Acadian Civil War | |||||||
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![]() Siege of Saint John (1645) – d'Aulnay defeats La Tour in Acadia | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
St. John Administration |
Port Royal Administration | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour Françoise-Marie Jacquelin | Charles de Menou d'Aulnay | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Several hundred | Several hundred | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Execution of St. Johns garrison |
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The Acadian Civil War (1635–1654) was fought between competing governors of the French province of Acadia. Governor Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour (a Protestant) had been granted one area of territory by King Louis XIV, and Charles de Menou d'Aulnay (a Catholic) had been granted another area. The divisions made by the king were geographically uninformed, and the two territories and their administrative centres overlapped. The conflict was intensified by personal animosity between the two governors, and came to an end when d'Aulnay successfully expelled la Tour from his holdings. D'Aulnay's success was effectively overturned after his death when la Tour married D'Aulnay's widow in 1653.[1][2]
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Transcription
"Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,— Men whose lives glided on like rivers that watered the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?" So asked Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his epic 1847 poem, "Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie." His answer was fittingly grim. "Waste are those pleasant farms and the farmers forever departed, scattered like dust and leaves." The story of the Acadians, the French colonists who in 1606 established themselves in present day Nova Scotia, that is prior to Jamestown, prior to Plymouth, warrants better understanding for several reasons. For one, this great upheaval, this movement, this attack on the French Acadians after almost 150 years of living there in Nova Scotia really qualifies as the first state-sponsored ethnic cleansing on the continent. Now in the early 1990s the United Nations Security Council created a commission of experts to explain exactly what ethnic cleansing is, and here's how they defined it. "Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. To a large extent it is carried out in the name of misguided nationalism, historic grievances, and powerful driving sense of revenge. This purpose appears to be the occupation of territory to the exclusion of the purged group or groups." The term definitely fits in this particular case. The British expulsion of the Acadians was a question of policy; it was thought about and designed for years. It was authorized and advanced by the highest leadership in England. It was conducted with ruthless efficiency in the effort to separate husband and wife and parents and children, as the Acadians were torn from the land that they had settled but then also scattered all the way from Nova Scotia all the way down to Louisiana so that their way of life was utterly eradicated. Why did this happen after almost 150 years of settlement of the French Acadians? Well for one thing, there's the natural British and French antipathy. The British were the ones who took it away from people who had originally been French. There was also the fact that the Acadians flouted convention; they lived sort of outside the perimeter of state authority for a long time. They also flouted social convention by intermarrying with and living with the native Mi'kmaq. The Mi'kmaq were the native nation that already lived in the Nova Scotia region at that time. At the heart of the action, though, was the simple fact that they had created a wealthy and prospering life and the British had guns and it was easier for the British to raid where it had been easier for the Acadians to trade, and so the British took what the Acadians had. This was a devastating event obviously for the Acadians, but it started a longer trend, a trend of ethnic cleansing that continued on the continent. When I say it was a devastating event, approximately 55 percent of the Acadians lost their lives in the removal from this area as they were scattered all along the continent from Nova Scotia all the way down to Louisiana. It may have been the first of its kind, the state-sponsored action, but it certainly wasn't the last. In the following centuries you see, particularly in the 19th century in the era of Indian removal, the same process done again by the state because it could, taking private property out of the hands of private individuals and moving it to other private individuals simply because the state had the power to do so. And it was in the state's interest to make sure that the property was in the hands of its supporters and citizens. The removal era includes a number of military actions that relocated and decimated dozens of native nations. Perhaps the best known is the Cherokee Trail of Tears in 1838 and 1839, which caused the lives of somewhere between a quarter and third of the entire Cherokee population. There are a couple of conclusions we can draw about this. The first is that the long tradition of state-sponsored theft, removal, and cultural obliteration that has existed in North America since this time. It's part of the fabric of U.S. history. In fact, it predates U.S. history. And the fact the British had this by virtue of theft really starts the U.S. story in the colonial era with this kind of action. Though ethnic cleansing would reach its peak later in U.S. history, it sort of begins the whole story. The unsettling fact of the scale and size of the action, the fact that it took place over really the entire continent when you think of how far the Acadians were scattered and that it wiped out over half of them, really speaks to the fact that the kind of frontier thesis we see out of Frederick Jackson Turner, the kind of manifest destiny we see out of latter-day supporters of the notion of U.S. exceptionalism, really doesn't apply in this case, because in this example, in this particular issue—ethnic cleansing—the United States is not exceptional, and even its colonial history is not exceptional. It is a part of a larger world trend of atrocities against human rights. There is a second reason that the Acadian story is important, and in some ways I think it's the more important of the two reasons. Not only did it start a trend of ethnic cleansing, but it also marked an end to what could be an alternate history that could have developed. The Acadian example offers a different picture of how North America might have looked if this tragic event hadn't taken place. Over 150 years, the Acadians developed a culture based not on conflict and conquest, but on mutual respect and accommodation and interaction among different peoples. In other words, it was a culture based on trade and not raid. The Acadians interacted with, intermarried with the local Mi'kmaq, shared their religion. They developed a syncretic religion that combined elements of both cultures. They developed a language that combined elements from both cultures. And in fact the name "Acadia" is partially taken from the French and partially taken from the Mi'kmaq. What's more, the peaceful Acadians grew wealthy because of their adherence to a policy of free trade across national and ethnic boundaries. They weren't special revolutionaries in any way. They were basically just semiliterate farmers, but they understood that they were on the border of imperial authority. They had, in other words, the area in which to move in a kind of autonomous way, and so they took advantage of this fact by offering free trade without all of the inconvenience of tariffs and regulations that came with the mercantilist policies of either Britain or France. So they moved rum, and they moved furs and food and finished products and all sorts of things through their economy to various groups that they traded with and thus became very prosperous. With this prosperity grew an almost organic notion of individual rights. They realized that they were doing this for themselves. They were working and they were seeing the benefits of this, and so, essentially, they didn't recognize the right of any government to take their stuff that they were creating there. At different points in time over this 150-year period the area was sometimes considered to be part of England and sometimes considered to be part of France, and they didn't really recognize either one. They insisted on a policy of neutrality with either of these powers and other powers as well. They side-stepped officials who wanted them to state their allegiance either to Britain or to France or to pay taxes to either one of those. In a sense, they were de facto revolutionaries ahead of their time. They weren't looking for independence; they didn't articulate it this way. They just wanted to be left alone in their peaceful homes doing their peaceful things peacefully with all of the people they were interacting with. These unsophisticated people managed to articulate the belief that because they were doing this for themselves—they'd exercised rights they had recognized their own liberty—that continuing to do so was their birthright and that other powers didn't have the authority to come in and take that away from them. By common-law right they recognized what they made was theirs. The same arguments would lead the British colonies in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. But as I said, they didn't push their independence—the Acadians—they were just looking to be left alone. The sad thing is they weren't. In 1755 the British decided to accept the flourishing Acadian community no longer. They effectively destroyed this alternate vision of how North America could have unfolded, how its history could have been told. So a French community of up to 18,000 people—intermarried with and part of also the local Mi'kmaq culture—was forcibly removed and scattered again from Nova Scotia all the way down to Louisiana with the sole purpose of taking the property that had been Acadian and redistributing it to British individuals and also to eradicate the very way of life that they had developed so that literally they could not come back together anywhere else on the continent. What we have here then is proof that the North American story wasn't written in stone in 1492;it wasn't written in stone in 1607. There was a different way that the story could have gone if tolerance and trade could lead to generations of peace and prosperity, if people had acted more like the French Acadians and less like the nationalistic British. I recommend John Mack Faragher's A Great and Noble Scheme as an excellent work on the subject if you would like to know more.
Historical context
In 1635, Governor of Acadia Charles de Menou d'Aulnay de Charnisay moved settlers from present-day LaHave, Nova Scotia to Port-Royal, and the Acadian people began to establish their roots. Under Aulnay, the Acadians built the first dykes in North America and cultivated the reclaimed salt marshes.[3]
During this time, Acadia was plunged into what some historians have described as a civil war; the two main centres were Port-Royal (present day Annapolis Royal), where Aulnay was stationed, and present-day Saint John, New Brunswick, where Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour was stationed.[4]
In an effort to defend Acadia, Castine was founded in the winter of 1613, when Claude de Saint-Etienne de la Tour established a small trading post. In 1625, Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour erected a fort named Fort Pentagouët.[5][6] After the English had captured the fort, in 1635, Governor Isaac de Razilly of Acadia sent Charles de Menou d'Aulnay de Charnisay to retake the village.[7] In 1638, Aulnay built a more substantial fort named Fort Saint-Pierre.[8] While he had other ventures in Acadia, Fort Pentagoet was his major outpost on the frontier with New England.[6]
The strategic location at the mouth of the Saint John River was fortified by Charles de la Tour in 1631. The fort was named Fort Sainte-Marie (AKA Fort La Tour) and was located on the east side of the river.[9] Both La Tour and Aulnay had claims of some legitimacy to the governorship of Acadia because the French Imperial officials made their appointments with an incomplete understanding of the geography of the area. La Tour had a fortified settlement at the mouth of the Saint John River while Aulnay's base was at Port Royal some 45 miles across the Bay of Fundy. In adjoining New England, the people supported La Tour's claim since he allowed them to fish and lumber in and along the Bay of Fundy without let or hindrance while Aulnay aggressively sought payment for that right. Word came to La Tour that Aulnay was concentrating men and materials for an attack on La Tour's fort and fur-trading operation at the mouth of the Saint John River. La Tour went to Boston to ask John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay colony, for help. Winthrop arranged for several merchants to advance loans unofficially to La Tour for his purchase of men and material to defend the Saint John River fort from Aulnay's attack.
War
Battle of Port Royal (1640)
La Tour arrived from present-day Saint John and attacked Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal) with two armed ships. D'Aulnay's captain was killed, while La Tour and his men were forced to surrender.[8] In response to the attack, d'Aulnay sailed out of Port-Royal to establish a blockade of La Tour's fort at present-day Saint John.
Blockade of St. John (1642)
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For five months, the Governor of Acadia d'Aulnay, who was stationed at Port Royal, created a blockade of the river to defeat La Tour at his fort.[8] On 14 July 1643, La Tour arrived from Boston with four ships and a complement of 270 men to repossess Fort Sainte-Marie. After this victory, La Tour went on to attack d'Aulnay at Port Royal, Nova Scotia.[10] LaTour was unsuccessful then in catching d'Aulnay and the rivalry continued for several more years.
Battle of Penobscot (1643)
After the blockade of St. John, d'Aulney was pursued by la Tour to Penobscot Bay, where d'Aulney ran two of his ships and another smaller vessel aground in order to form an improvised blockade. A small engagement followed at a nearby mill, with both sides suffering three casualties. La Tour's company proceeded to Boston, with a small vessel containing an abundance of moose and beaver skins.[11]
Battle of Port-Royal (1643)
In 1643 La Tour tried to capture Port-Royal again. La Tour arrived at Saint John from Boston with a fleet of five armed vessels and 270 men and broke the blockade. La Tour then chased d'Aulnay's vessels back across the Bay of Fundy to Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal). D'Aulnay resisted the attack, and seven of his men were wounded and three killed. La Tour did not attack the fort, which was defended by twenty soldiers. La Tour burned the mill, killed the livestock and seized furs, gunpowder and other supplies.[12]
St.Nick (1645)
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While La Tour was in Boston, on Easter Sunday 13 April 1645, d'Aulnay sailed across the Bay of Fundy and arrived at La Tour's fort with a force of two hundred men.[13] La Tour's soldiers were led by his wife, Françoise-Marie Jacquelin, who became known as the Lioness of LaTour[citation needed] for her valiant defence of the fort. After a five-day battle, on 18 April, d'Aulnay offered quarter to all if Françoise-Marie would surrender the fort. On that basis, knowing she was badly outnumbered, she capitulated, and d'Aulnay had captured La Tour's Fort Sainte-Marie. D'Aulnay then reneged on his pledge of safety for the defenders and treacherously hanged the La Tour garrison, forcing Madame de la Tour to watch with a rope around her neck. Three weeks later, while still in d'Aulnay's hands, she died.[14] With the death of his wife and the loss of his fort, La Tour took refuge in Quebec and did not return to Acadia for the next four years, until after d'Aulnay had died in 1650.[13]
Afterward
After defeating La Tour at Saint John, from the capital Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal), d'Aulnay administered posts at LaHave, Nova Scotia; Pentagouet (Castine, Maine); Canso, Nova Scotia; Cap Sable (Port La Tour, Nova Scotia); the Saint John River (Bay of Fundy) and Miscou Island.[14] He died in 1650, opening the governorship of Acadia, and prompting La Tour to return. He married d'Aulnay's widow Jeanne Motin 1653, ending the rivalry. The couple would have five children, and hundreds of their descendants live in the Canadian Maritimes today.[15]
However, in 1654 Colonel Robert Sedgwick, leading one hundred New England volunteers and two hundred of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers, captured and plundered La Tour's fort on the Saint John River and took him prisoner.[16] This was preparatory to the capture of Port Royal, Acadia.
Legacy
- John Greenleaf Whittier "St. John, 1647"
- Francis Joseph Sherman An Acadian Easter. Atlantic Monthly. April 1900.
References
- ^ "Collections".
- ^ "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society". 1792.
- ^ Dunn, Brenda (2004). A History of Port-Royal-Annapolis Royal, 1605-1800. Nimbus. p. ix. ISBN 978-1-55109-740-4.
- ^ M. A. MacDonald, Fortune & La Tour: The civil war in Acadia, Toronto: Methuen. 1983
- ^ "Town of Castine". Archived from the original on 21 July 2007. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
- ^ a b Faulkner and Faulkner, p. 219
- ^ M. A. MacDonald. Fortune and La Tour, p. 63
- ^ a b c Dunn (2004), p. 19.
- ^ Dunn (2004), p. 14.
- ^ Griffiths, N.E.S. (2005). From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604-1755. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-7735-2699-0.
- ^ Williamson, W. D. (1839). The history of the state of Maine: From its first discovery, A.D. 1602, to the separation, A.D. 1820, inclusive: With an appendix and general index. Hallowell: Glazier, Masters & Smith. p. 313-314
- ^ Faragher, John Mack, A Great and Noble Scheme, New York; W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. p. 54
- ^ a b Griffiths, N.E.S. (2005). From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604-1755. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7735-2699-0.
- ^ a b Dunn (2004), p. 20.
- ^ The Lioness of Acadia - by Susan Poizner The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine Feb/Mar 07 "Susan Poizner: Director, Producer, Writer". Archived from the original on 22 November 2012. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
- ^ Dunn (2004), p. 23.
External links
- Marsh, James H. (21 July 2015) [April 15, 2013]. "Acadian Civil War". The Canadian Encyclopedia (online ed.). Historica Canada.
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