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March/April 2004 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: The singing forest In-depth: Boreal birds The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte Mosaic

Return of the dispossessed
Ever since their deportation in the mid-1700s, Acadians have been coming home
By Steven Fick and Elizabeth Shilts

The Acadian deportations 1755-1794

Acadians in the Maritimes today

Acadian migrations 1755-1785

They got caught between two superpowers at war. As bystanders, Acadians became victims in the battle between the French and the English for control of eastern North America in the 18th century.

Though French in origin, they remained neutral in British territory for more than 30 years. But by refusing to declare an unconditional oath of allegiance to the British Crown just prior to the Seven Years War, the Français neutres were considered potentially disloyal to the British cause. And so, as a precaution, they were sent away from the rich farmland they’d tirelessly diked and plowed and planted along the Fundy shore for more than a century. More tragically, their tightly knit extended families were separated and dispersed across the western hemisphere.

More than 10,000 Acadians were placed on ships and sent to the British colonies, France and England between 1755 and 1763. Some escaped to the St. Lawrence Valley and the backwoods of the Maritimes. Others headed for far-off Caribbean islands and beyond.

When they were allowed back to Nova Scotia in 1764, those who returned found themselves a minority living on the margin of what was once lush and productive Acadia. Most spread throughout Atlantic Canada and made roots in enclaves in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, much where they are today.

In 1603, King Henry IV of France charged Pierre Du Gua, sieur de Monts with colonizing Acadia, which included modern-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and parts of Quebec and Maine. From the first Acadians who settled a capital in Port-Royal, the population grew and spread. More than 10,000 Acadians were recorded in the 1750 census.

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