Acadia; missing links of a lost chapter in American history

Front matter

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Chapter I

Discovery of Acadia (1604).— Foundation of Port Royal (1605).— Brief Summary of the Colony's History under the French Regime until its Cession to England in 1710.

With the discovery of a new continent a new era had begun for the civilized world. Columbus had been that providential man who, braving prejudices, breaking through obstacles, had dowered the Old World with these unknown lands.

The horizon opened out by this discovery to the eyes of wondering Europe was too immense, too dazzling in its novelty to be clearly pictured in the mind. Great must have been the sensation produced; but it were difficult to realize how far the consequences that should flow therefrom were understood. It is possible that the enthusiasm of the moment gave a glimpse of the prodigious development we are witnessing to day. That enthusiasm, which suddenly bursts forth from a great discovery, is often the best guide to the grasping of the remote consequences it implies. All at once, under its influence, the mind is illumined like the horizon aflame with the lightning flash that cleaves the clouds of a summer's night. In that brief moment, swifter than

24 VAIN EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION.

thought, the eye has followed the line of light tearing through space : it has seen clouds heaped up, strange forms, contours vividly outlined; yet, the mind has retained scarcely anything of this magnificent panorama, for the view was too sudden and too rapid to engrave on the retina the multitudinous details. The background alone of this dazzling scene was visible for a moment; all the foreground was overlooked. Such, likely, was the case with Columbus's discovery. The enthusiasm of the moment afforded a glimpse of the far-off scene which the new Continent was to lay before Europe. It was a scene of treasures heaped up, of numberless ships ploughing the main to bring to Europe the wealth of this unknown world, of new gatherings of men, of cities springing up in the wilderness. Kings foresaw empires to found, men of wealth and station domains to acquire, the poor man a plot of land to live on.

That was, perhaps, the background of the picture; but the eye had caught nothing of the vague space between. That space must soon be crossed by whoever longed to reach what was promised by the iridescent vision of the transient scene. Then were to arise difficulties unnumbered and ever-recurring, unforeseen obstacles which would cast doubts on the reality of that vision. Nevertheless, the eye had not deceived, enthusiasm had not warped the judgment. Only, four centuries will barely suffice to reach the brilliant future of which that scene had afforded a glimpse.

We marvel to-day that more than a century was needed to take final possession of the beautiful continent we inhabit. To understand this fact, we must take into account the numberless difficulties encoun-

VAIN EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION. 25

tered by the first explorers. Not less then sixteen regular expeditions were organized by England, France and Portugal in the course of a century, either to discover a northwest passage to China, or to explore the North American continent itself, or for purposes of immediate settlement. Not one of these attempts had any practical result. Some of them, rather more fortunate than the others, first gave rise to great hopes ; but they were invariably followed by some other expeditions so disastrous as to remove, for several years, from the nation that had suffered, all idea of founding a colony. Then, again, a little later, some other nation had its turn. One, two, and sometimes even three expeditions followed in quick succession, to end in a new disaster, and the game was given up. Disgust took the place of enthusiasm ; but as often also, enthusiasm, sharpened by greed, ambition or jealousy, was rekindled only to issue in disheartening results. Each nation hoped to do better than its rival, each expedition hoped to avoid the faults of its predecessors ; and the sum total of them all was uniform failure. Tempting, indeed, must have been the prize, since men were not utterly repelled by the danger and sterility of so many efforts.

Of these numerous expeditions four were lost in the depths of the ocean, some others were scattered by storms and partly destroyed, and almost all were decimated by disease and destitution, so that any fresh attempt was discouraged for a time.

The expedition which came nearest to lasting success was undertaken in 1541 by Roberval, whom Francis I. had appointed Viceroy of New France, with Jacques Cartier as Captain General of the fleet. The enterprise was on a larger scale than any of those which had pre-

26 VAIN EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION.

ceded it ; but it failed because the ships did not start together and because of misunderstandings. Roberval was to perish with his entire fleet in a fresh attempt ; and thus success was delayed for sixty-three years more.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that, besides these official expeditions, America was not at all, or was not often visited. As early as 1504 its coasts were frequented by Basque, Breton and Norman fishermen very regularly. " Sometimes," says Hackluyt, "there were not less than a hundred boats fishing there." Lescarbot mentions a man called Savalet who had made forty-two voyages to the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

These annual and regular voyages, repeated during a whole century, had made the public of the maritime towns both in France and England familiar with this part of America. France was the first to resume, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the projects of colonization formed and so often abandoned in the preceding century. This time, if the success was not yet equal to the hopes entertained, the founding of a colony was to be definitive ; and the example was soon to be followed by England and other nations.

De Monts, a nobleman of Henry IV.'s court, organized this expedition. He set out from Havre de Grace March 7, 1604, accompanied by de Pontgrave*, the Baron de Poutrincourt, de Champlain, d'Orville, Champdore, and others. Their destination was the peninsula of Nova Scotia, then called la Cadie or VAcadie, and the place definitively chosen for the colony was Port Royal, of which, with the adjacent territory, de Monts made a grant to his friend Poutrincourt. In the course of the following summer a few dwelling-houses, a store, and a

FOUNDATION OF PORT ROYAL. 27

palisade enclosing the whole, were put up. Thus was Port Royal founded on the very site now occupied by the city of Annapolis. This was the first permanent settlement by Europeans in these northern climes.

As I have undertaken that epoch only which begins in 1710, when Port Royal was taken and Acadia was definitively ceded to England by the treaty of Utrecht, I have no intention of dwelling at any length on the events that marked the stormy beginnings of Acadia's history. I will merely sum up in a few pages a whole century of facts, so as to make it easier to understand what followed the cession of the country to England. Not that the earlier history is uninteresting, — far from it ; it were impossible to find on this continent any other spot so interesting, at that very time, as Acadia was. The most thrilling dramas of America in the seventeenth century were played in the waters of the Bay of Fundy (Baie Franchise).

Exposed as was this feeble colony, separated from Canada by vast distances and impenetrable forests, left to its own resources, without immigration, without assistance proportionate to the dangers of its situation, it was the theatre of perhaps greater vicissitudes of war than have fallen to the lot of any other country in the world. While, on the one hand, it was, or might have been, highly useful to France ; on the other, it was a constant menace to the commerce and tranquillity of the English colonies. It is there that expeditions of adventurers were organized against the New England colonies ; there, too, attacks were made upon the French. If it was a fine field for organizing, it was equally open to attack. Whether the two nations were at war or in peace, it was often war anyhow in these parts. A

28 FOUNDATION OF PORT ROYAL.

grievance or a mere pretext was enough to determine disastrous hostilities. Boston and Acadia sometimes waged war on each other on their own account, in spite of temporary peace and amity between the two crowns ; and, what is more, on certain occasions, Acadia was the scene of prolonged hostilities between Frenchmen who claimed the right to govern the country.

Nothing, to my mind, is more captivating than the story of this province from 1604 to 1710. It is to America what Greece once was to Europe, and the Bay of Fundy evokes almost as many memories as the iEgean Sea. The scenes there enacted have been so various and so dramatic, the actors thereof give one such an impression of heroism and of half-savage grandeur, that one can hardly refrain from treating them as legendary, as if they belonged to an epoch that is lost in the mists of antiquity. Biencourt, d'Aulnay, the two de la Tours, Saint-Castin, Denys, Subercase, Morpain, are so many legendary heroes whose names are still re-echoed by forest and rock from New Hampshire to the inmost recesses of the Bay of Fundy.

To the many difficulties which Poutrincourt and his son Biencourt experienced in solidly founding their colony of Port Royal, there was added another of a far more serious kind. During the whole of the sixteenth century, inexperience, stress of weather and disease had been the principal causes of the failure of colonization in the New World; now came the turn of human passions, ambition, jealousy, cupidity. This continent was not vast enough to satisfy the covetousness of many nations. To Samuel Argall, whose record in Virginia was so bad, belongs the honor of having begun the conflict for this immense territory, if, indeed, the acts of

FBENCH REGIME. 29

piracy which he committed can be ranked as warfare. His first attempt was the destruction of the colony of Saint-Sauveur in Mount Desert Island, on the coast of Maine ; the pretext of this outrage was Cabot's voyage, one hundred and sixteen years before, and priority of discovery on that account. Emboldened by this easy victory, he made another attempt and this time destroyed Port Royal.

By this one fell stroke was annihilated all Poutrincourt's outlay of time and money ; and France must have been strangely careless of her colony, to say nothing of her honor, since she made no move to demand reparation for the outrage committed by Argall. And, indeed, for twenty years afterwards, Acadia is hardly mentioned at all, so little, in fact, that, in 1621, it was ceded by the King of England to Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. And yet the colonists whom Poutrincourt had brought with him were still in the country ; some of them contrived to till the soil of the upper reaches of the river, a few miles from the old fort ; others had sought employment from Biencourt and de la Tour.

Seeing their hopes ruined by the destruction of Port Royal, Biencourt and his companions, taking advantage of the friendship of the Indians, had become woodrangers (coureurs de bois)* hunters, trappers. This state of things continued till the treaty of St. Germainen-Laye in 1632, by which Acadia was restored to France. Of the Scotch colony founded by Sir William at Port Royal, there remained only three or four families which were soon merged in the French population : for instance, the Colsons, the Paisleys, and the Mellanson family, which became very numerous and important in the Acadian colony under the French form of Melanc,on.

After this retrocession, France once more turned her attention to Acadia. A company was formed having at its head Isaac de Razilly, his kinsman d'Aulnay de Charnisay, and Nicolas Denys de la Konde. As their object was trade rather than colonization, they settled with their immigrants at La Heve, which was considered more suitable for traffic than Port Royal. As Governor, Razilly bestowed upon Denys in fief all the Gulf coast from the Bay des Chaleurs to Canso, and upon La Tour the old post of Cape Sable and the river St. John. In this latter place, at a spot called Jemsek, La Tour built a fort to which he gave his own name. Thanks to his long experience and his activity, thanks also to the sense of security then pervading the country, he made this a most important trading post.

De Razilly died in 1636 without haying been able to accomplish all the great projects he had in view. D'Aulnay and de la Tour were both named Lieutenant- Governors ; but the limits of their respective territories and jurisdiction were so badly defined as to lead to hostilities that long paralyzed the development of the colony. Whatever may have been d' Aulnay's faults, it seems certain that he projected a great agricultural establishment and the progress of the colony. With this object he abandoned La Heve to settle at Port Royal, which was much better suited for a colonial settlement. After gathering about him the people that had first settled at La Heve, he went to France, whence he returned with a score of colonists. It was he also who inaugurated that system of dikes which was afterwards to become so widespread. Unfortunately, the incessant quarrels provoked by his pugnacious humor made his efforts well-nigh fruitless.

When France made no protest against the destruction of Port Royal, when she refrained from putting a stop to the armed contentions of La Tour and d' Aulnay, of La Tour and Le Borgne, of Le Borgne and Denys, all fighting for the possession of the country, she showed so little care for her honor that Cromwell, in spite of the peaceful relations between the two kingdoms, conceived the idea of seizing Acadia. As war was then waging between England and Holland, he gave instructions for the capture of New Holland, and, the fleet being in these waters, for the subsequent capture of Acadia. Peace was signed before New Holland could be taken ; but Acadia, unable to offer serious resistance, was seized (1654).

In 1667, it was again returned to France by the treaty of Breda, and in 1670 M. de Grandfontaine came to assume official possession.

As may be supposed, these dissensions, these repeated attacks, the indifference of France, all this put together scarcely favored the establishment of a colony on a firm basis ; and so the census of the following year, under M. de Grandfontaine, tells a sad tale. After so many sacrifices of time and money, the population showed only about 400 souls, more than three-fourths of whom were at Port Royal. There must have been, in various places, a nomadic population proportionately pretty numerous, which does not enter into this census ; but it was made up chiefly of a few half-breed families settled on the coast, especially at La Heve, and of those families which, having intermarried with the Indians, had adopted their mode of life. This census, as well as the following ones, is confined to the population of purely French origin ; and it is chiefly from this little group of 47 families that the Acadians spring. Here are the names : Bourgeois, Gaudet, Kessy, de Foret< HSbert, Babin, Baigle, Blanchard, Aucoin, Dupeax, Terriau, Savoie, Corporon, Martin, Pcllerin, Morin, Brim, Gauterot, Trahan, Cyr, Thibaudeau, Petitpas, Bourg, Boudreau, Guilbaut, Granger, Landry, Doucet, Girouard, Vincent, Breau, Le Blanc, Poirier, Comeau, Pitre, Belliveau, Cormier, Rimbaut, Bugas, Richard, Melangon, Robichau, Lanoue, d' Ent t •>■,,<< mt, de la Tour, Bertrand, de Bellisle. These are the main heads ot branches, and several of these families were already divided into two or more branches, as was the case for those whose names are subjoined : Boudrot, Girouard r Gaudet, Ilebert, Bourg, Martin, Terriau, Blanchard, Aucoin, Brim, Commeaux, de la Tour. Each family averaged six children, and the descendants of each of them now run up into the thousands.

The census of 1686 exhibits a population of about 800 souls, of whom 461 were at Port Royal, 164 at Mines, 78 at Beaubassin, 90 in other places mentioned, and the remainder scattered here and there on the coast ; thus the population had about doubled in 15 years. In 1671 60 persons, 5 of whom were women, had arrived ; but, as the census of 1686 registers only 86 new names, some of these persons may have either gone to Canada or taken service in the garrison and gone back to France afterwards. These are the new names : Le Prince. Brassard, Douaron, Levron, Lort, Arsenaut, Bergeron, Belief out aine, Tourangeau, Barillot, Godin dit Chatillon, Benoit, PrSjean, Bastarache, Fardel, Henry, Gareau, Laperrierc, Michel, Gourdeau, La Bauve, La Pierre dit

Laroche, Pinet, Rivet, Mirande, La Barre, AubirirMignault, Cochu, Cottard, Mercier, Lavallee, Lagasse, Blou, Desorcis, Martel, Dubreuil. The three last named, I think, must have gone to Canada, and Cochu, Cottard and Fardel to France ; at any rate their names do not appear in any subsequent census. From 1686 to 1710, 85 new colonists, at most, came, and these were, to a great extent, soldiers disbanded from the small garrison which the Government maintained at Port Royal. *

From 1671 the agricultural population confined itself more and more to its land ; every immigrant, every disbanded soldier became a farmer. When, after a few years' growth, families found themselves pinched for room at Port Royal, they sought settlements elsewhere for their children. Thus it is that, one after the other, Beaubassin (Amherst), les Mines (Horton, Wolfeville, Windsor, etc.), Cobequid (Truro), Chipody, Peticodiac, Memramcook sprang up. Frequently, whole families migrated to these new settlements, which had the double advantage of being freer from the vexations of a government that was often too troublesome, and safer from the oft-repeated attacks of the English.

From the treaty of Breda till 1710, a space of 40 years, Port Royal was besieged no less than five times,

All the names that figure at Beaubassin and Mines (Grand Pre, Riviere aux Canards, Pigiguit, etc.) are the same as at Port Royal. So it was, somewhat later, at Cobequid, Peticodiac, Chipody and Memramcook to the north of the Bay of Fundy.

As the census was taken many times during the French period, it is easy to follow up the development of these different groups, and to get a pretty fair idea of the number of new colonists that came to swell the original stock. These were, for by far the most part, unmarried men who were obliged by force of circumstances to marry the daughters of the oldest settlers, of the 47 heads of families that had settled in the country before 1671. Thus we see that there were only live women among the 60 immigrants that arrived at Port Royal in 1671. Whence we conclude that, 30 or 40 years later, the entire population was linked together in bonds of kinship that must have powerfully contributed to remove dissensions and to produce that social condition with which we are familiar.

Some modern writers have treated the picture of Acadian manners as a creation of the fervid fancy. It has been held that the imagination was author of much of it, that this ideal society was incompatible with what we know of human nature. I am willing to grant, indeed, I have no doubt, that the conventional picture has been embellished by fancy ; yet I hold that a close study of the circumstances of this people makes one understand better how a state of things clearly proven to have existed was possible. The defects common to all Frenchmen, particularly those which spring from their too great sociability, such as jealousy, backbiting, idle gossip, existed there as everywhere else, but toned down by the exceptional status of the people. Nor was their condition always enviable ; it certainly was not so in the early days of the colony, when these families were strangers to each other, and probably also during the greater part of the French occupation.

The destruction of Port Royal by Argall, France's neglect, the frequent raids of Anglo-Americans had forced a certain number of the first colonists to become adventurers, forest rangers (coureurs de bois), fishermen in the train of Biencourt, Denys, La Tour. This roving element could not be expected to show as high morality as the first followers of Poutrincourt, or as the society that was afterward formed when all these separate units coalesced. But here, as in all other lands, given the time to form new habits of order and economy, given a sedentary life in the midst of a sober and hardworking people, given a comfortable competence drawn from a most fertile soil, a gradual purification of morals was sure to result. At the same time, an adventurous life had steeled many men for the ceaseless struggles they had to face before the final conquest of the country. On the other hand, the abandonment in which France had so long left them, the habit of living beyond the sphere of action and the regulations of a government jealous of its authority, bred in the Acadians a spirit of independence that would ill consort with the restrictions put upon them in after years by the French governors. In fact, when, after the treaty of Breda, France took firm hold of the administration in Acadia, there arose much grumbling and murmuring against a government that took pleasure in throwing around the people the complicated net-work of Old World formalism. Of this we find proofs in the correspondence of the governors : M. de Brouillan, in one of his letters, calls the Acadians half-republicans. However, these difficulties were very rare among them, and were as nothing compared to the troubles that arose among the sharers of authority.

Necessity had taught the people to govern themselves, to hold meetings, to consult together, to settle their differences amicably or according to simple rules quite sufficient for their local needs. They had thus acquired a habit of liberty and a taste therefor. They knew by experience that they could dispense with an authority that was only irksome, that did not improve their condition, that ensured them no additional security in their relations with one another. Hence it was that, under English rule, they got rid, as much as possible, of official regulations and ruled themselves.

Certain it is that, in their special situation, better results could be hoped for from this method, from the laisser faire, than from the vexatious interference of an uncontrolled authority. Matters of public interest were decided at public meetings ; men worked all together at works of public utility, as w r hen they completed a vast system of dikes, which were built in so short a time as to point to unusual harmony and good-will among the workers. Their reward came in an abundance of all that could meet their needs and their simple tastes, beyond which they had no ambition and were therefore easily satisfied. Nor had they any anxiety about the future of their children : the custom had been early established that the community was to provide them with all things necessary for a homestead, and a few years sufficed to make them as well off as their parents. The good understanding must, surely, have been remarkable, since, even under English rule, there is not on record a single case in which the people disagreed in their decisions upon matters of general interest; whatever the decision might be, it was always, as far as can be gathered, unanimous.

When all these exceptional circumstances are understood and taken into account, the familiar picture of their simplicity of life, morality, abundance, harmony, and social happiness has nothing, it seems, that should provoke wonder; the same circumstances would, I believe, have brought about elsewhere somewhat similar results. For a century they were strangers to France and Canada; they had formed habits and built up traditions that made them a separate people. They were Acadians. And, if the increase by immigration was almost nil, quite otherwise was it with the multiplication of families, since, eighty years later, this small nation counted 18,000 souls, *

From 1690 to 1710 was one uninterrupted series of hostilities between New England on the one hand and Canada and Acadia on the other, the object being either to capture vessels fishing in French waters, or to destroy some fort on the badly defined frontier between Acadia and Maine. In 1690 Port Royal was taken and sacked by Admiral Phips ; M. de Menneval, Governor of Acadia, was carried off a prisoner to Boston, together with his garrison ; but Phips, too much engrossed with the expedition he was preparing against Quebec, neglected to establish himself solidly in Port Royal, which was, accordingly, soon reoccupied by the French.

This period, from 1690 to 1710, was probably the darkest in the annals of these colonies, and the most disastrous for British colonization. For twenty years, without truce or respite, on sea as well as on land, there was. in these parts of America, nothing but devastation, pillage, ambushes and surprises. Sometimes a fort was attacked by France's Indian allies, and, if it was taken, the inmates were massacred ; most frequently, some defenceless settlement was raided by night, and, if any were made prisoners, they were held for exchange or ransom. By seductive advantages offered to fillibusters and alluring bounties on Indian scalps, the greed of gain was so keenly excited that organizations sprang up in the bordering settlements of New England for the sole purpose of marauding, plundering and butchery. It was a life of danger, often ending in terrible reprisals ; still, bold men were never wanting to replace those who disappeared. In such conditions, civilized man often surpasses in cruelty the most cruel savages ; there were acts of base treachery and barbarity that have never been exceeded nor perhaps equalled by any savage tribe in America. Very great, no doubt, must have been the provocation for the English colonists : all the Indians in these parts were allied to the French, so that retaliation, if any, had to come from the colonists themselves. A violent impulse born of anger, grief, pecuniary loss and insecurity, may have shaped itself, with many, into the misconceived idea that adopting the cruel methods of those barbarians would inspire such terror, such fear of annihilation, that they would relent from their bloody raids. At the same time it was hard not to make those answerable who urged them to their bloody raids ; nevertheless, though these barbarous allies were acknowledged to be necessary in the struggle between the two nations, both of whom made use of them when they could, yet nothing could justify the use of their cruel methods and the infringement of all the laws of honor.

This state of affairs could not last long. Acadia was too weak to be thus left as a perpetual menace to the trade and the security of the New England settlements. Driven to extremities by the disasters inflicted on their commerce, the Anglo-Americans resolved upon the greatest efforts to emerge from a situation that was daily becoming intolerable. The final issue was not doubtful. The disparity in the numbers was enormous ; France was too careless or too busy elsewhere to succor her colony ; yet, the conflict was longer and more desperate, successes and reverses more evenly balanced than might have been expected. No less than four expeditions were required before Port Royal was taken, and there the intrepid Subercase, powerfully seconded by the Baron de Saint-Castin and by other Captains at the head of Indian troops, wrought prodigies of valor. The first of these expeditions was undertaken by Church, the famous u Squaw-killer ; " but, moved by the desire of plunder and of easy exploits, he made no serious attack on Port Royal, and was satisfied with invading Mines and Beaubassin, where he carried off all the cattle he could seize, after opening the dikes, burning houses and doing all the damage he could.

A second expedition under Colonel March was much more serious. Rhode Island and New Hampshire had united with Massachusetts for this decisive onslaught ;

but, after a seige of eleven days, March, repulsed at every point, had to re-embark, and, instead of returning to Boston, where he dreaded censure, he took refuge at Casco. Thence he wrote of his failure to Governor Dudley, attributing it to his officers and soldiers, who, he said, had refused to second him. Immense was the chagrin of Boston ; so little was this result anticipated that preparations had actually been made for a pompous celebration of the taking of Port Royal.

Humbled but not discouraged, Governor Dudley, who could not resign himself to disband the troops he had organized with such fine hopes, sent orders to March to keep on board the ships his soldiers, willing or unwilling, and to return immediately to Port Royal with the reinforcement now setting sail. At the same time Dudley appointed three commissioners to superintend the operations of the siege. March, unable to overcome the sadness and dejection to which he was a prey, declined the honor of commanding this new expedition. Wainwright, second in command, had to take charge of it ; but, after another siege and a long one, he also re-embarked without effecting anything. This was in August, 1707.

Thus far, at least, Port Royal had been revictualled and assisted by France, though inadequately. Subercase had been able to satisfy the Indians by some gifts and still more by promises. His kindliness to all had sufficed to inspire the courage and ardor that were absolutely necessary in the situation of inferiority in which he was left. All the Captains of Indians, d'Amours d'Echauffours, Saint Aubin, Belief ontaine, de Saillan, Denys de la Ronde, de Saint Castin, de la Tour ; the French corsairs, Francis Guyon, Pierre Maisonnat, de