:
A View of the Plundering and Burning of the City of Grimross (present-day
Arcadia, New Brunswick) by
Thomas Davies, 1758. This is the only contemporaneous image of the
Expulsion of the Acadians. In the Great Expulsion (known by French speakers as
le Grand Dérangement), after the
Battle of Fort Beauséjour beginning in August 1755 under
Lieutenant Governor Lawrence, approximately 11,500 Acadians (three-quarters of the Acadian population in Nova Scotia) were expelled, families were separated, their lands and property confiscated, and in some cases their homes were burned. The Acadians were deported to separated locations throughout the British eastern seaboard colonies, from New England to
Georgia, where many were put into forced labour, imprisoned, or put into
servitude.
Second wave The British conducted a second and smaller expulsion of Acadians after taking control of the north shore of what is now
New Brunswick. After the
fall of Quebec and defeat of the French, the British lost interest in such relocations. Some Acadians were deported to England, some to the Caribbean, and some to France. After being expelled to France, many Acadians were eventually recruited by the
Spanish government to migrate to
Luisiana (present-day
Louisiana). These Acadians settled into or alongside the existing
Louisiana Creole settlements, sometimes intermarrying with Creoles, and gradually developed what became known as
Cajun culture.
Louisiana Acadians After 1758, thousands were transported to France. Most of the Acadians who later went to Louisiana sailed there from France on five Spanish ships. These had been provided by the Spanish Crown, which was eager to populate their Louisiana colony with Catholic settlers who might provide farmers to supply the needs of New Orleans residents. The Spanish had hired agents to seek out the dispossessed Acadians in Brittany and kept this effort secret in order to avoid angering the French king. These new arrivals from France joined the earlier wave expelled from Acadia, and gradually their descendants developed the
Cajun population (which included multiracial unions and children) and culture. They continued to be attached to French culture and language, and Catholicism. 's sculpture of
Evangeline at the
Grand-Pré National Historic Site in
Nova Scotia|203x203px The Spanish offered the Acadians lowlands along the
Mississippi River in order to block British expansion from the east. Some would have preferred Western Louisiana, where many of their families and friends had settled. In addition, that land was more suitable to mixed crops of agriculture. Rebels among them marched to New Orleans and ousted the Spanish governor. The Spanish later sent infantry from other colonies to put down the rebellion and execute the leaders. After the rebellion in December 1769, Spanish Governor O'Reilly permitted the Acadians who had settled across the river from
Natchez to resettle along the
Iberville or
Amite rivers closer to
New Orleans.
Returnees In time, some Acadians returned to the Maritime provinces of Canada, mainly to New Brunswick and coastal villages that were not occupied by colonists from New England. The British prohibited them from resettling their lands and villages in what became Nova Scotia. A few of the Acadians in this area had evaded the British for several years, but the brutal winter weather eventually forced them to surrender. Some returnees settled in the region of Fort Sainte-Anne, now
Fredericton, but were later displaced when the Crown awarded land grants to numerous
United Empire Loyalists from the Thirteen Colonies after the victory of the United States in the
American Revolution. Most of the descendants of Acadian returnees now live primarily on the eastern coast of New Brunswick, Canada. In 2003, at the request of Acadian representatives,
Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada issued a
Royal Proclamation acknowledging the deportation. She established 28 July as an annual day of commemoration, beginning in 2005. The day is called the "Great Upheaval" on some English-language calendars. Before the
American Revolutionary War, the Crown settled Protestant European immigrants and
New England Planters in former Acadian communities and farmland. After the war, it made land grants in Nova Scotia to
Loyalists. British policy was to establish a majority culture of Protestant religions and to
assimilate Acadians with the local populations where they resettled. ==Geography==