The Acadian Diaspora

Introduction

Late in 1755, an army of British regulars and Massachusetts volunteers undertook what one officer described as a “disagreeable” duty: deporting the entire Acadian population of the province of Nova Scotia. Within weeks, the soldiers managed to arrest about 7,000 civilians, or about half of the province’s French-speaking Catholic settlers. Over the next three years, Anglo-American troops captured 3,000 more Acadians on Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island) and in present-day New Brunswick. During and after the Seven Years’ War, those who escaped the British assault established footholds on the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The rest, however, were shipped off to a dizzying array of destinations. Between 1763 and the mid-1780s, thousands of Acadians turned up in the port cities of British North America, England, and France; the Caribbean colonies of Saint-Domingue, Martinique, and Guiana; the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, and experimental colonies on Belle-Île-en-Mer and in the French province of Poitou. Although many of the exiles’ descendants remained in these scattered locations, others gathered again, establishing new communities in the Saint Lawrence valley, the Canadian Maritimes, and Louisiana, where they came to be known as Cajuns. This long run of deportations and displacements, then, is the grand dérangement—the “great upheaval” or, in modern terms, the Acadian diaspora. Since the 19th century, scholars have written much about these events. They have dissected Anglo-American motives and explored the Acadians’ persistence as a distinctive minority, all while examining the grand dérangement both in its 18th-century context and (more recently) in relation to modern episodes of coerced migration. The works detailed below represent the most important trends in the historiography of this still-understudied topic.

General Overviews

Encompassing Acadian history before and after 1755, these overviews are concerned with the causes of the deportation and the Acadians’ methods of coping with the radical changes it triggered. Daigle 1995 includes important essays on Acadian demography, politics, and culture from the 17th century to the present. Arsenault 1994, Brasseaux 1987, and Griffiths 1992 examine the 1755 expulsion and the grand dérangement as manifestations of the Acadians’ deep-seated sense of collective identity, while Faragher 2005 and Jobb 2005 make explicit comparisons between the British campaign in Nova Scotia and modern cases of ethnic cleansing or genocide. Lauvrière 1924 and Brasseaux 1991 are most useful for their accounts of the Acadian exiles’ varied experiences in North America, the Caribbean, the South Atlantic, and Western Europe.

Arsenault, Bona. History of the Acadians. Saint-Laurent, Quebec: Fides, 1994.
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Originally published in 1965. A relentlessly detailed historical and genealogical survey of the Acadian past. Has largely been supplanted by newer scholarship, but remains a good source of information.
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Brasseaux, Carl A. The Foundation of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765–1803. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
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Classic—if somewhat scattershot—account of the grand dérangement and the establishment of Acadian settlements in late-18th-century Louisiana. Argues for near-universal ethnic cohesion among the exiles and explores the unwillingness of British, French, and Spanish authorities to grant them social and cultural autonomy throughout the grand dérangement.
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Brasseaux, Carl A. Scattered to the Wind: Dispersal and Wandering of the Acadians, 1755–1809. Louisiana Life Series 6. Lafayette: University of Southwest Louisiana, 1991.
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This slim volume presents a very brief overview of the Acadians’ various post-1755 migrations. A good introduction to the scope of the grand dérangement.
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Daigle, Jean, ed. Acadia of the Maritimes: Thematic Studies from the Beginning to the Present. Moncton, Canada: Chaire D’études Acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 1995.
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A fine, comprehensive collection of essays on Acadian history, demography, and culture. Updated from 1982 first edition.
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Faragher, John Mack. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. New York: Norton, 2005.
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The best narrative account of the Acadian expulsion and the first years of the grand dérangement to date. Written for a popular audience, Faragher’s book argues, not unproblematically, that the 1755 removal constitutes the earliest case of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in North American history and a precursor of American manifest destiny.
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Griffiths, Naomi E. S. The Contexts of Acadian History, 1686–1784. Winthrop Pickard Bell Lectures in Maritime Studies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992.
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A brief but thorough introduction to Acadian history and the historiographical debates surrounding the Acadians’ colonial history under the French and British regimes, the 1755 expulsion, and the grand dérangement.
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Jobb, Dean A. The Cajuns: A People’s Story of Exile and Triumph. New York: Wiley, 2005.
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A work of popular history that traces the broad outlines of Acadian history from the colony’s foundation through the grand dérangement and the Acadian cultural renaissance of the late 19th and 20th centuries. A bit bombastically, the author compares the expulsion of 1755 to modern genocides. Very little historiographical import, but useful as a starting point.
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Lauvrière, Emile. La tragédie d’un peuple: Histoire du people acadien de ses origines à nos jours. 2 vols. Paris: Henri Goulet, 1924.
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Nearly ninety years after its publication, Lauvrière’s work remains relevant. The first French-language history of the Acadians, it covers both their pre-expulsion relations with the British government of Nova Scotia and each major destination of the Acadian exiles after 1755. Must be read alongside newer scholarship, but must be read.
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Reference Works

While genealogical publications on Acadians have proliferated, reference works per se in Acadian history remain relatively scarce. One exception is the Inventaire Général assembled by the Centre D’études Acadiennes 1975–1977, a vast bibliography of secondary and primary literature that remains an essential source for researchers. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography contains hundreds of useful entries on Acadian subjects. White, et al. 1999 is a necessity for researchers hoping to untangle complex Acadian family histories.

Centre D’études Acadiennes. Inventaire général des sources documentaires sur les Acadiens. 3 vols. Moncton, Canada: Éditions d’Acadie, 1975–1977.
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Although dated, an excellent source for secondary literature on the Acadians before the mid-1970s. More useful still is the detailed bibliography of primary sources, including archival manuscripts on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
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Convenient database containing short biographical sketches for hundreds of important figures from Acadian history.
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White, Stephen A., Hector J. Hébert, and Patrice Gallant. Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes. 2 vols. Moncton, Canada: Centre d’études acadiennes, Université de Monckton, 1999.
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An indispensable source. Although they do not extend into the post-expulsion period, these volumes contain crucial genealogical data and sources for Acadian individuals and families from the beginnings of settlement in the 1630s through the mid-18th century.
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Journals

There is no journal exclusively dedicated to the study of the grand dérangement. Both Acadiensis and the Cahiers de la Société historique acadienne, however, devote a great deal of space to the Acadian expulsion and diaspora. Predictably, the Louisiana Historical Quarterly focuses almost exclusively on the lower Mississippi valley, including occasional works of Acadian history alongside its other offerings.

Acadiensis.
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First published in 1971, Acadiensis is the premier journal for scholarship on Atlantic Canada from the colonial period through the 20th century. Articles appear in English and French.
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Cahiers de la Société historique acadienne.
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Published under the auspices of the Société Historique Acadienne since 1961. Like Acadiensis, the Cahiers has published dozens of important articles on the grand dérangement.
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Louisiana Historical Quarterly.
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A regional journal, but one that has published a significant number of articles on Acadian and Cajun history.
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Primary Sources

Both Acadian history generally and the grand dérangement in particular are well served by published primary sources. Dièreville 1933 offers a European visitor’s view of early-18th-century Acadian society and culture, while MacMechan 1908 and Fergusson 1967 contain council minutes and other key materials detailing the British takeover of Acadia in 1713 and the administration’s relations with its Acadian subjects. Akins 1869 reproduces official correspondence from British and French sources with an eye, seemingly, toward defending the Anglo-American campaign of 1755; in many ways a response to Akins, Casgrain 1888–1891 presents a range of documents concerning the expulsion and its aftermath from a more pro-French point of view. Webster 1936 and Webster 1937 contain essential journals and eyewitness accounts from French and British observers of the expulsion, while Winslow 1883 reveals the mechanics of the deportation through the eyes of the Massachusetts officer charged with carrying it out. Gaudet 1906 contains valuable material on pre-expulsion Acadian society and the exiles’ experiences in British North America and France.

Akins, Thomas Beamish, ed. Selections from the Public Documents of the Province of Nova Scotia. Halifax, Canada: C. Annand, 1869.
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An excellent collection of primary documents, most of which involve the decision to expel the Acadian population of Nova Scotia beginning in 1755. Compiled and published under the auspices of that province’s Anglo-American government, the book was intended, in part, to counter the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 poem Evangeline.
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Casgrain, Henri-Raymond, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur le Canada et l’Amérique, publiés par le Canada-Français. 3 vols. Quebec: J. Demers, 1888–1891.
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Contains essential documents on Acadians under the British administration of Nova Scotia, the expulsion of 1755, and the grand dérangement. Includes correspondence, petitions, and journal excerpts in English and French. Especially valuable are transcriptions of genealogical declarations made by Acadian exiles settled at Belle-Île-en-Mer during the 1760s.
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Diéreville. Relation of the Voyage to Port Royal in Acadia or New France. Edited by John Clarence Webster. Publications of the Champlain Society 20. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1933.
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Originally published in 1708, Dièreville’s account of Port Royal (present-day Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) is a key description of Acadian society, culture, and economics before the British takeover of the colony in 1713.
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Fergusson, Charles Bruce, ed. Minutes of His Majesty’s Council at Annapolis Royal, 1736–1749. Nova Scotia Archives 4. Halifax, Canada: Public Archives of Nova Scotia, 1967.
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Records of policy deliberations, interactions with Acadians and Catholic priests, and the Mi’kmaq in the years leading up to the expulsion of 1755.
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Gaudet, Placide, ed. Rapport concernant les archives canadiennes pour l’année 1905. Ottawa: National Archives of Canada, 1906.
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Gaudet’s work brings together hundreds of important French-language sources (and English-language sources, translated into French) on the grand dérangement. Difficult to find, but a crucial addition to the canon of published primary sources on the decision to remove the Acadians in 1755.
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MacMechan, Archibald M, ed. Original Minutes of His Majesty’s Council at Annapolis Royal, 1720–1739. Halifax, Canada: McAlpine, 1908.
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Outlines the compromises made and deals struck between Nova Scotia’s British government and the province’s Acadian population. Essential for understanding the evolution of the Acadians’ pre-expulsion pretensions to political neutrality.
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Webster, John Clarence, ed. The Siege of Beausejour in 1755: A Journal of the Attack on Beausejour written by Jacau De Fiedmont, Artillery Officer and Acting Engineer at the Fort. Translated by Alice Webster. Historical Studies 1. Saint John, Canada: New Brunswick Museum, 1936.
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Account of the siege of Fort Beauséjour by the half-Acadian Fiedmont. A good source for understanding the siege as the precipitating event of the 1755 removal.
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Webster, John Clarence, ed. Journals of Beauséjour: Diary of John Thomas, Journal of Louis de Courville. Sackville, Canada: Tribune Press, 1937.
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Contains the diary of John Thomas, a Massachusetts soldier involved in the expulsion, and Louis de Courville, a French official stationed in 1755 at Fort Beauséjour on Nova Scotia’s contested western frontier. Special Publication, the Public Archives of Nova Scotia.
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Winslow, John. “Journal of Colonel John Winslow, of the Provincial Troops, While Engaged in Removing the Acadian French Inhabitants from Grand Pré, and the Neighbouring Settlements, in the Autumn of the Year 1755.” Nova Scotia Historical Society Collections 3 (1883): 71–196.
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Journal of the commanding officer of the expedition to expel the Acadians in 1755. This is a key source for understanding the logistics of that operation—Winslow offers remarkably detailed views of Acadian resistance and collaboration. Continued in Nova Scotia Historical Society Collections 4 (1885): 113–246.
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Acadia and Nova Scotia Before 1755

Scholarship on Acadia and Nova Scotia before 1755 has become substantially richer and more diverse over the past two decades. Bleakney 2004 and Clark 1968 focus on the technological innovations and environmental transformations associated with Acadian settlement on the Bay of Fundy. Plank 2001 and Wicken 1994 focus on relations between the Acadians and the Mi’kmaq, while Brebner 1927 and Reid 2004 emphasize Acadian dealings with Massachusetts and English expansionists in the 17th and 18th centuries. Griffiths 2005 provides the most complete overview of pre-expulsion Acadian history, highlighting the Acadians’ position at a friction point between rival empires as an important root of their distinctive political culture.

Bleakney, J. Sherman. Sods, Soil, and Spades: The Acadians at Grand Pré and Their Dykeland Legacy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004.
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Written by a marine biologist with extensive knowledge of the Bay of Fundy’s geographical and botanical peculiarities, this book provides detailed, accessible knowledge of Acadian agricultural techniques, including outstanding descriptions of the construction of dikes and aboiteaux on the marshes near Grand Pré.
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Brebner, John Bartlet. New England’s Outpost: Acadia Before the Conquest of Canada. Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law 293. New York: Columbia University Press, 1927.
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A dated but still solid rendition of Acadian history from the early seventeenth century through 1763. Focuses on the close relations between Massachusetts and the Acadians, a theme which has once again become central to the historiography.
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Clark, Andrew Hill. Acadia: The Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.
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A model work of historical geography. Subjects primary sources to quantitative analysis to trace changes in colonization patterns and land use during the first 150 years of settlement on the Acadian peninsula and beyond. Clark’s book is essential reading.
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Griffiths, Naomi E. S. From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Borderland People, 1604–1755. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
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The culmination of a lifetime of research and writing, this is the most comprehensive, well-researched history of the Acadians up to the expulsion of 1755. The author is perhaps too attached to the notion of an enduring, almost transhistorical Acadian identity, but this work is invaluable for its clear discussions of Acadian culture and politics in the colonial period.
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Plank, Geoffrey. An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia. Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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Examines relations among the British, Acadian, and Mi’kmaq inhabitants of Nova Scotia in the decades before 1755. Plank argues convincingly that the expulsion arose out of a British inability to untangle the familial and economic ties that bound the Acadians and Mi’kmaq into an interconnected, multicultural community.
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Reid, John G., Maurice Basque, Elizabeth Mancke, and Barry Moody. The “Conquest” of Nova Scotia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
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A collection of essays by six contributors that examines the British takeover of Acadia from local, regional, and Atlantic perspectives. Important reading for the study of political culture in pre-expulsion Nova Scotia.
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Wicken, William. “Encounters with Tall Sails and Tall Tales: Mi’kmaq Society, 1500–1760.” PhD diss., McGill University, 1994.
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Wicken’s unpublished dissertation remains the best source on the Mi’kmaq from their earliest contacts with Europeans through the era of the Acadian expulsion. The author not only paints a remarkable ethnographic portrait of the Mi’kmaq, but also details their relations—sometimes reciprocal, sometimes adversarial—with the Acadians, situating this important indigenous population within local and imperial history.
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The Expulsion, 1755–1763

The best accounts of the expulsion usually occur in general works. Faragher 2005 (see General Overviews) remains the fullest, most accessible account, while Plank 2005 offers important insights into both British and Acadian motives. Although dated in style and approach, Gipson 1946 embeds the Acadian deportation within the broader history of Anglo-French conflict. Leblanc 2005 contains careful, extremely focused contributions to the historiography on the expulsion, while Lockerby 1998 details the 1758 expulsion of Acadians from Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island). Griffiths 1969 suggests some of the pitfalls of presentist approaches to the events of 1755.

Gipson, Lawrence Henry. The British Empire Before the American Revolution. Vol. 6, The Great War for Empire: The Years of Defeat, 1747–1757. New York: Knopf, 1946.
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Buried within Gipson’s massive narrative history of the British Empire, this volume deals capably with the Acadian expulsion, laying out the policies and personalities that led to the events of 1755. Contains chapters on Thomas Pichon, the removal itself, and the exiles’ initial destinations.
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Griffiths, Naomi E. S. The Acadian Deportation: Deliberate Perfidy or Cruel Necessity? Issues in Canadian History. Toronto: Copp and Clark, 1969.
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A collection of reflections from 19th- and 20th-century historians on the causes of the Acadian removal. Although unimportant for its own historiographical contribution, this book does introduce the political, religious, and cultural undertones that have informed perceptions of the 1755 expulsion for decades.
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Leblanc, Ronnie-Gilles, ed. Du grand dérangement á la déportation: Nouvelles perspectives historiques. Collection Mouvange 11. Moncton, Canada: Chair d’études acadiennes, Université de Monckton, 2005.
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A good collection that analyzes expulsion historiography on the 250th anniversary of the event itself. Essays (in English and French) include literature reviews as well as scholarship rooted in genealogical methods. Particularly notable is Ronnie-Gilles Leblanc’s introduction, which gives a fine account of the changing language used to describe the 1755 removal.
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Lockerby, Earle. “The Deportation of the Acadians from Île St.-Jean, 1758.” Acadiensis 27.2 (1998): 45–94.
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An important article on an understudied topic—the expulsion of three thousand Acadians, most of whom had fled the 1755 campaign in Nova Scotia, from Île Saint-Jean to France in 1758.
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Plank, Geoffrey. “New England Soldiers in the St. John River Valley, 1758–1760.” In New England and the Maritime Provinces: Connections and Comparisons. Edited by Stephen Hornsby and John G. Reid, 59–73. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2005.
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The best available account of British attempts to capture and expel Acadians who had fled peninsular Nova Scotia and Île Saint-Jean for the shores of the Gaspée peninsula.
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Acadian Exiles

In the decades after 1755, Acadian exiles fanned out across the Atlantic World. The first seven thousand deportees were shipped to nine different Anglo-American ports along the Atlantic seaboard, triggering what may well have been the most acute refugee crisis in pre–Civil War North America. Early in 1756, nearly a thousand Acadians initially sent to Virginia were dispatched to Great Britain, where they remained until the end of the Seven Years’ War. In 1763, those exiles were transported across the English Channel by Louis XV’s ministers, joining some three thousand Acadians captured on Île Saint-Jean and sent to France back in 1758. These two loose “concentrations” of dispossessed exiles (one on the North American coast, the other in France) were quickly dispersed after 1763. While some remained in the seaports, Acadians in North America migrated to Saint-Domingue, British Canada, and Louisiana; those in France were shunted off to new colonies in Guiana, the Falkland Islands, and within the kingdom itself. In 1785, fifteen hundred Acadians left France for Louisiana, linking up with old compatriots who had settled in the lower Mississippi Valley twenty years earlier. Few works have dealt with these Acadian migrations as a single diaspora, but existing scholarship clearly illustrates the remarkable complexity of the exiles’ social and political experiences in particular locations.

The Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain

The plight of Acadian exiles in the seaports of British North America and Great Britain has been studied mostly in discrete segments. Many general histories of the grand dérangement contain good, province-by-province overviews. The upshot of most of the accounts below is that wherever they landed in British North America, Acadians were ill-treated by francophobic, anti-Catholic Anglo-Americans. Belliveau 1972 focuses on Massachusetts and New England, Coulter 1963 on Georgia, Hamer 1938 on South Carolina, Griffiths 1976 on the Acadian exiles sent first to Virginia and subsequently to Great Britain, and Hodson 2010 on Pennsylvania.

Belliveau, Pierre. French Neutrals in Massachusetts: The Story of Acadians Rounded Up by Soldiers from Massachusetts and Their Captivity in the Bay Province, 1755–1766. Boston: Kirk S. Giffen, 1972.
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Written by a Boston attorney/descendant of Acadians, this volume offers a solid, if not necessarily academic, introduction to the exiles’ varied experiences in Massachusetts. Valuable especially for its bibliography.
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Coulter, Merton E. “The Acadians in Georgia.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 47.2 (1963): 68–75.
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A brief introduction to the Acadians’ arrival and sojourn in Georgia. The author identifies and explores some key primary sources, most of which are contained in Allen Candler, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: Franklin, 1904–).
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Griffiths, Naomi E. S. “Acadians in Exile: The Experiences of the Acadians in British Seaports.” Acadiensis 4.1 (1974): 67–84.
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A thoughtful examination of the Acadians sent from Virginia to several port cities in Britain in the spring of 1756. Few have returned to these sources, or to the topic.
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Hamer, Marguerite. “The Fate of the Exiled Acadians in South Carolina.” Journal of Southern History 4.2 (1938): 199–208.
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Short article deals with Acadians in South Carolina, examining their reception in wartime Charleston. Available online to subscribers.
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Hodson, Christopher. “Exile on Spruce Street: An Acadian History.” William and Mary Quarterly 67.2 (2010): 249–278.
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Microhistorical account of an Acadian boy sent to Philadelphia in 1755 who later anglicized his name, grew wealthy as a merchant and, after dying intestate, became the subject of a bitter court battle. Article situates the grand dérangement within scholarship on identity in other global diasporas.
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The French Empire

In the early to mid-1760s, hundreds of Acadians took part in a series of short-lived colonial experiments across the French empire. Many sources containing accounts of these colonies can be found in General Overviews. Debien 1978, Cherubini 1990, and Hodson 2007 explore Acadian participation in France’s 1764 attempt to colonize the Kourou River in Guiana and the area around Môle Saint-Nicolas in northwestern Saint-Domingue. Poirier 1984 deals with Acadians who took refuge on Saint-Pierre and Miquelon beginning in the late 1750s, while White 1984 offers genealogical information about Acadians who briefly settled the Falkland Islands in 1764.

Cherubini, Bernard. “Les Acadiens en Guyane française: Des colons exemplaires pour une colonization en dilettante (1762–1772).” Bulletin du Centre D’histoire des Espaces Atlantiques 5 (1990): 157–196.
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Deals with Acadians sent to colonize Guiana’s Kourou River in 1764, tracing out the reasons for which refugees in French port towns like Cherbourg and Le Havre came to be perceived as good settlers for new, innovative colonies.
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Debien, Gabriel. “The Acadians in Santo-Domingo, 1764–1789.” In The Cajuns: Essays on Their History and Culture. Edited by Glenn R. Conrad, 21–96. USL History series 11. Lafayette, LA: University of Southwest Louisiana, 1978.
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A blow-by-blow account of the 1764 attempt to plant a colony of Acadians at Môle Saint-Nicolas, a remote outpost at the tip of Saint-Domingue’s northern peninsula. Although most Acadians involved in this ill-fated project later turned up in Louisiana, the author traces some who remained until the Haitian revolution.
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Hodson, Christopher. “‘A Bondage So Harsh’: Acadian Labor in the French Caribbean, 1763–1766.” Early American Studies 5.1 (2007): 95–131.
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Situates Acadian involvement in the Guiana and Saint-Domingue experiments within France’s post–Seven Years’ War revival of interest in empire building, especially among antislavery political economists. Available online to subscribers.
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Poirier, Michel. Les Acadiens aux Îles Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, 1758–1828: 3 déportations, 30 années d’exil. Moncton, Canada: Editions d’Acadie, 1984.
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The only sustained account of Acadian refugees on the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. Primarily genealogical.
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White, Stephen A. “Les Acadiens aux Îles Malouines en 1764.” Cahiers de la Société Historique Acadienne 15.2–3 (1984): 100–105.
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A brief genealogical introduction to the Acadians who accompanied Louis-Antoine de Bougainville to the Falkland Islands in 1764 and 1765.
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France

Between 1758 and 1785, about three thousand Acadian exiles lived in port cities in the north and west of France. Their history of displacement, recolonization, and reverse migration remains understudied. Mouhot 2009 is the best researched and argued treatment; his work supplants that of Martin 1936 by offering an interpretation less rooted in the Acadians’ ethnic distinctiveness. Boyer-Vidal 2005 and Fonteneau 1996 focus on Acadians in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Belle Île-en-Mer, respectively, while McCloy 1938 and Hodson 2009 deal with economic aid and internal colonization projects designed to root Acadian refugees in the metropolis. Braud 1999 and Rieder and Rieder 1967 provide a genealogical and demographic context for the Acadians’ experiences.

Boyer-Vidal, Yves. Le retour des Acadiens: Errances terrestres et maritimes, 1750–1850. Paris: Éditions du Gerfaut, 2005.
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Written by a non-historian, this book nonetheless provides a useful perspective on the Acadian experience in pre- and post-revolutionary France. Focused on the Gautreau/Gotrot family and rooted in little-known primary documents, the author’s story of Acadians who remained in France to become privateers and whalers raises important questions about assimilation and distinctiveness in diasporic settings.
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Braud, Gérard-Marc. Les Acadiens en France: Nantes et Paimboeuf, 1775–1785: Approche généalogique. Rennes, France: Ouest, 1999.
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A thorough reconstruction of the Acadian communities of Nantes and Paimboeuf. Many of these refugees would migrate to Louisiana in 1785, making the author’s research into their familial relationships particularly important.
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Fonteneau, Jean-Marie. Les acadiens: Citoyens de l’Atlantique. Rennes, France: Ouest, 1996.
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In many ways a general overview of the grand dérangement. Fonteneau’s book is particularly useful, however, in its detailed discussion of the settlement of Acadians on Belle-Île-en-Mer beginning in 1765.
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Hodson, Christopher. “Colonizing the Patrie: An Experiment Gone Wrong in Old Regime France.” French Historical Studies 32.2 (2009): 193–222.
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A reconstruction of the attempt to create Acadian colonies near the town of Chatellerault in Poitou. Situates this abortive settlement within a broader movement toward agricultural renewal and internal colonization in old regime France. Available online to subscribers.
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Martin, Ernest. Les exilés acadiens en France au XVIIIe siècle et leur installation dans le Poitou. Paris: Hachette, 1936.
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The classic account of the Acadian refugee experience in France. Although the book is dated, it remains an excellent source of information on Acadian life in northern and western seaports, and on the failed colonization attempts at Belle-Île-en-Mer and in Poitou.
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McCloy, Shelby T. “French Charities to the Acadians, 1755–1799.” Louisiana Historical Quarterly 21.3 (1938): 656–668.
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While certainly dated, this article (part of McCloy’s larger project on government charity under Louis XV and Louis XVI) offers a good overview of the official French response to Acadian refugees.
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Mouhot, Jean-François. Les réfugiés acadiens en France (1758–1785): L’impossible reintegration? Montréal: Septentrion, 2009.
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The most complete single-volume work on the Acadians in France. Mouhot mines untapped archival material to craft a novel argument: that the failure of Acadians to “integrate” themselves into French society had little to do with their preexisting cultural identity. Rather, the author highlights a host of external factors to explain the departure of many of France’s Acadians for Louisiana in 1785. Appendices and bibliography extremely useful.
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Rieder, Milton P., and Norma Gaudet Rieder, eds. The Acadians in France. Vol. 3, 1762–1776: Rolls of the Acadians Living in France Distributed by Towns for the Years 1762 to 1776. Metarie, LA: Milton P. Rieder, 1967.
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An important (if hard to find) genealogical source. Lays out not just Acadian family relationships but speaks to their relations, marital and otherwise, with the French during the grand dérangement.
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Louisiana

In the United States, Acadians are best known for becoming Cajuns. Typically, this story is told in terms of fundamental cultural continuities and relatively minor ecological adjustments. Brasseaux 1992 remains the essential history of the refugees’ adjustment to economic life in the slave society of the lower Mississippi valley, while Conrad 1978 looks more at culture and folklore. Calloway 2006 situates the first Acadian migrations to Louisiana during the mid-1760s within the context of post–Seven Years’ War migrations throughout North America, while Winzerling 1955 reconstructs the 1785 migration of nearly fifteen hundred Acadians from western France to Louisiana. Perrin 2005 offers a biographical approach to the earliest Acadian arrivals in Louisiana, while Rieder and Rieder 1965 provides the necessary genealogical data for the study of the 1785 migration.

Brasseaux, Carl A. Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803–1877. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992.
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The best single-volume account of the social, cultural, and economic adjustments made by Acadian migrants to Louisiana during the 19th century. Especially thoughtful sections on Acadian ranching and slaveholding.
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Calloway, Colin. The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America. Pivotal Moments in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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Contains an entirely derivative, five-page-long section on the Acadian migration to Louisiana—but represents an interesting (and rare) attempt to frame this part of the grand dérangement within a broader history of displacement that reshuffled peoples and redrew boundaries across colonial North America.
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Conrad, Glenn R., ed. The Cajuns: Essays on Their History and Culture. 2d ed. USL History series. Lafayette: University of Southwest Louisiana, 1978.
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An uneven collection of essays on Cajun culture and folklore.
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Perrin, Warren A. Acadian Redemption: From Beausoleil Broussard to the Queen’s Royal Proclamation. Opelousas, LA: Andrepont, 2005.
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A praiseworthy, nonscholarly attempt to construct a biography of Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, one of the original Acadian settlers of Louisiana. The author simultaneously explores issues surrounding Cajun identity and the drafting of Queen Elizabeth II’s 2003 Royal Proclamation of regret for the 1755 expulsion.
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Rieder, Milton P., and Norma Gaudet Rieder. The Crew and Passenger Registration Lists of the Seven Acadian Expeditions of 1785: A Listing by Family Groups of the Refugee Acadians Who Migrated from France to Spanish Louisiana in 1785. Metairie, LA: Milton P. Rieder, 1965.
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Another excellent, but often difficult to locate, collection of genealogical data. Crucial for serious study of the Louisiana colonization project.
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Winzerling, Oscar William. Acadian Odyssey. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1955.
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Now somewhat dated in interpretation and tone, Winzerling’s still-useful book used previously unexamined Spanish-language sources to narrate the 1785 migration of Acadians from France to Spanish Louisiana.
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Canada and the Maritimes

After 1763, many Acadians who had escaped the expulsion congregated in what is now New Brunswick, where they worked as farmers or fisherman; others were allowed to return to Nova Scotia, although typically not as proprietors of their old Bay of Fundy lands, which were snapped up by New Englanders and Scots migrants. In 1766, Acadians in Massachusetts were invited by the British government of Canada to settle in the Saint Lawrence valley. Many sources cited in General Overviews relate some version of these events. Blais 2005 offers a good account of the Acadians’ adjustment to agrarian life beyond the tidal marshes of the Bay of Fundy, while Wade 1975 provides a good overview of the resettlement of Acadians throughout the Maritimes. Hébert and Trépanier 1994 covers Acadian families planted near Montreal after 1766.

Blais, Christian. “Pérégrinations et conquête du sol (1755–1836): L’implantation acadienne sur la rive nord du Baie-des-Chaleurs.” Acadiensis 35.1 (2005): 3–23.
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Deals admirably with the challenges faced first by Acadians who fled to the Baie-des-Chaleurs during the 1755 deportation, and second by those who remained there after making a separate peace with the British in the early 1760s. Available online to subscribers.
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Hébert, Pierre-Maurice, and Pierre Trépanier. Les Acadiens du Québec. Montreal: Éditions de L’Écho, 1994.
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Genealogical study of Acadians in the Saint Lawrence valley. Short on interpretation, but a good source for researchers.
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Wade, Mason. “After the Grand Dérangement: The Acadians’ Return to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to Nova Scotia.” American Review of Canadian Studies 5.1 (1975): 42–65.
DOI: 10.1080/02722017509481001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best single statement on those Acadians who, after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, managed either to remain in their settlements in what is now New Brunswick or resettle in Nova Scotia.
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Echoes of the Grand Dérangement

Since 1755, writers have tried to come to grips with the tragedy and pathos of the grand dérangement. Longfellow’s 1847 Evangeline, a romantic poem tracing two separated Acadian lovers across a fictive grand dérangement landscape, remains the best-known reflection on Acadian history; Brasseaux 1988, Griffiths 1982, Hebert-Leiter 2009, and Taylor 1988 each reconstruct the poem’s long history among ordinary Acadians and scholars alike, tracing its profound influence on subsequent perceptions of Acadian character. Bernard 2003 and Brasseaux 2009 reflect on the nature of Cajun society in Louisiana, demolishing (especially in Brasseaux’s work) the notion of pre–World War II Cajuns as culturally insular. Laxer 2006 examines the Acadian diaspora as a political lesson for an increasingly multicultural, modern Canadian society. Rudin 2009 successfully details the politics of commemoration in Acadian history, especially surrounding the 250th anniversary of the expulsion in 2005.

Bernard, Shane K. The Cajuns: Americanization of a People. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2003.
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A useful overview of Cajun history in the twentieth century. Posits World War II as the key turning point in the nationalization of Cajun culture.
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Brasseaux, Carl. In Search of Evangeline: Birth and Evolution of the Evangeline Myth. Thibodeaux, LA: Blue Heron, 1988.
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A good, accessible and, unfortunately, difficult-to-locate account of the uses of Longfellow’s Evangeline as an Acadian identity myth.
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Brasseaux, Ryan. Cajun Breakdown: The Emergence of an American-Made Music. American Musicspheres. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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An excellent work of musical history that details the evolution of Cajun Zydeco. Notable mainly for its skillful exposition of links between Cajun music and other southern art forms, including African-American music—thus exposing as problematic continued assertions of Cajun culture as backward or insular.
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Griffiths, Naomi E. S. “Longfellow’s Evangeline: Birth and Acceptance of a Legend.” Acadiensis 11.2 (1982): 28–41.
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A solid review of Acadian and Anglo-American attitudes toward Evangeline during the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Hebert-Leiter, Maria. Becoming Cajun, Becoming American: The Acadian in American Literature from Longfellow to James Lee Burke. Southern Literary studies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.
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A good treatment of Acadians in American literature. Runs from Longfellow through George Washington Cable, Kate Chopin, and James Lee Burke.
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Laxer, James. The Acadians: In Search of a Homeland. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2006.
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A prolific Canadian author, Laxer offers one part Acadian history, one part extended meditation on the lessons modern, multicultural Canadian society might learn from the grand dérangement.
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Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Evangeline: A Tale of Old Acadie. 6th ed. Boston: W. D. Ticknor, 1847.
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The great epic poem that has become a touchstone for Acadian historians and modern Acadians themselves. Longfellow’s themes—familial bonds, suffering, and redemption—have shaped Acadian history from the 19th century through the present.
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Rudin, Ronald. Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie: A Historian’s Journey through Public Memory. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
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Discusses the commemoration of both the 400th anniversary of Acadia’s founding and the 250th anniversary of the 1755 expulsion (observed in 2004 and 2005, respectively). Remarkable for the author’s interviews with contemporary Acadians, Anglo-Canadians, and indigenous peoples.
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Taylor, M. Brook. “The Poetry and Prose of History: Evangeline and the Historians of Nova Scotia.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Révue d’études canadiennes 23.1–2 (1988): 46–65.
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A remarkable study of the ways in which the publication of Evangeline shaped the work of 19th-century historians, archivists, and politicians.
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