Friday, February 27, 2009

Acadians after the Deportation

The following is from the book the Acadians by Henri D Parette, I wanted to share it with you.
Acadians who came back to the Maritimes, came out of the woods or were released from prison camps faced a depressing and seemingly impossible situation. Their lands had been taken by the New England Planters, Loyalists or other Protestant settlers, their rights were of small concern to authorities and they had little material wealth.
Primarily farmers before the Expulsion, most Acadians had to become fishermen after in order to survive. And most were no longer their own masters but moved into a seemingly endless cycle of work and debt, as fisheries around the Gulf of St Lawrence ,from Cheticamp,to Gaspe were controlled through the 19th century by others particularly les Jersias, traders fromthe island of Jersey who had as British citizens, a monopoly on credit and the labour market. As early as 1763 Jacques Robin, a French Protestant from Jersey, convinced Acadians to go to the Miramichi area to work for him as fishermen in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
For most the sea became their life to earn a living and it gave Acadian villages a most characteristic layout, with a wharf in the middle where people would gather and where women would wait for their men to return, although many men never returned from the sea, making this a source of life and a source of tragedy.
Acadian regions took on a unique appearance, rows of small houses, usually white but sometimes painted in bright colors, long roads close to the water and a church
in the middle of the village.
Acadian women must have been as strong as the men. They gave birth to large families, and the Acadian population grew faster than the anglophone.
In the Memramcook Valley, a pleasant and fertile agricultural region,the Acadians tried to recreate the life they had known before the Expulsion. In 1765 a small group of refugees from Fort Beausejour came to that region, which had already been dyked by Acadians, and settled on the west side of the river. They were joined in 1770 by Acadians who had been prisoners for 12 years at Fort Edward in Windsor. Most of the latter settled on the west bank, son on the east Landry,Richard,Breau,LeBlanc,Comeau,Dupuis and Bourgeois.
In 1781 the first parish to be established after the Deportation was created at Memramcook.
And the story goes on, so if you have a chance to buy or borrow the book The Acadians I would recommend reading it.
Well we are on our way, to see about buying a two room tent, I sure hope it will be what we want. If any of you live in an area where you can buy and sell from Kijji Classifieds, well if you are looking for something, that is the place to go. There are good bargains to be had.
We want our tent so that we can be more comfortable when we go to the CMA2009 in Caraquet New Brunswick this summer. We have a one room tent, but it is awful small, so we want to get a more comfortable and roomy one. Last summer we went to Quebec with the tent we have now, it was ok, it served the purpose, but we are now getting greedy , we want something better. grin.
There are not too many days left for the CMA2009, and in July we go to another reunion in Fredericton, but there we will not be tenting, we have our motel room reserved, and it is only a two day event, the CMA2009 is a two week event, we want to be there for Aug.15 Acadian Day and to try and participate in as many reunions as we can and also we want to meet our Cajun Cousins.
I would like to mention that my friend Rick Arsenault has started a blog , so if you want to check his out, I am a follower of his.
Have a great day, Thanks for the lovely visit.
Aline

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I know so little about Acadia. Nice of you to share your fascination. Have a good weekend.

alineskee said...

Thank you Sarala, It is good to read and learn about our Acadian Ancestors, they struggled and had a lot of hard times during their lifetime. I did not know much at first either, until I got hooked on genealogy, since then I keep learning new things every day.
Aline

Catherine said...

Aline, je viens de lire ton post qui est trés interessant. C'est malheureusement une partie d'histoire qu'on survole en une phrase en France ! Alors qu'avec de noms comme Landry, Richard, Breau,LeBlanc,Comeau,Dupuis and Bourgeois, cette histoire nous concerne.
Je suis heureuse d'en connaître davantage.

alineskee said...

Merci Catherine, oui c'est certainment triste de lire de la misere que nos ancetres ont eurent,mais c'est aussi important de le savoir.
Aline