.  Wade, followed here, says that Le Borgne himself did not go to Acadia until 1653. 

See DCB, 1:510, for a short biography of Philippe Mius d'Entremont written by Acadian historian Father Clément Cormier.  According to Fr. Cormier, d'Entremont & Charles La Tour had been friends from childhood.  Soon after ordering the rebuilding of the post at Cap-Sable, Gov. La Tour granted his childhood friend the seigneurie of Pobomcoup at Cap-Sable.  Fr. Cormier adds:  "To reward him for his services, La Tour offered d'Entremont in 1651 or 1653 the letters patent of the Pobomcoup fief, as a barony.  The feudal rights conferred upon the baron a territory stretching from Cap Nègre to Cap Forchu (Yarmouth).  The feudal castle was built near the entry to the natural harbour of Pubnico, on the east side."  Clark, Acadia, 116, Fig. 5.2, says that Mius d'Entremont's seigneurie was "a subgrant from Charles La Tour.  The precise date is uncertain, but may have been in the early 1650s."  Despite La Tour's mercurial relationship with French authorities, the Crown evidently approved the grant.  Amazingly, the Mius d'Entremonts held the barony for over a century, until the Acadian expulsion of the 1750s. 

36. Quotation from Arsenault, History, 32.  See also Parkman, France & England, 1102-03, who says that Mme. d'Aulnay initiated the marriage, which took place on 24 Feb, for the benefit of her children.  After summing up La Tour's activities after the death of his rival and noting that descendants of the old outlaw remained in Acadia up to the present day, Parkman, p.1104, leaves us with these sad words about the fate of La Tour's old rival:  "As for D'Aunay, no trace of his blood is left in the land where he gave wealth and life for France and the Church."  George MacBeth, "Motin (Mottin), Jeanne," in DCB, 1:514, says that La Tour married d'Aulnay's widow in Jul 1653, that they lived for a time on the St.-Jean but moved to Cap-Sable in c1656, where she died by 1667.  

White, DGFA-1, 1433-35, followed here, details Charles La Tour's remarkable family.  His first wife, an unnamed Indian woman who he married in c1625, gave him 3 daughters, Jeanne, born in c1626, who married Martin d'Aprendestiguy de Martignon at Pentagouët in c1655; Antoinette, who became a nun in Jul 1646; & a third daughter whose name has been lost to history & who also became a nun.  His second wife, François-Marie, called Marie, Jacquelin, who he married at Fort St.-Louis, Cap-Sable, in c1640, gave him a son, whose name has been lost, born at Fort La Tour on Rivière St.-Jean in c1641, who died young.  Charles La Tour's third wife was d'Aulnay's widow, Jeanne Motin de Reux, whom he married at Port-Royal in Feb 1653 (the marriage contract is dated 24 Feb), when he was 60 & she was 38, & who gave him most of his children & both of his surviving sons:  Marie, born in c1654, who married Alexandre Le Borgne de Bélisle at Port-Royal in c1674; Jacques, born in c1655, who married Anne, daughter of Charles Melanson, in c1685; Marguerite, born in c1658, who married first to Abraham Mius de Pleinmarais in c1676, & then to Jean-François Villatte at Port-Royal in Jun 1705; Anne, born in c1661, who married Jacques Mius d'Entremont de Pobomcoup in c1678; & Charles, fils, born probably at Port-Royal in Mar 1663, who married Jeanne-Angélique Loreau in c1700.  Jeanne Motin de Reux died giving birth to son Charles, fils probably at Port-Royal in Mar 1663; she was only 48 years old. 

36a.  See Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:434. 

37.  See Arsenault, History, 32, 33; Clark, Acadia, 94; Parkman, France & England, 1:1103; Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:433-34.  Interesting, Bélisle's biography, Clément Cormier, "Le Borgne de Belle-Isle, Alexandre," in DCB, 1:435-36, says nothing of the boy's remarkable mission to Boston at such a tender age, so one wonders if it actually happened. 

37a.  See Clark, Acadia, 99, for a summary of conditions in Europe during the 1630s & 1640s, including the Thirty Years War on the continent, civil war in France, & the English Civil War, that, he avers, were "Of much more importance to the development or neglect of Acadia" than conditions in Acadia itself. 

38. See Arsenault, History, 32-34; Arsenault, Généalogie, 456, 505; Clark, Acadia, 94, 107-08, 113, note 5, 415; Cormier, "Le Borgne de Belle-Isle, Alexandre" 1:435; Parkman, France & England, 1:1103; Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:434. 

For the Doucet/Bourgeois part of the story, see White, DGFA-1 English, 113.   

Nepisiguit, also spelled Nepigiguit, Nepisquit and Nipisiquit, is today's Bathurst, New Brunswick. 

Arsenault, History, 34, says that Denys was 90 years old when he died.  White, DGFA-1, 487, says he died probably at Paris in Jul 1688 at age 89, but White gives his birthday as 2 June 1603.

38a.  Quotations from "John Leverett," Wikipedia; White, DGFA-1 English, 218-19; Clark, Acadia, 107; Cormier, "Le Borgne de Belle-Isle, Alexandre" 1:435-36.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 77; Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:434; Appendix.

Clark, p. 111, note 1, says of the English governor:  "Sir Thomas Temple was the heir to the claims of the Alexanders [Stirling].  With William Crowne and Charles La Tour (who had turned his coat for the purpose), the Commonwealth granted him the government and monopoly of trade in the area after Robert Sedgwick's expedition had captured the forts on both shores of the Bay of Fundy.  La Tour then made an arrangement to occupy and exploit the Cape Sable area.  The rest was under strictly English control, more or less de jure until 1667, and de facto until 1770."  Temple's possession of inheritance rights to Nova Scotia would explain his reluctance to let it go when the Treaty of Breda was signed in 1667.  See also Parkman, France & England, 1:1103. 

Clark, p. 107, says that Alexandre de Bélisle's authority as governor also encompassed La Tour's holdings from Baie Verte to Canso & around to New England.  La Tour, remember had died in 1666, 2 years before the young Le Borgne was named governor. 

Alexandre de Bélisle may have returned to Acadia by 1660 to engage in fur-trading activities.  See Clark, p. 107, note 74.  Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:434, says that Bélisle "went to Acadia to take possession on 9 Oct. 1668...."  Clark, p. 119, note 11, says:  "There is a tendency to confuse the Le Borgnes, fils et père.  'Belle-Isle' should be used only for the son, who adopted the title."  Alexandre was not counted in the first Acadian census of 1671 & married a daughter of Charles La Tour in c1675, probably at Port-Royal.  His father did not die until Aug 1675.  See Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:433; White, DGFA-1, 1025, 1027. 

39. Quotations from <acadian-cajun.com/denys.htm>, quoting Denys, Description, 123-24; Clark, Acadia, 108.  See ibid., pp. 103, 105, for the same long quotation from Denys's Description.  Arsenault, History, 35, 36, asserts that the English occupation "had prevented new immigration to Acadia," but his own genealogy contradicts this. 

The Port-Royal valley included the Rivière au Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, which forms a basin at it widens on its way out to the Bay of Fundy via a narrow exit at the base of North Mountain, called today the Digby Gut.  See Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29.  Clark, p. 102, Fig. 4.3, a map, is entitled "Port Royal Basin and Valley:  Population, 1636-1654," & includes the location of tidal marshlands during that time. 

Clark, pp. 100-01, offers this survey of the Acadian population from the early 1630s to 1654:  "There are records of contrats d'engagement for Acadia in large numbers, by the notaries of La Rochelle, for the period between 1630 and 1654.  It is true that few of their names, as far as we know them, are found in the first Acadian census of 1671, but, while serving their contracts of from one to three years, they must have swelled the population not only at Port Royal but at the outlying posts as well.  Among those recruited for Port Royal by Emmanuel Le Borgne were five sawyers in 1645 and a gunsmith in 1646.  Even more numerous were those sent out to Charles de La Tour by his intendant, Guillaume Desjardins.  For example, in 1640 his engagés included a gunsmith and a joiner and, in 1641, a nailmaker-blacksmith, a sawyer, a mason, and a baker; in 1642 these were joined by twenty-two men who were hired as laborers and soldiers for the fort on the Saint John.  In addition we know that some twenty-five men and five women were signed for Acadia in 1640, but we know neither their names nor their destinations.  Couillard-Després quotes at length from a contemporary sources a list of sixty-three men sent out on the vessel Saint-Clement in 1642 to reinforce La Tour.  Rameau concludes that d'Aulnay also imported some families in 1640, and Lauvrière estimates that, at one time or another before his death, d'Aulnay may have added a score of married couples or families to the original La Have nucleus," most of whom moved on to Port-Royal.  Clark continues:  "For 1650 an estimate of forty-five to fifty European households at Port Royal and La Have has been made, with some sixty single men--possibly 300 or 350 people in all.  Denys estimated perhaps 270, perhaps considerably more, when the English captured Port Royal in 1654, including Le Borgne and '... six vingts hommes des siens avec les habitans qui, faisoient (sic) bien cent cinquante [86 men with the inhabitants who numbered a good 150?]....'  We can be satisfied that at least two to three hundred folk, half of them in settled families, lived in the Port Royal area at the time of its capture in 1654."  For the first Acadian census, see note 43, below. 

A personal note:  I am convinced that my Acadian ancestor, Robert Cormier, whose contrats d'engagement for 3 years service were notarized at La Rochelle in Jan & Mar 1644, fulfilled his indenture as a master ship's carpenter at Fort St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island, but he did not remain in Acadia.  He slipped back to France with his wife & younger son sometime in the early 1650s or during the English occupation, certainly before the first Acadian census.  His older son Thomas, however, remained at Port-Royal and established the Cormier family in Acadia.  See Appendix.

39a.  See Clark, Acadia, 109; Moogk, La Nouvelle France, 176; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 95, 99-100.  The authors of Historical Atlas of Canada offer this insightful summary on 1:48:  "The chartered colonization schemes [of Dugua, Poutrincourt, Biencourt, Razilly, & d'Aulnay for the French, & the many English ventures in Newfoundland] were financial disasters for their investors, but they demonstrated that overwintering and extended residence were possible, and they left behind a few men who began prosecuting the fishery on their own accounts, encouraging settlement to develop out of the migratory fishery.  In Acadia descendants of a few colonists sent after 1632 began to farm the tidal marshes around the Bay of Fundy."  From many failed efforts to exploit the fishery and the fur trade in the first decades of the 1600s emerged an almost accidental permanent agricultural venture--the colony of Acadia.  

Clark, p. 90, says:  "For twenty-two years after the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye in 1632, the Acadian lands were in French hands and there became established by 1654 a resident population, more or less sedentary and agricultural, from which a large proportion of the later Acadians were descended.  Indeed this is the real beginning of French settlement in Acadia.  An enduring lodgement of agricultural settlers, with a social structure adequate to their needs, was made at Port Royal in the Annapolis Basin and several new posts were established around the coasts.  Husbandry and population expanded to the point that the intrusion of France into these maritime lands assumed an air of permanence."  Clark adds:  "As was to be characteristic of Acadia, these events took place almost in spite of, rather than in conscious and studied direction from, the leaders in the New World or the authorities in the Old."  Clark, p. 386, summarizes the importance of the 1654-70 period in the development of an emerging Acadian culture. 

40.  See ibid., pp. 107-08. 

Arsenault, History, 35, says of the new French governor:  “Unlike his predecessors in Acadia, Grandfontaine was not just a mere concessionary but the designated representative of the King of France,” who was still Louis XIV.  “However, like all French governors who succeeded him in Acadia, Grandfontaine received his instructions from the Governor of Canada, his immediate superior.”  In other words, Acadia was now a royal colony, not a proprietary one, as it had been when it was in the hands of the French before and even during the English occupation.  This royal arrangement also placed Acadia under the jurisdiction of the powerful royal intendants of Canada.  See Parkman, France & England, 1:1288ff, for a detailed explanation of the relative roles of the governors-general & royal intendants of New France, a scheme initiated by Louis XIV in 1663 while Acadia was still under English occupation.  Also as part of the royal arrangement, the parish priests of Acadia were subject to the ecclesiastical authority of the Bishop of Quebec, the first of whom, Laval, took office in 1659, during the English occupation of Acadia.  All of this followed Louis XIV's assumption of full royal power after the death of Mazarin in 1661.  See also Clark, p. 111. 

Another, more recent, perspective on the transition from proprietary to royal colony is offered by Mathé Allain in her essay, "Colbert and the Colonies," p. 6, in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in LA:  "... he [Colbert] understood the distinction between settlement colonies and trade colonies.  Therein lies Colbert's contribution, and in its corollary, that a settlement colony needed to produce so as to export and needed to be populated so as to produce.  Eventually another corollary would follow:  while the trading colonies, colonies d'exploitation commerciale, could be entrusted to companies, the colonies de peuplement would be administered directly by the Crown since they were to be overseas extensions of the mother country."  Consider this:  the peopling of Acadia began in earnest in the early 1630s, but not until 1670 did it become a royal colony.  Louisiana would begin as a trading colony in 1699 & become a  royal colony in 1733.  Each colony, then, (Acadia from 1632-70, Louisiana from 1699-1733), took over 3 decades to evolve from trading colony to settlement colony.  

Although the rule of proprietors & concessionaires was over, the seigneuries granted before 1670 were still honored by the French Court. 

Clark, p. 112, points out that from 1670 to 1710, the 40 years in which the French held Acadia as as royal colony, "More often than not [the] headquarters [of the Acadian governors & commandants] were elsewhere than at Port Royal; on the Penobscot or the Saint John or, in the case of La Vallière, Beaubassin."  During much of that time, from 1689-97, 1702-10, France was at war with England, so perhaps this gives an idea of the vulnerability of Port-Royal to seaborne attack. 

Alexandre de Bélisle came to Acadia with Grandfontaine to protect the family's interests.  Grandfontaine insisted that the young Le Borgne, now age 30, was just another habitant.  See Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:434. 

41. Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 108.  See also ibid., pp. 111, 139, 143, 149, 175-76; Arsenault, History, 36.

42. Arsenault, History, 36, says 50 came aboard L'Oranger.  Parkman, France & England, 2:243, note 1, says, "In 1671, 30 garcons and 30 filles were sent by the king to Acadia, at the cost of 6,000 livres."  Was this L'Oranger?  Clark, Acadia, 130, says "When Grandfontaine arrived at Port Royal in 1671 an accompanying vessel brought sixty passengers including four girls and one woman.  There is also a record of provision for passage money and feeding of thirty boys [garçons] and thirty girls [filles], but the records are so incomplete we are not certain of their destination."  Was this L'Oranger?  See also Clark, p. 131.  Judging from genealogical records, the new male arrivals aboard the Oranger did not settle for very long in the Port-Royal valley.  Some of them helped pioneer newer settlements along the Bay of Fundy.  See Appendix

For a brief history of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, see Parkman, 1:1233.  It was this regiment that arrived in Canada with the French viceroy, the Marquis Pouville de Tracy, in the summer of 1665, "the first regiment of regular troops ever sent to America by the French government."  De Tracy used it to chastise the Mohawks and to intimidate the English in upper NY in early 1666.  See Parkman, 1:1240-45.  Clark, p. 130, says:  "Grandfontaine sent a score or more of soldiers to Acadia in 1670 (he actually dispatched a company of fifty men but twenty-six of them were lost in a shipwreck).  These probably were mostly used in the posts along the northern shores of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine from the Saint John to the Penobscot." 

In discussing French mercantilism and the role of monopoly, Mathé Allain in "Colbert and the Colonies" in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 23, note 34, says:  "It should be noted ... that Colbert was willing to expand freedom of trade to include foreigners when necessary; he, for example, encouraged trade between Acadia and New England because commerce between Acadia and Canada was expensive and difficult."  One should not forget, however, the Acadians' collective stubbornness, which probably was well developed by 1670.  The trade with New England after that date not only would have been important in sustaining their quality of life, but also would have served as a mark of independence from official interference in their everyday lives.  However, since Port-Royal was essentially a cul-de-sac for ships, not until the Acadians moved higher up the Fundy shore would they have been able to trade with the Yankees, sanctioned or otherwise, without being observed by French officials.  See Clark, pp. 111, 386. 

43. See Arsenault, History, 43; LeBlanc, Acadian Miracle, 21, which reproduces the census with errors and omissions.  The copy of the 1671 census used here comes from <acadian-cajun.com>, which says that Fr. Molin counted 392 colonists in Acadia, 350 of them at Port-Royal, & that MA at the time had about 40,000 inhabitants!  The 1667 census of Canada had counted 4,312 souls.  The town of Québec alone contained 448 people, more than in all of Acadia.  See Parkman, France & England, 1:1270, note 1.  For an explanation of why so relatively few French men & women emigrated to New France during the 17th century, especially in contrast to English North America, see Taylor, A., American Colonies, 368-69. 

Clark, Acadia, 121, note 15, explains:  "Unhappily, the nominal census has a number of duplications:  married daughters and sons are counted in two households (their own and their parents'), or married daughters (whose husbands may be living elsewhere) are counted in both places.  What appear to be precise numbers, therefore, are actually estimates in this and later censuses."  Clark, p. 121, goes on to say that in the first census, "In all, nearly 400 heads were counted of whom some 375 were in the territory that is now Nova Scotia.  The census was most nearly complete in the Port Royal area:  it clearly was both incomplete and ambiguous in the outlying settlements.  Assuming an additional twenty or thirty settlers with year-round homes in various harbors on the southwestern and southern coasts (and even ignoring completely the large seasonal influx o[f] fishermen and traders), there cannot have been many fewer than 500, of whom roughly 450 must have been on the present Nova Scotia peninsula."  Clark, pp. 121-22, sums up Port-Royal's population as 340 to 350 individuals in "perhaps" 67 families, including "roughly" 65 men, 67 wives or widows, 125 sons, & 91 daughters.  His Fig. 5.3 on p. 122, entitled "Port Royal Basin and Valley:  Population, 1671-1710," provides an illustration of the settlement's population distribution.  Clark, pp. 121-22, says that "Perhaps 400 arpents were cultivated; there were some 650 cattle and about 430 sheep." 

Clark, pp. 131-32, says of these First Families and their impact on Acadian history:  "It is clear that a relatively significant infusion of new blood had been made [ in Acadia between 1671-1713], but the family names in the nominal census of 1693 were still predominantly those recorded in Port Royal in 1671.  Indeed, Geneviève Massignon appears to support Rameau's [1889] conclusion that at least two-thirds of the Acadians of the mid-eighteenth century were descended from people recorded in that first, 1671, count.  It may be worth noting here that the identification of Acadians in the twentieth century, whether in Maritime Canada or elsewhere in the country, in Europe or in the United States is very largely by name.  Massignon estimates [1962] that seventy-six Acadian names borne by at least one hundred families each in the mid-twentieth century, covered fully 86 per cent of present [1968] Acadians." 

For another analysis of the census, its shortcomings as well as its invaluable insights into the state of the colony, especially at Port-Royal, see Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 90-99.  Griffith's numbers for the census are different from other sources; on p. 90 she says that the total number of men, women, & children "of European descent, living in six different locations" in the colony (Port-Royal, Pobomcoup, Cap-Nègre, Pentagouët, Musquodoboit], & St.-Pierre on Cape Breton Island) was 302; on p, 92 she says that the Port-Royal population numbered 68 families of "just over 250 individuals: 65 men, 67 women, and 125 sons and daughters."  

43a.  Recent yDNA tests on direct male descendants of German Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, thru his second son reveal that Germain, fils may have been a Mi'kmaq adopted by Germain, père & given his name, or perhaps Germain, fils was the son of Germain, père's second wife & thus his stepson.  See Appendix.

44.  Arsenault, History, 38, contains a list of families.  See Appendix for my own list of Acadian pioneers counted in the first census, those who arrived aboard the L'Oranger, and those who came to Acadia after 1671, with emphasis on the progenitors of the families that emigrated to LA.  

White, DGFA-1, & Arsenault, Généalogie, provide most of the information used in the biographies of the Acadian pioneers.  The most accessible copy of this, or any Acadian census, can be found at <acadian-home.org>.  

White, the most conservative, & thus reliable, source on Acadian genealogy, is silent on the birth places of many of the early Acadian pioneers who some writers, especially Geneviève Massignon & Bona Arsenault, claim were from Martaizé & La Chaussée.  See Appendix for a brief discussion of this controversy.   Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 65-66, is especially good in questioning the Massignon thesis & pointing out the realities of French immigration.  Clark, Acadia, 101, brings up the old question of Scottish origins among early Acadian settlers.  He mentions the surnames Peselet [Pesseley here], Pitre, Caissie, Colleson, & Melanson, & concedes, correctly, that, among these, only Caissie was of Celtic origin, concluding that it was Irish.  See White, DGFA-1, for the best evidence concerning the origin of these family names in Acadia. 

44a.  Other families listed in the 1671 census at Port-Royal but not included in this narrative were those of Pierre Morin; Jehan LaBatte; Marie Salé, widow of Jehan Claude; & Barbe Bajolet, widow of Savinien de Courpon.  The 1671 census also counted the families of Amand Lalloue at Cap-Nèigre; & Guillaume Poulet at Rivière-aux-Rochelois, also not in this narrative.  See Appendix for some of them. 

44b.  Quotations from Wade, "Le Borgne, Emmanuel," 1:434; Cormier, "Le Borgne de Belle-Isle, Alexandre," 1:436.  See also ibid., 1:435. 

44c.  For Pierre dit La Verdure, père's serving as tutor to the d'Aulnay children, see Clark, Acadia, 148. 

45.  Quotation from W. J. Eccles, "Meulles, Jacques de," DCB, 2:473.  Again, the best source for this, & all, Acadian censuses is <acadian-home.org>.  

46.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 150, 231.  For Brouillan's activities during King William's War as governor at Plaisance, see note 172, below.  For more on Mascarene, see note 56, below. 

47.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 150, 179.  See also ibid., p. 246; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 175, 180; Wikipedia "Alewife."   

Clark, pp. 151-57, provides an overview of the so-called outlying settlements, including seafood found along the coasts. 

48.  Quotations from Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 155-56; Clark, Acadia, 195; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 331.  For the genealogies of the families mentioned here, see White, DGFA-1, 621-31, 761, 873-74, 1145-50.  For the role of priests in Acadian life, including their service as French agents, see notes 222h & 237, below. 

49.  For the genealogies of the families mentioned here, see White, DGFA-1, 526, 530-31, 771-72, 1049, 1054-55, 1056, 1126-27.  See also Bunnell, French & Native North American Marriages, passim

I have been told by a Doucet descendant that, in spite of the compelling yDNA evidence, some Acadian genealogists do not subscribe to the Mi'kmaq origins of Germain Doucet, fils.  Keith Doucet to the author via email, Jul 2012. 

50.  See Clark, Acadia, 164, for substantial differences in the size of farmsteads in the Port-Royal valley during the 1690s.  For a solid interpretation of the Acadian character upon their arrival in LA during the 1760s, including their egalitarianism, see Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, passim

50a.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 238.  See also ibid., p. 198, note 28. 

51.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 198, note 28.  See also ibid., pp. 190, 238.  For details of Acadian governance during French & British rule, much of it taken liberally from Clark, see note 222f, below. 

52.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 192.  See also ibid., p. 194; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 344-45. 

53.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 354.  See also ibid., p. 353; Byron Fairchild, "Pepperell, Sir William," in DCB, 3:508; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 52-53, which, on p. 53, counts 900 deaths among the New English at Louisbourg during the winter of 1745-46--"from starvation, exposure and disease." 

Griffiths, p. 354, notes that "In London, rejoicing at the victory was the greater because of the crushing defeat of Great Britain and its allies at Fontenoy/Fantan in early May." 

54.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 331. 

55.  Quotations from ibid., p. 331; Sutherland, "Armstrong," 2:23.  See also Griffiths, pp. 298, 332.

Griffiths, p. 331, followed here, says that Armstrong was found dead on Dec 17, but Sutherland, 2:23, says Dec 6. 

56.  Quotations from  Maxwell Sutherland, "Mascarene, Paul (born Jean-Paul)," in DCB, 3:436-37; Barry M. Moody, "Adams, John," in DCB, 3:4; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 332-34.  See also Clark, Acadia, 194; Griffiths, pp. 335-36; Barry M. Moody, "Cosby, Alexander," in DCB, 3:143-44.

Moody, "Cosby," 3:144, says that Cosby died suddenly on 27 Dec 1742; Griffiths, p. 332, gives the date 7 Jan 1743.  Cosby, a native of Ireland, had married Richard Phillips's sister Elizabeth.  He remarried to Anne Winniett in c1726; her father, William Winniet, was a prominent English merchant at Annapolis Royal.  Cosby's brother William served as governor of NY & NJ from 1731-36 &, according to Moody, shared brother Alexander's habitual quarrelsomeness. 

In the context of Mascarene's dealings with the Acadians over the oath of allegiance & their neutrality, Griffiths, p. 333, makes the interesting point that, "When all was said and done, the Acadians were no more rebellious than the populace of New York and Boston, who were given to much more serious rioting against government authority.  Nor were the Acadians any more recalcitrant than their contemporaries in Wales and the Scottish Highlands when it came to resisting cultural assimilation by the English."  And then there were the Catholics of Ireland, who would fight the English for centuries to secure their independence from Great Britain.  Griffiths also points out the limited nature of British "democracy" during the 18th century. 

Griffiths, p. 334, reminds us of the Mascarene family's persecution at the hands of Louis XIV, the memory of which may have inclined him "to see diversity of opinion as something that must be accommodated," though Mascarene's own words reveal that he harbored the typical Protestant prejudices against the "bigotry" of the "Romish religion." 

For biographical information on Le Loutre, see note 237, below; Clark, p. 193. 

57.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 337, cites a British report from Canso, dated 1 Sep 1743, which "estimated that the Acadians shipped annually a minimum of '6 or 700 Head of Cattle, and about 2000 sheep' to Louisbourg."  See also note 250, below. 

58.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 336-37; Bernard Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier," Joseph," in DCB, 3:206; White, DGFA-1, 1204.

Griffiths, p. 336, says that Duquesnel was appointed governor of Île Royale on 1 Sep 1740, after the death of Isaac-Louis de Forant, who was governor for barely a year. 

According to a note attached to Pothier, "Du Pont, Duvivier, Joseph,: 3:205, François Dupont Duvivier, fils is often confused with his brother Joseph.  Despite receiving the Cross of St.-Louis, François, fils was noted more for his business acumen than his military abilities, as his performance in Nova Scotia demonstrated. 

59.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 337; Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier, Joseph" 3:206. 

Griffiths, p. 335, says that Heron had only 87 troops at Canso in 1744, not the 4 companies of 30 men each that were authorized for the post.  Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 34, failing to cite her sources, says that Duvivier's force numbered 357, that it left Louisbourg on May 13, that fire from "Duvivier's privateer Succés" killed 1 man & injured 7 of Heron's "eighty-seven inexperienced soldiers of the 40th Regiment," who were taken completely by surprise, & that Heron held out for a week before he surrendered.  Griffith & Pothier say that Heron was indeed surprised & offered no resistance. 

60.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 338.  See also ibid., pp. 341, 350. 

61.  Quotation from ibid., p. 343.  See also ibid., pp. 342, 344; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 40; Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier, Joseph" 3:206-07; H. Paul Thibault, "Gannes de Falaise, Michel, de," in DCB, 3:236. 

For Alexandre Bourg dit Bellehumeur's genealogy, see White, DGFA-1, 222-23.

62.  Quotations from Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier, Joseph," 3:206; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 340.  See also ibid., pp. 338-39; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 36-37. 

Griffiths, p. 339, notes:  "From the outset, Duvivier acted as if the enterprise was the return of a native son to liberate his people from a foreign yoke.  Four of his six officers were related to him in one way or another, one of them was his brother, and all, of course, had relatives among the Acadians."  But she does not name these officers.  Duvivier's father, François, père, a native of Serignac, Saintonge, had died at Louisbourg in 1714, soon after he was posted there.  Before his death, François, père had served as a naval officer in France & as a captain of colonial regular troops--troupes de marine--in Acadia.  He caused a scandal by marrying Marie, daughter of Jacques Muis d'Entremont & Anne de Saint-Étienne de La Tour, at Port-Royal in Jan 1705 without having secured permission from his family or his commanding officer.  Marie's father Jacques was a son of Philippe Mius d'Entremont.  Her mother Anne was a daughter of Charles La Tour & his third wife, Jeanne Motin de Reux, who had first married the Sieur d'Aulnay.  Although Duvivier's commanding officer, Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure, chided Duvivier for being one of those officers who married a young woman "of obscure birth and humble circumstances," most Acadians would have considered Marie's pedigree to be quite the opposite.  There was no "regular" Acadian family in François Duvivier, fils's maternal line that would have endeared him to the majority of Acadians.  Quotation from Bernard Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier, François [père]," in DCB, 2:206.  See also ibid., 2:206; White, DGFA-1, 1204.  François, fils's brother Joseph, who is sometimes confused with him, married a cousin, Marie-Josèphe, granddaughter of former Acadian governor Alexandre Le Borgne de Bélisle, another aristocratic Acadian family; Marie-Josèphe's mother was Anastasie d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin.  So there was nothing "humble" about the Duvivier clan.  See White, DGFA-1, 1029-30. 

Griffiths, p. 339, quotes liberally from Duvivier's speeches to the Acadians on his way to Annapolis.  She says on pp. 339-40, that "An approximate number of possible [Acadian] recruits [in the Beaubassin area] would be around two hundred and fifty, but, given the fact that this was a labour-intensive farming region, the number who would be available to join the army, let alone to 'go for a soldier,' would not be large."  She concludes, p. 340, that he took with him from Chignecto "only ten new recruits." 

63.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 37-38.  See also ibid., p. 39; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 341-42. 

Clark, Acadia, 247, calls Gautier "Nicholas Gauthier of the Belle Isle community up river from Annapolis Royal" & says that he may have owned "two or three vessels 'before the War [King George's] that used the West India Trade.'"

Griffiths mentions Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, but not the Broussards, in detailing Acadian assistance to Duvivier at Minas.  For LeBlanc's genealogy, see White, DGFA-1, 989-90. 

64.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 38; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 341-42.  See also Marshall, p. 40; Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier, Joseph" 3:206; Thibault, "Gannes de Falaise," 3:236. 

According to Griffiths, p. 335, the force at Annapolis Royal in Sep 1744 was supposed to number 500, but there were "no more than 150" there.  However, on p. 341, she says that Mascarene had 250 men when Duvivier attacked him, which may account for reinforcements from Boston Le Loutre's Jul attack.  Pothier, "Du Pont Duvivier, Joseph," 3:206, says that Mascarene had "no more than 75 able-bodied soldiers" when Duvivier struck Annapolis. 

Marshall, pp. 39-40, says that, on the second day of the siege, Duvivier sent his brother Michel to inform Mascarene of the approach of a fleet from Louisbourg but that Mascarene, "suspicious of the officer ... and after consulting his senior officers, flatly refused" to surrender.  Thibault, "Gannes de Falaise," 3:236, followed here, says that "At the beginning of the siege Duvivier obtained from the English commandant, Paul Mascarene, a promise of surrender as soon as the French ships arrived." 

Sutherland, "Mascarene," 3:438, does not address the question of a promised surrender but does mention Gorham's arrival "with 60 Indians rangers," which "led Duvivier to abandon his goal."  John David Krugler, "Gorham (Goreham, Gorum), John," in DCB, 3:260, says that Gorham brought 50 "'picked Indians and other men fit for ranging the woods' ...."  Krugler goes on to say that most of Gorham's fighters were "full blood Mohawks" & that they remained to protect the fort after Duvivier's force retreated.  Gorham's Mohawk & New English cutthroats would play a dark role in Acadian history.  Marshall, p. 64, describes them as "a motley collection of mercenaries consisting mainly of Mohawks and New Englanders.  They were skilled wilderness fighters who could take on resistance fighters and Natives on their own terms." 

For Robichaud's genealogy, see White, DGFA-1, 1407-08.  Griffiths, p. 342, speculates that Louis's collaboration may have been motivated by his kinship with the Winniett family, 4 of whose daughters married British officers; however, Griffiths adds, one of Robichaud's first cousins supported the French besiegers.  Here was another sad consequence of Acadian neutrality--the political alienation of extended families. 

Griffiths, p. 343, says that one of Gautier's daughters was married to one of Duvivier's brothers.  Gautier's unwavering support of the French would cause him grief, including the loss of his fortune. 

Griffiths, p. 342, reminds us that de Gannes also had an Acadian mother--Marguerite Leneuf de la Vallière, another member of the Acadian social elite who did not share the culture of the great majority of Acadians.  Like his nemesis Duvivier, de Gannes father also had been a French army officer.  See Thibault, "Gannes de Falaise," 3:235. 

65.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 341.  See also ibid., pp. 340-41; Clark, Acadia, 195, note 16. 

66.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 344, 348.  See also ibid., p. 347; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 40-41, which details Gautier's wife's escape from the dungeon at Fort Anne. 

67.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 344-45, 347; Clark, Acadia, 194.  See also Griffiths, pp. 346, 348-49; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 41-42.  Griffiths, p. 349, says of Shirley & Acadia:  "From the moment that he decided to dispatch troops and provisions to Annapolis Royal in June 1744, the governor of Massachusetts played a crucial role in Nova Scotian affairs." 

68.  See Clark, Acadia, 192; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 351. 

69.  Quotations from Fairchild, "Pepperell," 3:507.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 349, 351-53. 

70.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 337.  See also ibid., p. 354.  Griffiths's math notwithstanding, the point is made--trade between Louisbourg & New England/Nova Scotia on the eve of King George's War was substantial.  For conditions at Louisbourg, including the Dec 1744 mutiny, see Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 45-48.  Marshall, p. 50, says that the Louisbourg garrison numbered 1,500 at the time, so Pepperell's MA force alone would have been at least twice the size of Duchambon's garrison.  Griffiths, p. 353, says that the Louisbourg garrison numbered not quite 1,300, "less than a third of whom were regular troops," that is to say, French troupes de marine

Parkman, France & England, 2:639, says that when Pepperell arrived in Apr Duchambon had in his garrison 560 regular troops & 1,200 to 1,400 militia, from the town as well as the countryside.  See ibid., 2:640, for Parkman's take on the Dec 1744 mutiny & his evaluation of Duchambon's leadership, concluding that he "was not a man to grapple with a crisis, being deficient in decision of character, if not in capacity." 

71.  Quotations from Fairchild, "Pepperell," 3:507-08.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 353, calls Pepperell's force "'the largest New England force recruited to fight a foreign war in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'..." & says that CN, NH, NY, & RI contributed 2,000 men to supplement the 1,000 sailors and 3,000 troops from MA.  Fairchild, "Pepperell," 3:507, says the number of New Englanders at Louisbourg ranged as high as 4,300.  Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 50, says that Pepperell's & Warren's armada consisted of 90 vessels & that the "battle" at Louisbourg began on May 11. 

For details of the New Englanders' time at Canso before moving against Louisbourg, including the force left there to man the fishing post, Warren's arrival, & the blockade of Louisbourg harbor before the arrival of Pepperell's force, see Parkman, France & England, 2:637-38.  Parkman notes that Shirley placed his armed vessels under Warren's command after the commodore reached Canso.  Gabarus Bay was not free of ice until late Apr, so Pepperell had no choice but to wait at Canso, where he drilled & reorganized his units.  Parkman, 1:638-39, provides a detailed description of Louisbourg--its harbor, its fortifications, its town. 

One of the officers in the seizure of the beach at Gabarus Bay was Lieutenant Colonel John Gorham of the 7th Massachusetts Regiment, & it was Gorham & Colonel Arthur Noble who would lead the assault on the island battery at Louisbourg.   Gorham was the leader of the famous New England "rangers" who would play a dark role in Acadian history, & Noble would die at Grand-Pré in Feb 1747.  See Krugler, "Gorham (Goreham, Gorum), John," 3:260. 

72.  Quotations from Fairchild, "Pepperell," 3:508.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 353, 356, who says on p. 353, that "Pillaging and insult was the lot of those who withstood the siege, while they waited to be transported back to France"; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 50-51, who says on p. 51 that Duchambon's loss was 50 men & also says that in France the mutineers faced court martial, that 1 died in prison, 7 were hanged, & 2 were sentenced to life imprisonment as galley slaves; Parkman, France & England, 2:672.  Griffiths says nothing of the mutiny or its consequences. 

73.  See Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 48-50, who, on p. 49, has Le Loutre already on the Missaguash at Chignecto in Mar 1745, but he did not transfer his base from Shubenacadie to Pointe-à-Beauséjour until late 1749.  

74.  See Fairchild, "Pepperell," 3:507; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 51; Parkman, France & England, 2:636-37.  For a detailed map of the Canso area, including Great Canso Island & Canso Harbor, see Clark, Acadia, 226, Fig. 6.3. 

75.  See Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 51-52. 

76.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 349-52.  Griffiths, p. 351, notes that during the summer & early fall of 1744, after war had been declared, "'some thirty New England ships of from twenty to 180 tons were carried into Louisbourg along with six shallops and 1350 quintals of cod.'  The value of the vessels was estimated at 114,409 livres."  This was something no Yankee merchant could afford to ignore. 

William Shirley, a native of England, had resided at Boston since 1731, built a successful legal practice, & served as advocate general of the colony's Admiralty Court after 1733.  He succeeded Jonathan Belcher, Sr. as governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay on 14 Aug 1741, a year after Mascarene became lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia.  Shirley was 50 years old in 1744.  See Griffiths, p. 352. 

77.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 338. 

For participation of Acadian partisans under Broussard in the Jul attack, see Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 34-36, who says that Le Loutre raised his force "In no time at all" & emphasizes the Broussard brothers' resentment of the imprisonment of their father at Fort Anne 33 years before as a motivation for their joining Le Loutre.  Griffiths does not mention the partisans in her account of the assault.  Marshall maintains that Le Loutre's Indians were setting up firing positions at Annapolis at the end of Jun & that Le Loutre's force moved against the fort on Jul 1.  Griffiths, followed here, says that the assault did not begin until Jul 12.  Griffiths also maintains that Le Loutre "took a while" to gather his force.  Marshall's description of the fight is quite detailed, but she fails to cite her sources. 

78.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 363.  Ibid., p. 362, says that Minas Acadians did warn Noble of the possibility of a winter attack, which Noble passed on to Mascarene.  Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 65, provides Noble's numbers. 

79.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 52.  See also ibid., p. 53; Jean-Guy Lavallée, "Dubreil de Pontbriand, Henri-Marie," in DCB, 3:196. 

80.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 354-55.  See also Clark, Acadia, 192; Étienne Taillemite, "La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Frédéric de, Marquis de Roucy, Duc d'Anville," in DCB, 3:356. 

Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 55, says that the diversion of so many French troops to North America helped lead to Charles Edward Stuart's defeat at Culloden, Scotland, in Apr 1746.  Griffiths, p. 357, says that, by war's end, "British leaders were working on the assumption that the Acadians would never become loyal subjects to the crown, an attitude sharpened by the events of the Stuart uprising in 1745...."--offering a grand perspective on the history of subjugated peoples. 

80a.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 357.  See also Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 55, who says that Ramezay moved on to Beaubassin after dropping anchor at Baie Verte.  Griffiths, pp. 357-58, followed here, does not place Ramezay at Beaubassin until Sep 1 & implies that he remained at Baie Verte. 

81.  See Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 55-58; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 359. 

Marshall's chronology & movements differ from Griffiths's, followed here.  Marshall has the priest & the partisan rendezvousing with Ramezay at Beaubassin soon after the Canadians reached Baie Verte.  After taking up arms & ammunition furnished by the Canadians, Marshall says Le Loutre & Broussard moved on to Cobeguit, taking part of Ramezay's force with them, & then followed the overland route from there to Chebouctou. 

Georges Island would figure large in the life of the Broussard brothers a dozen years hence. 

82.  Quotation from ibid., p. 58.  See also ibid., p. 59; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 358-59. 

Marshall says the 2 frigates were part of d'Anville's fleet, but Griffiths, followed here, says that they were "two frigates cruising in the area." 

83.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 355; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 59. 

84.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 60; Taillemite, "La Rochefoucauld," 3:356.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 355-56, 359; Marshall, pp. 59, 61; Étienne Taillemite, "Taffanel, de la Jonquière, Jacques-Pierre de, Marquis de La Jonquière," in DCB, 3:610. 

Marshall, p. 61, says that "An autopsy, however, did not reveal the cause of his [d'Anville's] death."  Taillemite, "La Rochefoucauld," is followed here. 

Taillemite, "La Rochfoucauld," 3:356, lists the expeditions casualties, as of Oct 15, as 587 dead & 2,274 ill, out of a total of 7,006 soldiers & sailors--all this without having fired a shot.  He believes that more than bad luck doomed d'Anville's expedition.  He adds:  "The failure emphasized forcefully the weakness of the French navy and also the difficulties of assisting the French colonies in North America.  These were the logical consequences of the neglect of the French navy since the death of Louis XIV [1715]: the ships were insufficient in number, and, since they had done little sailing for years, the officers as well as the crews were inadequately trained."  

84a.  See Clark, Acadia, 192-93; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 359-60, 363; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 61-62. 

85.  See Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 62. 

86.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 355, 361; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 55, 60, 63. 

Griffiths says that Noble, a native of Ulster, had settled on the Kennebec in Maine & was in the New English militia force that captured Louisbourg in Jun 1745. 

87.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 64; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 360.  See also Griffiths, p. 361.  Ibid., p. 360, includes other quotes from Shirley's proclamation.  Needless to say, Shirley employed the classic carrot-&-stick approach used by all imperial powers.  For British talk of Acadian deportation throughout the war, see Griffiths, pp. 349, 356-57.  On p. 349, she reminds us:  "It is important to remember that ... the British crown considered transportation of recalcitrant or rebellious populations, whether Scots, Cornish, or English, an acceptable procedure." 

Île St.-Jean had fallen to British naval forces under Peter Warren in Aug 1745, 2 months after the fall of Louisbourg.  See Griffiths, p. 356. 

88.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 65; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 361, who adds:  "The communication [from Gov. Shirley] of 12 September 1746 was important, not only because of its impact among the Acadians, but also because it meant that British orders for the expedition to Minas were drawn up with some belief in the possibility of the neutrality of the majority of the Acadians." 

Griffiths, p. 361, says that Noble "had about four hundred men under his command," but not all of them would have been with him at Grand-Pré in Feb. 

Krugler, "Gorham (Goreham, Gorum), John," 3:261, says that Gorham & his rangers left Grand-Pré 2 days before the French attack of 10 Feb 1747.  By then, Gorham & his rangers had been in Nova Scotia for many months & were intimately familiar with much of the country. 

89.  Quotations from Erskine, Nova Scotia, 30; Clark, Acadia, 141; Clément Cormier, "Bourgeois, Jacques (Jacob)," in DCB, 2:94.  See also Arsenault, History, 48-49; Clark, pp. 109. 

Milner, "Chignecto," provides a delightful description of the area around Beaubassin written by a Jesuit priest during an expedition to the isthmus in the early years of the colony.  Father Briand, who accompanied Gov. Jean de Poutrincourt & 4 Indians on the expedition, wrote:  "At Chignecto, there is a beautiful prairie as far as you can see.  Several rivers discharge themselves into the Bay.  The Indians number 60 or 80 souls, and they are not so vagabondish as others, because this spot is more retired and more abundant in chase for food.  The country is for the most part agreeable and to my mind of great fertility if cultivated." 

The traditional date of the founding of the Chignecto settlement is 1672.  See, for example, Arsenault, pp. 47, 48; Cormier, "Bourgeois," 2:94.  Clark, p.139, says 1671. 

The importance of the trade with New England is well documented in Arsenault, Clark, & other sources.  See, for example, Clark, pp. 139, 388. 

Clark, p. 386, offers this important observation:  "It may have been the attempts by French governors after 1670 to re-establish a firm, paternal, central control which encouraged migration from Port Royal to Chignecto and Minas and the fact, or threat, of such movement was enough to lighten the official hand in the mother settlement lest the local supplies of food on which the officials depended so heavily should be seriously threatened by depopulation.  Governors were constantly complaining of 'demi-republicaine' attitudes in the outer settlements."  See also ibid., pp. 113, 139. 

90.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 142.  See also ibid., pp. 109-11; Arsenault, Généalogie, 393, 457, 827, 845, 859, 909, 929, 976, 1012; Arsenault, History, 47-48; <acadian-cajun.com>. 

Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 116-117, says that, although there is no question that Jacques Bourgeois & his family were the first to settle at Chignecto, it was not until "either immediately before or at the very time" of Bourgeois's settlement that the governor of New France, Count Frontenac, awarded Michel Le Neuf de la Vallière a huge grant in the area.  La Vallière's grant was dated 24 Oct 1676, & his seat was on present-day Tonge's Island, a ridge overlooking the Missaguash, and originally was called Île La Villière.  Clark, pp. 141, is certain that Bourgeois came to Chignecto before La Vallière. 

Griffiths, p. 116, adds:  "A number of writers quote La Valliere's concession as containing a clause that enjoined him not to disturb 'inhabitants of the province that are to be found in possession of land and inheritance that they are cultivating, living on and working to increase its value,' but documentation of this does not seem to have survived."  J.-Roger Comeau, "LeNeuf de la Vallière de Beaubassin, Michel (the elder)," in DCB, 2:409, which details La Vallière's grant from Frontenac, says nothing about any stipulation that LeNeuf not disturb the Chignecto habitants already there.  One has to ask the question, what aristocrat would agree to such a limitation on his seigneurial rights?  Clark, p. 142, details a lawsuit in 1682 in which La Vallière sought to collect rent from 11 censitaires at Beaubassin, and concludes:  "... either they [the habitants] had taken new lands outside of the Bourgeois 'reserve' or La Vallière was asserting at least nominal control over the whole area."  This may be a hint that the agreement not to disturb the original settlers never existed. 

La Vallière served as commander & then governor of the colony from 1678-84, but his governorship was not confirmed by the king until 1683.  See Griffiths, p. 117. 

According to Milner, "Chignecto":  "La Vallière was a member of the Poterie family, that came with the Repentigny family from Caen to Quebec in 1638," & that the Poteries, along with the Repentignys, were among the 4 noble families in Canada who lived by the sword, not by the plow, and who were helpless without "their official pay."  Milner goes on:  "Outside of his poverty, La Valliere was a man of consequence.  While he held the Commission of Captain of the Court's guards, he was a voyageur, a wood ranger, a mariner, a trader and a diplomat, and in one capacity or another was constantly on the move on the frontiers of French domain in Canada--at one time in the wilds of Hudson's Bay and at another a beau gallant at Boston."  According to Comeau, "LeNeuf de la Vallière de Beaubassin, Michel (the elder)," La Vallière, while a part of his father-in-law's operations, "In 1672 ... is supposed to have set up a fur-trading post on the isthmus of Chignecto, while devoting part of his time to the fishing industry, farming, settlement, and soldiering."  This still would have been about the same time, if not slightly after, Bourgeois began the Chignecto settlement.  One wonders what role the supposed fur-trading post played in La Vallière's securing the seigneurial rights to the area from Frontenac in 1676. 

Interestingly, Jacques Bourgeois did not remain at Chignecto but returned to Port-Royal, where he died in c1701.  See Cormier, "Bourgeois, Jacques (Jacob)," 2:94.

See Appendix for Acadian church parishes. 

91.  See Arsenault, History, 48; Arsenault, Généalogie, 629, 729, 846, 863, 884, 886, 946, 952-53, 959-60, 964, 982-84, 989, 1007-09, 1013-14, 1026, 1030-31, 1054, 1057, 1067, 1086; White, DGFA-1, 348, 791.  

For the genealogy of Gabriel Chiasson, see Arsenault, Généalogie, 897; White, DGFA-1, 350; White, DGFA-1 English, 78-79.  

For the genealogy of Michel Haché dit Gallant, see Arsenault, Généalogie, 983-4; White, DGFA-1, 791-94; White, DGFA-1 English, 162-63.  The family name evolved into Haché-Gallant then Haché then Achée by the time Michel's descendants reached Louisiana. The family name in Canada is usually spelled Gallant, but also Galland, Hachey, Larché dit Gallant.  Milner, "Chignecto," says that La Vallière "had a secretary named Hache Galand, who married an Acadian lass named Anne Courmier and their descendants today [1911] number hundreds of families."  So spelling isn't everything. 

Clark, Acadia, 142, says:  "After 1686 there seems to have been little migration from Port Royal to the Chignecto area and it probably grew largely by natural increase, although some accretions from the fishing fleet, from France, or even from New France are assumed."  Clark, p. 144, adds:  "By the later 1680's both La Vallière and Bourgeois built gristmills at Beaubassin and the latter appears to have had a sawmill as well.  Grain was being produced in some quantity.  Gradually the settlers adopted all of the field crops and animals known at Port Royal, and fruit trees (plums, pears, and apples) were well established by the turn of the century, perhaps introduced by Roger Quessy (Kessey, Casey? [Caissie]), one of the early settlers.  Apparently the more severe winter of Beaubassin kept out cherries." 

Clark, p. 144, notes:  "Beaubassin failed to achieve the rate of growth of the Minas Basin settlements.  The departure of La Vallière and his family for Canada and the actions of this son-in-law and agent, Sébastien de Villieu, probaby were factors, but the raids from New England under Benjamin Church in 1696 and 1704, with their destruction of buildings and cattle, were reason enough for discouragement.  Nonetheless, ... agricultural statistics over a twenty-year period [1686-1707], shows a substantial steady growth."  See notes, 170 & 190, below, for Church's raids.  Clark, p. 114, adds:  "The Chignecto isthmus was, still, rather a crossroads for Indians moving from the Bay to the Gulf or from the mainland out to the peninsula and their frequent presence may deterred some more timid souls." 

Clark, pp. 210, offers detailed, though always estimated, population figures for Chignecto during British control of the colony.  For geographical & historical details of the Cobeguit area after the British took over Acadia, see note 133, below. 

92.  Quotation from Arsenault, History, 53; See also ibid., p. 54; Arsenault, Généalogie, 804-05, 1081, 1086, 1092, 1101, 1104-05, 1108, 1116, 1121, 1125, 1132-34, 1136-38, 1143, 1150-51, 1153, 1155, 1158, 1160, 1170, 1174, 1183, 1195, 1198-99, 1216-17, 1261-62, 1273, 1276, 1279-80, 1284, 1285, 1293-94, 1303, 1308; Clark, Acadia, 109, 139, 148, 214-17; White, DGFA-1, 1098; White, DGFA-1 English, 130.  Arsenault's genealogy says that Pierre Thériot & Cécile Landry were married in 1685, but White, DGFA-1, 1484, 1489, says in c1678.  

Clark, Acadia, 148, says that the settlement at Minas began around 1682.

The Minas settlement also was called Les Mines and Mines.  The name Grand-Pré is often applied to all of the settlements at Minas, but, in truth, Grand-Pré was only one of the many settlements in the area; Clark, p. 148, calls Grand-Pré " that much-storied settlement," which probably explains why the name loomed large among the Minas communities.  Besides Grand-Pré, there were, from north to south, Rivière Pereau, Rivière-de-la-Vieille-Habitation (today's Habitant Creek), Rivière-aux-Canards, Rivière-St.-Antoine (also called Rivière-des-Habitants, today's Cornwallis River), & Rivière Gaspereau.  See Clark, p. 209, Fig. 6.2, entitled "Minas and Pisiquid:  Population, 1714." 

The gaspereau, taxonomic name Alosa pseudoharengus, commonly known as the alewife, is a kind of shad; however, gaspereau is the name favored in Atlantic Canada, though in southwest Nova Scotia it is also called the kiack or kyack, probably from the Mi'kmaq.  Sadly, today it is a "species of concern" not only in its natural habitat along the Atlantic littoral, but also in the Great Lakes, which it invaded during the early 1800s via the Welland Canal, which bypasses Niagara Falls.  See Wikipedia., "Alewife."  One suspects that the Acadians devoured these bony but delicious fish during their spawning runs up into the many streams flowing into the Bay of Fundy.  See Clark, p. 150. 

Pigiguit also could be considered a Minas settlement because Rivière Pigiguit, now the Avon River, also flows into the Minas Basin.  Cobeguit lay at the extreme northeastern corner of the basin, more distant from Minas than Pigiguit but still a part of the Minas region.  See Clark, pp 109-10.  Clark, p. 140, Fig. 5.9, offers a good map of the entire basin with Acadian & modern-day place names.  See Clark, p. 209, Fig. 6.2, for rivers & settlements in the Grand-Pré area, c1714, that also includes population estimates for that year. 

93.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 148, 149.  See also ibid., pp. 113, 139; Arsenault, History, 56. 

Clark, p. 148, says that at Minas in 1686 there were 83 arpents, probably dyked lands, in cultivation.

For the Le Borgne seigneurial claim to the Minas Basin, see Clark, p. 149, who says:  "...their hold was light, their claims small..., and they did nothing to assist the settlers or, apparently, even to guide them."  Clark says the early settlers at Minas may have "squatted" but that Pierre Melanson, fils "acted as their seigneurial agent or procureur fiscal (and was the "captain of militia" in the area and the recognized leader or local authority), guided them in their location." 

A French colonial official during the late 1680s averred that the new Minas settlement was "'... too remote for commerce; only small vessels can risk going there.'"  See Clark, p. 149, who continues:  "This in fact expresses correctly the degree of isolation but it is not correct in terms of commerce, for these people, like those at Port Royal and Beaubassin, depended on New England goods...." 

Clark, p. 149, says that "All the Minas Basin settlements [including Pigiguit & Cobeguit] enjoyed the fruits of their own abundant natural population increase greatly aided by the continued migration of young couples from Port Royal with the wives at the peak of their child-bearing capacity."  Clark, pp. 208-10, offers detailed, though always estimated, population figures for the Minas Basin during British control of the colony.  He concludes, on p. 208, "On the basis of any reasonable assumption or evidence, the population grew more rapidly in the Minas district than in those of either Annapolis or Chignecto." 

For geographical & historical details of what Clark calls Minas Proper after the British took over Acadia, see note 129, below. 

94.  See Arsenault, History, 56; Arsenault, Généalogie, 1320, 1322, 1330, 1336, 1346-50, 1365-68, 1374, 1383, 1386, 1388-89, 1392, 1401, 1411, 1415, 1419-23, 1427, 1430, 1432, 1434, 1441, 1454; Clark, Acadia, 149, 217-18. 

Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 193, points out that the original land grants in the Pigiguit area have been lost, so no one can now say who founded the settlement. 

Pigiguit, pronounced PIDG-ee-gwit, also is spelled Pesaquid, Pisiguit, Pisiquid, Pisiquit, Piziguit, Piziquid, Piziquit.  The settlement was large enough to support 2 church parishes--Ste.-Famille on the west side (today's Falmouth), & Notre-Dame-de-L'Assomption, or L'Assomption, on the east side of the Avon River (today's Windsor), but a shortage of priests usually meant that only 1 priest served both parishes.  Wikipedia, "Pisiguit," citing Flannery Surrette, Mapping Catholic Acadia - Parishes, Churches, Chapels, and Missions, published by Saint Mary's University in 2005, says that the first parish at Pigiguit was Ste.-Famille, followed by L'Assomption, & gives the founding dates used here. 

Clark, p. 149, says that by 1701 there were 33 families of 188 individuals at Pigiguit & that it grew "at a slightly more moderate rate" compared to its sister settlement at Cobeguit. 

For geographical & historical details of Pigiguit after the British took over Acadia, see note 130, below. 

The St. Croix River at today's Windsor, NS, should not be confused with the St. Croix River that forms today's international boundary between ME & NB.  See Clark, p. 209, Fig. 6.2, for a good map of the Pigiguit area, c1714, that also includes estimated population figures. 

95.  See Arsenault, History, 56-57; Arsenault, Généalogie, 1465, 1470-71, 1474, 1480-82, 1484, 1488, 1490, 1492-94, 1496, 1504, 1506-07, 1511, 1528; BRDR, 1a(rev,):155; Clark, Acadia, 116 (Fig. 5.2), 209 (Fig. 6.2), 218-20; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 193. 

Clark, p. 127, Fig. 5.7, entitled "Northern and Eastern Acadian Settlements:  Population, 1707," is a map, replete with mileage scale, that shows the distances between the Beaubassin, western Minas, Pigiguit, & Cobeguit settlements.  

Arsenault, History, 56, says that Mathieu Martin "was given a seigneury on the Wecobequitk (Cobequid) River in 1689," & Clark, pp. 118, 219, agrees, but Cobeguit was settled much later.  In the censuses of 1693 & 1700, Mathieu Martin, Martin Bourg, & Martin Blanchard, who Arsenault, p. 57, lists as pioneers of the settlement, were still being counted at Port-Royal.  See <acadian-cajun.com>; <acadian-home.org>.  Not until 1701 were Martin Blanchard, Martin Bourg, & Jérôme, called Giraud, Guérin counted at Cobeguit, the only 3 families there; Mathieu Martin himself was not counted there until 1714!  See <acadian-cajun.com>; <acadian-home.org>; Clark, pp. 129, 149; White, DGFA-1, 145, 229, 778, 1135.  Clark, p. 116, Fig. 5.2, which includes a list of the seigneuries granted in peninsula Acadia, replete with location & dates of the grant, includes Martin's grant in the category of "The date is uncertain," & is the source for the names Ouëcobeguy & St.-Mathieu.  Arsenault, p. 56, implies that Mathieu Martin secured his seigneurie at Cobeguit because he was the first-born Frenchman in Acadia, which follows Massignon, "Trahans of Acadia", 117.  Griffith, p. 193, a more careful historian, calls Martin "one [of] the first children born in Acadia, both of whose parents were European ..." & says, "The early years of settlement [at Cobeguit] were troubled with disputes over ownership with [colonial official Mathieu] de Goutin."  For Mathieu Martin's marriage (his wife's name has been lost to history), & his childlessness, see White, DGFA-1, 1134, which says that Mathieu died before Apr 1724, when he would have been in his early 80s.  Clark, p. 149, says that  Mathieu Martin, who called himself Sieur Mathieu de Saint-Martin, did receive his seigneurie at Cobeguit in 1689, but he evidently traded in furs there before he invited settlers to the place.  The settlement thrived.  By 1707, there were 17 families & 82 individuals at Cobeguit. 

Cobeguit also is spelled Cobequid, Cobequit.  Since Cobeguit, today's Truro, NS, lay at the extreme northeastern corner of the Minas Basin, it may be considered a part of the Minas region.  Clark, p. 219, says that Mathieu Martin's seigneurie ran "east of the longitude of the mouth of the Shubenacadie [River]."

Clark, p. 209, offers detailed, though always estimated, population figures for Cobeguit during British control of the colony. 

For cattle production at Cobeguit & illegal trade of the settlers there with the French at Louisbourg via Tatamagouche, see Clark, pp. 171-73, 219. 

For geographical and historical details of Cobeguit after the British took over Acadia, see note 131, below. 

96.  See Arsenault, History, 50; Arsenault, Généalogie, 431, 508, 643-44, 646, 807, 1535, 1539-40, 1543, 1545-46, 1557-62, 1564, 1566, 1568-69, 1572, 1574, 1581; Clark, Acadia, 111; Clément Cormier, "Thibaudeau (Thibadeau, Thibodeau), Pierre," in DCB, 2:629-30. 

Clark, p. 116, Fig. 5.2, says that Chepoudy was granted "to Sieur de Villieu (son-in-law of the Sieur de La Vallière)."  He adds, on p. 144:  "La Vallière [the seigneur of Chignecto] may have got on well with his own servants or engagés but his son-in-law, de Villieu, made himself unpopular by, among other acts, getting eviction orders for settlers who had squatted in Shepody Bay and dispossessing them.  No doubt this was within the rights of a rather expansive seigneurial grant but it did not encourage settlement, for others could not be induced to replace them."  Clark, p. 145, calls Pierre Thibaudeau, as he spells his name, "A miller of Pré Ronde, up the river from Port Royal...," & says on pp. 145, 147, that Pierre & his sons explored the Chipoudy area in 1698, encouraged the Blanchards to settle at nearby Petitcoudiac, & that "The first wintering by three of Thibaudeau's sons was in 1699/1700, when they did well trading furs with the Indians."  It was then that de Villieu "heard of the activity and immediately protested that they were on his father-in-law's seigneurie without permission, although the precise boundaries of La Vallière's grant are almost impossible to determine from the wording of the concession."  Clark says that Thibaudeau, who "had dreamed of a seigneurie of his own, like that of his old friend Mathieu Martin at Cobeguid ..." offered to comprise, but de Villieu refused & pressed his case with authorities in France.  In 1702, however, Villieu offered to compromise, but "the Thibaudeau group, believing that a petition of their own to Paris would succeed, in turn refuses."  They were so certain of success that they dyked the salt marshes, erected a gristmill & a sawmill, & otherwise took possession of the Chepoudy coast.  In the end, they won & then lost their claims:  "In 1703 they had their lands confirmed but 'without prejudice' to the rights of La Vallière.  The old man [Pierre Thibodeau] died [in Dec 1704, in his early 70s, at Pré-Ronde, not Chepoudy] thinking himself a true seigneur but, in an arrêt of June 2, 1705, the Thibaudeaus' right to the land was expressly granted as a concession from La Vallière's seigneurie.  Officially, the Thibaudeaus could not extend their lands, nor could others settle without assuming the legal position and charges consequent to being censitaires of the seigneur of Beaubassin."  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 191-92, also offers a detailed description of the founding of these settlements, including the conflict of land claims between the Thibodeau & Blanchard settlers & La Vallière/de Villieu.  See also White, DGFA-1 English, 319-20.  Complicating Thibodeau's case against La Villière & de Villieu, Villebon died suddenly in 1700 & was succeeded, as temporary commander, by de Villieu, who controlled the colony until Jacques-François de Mombeton de Brouillan took over as colonial commander in 1701. 

Clark, p. 147, says that in 1702 there were 7 households of roughly 33 individuals at Chepoudy, & 5 households of 13 individuals at Petitcoudiac.  By 1707, Chepoudy & Petitcoudiac held 14 families & 7 engagés, a total of 55 individuals, with 12 horses, 70 cattle, & 50 sheep.  Expansion was slowed, however, by the on-going war with Britain & de Villieu's obstructions.  During Queen Anne's War, Chepoudy, despite being a coastal settlement, "never actually was raided but English ships effectively cut it off from Port Royal and Quebec."  Approximately 50 to 75 individuals, "four-fifths of them of European blood," lived at Chepoudy in 1715.  Clark, pp. 147-48, adds:  "It [Chepoudy] became a favorite summer camping spot for Indians, both Micmac and Malecite, and at least one engagé started a métis family with an Indian bride."  By 1734, settlers in the trois-rivières area numbered "some" 65 families, & "an estimated further hundred families by 1750."  (In this study, I spell the name of the Chepoudy/Petitcoudiac/Memramcook area "trois-rivières," using lower-case letters, so as not to confuse the reader with the prominent Canadian settlement of Trois-Rivières, on the St. Lawrence between Québec & Montréal.  There also was a Trois-Rivières on the east coast of Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island.)

Chepoudy also is spelled Shepody.  Petitcoudiac is sometimes spelled Petitcodiac & Petit Codiac.  See, for instance, Brasseaux, Scattered to the Wind, 28, 30, 33; Clark, passim.  Clark, pp. 210-11, offers detailed, though always estimated, population figures for Shepody during British control of the colony. 

A chronology of the history of Memramcook can be found at the end of the article "Memramcook: Birthplace of the New Acadia" at <acadian-home.org>.  The time line was taken from the Monument Lefebvre at Memramcook.  

For the best map of the Bay of Fundy settlements, using colors to show topography & including the standard spellings of place names used here, see the incomparable Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29.  This map even includes the tidal ranges in meters:  7-9 at Port-Royal, 13-14 in the Bassin des Mines, 15 at Cobeguit, 13 at Beaubassin, Chepoudy, & Petitcoudiac.  In feet this is ... awesome.  Few other places on earth have such dramatic tides.

97.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, 1614-49.  Clark, Acadia, 157, says of the settlements on the St.-Jean:  "They became, increasingly, simply fur-trading posts and bases for raids on New England.  The Acadians in the [Fundy] settlements appear to have had almost nothing to do with them [the fur traders & the capitaines de sauvages], and they were little more relevant to their farming community than the more distant Canadians people along the St. Lawrence.  The north shore of the Bay of Fundy and east to the Penobscot River appears to have had fewer than one hundred settlers in any of the seventeenth-century accounts.  Rameau [published in 1889] estimated a total of ninety-six for 1701, on the Saint John River and westward." 

98.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, 391-819; Clark, Acadia, 122 (Fig. 5.3, entitled "Port Royal Basin and Valley:  Population, 1671-1710"), 132-38, 206 (Fig. 6.1, entitled "Annapolis Basin and Valley: Population, 1714), 212-14; Cormier, "Le Borgne de Belle-Isle, Alexandre," 1:436. 

For geographical & historical details of the Annapolis valley after Acadia fell to the British, see note 128, below. 

99.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, 1585-1609; Clark, Acadia, 116, 118, 151-53.  See also note 35, above.

100.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 113-14, 118-19, 120-21.  Clark, p. 115, adds:  "For almost all practical purposes the censitaires of the Acadian seigneurs might as well have been freeholders with nominal quitrents or land taxes."  See also note 22a, above.  Clark, p. 116, figure 5.2, entitled "The Acadian Lands:  Seigneurial and Territorial Grants in the Chignecto Region and Peninsula Nova Scotia," is a detailed map, complete with dates & appended explanations, of all the known seigneurial grants in that part of greater Acadia.  Clark, p. 119, says that some of the weakest seigneurial claims were in what became the richest part of Acadia, the western portion of the Minas Basin around Grand-Pré & Pigiguit.  Clark, pp. 106-07, adds:  "... after 1654 [when the English took over the colony for the second time] Acadia never had whatever degree of institutionalization was known in New France; the relation between seigneur and habitant was loose and fluid and one would have been hard put to it to have recognized anything like our traditional conception of seigneurial forms and practices in any of the later Acadian settlements.  It may be that the form had some substance at La Have [from 1632-36, when Razilly was governor] ... but we have little evidence on which to go."  See also ibid., pp. 195-200. 

Clark, p. 144, contradicts himself by saying that "By the later 1680's La Vallière [seigneur of Beaubassin] and Bourgeois [the pioneer settler there] had built gristmills at Beaubassin...."  Pierre Thibodeau, seigneur of Chepoudy, also built a gristmill at that settlement when he moved there from Port-Royal during the late 1690s; he had built a grist mill at Pré-Ronde on the river above Port-Royal, so he was familiar with the technology.  See Arsenault, History, 50. 

See Cormier, "Thibaudeau (Thibadeau, Thibodeau), Pierre," for Pierre's fight with La Vallière of Beaubassin over seigneurial rights to the Chepoudy area.  Cormier points out that, in the end, Pierre lost his suit against La Vallière, who could wield much more influence at Court than Thibodeau the commoner. 

It is worth noting that, on the insistence of King Louis XIV, French LA, founded in 1699, never had a seigneurial system.  All lands granted there, even to the highest officials, were given en routure, that is to say, without seigneurial privileges. 

101.  See W. J. Eccles, "Coulon de Villiers, Nicolas-Antoine," in DCB, 3:149-51; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 65-66; Parkman, France & England, 2:698-99; C. J. Russ, "La Corne, Louis (Jean-Louis, Pierre, Louis-Luc, Louis-François), de," in DCB, 3:331-32.  Marshall does not name the partisans from Île St.-Jean, only mentions "another group of Acadian insurgents" from there. 

Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, a solid history, says on p. 363 that Ramezay handed over command of the Grand-Pré expedition to Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, "a captain in the regular troops.  He was thirty-three, the eldest son of a 'typical Canadian military family.'"  Strangely, Griffiths then cites Eccles, "Coulon de Villiers, Nicolas-Antoine, 3:149-50, for the comment.  Joseph de Jumonville was only age 28 or 29 in Feb 1747, & was one of the youngest sons of Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers, père.  W. J. Eccles, "Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, Joseph," in DCB, 3:150-51, says nothing of Joseph's presence at Grand-Pré in Feb 1747.  (It would be Joseph de Jumonville whom George Washington would kill in western PA in May 1754 at the beginning of the French & Indian War.)   Parkman, 2:698, says that Coulon de Villiers "seven years later, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity," so he is giving the command in the attack on Grand-Pré to Nicolas-Antoine's brother Louis!

For the fall of Île St.-Jean in Aug 1745, see Griffiths, p. 356. 

102.  See Griffiths, Migrant to Acadian, 363; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 63-64, 66; Parkman, France & England, 2:699-700, whose detail remains incomparable. 

Griffiths said that it took the Canadians "almost two weeks to organize men and supplies" for the expedition & that the force being split between Beaubassin, on one side of the isthmus, & Baie Verte on the other, contributed to the delay. 

Marshall, p. 66, says that Coulon de Villiers's force numbered "more than 300 Canadians and another 300 resistance fighters and Natives...."  Griffiths says that the force consisted of "some three hundred men, mostly regular French troops but with approximately sixty Mi'kmaq and Malecite...." 

Parkman, 2:699, mentions "dog-teams." 

103.  Quotations from Griffiths, Migrant to Acadian, 363; Parkman, France & England, 2:701-02.  See also Griffiths, p. 364; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 66-67; Parkman, 2:700. 

Marshall says that Coulon de Villiers gave his men "a few days to rest" after they reached Grand-Pré.  Griffiths & Parkman say that the attacking force reached Pigiguit on Feb 9, the vicinity of Grand-Pré at mid-day on Feb 10, & did not take over dwellings along Rivière Gaspereau until early that evening, so there would not have been "a few days" of rest to give to his men, only a few hours.  The dwellings along the Gaspereau put them only about 2 miles from Grand-Pré village.   

Clark, Acadia, 193, says that the houses at Grand-Pré were dispersed "over a stretch of two and a half miles...." 

One wonders if Coulon de Villiers's force would have gotten so close to their objective without detection if Noble had not sent Gorham & his rangers back to Annapolis Royal only a few days before the attack.  See note 88, above. 

One also wonders who were bride & groom being feted along the Gaspereau that day. 

104.  See Eccles, "Coulon de Villiers," 3:150; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 364; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 67; Russ, "La Corne," 3:331. 

Coulon de Villiers's wound proved to be mortal.  The following Oct, he went to France for treatment at a thermal spring, but the therapy was unsuccessful.  He was awarded the Cross of St.-Louis in 1748, returned to Canada in 1749, where he was promoted to major, & was forced to endure the amputation of his left arm in Apr 1750.  He did not survive the operation & was buried at Montréal. 

La Corne also received the Cross of St.-Louis, in May 1749, for his leadership at Grand-Pré.  Like Boishébert, he, too, would play a significant role in Acadian history. 

105.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 364; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 68.  See also ibid., p. 67; Barry M. Moody, "Goldthwait, Benjamin," in DCB, 3:259-60.

Marshall, p. 67, gives Noble's losses as 140 "killed," but Griffiths says: "The New England force lost not only its commander but five other officers and seventy men, according to their records.  As well, thirty-eight others had been wounded and between forty and sixty had been taken prisoner."  This adds up to total casualties of 154 to 174.  (There is a difference between soldiers killed & soldiers who are listed as causalities.)

Marshall, p. 68, says that during the evening meal shared by French & British officers, a toast was made "while the bodies of 146 men lay in nearby sheds!" implying that the ground was too frozen to bury them, but Griffiths, who mentions the meal but not the sheds, buries the dead "mostly in a common grave in frozen ground...."  Griffiths says that it was Goldthwait who invited "the French officers to dine with him and his men, so that they all might become better acquainted over a bowl of punch."  Griffiths also details the "articles of capitulation." 

Moody, "Goldthwait," 3:360, does not mention the bowl of punch, but he points out that Goldthwait served as a major under Colonel John Winslow in the capture of Fort Beauséjour in Jun 1755 & that "he later assisted in the deportation of Acadians from the Chignecto region to the American colonies." 

106.  Quotation from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 68.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 365. 

Griffiths, p. 355, notes:  "But in terms of the Acadians themselves, the fall of Louisbourg and the failure of this [d'Anville's] expedition shaped their lives as much, if not more than, the policies of the British and French governments and the negotiations of imperial diplomats."  Ibid., pp. 356-57, is a summary of the war's impact on the Acadians, including the increasing talk among British leaders--especially Gov. Shirley & naval captain Peter Warren, who governed Île Royale from 1745-48--about Acadian deportation. 

107.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 68-69; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 365. 

One wonders why Mascarene did not consider the Broussards as part of the attacking force at Grand-Pré. 

108.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 362. 

109.  See ibid., p. 366; S. Dale Standen, "Beauharnois de La Boische, Charles de, Marquis de Beauharnois," in DCB, 3:42, 50; Taillemite, "Taffanel," 3:609-10. 

110.  See Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 366; Étienne Taillemite, "Barrin de La Galissonière, Roland-Michel, Marquis de La Galissonière," in DCB, 3:26-32.  For his prompt & efficient ass"umption of the governor-generalship of New France, La Galissonière was promoted to rear-admiral in Feb 1750.  See Taillemite, "Barrin, 3:27. 

111.  Quotations from Taillemite, "Barrin," 3:28.  See also ibid., 3:27; Griffiths, Migrant to Acadian, 366. 

112.  See Taillemite, "Barrin," 3:28. 

113.  See John Fortier, "Des Herbiers de La Ralière (La Ratière), Charles," in DCB, 3:182-83; Taillemite, "Taffanel," 3:610. 

114.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 177-78.  See also ibid., p. 180.

115.  See Parkman, France & England, 2:911-13; "Father Le Loutre's War," Wikipedia. 

116.  The death dates, exact or approximate, for these men are best found in White, DGFA-1, which is alphabetical based on family name.  

117.  Marriages from 1710-14 may be found in White, DGFA-1.  Marriages after 1714 may be found in Arsenault, Généalogie, which is organized by settlement & then alphabetically by family name. 

See Clark, Acadia, 203-04, for an analysis of marriages at Annapolis Royal & in the Minas Basin from the late 1720s thru the early 1750s.  Clark concludes:  "... the records of Grand Pré show the precise opposite of bucolic isolation," & "Even the Annapolis records suggest a good deal of contact outside of that settlement...." 

118.  See Arsenault, Généalogie

119.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 197-98.  See also ibid., pp. 195-96.  For a discussion of the seigneurial system in Acadia, see note 100, above. 

120.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 198-99.  See also ibid., p. 200.  For settlement of the trois-rivières area, see note 96, above.  For Robichaud, see White, DGFA-1, 1407. 

The surveyor employed by Armstrong was George Mitchell, who, along with the Annapolis valley, also was tasked with surveying the Minas Basin, including Pigiguit & Cobeguit; Cap D'Or, on the north end of the entrance to the Minas Basin; Chignecto; & the northern coastline of the Bay of Fundy from Chepoudy west to Passamaquoddy Bay.  Not surprisingly, Clark has found evidence only of the Annapolis survey.  See p. 199, note 32. 

121.  Quotation from ibid., p. 200.  For more on these settlers, see note 135, below. 

122.  Quotation from ibid.  See also ibid., p. 238. 

123.  Clark, Acadia, 200-01, reminds us:  "With the end of official French government we also come to the end of those frequent, detailed annual censuses which have provided so much information about Acadia's human geography.  In their place we have estimates, often simply of numbers and families, and such counts as of those rounded up and deported in 1755 and succeeding years."  As a result, counts of Acadian populations after 1710 are purely speculative.  The only useful & reliable count, Clark says, was that of Father Félix Pain, who conducted a census of the Nova Scotia population in 1714 at the request of the government of Île Royale.  "More than 2,300 were named and a population of at least 2,500 is assumed, including the extension of the Chignecto area to the estuaries of Shepody Bay."  See ibid., p. 201.  From less accurate estimates Clark postulates an Acadian population of about 5,000 in the early 1730s & more than 10,000 by the 1750s--"a doubling of the population in, roughly, each twenty years.  This is a remarkable rate of growth for its time in that it seems to have involved little or no immigration."  Italics added.  See ibid., p. 201.  For evidence of immigration into British Nova Scotia during British rule, see note 117, above.  Clark, p. 201, adds:  "That rate of growth, as far as we can tell, was remarkably constant from 1671 to 1748 if our estimates are reliable.  From 1671 to 1714 numbers roughly quadrupled, from 500 to 2,300 and by mid-century, in approximately the same period of time, it may have again increased fives times to between ten and fifteen thousand." 

Clark, p. 207, Table 6.2, entitled "Population of the four Bay settlements in 1737," gives the following figures:  Annapolis Royal, 1,406; Pisiquid, 1,623; Minas, 2,113; all of Chignecto, 1,816, for a total of 6,958. 

124.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 173.  See also ibid., pp. 174, 179-80.  For the 4 "kernel" families of Port-Royal, Griffiths cites a study of Jacques Vanderlinden, published in the late 1990s.  See her bibliography, p. 605. 

125.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 176-77.  Clark, Acadia, 202, hints at 3-or 4-generational households in Acadian communities but, because of lack of data, cannot give numbers or even percentages. 

126.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 201; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 173.  See also Clark, p. 202. 

Clark, p. 201, note 36, adds:  "An examination of the parish records of St. Jean Baptiste of Annapolis River from 1727 to 1742 and of St. Charles of Grand Pré from 1730 to 1748 revealed that of 224 marriages for which the age of both partners are given, only sixteen of the brides were younger than 18 and only one, at 15, younger than 16.  The median age of girls at marriage was 21, the modal age 20.  Thirty-four were 25 or older at first marriage.  In twenty-five cases, slighting more than 10 per cent, the woman was older than the man.  In the cases (189) where the man was a year or more older, the median difference in the ages of the partners was four years; the modal differences were two and four years."

127.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 204-05. 

128.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 212-14.  See also ibid., p. 231.  Ibid., pp. 205, 207-08, also offers detailed, though always estimated, population figures for the Annapolis Basin during British control of the colony.  See also ibid., p. 206, Fig. 6.1, entitled "Annapolis Basin and Valley: Population, 1714."

Clark, p. 212, says that "The principal church of the region was twelve miles from the fort, upriver on the north side, and formed the Acadian social nucleus of the Annapolis area, although there were 'chappells of ease' elsewhere."  A very detailed map of Annapolis Royal in 1710, found in Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29, shows near the fort the site of a "Church burned in 1707," so one wonders if Clark is telling us that St.-Jean-Baptiste was rebuilt a dozen miles upriver.  Considering the population of Annapolis village, this makes no sense.  The church he is referring to as the "social nucleus of the Annapolis area" is likely St.-Laurent. 

The word "banlieu" or banlieue" is French for the outskirts of a city, or suburb. 

For details on Gautier, also spelled Gauthier, including his rise from obscurity to prominence & wealth, see Clark, p. 247; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 342-43; White, DGFA-1, 13. 

For the names of some of the families who lived in the Annapolis valley, see note 98, above. 

129.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 215-17, 235.  Ibid., p. 140, Fig. 5.9, entitled "Northern and Eastern Settlements as of the Early Eighteenth Century, Modern Place Names," places the Minas Basin in its geographical context.  Ibid., p. 209, Fig. 6.2, entitled "Minas and Pisiquid:  Population, 1714," provides more geographical detail.  See also ibid., p. 251, Fig. 6.4, entitled "The Acadian Lands:  Routes of Communication, 1710-1748." 

Clark, p. 235, has found an estimate of 4,100 acres of marsh dyked at Minas in 1755, but he does not say if this figure encompassed only Minas Proper or if it included nearly Pigiguit. 

For the founding of the Minas settlements & the names of some of the families who lived there, see note 92, above.  For the wedding feast at Gaspereau & the attack on Grand-Pré in Feb 1747, see note 103, above. 

130.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 218.  See also ibid., 217; ibid., p. 140, Fig. 5.9; ibid., p. 209, Fig. 6.2. 

For the founding of Pigiguit & the names of some of the families who lived there, see note 94, above.  For Pigiguit's participation in the attack on Grand-Pré in Feb 1747, see note 103, above. 

131.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 218-19.  See also ibid., pp. 219-20; ibid., p. 140, Fig. 5.9; Wikipedia, "Truro, Nova Scotia," for the name Ville Bois-Brûlé.

Clark, p. 135, has found an estimate 1,000 acres of marsh dyked at Cobeguit in 1755. 

For the founding of Cobeguit & the names of the families who lived there, see note 95, above. 

Cobeguit's present name, Truro, is named after a city in Cornwall, England, & came from the Scots & Irish from New England who settled there in 1761, years after the Acadians had abandoned the site.  See Wikipedia, "Truro, Nova Scotia." 

132.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 220, 222, 229.  See also ibid., pp. 219, 230, 250. 

133.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 220-22.  See also ibid., pp. 140 (Fig. 5.9), 223, 250.  For the founding of the Chignecto settlements & the names of the families who lived there, see note 91, above. 

Personal notes:  the author's Cormier ancestors lived on Rivière-des-Hébert before being driven to the Aulac area. 

134.  See Clark, Acadia, 222; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 27, 30-31.  For the founding of the trois-rivières settlements & the names of the families who lived there, see note 96, above. 

135.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 223, including note 83.  See also ibid., pp. 151-53, 230.  For the founding of the Pobomcoup/Cap-Sable settlements & the names of the families who lived there, see note 99, above. 

136.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 224, 154-55; Webster, Acadia, 135.  See also Clark, p. 153. 

Villebon found a son of Philippe Mius d'Entremont at Port Razoir in 1699, so that place also may have been part of the the family's seigneurie. 

137.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 155, 225.  See also ibid., p. 224. 

138.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 156, 227-29.  See also ibid., pp. 143, 225, 231, 247-48. 

Clark, p. 23, Fig. 2.3, entitled "Atlantic Canada:  Continental Shelf and Fishing Banks," gives an idea of the many offshore banks served by the fishery at Canso & its ideal location relative to those banks. 

Clark, p. 226, Fig. 6.3, entitled "Canso:  Peninsula and Islands," is a detailed depiction of the Canso area, including the location of Little Canso & Great Canso islands, & the site of the British fort on Great Canso. 

For Lescarbot & Savalet in 1607, see note 10, above. 

139.  Quotation from <museum.gov.ns.ca/infos>.  See also Arsenault, History, passim; Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 188; Clark, Acadia, 10, 56-70, 85, 361; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 11, 56; Taylor, A., American Colonies, 99.

The name preferred by members of the tribe today is pronounced MICK-maw & is often written as Micmac, the original French term.  The French also called them the Souriquois.  See Clark, p. 58.  M'ikmaw is singular, M'ikmaq plural.  See Faragher, p. 494, note 2.  The Mi'kmaq & their descendants call the area of old Acadia Mi'kmaq'i or Lnue'gati.  See Griffiths, p. 390, which includes a cogent explanation of Mi'kmaq independence based on ownership of the land that comprised much of greater Acadia--something they never fully conceded even to their French & Acadian allies. 

For Mi'kmaq numbers, see Clark, p. 58, whose chap. 3 is a detailed description of the tribe's history & culture. 

Greer, People of New France, 93-94, offers a succinct summary of the relationship between the Mi'kmaq & Acadians. 

Thanks to implacable imperial rivalries & the machinations of French missionary Abbé Le Loutre, Acadian/M'ikmaq relations turned sour during the early 1750s.  Before then, however, with the exception of the Thomas incident at Canso in 1635, the two cultures lived in remarkable harmony, including intermarriage.  See especially Clark, pp. 361, 387. 

For a poetic description of the English lust for Indian land, see Leckie, Wars of America, 7-8.  

139a.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, & White, DGFA-1, for Acadian family lines.  See also Bunnell, French & Native North American Marriages, passim, for reviews of known Acadian-Indian marriages. 

Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 46-48, published in the mid-2000s & reflecting current ethnic sensibilities, emphasizes, with many examples, the role of métissage, or the intermarrying of Acadian & M'ikmaq, in the cultural relationship between the two people.  Clark, p. 68, published in the late 1960s, plays down the influence of intermarriage:  "Gradually they came to a position of mutual interdependence with the French and in places, as at La Have (La Hève), interbred with them to produce small métis populations. However, although some Micmac contributions to the subsequent Acadian gene-pool must thus have taken place, the mixed-blood offspring generally were raised as Micmac by their (almost exclusively) Indian mothers and the physical results of miscegenation were seen much more among the Indians than the French."  On p. 89, Clark notes:  "Resort to Indian women must have been common enough among the fur traders but it never became an accepted or established practice in the organized settlements, in good part because of the influence of the priests.  In any event, dalliance with the Indian maids was more likely to lead the men to the forest than the women to the cornfields.  There is no doubt that the blending of French and Micmac genes did get underway in the period [the 1600s] and that this process continued, clandestinely at least, through the remaining Acadian residence, somewhat diluting the 'genetic purity' of both Acadian and Acadian groups (principally the latter)."  Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux, in his ground-breaking Founding of New Acadia, 188-89, makes the interesting observation:  "Forged by the eastern Canadian frontier and tempered by 150 years of isolation, Acadian society had become fiercely independent and equalitarian by the middle of the eighteenth century.  These cultural characteristics fostered peaceful coexistence with Acadia's indigenous inhabitants, and an economically symbiotic relationship with the region's red men.  Group boundaries, however, were rigidly maintained by thinly veiled racism in the red and white camps, and offspring of mixed blood were generally exiled to the isolated Atlantic coast community of La Heve."  Italics added.  To be sure, members of the Guédry, Lejeune, Petitpas, & Roy families lived at La Hève at one time or other, but the term "exiled" may be a bit too strong.  See Clark, p. 387, for a possible influence. 

140.  Quotation from Webster, Acadia, 213-14.  See also ibid., pp. 211-12; Clark, Acadia, 57; Greer, People of New France, 84; Leckie, Wars of America, 3-5. 

The Maliseet are also called Malecite.  See Clark, p. 57, note 3. 

For a classic description of the Indian tribes from New England to the Hudson Bay & the heroic efforts of French missionaries to convert them to Catholicism, see Parkman, France & England, 1:345-402 & ff, also 2:115, 162.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 138-39, provides a careful analysis of the difficulties the eastern Abenaki endured with the English settlers in Maine.

Clark, p. 89, describes the Mi'kmaq's conversion to Roman Catholicism as "often superficial." 

For Fr. Râle, see note 248, below. 

141.  Quotations from Arsenault, History, 45-46, which says that Saint-Castin, also spelled Saint-Castain, came to Acadia with Grandfontaine in 1670 & married the chief's daughter in 1680.  See also Clark, Acadia, 111; Webster, Acadia, 27; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 336. 

Parkman, France & England, 1:1281-87, provides the classic description of the Canadian gentilhomme, or untitled nobleman, from whose ranks sprang the captaines de sauvages.  White, DGFA-1, 6, gives the marriage date to Mathilde, Saint-Castin's first Indian wife, of 1670; Arsenault, Généalogie, 1646, gives no date for this marriage & calls her Marie-Mathilde Pidicwanmiskwe, but Arsenault is describing Saint-Castin's second wife, whom he married in c1685, and who, according to White, p. 7, was named Marie Pidiwammiskwa & was a sister of the first wife Mathilde.  Saint-Castin fathered 10 children by the first wife, including Bernard-Anselme, his sixth child & second son, born in c1689, who married Charlotte d'Amours de Chauffours at Port-Royal in October 1707; Bernard-Anselme also became a captaine de sauvages.  Jean-Vincent's second wife bore him 2 daughters. 

142.  Quotation from "Louis XIV", Encarta, "III. Absolute Monarchy."  Again, Parkman says it most eloquently:  "The king [of France], once powerless among a host of turbulent nobles, was now a king indeed.  Once a chief, because his equals had made him so, he was now the anointed of the Lord.  This triumph of royalty had culminated in Louis XIV.  The stormy energies and bold individualism of the old feudal nobles had ceased to exist.  They who had held his predecessors in awe had become his obsequious servants.  He no longer feared his nobles; he prized them as gorgeous decorations of his court, and satellites of his royal person."  Quote from France & England, 1:1274; see also 2:138-39.

Jerry A. Micelle, "The Superior Council of French Louisiana," p. 27, in Conrad, ed., Readings in LA History, uses more precise language in describing the role of absolutism in France, focusing on the final years of the Sun King's reign:  "The strength of custom and tradition in eighteenth-century France lies hidden behind the facade of legal documents by which the French crown attempted to realize the ideal of absolute government.  The theory of absolutism was based, not upon the experience of the French kings, but upon the idea of a united kingdom which constant civil strife had made desirable.  As a result, the formality of using the king's name on all legal documents was based, not upon the fact of the monarch's actual power, but rather on a rationalization of the diversity of customs that prevailed in a kingdom where ideal unity constituted an impossible dream." 

143.  Quotations from "Louis XIV", Encarta, "II. Early Life," and "V. Early Reign."

144.  Quotations from "Louis XIV", Encarta, "VI. Expansion of French Power in Europe."  For the action in Acadia, see <acadian-cajun.com>; Clark, Acadia, 112. 

The secret Anglo-French treaty between England's Charles II & Louis XIV, signed in June 1670, is called the Treaty of Dover.  See Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 268, part of a chapter (pp. 267-300) that details the Franco-Dutch War of 1672-78 & its impact on French colonies, especially in the West Indies.  The Treaty of Dover came at the beginning of the Third Anglo-Dutch War of 1670-72, "a brief two-year struggle," Pritchard notes, that was "fought entirely at sea."  The treaty allowed the English to fight the Dutch without French interference.  The English response to France's aggression in the Low Countries in 1672 was to step aside as the French had done in 1670.  England was an erstwhile ally of France during the first years of the war, but in Feb 1674, Parliament denied Charles II funds for the war against Holland, & so Charles abandoned his ally & made peace with the Dutch in the Treaty of Westminster, leaving the French to fight the Dutch coalition alone.  This emboldened the Dutch & led to their attack on the French West Indies, which was repulsed at Martinique.  See Pritchard, cited above. 

For the Dutch attack on Acadia, see Pritchard, p. 282, which adds that Aernouts had been encouraged to attack French Acadia by the English at New York, whom the Dutchman had overawed on his way north from the West Indies.  Pritchard adds that "At Fort Jemseg on the St. John River, he [Aernouts] captured Chambly's lieutenant."  Jemseg lay about 70 miles up Rivière St.-Jean, so the fort that the Dutchman attacked probably was Charles La Tour's old fort at the mouth of the river.  See note 22, above, for a discussion of the fort's location & identity. 

145.  Quotation from "Louis XIV", Encarta, "VI. Expansion of French Power in Europe."

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 269, concludes that Louis XIV's "victory" over the Dutch in 1678 "set the stage for the subsequent struggle between the English and French in the Americas."  He adds:  "By excluding the Dutch from major political and military roles in the New World, the French also brought to the fore the irreconcilability of their own and England's colonial ambitions, a consequence they had not envisioned"--a consequence that would greatly influence Acadian history. 

In Aug 1684, France & Spain negotiated a truce at Regensburg & agreed to call off hostilities for 20 years. 

146.  Quotations from "Louis XIV", Encarta, "II. Early Life" and "VII. The Beginning of Decline."

147.  Quotations from Glenn R. Conrad, "Alsatian Emigration to Louisiana," p. 164, in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in LA; "Louis XIV", Encarta, "VII. The Beginning of Decline" and "VIII. The European Wars."  Conrad says that 400,000 Huguenots fled France between 1685 & 1710.  Other estimates range from 210,000 to 900,000.  Louis XIV's evocation of the Edict of Nantes was accomplished by the Edict of Fontainebleau in Oct 1685.  Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, the Protestant area of the Holy Roman Empire, South Africa (where they became Boers), and the English colonies of North America, especially SC & VA. 

For the Treaty of Whitehall, see Clark, Acadia, 112; Webster, Acadia, 1, 8, 228, which provides the text of the treaty that includes the colonies.  Webster speculates on p. 1:  "It is doubtful if the terms of the Treaty of Whitehall were ever known in the Colonies."  However, Parkman, England & France, 2:127-28, hints that it was known at least to the French in the summer of 1688.  Clark, p. 112, says that it "was ignored, if, indeed, it was widely known of across the Atlantic," that is to say, in North America. 

In Sep 1783, Colbert's son, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, fils, marquis de Seignelay, had replaced his father as finance minister. 

148.  The account of the rise of William of Orange and the fall of James II is from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.  

149.  This description of Andros is from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.  Andros, born in 1637, had served as governor of NY from 1674-81, during the reign of Charles II, & had not been popular with the colonists.  This did not deter James II from appointing him governor of the Dominion of New England.  In early April 1689, when the colonists in Boston heard of the overthrow of James II, they revolted against Andros & sent him packing.  He returned to England as a prisoner of war along with other officials of his government.  They were soon released.  Later, Andros found favor with King William & also with Queen Anne & served as governor of VA (1692-97) and of Guernsey (1704-06), his birthplace.  See also Parkman, France & England, 2:124-25, 164.  

150.  See Drake, Border Wars, 10-11, 27; Parker France & England, 2:162-64.  La Vallière, the seigneur of Beaubassin, also served as the unconfirmed governor of Acadia from 1678 to 1684, and it was he who moved the military capital from Pentagouët to Chignecto.  One of his successors, Meneval, who became governor in 1687, moved the capital back to Port-Royal.  See <acadian-cajun.com>; & Appendix.  

If one counts European incursions against Indians as part of the conflict between the European powers, the North American antecedents of the war that erupted between England & France in 1689 go back even farther than Andros's depredations in Maine in the spring of 1688.  In July 1687, the governor of Canada, the Marquis de Denonville, with nearly 3,000 French regulars, Canadian militia, coureurs de bois, & Indian allies, the largest force mustered in Canada up to that time, had waged a campaign against the Seneca in northern New York & destroyed their villages before returning to Montréal in August.  Before Denonville struck the Seneca, some of his men had seized two parties of New York traders in the Great Lakes area.  After he struck the Seneca, Denonville built a new fort on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River in territory claimed by the English.  The governor of New York colony at the time, Thomas Dongan, protested mightily.  The Iroquois exacted their revenge in the months that followed until they signed a treaty of neutrality with Denonville in late 1688.  These events are not considered by historians to be part of King William's War, but they certainly are part of the causation of the conflict.  They had stirred animosities between the English & the French in North America, as well as the wrath of the Iroquois Confederation against the French & their Indian allies in the late 1680s and thus played a part in the eruption of all-out war between the various antagonists in 1689.  See Parkman, 2: chapters 8 & 9; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 333, 341.

Pritchard, p. 341, notes:  "The local conflict involving the Indians known as Abenaki was over sovereignty and influence along 150 miles of coast between the Kennebec and Sainte-Croix rivers in present-day Maine and the access of New England fishermen to offshore waters off Acadia.  Neither issue directly concerned Acadian colonists, whose relations with neighbouring New England were friendly and subordinate."  Italics added. 

In August 1688, New Englanders attacked and destroyed the French fishing establishment at Chedabouctou, on the Atlantic coast of Acadia.  This also factored into the developing conflict between France & England.  See Pritchard, p. 342. 

151.  See Drake, Border Wars, 14-22, 34; Parkman, France & England, 2:163-65.

152.  See Drake, Border Wars, 27-30; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 335, 342.  Parkman, France & England, 2:163, note 2, citing a French source, says that 143 men, women, & children were killed in the raid on Pemaquid.  See Parkman, 2:165-66, for details of the attack; he says little about Saint-Castin's role in the raid & much about the Abenakis' spiritual leader, a Jesuit called Père or Father Thury, adding: "Religion was one of the impelling forces of the war.  In the eyes of the Indian converts, it was a crusade against the enemies of God.  They made their vows to the Virgin before the fight; and the squaws, in their distant villages on the Penobscot, told unceasing beads, and offered unceasing prayers for victory."  One has only to study the so-called King Philip's War of 1675-76 to see how barbarous the hyper-religious English Puritans could be when their battle blood was up.  Brebner, Canada, 62, says 1,400 Iroquois attacked Lachine.  Parkman, 2:133, says the Iroquois who fell on Lachine numbered 1,500 warriors & got into the settlement undetected during a violent hailstorm the night of August 4-5.  Denonville was still governor of New France at the time.  Details of the Lachine fight, described by Parkman as "the most frightful massacre in Canadian history," can be found in 2:133-34.  Parkman says that at the head of the 200 French regulars from Montréal who arrived at Lachine in the wake of the massacre was a French officer named Subercase, the name of the last governor of Acadia (1706-10; was this the same man?).  Parkman, 2:133, describes the fate of some of the Lachine men, women, & children who fell into the hands of the Iroquois--"scenes ... of indescribable and nameless horror."  Parkman, 2:136, note 1, is convinced that the Iroquois struck Lachine on their own, without instigation from the English officials in New York.  He does not give the Abenaki who struck the Maine settlements such open-minded treatment.  See 2:163.   For French abandonment of Fort Frontenac on lower Lake Ontario & other posts before Denonville's successor, Count Frontenac, arrived at Quebec, & Frontenac's anger over this, see Parkman, 2:143-44.

153.  See Drake, Border Wars, 38-43.  In England, King William's War was also known as the War of the League of Augsburg, but the more accurate European name may be the War of the Grand Alliance.  It was also called in Europe the War of the Palatinate.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 303, uses a different name entirely for the 1688-97 struggle, with the following explanation:  "The War of the League of Augsburg is a misnomer.  the name fails to link the great maritime struggle between 1689 to 1697 to the European continental conflict.  Known in American and English historiography as King William's War or the War of William III, these names do not capture its complexity either.  Various Indian nations in North America were major participants rather than imperial pawns.  Some historians have recently referred to it as the War of the English Succession, for it was the arrival of an heir to James II of England in the summer of 1688 and William of Orange's coup d'état in early November that rapidly transformed Louis XIV's attack inthe Rhineland into a larger war involving the United Provinces, the Emperor, Spain, and England, and reached across the Atlantic to the Americas, but this new designation ignores the fact that Louis XIV initiated the war.  Though not entirely satisfactory, the neutral appellation, the Nine Years' War, is used hereafter."  Pritchard, p. 341, adds:  "An unofficial war between the French and English had been in progress in Acadia for at least two years before European hostilities began," making the name Nine Years' War a misnomer when applied to New France. 

Leckie, Wars of America, 14, says that Frontenac was the first "professional soldier on the new European model" to appear in the New World.  Frontenac, born in 1620, first arrived at Québec as governor-general in 1672 and left 10 years later after quarreling bitterly with the bishop and the intendant of Canada.  But, luckily for the French, he was restored as governor-general in the autumn of 1689, replacing the Marquis de Denonville just in time for the war against England; it was the outbreak of war between the European powers that doubtlessly motivated the king to restore Frontenac to the governorship of his most important colony.  See Parker, France & England, 2:139.  For details of Frontenac's life & accomplishments, including the interesting relationship with his headstrong wife, see Parkman, 2: chapters 1-4, 10-20, the bulk of the volume entitled Count Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV; W. J. Eccles, "BUADE DE FRONTENAC et de Palluau, Louis de," in DCB, 1:133-42, which, according to Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 242 n.42, demolishes "the myth created by Francis Parkman." 

154.  See Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 335-36.  For Frontenac's preparations for the raid into New York & New England with the limited resources available to him, see Parkman, France & England, 2:143-46, 154-55.  For details of the Schenectady raid, see Brebner, Canada, 62; Leckie, Wars of America, 15, 17-18; Parkman, 2:155-61.  Sixty or more settlers died at Schenectady, including 22 women and children, and between 80 and 90 settlers were taken as prisoners.  There were 400 residents of the town in Feb 1690, yet a New York official estimated that only 1/6 of the inhabitants of Schenectady escaped death or capture.  See Parkman, 2:160n.  Only 1 Frenchman died in the assault.  Interestingly in the context of this narrative, three of the French officers on the Schenectady raid were sons of prominent Canadian nobleman Charles Le Moyne, one of whom, Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville, would pioneer French settlements in the Gulf of Mexico during the late 1690s & early 1700s.  

Remember that Frontenac arrived at Quebec only two months after the massacre at Lachine, and that the Le Moynes and other colonists, as well as the Christian Iroquois, witnessed the aftermath of the Lachine massacre, which may have stimulated the ferocity of the attack on Schenectady and the New England settlements.  Drake, Border Wars, 45n, addresses this assertion:  "It is claimed that this [the Schenectady massacre] was done in retaliation for outrages committed by the Iroquois in Canada.  But the Iroquois also were savages, neither governed by the rules of civilized war, nor led by English officers."   The Trois-Rivieres column, commanded by François Hertel, numbered 24 Frenchmen, 20 Sokoki Abenakis, & 5 Algonquins; their surprise attack resulted in "about thirty persons of both sexes and all ages ... tomahawked or shot; and fifty-four, chiefly women and children, ... made prisoners."  See Parkman, 2:161-62, 167-68, quote from 167.  The third column, led by René Robineau de Portneuf, brother of a future governor of Acadia, left Quebec in Jan with only 50 Frenchmen & 60 Abenakis.  However, when it reached the Kennebec in May, it numbered 400 or 500 men, mostly Abenaki reinforcements, some of them under Saint-Castin, & 36 men under Hertel who had fought at Salmon Falls.  See Parkman, 2:168-71.  For other overviews of Frontenac's grand offensive, see Drake, chap. 6; & Crouse, Lemoyne d'Iberville, chap. 3, which highlights the participation of the Le Moyne brothers & details the attack on Schenectady, then called Corlaer.  

The raid on Schenectady was the only fruit of a grand scheme to capture Albany & New York & to dispossess the entire colony of its Protestant inhabitants, a plan concocted not by Frontenac but by his predecessor, Denonville, Denonville's second in command, Callieres, governor of Montréal, & Louis XIV himself.  See Parkman, 2:140-42, who, in pointing out that Frontenac could not have captured the entire New York colony with the resources given to him, makes, on p.142, the sad assertion:  "In the next century, some of the people of Acadia were torn from their homes by order of a British commander.  The act was harsh and violent, and the innocent were involved with the guilty; but many of the sufferers had provoked their fate, and deserved it."  Parkman goes on to say:  "Louis XIV. commanded that eighteen thousand unoffending persons should be stripped of all that they possessed, and cast out to the mercy of the wilderness.  The atrocity of the plan is matched by its folly.  The king gave explicit orders, but he gave neither ships nor men enough to accomplish them; and the Dutch farmers, goaded to desperation, would have cut his sixteen hundred soldiers to pieces. It was the scheme of a man blinded by a long course of success.  Though perverted by flattery and hardened by unbridled power, he was not cruel by nature; and here, as in the burning of the Palatinate and the persecution of the Huguenots, he would have stood aghast, if his dull imagination could have pictured to him the miseries he was preparing to inflict."  Italics added.  If Parkman were alive today (he died in 1893), any descendant of those hapless Acadians would be happy to remind him of the difference between a plan & an actual event, that what happened to our ancestors in the 1750s transcended a mere scheme of some distant king.

155.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars, 55.  See also Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 336. 

155a.  See Drake, Border Wars, 58, note 3.  Parkman, France & England, 2:173, says that "the plan of a combined attack on Canada seems to have been first proposed by the Iroquois" & that the English colonists met in New York City to embrace the plan.  Parkman goes on to describe the Iroquois pledge to join the expedition with all their warriors as "worthless."  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 336, insists that the English colonials "intended to conquer New France," not just retaliate against Frontenac's offensives. 

156.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars, 57.  See also Leckie, Wars of America, 18-19.  Parkman, France & England, 2:174, says that depredations against New England's commerce from French cruisers "which found convenient harborage at Port Royal" occurred that winter of 1689-90, and that hostile Indians also drew supplies from Port-Royal, hence the necessity of a New England expedition against Acadia, which Parkman characterizes as "less remote and less critical" than the attack on Canada. 

One is hard put to find balanced history viz. the Acadians in the works of New Englanders like Drake & Parkman.  Still, they are valuable secondary sources, though Parkman's work, especially his point of view, is now just as "historical" as the things he describes. 

157.  Quotation from Parkman, France & England, 2:174.  See also Arsenault, History, 63; Clark, Acadia, 112-13; Cormier, "Le Borgne de Belle-Isle, Alexandre," 1:435; Drake, Border Wars, 55-58; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 150-55; Leckie, Wars of America, 19; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 343; C. P. Stacey, "Phips, Sir William" in DCB, 1:544-46; Webster, Acadia, 9-10. 

Parkman, 2:174-79, also provides details of the embarkation from Nantasket, a peninsula a few miles southeast of Boston, & Phips's remarkable rise to power.  Arsenault says that Phips's Port-Royal expedition arrived on May 19 & numbered 30 ships & 2,000 men and that he burned 30 houses.  Drake, p. 57, gives no date of arrival & says 8 vessels & "seven or eight hundred men afloat."  Leckie, p. 19, says that Phips' force arrived on May 11, numbered 7 ships & 500 militia, & that Meneval's garrison numbered only 70.  Parkman, 2:174, agrees with Leckie's date & numbers, listing 7 ships, 288 sailors, & 400 to 500 militia, & giving Meneval only 70 soldiers.  Pritchard, p. 343, says Phips took with him a frigate of 44 guns, 6 small sloops & ketches, & "about 700 men."  Drake, p. 57, insists that Phips's expedition against Port-Royal was the first of its kind by New Englanders.  He seems to have forgotten the 1654 assault on Acadia by Robert Sedgwick of Boston.  Meneval later testified that Phips's New Englanders were "excessively irritated at the late slaughter of settlers at Salmon Falls and elsewhere" & obviously took it out on the Port-Royal settlers.  See Parkman, 2:174-175n, quotation from 2:174. 

Despite the widespread destruction & the mayhem, fueled by vengeance, that would have accompanied it, no one was killed at Port-Royal as a result of this expedition.  Another factor in the relatively mild treatment of the Acadians by Phips's Puritans is hinted at in Parkman, 2:193, when discussing the rude welcome that Phips received at Quebec later in the year:  "Phips imagined that the Canadians would offer little resistance to the Puritan invasion; for some of the Acadians had felt the influence of their New England neighbors, and shown an inclination to them.  It was far otherwise in Canada, where the English heretics were regarded with abhorrence."  Italics added.  Parkman doubtlessly is referring to the relationship established between the New Englanders & the peninsula Acadians by their illicit but extensive trade over the years--the Acadians, in fact, referred to their New Englander trading partners as "our friends, the enemy."  Names of the Port-Royal councilors are from Griffiths, p. 155.  Phips was back at Boston on May 13, only 2 days after he had descended on Port-Royal.  See Parkman, 2:175.  Arsenault says that Phips brought away 38 French soldiers; Parkman's number is used here.  The pirate depredations are from Clark & Webster.  Leisler's part in the attack is from Webster, p.9n, who calls him "a Walloon settled in New York."  Parkman, 2:157, describes Leisler as a New York demagogue who tried to take over the colony after the ouster of Andros in 1689.  

Pritchard, p. 343, adds a cynical motivation to the New England expedition:  "Massachusetts's attack on Port Royal at the end of May in 1690 was in response to the attacks of combined French and Indian war parties sent out from Canada.  The officially sanctioned private war begun in Massachusetts by land speculators, fishing interests, and Boston merchants was going nowhere until news of the Canadian attacks on Schenectady and Salmon Falls reached New England and reinvigorated the plan by allowing Puritan divines to portray the proposed attack on Port Royal as a religious crusade, disguising its true nature as an affair of pillage with no strategic or military objective." 

As a side note, according to Yves F. Zoltvany, "Laumet, Antoine, dit de Lamothe Cadillac," in DCB, 2:352:  "In May of the previous year [1690] his [Cadillac's] Acadian habitation [on Mount Desert Island, on the ME coast] had been destroyed, along with several other houses in the vicinity of Port Royal, by Sir William Phips."  Cadillac, of course, after returning to Canada, became a shaker & mover in that colony & later governor of LA. 

158.  Drake, Border Wars, 58-60, says 32 ships & 2,300 men in Phips's expedition; Leckie, Wars of America, 19-21, counts 36 ships and 2,200 men; Parkman, France & England, 2:179-81, 191-92, says 34 ships, including 4 large ones, & that the 2,200 men in the expedition included sailors.  Parkman, 2:179, details the failed efforts of the Massachusetts authorities to seek aid for the attack from the mother country, something New England had never done.  Despite this fact, the English government refused the aid because "its resources were engrossed by the Irish war" that King William had begun earlier that year.  After some bickering among colonial officials, the land expedition was placed under command of a Connecticut officer, Fitz-John Winthrop.  The expedition failed for a number of reasons, among them contention between the New York political factions that had grown out of the recent rebellion against Andros, lack of birch & elm bark to fashion more canoes, small pox, & reluctant Iroquois.  See Parkman, 2:173, 181, 187-89.  For Frontenac's almost comic struggles with the supreme council in Québec after he assumed the governorship, see Parkman, 2:181-84.  For his preparations to secure Québec & the other settlements against the Iroquois & the English, including the happy arrival at Montréal of hundreds of Indian allies from the Great Lakes, laden with furs, about the time that Phips's expedition had departed Boston, see Parkman, 2:184-91.  Final, vital additions to the defenses at Québec were supervised by the city's mayor, Prevost, while Frontenac was at Montréal.  See Parkman, 2:190, 192-93.

159.  See Arsenault, History, 63; Drake, Border Wars, 59-65; Leckie, Wars of America, 20-22, a most entertaining description of the fight at Québec based on Parkman; Parkman, France & England, 2:189-91, chap. 13, the best account of the entire Québec venture.  For a description of the dilapidated condition of the fort at Québec during Frontenac's second governorship, see Parkman, 1:1408-09.  The dates in these sources differ significantly.  Drake, p. 59, says that Phips arrived in site of Québec on Oct 5 & that he withdrew soon after Oct 11.  Leckie, p. 20, says Phips did not arrive until "well into October" but cites no specific dates; he uses Parkman as his secondary source.  Parkman, 2:189ff, says that Frontenac was at Montréal on October 10 when he received word of the approach of the English fleet, that he reached Québec on October 14, 2 days before Phips arrived, that the lights of the English fleet were finally seen from the heights of Québec by sentinels before dawn of Oct 16, & that Phips sent his envoy to Frontenac at 10 a.m. on Oct 16.  Parkman's times & dates are followed here.  Amazingly, Phips remained 3 weeks at Tadoussac, within 3 days sail of Québec!  See Parkman, 2:192.  Part of the exchange of words between Phips's subaltern & Frontenac on the morning of the16th concerned the official French position on the overthrow of King James II of England by his son-in-law, William of Orange, & his daughter Mary, a major cause of the present war, as well as Phips's rough treatment of Meneval at Port-Royal.  See Parkman, 2:195-96.  In the fight at the St. Charles ford on Oct 20, the elder Le Moyne brother, the sieur de Sainte-Hélène, fell mortally wounded, & the other brother, the sieur de Longueuil, was wounded.  See Parkman, 2:202.  One of the prisoners exchanged in late October was Captain Davis, who had been captured the previous May at Casco Bay.  See Parkman, 2:203.  Parkman, 2:204-05, gives a thorough evaluation of Québec's condition after Frontenac's victory & makes the case that, despite Phips's defeat, the campaign was a close thing, that Québec could have fallen if Phips's timing had been better.  On his way down the St. Lawrence, Phips nearly captured the annual autumn supply ships from France that Québec still relied so much on.  See Parkman, 2:206.  Captain Mason's exploit is from Arsenault.

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 336, is no more impressed with Frontenac's conduct than with Phips's, & concludes:  "Neither side displayed much military talent.  A more enterprising general than Governor Frontenac, who enjoyed the advantages of defence and superior numbers including trained, regular infantry, might well have destroyed the 1,200-1,300-man English landing force had he chosen to; while Sir William Phips, completely without military experience and a protege of the Puritan divines who had transformed the expedition into a religious crusade, displayed no military talents at all."

160.  See Drake, Border Wars, 38-42, 66-72.  For an excellent description of Church's role in King Phillip's War, see Leckie, Wars of America, 10-13.  King Phillip's Indian name sometimes is given as Metacomet.  See Webster, Acadia, 169, for a brief sketch of Church's career. 

Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 101, says that Church was from RI.  Parkman, France & England, 2:417, says that Church, "the noted Indian fighter of King Philip's War, was at Tiverton in Rhode Island when he heard of Hertel de Rouville's attack on Deerfield" in Feb 1704.  Parkman also says that Church was a native of Duxbury, which lies on the coast between Boston & Plymouth, MA, so the old man got around. 

161.  See Arsenault, History, 63-64; Drake, Border Wars, 72.  Drake says that Villebon recaptured Port-Royal in November 1691; Arsenault, p. 63, says that it happened in June.  Port-Royal would not be restored as the Acadian capital until 1700. 

Meneval never returned to Acadia.  After being held in Boston on Phips's insistence, the erstwhile governor was released by the Massachusetts authorities, & he was free to slip quietly away to France.  Phips refused to return the more valuable of Meneval's private possessions, doubtlessly keeping them as a prize of war.  See Parkman, France & England, 2:175-77.

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 339, calls Meneval's successor a protégé of Frontenac & says that Villebon served as "commandant of Acadia."  Others sources call him governor.  I follow Pritchard here.  Villebon's younger brother, François-Alexandre Robinau de Bécancour, would serve in Louisiana under Iberville & Bienville during the early 1700s.  See Higginbotham, Old Mobile, 148ff.  The family's name also is spelled Robineau. 

Webster, Acadia, 11, says Villebon named the new fort at Nashouat Fort St. Joseph (probably after his patron saint, his first name being Joseph).  Nashouat is also spelled Nashwaak & Naxouat &, according to Pritchard, p. 344, was located "about 90 miles upstream on the St. John River at the mouth of the Nashwaak River," opposite today's Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick.  The capital is on the west side of the river.  The town on the east side, opposite the capital, is called Nashwaaksis, which is Malicite for "little Nashwaak," & is on the side of the river where the fort was located.  A depiction of Fort Nashouat can be found in Chartand, Forts of New France: Northeast America, 17.  A description on p. 16 reads:  "Fort Saint-Joseph, also known as Fort Nashwaak, 1695.  Built during March and April 1692 and abandoned in 1698, this stockade fort built on a square plan of about 100 ft. plus its bastions was located on the southwestern tip of the meeting of St John and Nashwaak rivers.  The buildings within were the commander's quarters, the soldiers' barracks ... and the guard house. ... The bastion on the left had a baking oven."  Pritchard, p. 343, says that after he went to Port-Royal in 1691 to drive out the English, Villebon & his 45 soldiers "landed their munitions and stores upriver at Jemseg," that two English privateers came up the river & seized his ships, & so he retreated overland to Québec before returning to France to get more aid.  The attack at Jemseg may have motivated the new commandant to move even farther up river after he returned from France.  Chartrand, Forts of New France: Northeast America, 19, says:  "In 1690[sic], Governor de Villbon had it [Fort Jemseg] repaired but found it unsuitable and moved farther north two years later." 

Pritchard adds that while Villebon was in France, the King declared to him "that conditions in Europe did not permit reestablishing Port Royal."  Quote from  p. 344.  The King was referring, of course, to the reestablishment of French military presence at Port-Royal, not to the settlement there, which would remain regardless of who controlled the place.  This pronouncement by from the royal authority precluded Villebon's returning to Port-Royal & compelled him to look elsewhere for his headquarters.  On p. 343, Pritchard implies that Villebon went to Rivière St.-Jean to protect the Acadian settlements on the Bay of Fundy from anymore English attacks, but on p. 344 he goes on to say that the new Acadian commandant was no favorite of the settlers, & for good reason:  "During the next three or four years Commandant de Villebon devoted himself to fur trading, going so far as to appropriate supplies for his own use and failing to furnish aid to regular troops and war parties from Naxouat.  If Villebon's reputation among Acadians that he was a thug who terrorised the countryside with the aid of family members in pursuit of his own interests, was accurate, it reinforced the Indian-centeredness of French policy."  This mitigates any notion that Villebon was looking out for the interests of the Acadian settlers & makes a strong case that he was more interested in exploiting than protecting them.  He went to Rivière St.-Jean because of its strategic position, especially its defensibility, & because he could not return to Port-Royal. 

162.  Quotation from Webster, Acadia, 12.  See also ibid., p. 11; Drake, Border Wars, 73-76; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 344. 

163.  See Drake Border Wars, 76-85, 92n; Arsenault, History, 63-64; Webster, Acadia, 12-13; Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, 73-79; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 344-45.  Iberville, despite his youth (he was only 31 in 1692) was an old hand at fighting the English, having several times attacked the English fur-trading posts on Hudson Bay.  He also had participated in the bloody 1690 raid against Schenectady, which had been led by his older brother, Jacques Le Moyne, sieur de Ste.-Hélène.  See Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, chaps. 3 & 4.  Pritchard, p. 339, asserts that Frontenac "was no supporter of Iberville or his ambitions in the Bay...."

The Fort William Henry at Pemaquid, Maine, should not be confused with the more famous fort of the same name on the southern end of Lake George in NY colony, which was built in a later war. 

It was in the spring and summer of 1692 that the witchcraft hysteria hit Salem and other communities in Massachusetts, a state of mind aided no doubt by the bloody warfare on the New England frontier.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 337, concludes, sarcastically:  "Capturing New France was more difficult than the Protestant preachers had imagined, and they soon turned to conducting witch trials back home in Salem."  See also Taylor, A., American Colonies, 184-85. 

164.  See Webster, Acadia, 13.  In light of Pritchard's picture of him, one wonders why Villebon was so tolerant of this illicit trading.  Was it to confiscate the goods from the Chignecto Acadians after the New Englanders went on their way? 

165.  See ibid., 13-14; Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, 88-89; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 344-45, a balanced view of the Abenaki settlement.  He says:  "The combination of Villebon's trading, including his inability to supply sufficient trade goods to meet Abenaki demand, Iberville's failure to carry out an assault from the sea in conjunction with the Abenaki, and renewed Massachusetts diplomacy weakened French influence among the natives, who agreed to make peace with Massachusetts in August of 1693."    

Drake, Border Wars, 93-95, is a very anti-French view of this phase of the war, so his assertions here should be approached with caution.

King William III had granted Massachusetts a new charter in 1691, which superseded the old corporate charter that James II's Dominion of New England had essentially abolished, and created a single royal colony under Phips that included Massachusetts, Plymouth, Maine, and Nova Scotia, which the English still claimed.  

166.  For the 1686 & 1693 censuses, see <acadian-home.org>. 

Clark, Acadia, 124, provides the figure 900 for 1686.  Clark, pp. 124-25, details a census taken by ____ Gargas, the colony's secretary, or écrivain principal, at the behest of Gov. Meneval, during the winter of 1687-88, which counts more settlements than the 1686 census.  On pp. 125-27, he also details a census taken in 1689.  Neither the 1687-88 or 1689 censuses are in <acadian-home.org> or <acadian-cajun.com>.  Clark's figures are, for 1687-88:  Port-Royal, 450; Beaubassin, 122; Minas, "roughly doubled" that of 1786 (which has been 57); Cap-Sable area, 24; Port Rochelois (not counted in 1686), 20; La Hève & Mirliguèche, 22; Rivière St.-Jean & Maine coast, 86, including 24 women & girls; Chebouctou, Chédabouctou (perhaps also including Canso fishermen), 51; Cape Breton Island, 6.  For 1689:  Port-Royal, 461 individuals & 80 heads of household, plus 2 priest; Minas, 164 individuals & 1 priest; Beaubassin, 83 individuals & 1 priest; Cap-Sable, 24; La Hève, 20; Chebouctou, 3; Passamaquoddy, 21; Rivière St.-Jean, 17; Magais (probably Machias), 2; Pentagouët, 4; Lincour, 5; Petit Plaisance, 3; Larigimagnan, 2.  A separate count in 1689 found 103 at Nepisiguit, which probably included other communities along the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore from Île Percé to Cape Breton Island & perhaps even Chédabouctou & Canso.  Clark's figures for the census of 1692 are on p. 128, & his totals are different:  Port-Royal, 80 families with 499 individuals; Minas, 55 families with 305 individuals; Beaubassin, 20 families with 119 individuals; Cap-Sable, probably including Pubnico, 6 families, 32 individuals; Port Rochelois, 2 families with 12 individuals; La Hève, 4 families with only 6 individuals; overall population on the peninsula, "approaching 1,200."   

Figures for Canada and the English colonies are from Brebner, Canada, 62.

167.  See Drake, Border Wars, 94-109; Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, chap. 5.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 345, calls the Jul 1674 raid on Oyster River (today's Durham), New Hampshire, "the bloodiest raid of the war."  It was motivated by the efforts of Abbé Louis-Pierre Thury from his mission among the Abenaki at Pentagouët.  Thury's Abenaki were accompanied by French Lieutenant Claude-Sébastien Villeu & his troupes de la marine, or colonial regulars.  The Saint-Castin's no doubt had a hand in it, too.  About 100 English settlers died, & 60 were captured, compared to about 60 killed at Schenectady, New York, early in the war. 

168.  See Drake, Border Wars, 109-12; Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, chap. 5; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 345-46.  Arsenault, History, 64, says that the fort fell on August 14, but Drake says the afternoon of the 15th.

169.  See Drake, Border Wars, 112-13; Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, 115-16; Webster, Acadia, 17; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 346.  Church's numbers come from Arsenault, History, 64.

170.  Quotations from Webster, Acadia, 17; Drake, Border Wars, 113.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 100-01, for details of Bourgeois's encounter with Church and his men; also pp. 133, 191.  Clark, Acadia, 112, says that "Church wreaked heavy damage in Chignecto...."

Again, Pritchard, In Search of Empire, cuts to the chase.  On p. 343, he concludes about Church's attack on Chignecto:  "The French returned [to Port-Royal in 1691], and little was heard from New England until 1696 when Benjamin Church led a force of Christian Indians from southern Massachusetts and militiamen on a revenge attack against the Acadian settlement of Chignecto.  Raised to scalp Abenaki for bounties of 100 pounds per adult male and 50 pounds for each woman and child, it had no strategic purpose.  Moreover, no Indians lived at Chignecto.  Murder and plunder were its raison d'etre." 

171.  See Drake, Border Wars, 114; Webster, Acadia, 17-18, 169; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 346.  Hathorne is sometimes spelled Hawthorne.

172.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars,115.  See also ibid., p. 114; Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, chap. 6.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 346-51, is equally detailed & includes a summary of Newfoundland's & Plaisance's part in the war up to & thru Iberville's 1696 expedition.

173.  See Drake, Border Wars, 115-16.

174.  See Drake, Border Wars, 117-21, 129-34.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 351-55, has much detail from the French perspective, including a summary of Iberville's exploits in Hudson Bay, & calls Nesmond's fleet "the largest [French] force yet destined for the Americas."  Although Nesmond's part of the 1797 grand offensive was an utter failure, Iberville succeeded grandly in Hudson Bay.  Two years later, he was in the Gulf of Mexico founding the colony of Louisiana. 

The raid on Haverhill is what led to the remarkable savagery of an English captive, Mrs. Hannah Dunstan, who proved more than a match for her Indian captors.  See Drake, 121-28.

175.  Drake, Border Wars, 134, 137, estimates that between 500 and 700 New Englanders died in the war and that hundreds more were taken into captivity.  The loss of life in the Acadian settlements was negligible.  The Acadians' greatest loss was in property and peace of mind.  The worst loss, of course, was among the Indians, especially the "victorious" Abenaki of Maine.  See Drake, Border Wars, 137-38, for a poignant summation of their loss.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 346, offers this balanced conclusion:  "Far from seeing the capture of Port Royal in 1690 as one more conquest of Acadia, it may be argued that during the Nine Years' War fewer than 1,000 Indians and a handful of Frenchmen strongly supported from seaward defeated Massachusetts.  Entering the war on a wave of self-confident aggression, the commonwealth ended it with its economy in disarray, with hundreds killed or taken captive, frontier settlements pushed back, and pleading with King William for support from the metropolis." 

175a.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 342, notes:  "Acadians, who did not live along the disputed coast or fish along Nova Scotia's southeast coast or at Chédabouctou, were largely isolated from the growing conflict [of the Nine Years' War], becoming caught in its entanglements only twice, in 1690 and again in 1696."  He is referring to the great majority of the Acadian families who lived in the Port-Royal valley & in the Fundy communities at Minas & Chignecto.  But a few Acadian families lived at Cap-Sable, which faced the Atlantic, at other Atlantic-side communities such as La Hève & Mirliguèche, & on Rivière St.-Jean near Villebon's fort, all closer to the fighting.  Pentagouët also was a part of greater Acadia. 

Another factor in the war's limited impact on the Acadians was their relatively small population.  There were not much more than a thousand settlers in greater Acadia at war's end.  Compare this to the much larger numbers in Canada & the exponentially larger numbers in the English Atlantic colonies, especially New England.  See note 166, above, which also references the Acadian censuses of 1686, 1687-88, 1689, & 1693, & compares the results with Canada & the English provinces.  For the 1698 census, the closest to war's end, see <acadian-home.org>; it counts inhabitants only at Port-Royal (575 persons, 982 cattle, 1,136 sheep, 568 hogs, 1,275 arpents cultivated, 1,584 fruit trees, 82 guns, 8 servants), Beaubassin (178 persons, 352 cattle, 176 sheep, 160 hogs, 298 arpents cultivated, & on Rivière St.-Jean (10 families & 1 bachelor); missing is Minas, where a substantial number were living.  Clark, Acadia, 128, says that "another limited count," in 1701, shows 456 at Port-Royal, 299 at Minas, 188 at Pisiguit, & 188 at Beaubassin.  On p. 129, Table 5.2, Clark, citing Rameau's 1889 study, includes the following distribution of population on peninsula Acadia in 1701, on the eve of Queen Anne's War:  1,153 at Port-Royal, Beaubassin, & Minas; 75 (including métis) at La Hève; 40, at Pubnico & the Cap-Sable area; 182 scattered along the Atlantic coast; total 1,450.  Clark says, p. 129, that a census in 1703 counted 504 at Port-Royal; 440 at Minas, including Pigiguit; & 87 at Cobeguit; total, 1,277 for these 3 settlement areas.  Clark adds:  "An estimate of 1,400 to 1,450 for the isthmus and the peninsula would seem reasonable for the turn of the century."  See also <acadian-home.org>. 

Pritchard notes on p. 342 that "Acadian settlements were indefensible ...."  Sadly true, with only Nashouat perhaps the exception. 

Pritchard, p. 255, remind us:  "Acadians [during French control of the colony] learned to coexist with both English and French so well that they referred to their New England neighbours as 'our friends, the enemy.'"  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 112, who renders the phrase in French:  nos amis les ennemis

176.  For continued Indian raids in New England, see Drake, Border Wars, 134-36.  In January 1699, the Abenakis signed a peace treaty with the New Englanders at Casco, and the raids in the region ended ... for now. 

177.  See Drake, Border Wars, 153, note 2.

178.  See Drake, Border Wars, 141-42. 

179.  See ibid., 142.  Leckie, Wars of America, 24-25, adds:  "... when Louis followed up his justifiable claim [to the Spanish throne] by a series of unwarranted aggressions, and then excluded English merchants from the Spanish colonial trade, the war began.  It was a commercial war to the death."  Mathé Allain, "In Search of a Policy, 1701-1731," in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 86-87, emphasizes the role of the Caribbean slave trade, or asiento, as a cause of the war.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 358-59, agrees that these were important causal factors & adds on p. 359 that "The War of the Spanish Succession differed from all previous French wars in the New World chiefly because Spain was an ally rather than an enemy."  Portugal started the war as a French ally but became an enemy in 1703. 

180.  See Drake, Border Wars, 142, 149-50, 153-54.  Frontenac had died in 1698, at the end of King William's War.  Villebon died suddenly on Rivière St.-Jean in 1700.  He was replaced temporarily by Claude-Sébastien de Villieu, who moved the colonial headquarters back to Port-Royal.  See Clark, Acadia, 113.  Brouillan, who remained at Port-Royal, was the contentious governor at Plaisance, Newfoundland, who had given Iberville such grief in the final months of King William's War.  See Crouse, LeMoyne d'Iberville, chap. 6.  

For the chronic failure of the French navy to protest France's colonies, see Pritchard, In Search of Empire, chaps. 6 & 7.

181.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars, 152, note 1. See also ibid., pp. 150-51; Arsenault, History, 66.

182.  See Drake, Border Wars, 154-70; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 394.  After the especially bloody rain on Wells, Maine, the Englanders placed a bounty on the head of Father Sébastien Râle, the Jesuit priest who ran the Abenaki mission at Norridgewock on the Kennebec.  See note 248, below. 

183.  See Drake, Border Wars, 172-86; Arsenault, History, 65; Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 394. 

184.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars, 193.  See also Leckie, Wars of America, 25.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 112, says that Church was still a major in 1704.  Parkman, France & England, 2:417, followed here, says that Gov. Dudley promoted him to colonel before the 1704 expedition. 

185.  See Drake, Border Wars, 194.  Arsenault, History, 65, claims that Church's force numbered 1,300.

186.  Quotations from Drake, Border Wars, 195-96; Arsenault, History, 65.  See also Drake, Border Wars, 201, for a critique of Gov. Dudley's orders to Church..

187.  See Arsenault, History, 65; Drake, Border Wars, 196-200; Ganong, Champlain's Island, 24, which says that Church burned the residence of the Sieur de Chartier near the mouth of the Ste.-Croix, now the site of Calais, Maine/St. Stephen, New Brunswick; Parkman, France & England, 2:418.   

Arsenault says that "Church easily took Pentagoët (Penobscot, Maine) while Vincent de Saint-Castain was in France and Saint-Castain's son, Anselme, was away with the Abenakis.  Church took prisoner or killed everyone in the place."  He probably was following Parkman, who says that Church's men "killed or captured everybody they found there," but says nothing of the whereabouts of the Saint-Castins.   

188.  See Arsenault, History, 65; Drake, Border Wars, 201; Clark, Acadia, 112; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 209; Parkman, France & England, 2:417-19.

Parkman, 2:419, a typical New Englishman, goes out of his way to contrast Church's actions at Grand-Pré with the French & Indians at Deerfield, but he does admit that the raid was "a miserable retaliation for a barbarous outrage; as the guilty were out of reach, the invaders turned their ire on the innocent." 

Arsenault's and Drake's chronologies, as well as some details, are different; for instance, Arsenault has Church attacking Port-Royal before he descended on Minas, and he claims that the Acadians themselves destroyed the dykes.  Drake & Parkman are followed here.  Griffiths points out how quickly the Minas Acadians repaired their broken dykes & restored the fertility of their reclaimed fields & pastures.

189.  See Drake, Border Wars, 201-02.  Arsenault, History, 65, using French accounts, insists that Church assaulted the Acadian capital and that the Port-Royal defenders offered a fierce resistance.  Drake, who follows English accounts, says otherwise.  Arsenault also claims that Church burned and pillaged many houses along the Port-Royal basin and took 30 prisoners from among the inhabitants, which is probably true.  Arsenault says that Gov. Brouillan, who had succeeded Villabon three years before, commanded the Port-Royal garrison during Church's operation, but Brouillan may have already left for France, never to return to Acadia, leaving his lieutenant, Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure, a grandnephew of Nicolas Denys, in charge of the colony.  See also Arsenault, p. 66.  Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 398, says that Church "destroyed the settlements of Grand Pré, Pigiquit, and Cobequid in the Minas Basin but failed to attack Port Royal though it was poorly fortified." 

190.  See Arsenault, History, 65-66, which insists that the Chignecto Acadians drove Church's force away; Clark, Acadia, 112; Drake, Border Wars, 202-04; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 111-12. 

Miller, "Chignecto," says that Church's raid against the Acadian settlement was in retaliation for the atrocities committed in New England  the year before by Sébastien de La Vallière de Beaubassin & his Indians.  Beaubassin, as Miller calls Sébastien, was a son of the original seigneur of Beaubassin, Michel de La Vallière, whose home was on present-day Tonge's Island near Beaubassin. 

At Norridgewock, if he had gone there, Church might have found the notorious Jesuit Father Sébastien Râle, who had long encouraged his Abenaki there to raid New England settlements in the region & on whose head New England authorities had laid a price the year before, after the raid on Wells, Maine.  See Drake, pp. 193, 203; notes 182 & 248, below. 

Drake, pp. 203-04, sums up Church's raid, with a typical insult for the Acadians & Indians:  "Thus ended Church's fifth and last expedition.  A wide extent of territory had been traversed, a few insignificant villages destroyed, and a number of prisoners, equal to those taken at Deerfield, brought way.  The expedition was looked upon in the main as a failure, and if the adaptation of means to ends be looked to, it was one.  So far from suffering loss, the Indians had been merely frightened away from their old haunts, like birds of prey before the fowler.  When he had passed on they came back again.  Nothing was more true or certain than that the geographical position of Port Royal was a constant menace to the New England fisheries.  And as its reduction had been the professed object of the expedition, the failure to attack it easily provoked suspicion all was not as it should be."  Italics added.  I would dare say that my Acadian ancestors in the "insignificant villages" at Minas & Chignecto would have expressed a different view of Church's punitive expedition, not to mention the Native "birds of prey" driven from "their old haunts." 

Faragher, p. 112, offers a conclusion from the Acadian perspective:  "With much of the annual grain crop destroyed, the inhabitants suffered famine the following winter.  Church's destruction of the Acadian settlements could not have been better calculated to turn neutrals into implacable enemies.  They were 'a nest of hornests provoked to fly upon us,' wrote Cotton Mather, and he worried that Church's expedition would be 'a shame cast upon us that will never be forgotten.' It marked a significant turn in Acadian history, for not only did Church destroy the settlements at Minas and Chignecto but also much of the former friendly feeling for nos amis les ennemis [our friends the enemy].  Indeed, Acadians would long remember Major[sic] Benjamin Church's assault."  He gives an example from the late 1740s of Acadian anxiety about the destruction of their dykes, as Church had done 4 decades before. 

In retaliation for the raid at Deerfield, Church took dozens of Acadian hostages to Boston, among them Noël Doiron and his soon-to-be-wife Marie Henry.  Noël was the aged Acadian patriarch aboard the English transport Duke William, which, while carrying Acadian exiles from the Maritimes to St.-Malo, France, in late 1758, was crippled in a mid-Atlantic storm.  The ship's captain averred that the aged patriarch was "a hundred and ten years old," but in truth Noël was "only" 74.  After all efforts had failed to save the vessel, and no other ship would come to their rescue, Noël embraced the captain and insisted that he and his crew take to the boats and save themselves, knowing full well that the ship, with all its passengers, including Noël's entire family, soon would plummet to the bottom of the sea.  See White, DGFA-1, 513, 519; White DGFA-1 English, 111. 

191.  See Drake, Border Wars, 205-08.

192.  See Drake, Border Wars, 208-15.  It was in 1705, perhaps during the hiatus in the fighting, that the young naval officer, Louis Denys de La Ronde, raided New England shipping from his base at Port-Royal.  Governor Brouillan had built an 18-20-gun frigate, the Biche, at Port-Royal for the defense of the colony, but the frigate was unfinished when La Ronde arrived at Port-Royal.  He used, instead, a smaller ship, a brig, to prey on the New Englanders--only strengthening their resolve to take Port-Royal; the Biche was not ready to leave Port-Royal until the spring of 1707.  La Ronde, at the head of a company of Canadians, helped successfully defend Port-Royal under Brouillan's successor, Subercase.  Interestingly, La Ronde also had been an associate of Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville, in Louisiana a few years earlier.  See Bernard Pothier & Donald J. Horton, "Denys de La Ronde, Louis," in DCB, 3:176-80, for La Ronde's career; also Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 397. 

193.  See Drake, Border Wars, 216-23.

194.  See Drake, Border Wars, 224-28.  Arsenault, History, 66, calls him Colonel Marsh.

195.  See Drake, Border Wars, 228.  Arsenault, History, 66, says the New Englanders arrived in front of Port-Royal on June 6, which is the New Style date.  One must remember that this was the time of the transition between the Old Style and New Style English calendars.  Drake uses the Old Style for consistency, which is used here.  Drake claims, citing French sources, that the sudden appearance of the New Englanders in such force unnerved the Port-Royal garrison but that Subercase was able to restore morale before the New Englanders attacked in earnest.  Jean-Vincent de Saint-Castin died sometime in 1707, and his son took over his fiefdom in Maine and became the fourth Baron de Saint-Castin.  See White, DGFA-1, 6. 

196.  See Drake, Border Wars, 228-29; Arsenault, History, 66.

197.  See Drake, Border Wars, 229-33.  Arsenault, History, 66, claims that March left behind at Port-Royal "about 100 dead and as many wounded."  The number of dead seems high considering the limited action during the siege.  One assumes that March took his wounded with him when he retreated to Casco.

A very detailed map of Annapolis Royal in 1710, found in Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29, shows near the fort the site of a "Church burned in 1707."  Did Marsh & his men burn the church--St.-Jean-Baptiste--during their aborted siege in May, or was it burned a few months later, in August, during a second unsuccessful attack on Port-Royal?  In a confrontation between members of the British garrison at Annapolis & haute rivière Acadians in Jan 1711, British Gov. Samuel Vetch arrested Father Justinien Durand, pastor of St.-Jean-Baptiste parish, at the St.-Laurent chapel, so the church in Annapolis village may not have been rebuilt.  See note 213a, below. 

198.  Drake, Border Wars, 233-34, says that March still commanded this second expedition.  Arsenault, History, 66, claims that March was replaced by Colonel Wainwright, one of his subordinates in the first venture, on the eve of the second expedition and that Wainwright took 2,000 men and 20 ships to Port-Royal in August.  Arsenault also claims that a "coastal buccaneer" warned Subercase of Wainwright's approach and that Subercase had time to ask for help from Jemseg and other far-flung Acadian settlements, including La Hève.  

199.  See Drake, Border Wars, 234-35.  Arsenault, History, 66-67, says the siege was lifted on September 4 (New Style calendar).  Drake says that while Wainwright's force fell back to their boats, Subercase sent out reinforcements to help Saint-Castin, and that the Frenchmen were roughly handled.  Leckie, Wars of America, 25, dismisses the 1707 ventures at Port-Royal as "a brief exchange of shots that can best be described as a token fight."

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 397, concludes that the "bravery and gallant service" of the garrison at Port-Royal in the summer of 1707 "could not hide the fact that the northern colonies had been abandoned [by France] in their hour of need.  Port Royal had been rescued in June by Canadians and in August by buccaneers from Saint-Domingue."  Pritchard offers no details on how the Saint-Domingue buccaneers helped drive March & Wainwright away other than, "One week before the second New England attack, Pierre Morpain, captain of L'Intrépide, sailed into Port Royal with several prizes and carrying more than 600 barrels of flour, which he delivered to Governor Subercase."  We must assume that Morpain's crew helped man Port-Royal's guns, & that their flour helped sustain the garrison.   

199a.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 129, 130.  For the censuses of 1707 & 1708, see <acadian-home.org>

200.  See Drake, Border Wars, 236-49.

201.  See Drake, Border Wars, 251; Arsenault, History, 67-68.  Pothier & Horton, "Denys de La Ronde," 3:177, says that Denys de La Ronde, aboard the Biche, took the news of Port-Royal's successful defense to the French Court, exchanged the Biche for a larger ship, the Venus, returned to Acadian waters, &, beginning in Aug 1707, engaged in privateering, but was persuaded to participate in a campaign in Newfoundland in late 1708, leaving "Port-Royal to its fate."  There probably were other French privateers using Port-Royal as a base during that time.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 112, says that trade between the Fundy Acadians & the New Englanders continued after Church's raid in 1704, "but there was less tolerance for it by both sides." 

202.  See Drake, Border Wars, 250-51; Leckie, Wars of America, 25.  Drake promotes Vetch to the rank of colonel; Leckie calls him a captain.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 230, says that Vetch received his promotion from captain to colonel in London in Feb 1709, 2 months before he returned to Boston.  When the expedition against Port-Royal finally got underway in the fall of 1710, Nicholson had been promoted from colonel to "General and Commander-in-Chief."  See Griffiths, p. 233.

203.  See Bruce T. McCully, "Nicholson, Francis," in DCB, 2:496-99; G. M. Waller, "Vetch, Samuel," in DCB, 2:650-52; Drake, Border Wars, 250-51.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 112, says that Vetch, who not only was a trader but a smuggler, had traded for "several hundred pounds in furs" in 1706 while on a diplomat mission to Port-Royal, that Vetch's chief customer, in fact, was Acadian Gov. Subercase. 

204.  See Drake, Border Wars, 251-52.  Leckie, Wars of America, 25-26, says that Vetch's plan also included an English offensive against Spanish FL.  Leckie's numbers are slightly different from Drake's:  200 from NJ instead of 300.  Leckie provides the figures for the regulars and includes NH militiamen in the seaborne operation.  Drake states that Vetch went to NY with Nicholson.  Leckie's version of events keeps Vetch in Boston, as does McCully, "Nicholson," 2:497.  Waller, "Vetch," 2:651, implies that Vetch remained in Boston to await "the arrival of the promised British ships and sailors" that did not come. 

205.  See Drake, Border Wars, 252-53; Leckie, Wars of America, 26; McCully, "Nicholson," 2:497.  NJ and PA provided money instead.  Anderson, Crucible of War, 20, says that the Iroquois "cooperated minimally" with the venture "and delayed a planned invasion of Canada until it had to be aborted."

206.  See Drake, Border Wars, 253; Leckie, Wars of America, 26.

207.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars, 254.  See also Leckie, Wars of America, 26-27.  The Moody whom Drake mentions probably was William Moody, a New Englander from Exeter who later fell into the hands of the Abenaki and was burnt alive at the stake.  See Drake, pp. 256-59. 

208.  Quotation from Leckie, Wars of America, 26-27.  Drake, Border Wars, 254, says that after the debacle of 1709, Nicholson went back to England to solicit help for the 1710 venture against Port-Royal.  Also going to England to elicit support for the venture was Peter Schuyler, a prominent New Yorker, who took several Mohawk chiefs along.  The Indians proved to be a sensation in London.  They even received an audience with the queen.  See Drake, pp. 254-56.  For the specifics of the New England force, see Drake, p. 259.  Leckie, Wars of America, 27, puts it at 400 British marines and 1,500 militia.  Arsenault, History, 69, 70, insists that the English fleet arrived at the Port-Royal basin on September 18 and did not land in front of the fort until October 6.  Drake and Leckie are followed here.  

209.  Quotations from Drake, Border Wars, 260.  See also Leckie, Wars of America, 27.  Arsenault, History, 67, dates Subercase's letter to Count Pontchartrain, as October 1, 1709, a year before Nicholson's attack.  

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 398, offers the usual grand perspective for the plight of Subercase as well as his Acadian charges:  "Military defeats in Europe--Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and Oudenarde (1708)--shattered the prestige of French arms, and the collapse of the navy increasingly left the northern colonies on their own.  Pontchartrain [the minister of marine and chief minister for colonial affairs] had never considered them very valuable and had no resources to succor them even had he thought otherwise.  In 1708, the thoroughly beaten New Englanders, on the other hand, appealed to England for aid.  It finally arrived off Port Royal two years later in the form of a fleet of 34 vessels including seven warships and a landing force of 1,500 troops."  In other words, France was defeated, & French Acadia was doomed. 

210.  Quotation from Leckie, Wars of America, 27, whose dates follow Drake, Border Wars, 260-61.  Arsenault, History, 69-71, says that the fort held out for 19 days and surrendered on October 12.

211.  See Arsenault, History, 71; Clark, Acadia, 113; Drake, Border Wars, 261; Leckie, Wars of America, 27. 

The name "Nova Scotia" was used by the English as far back as the 1620s, when King James I had awarded French Acadia to his good Scots friend, Sir William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling.  See note 19, above. 

212.  Quotation from Drake, Border Wars, 261, 262.  See also Arsenault, History, 71, 73; Parkman, France & England, 2:463, who says Vetch's title was "General and Commander-in-Chief of all his Majesty's troops in these parts, and Governor of the fort of Annapolis Royal, country of l'Accady and Nova Scotia."  And he was only the second in command! 

Vaudreuil's reply to Nicholson's threat was a threat of his own, to retaliate in kind if the English mistreated the Acadians.  Milling, Exile Without End, 5, says that the agreement between the British & the French after the fall of Port-Royal in 1710 gave the inhabitants of the Port-Royal area 2 years to remove themselves beyond the 3-mile limit of British control.  

Placing Nicholson's 3-miles of protection in perspective, Clark, Acadia, 130, says:  "... we are safe in assuming at least 1,500 and perhaps as many as 2,000 Acadians ..." were living in Acadia "when the British assumed permanent control of the peninsula in 1710.  And these, now almost all second-to-fourth generation settlers, were thoroughly 'Acadian' in feeling, habit, and economy." 

213.  Quotation from Arsenault, History, 73.

213a.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 133-34.  Faragher, p. 134, continues:  "A few months later, Christophe Cahouet, an Acadian merchant and officer in the Port Royal militia, told French authorities that the group who seized Capon had been led by Abraham Gaudet of Beaubassin, and included 'three mulattoes from the coast' (métis living in Míkmaw communities), as well as two Irish deserters from the British garrison."  Broussard died in Dec 1716, in his early 60s; his sons Alexandre & Joseph dit Beausoleil, the future resistance fighters, were 12 & 10, respectively, when their father was held hostage, the incident no doubt having a profound affect on them.  See White, DGFA-1, 284-85.  For a detailed map of the haute rivière, c1707, including the location of Pierre LeBlanc's habitant, see Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29.  See also Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 10-11; Perrin, W. A., Acadian Redemption, 4, who incorrectly places the incident in 1713.

214.  Arsenault, History, 73-74, says there were 80 Brits at Bloody Creek.  Drake Border Wars, 284-85, does not mention the fight at Bloody Creek, only that the garrison at "Annapolis" was much reduced & that the Acadians were ripe for open rebellion once reinforcements arrived from Canada.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 246, argues that it cannot be proved if there were any Acadians in the fight at Bloody Creek because Saint-Castin had arrived in the area only days before the skirmish & had no time to recruit any of the locals before he fell upon the British force.  She says that "at least" 15 Brits were killed in the fight, including the detachment's commander, a Captain Pidgeon, who commanded 70 men, not 80.  Griffiths, p. 247, says that immediately after the fight at Bloody Creek, the Abenaki & Mi'kmaq with Saint-Castin as well as the Acadians in & around Annapolis Royal imposed a "semi-siege" on the British garrison & even killed some of the soldiers who went amongst them for supplies.  Parkman, France & England, 2:463, paints a darker picture, writing that, after the fight at Bloody Creek, "This completely changed the attitude of the Acadians [living in the banlieue].  They broke their oath, rose against their new master, and with their Indian friends, invested the fort to the number of five or six hundred."  Parkman says that by then the New English garrison had been reduced by disease or desertion "to about two hundred effective men...."  Parkman says that the leaders of the besieging Acadians was the priest, Gaulin, "missionary of the Micmacs and prime mover in the rising," that it was Father Gaulin went to Placentia seek munitions but failed. 

On the eve of the fight at Bloody Creek, Vetch had been recalled to Boston to lead the New England troops in the impending Walker expedition against Québec.  Sir Charles Hobby was left in charge of the fort, & it was he who was besieged by the Indians & the local Acadians. 

If anyone doubts that the Acadians of this time were capable of an armed insurrection against the British ... or against any abusive authority ... one has only to consult the Acadian censuses of 1686, 1693, 1698, 1700, 1701, and 1703, which detail the number of "guns" in each household and reveal that these peaceful farmers were a well-armed population.  The Census of 1703, taken by the French at the beginning of Queen Anne's War, is especially revealing as it details how many "arms bearers" each Acadian household could provide.  See <acadian-cajun.com/acadia4.htm>; <acadian-home.org>; Griffiths, p. 531, note 141.  

215.  Quotation from Leckie, Wars of America, 28, who uses the phrase "armchair admiral."  Drake, Border Wars, 267-83, devotes an entire chapter to the details of the 1711 (misad)venture.  See also Arsenault, History, 72; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 248; McCully, "Nicholson," 2:497; Waller, "Vetch," 2:651.  Anderson, Crucible of War, 20, assigns a prominent role to the Iroquois in aborting Nicholson's expedition:  "In 1711 they [the Iroquois] showed ostensible enthusiasm for another expedition [against Canada], while quietly sending word of what was afoot to the French; thus they thwarted the second invasion [of Canada] as effectively as the first."  In English the Île-aux-Oeufs would be translated as Egg Island or the Isle of Eggs.  See the map in Drake, Border Wars, 278, for the location of the disaster.  See also Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 399-400, offers the usual wide perspective. 

Waller, "Vetch," 2:651, says that Vetch reinforced the Annapolis Royal garrison on his way back from Walker's failed expedition, leaving there George Vane, an military engineer, and Thomas Caulfield as a replacement for Charles Hobby. Vetch then continued on to Boston to spend the winter of 1711-12 there. 

216.  Quotation from Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 400.  See Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, for the details of the Peace of Utrecht, which actually was a series of treaties negotiated between the war's many belligerents and signed from April 11, 1713, to November 5, 1715.  See also Arsenault, History, 74-75. 

One of the rewards Britain received from the Peace of Utrecht was a monopoly on transporting slaves from West Africa to the Spanish colonies in the New World--the asiento de negros.  See Pritchard, p. 400. 

Pritchard, p. 400, makes the sobering observation that, on the eve of the Peace of Utrecht, "Though Port Royal was lost, Acadia was not...," implying that France was not compelled by military circumstances to give up the Acadian peninsula.  After pointing out that the successful defense of the northern colonies was due not to French arms but to the colonists themselves, Pritchard goes on:  "From a colonial viewpoint nothing accounted for the huge surrenders of French territory in the Americas that arose from the Treaty of Utrecht that France signed with her European enemies on 12 April 1713.  French colonists would learn that the Americas were to be won or lost on the battlefields of Europe rather than at sea or in the New World."  See p. 421 for a summation of France's obsession with "continentalism" & its affect on its overseas empire, including the observation:  "Colonial possessions were not so tied to the Crown as ever to place colonialism above continentalism."  And, on p. 422:  "Colonists and their leaders were shaped by circumstances far more than might be expected in light of absolutism's image of itself and attempts to regulate and control development.  During the decades between 1670 and 1730, France was always too preoccupied with dynastic (i.e., continental) interests and conflict to expend time, manpower, and wealth on colonies." 

Mathé Allain, "In Search of a Policy, 1701-1731," in Conrad, ed., The French Experience in Louisiana, 88, notes ominously:  "The prize territorial plum England picked up at Utrecht was Acadia, the cession of which began the encirclement of New France."  She adds:  "The loss of Acadia made imperative French development of new lines of defense.  Their response, the erection of a chain of forts from Louisbourg to Mobile, produced constant friction between the French and English colonies for the next half century." And, on p. 89:  "... the changes wrought in the colonial map carried the seeds of future conflict ..." a circumstance that would prove dire to the peace-loving Acadians. 

217.  Quotation from Parkman, France & England, 2:477. 

Drake, Border Wars, 285, in the conclusion of his study of King William's and Queen Anne's wars, hints darkly at the fate of the Acadians.  See also Clark, Acadia, 186. 

The transition here in terminology from "English" to "British" is deliberate.  From her accession to the throne in 1702 until 1707, Queen Anne's official title was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland.  In 1707, upon the Act of Union that joined Scotland to England and Wales, she was proclaimed Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, so "Britain" and "British" will be the descriptors I normally will use in subsequent chapters.  For an excellent summary of the circumstances that led Scotland to unite, finally, with England, see Taylor, A., American Colonies, 293-94. 

Even though after 1713 the name "Acadia" no longer applied to the peninsula east of the Bay of Fundy, & "Nova Scotia" now was its proper name, the French settlers living in British Nova Scotia still called themselves, and were called by others, Acadians.

For the boundary question, see Parkman, France & England, 2:928-29, which reminds us that the question plagued the British & the French for decades to come & that the question was, in fact, a major cause of 2 more wars between Britain & France in North America.  

Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 401, is especially good in pointing out the contrast between British & French claims over Acadian boundaries:  "Acadia's 'ancient boundaries' were never agreed upon.  British claims extended the new territory to the St. Lawrence River, while French claims successfully confined British sovereignty to peninsular Nova Scotia and conserved all the islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Cape Breton Island, and the mainland from the Chignecto isthmus as far south as the Kennebec River."  Italics added.  Pritchard adds:  "This territory continued to be occupied by the people of the Abenaki Confederacy," a fact that would plague New Englanders for more years to come. 

Parkman, 2:477, says of the boundary "discussions" after 1713:  "This and other disputed questions of boundary were to be settled by commissioners of the two powers; but their meetings were put off for forty years, and then their discussions ended in the Seven Years' War," which began in North American in 1754 & in Europe 2 years later. 

218.  Quotation from Parkman, France & England, 2:906.  See also Arsenault, History, 75, who gives a detailed analysis of the treaty and its provisions; Clark, Acadia, 196.  

218a.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 196.  See also ibid., p. 186; note 242, below. 

219.  See Arsenault, History, 75-76, 79; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 251, 269-74.  Parkman, France & England, 2:473-75, 906-07, 928-29, typical of devout Protestant scholars, emphasizes the role of the French priests in stirring up the Acadians against the British.  Milling, Exile Without End, 5, says "The majority of the Acadians expressed a desire to remove to Canada," but that the British authorities more or less tricked them into staying.  

The only substantive agreement on Acadian boundaries after the War of the Spanish Succession was reached in Sep 1720, when French diplomats, "with the Regent's full support, insisted that Canso Island was a part of [French-held] Île Royale [today's Cape Breton Island], and the British accepted that any islands lying north of the mainland (i.e., peninsular Nova Scotia) and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence were French possessions."  See Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 417.  This opened up the flood gates for peninsula Acadians to move to Île Royale & especially to Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, which was considered a part of the French Maritime colony headquartered at Louisbourg on Île Royale. 

220.  Quotation from Arceneaux, No Spark of Malice, 47.  Arsenault, History, 77-78, points out that some of the younger families without land left the Annapolis & Minas basins & moved to Chepoudy & Petitcoudiac to escape British rule.  An example of this migration would be the Beausoleil Broussard brothers of the upper Annapolis valley.  The French also tried to lure Acadians to their Maritime province, & many of them went, but most refused to budge.  See also Clark, Acadia, 195; Parkman, France & England, 2:462-63. 

The oldest families in Acadia who produced successful lines were, in alphabetical order, Bourg, Brun, Comeau, Doucet, Dugas, Gaudet, Gautrot, Girouard, Hébert, Landry, Martin, Thériot, and Trahan, whose patriarchs had settled in the colony by 1640.  See Appendix.   

221.  See Clark, Acadia, 196-97. 

The term "French Neutrals" has a complex history.  Its use dates from 1730, when the Acadians took a conditional oath to the British crown, administered by Gov. Phillips, & insisted that they would remain "neutral" in any struggle between Britain and France.  In discussing the Acadian Grand Dérangement, Oubre, Vacherie, 53, says:  "These Acadians, called by the English 'French Neutrals," simply became 'prisoners of war' ..." during the Exile.  True enough; after a time, the British called them that, but it was a term that the Acadians had first applied to themselves.  Despite British efforts to force the Acadians into taking an unconditional oath to the British crown, which would have made them anything but "neutral," the name stuck, & during the Exile, British colonists referred to the Acadians as the "Neutral French," perhaps to distinguish them from the French Canadians, who were anything but "neutral" in the struggle between the imperial powers.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, xvi, explains:  "The Acadians have always had trouble convincing people that they are a truly distinctive community, not merely a small colony of expatriate Frenchmen or an appendage of Quebec.  One of the major determinants in the chain of events that resulted in the deportation of 1755 was the refusal of both England and French to accept the Acadians' definition of themselves as 'les français neutres."  Italics added. 

222.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 186-87.  See also ibid., p. 200. 

Clark, p. 187, note 1, says:  "It was observed that Acadians, if only for their knowledge of snowshoes and canoes, were worth five times the number of new men" for Île Royale. 

222a.  Quotation from ibid., p. 69, note 42. 

222b.  See note 157, above, for Southack's actions during King William's War. 

222c.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 69, 187.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 315. 

222d.  Quotations from McCully, "Nicholson," 2:497; Waller, "Vetch," 2:652; Clark, Acadia, 188.  Clark, p. 188, adds that Philips was in Nova Scotia, at either Canso or Annapolis Royal, only from 1720-23 & 1729-31.  See also Maxwell Sutherland, "Phillips, Richard," in DCB, 3:514-18.

After Vetch fled from Annapolis Royal to England in Apr 1714, he never returned to America.  In his final years, he spent time in an English debtors' prison.  See Waller, "Vetch," 2:652.

Clark; & Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, spell the major's name Caulfeild, followed here. 

222e.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 188.  Clark, p. 188, says:  "As late as 1740, [lieutenant governor Paul] Mascarene pointed out that there was still only two or three English families besides the garrison...."  This would change dramatically in 1749, 36 years after the British assumed official control of the colony. 

222f.  Quotation from ibid., pp. 188-89. 

For details of the evolution of French colonial government in Canada, see Parkman, France & England, 1:1288ff.  For Louisiana's Superior Council, formed in 1712 at the beginning of the Crozat regime, see Brasseaux, Foucault and the Rebellion of 1768, 58. 

Mascarene said of the use of district deputies:  "'... (the inhabitants) [at Minas, which he was visiting on a "tribute-collecting mission" in 1714] desir'd of me to have the Liberty to choose some particular number of men amongst them who should represent the whole, by reason of the most of the people living scattered far off & not able to attend a Considerable time, I easily consented to it and they chose Mr. Peter Melancon [founder of Grand-Pré in 1682 & in his early 80s at the time] & ye four formerly Capts of their Militia with another man from Manis (Minas), one for Chicconecto & one from Cobequid.'"  Quotations from Clark, p. 189.  Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 267, says that Mascarene initiated the use of deputies representing Acadian communities in 1710 but that the practice was not formalized until 1714.  Mascarene would serve as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia from 1740-49. 

222g.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 189. 

222h.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 190-91; Parkman, France & England, 2:906.  See also Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 17.  For a detailed discussion of Acadian anti-clericalism, see note 48, above. 

222i.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 191. 

222j.  See ibid.  The failure "to dilute their faith and allegiance" by importing Protestant settlers into Nova Scotia would give Governor Shirley of Massachusetts & Lieutenant-governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia an excuse for using an even more drastic measure to neutralize the Acadian population (no pun intended), but that will be detailed in Book Two of this work. 

222k.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 267.  See also Clark, Acadia, 191. 

222l.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 261-62, 267. 

222m.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 268-69, 279, 302-03.  See also Maxwell Sutherland, "Armstrong, Lawrence," in DCB, 2:23. 

Griffith, p. 268, speculates that the qualified oath taken at Port-Royal to George I in 1714 was written by one of the Robichaud brothers, perhaps Prudent, who served as judge and syndic at Port-Royal during the early years of British rule. 

Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 24-26, perhaps following Sutherland, "Armstrong," adds a violent spin to the confrontation between the volatile Armstrong & the Annapolis Acadians in Sep 1726:  "In September, Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong's council ordered four deputies--Abraham Bourg, William Bourgeois, François Richard, and Charles Landry--to assemble Acadians at Fort Anne where, after first taking the oath from the council themselves, the deputies would then be required to administer it to each of the Acadians.  The deputies, however, had another plan.  They brought Acadians to the fort, but made it very clear that they had no intention of taking the oath unless the council first agreed to a a petition signed by all seventy-one of them.  In it, they asked for amendments to the oath that included, among other things, an exemption from bearing arms and the provision of more priests.  Armstrong flew into a rage and had the deputies charged with 'assembling Acadians in a riotous manner' and for 'framing a rebellious paper.'  Three of them were thrown into the dungeon.  The fourth, Abraham Bourg, in consideration of his advanced age [he would have been age 64], was released on condition that he immediately leave the province.  The Acadians who refused to sign the oath lost all marine privileges--the right to use their boats or ships for fishing or trading in the Bay of Fundy--until such time as the absent Governor Phillips decided otherwise.  Since many of them made their living from the sea, the order created severe hardship for their families."  Marshall tells a good story, but, sadly, she does not provide citations for any of them, only a bibliography; Griffith's cited version is followed here. 

222n.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 194.  See also Marshall, Acadian Resistance, chaps. 1 & 2; Perrin, W. A., Acadian Redemption, chaps 1 & 2; White, DGFA-1, 284-85; note 213a, above.

Clark goes on to say of the Chignecto Acadians, which may have included some of the author's Cormier ancestors:  "This unfriendly attitude of the settlers on the isthmus was suggested much earlier by Mascarene.  In June of 1741 he observed:  'The inhabitants of Chignecto appear in all things of a refractory spirit; their paying the king's dues unwillingly and in bad species (sic), doth not show well in their favour....'"

The author is proud to say that, on his father's side, he is a direct descendant of both Joseph and Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil

223.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 24, 27.

223a.  Quotation from ibid., p. 162.  See also ibid., p. 241. 

224.  Quotation from ibid., p. 30.  See also ibid., p. 242. 

The high tides in the Fundy region may have led to another innovation among the Acadians.  Clark, p. 151, writes that in 1699 the French commander of Acadia, Villebon, visited Minas.  "He noted one sawmill in existence with another planned, a windmill, and some seven or eight water gristmills.  There is no clue, however, as to whether any of these really were 'tidal mills' for which such unusually good conditions existed." 

224a.  Quotation from ibid., p. 50.  See also pp. 51-55, 230.  Note 33, above, contains a speculation on the origin of the dyking operation at Port-Royal & mentions another important byproduct of the process:  the creation of salt for the cod fishery. 

224b.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 161-62, 238, 240.  See also ibid., p. 239 (Fig. 7, entitled "A Typical Dyke in the Marshlands").

For Dièreville, see Jacques Rousseau, "Dièreville (Dierville, Dière de Dièreville)," in DCB, 2:188-89.  Dièreville used the word Aboteaux to describe the dyke, not the sluice.  Clark, p. 162, says:  "The word aboiteau is a curious one, used not for the dyke itself but for the clapper valves (wooden gates on horizontal hinges [also called clapets]) which opened seaward to let out the fresh water from the streams and drains behind the dykes at low tide, and were forced closed by the incoming tide to keep out the salt water."  One wonders if the word "aboiteau" a local term.  One is hard put to find it in a French-English dictionary, nor does it appear in Louisiana French & Cajun French dictionaries.  See Bruce & Gipson, Cajun-English Dictionary/Phrasebook; Daigle, Dictionary of the Cajun Language; Valdman & Rottet, eds., Dictionary of LA French.  The Acadians had no opportunity to build dykes & aboiteaux in any of the areas where they settled in South LA, so the term would have been forgotten there after a generation or two, lost in the mists of memory. 

For Deschamp, see Wikipedia, "Isaac Deschamps." 

224c.  Quotation from ibid., p. 240. 

Clark, p. 240, note 121, tells us:  "The ultimate in aboiteaux are huge engineering structures built in the twentieth century in the Minas and Chignecto area.  They resemble hydro-electric power dams in size and strength."  One wonders if, ironically, any Acadian descendants helped in designing & constructing these modern marvels. 

225.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 48-49, 237-38.  See also ibid., pp. 51-52, 62, 166, 241-42; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29, which includes a colored cross section of a typical dyke & aboiteau. 

Clark, p. 161, note 125, after pointing out the remarkable amount of upland cleared at Port-Royal in 1687 & 1689, reminds us:  "Acadians always seemed to prefer to use dyked land if it was available, even if it required a great deal of work."  He points out on p. 162 that "Dièreville was overly optimistic about the period necessary to 'wash out' the salt; two full years was a minimum and perhaps more usually years was involved," but Cadillac, who lived at Port-Royal during the early 1690s, also mentioned the 2-year period.   

Clark, p. 236, asserts that "In 1701 the average worked (défrichée) was one acre per capita (five to ten acres per farm family), and in 1707 it was no greater."  Clark, pp. 236-37, adds:  "It is clear that the dyked land was a small part of each farm.  From the late 1680's Rameau [who wrote in the 1880s] inferred 'holdings' of fifty to one hundred hectares.  Allowing that arpents was meant, and that he exaggerated, even fifty acres was a lot of land in comparison with the normal share of plowed dyked land.  Armstrong categorically asserted in 1734 that they had many times this amount (most of them, he reported, had a mile in frontage and a league in depth--i.e., roughly two thousand acres) without any conditions of enclosing or fencing.  We need not speculate on the credibility of such a claim, for, in fact, little upland was used; claims to larger areas of upland were not likely to cause dispute since they served largely as rough pasture and wood lots.  the small holdings of precious dyked marshland might be sections of narrow strips along the shore of a bay or tidal stream or a variably-shaped sector of a larger marshland area." 

226.  Quotations from Drake, Border Wars, 201, note 1; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 49; Clark, Acadia, 24 (note 19), 231-32.  Ibid., 24, note 19, cites studies of the New England-Nova Scotia shoreline by W. F. Ganong (1903) & D. W. Johnson (1925), 161.  See also ibid., pp. 163-64, 241-42. 

Clark, pp. 158-61, contains a number of French official complaints about the "laziness" of the Acadians for "neglecting" the uplands, but also cites some officials who agreed with the Acadians.  Vincent Saccardy, a French engineer sent to Port-Royal in 1689 to rebuild the fortifications there, spent a month observing the Acadians and imagined himself an expert on their way of life.  In referring to the Acadians' neglect of the uplands, the engineer not only condemned them for their laziness but also for promoting idleness among their children because the latter did not have to "manure" the dyked lands or plow the uplands to keep busy!  Evidently Saccardy believed that soil could be too rich for the Acadians' own good--paternalism personified.  Saccardy went on to report about the Acadians & their children:  "...living this sort of life cramps their outlook and results in their children leaving home for other low-lying lands, such as those at Grand Pré."  Saccardy did point out, however, with some justification, that using the dyked fields to grow crops could lead to a shortage of hay & pasturage for cattle.  This would apply, however, only to an area with a shortage of dykable marshes, such as the Port-Royal valley.  Chignecto & Minas, thoroughly settled at the time, had no such shortage, at least not for the foreseeable future.  See Clark, p. 159.  Governor Villebon, in the late 1690s, also hit upon a problem with dyking the marshlands & neglecting the uplands.  "The upland, he felt, was much more reliable in view of the danger of dyke failure and the need for a two-year lapse in use after dyke-repair to wash out the salt."  See Clark, p. 160.  One governor from the late 1680s, however, perceived a good reason for the Acadians' to live close to the dykable marshes:  "Meneval points out that the Acadians would have had to clear a substantial area around their houses and fields to keep the wild predators (bears and wolves?) away from themselves and their livestock if they moved further inland (i.e, away from the streams)."  See Clark, p. 159, note 117.  The Sieur de Dièreville, "a man of some little scientific and literary education, visited Port Royal in ... 1699, and provides us with a different view on the marsh versus upland problem.  'It costs a great deal to prepare the lands which they wish to cultivate; those called Uplands, which must be cleared in the Forest, are not goo, & the seed does not come up well in them; it makes no difference how much trouble is taken to bring them in condition with Manure, which is very scarce:  there is almost no harvest, & sometimes they have to be abandoned."  See Clark, p. 160. 

Clark, p. 244, says of Acadian use of manure:  "Little use was made of any animal manure, although the winter was a light labor season that would have allowed time for spreading it."  If the Acadians had needed manure for improving the fertility of their fields, they certainly would have used it. 

The map in Clark, p. 28, figure 2.4, entitled "Bay of Fundy:  Tidal Ranges and Tidal Marshes," highlighting salt-marsh areas in black, could just as well be labeled "Sites of Acadian Settlement, 1636-1700."  

Clark, p. 237-38, estimates that by 1750, the Acadians had cleared only about 500 acres of forested upland, as opposed to "a putative 13,000 acres of dyked marshland."  For an Englishman who understood why Acadians made relatively little use of the uplands, see George Morris's description of Acadian agriculture in ibid., pp. 241-42. 

226a.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 236-37; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 175

226b.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 241. 

226c.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 165-66, 230, 242; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29.

Clark, p. 151, says that Villebon, on a visit to Minas in 1699, noted "the industry of the women in spinning and weaving wool and linen." 

Clark, p. 230, adds that in the 1700s "the potato had still not arrived...." 

227.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 165-66, 242.  See also ibid., pp. 144, 151, 154, 158-61, 164; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 310-11. 

Clark, p. 151, says that fruit orchards "were widespread in both Minas and Beaubassin in 1698," having been planted since the beginning of colonization in each of the settlements (1672 at Beaubassin, 1682 at Minas).  On p. 166, he says that the farms at Port-Royal in 1698 averaged 35 fruit trees per farm. 

227a.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 167, 169-70, 243.  See also ibid., pp. 166, 168, 230, 233-35. 

228.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 167-69, 243-44; Webster, Acadia, 139.  See also Clark, pp. 166, 233-35, 244; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29. 

Beauvais is in Picardy, north of Paris. 

Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 175, echoing Dièreville & Clark, says:  "While the Acadians kept sheep and cattle, it was pigs that, along with game and fish, most often provided the protein in their diet."  Clark, p. 243, notes:  "Sheep and hogs received virtually no notice from eighteenth century observers, except as reported in cargoes shipped to Louisbourg for meat." 

Clark, pp. 166-67, points out the inconsistencies in counting horses among the various Acadian communities in the late 1600s.  He also notes inconsistencies in counting cattle & sheep during that period & observes on p. 167:  "it is questionable if any substantial part of the swine population ever was counted."  His Table 5.8 on p. 167, entitled "Numbers of livestock reported for Port Royal in various censuses, 1671-1707," reveals the amazing number of sheep among the Acadians during those years. 

228a.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 173, 175.  See also ibid., pp. 167, 169-71, especially Table 5.8 & Figure 5.10, entitled "Degrees of Commercialism as Measured by Holdings of Livestock Per Capita among Farm Families," & included the communities of Port-Royal, Minas, Beaubassin, & Cobeguit. 

Clark, pp. 175-76, reminds us that, as to commerce with New England, "(usually clandestine, always officially interdicted, but sometimes of substantial dimensions), ... because it was more nearly and more regularly under an official eye, Port Royal never could enjoy the benefits of this trade as freely as could the outlying settlements up the bay." 

Clark, p. 234, Fig. 6.9, is entitled "Acadian census of people, land, and livestock, 1707," & is very detailed, as is ibid., p. 235, Fig. 6.10, entitled "Population, livestock, and grain production figures for the Bay area, 1714 and 1715."  Again, on p. 235, Clark laments the dearth of evidence on Acadian horses, concluding, tongue in cheek, that "there seems to be almost a conspiracy to hide the presence of horses from us." 

229.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 63 (note 23), 135, 247.  See also ibid., pp. 185. 

Clark, p. 247, details some of the vessels, including their respective sizes, held by Fundy Acadians in 1720 & the late 1740s. 

Clark, p. 184, says of the inland trails:  "Transportation by land was of minor importance.  Almost certainly there were trails across the peninsula used by the Indians to communicate with La Have and Mirliguèche and other places on the southern coast but most of the land trails were short portages around rapids, and between headwaters of opposite-flowing streams.  At the turn of the [eighteenth] century, when the settlement at Minas was beginning to rival Port Royal in importance, there was still no cart road between them; only a foot-and bridle track was serviceable."  This was especially amazing since the headwaters of Rivière Dauphin, which flowed past Port-Royal, & River St.-Antoine, which flowed into the Minas Basin, were fairly close together.  See Clark, p. 17, Fig. 2.2. 

229a.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 178, 243-44, 246-47.  See also ibid., pp. 143, 150, 156, 231, 248; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 20

Mascarene, in 1720, was the first to speak of "'their young men who have not much work at farming begett themselves to fishing in the summer.'"  One assumes he was referring to the Atlantic cod fishery as well as fishing for other species in the Bay of Fundy. 

230.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 135, 138; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 177. 

230a.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 177, 243 (including note 128).   See also ibid., p. 178. 

231.  Quotation from ibid., pp. 176-77.  See also ibid., pp. 122, 133, 135-38, 209; Appendix for pre-dispersal Acadian church parishes.  

232.  Quotations from Clark, Acadia, 139, 158.  See also ibid., p. 236. 

Clark, p. 203, asserts:  "... in fact no entirely new districts were colonized. There were no substantial areas of tidally flooded land that had not been tried before 1710, but there was plenty of opportunity for expansion in most of them.  Spotty although the settlement of the outlying areas was in 1710, by mid-century almost every area where marsh could be easily dyked, and many that involved much labor and ingenuity to enclose, had some settlers."  Note 39 on the same page adds:  "Movement from the Cumberland Basin or Shepody into the tidal estuaries of the Petitcodiac and Memramcook rivers [the trois-rivières] may have been the major expansion.  New settlements along the south shore of the Strait of Northumberland [what the French called the Mere-Rouge], as at Tatamagouche and Remsheg (Wallace Bay), were associated with emigration to Isle St-Jean and trade with Cape Breton.  There was little settlement at Baie Verte before the establishment of Fort Gaspereau [1750]." 

Clark, after studying Acadian population figures, asserts on p. 208:  "Substantial emigration from Port Royal [sic] throughout the period [of British control] is indicated, especially of young couples in their more fertile years." 

See Clark, p. 251, Fig. 6.4, entitled "The Acadian Lands:  Routes of Communication, 1710-1748," for the many coastal & internal routes connecting British Nova Scotia with parts of greater Acadia, much of which is described in this geographical survey. 

233.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 141, 143, 177. 

233a.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 176, 180.  See also ibid., pp. 179-81; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 176. 

Clark, pp. 182-83, says that the Sieur de Dièreville observed at Port-Royal in late 1699:  "'In such a vast Country, where Trade should be open to all in order that it might be established, no one dares to do any business; if a Settler attempts anything of the sort even in the Neighborhood, from one House to another, trouble is made for him on some fine but specious pretext suggested by base interests; his buildings are taken from him, & in this way districts which might have become productive, are rendered forever barren."  Dièrville observed this while Villebon was commander of Acadia with headquarters not at Port-Royal but on Rivière St.-Jean, so one wonders who were the officials who harassed the Acadians thusly.  Was it colonial Mathieu de Goutin, the King's lieutenant général civil et criminel, or "general representative for justice," whose wife was a daughter of Pierre Thibodeau

234.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 143, 149; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29.  See also Clark, pp. 169-73, 180-83, 230-33, 248-50; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 176. 

Clark, p. 232, says of the Acadians' tools:  "Possibly their shortage of metal was matched by shortages in certain skills like that of the blacksmith or wheelwright, but they seem to have been rather competent carpenters and joiners.  At any rate it is clear that their desire to trade with the Yankees was based on real needs." 

Clark, pp. 232-33, offers an overview of Acadian use of plows, horses, & oxen. 

Clark, p. 181, places Yankee trading into a larger perspective:  "The New Englanders conducted here the same irregular, hawking trade that they carried on along the coasts from Newfoundland to the West Indies.  They picked up what they could find and dispose of--furs, feathers, fish, grain, livestock, meat, or even wood products.  They gave in exchange iron products (utensils, implements, tools, firearms, mill machinery, etc.), textiles, sugar, spices, and other luxury foods and drink, and a wide variety of oddments to satisfy the demands for which they were the only dependable outside providers.  The French at Port Royal or on the Saint John, with tiny garrisons and no permanently stationed war vessels, had no way of halting these peripatetic merchants and every spring they sailed into La Baye Française (the Bay of Fundy) as if it were an English gulf." 

Clark, pp. 183-84, says that "Probably much of the trade was by barter, for a severe and perennial problem was the shortage of currency," though he reminds us that Acadia was not "a moneyless economy."  During the early 1700s, beginning with Brouillon & continuing with Subercase, Acadian governors issued card money in lieu of specie so that the French soldiers and workers could be paid, but, hearing of it, Versailles ordered that the card money be withdrawn.  Versailles demanded that Subercase find a way to encourage the circulation of specie being held by Acadians, probably for trade with the New English. 

One of the "legitimate" merchants at Port-Royal during Villebon's command was the author's ancestor, Abraham, third son of Michel Boudrot.  Abraham was so well known among New English merchants that he served Villebon as a spy in Boston during King William's War.  See Clark, p. 182; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 95-96. 

235.  Quotation from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 69.  See also ibid., pp. 70-72. 

A generation earlier, in the 1720s, the French in LA had the same problem, finding enough Frenchmen to emigrate to their Mississippi valley colony.  Their solution?  Recruit Germans, including Protestants, & so the first large group of settlers in French LA were, like the first non-Acadian settlers of British Nova Scotia, farmers from the principalities of western Germany.  Marshall, p. 71, implies that the first group of settlers at Halifax, numbering 2,500, were recruited in England.  

235a.  Quotation from Dominick Graham, "Lawrence, Charles," in DCB, 3:361. 

235b.  According to Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 44, 71, it was Gov. William Shirley of MA who recommended the creation of a British military base at Chebouctou even before the New English attack on Louisbourg in 1745.  The return of Louisbourg to France in 1748 made the creation of a base at Chebouctou inevitable. 

236.  See Krugler, "Gorham (Goreham, Gorum), John," 3:260-61. 

236a.  See Clark, Acadia, 194-95; Fortier, "Des Herbiers," 3:183. 

237.  See Clark, Acadia, 193; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 331; Lavallée, "Pontbriand," 3:196; Book Two. 

Clark, pp. 194-95, insists that "the priests who ministered to the Acadians were on the side of neutrality despite the fact that they were appointed by and largely supported from Quebec (the Acadians were scarcely more willing to pay tithes than quitrents) and that they were often harried by the British authorities. Yet the British attributed the refusal of the Acadians to take an unqualified oath largely to the influence of the priests and held them responsible for the sporadic killing, scalping, and burning by the Indians nominally under their care."  Clark mentions Abbé de Miniac, for a time vicar general of the Bishop of Québec & pastor of St.-Joseph-des-Minas parish at Rivière-aux-Canards as the most peace loving & accommodating of the Acadian priests. 

238.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 155-57.  See also ibid., p. 225; ibid., p. 226, Fig. 6.3, entitled "Canso:  Peninsula and Islands"; note 222b, above. 

239.  Quotations from ibid., p. 151. 

240.  Quotation from ibid., p. 248. 

241.  Quotations from ibid., pp. 177, 248-49.  See also ibid., p. 250.  Ibid., p. 251, Fig. 6.4, entitled "The Acadian Lands:  Routes of Communication, 1710-1748," which locates Pictou.  The famous Pine Tree Flag of the American Revolution is of course a depiction of a New England white pine. 

242.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 187.  See also ibid., p. 196; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 269, who says that "From 1715 to 1716, only ten or eleven families went to Île Royale, mostly from Annapolis Royal but one or two from Minas and Cobequid"; Bruce T. McCully, "Nicholson, Francis," in DCB, 2:498. 

For an example of an Aug 1714 resettlement, see Louis Mazerolle's profile in White, DGFA-1, 1145, & White, DGFA-1 English, 247.  For the island's forests, see Clark, pp. 38, 41-45. 

243.  Quotation from Jobb, The Cajuns, 162. 

245.  Quotation from Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 417.  See also Parkman, France & England, 2:477. 

Clark, Acadia, 157, says that until 1717 "Cape Breton Island remained essentially empty."

Clark, p. 73, adds:  "Moreover, despite the concessions of 1713 and 1749, the latter [Britain] were unremitting in their efforts to recover the two islands, as they ultimately did, for good, in 1758."  It should be noted that the 1720 concession occurred during a time when France, under Louis XV's Regent, the duc d'Orleans, was the erstwhile ally of former enemies Britain & Holland in conflict with former ally Spain--but this aberrant European alliance structure was of short duration.  Clark, p. 118, notes that "when the French established themselves there [on Île Royale] in the eighteenth century the official policy was against seigneurial grants (although essentially similar concessions were made, as in the case of Isle Madame and the island between the Great and Little Bras d'Or channels to the Sieur de La Boularderie)."  See also Clark, p. 187. 

246.  See <acadian-home.org> for the 1716 census & La Roque's Île Royale census of 1752. 

The 1716 census did not provide ages, but the ages of some of these settlers can be fleshed out from information in White, DGFA-1, 413, 418, 983, 1299, 1321, 1399.  If the 3 LeBlancs were sons of Daniel, they did not remain at Port-Toulouse but returned to the Minas, where they died in Jul 1730, May 1731, & Jan 1734, respectively.  See White, DGFA-1, 983. 

Clark, Acadia, 73, insists that "only a few" peninsula Acadians "moved to Cape Breton Island," but La Roque's 1752 census says otherwise. 

247.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 393.  See also Clark, Acadia, 210. 

Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 66, does not name the "Acadian insurgents from Île St. Jean...."  See Griffiths, p. 356, for details on the deportations of 1745. 

248.  See Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 179; Clark, Acadia, 192, 379; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 298-300; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 18-22, 38; Wikipedia, "Father Rale's War," "Canso, Nova Scotia".  For biological information on Fr. Râle, see White, DGFA-1, 1364. 

249.  See the biographical sketch of Douville by Georges Arsenault at <islandregister.com/1752.html>.

250.  Quotation from Clark, Acadia, 230-31.  See also ibid., pp. 143, 183, 232. 

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BOOK TWO:     The Great Upheaval

BOOK THREE:  French Louisiana

BOOK FOUR:   A New Acadia               

BOOK FIVE:     The Bayou State

Copyright (c) 2001-13  Steven A. Cormier