March 28, 2024
Archive

Acadians to get apology from Queen Elizabeth Proclamation acknowledges deportation

FRENCHVILLE – After nearly 250 years, Evangeline and Gabrielle, the immortalized heroes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s tragic poem about the deportation of Acadians at the hands of the British, are getting their due.

After more than a decade of trying to get Queen Elizabeth II of England to apologize for the ethnic cleansing brought about by the deportation of Acadians from Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, in 1755, the apology is being made. The deportation occurred between 1775 and 1783, scattering French-speaking people into Maine and as far south as Louisiana.

Queen Elizabeth’s apology comes through a back door by way of the Canadian Federal Cabinet, which approved the order this week. The proclamation will become official next week when it is signed by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, the queen’s representative in Canada.

The British monarch recently deferred a decision on the requested apology to the Canadian Federal Cabinet, which endorsed the idea, and Clarkson’s signing of the proclamation will make it official.

“This is a royal proclamation, and it involves two very important things for Acadians everywhere,” Euclide Chiasson, president of Canada’s National Society of Acadians, based in Moncton, New Brunswick, said Thursday afternoon. “This is important because it makes historic records a fact, and the Crown is admitting it caused irreparable damages to the Acadian people.

“There is no compensation involved, and we sought none,” he continued in French. “This is a big victory, something we have been seeking for years.”

Chiasson said the action of the Federal Cabinet has made him a sought man. He has been conducting interviews with news organizations across North America and Europe.

“This has generated interest all over the world. It’s a great day for Acadians everywhere, in Canada, in Maine, in Louisiana and elsewhere,” he said. “You must know there are Acadians in Maine because of the Grand Deportation that started in 1755.

“This is formidable. This is what we have been looking for for years,” he continued. “It is symbolic, it is important, much like a flag for a country.”

Chiasson said, like the Holocaust, there are people who claim the Grand Deportation never happened. Now it is historic fact, he said.

“We’re very happy that this has happened,” Judy Paradis of Frenchville, president of the Maine Acadian Heritage Council, said Thursday, also speaking French. “It was something they could no longer refuse because it was an embarrassment to the Crown.

“We totally supported the efforts of Canadian Acadians,” she said. “We passed similar legislation in Maine some years ago.”

About 10 years ago, the Legislature passed a resolve asking for an apology from England, Paradis said.

“We did that because we have such a large population of Acadians in Maine,” the former legislator said.

Paradis said the English Deportation Order of 1755, which forced the French out, has never been rescinded. It led to Acadian settlements up and down North America, including in Louisiana, and in the Caribbean.

About 40 percent of Maine people have French roots, but not necessarily Acadian roots. Many are linked to Quebec, Canada.

The last official request to the queen was made early in 2001, to which the Maine Acadian Heritage Council lent its support.

The cause was taken up by La Societee National D’Acadie, or the National Society of Acadia.

“This is what we have been asking for,” Daniel Theriault, executive director of the New Brunswick Society of Acadians, an arm of the National Society of Acadia, said Thursday by telephone. “We wanted positive movement from England, and it has come in a proclamation from the Federal Cabinet.

“The Royal Proclamation will be signed next week,” Theriault said. “This will officially recognize what was done to Acadians.”

The proclamation will recognize July 28, starting in 2005, as the anniversary of the deportation order.

Theriault said the queen will be asked to attend the anniversary at Grand Pre in 2005.

The original request for an apology from the British crown was made by Warren Perrin, a Louisiana lawyer, more than a decade ago. In Louisiana, resettled Acadians became known as Cajuns.

The Canadian Parliament defeated a similar request when the issue was raised in December 2001 by a member of Block Quebecquois, a separatist party in Quebec.

The Acadians were the French who settled land now called the Maritime Provinces, including present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and, in the present-day United States, parts of eastern Maine.

The British had won control of much of the area by the 1760s.

In the deportation, thousands were taken from their lands, separated from their families and dispersed up and down the East Coast. Some also fled north, to what is now Fredericton, New Brunswick. A generation later, some of those Acadians moved into the St. John Valley in Maine.

The lands left behind were confiscated and given by the British crown to loyal British subjects.

The actual number of Acadians who were deported is unknown, but it is believed to have numbered in the thousands. Hundreds died during the military action.

Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline” tells the story of two lovers who are separated by the deportation and only meet again as Gabrielle is dying.

The National Society of Acadia was formed in 1881 and is a federation that includes provincial chapters in Canada. It also has liaison associations such as Action Acadienne in Louisiana, another in the French islands of St. Pierre Miquelon, France Amitie in Paris, and one from the Magdelene Islands of Quebec.


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like