This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan.
CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
THE ACADIAN EXILES
A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline
By ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY
TORONTO, 1916
The name Acadia, [Footnote: The origin of the name isuncertain. By some authorities it is supposed to bederived from the Micmac algaty, signifying a camp orsettlement. Others have traced it to the Micmac akade,meaning a place where something abounds. Thus, Sunakade(Shunacadie, C. B.), the cranberry place; Seguboon-akade(Shubenacadie), the place of the potato, etc. The earliestmap marking the country, that of Ruscelli (1561), givesthe name Lacardie. Andre Thivet, a French writer, mentionsthe country in 1575 as Arcadia; and many modern writersbelieve Acadia to be merely a corruption of that classicname.] which we now associate with a great tragedy ofhistory and song, was first used by the French todistinguish the eastern or maritime part of New Francefrom the western part, which began with the St Lawrencevalley and was called Canada. Just where Acadia endedand Canada began the French never clearly defined—incourse of time, as will be seen, this question became acause of war with the English—but we shall not be muchat fault if we take a line from the mouth of the riverPenobscot, due north to the St Lawrence, to mark thewestern frontier of the Acadia of the French. Thus, asthe map shows, Acadia lay in that great peninsula whichis flanked by two large islands, and is washed on thenorth and east by the river and gulf of St Lawrence, andon the south by the Atlantic Ocean; and it comprised whatare to-day parts of Quebec and Maine, as well as theprovinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince EdwardIsland. When the French came, and for long after, thiscountry was the hunting ground of tribes of the Algonquinrace—Micmacs, Malecites, and Abnakis or Abenakis.
By right of the discoveries of Jean Verrazano (1524) andJacques Cartier (1534-42) the French crown laid claim toall America north of the sphere of Spanish influence.Colonial enterprise, however, did not thrive during thereligious wars which rent Europe in the sixteenth century;and it was not until after the Edict of Nantes in 1598that France could follow up the discoveries of her seamenby an effort to colonize either Acadia or Canada. Abortiveattempts had indeed been made by the Marquis de la Roche,but these had resulted only in the marooning of fiftyunfortunate convicts on Sable Island. The first realcolonizing venture of the French in the New World wasthat of the Sieur de Monts, the patron and associate ofChamplain. [Footnote: See The founder of New France inthis Series, chap. ii.] The site of this first colonywas in Acadia. Armed with viceregal powers and a tradingmonopoly for ten years, De Monts gathered his colonists,equipped two ships, and set out from Havre de Grace inApril 1604. The company numbered about a hundred andfifty Frenchmen of various ranks and conditions, fromthe lowest to the highest—convicts taken from the prisons,labourers and artisans, Huguenot ministers and Catholicpriests, some gentlemen of noble birth, among them Jeande Biencourt, Baron de Poutrincourt, and the alreadyfamous explorer Champlain.
The vessels reached Cape La Heve on the south coast ofNova Scotia in May. They rounded Cape Sable, sailed upthe Bay of Fundy, and entered the Annapolis Basin, whichChamplain named Port Royal. The scene here so stirredthe admiration of the Baron de P