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EXPULSION of ACADIANS.
Their Expatriation. An Act of religious Persecution, Sub-serving Political Ends.
In a late issue of the FREEMAN we invited students of Acadian history to substantiate the statement of Hon. H. R. Emerson made in the Canadian House of Commons, that the Acadians were expelled from their country because of their refusal to take an oath of allegiance, which contained the declaration against Trans-substantiation. The following article has been suggested by our invitation. Notwithstanding some minor faults of style – Gallicisms principally – it will be found profitable reading:
Many able writers, past and present have displayed undoubted talent in treating of this lamentable chapter, which humbles, if it does not disgrace, our otherwise romantic history of Canada. Able historians such as Parkman and Hannay have proved, or at least made an attempt to prove, that England was justified in this expulsion; Richard, Rameau, Haliburton, and others prove the reverse, or at least draw the conclusion that the British government was blameless. But none prove conclusively why the Acadians refused this allegiance, upon which all agree as being the point at Issue.
The recent utterances of the Hon. Member for Westmorland in the Canadian Commons must have awakened the interest of many students of this chapter of history, to an investigation of another phase of the expulsion. But this unwritten past has been apparent to every close student of our history, that the issue was religious rather than political.
We find the Acadians, after the treaty of Utrecht, receiving little attention from the historian, until about the years 1725-6. In the above treaty the French government surrendered all claim to what is now Nova Scotia, after procuring the insertion of a special clause in the treaty, granting free enjoyment and exercise of religion to its inhabitants. And under this treaty they continued to live, and increase in comparative peace. Queen Anne having died in 1714, the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign was proposed to them. They refused to accept it, as the oath contained the now famous Accession Oath. In 1726 Governor Armstrong administered the oath of allegiance which they took readily enough, but refused in the very next year, 1727, at the accession of another King.
And why did they refuse? May we not ask why the many historians have neglected to explain this important point? Is it not reasonable to infer that the same impediment was in the oath required to them, before the expulsion. We find that the refusal to take the oath demanded in 1727, was not on account of disloyalty, but on account of the declaration against Transubstantiation which formed a part of the oath of allegiance as proposed because of the accession of another king. Shortly after an officer, Ensign Worth, administered the oath making concessions which were thought to be rather favorable to the Acadians.
In the year 1729-1730 Governor Philips, without any trouble, induced every male from sixteen years of age upwards to take the oath. But certain it is, the Acadians were not compelled to acknowledge the authority of the king in ecclesiastical affairs.
Thence for ten years, the Acadians were left in peace until another was threatened. Governor Philips’ commission having been revoked, and with Governor Cornwallis in office, the Acadians were asked for another oath. Considering that these people had been British subjects for nearly 40 years, and the majority born such, this third demand was at least in our view, unreasonable and unnecessary. To this request, the Acadians replied they would take the oath, but as condition, “that they be permitted to have priests and public exercise of their religion.”
To this reasonable request for their treaty rights, Cornwallis replied by issuing an order granting them priests and free and public exercise of their religion, provided, however, that no priest will officiate without having obtained permission from the governor and have taken the oath of allegiance. This qualification may have been all right provided the priests were from outside the province and that the oath did not involve the accession of principle. Here we see the Acadians offered to take the oath of 1730, but the offer being refused, the affair dragged on till Governor Lawrence appears.
Many writers have tried to explain and lay here the causes and motives, which governed this man in his dealings with the Acadian people.
Richard goes to some trouble to prove that the cupidity of the man and his advisers was the ruling passion. And doubtless to a great extent this is true, as we find a committee appointed to inquire into the misappropriation of property by Lawrence, property of the Acadians and of the British Government. Here we may state that Packman suggests, by his statement that Lawrence’s councillors were Americans, which suggests what is probably a much greater cause than capidity. We shall refer to the statement later.
In treating of Lawrence we must keep in view that most of Lawrence’s advisers came from Boston, New Jersey and elsewhere, in what is now the American States, where as Philip H. Smith in his historical writings says – “a Roman Catholic was held to be the worse foe to society.”
Governor Lawrence summoned the Acadian deputies before them, required of them an oath- but one he had manufactured expressly to further his designs: an oath aimed directly at their religion. And this oath being refused as he intended it should: he in his report styles them as “Popish recusants” (i.e. they who refuse to acknowledge the supremacy in religious matters) Why the very fact of this appelation, (by which he ever afterwards referred to them) being applied to the Acadians, is a proof that the difficulty was religious and not political.
Having arrested Fathers Le Guerne, Le Maire and Daudin he thus deprives them of the exercise of their religion, and further to add insult to injury he permits his officers to hoist flags on the churches to make use of the churches as barracks whenever soldiers happened to be in any of the French villages. Clearly there were religious grievances. John Clark Ridpath in his American History refers to the above oath and proceedings as follows:
“The first act of Governor Lawrence was to demand an oath so framed that they (the Acadians) could not take it.” Everit Brown in his History of the United States makes the following remark in regard to the expulsion: “ An oath of allegiance was demanded so worded that no conscientious Roman Catholic could take it.” ( See Brown’s History United States page 200, A.D., 1886). Now these men having had access the archives of the various states unhesitatingly furnishes proof that it was a matter of religious liberty and principles, which lost to the Acadians, their peace, their homes and to many also, their lives. Archer in his Canadian History refers it as being an “ absolute oath” by which we suppose leaves some resemblance to the oath to which he refers later, when he says the French under Governor Murray, “ were debarred from holding office; their religion made it impossible that they could take the oath , that against Transubstantiation , which would have made them eligible.” Now Governor Murray leaned so much towards the French Canadians that his countrymen complained to the King and had him recalled. And when the oath under such a lenient man as Murray could not be taken, what must it not have been when tampered with by Lawrence?
Now we are nearing the grand act of the play (tragic act at that) and before introducing this act, Governor Lawrence must acquaint the Home authorities with at least a hint of his determination, a peep behind the scenes. But to his letter of misrepresentation we find the following reply which clearly voices the views of the British Cabinet:
Under date of Aug. 13, 1755, the secretary of state says: He regards Lawrence’s proposal as determinal to Great Britain in as much as “he (Lawrence) would deprive her of a very considerable number of useful inhabitants:……….. if your proposal refers who were inhabitants at time of treaty”……..”that they remain in the quiet possession of their settlement upon taking the oath.” This letter was not received apparently until after the expulsion, or it was not made known until afterwards. In reply Lawrence pleads the main issue, “ (the most inveterate enemies of our religion.”
And are we to infer that he was not antagonistic to theirs?
It is not generally known that Belcher (1761-3), Lawrence’s life successor, (and adviser through life), carried out a second expulsion three years after the fall of Quebec. Five ship loads of Acadians were sent to Boston, but the people of Massachusetts petitioned the government not to allow them to land: and after remaining three weeks in the harbor the vessels returned to Halifax. Belcher carried this out against the express commands of Amherst, his official chief, and for this second expulsion Becher received a severe castigation from the British government, dated Dec. 3rd, 1762.
Amherst, in his letters, tells Belcher that “Canada being conquered and the war over” there was nothing to fear. But his reasons for expelling will appear presently.
The British government promptly removed Belcher from office, which act clearly exonerates the English from any part in these proceedings. In fact, throughout these regrettable incidents we find the opinions, the wishes and commands of the British Cabinet and British officers were either ignored or disobeyed.
And as nearly every writer upon the subject, in favor of the English government, has attempted to furnish proof that the British were justifiable in so expelling these people and why they have done so in as enigma to many.
When we find the condemnations in existence, which were issued by the English: when we find Governor Lawrence and his cabinet, most of whom were from Boston and New Jersey: when we find that the transports employed in the transportation of these people were supplied by the colonies: and when we find the government at least Massachusetts, making such feverish efforts to have the design accomplished: we, when we consider all these, can truthfully say,-No apology is needed where none is required.
And place the blame somewhere we must. Lawrence and his cabinet, Belcher and his, were the tools if not actual, members of the Revolutionary party then forming in the colonies. Do we not hear Benjamin Franklin, Adams, and others, advocating Independence ere the expulsion? We are furnished with examples which prove the existence of the Revolutionary party in the colonies- Bacon’s rebellion in Virginia and the constitutional trouble against Fletcher. The utterances of Adams twenty years before the struggle commenced and the publications show that the country was drifting towards independence at the time of the first expulsion.
General Montcalm, shortly after his arrival at Quebec (1756) in writing home, shows clearly in his letters that he held the same views, viz., that the colonies were the primary movers in the affair.” I predict,” he wrote, “that though they would have the English drive us out of America, yet in fifteen years they will drive the English out”. History shows how clear his vision in regard to the future, nad how well he understood the designs of the present.
In 1761, a year before the second expulsion we find Kames Otis delivering eloquent and inflammatory orations in Salem and Boston. The addresses being delivered against the British Government, were before the final treaty of Paris, 1763. It was then that the famous “Liberty Tree” came into prominence. We find English war vessels guarding the harbors of the colony in 1763. It is no wonder that the British promptly set Belcher aside for Amherst, and the English saw through the design.
These then are our deductions, that the Expulsions were among the first blows struck for American Independence, since by these acts Great Britain was deprived of a considerable source of supply; for the Acadians possessed fine herds of cattle, swine and sheep. Besides, the depriving Britons of these inhabitants set as rest doubts, which were held, that they might have made rather useful allies.
But the only way of accomplishing this was by attacking the Acadians through their religions. Belcher’s father was chief justice of New Jersey at the time of the first Expulsion, and refused to have the exiles landed, putting forth arguments based upon the religion of the “Popish recusants.”
We must bear in mind that this was a period of rampant religion in the colonies, for Rhode Island had for years after, a law upon her statute books forbidding Roman Catholics, under pain of death, to set foot on her soil. These people, twenty years after are found burning the effigy of the Pope in one of the revolutionary camps, these proceedings being stopped by the orders of Washington.
Hence the reader by analogy may infer that the same, or worse, animus governed the men who dealt with the unfortunate Acadians.
We think we are safe in affirming that the blame rests with the Revolutionary spirit of the times: and that the Acadians were perfectly right in refusing the oath frame as it was.
Doubtless there were intrigues with the French Government but the refusal of the Acadians was based on a religious issue, and surely no fair-minded person can deny their memory, the consolation that they were justified in maintaining that refusal.
Modern writers and searches have shown a disposition to lay the blame in the proper place and attach it to the proper persons.
Mr. J. Vroom, Mr. Richard and others have expressed their opinion so as to let in some light on the subject.