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According to my totally evil Scottish grandmother who moved to Canada in the 1940s, there was no such thing as a French Canadian. To her, they were “bloody froggies.” If she knew about the expulsion of French Canadians from the Maritimes in the middle of the 18th century, she’d have cheered.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 10, 1755--
The woman was filled with hate, so let’s not talk about her anymore. Canada is a bilingual country. The primary language spoken in the province of Quebec is French. In the rest of Canada many of us don’t speak French for shit. I was in Guatemala in 1995 and had a housemate from Quebec. The only shared language we had was Spanish.
Canada exists because both the British and French stole it from the Indigenous, but then the British got the upper hand and that’s why our head of state is Queen Liz 2 and our initial constitution was called the British North America Act. But there were too many French in what is now Quebec to just say fuck you get out. There were not, however, too many to kick out of what would become the Maritime provinces now called Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island (as well as northern Maine). The region at the time was called Acadia, and on August 10, 1755, began the Expulsion of the Acadians.
This was during a decade-long period called the French and Indian War, which was the northern portion of the Seven Years War. It was British America vs. New France, with each side using Indigenous allies to help in the fighting. The French colonists were outnumbered two million to 60,000, so they relied heavily on the Indigenous to fight on their behalf.
As part of the war the British said to the Acadians hey you need to sign an oath of allegiance to Britain and the Acadians said tabarnak or something equally profane and the Brits said fine get the fuck out then. The Acadians had lived in the region for over a century and a half, and had become largely ignored by France and were of independent minds; they did not go quietly, but rather began a guerrilla warfare campaign to resist deportation. More than 11,000 were removed, their homes and crops burned.
They ended up scattered across the 13 colonies, the Caribbean, and were even sent back to Europe. Thousands died from disease and starvation in the squalid conditions of the ships during the deportations. And when the survivors arrived in new locations, the locals were all who the fuck are these people? We don’t want them. Many found their way to Louisiana and contributed to founding the Cajun population.
Approximately 2,600 Acadians eluded capture and remained in the region. It is estimated that half a million Canadians have Acadian ancestry, and there are 300,000 speakers of Acadian French.
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Brilliant commentary, as always, James - can't thank you enough for bringing history to life in your own unique way! As a "born and bred" New Brunswicker, however, I feel compelled to point out that tiny little NB is the only officially bilingual province in Canada, and has been so since 1969. Somewhere around 30% of our population are Francophone. Many Acadians returned to NB following the expulsion, and l'Acadie is a vibrant part of NB's culture to this day. Source: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/official-language-act-new-brunswick#:~:text=Francophones%20in%20New%20Brunswick%20represented,its%20own%20Official%20Languages%20Act.
Hi James. On the topic of French ancestry, have you written or researched much about the expulsion of the Huguenots? The St Bartholomew's massacre is a popular jumping-off point that's been we'll covered, but I'm more interested in the diaspora, particularly because I'm told I have Huguenot roots in India, but can't find much information as to when, or indeed if, they emigrated there. My immediate ancestry is Anglo-Indian (I have Chamarette on my maternal side and Lafrenais on my paternal side) but it's difficult to distinguish whether that French influence was due to trade or exodus. Any ideas?