Paradise stolen: two hundred and fifty years ago this September, the Acadians of Nova Scotia, builders of a free and peaceful society, were driven from their land at the point of British bayonets.

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward, giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.... Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers--dwelt in the love of God and of man.

--From Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tired and dirty from working in the fields to bring in the harvest, 418 males, boys as young as 10 to elders in their eighth and ninth decades of life, assembled in the Catholic chapel in the village of Grand Pre, Nova Scotia. The gathering, held on September 5, 1755, had been called by Colonel John Winslow, the military representative of Royal Governor Charles Lawrence.

Armed British troops formed a picket line outside the chapel, and were a conspicuous presence within. In obedience to Winslow's decree, the Acadian men had come unarmed. Attendance was mandatory, enforced by the threat of official confiscation of lands and property from those who failed to appear.

Grand Pre's inhabitants were "Acadians," descendants of the French Canadian trappers and merchants who had settled Nova Scotia roughly a century and a half earlier. Though predominantly Catholic, the settlers included Huguenot Protestants as well. Many Acadians--both Protestant and Catholic--regarded their new home as a refuge from the religious wars raging in Europe. The Acadians shared their new home with the local Mi'kmaq Indians, who were natural traders and entrepreneurs.

Paradise Found

Differing accounts exist as to the origins of the name Acadia. "In 1524 the Tuscan explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, sailing for the French crown, was so impressed by the beauty of the North American coast that he christened it 'Arcadia,' after a prose pastorale of the same name published in 1502, a work that popularized the notion of a rural 'golden age' among the ancients," observes Yale University history professor John Mack Faragher in his book A Great And Noble Scheme. Another possible origin is found in the Mi'kmaq term "akadie," which meant "place of abundance." In all likelihood, the two remarkably similar expressions from two vastly different cultures co-mingled as French settlers and local Mi'kmaq Indians engaged in peaceful, mutually beneficial commerce.

The Mi'kmaq style of government, explains Dr. Faragher, was "based on reciprocity rather than power." The presiding chief wore his authority very lightly. By the late 1600s, writes Faragher, "a distinctive Acadian ethnic culture took shape. The inhabitants had come from a variety of backgrounds--Catholic but also Huguenot, French but also Mi'kmaq, English, Irish, even Spanish." Most importantly, the Acadians had little use for government, beyond the barest minimum necessary in a culture devoted to the individual pursuit of happiness.

Because of their resolutely independent nature, the Acadians were regarded with suspicion by both the English and the French, as those two empires grappled for control over the New World. A French emissary complained in the mid-1600s that the Acadians refused to follow royal edicts unless they were ratified following a community discussion and vote, a practice he attributed to "a certain English and Parliamentary inclination which is inspired by the frequent contact and commerce they have with those from Boston."

Among French officials, such incidents of Acadian intransigence gave rise to describing stubborn people as having "en tete comme un Acadien"--that is, "the head of an Acadian." Particularly vexing to the French was the Acadian practice of trading liberally with the British colonists in New England, a group the Acadians jovially called "Nos amis les ennemis" ("our friends, the enemy").

The practice of free trade was well ingrained in the Acadian culture. When French explorer Jacques Cartier arrived in the region in 1534, it was the Mi'kmaq who initiated first contact by yelling from the shore and waving furs at the Europeans as an invitation to land. Once the language barrier was overcome, the Indians enthusiastically bartered their furs and game in exchange for iron goods and textiles.

"The sauvages showed a marvelously great pleasure in possessing and obtaining these iron wares and other commodities," noted Cartier in his journal, "and so much ease did [they] feel in our presence that at length we bartered with them, hand to hand, for everything they possessed."

Without enemies to harass them and without the need for a formal government, the Acadians were gloriously tree and remarkably prosperous. Their families were large, their fields (many of them in reclaimed marshland) were astonishingly fertile. The Acadians shipped goods to Europe and the West Indies, but they had no need or inclination to dispatch armies anywhere.

"Drawn mostly from peasant stock, the Frenchmen who settled Acadia in the early 17th century left behind a feudal system in which land ownership was denied to them, to move to a continent with vast open spaces where, for the first time, they were able to cultivate a piece of land for themselves," observes historian (and Acadian descendant) Dr. Chantal K. Saucier. Reports filed by royal officials at the time, continues Dr. Saucier, denounce the Acadians as "bad subjects, worse soldiers, unruly, stubborn, obstinate, untamable, and ungovernable."

"All the orders sent to them if not suiting to their humors, are scoffed and laughed at, and they put themselves upon the footing of obeying no Government," protested a French emissary in 1720. The Acadians received a similar rebuke in 1749 from Edward Cornwallis, the British governor of Nova Scotia: "It appears to me that you think yourselves independent of any government; and you wish to treat with the king as if you were so."

But the point was that the Acadians, who were secure, prosperous, and peaceful, didn't want to "treat with" a king of any sort, and didn't need to. At various times, notes Dr. Saucier, "Acadians did make pledges of allegiance to England, but they always refused to take any oath that did not include the following provisions: A recognition of their property rights; freedom to keep and practice the Catholic faith; and an exemption from having to bear arms against the French and their allies (here meaning the Mi'kmaq people, neighbors and friends to the Acadians)."

Paradise Imperiled

For decades, British resentment grew toward the Acadians, who refused to accept the Crown's "you're either with us or against us" mind-set concerning the French. The Acadians preferred the course of peaceful commerce with everyone and had no interest in the grand imperial designs entertained by London and Versailles.

The 1686 Treaty of Whitehall between England and France supposedly guaranteed that in the event of war, their respective colonies in America would "continue in peace and neutrality." Unfortunately, that treaty did not prevent Acadia from finding itself "crushed between two crowns." Within three years, the peaceful community experienced the first of what would be several attacks mounted by English settlers. They would endure several more before the English assumed direct control over Nova Scotia in 1710.

In 1709, an "inveterate schemer" named Samuel Vetch, who had staged attacks against Acadia, made a proposal to the British Board of Trade calling for the removal of the Acadians from their lands and their replacement by loyal English subjects "for the security of our own people." Vetch, writes Faragher, "had the distinction of being the first to propose cleansing the French inhabitants from l'Acadie and Canada." He was not the last.

Decades later, a similar scheme was proposed by William Shirley, the British governor of Massachusetts. In 1753, Shirley returned to New England after serving briefly on a joint British-French peace commission seeking to resolve territorial disputes in North America. Freighted with tension and hostility already, the commission's deliberations suffered further as a result of Shirley's bellicosity.

On his return to Massachusetts, Shirley immediately began inflaming tensions with the French. The specter of Acadian "rebels" figured prominently in Shirley's rhetoric, as did exaggerated descriptions of genuinely bellicose actions taken by the French in Ohio. In early 1754, claiming he had intelligence reports of French encroachments along Ohio's Kennebec River, Shirley recruited an expeditionary force to repel what he described as a threat to the "security of [British] colonies of New England."

When the 300-man force under then-Captain John Winslow arrived, they found that there was "no substance to the reports of invasion," writes Faragher. "Yet when the expedition returned to Boston, Winslow was greeted with popular acclaim and Shirley hailed as a brilliant strategist." This supposed victory encouraged Shirley to escalate his campaign against the Acadian "menace."

By 1754, New England had suffered through years of drought, depression, suffocating taxation, and intermittent conflict with neighboring Indian tribes. As is often the case, these hardships were exploited by demagogues--Governor Shirley prominent among them--to foment hostility against an external "threat," in this case the French Catholic Acadians, who were accused of plotting with the Indians against the largely Protestant English colonies.

One pamphleteer of the time sketched out the supposed plot quite tidily. "Should the French make themselves Masters of Nova Scotia, which is a country fruitful of all kinds of grain and provisions, they would be in a condition to introduce and subsist a body of troops strong enough with the French Acadians, and the inhabitants of Cape Breton and [Canada], together with the Indians, to reduce all the English colonies," he wrote. Similar warnings blackened the pages of broadsheets and resounded from pulpits, with Governor Shirley managing the propaganda offensive from behind the scenes.

Beginning in November of that year, Shirley began corresponding with Lt. Colonel Charles Lawrence, the military governor of Nova Scotia and, like Shirley, an architect of the Acadian expulsion. In April 1755, British royal governors met in council at Alexandria, Virginia, to plan what historian Peter Landry calls "a preemptive strike against the French, notwithstanding that the two countries were at peace, at four different points in North America, to be carried out at the same time." Among other things, that council resolved to bring about the final expulsion of the Acadians, and their replacement with loyal British subjects.

Paradise Lost

On August 11, 1755, Governor Lawrence ordered that Nova Scotia be cleared of "bad subjects"--that is, the entire Acadian population--who were to be dispersed among "the colonies upon the continent of America. Collect them up by any means.... Send them off to Philadelphia, New York, Connecticut and to Boston." The official summons from Colonel Winslow was issued on September 2. While it's not clear that the Acadians understood what was in store for them, the plan to evict them was common knowledge in the English colonies.

"We are now upon a great and noble scheme of sending the neutral French out of this province, who have always been secret Enemies, and have encouraged our Savages to cut our throats," declared a triumphant September 4 editorial in the Pennsylvania Gazette. "If we effect their expulsion, it will be one of the greatest things that ever the English did in America; for by all accounts, that part of the country they possess, is as good land as any in the world. In case therefore we could get some good English farmers in their room, this province would abound with all kinds of provisions."

At around three o'clock on September 5, that "great and noble scheme" went into effect. As the last of the homespun-clad Acadian farmers had assembled in the chapel, and with a thickening crowd of anxious women and children gathering outside the British picket line, Colonel Winslow unfurled the document containing an official proclamation.

"You have been ordered to come here together to hear His Majesty's final decision as to what is to become of the French inhabitants of his Province of Nova Scotia," Winslow intoned. "His Majesty, for almost half a century, has extended more indulgences to the inhabitants of this province than to any other part of his dominions. What use you have made of them, you yourself best know."

Having excused the British king for what was about to happen, Winslow pointedly exculpated himself as well. "The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my nature and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you," he pronounced. "But it is not my business to make observations on His Majesty's commands, but rather it is my duty to obey them." In plainer modern English, Winslow's statement would be rendered: "I am only following orders."

The colonel's orders from the king were "that your lands and tenements, cattle and livestock of all kinds are forfeited to the Crown, together with all your other effects.... That you will now shortly be removed from the province is certain and without appeal. However, through His Majesty's goodness, I am directed to allow you the liberty of carrying with you your money and as much of your household goods as you can take without overloading the vessels you go in."

To punctuate the sentence of expulsion, English soldiers stepped forward, their guns cocked and prepared to fire. An indulgent smirk creasing his rubicund, overfed face, Winslow continued: "I hope that in whatever part of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful subjects, and a peaceable and happy people, I must also inform you that it is His Majesty's pleasure that you remain in security under the inspection and direction of the troops that I have the honor to command."

In short, the men and boys of Grand Pre were to be detained as hostages until their families could be rounded up, their farms seized, and most of their goods confiscated. Elsewhere in Acadia, other British military officials were carrying out the same orders. Where they encountered resistance, the troops served "His Majesty's pleasure" by summarily executing the rebels. Some Acadian men melted into the forest, many of them being run to ground and slaughtered.

Within a relatively brief period, Acadia was denuded of its rightful owners --by some estimates, as many as 15,000 to 18,000 people. "Thus it was," writes Landry, that "an entire people were yanked off their lands like so many weeds; a consigned cargo, to be herded and prodded onto wooden sailing vessels. The fate of these people was then to be in the hands of ship captains for weeks, months in some instances. Many were to die and were slipped into watery graves; and those who survived were then placed in the hands of foreign governors who took them to be but a great nuisance and a great burden."

According to Dr. Saucier, many of the Acadians--regarded as "enemy combatants" during the French and Indian War--endured lengthy imprisonment in England. Others were deported to France, which at the time was a feudal society completely foreign to them. After the war's end some of that number migrated to Spanish-owned Louisiana, where they became the ancestors of today's Cajun population. A few went back to Nova Scotia, where they were shunted off into mountainous country unsuitable for farming. Others found new homes in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec.

The expulsion of the Acadians is known to history as Le Grand Derangement--the Great Madness. Its memory has been preserved in Acadian communities across the continent, as well as in Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline (and even in "Acadian Driftwood," a mournful song by the rock group The Band). And as descendants of some American Indian tribes can attest, the expulsion of the Acadians was not an isolated fit of madness, but rather the template for other "great and noble" schemes devised by corrupt political elites in the 19th century.