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Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society
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Historical Summary"Ablot upon the government of Great Britain." "An act of self-preservation." Commentators are still sharply divided upon the justification for the most tragic incident in the history of Franco-British relations—the expulsion of the Acadians from their homes about the Bay of Fundy. "The greatest forcible dispersion of people of European extraction in the history of the New World," a recent writer calls it. In the opening years of the French and Indian War the British forces made a lamentable showing in North America. General Braddock, spurning Franklin’s advice to beware of ambuscades, suffered disaster within seven miles of Fort Duquesne. Everywhere the British were jittery. Believing that the Acadians, who had refused to take the oath of allegiance, were at heart loyal to the French and constituted a sort of Fifth Column, the British authorities ordered their wholesale removal from their farms and villages and their distribution among the Thirteen Colonies. Villages at the head of the Bay of Fundy were burnt to the ground, but many of the inhabitants escaped to the woods. Lieutenant Colonel John Winslow, a great-grandson of Governor Edward Winslow of Plymouth, and in command of one of the New England regiments in Acadia, was specifically instructed: "If fair means will not do, you must proceed with the most vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to embark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter or support by burning their houses, and by destroying everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the country." In the anxiety of the officers to be rid of the distasteful business and in the confusion heightened by the difference in language, many of the families were separated, and some at least never were reunited. In lines committed to memory by every schoolchild in the land, Longfellow’s Evangeline, a poetic evocation of this tragic episode, asks: "This is the forest primeval . . .But where are the hearts that beneath itLeaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodlandThe voice of the huntsman?" The answer: "Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed." In its essential details Evangeline adheres rather closely to the "Journal" of Colonel Winslow, published in 1883 in the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, and excerpted herewith:
Key QuoteA British officer reveals how he followed his orders to remove the Acadians from their farms and villages and distribute them among the Thirteen Colonies.
Colonel Winslow
1883
"This Is the Forest Primeval . . ."
[1755]
[September 10, 1755]. I sent for Father Landrey, their principal speaker who talks English and told him the time was come for part of the inhabitants to embark and that the number concluded for this day was 250, and that we should begin with the young men, and desired he would inform his brethren of it. He was greatly surprised. I told him it must be done and that I should order the whole prisoners to be drawn up six deep, their young men on the left, and as the tide in a very little time favored my design, could not give them above an hour to prepare for going on board, and ordered our whole party to be under arms and post themselves between the two gates and the church in the rear of my quarters, which was obeyed, and, agreeable to my directions, the whole of the French inhabitants were drawn together in one body, their young men as directed on the left.
I then ordered Captain Adams with a lieutenant, eighty noncomissioned officers, and private men to draw off from the main body to guard the young men of the French amounting to 141 men to the transports and order the prisoners to march. They all answered they would not go without their fathers. I told them that was a word I did not understand, for that the King’s command was to be absolute and should be absolutely obeyed, and that I did not love to use harsh means, but that the time did not admit of parleys or delays; and then ordered the whole troops to fix their bayonets and advance towards the French, and bid the four right hand files of the prisoners, one of whom I took hold on (who opposed the marching) and bid:
"March!"
He obeyed and the rest followed, though slowly, and went off praying, singing and crying, being met by the women and children all the way (which is a mile and a half) with great lamentations upon their knees, praying, etc.
I then ordered the remaining French to choose out of 109 of their married men to follow their young people (the ice being broke). They readily complied and drew up in a body. Thus ended this troublesome job.
[October 8, 1755]. Began to embark the inhabitants who went off very solentarily [sic] and unwillingly, the women in great distress carrying off their children in their arms. Others carrying their decrepit parents in their carts and all their goods, moving in great confusion, and appeared a scene of woe and distress.
Chicago: John Winslow, Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, ed. Colonel Winslow in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed April 19, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6KKCE7512H53R98.
MLA: Winslow, John. Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, edited by Colonel Winslow, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 19 Apr. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6KKCE7512H53R98.
Harvard: Winslow, J, Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 19 April 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6KKCE7512H53R98.
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