GREAT UPHEAVAL

The 'Great Upheaval', also known as the ''Great Expulsion'', ''The Deportation'', the ''Acadian Expulsion'', or to the deportees, ''Le Grand Dérangement'', was the forced population transfer or ethnic cleansing of the Acadian population from Nova Scotia between 1755 and 1763, ordered by British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council.
The relationship between the French and English colonists in Nova Scotia had long been one filled with animosity. Though the French initially colonised the area, various treaties traded possession of the region between the British and French through the 1600s and beyond. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 saw the territory of Acadia definitively ceded to the British. The Acadians were forced to swear an oath in 1730 giving their allegiance to the British crown but with a caveat that they would not be required to bear arms against the French or First Nations. Richard Phillips, the British governor at the time, was said to have verbally approved of this arrangement.
Despite this agreement, British distrust of the Acadian settlers remained. Successive governors continued to pressure the Acadians to firmly state where their loyalties lay but it would not become a pressing concern for the British until 1755. That year, the British attacked the French Fort Beauséjour during the beginnings of a major military offensive to gain greater control of the continent. Within the walls of the fort, nearly 200 Acadians were found. Despite claims that they had been forced to take up arms against their will, the discovery completely eroded British trust of the Acadians.
Governor Lawrence gave the Acadians one last opportunity to swear allegiance to the British Crown. The Acadians again refused, believing that this demand was no different than ones made over the past few decades.
The British response was swift and unforgiving. Before 1755 was over, an estimated 6,000 Acadians - approximately three-quarters of their total population - were rounded up as prisoners and forced onto ships bound for the British American colonies, Europe, and British prisons. By 1763, over 10,000 Acadians had been deported from the Maritimes. Some were shipped as far as the Falkland Islands. The largest single group was returned to France where it was poorly treated and ostracized by French society.

Contents

Charles Lawrence's expulsion orders

After the expulsion

Modern recognition

External links

Notes

References

Charles Lawrence's expulsion orders

^[1]

After the expulsion

Not all Acadians were deported by the British. A large number of Acadians fled overland, aided by their Mi'kmaq allies, and resettled in the colonies of New France, present-day Québec and New Brunswick. There was also a small guerilla resistance led by Joseph Broussard dit "Beausoleil".
Over the next several decades, many Acadians moved to down the North American east coast, landing temporarily in New England, the Carolinas and other ports, with a large number eventually settling in Louisiana, then controlled by Spain. Spanish authorities welcomed the Catholic Acadians as settlers, first in areas along the Mississippi River, then later in the Atchafalaya Basin and in the prairie lands to the west, a region later renamed Acadiana. During the 19th century, as Acadians reestablished their culture, "Acadian" was elided locally into "Cajun."
The homes and farms around the Bay of Fundy were burned or given to English-speaking Protestant colonists. For example, on 4 June 1760 New England planters arrived to claim land in Nova Scotia taken from the Acadians. However the significant repopulation in Nova Scotia came from the Highland Scots emigrating as a result of the Highland Clearances beginning in the late 18th century. In time some of the Acadian population returned, and today there remain islands of largely French-speaking towns such as Chéticamp intermingled with the Scots.
The following table lists the destinations to which Acadians were deported, together with estimates of how many arrived at each port:

Area	Population
Connecticut	666
New York	249
Maryland	810
Pennsylvania	383
North Carolina	280
Georgia	185
Massachusetts	1043
St. John River	86
Île Saint-Jean	300
Baie des Chaleurs	700
Nova Scotia	1249
Quebec	2000
England	866
France	3500
Louisiana	300
TOTAL	12 617

Table source: R.A. LEBLANC. ''Les migrations acadiennes'', in ''Cahiers de géographie du Québec'', vol. 23, no 58, april 1979, p. 99-124.

Modern recognition

Grand-Pré Park, situated in present-day Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, is now a National Historic Site of Canada and has been preserved as a living monument to the Expulsion, complete with a memorial church and a statue of Evangeline, the subject of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's stirring poem on the experience entitled ''Evangeline''.
In December 2003, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, representing Canada's Monarch, declared the Crown's acknowledgement (but did not apologise) for the event and designated July 28 as "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval." This was intended to close one of the longest open cases in the history of the British courts, initiated when the Acadian representatives first presented their grievances of forced disposession of land, property and livestock in 1760.

External links

★ Société Promotion Grand-Pré

★ Find-A-Grave article on a memorial to the Acadians in Georgia

Notes

1. Text of Charles Lawrence's orders to Captain John Handfield

References

★ Société Promotion Grand-Pré

★ Moody, Barry (1981). ''The Acadians'', Toronto : Grolier. ISBN 0717218104

★ Rosemary Neering, Stan Garrod (1976). ''Life in Acadia'', Toronto : Fitzhenry and Whiteside. ISBN 0889021805

★ [1] Text of Charles Lawrence's orders to Captain John Handfield

★ [2] Britain's forgotten genocide in the land of Évangéline by Alkan Chaglar

★ Acadian Ancestral Home - a repository for Acadian history & genealogy