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The first wave of the expulsion that eventually brought the Acadians to Louisiana began in August of 1755. 

The Acadians at that point had lived in Nova Scotia (in present-day Canada) since the founding of Port-Royal, one of the first French settlements in North America, in 1605. Among the “first families” of Acadia were Doucet, Bourgeois, Boudrot (Boudreaux), Terriault (Thériot), Richard, LeBlanc, Thibodeaux, Comeau(x), Cormier, Hébert, Brault (Breaux), Granger, and Girouard. 

They were largely ignored by France and initially by England after control of their land shifted to the latter after 1713. But as tensions rose between the two powers,  the British authorities pressed the Acadians to swear, if not allegiance, at least neutrality in any conflict. 

After Fort Beauséjour fell to the British in June 1755, British Governor Charles Lawrence noted some 270 Acadian militia among the fort’s inhabitants. Lawrence pressed the Acadians to take an unqualified oath of allegiance to Britain. When they refused, he imprisoned them and gave the order for deportation.

“It was a New Englander, Charles Morris, who devised the plan to surround the Acadian churches on a Sunday morning, capture as many men as possible, breach the dykes and burn the houses and crops,” according to this account. “When the men refused to go, the soldiers threatened their families with bayonets. They went reluctantly, praying, singing and crying.”

About half the Acadian population died during the expulsion, according to some estimates. After years of wandering, about 2,600 to 3,000 Acadians sailed to Louisiana between 1764 and 1785. 

Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, wanted the Acadians as a counter-influence to the nearby British. Many were attracted to the area by the familiarity of the language and remained to develop the culture now known as “Cajun.” 

However, their dialect was different from that of French who were already there, and the destitute Acadians found themselves on the bottom rung of white society. The widespread poverty that followed the Civil War eroded some of those distinctions. 

The Cajuns remained largely un-Americanized, according to historian Shane Bernard, until U.S. involvement in World War II. 

“The war experience coupled with educational and housing programs offered to returning veterans opened up a vast new world of opportunities…to leave the farm, go to college, get a good job, earn a decent wage, build a nice house,” Bernard says. “This caused a gradual migration away from small, exclusively French-speaking communities into a more modern, mainstream world.”

Editor’s note: Information for this piece came from The Canadian Encyclopedia and LSU Health’s Department of Genetics. 

This piece first ran in the Aug. 22, 2024 edition of LaPolitics Weekly. Wish you could have read it then? Subscribe today!

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