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The first time some of the Acadians were forced to move by a European power, the year was 1741. New boundaries were established and the French demanded that the Acadian farmers living in and around Beaubassin (near today's Amherst) move to the nearest French territory (what is now New Brunswick). Although Acadian resistance was strong, they were marched away and their farms were destroyed so there would be nothing left for the English to occupy. Some of these Acadians moved to places like Malpeque Bay on Île Saint Jean where they wouldn't be caught in the middle of the foreign bickering. The rest of the Acadians still resident in Nova Scotia were warned off by the English Governor at Halifax; if they wouldn't take the oath and participate in the defence of the British Empire, they had better leave. Some of them took the warning (or were tired of the continuous harassment) and moved to places like Port la Joye, Rustico, Bay Fortune… settlements on Île Saint Jean, which was still a French Colony. In 1755 the English disrupted the Acadians who were still living on what is now Nova Scotia. The Acadians were loaded like cattle onto transports, and sent off to other parts of the British Empire there to be assimilated. Some managed to escape to suffer a meagre existence in the wilderness of Nova Scotia. Some escaped to Île Saint Jean. Some fought the English. All were doomed to further disruption. The English arrived on Île Saint John in 1758 intent on removing all of the French who were living there; the Acadians, the Islanders - anyone who spoke French - would be removed and "sent back to France" The plan was to depopulate the place now renamed the Island of Saint John. Some escaped. They continued to live on the island. For years, they suffered a miserable existence, abandoned by the French and ignored by the English. Then the British Empire set up a 'new system of land tenure', importing virtually anyone who would come to the island as a tenant and work the land for English overlords. English, Irish, German, Scottish tenants and hundreds of indentured servants came to the island topped off by a coterie of political hacks to govern the place. Somehow they would all have to get along. It should make an interesting story. It does. | ||