by D. Vogt

Created on: January 03, 2010   Last Updated: February 27, 2010

The deportation of the Acadians in 1755 is one of the most controversial moments in the history of Maritime Canada. On the orders of British colonial governor Charles Lawrence, who had been repeatedly frustrated by Acadian refusals to swear an oath of allegiance to Britain, the French Acadian population was forcibly uprooted, deported, and dispersed, to make way for supposedly loyal English settlers.

In 1621, British king James I legally granted present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and parts of Maine to the colony of New Scotland (Nova Scotia). Since this already included French-claimed Acadia, conflict was effectively inevitable. However, the Nova Scotian peninsula remained in French hands until the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, under which the French agreed to trade the Nova Scotian peninsula to England, in exchange for keeping Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island.

As was traditional in the imperial diplomacy of the 18th century, the residents of these regions were not consulted or asked to consent to this change of government. Instead, Acadia simply became Nova Scotia; and Port-Royal, "Annapolis Royal." Under the Treaty and the subsequent new British administration, the Acadians were initially assured that they would be permitted to keep their residences intact, and to continue to practice Roman Catholicism.

The next forty years were tumultuous times as French-British relations fluctuated. The French began constructing a modern fortress at Louisbourg in 1719. British Acadians, in 1730, were instructed to swear oaths of allegiance to the British Crown on the assurance that they would not have to take arms against the French or against First Nations. While similar oaths could not be extracted by Governor Cornwallis when he attempted to do so in 1749, he and his successor, Peregrine Hopson, took no punitive actions.

The refusal of many Acadians and Micmac Natives to demonstrate their loyalty to the satisfaction of the government might not have been grounds for repressive action in peacetime, but it was when war broke out with France again in 1754. In 1755, British forces attacked Fort Beauséjour, hoping to unseat the French from the region, under new Nova Scotia governor Charles Lawrence. Lawrence captured the fort and, irate at finding three hundred Acadians inside, ordered a new oath of allegiance sworn, this one without conditions. (The fact that the British now held nearby French fortifications

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