The Founding of a New Acadia

After 1763 the Maritimes took on a decidedly English face when New England PLANTERS settled on lands vacated by the Acadians. English names replaced French or Micmac ones almost everywhere. The English at first reorganized the territory into a single province, Nova Scotia. In 1769, however, they detached the former Île Saint-Jean, which became a separate province under the name of Saint John's Island; it received its present name of Prince Edward Island in 1799. In 1784 present-day New Brunswick was in turn separated from Nova Scotia, following the arrival of American LOYALISTS who demanded their own colonial administration.

As for the Acadians, they began the long and painful process of resettling themselves in their native land. England gave them permission once they finally agreed to take the contentious oath of allegiance. Some returned from exile, but the resettlement was largely the work of fugitives who had escaped deportation and of the prisoners of Beauséjour, Pigiguit, Port-Royal and Halifax who were finally set free.

They headed for Cape Breton, where they established themselves along the coast by the Île Madame and on the island itself; for the southwest tip of the Nova Scotia peninsula and along ST MARY'S BAY; and to northwestern New Brunswick (Madawaska). A small number also established in Prince Edward Island, but the majority of Acadians went to the eastern parts of New Brunswick. The British authorities preferred to see the Acadians spread out over the territory and the Acadians themselves accommodated this directive, since it allowed them to avoid the regions with a British majority. British settlers then, in the majority of the cases, occupied the lands formerly owned by the Acadians.

Most Acadians, except for those on Prince Edward Island and in Madawaska, found themselves on less fertile land, and so these former farmers became fishermen or lumbermen, cultivating their land only for subsistence. As fishermen, they were exploited and subjected to great dependence and poverty, especially by companies from the Isle of Jersey.

The Acadians, because they were Catholics, were stripped of civil and political rights; they could neither vote nor be members of the legislature. From 1758 to 1763, they could not even legally own land. Nova Scotian Acadians gained the right to vote in 1789; those in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island in 1810. After 1830 Acadians of all 3 colonies could sit in the legislature.