APPENDICES

Acadians Who Found Refuge in Louisiana, February 1764-early 1800s

BERNARD

[ber-NARD, bear-NAH]

ACADIA

The Acadian genealogist Bona Arsenault asserts that the progenitor of this family in Acadia was André Bernard, a mason from Beauvoir-sur-Mer, France, who came to the colony in 1641, age 21, to work for Governor Charles La Tour at La Tour's fort on Rivière St.-Jean.  Arsenault does not record the name of André's wife but says that he fathered two daughters, Jeanne and Marie, and two sons, Nicolas and René.  Nicolas married an Indian and remained on Rivière St.-Jean.  René moved to Chignecto, where he established a family of his own and from which the Acadian Bernards are descended.  

However, the preeminent Acadian genealogist, Stephen A. White, tells a different story.  White maintains that André Bernard did indeed come to Acadia in 1641 to work for Charles La Tour and that André was one of the lucky survivors of the sieur d'Aulnay's assault on La Tour's fort in 1645.  White even suggests that Bernard may have been forced to serve as executioner for those of La Tour's men whom d'Aulnay ordered to be hanged after the fort was taken.  White maintains, however, that it was most unlikely, given what happened at Fort St.-Jean, that André Bernard would have remained in the colony to start a family, so he probably returned to France.  White asserts that René Bernard was not the brother of Jeanne or Marie, and that none of them were fathered by André Bernard.  

This researcher follows White, of course.  The story of the Bernards in Acadia goes like this:

Nicolas Bernard, born in c1662, probably no kin to the other Bernards in Acadia, married a woman name Marguerite, had a daughter by her, and was recorded on Rivière St.-Jean in 1693.  

Claude Bernard dit Léveillé, son of Jacques Bernard and Louse Rabier of Montamisé, Poitiers, France, also no kin to the other Acadian Bernards, was a soldier in the company of de Rouville in Québec.  He married Angélique, daughter of Louis Coulombe, at Québec in 1713; she gave him five children, including a son who did not survive childhood.  Claude settled on Île St.-Jean, where he died in the early 1750s.

Another Bernard progenitor, Louis, born in 1710, son of Jacques Bernard and Marie-Anne Gerberon of Ste.-Foy, Charters, France, and probably no kin to René, came to Acadia by 1736, when he married Madeleine Simon de Boucher of Petit-Grat, Île Royale, now Cape Breton Island, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord on Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island.  Louis served as maître de grave and notaire royale on the island.  Madeleine gave him at least five sons, some of whom grew up to start families of their own.  

René Bernard, parents unknown, born c1663, place unrecorded, arrived at Chignecto soon after the census of 1686, probably at the instigation of the seigneur of Chignecto, Michel Le Neuf de La Valliere.  René married Madeleine, daughter of Pierre Doucet, c1689 at Chignecto, and fathered 10 children, including four sons who came of age and created families of their own.  Each of the sons was born at Chignecto and remained there:  

René dit Renochet, born in c1690, married Anne, daughter of Jacques Blou, at Beaubassin in 1713; he fathered 10 children, including four sons who married into the Hébert, Richard, and Hubert families.  

Joseph, born in c1692, died young.  

Jean-Baptiste, born in c1696, married Cécile, daughter of Claude Gaudet, at Beabuassin in 1719.  

A second Joseph, born in the early 1700s, married first to Marie-Josèphe, another daughter of Claude Gaudet, at Chignecto in c1729, and then in the early 1750s he remarried to Marguerite, daughter of Charles Arceneaux, and widow of Pierre Poirier.  

Youngest son Michel, born in the early 1700s, also married twice, first to Marie, daughter of Mathieu Brasseaux, at Grand-Pré in c1729, and then to Anne, daughter of Clément Babineaux, probably at Halifax in 1763.  

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

Like most old Acadian families, Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered the descendants of René Bernard to the winds.  Some of them escaped the British roundup at Chignecto in the fall of 1755 and fled up the coast to Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs and to other places of refuge in present-day New Brunswick and Québec.  Most of the Bernards on Île St.-Jean somehow escaped the British round up on the island in 1758; only a hand full of Île St.-Jean Bernards, mostly female, seem to have been deported to St.-Malo, France, in late 1758; one of them, Marie-Blanche, wife of Jean-Baptiste Doiron, chose to leave France in 1785 and sail to Louisiana with her family aboard one of the Seven Ships of 1785; they moved to the Atakapas District, west of the Atchafalaya Basin, to join some of her cousins already there.  When the French and Indian War was over, descendants of René Bernard also could be found in Québec at Lotbinière, near Trois-Rivières, and at Bonaventure on the Gaspé peninsula near Restigouche; and in Nova Scotia on the Baie Ste.-Marie.  Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and until the Acadian reunions of the mid-twentieth century, they may even have forgotten the others existed. 

In the fall of 1755 at least two Bernard families were transported to South Carolina along with hundreds of other Chignecto Acadians and may have gone to St.-Domingue, present-day Haiti.

One branch of the family scattered by Le Grand Dérangement was that of René, pere's third son, Jean-Baptiste.  He somehow escaped the British roundup at Chignecto in 1755 and ended up in Québec, where he died in 1757.  Two of his sons, however, Pierre, born c1731, married to Marguerite Arceneaux, and Michel, born c1734, and single at the time, made their way from Chignecto to Restigouche to escape the British forces.  Michel married Marie, daughter of Joseph Guilbeau dit L'Officier, at Restigouche in 1761, but the British carried  them away to Halifax, where they were held as prisoners of war.

An unidentified author in a recent article of AGE asserts:  "The major portion of the Bernard families of Louisiana comes from two brothers, Michel and Pierre Bernard, who arrived on the Mississippi shores about 1762 from Ristigouche at the top of the Baie des Chaleurs, where they fled after the deportation of 1755.  They probably sailed on one of the fishing boats that some Acadians of that time built and owned."  Again, we have a family historian who claims that members of his family reached Louisiana before other Acadians did, in this case 1762, two years before the first documented Acadians reached "the Mississippi shores" in February 1764.  See Appendix.  The problem with this family historian's assertion is one of simple physics:  people cannot be in two places at the same time.  Brothers Pierre and Michel, their wives and children could not have been in Louisiana in 1762 if they were counted among the Acadian prisoners of war at Halifax in August 1763, which they were.  

The Bernards did not reach LA on a fishing boat in 1762.  They were probably still prisoners at Halifax then.  They reached Louisiana in early 1765 most likely in separate expeditions, Michel with the group led by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil that sailed from Halifax to New Orleans via St.-Domingue and settled in the Atakapas District in the spring of 1765, and Pierre in an expedition from Halifax via St.-Domingue that settled at Cabanocé, today's St. James, soon afterwards.  The unidentified author of the AGE piece asserts that both Michel and Pierre settled in the Atakapas and that Pierre's children settled at Cabanocé.  Not so.  A number of Spanish censuses are clear:  Pierre remained in the river settlement. 

LOUISIANA:  WESTERN SETTLEMENTS

Why did these brothers settle in different districts, putting the Atchafalaya Basin and the Mississippi River between them?  Michel obviously followed his Guilbeau in-laws to the Atakapas, and, even after an epidemic in the summer and fall of 1765 took the lives of his father-in-law and his infant son, Michel, fils, there he stayed.  Michel and his family settled in the Carencro area.  His grandson Jean moved south in the early 1800s and settled in the Côte Gelée area near present-day Broussard.  Other descendants settled along the Teche from Fausse Pointe near Loreauville in present-day Iberia Parish up to Arnaudville in what is now St. Landry Parish.  ...

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Pierre may have followed his Arceneaux in-laws to Cabanocé, and there he remained with his sons and daughters, establishing an eastern branch of the family in Louisiana.  Some of Pierre's children and grandchildren remained in St. James; others moved upriver to Iberville and West Baton Rouge, and one, Pierre, fils, even joined his cousins in the Carencro area. ...

LOUISIANA:  LAFOURCHE VALLEY SETTLEMENTS

One of Pierre Bernard's grandsons moved from St. James into the Lafourche valley, where he set down roots near Thibodaux. ...

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

Bernard is a common surname in France, second only to Martin.  The name also is found in Germany, Canada, and the West Indies, so it is no surprise that a number of Bernards came to Louisiana before and after the Acadians brothers Pierre and Michel arrived and that these non-Acadians also established families in the Bayou State.  André Bernard arrived before 1750 and married into a German Coast family, the Waguespacks.  His descendants settled in present-day St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James parishes and in the early 1800s moved into the Lafourche valley, settling near Thibodaux, which placed a Creole branch of the family next to an Acadian branch there.  Other Bernards, a French Creole and a French Canadian, no kin to André, established families in the Natchitoches area at Grand Écore, and on the Avoyelles prairie north of the Opelousas District.  Jean Bernard dit L'Esperance, a soldier who was native of Bordeaux, France, died at Pointe Coupeé in September 1752.  Louis Bernard, who may have been Jean's son or from an entirely different branch of the Bernard family, married Pérrine Cornene and established a family at Pointe Coupée.  His son Félix married Marie-Victoire, an Acadian girl from Bayou des Écores, daughter of Ambroise Bourg, in January 1787 and moved downriver to Baton Rouge by the mid-1790s. ...

CONCLUSION

Thus, by the early 1800s, Acadian, French Creole, and French Canadian Bernard families could be found in nearly every part of what is now Acadiana:  from Avoyelles down to the Atakapas District at Carencro and Côte Gelée, along the Mississippi River from Pointe Coupeé and Baton Rouge down to St. James, and in the lower Lafourche valley.  

The family's name also is spelled Bernar, Bernardo.

Sources:  AGE, Oct 2005, p. 64; Arsenault, Généalogie, 428-29, 846-58, 1654, 2066, 2421-23; BRDR, vols. 1b, 2; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 27-28; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 251, 252; Milling, Exile Without End, 40; West, Atlas of LA Surnames, 27-28, 151-52; White, DGFA-1, 124-30; White, DGFA-1 English, 28-29.

Settlement Abbreviations 
(present-day parishes that existed during the War Between the States in parenthesis; hyperlinks on the abbreviations take you to brief histories of each settlement):

For a chronology of Acadian Arrivals in Louisiana, 1764-early 1800s, see Appendix.

The hyperlink attached to an individual's name is connected to a list of Acadian immigrants for a particular settlement and provides a different perspective on the refugee's place in family and community. 

NOTES

01.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Jean-Baptiste BERNARD.

02.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Jean-Baptiste BERNARD.  Arsenault, Généalogie, 2421, says he was born in 1753, but the Cabanoce census of 1766 & the St.-Jacques census of 1777 say otherwise.  See Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 167; De Ville, St. James Census, 1777, 13.

03.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Francois BERNARD.  His first name is from his father's succession record in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-B:50.  The record of his first marriage is in Hébert, D., 1-B:55.  Arsenault says that he & Madeleine were married 10 Jun 1788, but the church record in Hébert, D., followed here, says 3 Feb 1790.  The record of his second marriage is in Hébert, D., 2-A:64-65.  The record of his third marriage is in Hébert, D., 2-C:53.  

He may not belong on this list.  His family reached LA in Feb 1765, so if he was born in 1766, as Arsenault, Genealogie, 2422, says he was, unless he was in utero when his mother stepped off the ship in New Orleans, for consistency's sake he should be removed from this list although he is in Wall of Names.  He is most likely one of the 2 boys counted in his father's household in Apr 1766, his older brother Michel, fils, having died the previous October.  Unfortunately, the Atakapas census of 1766 does not include ages of individuals, so one can only guess the exact month of Francois's conception & birth.  His death/burial record in Hébert, Southwest LA Records, 3:47, is no help; if he was 66 when he died in Apr 1834, that would give him a birth year of 1768, which makes no sense in light of the Atakapas census of 1766.  Note that the Atakapas census of 1771, which does provide ages of individuals, says that he was 2, giving him a birth year of 1769!  If he was born in 1768/69, then who was the second son in his father's household in Apr 1766?  I need a BERNARD family historian (other than the one who wrote the article in AGE) to help me here.  Shane, is this your direct ancestor?  Helllllp!!

04.  Wall of Names, 11, calls her Marguerite BERNARD.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 445.

05.  Wall of Names, 11, Marie BERNARD.  Why is she not in subsequent Cabanoce/St.-Jacques censuses (1769, 1777) with her family?  Did she die in childhood?

06.  Wall of Names, 33 (pl. 8L), calls her Marie-Blanche BERNARD, & lists her with her husband & 5 children; Robichaux, Acadians in Chatellerault, 35, Family No. 71, calls her Marie-Blanche BERNARD, says she was born c1747 but gives no birthplace, does not give her parents' names, details her marriage, says they were married c1765 but gives no place of marriage, does not give her husband's parents' names, provides the birth/baptismal record of son Jean-Baptiste-Cesar DOIRON, baptized 12 May 1775, Cenan, Vienne, whose godparents were Jean-Baptiste DUGAST & Marie-Appolitte DOIRON, & details the family's participation in the Leigne-les-bois settlement in Poitou in the early 1770s; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 57, Family No. 106, calls her Marie-Blanche BERNARD, says she was born c1747 but gives no birthplace, does not give her or her husband's parents' names, details her marriage, saying they were married c1767 "probably at LeHavre," includes the birth/baptismal & death/burial records of son Jean-Louis DOIRON, baptized 5 Mar 1777, St.-Nicolas, Nantes, died age 9 mos. & buried 19 Dec 1777 at St.-Nicolas, Nantes, daughter Amable-Ursule DOIRON, baptized 11 May 1779, St.-Nicolas, Nantes, son Louis-Toussaint DOIRON, baptized 2 Nov 1781, St.-Martin de Chantenay, & son Jean-Charles DOIRON, baptized 1 Jul 1784, St.-Martin de Chantenay, & details the family's participation in the Leigne-les-bois settlement & their voyage to LA in 1785; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 34-35, calls her Marie-Blanche BERNARD, sa [Jean DOUAISON's] femme, age 43, on the embarkation list, Maria Blanca RAINARD, su [Juan Bautista LOUARON's] muger, on the debarkation list, & Marie-Blanche BERNARD, his [Jean-Baptiste BERNARD's] wife, age 43, on the complete listing, says she was in the 15th Family aboard Le Beaumont with her husband & 5 children, with the note "this family went on to Attakapas," details her marriage but does not include her or her husband's parents' names or place of marriage, says daughter Émelie was born 26 Oct 1766 but gives no birthplace, & that daughter Marie-Hyolithe-Honoré was born 13 Jul 1768 but gives no birthplace.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 497.

Why did daughter Émilie, born at Le Havre in Oct 1766, not come to LA with them?  She would have been 19 in 1785.  Did she die young, or did she marry a fellow Acadian or a Frenchman who refused to emigrate to LA?  Note that the Robichaux volumes cited above do not include her with the family in their La Leigne-les-bois venture in the early 1770s, so she probably died young; she would have been 7 years old when her family went to Poitou in 1773, & they certainly would have taken her with them.  For her birth/baptismal record, see Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 113.  

Note also that son Jean-Baptiste-Cesar, born in Poitou in May 1775, also did not go to LA with the family.  He would have been only 10 in 1785, so he, too, must have died young.

07.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Michel BERNARD.

08.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Michel BERNARD.  See Hebert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:58, for his death/burial record, which does not give his parents' names, but who else could he be?

09.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Pierre BERNARD.  The date & location of his first marriage come from AGE, Oct 2005, p. 64, an undocumented secondary source that should be used with caution.

10.  Wall of Names, 11, calls him Pierre BERNARD. 

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