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HISTORY OF GRAND-PRÉ
WELCOME
We are happy to welcome you to Grand-Pré National
Historic Site of Canada. This site commemorates the Acadians of
Minas Basin and the event which took them from their homes, the
Deportation.
The gardens, the monuments, the church with its paintings,
stained glass, and exhibits, and especially our guide-interpreters, are there to
tell you the story of the Acadian people. It is a story of happiness and success,
of sadness and tragedy.
Take the time to imagine the events that unfolded here and
then go and discover the contemporary Acadie.
ACADIE
In 1524 an Italian, Verrazano, used the name
Arcadia to name an area he was exploring along the Atlantic coast of
North America. He was inspired by a poem praising an area in ancient
Greece known for its pastoral beauty. Later maps of the New World
showed the name evolving to Acadie and being used to designate the
area that is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and a part of Québec
and Maine. Some say the name Acadie came from the Mi'kmaq suffix
e'kati, meaning "land of" or "place of."
ACADIANS
In mid-17th century, a group of Europeans, mostly
from France, came to Acadie to establish a French colony. The
children of these settlers came to be known as Acadians. Today,
several million people can say they are descendant from this
original group of about 500 people.
GRAND-PRÉ
Grand-Pré, French for largemeadow, was first
settled around 1680 when Pierre Melanson dit La Verdure, his wife
Marguerite Mius d'Entremont and their five young children left
Port-Royal to escape the perils of living in the capital of a colony
constantly in conflict.
Grand-Pré is on the shores of the Minas Basin, which even
today is renowned for its tidal marshlands. Melanson and those who joined him
built dykes to hold back the tides along the basin, creating rich pastures for
their animals and fertile fields for their crops.
Grand-Pré soon outgrew Port-Royal, and by the mid-18th
century was the largest of the many Acadian communities around the Bay of Fundy
and the coastline of Nova Scotia. The Minas area was the bread basket of the
colony. The Acadians prospered.
LA DÉPORTATION
In 1713, a part of Acadie became Nova Scotia, with
Port-Royal, now Annapolis Royal, as its capital. Rather than leave,
the Acadians chose to live under British rule. They were asked to
take an oath of allegiance to the British crown. This oath became a
bone of contention for the next 40 years. Many would sign a
conditional oath in 1730 when they were promised they would not be
forced to take up arms against the French.
Everything changed in 1744 when England and France once again
declared war. The French from Québec and from their fortress in Louisbourg tried
to retake Acadie. There were attacks and counter attacks. Halifax became the new
capital of the colony in 1749. But the majority of those living in this British
colony were Acadians. Their numbers were growing and they lived on the richest
farmland. Those governing the colony believed something had to be done to
encourage more Protestant settlers to come to the area.
1755 is an important date in Acadian history. The Acadians of
the Minas area have their boats and their guns confiscated. The French Fort
Beausejour is captured. Acadian delegates, in Halifax to present a petition, are
imprisoned. The governor, Charles Lawrence, decides to settle the Acadian
question once and for all. They will be expelled from Nova Scotia and dispersed
among the British colonies to the south, from Massachusetts to Georgia.
Lieutenant Colonel John Winslow arrived in Grand-Pré with
troops on August 19, 1755 and took up headquarters in the church. The men and
boys of the area are ordered there on September 5. Winslow tells them that all
but their personal goods are forfeited to the Crown and that they and their
families are to be deported as soon as ships arrive to take them away.
Before the year was over, more than 6,000 Acadians were
deported, not only from the Minas Basin area but from all of Nova Scotia. Their
villages were burned to the ground. Thousands more would be deported until 1763
when England and France once again made peace.
THE GREAT UPHEAVAL - EIGHT YEARS OF DEPORTATIONS
Overview
1755
-
Beaubassin: On August 11th,
400 Acadian men, coming from numerous settlements scattered in the Chignecto isthmus and along the shores of the Chepoudy,
Petitcodiac and Memramcook Rivers, are imprisoned in Fort
Cumberland, formerly called Fort Beauséjour. On October 13th,
1,100 Acadians are deported toward South Carolina, Pennsylvania
and Georgia. Many perish along the way, for example aboard The
Cornwallis, only 210 Acadians out of 417 survive the voyage to
Charleston.
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Cobequid Area and specifically Grand-Pré:
On September 5th, 418 Acadian men are held prisonner in the church
and 183 men are held at Fort Edward. On November 1st,
more than 1,500 men, women an children are crammed aboard vessels
and deported to Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
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Pisiquid: Approximately
1,000 habitants are deported and their villages destroyed.
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Annapolis Royal and villages on both sides of the
Annapolis River: 600 persons are
captured and on November 3rd, more than 1,600 Acadians
are deported to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and North and
South Carolina. Several families are separated.
-
It is estimated that approximately 6,050 Acadians
were deported in 1755.
1756
1758
1759
1758-1763
1760
1762
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Halifax: Of the 1,700
remaining detainees, 1,300 are deported to Boston, and then sent
back to Halifax as prisoners of war.
TOTAL
: More than 10 000 Acadians were deported between 1755 and 1763.
ÉVANGÉLINE AND THE HISTORIC SITE
When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem,
Evangeline, was published in the United States in 1847, the story of
the Deportation and le Grand Dérangement, the great uprooting, was
told to the English speaking world. Grand-Pré, forgotten for almost
a century became popular for American tourists anxious to visit the
birthplace of the poem's heroine, Evangeline. But nothing remained
of the original village except the dykelands and a row of old
willows.
In 1907, John Frederic Herbin, poet, historian,
and jeweller, and whose mother was Acadian, purchased the land
believed to be the site of the church of Saint-Charles so that it
might be protected. The following year the Nova Scotia legislature
passed an act to incorporate the Trustees of the Grand-Pré Historic
Grounds.
Herbin built a stone cross on the site to mark
the cemetery of the church, using stones from the remains of what he
believed to be Acadian foundations. He sold the property to the
Dominion Atlantic Railway (DAR) in 1917 on the condition that
Acadians be involved in its preservation.
In 1920 the DAR erected a statue of Evangeline
conceived by Canadian sculptor Philippe Hébert and, after his death,
finished by his son Henri.
The DAR deeded a piece of the land to la Société l'Assomption, a mutual insurance company owned and managed by
Acadians. Through la Société Nationale l'Assomption, an advocacy
organization, a committee raised funds to build a memorial church in GrandPré. Construction began in the spring of 1922 and the exterior
was finished by November. The interior of the church was finished in
1930, the 175th anniversary of the Deportation, and the church
opened as a museum.
The committee erected a cross, in 1924, two
kilometres from the church, in memory of the Deportation. The cross
was moved in 2005 and now resides at Horton's Landing, on the bank
of the Minas Basin.
The
Deportation Cross
The government of Canada acquired Grand-Pré in
1957 and it was designated a national historic site in 1961.
In 1997, the Société nationale de l'Acadie (SNA)
and the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse (FANE) establish
la Société Promotion Grand-Pré, a non-proifit organization, that
co-manages the Grand-Pré National Histroic Site of Canada with Parks
Canada.
In 2003, the new Visitor Centre opens its doors
to the public.
The Visitor
Centre
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