Finally, A Long-awaited Apology is Forthcoming
Acadians celebrate Ottawa's approval of expulsion proclamation
CHRIS MORRIS
Canadian Press
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
FREDERICTON (CP) - Acadians in the Maritimes are celebrating a decision by the federal government to endorse a royal proclamation acknowledging the wrongs done to their ancestors during the expulsions of the 18th century.
Euclide Chiasson, head of the Societe Nationale des Acadiens, said Wednesday the proclamation was approved by the federal cabinet during what was expected to be its final meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chretien earlier this week.
"It was, to use the Latin phrase, 'in extremis,' because it was the last cabinet meeting," Chiasson said in an interview.
"Up to the last minute, we didn't know if it would make the agenda. We have to thank (MPs) Sheila Copps and Stephane Dion who took leadership on this and pushed it through. We are very happy."
The Acadian society wrote Queen Elizabeth several months ago asking the Crown to consider an acknowledgment of the expulsions, which began in 1755 and ended around 1763.
Earlier efforts to seek a royal apology were dropped.
Buckingham Palace responded by saying the Queen would need the advice of her Canadian ministers.
"The proposal was put to the cabinet and we understand it was accepted unanimously," Chiasson said.
He said the proclamation will be signed next week by Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson.
He said that in addition to acknowledging the expulsions as part of Canadian history, there also will be a special commemorative day - July 28.
"We finally have a document that recognizes the events surrounding that very sad part of our history," Chiasson said.
"That, to me, is important. People are always revising history and undermining certain events. The fact that it is now recognized in this proclamation makes it a reality."
Chiasson said 2005 is the 250th anniversary of the expulsions.
He said the proclamation will be incorporated into commemorative activities. As well, he said it is hoped there will be a royal visit to the Maritimes during 2005.
The decision by British governors to remove an entire ethnic population - the French-speaking Acadians - from the colony of Nova Scotia had consequences that resonated for generations.
It's believed about 11,000 Acadians were deported from what is now the Maritimes. Some were sent to France, but most wound up scattered through the American colonies.
It's estimated another 3,000 hid in the region's forests and in Quebec.
Others sailed south to Louisiana where, over the centuries, they lost their language and much of their culture in the huge U.S. melting pot.
There are now about 245,000 francophones, most of them Acadians, in New Brunswick, with another 34,000 Acadians in Nova Scotia and 5,500 in Prince Edward Island.
The British Crown has made several mea culpas in recent years, including to the Maori people of New Zealand who lost vast tracts of territory to land-hungry settlers over 130 years ago.
It has also issued apologies relating to the Boer war, the Irish potato famine and for Britian's role in the 1938 appeasement of Nazi Germany that led to the end of democracy in the Czech Republic, then part of Czechoslovakia.
As well, the British government recently offered "sincere regrets" for its home-children policy under which about 100,000 children, classed as orphans, were shipped from England to Canada between 1867 and 1939.
Chiasson's ancestors hid during the deportation, finally settling in Cheticamp, N.S., when the expulsion ended in the mid-1760s with a peace treaty between France and Britain.
He said lingering pain from being an unwanted and expelled people haunts Acadians to this day. He said their history has made the Acadian people who they are today and he believes their contribution, and suffering, needs to be recognized.
"It's not a question of looking back," Chiasson said. "It's a question of looking forward and knowing who you are."
© Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press
Acadians to finally receive apology for deportations
Thousand of French-speaking Maritimers were expelled in 1750s
Randy Boswell
Vancouver Sun
OTTAWA -- It's been an open wound in Canadian history for more than two centuries, but Queen Elizabeth and the federal government are finally poised to offer regrets and healing words over the brutal treatment of thousands of French-speaking Maritimers during the Acadian expulsion of the 1750s.
Euclide Chiasson, president of the New Brunswick-based National Society of Acadians, says the cabinet has endorsed a planned royal proclamation acknowledging the deportation of some 11,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia and adjacent parts of Atlantic Canada when Britain was vying with France for control of North America.
The proclamation will stop short of an apology and will explicitly rule out any financial compensation for descendants of the victims, who were not only expelled from their land but often also had their belongings confiscated and their homes and villages burned.
The tragedy was set in motion July 28, 1755, when Nova Scotia governor Charles Lawrence ordered the deportation of anyone who failed to formally pledge allegiance to the colony's new British rulers.
A few thousand Acadians avoided deportation by retreating to wilderness areas or fleeing to Quebec. However, over the next eight years, about three-quarters of the French-speaking community that had inhabited Acadia for generations were herded aboard boats and condemned to poverty and hardship, mostly in other British colonies in the future United States.
Some made their way to Louisiana, settling there and founding the Cajun culture.
The 300,000 Acadians of modern Canada have lobbied for years to have the Crown recognize the injustices. They were disappointed last year when the Queen failed to mention the subject during her visit to New Brunswick, where she was heckled by one protester who shouted: "Give back the land you stole from my ancestors in 1755."
© Copyright 2003 Vancouver Sun
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
QUEEN ACKNOWLEDGES ACADIAN DEPORTATION
WebPosted Wed Dec 3 21:52:58 2003
Moncton---The Queen is acknowledging the wrongs caused by the deportation of Acadians from the Maritimes nearly two and a half centuries ago.
THE ACADIANS Who are they? Acadians are the original French people who settled Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht made them British subjects. What was the Grand Dérangement? At the beginning of the French and Indian War (1754), the British government demanded that Acadians take an oath of allegiance to the Crown. Most of them refused. British Governor Charles Lawrence retaliated by deporting the Acadians from the area and dispersing them among the 13 colonies. Many colonies refused to take refugees and deported the Acadians back to Europe. This was referred to as the Grand Dérangement (or Great Expulsion) of 1755. The Acadians were allowed to return to Nova Scotia in 1764. Most of today's Acadians live in New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia with some in parts of Maine and Quebec. Some deported Acadians settled in Louisiana, where their Cajun descendents have become a major cultural influence. In what was likely its final meeting, the federal cabinet endorsed the proclamation earlier this week, said Euclide Chiasson, head of the Societe Nationale des Acadiens.
After decades of asking for an apology from the British Crown, the society wrote to Queen Elizabeth several months ago looking for an acknowledgement of what happened.
Beginning in 1755 and ending about eight years later, Acadians were forced to leave what would later become Atlantic Canada. Some went to France, but most were scattered throughout the Americas.
The response came back from Buckingham Palace that the Queen would defer to the judgment of her ministers in Canada.
The cabinet endorsed the idea this week. Chiasson said the proclamation would acknowledge the deportation and the wrongs it caused, and would recognize July 28 as the anniversary of the deportation order beginning in 2005.
"I think this recognition, this proclamation is very important for our people," he said.
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