Expulsion of The Acadians

The Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion and Le Grand Dérangement, was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and also part of the US state of Maine—an area also known as Acadie. The Expulsion (1755–1763) occurred during the French and Indian War, the North American theatre of the Seven Years War. It was part of the British military campaign against New France. The British first deported Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and after 1758 they transported additional Acadians to France. Approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported by the British.

After the British conquest of Acadia in 1710, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht allowed the Acadians to keep their lands. Over the next forty-five years, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During this period, Acadians participated in various military operations against the British and maintained supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour. The British sought to eliminate future military threat posed by the Acadians and to permanently cut the supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by removing them from the area.

Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been neutral and those who had resisted the occupation of Acadia, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered them to be expelled. In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to England and France, from where they migrated to Louisiana. Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Isle Saint-Jean and Isle Royale. During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported. Thousands of Acadians died in the expulsions, mainly from diseases and drowning when ships were lost.

The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the historic event in his poem about the plight of the fictional character Evangeline, which was popular and made the expulsion well known. According to Acadian historian Maurice Basque, the story of Evangeline continues to influence historic accounts of the deportation, emphasising neutral Acadians and de-emphasising those who resisted the British Empire.