Two books on Acadian Life and their Explusion

In the first three months of this year, I finished two books on the history of the Acadians, who were the French colonists and their descendants in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. These were “History of Port Royal/Annapolis Royal: 1605-1800” by Brenda Dunn and “A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland” by John Mack Faragher.

Both books look at the settlement of the Maritime Provinces by French settlers in the early 1600’s to the mid 1700’s and beyond. I enjoyed the descriptions of notable persons, events, and life in particular the research done for factual documents that were made during their lifetimes. The close relations the Acadians had with the Micmaq peoples made this group a valuable resource and ally during the conflicts between the Britain and New England Colonists vs the French governments. The thing that was poignant for me was the Acadians’ desire to be neutral in these frequent conflicts which made these outsider countries afraid of the Acadian presence or frustrated at their lack of support. Unfortunately their desire to be left alone was not to be and the British and American colonists forced them out of their multi-generational new homeland causing many thousands of deaths.

Brenda Dunn’s book focuses on the region around Port Royal/Annapolis Royal and is a shorter work at around 200 pages. John Faragher’s work goes into more detail, with 480 pages, into the overall picture of the historical events as well as making a strong case for British and American colonists’ ethnic cleansing of the Acadian people. A short brief of his book is available here.

I would recommend the second book for its detail. If you do not have a long time to read I would go with the first one, which may be available at cover price in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, where I bought it.