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Episode 17 - Acadian Resistance 1755-1757
155 Plays16 days ago
While thousands of men fight and die in large battles in colonial New York, all is quiet on the Acadian front, right? Not so! While no large-scale troop battles take place in Acadia during this time frame, it is by no means a peaceful place. Learn a little bit about Acadian, Mi'kmaq, and Maliseet guerilla warfare against the British. From heroic rescues to bloody raids, the story of Acadia is worth returning to.
Intro & Outro music - "Drums and Guns" by Village Volunteers Fife & Drum Corps
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Transcript
Return & Catching Up
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to Tales from the French and Indian War. I am your host, Jackson. And I am your co-host, Matt. And we are reunited once again, bringing you content from the French and Indian war.
00:00:26
Speaker
Very excited to be back recording. We had a bit of a a break between the last episode. We'll just say Matt had a lot of things going on in his life.
00:00:38
Speaker
ah Yes. Anyone who's ever moved anywhere knows a lot about what I'm going through. So moving is not fun doing this podcast is fun. So I'm glad to be back. Yes, so this this is the remedy for Matt's moving woes. So I've prepared an episode for us all today. Hopefully it'll be a good one.
00:00:58
Speaker
A lot of interesting stuff to cover. But before we get into the episode, had a couple of shout outs to some of our listeners. We received quite a few nice comments or messages in the last month.
00:01:12
Speaker
Shout out to Allison and Rick for some very nice Facebook messages about how they've been enjoying the podcast and learning along with us. So thank you for that. And yes, much appreciated.
00:01:23
Speaker
Also, Matt, I feel like some of our listeners are going to very quickly become more knowledgeable than us. I'm thinking specifically, I saw some Facebook comments of Ian. He bought a few books on the soldiers of New France and that like made up their their fighting units. that I had never heard of before.
00:01:42
Speaker
And then i know we had Adam as well. He had bought Montcalm and Wolf, which is a fantastic book, which I've only ah read in segments here and there. So I feel like both of them are probably going to be correcting us every episode pretty soon. The students become the teachers. yeah It sounds like they're already more knowledgeable than us. So if anyone out there wants to start your own podcast, Jackson, and I would be happy to give you some tips.
Acadia: Historical Context & Control Dynamics
00:02:07
Speaker
We'll listen to your podcasts and then the cycle repeats so i'm glad that we could you know inspire some people to get into the topic which i think is the whole point of why we're doing this so that's great to hear yeah so much interesting stuff to learn about and to cover uh it's been a blast so today ah we are talking about acadia you remember acadia matt don't you i do that's where the cajuns come from if i'm not mistaken
00:02:37
Speaker
Yes, so it's been a while since we covered anything in Acadia. I think not since the Battle of Beaussejour, Fort Beaussejour in 1755, which was, we did that alongside Braddock's defeat. We combined those into one one episode very early on, maybe our fourth or fifth episode, I think.
00:02:56
Speaker
um But Since there were no large-scale troop actions in Acadia after the Battle of Fort Bosizier up until the conquest of Louisbourg in 1758, a lot of times, especially if a book has got to cover its ground quickly, lot of times Acadia doesn't get too much of a mention like uh you know it's focusing on stuff like the battle for william henry the conquest of oswego forbes road you know all these big big battles with thousands of troops however because we are a podcast that likes taking our sweet time covering this war and getting lost into little rabbit holes there's a lot of interesting stuff happening in acadia in this time so we're doing ah a dedicated episode just covering a couple of them
00:03:50
Speaker
And i know as I was doing the research for this one, it quickly was spiraling out into like you could do a whole podcast on just Acadia in the 1740s and 50s.
Strategic Importance of Acadia in the War
00:04:02
Speaker
But for to remind our listeners, Acadia is the French colony in what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, as part of King William's War, no, Queen Anne's War early in the seventeen hundreds Easy to mix that up. Yes. All the war is named after whatever the British monarch is. Anyway, after Queen Anne's War, a good chunk of Acadia fell under British control.
00:04:26
Speaker
And they were eager to start settling that. after So that's like the the province of Nova Scotia was set up. However, there's still a lot of chunks of Acadia that are left in French control.
00:04:39
Speaker
After King George's war, the British really began to start settling Acadia quickly, very intensively. And there's a whole conflict called the the Father Le Loutre's War, which precedes the French and Indian War, which has tons of small-scale action, which also could be its own podcast.
00:04:58
Speaker
But when we talked about the the fall of Fort Beauséjour in 1755, the
00:05:05
Speaker
um That brings a lot more of Acadia under British control. However, As we are going to see today, that British control is pretty much imaginary.
00:05:19
Speaker
So to start with start this episode off, I will just be reading a quote from John Knox, who was a British officer in the area for a few years during the war. and It was later on in, I think he was present at the Battle Quebec. But during this time, he was operating in nova Scotia.
00:05:40
Speaker
And he's looking back later on in the war on how it went for the British. And I've got his quote here from, guess I can't remember... Let's see, I've got the the source name here in case anyone wants to look up. It's on the Internet Archive, so you can find it. It's a historical journal of the campaigns in North America for the year 1757, 1758, 1759, 1760. And there's a big subtitle after that because you know how writers in this time frame, they had very, very long titles for their books.
00:06:10
Speaker
Anyway, he writes. course. In the year 1757, we were said to be masters of the province of Nova Scotia or Acadia, which, however, was only an imaginary possession.
00:06:22
Speaker
It is true we had a settlement in Chibuktu Harbor, namely Halifax, a garrison at Annapolis Royale, one at Chikiktu called Fort Cumberland, and three other insignificant stockaded entrenchments, Fort Sackville, Lunenburg, and Fort Edward, all in the southern peninsula. But the troops and inhabitants of those several places could not be reputed in any other light than as prisoners.
00:06:47
Speaker
The French being possessed of the north and northeast with all the interior parts of it considerably above three fourths of the whole together with its islands of its principal principal are Cape Breton and St. John.
00:06:58
Speaker
So he's saying, you know, we had some strong points in Acadia in the middle of the war, but pretty much everything else was either French control or this is the more more so of it, vulnerable to raids by French and their native allies. So instead of these ah fortresses being positions of power, it's rather like the British are trapped in their forts because if they go out, they will get scalped and killed.
00:07:26
Speaker
so Yeah, I think it's important to remember the British didn't have expansive settlements in these areas. So, you know, the forts were the main center of power. And if you didn't have enough colonists in the region or enough military presence, I mean, what is a fort if, you know, you have no land around it? So, yeah. And Nova Scotia, just geography wise, it's a very...
00:07:47
Speaker
Very interesting geography. So at this time, what is now Prince Edward Island was Yle Saint-Jean. That was a French colony. so you have the French to the north of Nova Scotia. And then Cape Breton Island, which is where the fortress of Louisbourg is, that's in the northeast of Nova Scotia. And that was also in French control.
00:08:06
Speaker
So you have very easy access to a lot of surface area in Nova Scotia from those two areas. And then of course you have what is now New Brunswick, which is still like entirely or almost entirely in French control as of 1755 on Fort Beaussejour Falls.
00:08:23
Speaker
So there's a lot of ah quick and easy access, whether by water or by land. where the French and their Wabanaki Confederacy allies can quickly raid and strike some of these British possessions as they are going about trying to establish settlements, consolidate their
British Deportation & French Resistance
00:08:41
Speaker
power. And then, of course, as we talked about in the the older episode, the Acadian deportation, where they are going around Acadian settlements after the fall Fort Beaus-sur-Jore, rounding up any civilians they can find, and then deporting them off to the British colonies to kind of remove this thorn in their side and then replace them with British settlers.
00:09:04
Speaker
So that is ah the the opening situation to this episode. So we're going to look at a couple I mean, during this this time range, these few years in the middle of the war here, there's dozens and dozens of small scale action.
00:09:20
Speaker
Sometimes it's just like raiding, burning down like a fort or buildings, outbuildings and scalping a few people. to some engagements, like the first one we'll talk about, we'll actually have a few hundred people involved and have some pretty important consequences.
00:09:36
Speaker
So we are going to back up to the fall of 1755. So this is just a couple months after Fort Boisejord Falls and the Acadian deportation has begun. The British are going around to the different settlements.
00:09:53
Speaker
rounding up people and then loading them um onto ships. So there's a huge displacement of Acadians, many of them fleeing to the woods, many of them fleeing to Saint-Jean, west into what is now New Brunswick, and we're going northeast towards Louisbourg for safety.
00:10:12
Speaker
ah on The action we're talking about here will be at Petit Kodiak. So I think that is also- Jackson, just to add in to some of the David Sloan, Acadians that were fleeing the the British roundup also went and joined, I believe, the mic Mac and the male seat forces in the area which we'll see later on become more involved. Sloan, In the various ways and stuff you had mentioned, but so some of it was kind of interesting to me when I was reading about this that you know Sloan, Of these katie and natives when they're not natives native so to speak in the area went and joined native tribes to you know resist these efforts.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. we've We talked about in the Fort William Henry episode how the French had a range of alliances with natives, and that went from close allies to people who are just working with us for for opportunistic reasons and will abandon us at a moment's notice.
00:11:09
Speaker
The Mi'kmaq, the Maliseet, the members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, these were very much very loyal, very loyal, allies and very helpful allies to the akkadians they had lived and worked together for a long time as far as like colonist native relations went the akkadians and the micmac and maliseet had a pretty strong relationship all things considered and they will come back in the story uh later this episode too for sure i was just gonna say i would assume the micmac and maliseet were also victims of this uh roundup efforts by the british government to
00:11:46
Speaker
decolonize the area of French influence. So, you know, they have a shared motive to resist these efforts. and You'll see this like kind of guerrilla force form, which is an interesting concept. but yeah Yeah, this is absolutely guerrilla warfare happening at this time. That is an interesting question, though. I wonder...
00:12:03
Speaker
I don't know, actually, if the British also tried to remove the natives or if they were just focused on the Catholic French at that time. I mean, yeah, I mean, I i guess i i'm I'm purely speculating, but I would assume that, you know, natives that weren't, well you know, i don't think the British were looking.
00:12:24
Speaker
essentially to, you know, I don't want to say start a war with certain native tribes in the area, especially since, you know, as we talked about, native support has went back and forth throughout the war. But if you have, like, tribes like the Micmac and Malcite, they're closely lined with French efforts, you would assume they would be targeted, but maybe not. I'm i'm not entirely sure.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe someone could comment if they know a little bit more about it. I didn't get a chance to do a deep, deep dive into like Meek, Mac, Malisey and British relationships and how like treaties worked, especially after the war and like the settlement of the land and whose land it was. And you know, that stuff gets really complicated. And I didn't have a chance to do a deep dive into that, but Yes, the Mi'kmaq, the Maliseet, they will be very present throughout this episode, including in what the the action we're talking about today. So the Battle of Ptikodiak.
00:13:19
Speaker
So this is taking place on September 4th, 1755, in what is now the town of, believe I have it here as Hillsborough, New Brunswick. So this is on the river that flows through monked and I think either at that time or maybe also today, it was still called the Petit Kodiak River.
00:13:43
Speaker
Oh yes, it is is still called that today, i believe. At least I'm looking here on Google Maps and I saw that. ah So that's where the battle gets its name from. This is where just before where the river empties into the Bay of Fundy. So pretty much like the mouth of the river.
00:13:59
Speaker
Well, one of the reasons the battle is taking place here because the british one of the British kind of deportation opera operations is being led by Major Joseph Fry. He's got about 200 provincials coming from Fort Cumberland.
00:14:15
Speaker
which this Fort Cumberland is actually Fort Beausajour, which they promptly renamed Fort Cumberland. So they just took over the fort. Now it's the the main base of operations for the deportation, but they are using the waterways, traveling in sloops, going to Acadian communities, destroying the buildings and rounding up people. So there are some Acadian settlements along this Petit Kodiak River.
00:14:38
Speaker
And so they come in from the Bay of Fundy and start heading up river, stopping at any villages that they see to destroy the buildings and round people up.
00:14:51
Speaker
So at this the this Hillsborough area, the the sloops the British sloops split up their forces and they've got About, yeah, about 200 militiamen.
00:15:03
Speaker
And they send about like 150 are operating on the eastern side of the river. And then about 50 or 60 split up and go on the west side of the river under the command of, where is his name? John Indicott.
00:15:18
Speaker
John Indicott. Yes. Also present is Joseph Gorham from Gorham's Rangers, the original colonial Ranger unit that preceded Rogers Rangers, which we talked a little bit about in a couple of the last episodes.
00:15:33
Speaker
um Major Joseph Fry, he had some experience. he had been He had fought in the last war, King George's War, and was present for when they conquered Louisbourg in that war. And then, of course, they had to give it back.
00:15:47
Speaker
So he's got some experience. And now they are they have the unpleasant task to destroy these communities and capture people. As this operation was getting started, getting underway, the the French knew that there were going to be some operations in that area.
00:16:04
Speaker
And so the French commander here for this battle is a man named Charles Deschamps de Boisebert de Raffeteau. I really wanted to hear you say that. I was waiting for you to pronounce that name because I'm like, if I tried to say that, I would not even be close. So that sounded some eloquent, Jackson. You know, i I had thought about making you try to pronounce it, but I'll have mercy on you today. I'm embarrassed myself, yes. Yeah. ah So he's a very experienced officer, born in New France, in Quebec.
00:16:35
Speaker
Joined the Troop de la Marine at just 12 years old, which I feel like we've seen with a couple other French officers at this time, you know, joining the military very, very young. um he He had been noted for his potential at a young age, he participated in King George's War, ranging all the way from Acadia to New York.
00:16:53
Speaker
And then he, in between the wars, he was out stationed in Detroit under Celeron, the guy who did that big expedition throughout the Ohio country for the French. But by this point, he's back in Acadia, and he's kind of like the main French commander of the of the region.
00:17:10
Speaker
Now, he is up on what is the St. John River. There was a French fort at the mouth of that river. That's a bit to the southwest of where we were just talking about with the Petit Kodiak River.
00:17:23
Speaker
He's only got a garrison of 30 And he knows if the British come, there's there's no way they can hold out. So he makes the decision to destroy the French installation there, meet up with their native allies and as well as any Acadians who are capable of bearing arms.
00:17:39
Speaker
And they head over to the Petit Kodiak region to face off against these British deportation operations. So when John Indicott's detachment, about 50 to 60, when they arrive on the west side of the river and start heading into the village and they're just about to set fire to the church at the center of the village,
00:18:05
Speaker
That's when the ambush is sprung. So Boise-Berz, I believe that's how it's pronounced. his His men, which is majority, I believe, Micmac and Maliseet, they spring an ambush and start driving the British back to the riverfront where you know the ground is sloping down towards the river.
00:18:26
Speaker
And so now the the French and their native allies have the high ground. They're pushing he's a these militiamen who are caught by surprise and a lot of the regular grunts, this is their first action, pushing them back towards the river where they take cover behind some like dikes ah to control like the tides and they're very exposed.
00:18:50
Speaker
The fire is intense. For about three hours, the the skirmish rages. Pretty much every few minutes, at least one of the British is getting hit.
00:19:02
Speaker
Eventually, they're able to withdraw back into the river, back to their sloops, and get to safety, but not without taking some significant casualties. so And Joseph Gorham himself was wounded, though not killed. So they got some injuries to leadership, injuries to fresh recruits.
00:19:22
Speaker
Casualties are fairly significant. Numbers vary, of course. Whenever we do any kind of these battles, you get different numbers. But... Generally, it is accepted that only one was killed and three wounded on the French and native side.
00:19:36
Speaker
And then it varies for the British, but at least 22 killed plus perhaps six wounded. And then some prisoners taken in the battle as well.
00:19:49
Speaker
So there's some variance to that figure. But one interesting... I it was anywhere from 22 to 42 killed. Yeah. Up to 45 captured, which, I mean, I guess kind of makes sense. But at the same time, too, this was ah like a smaller statue on that side. Yeah, that's where the numbers get fuzzy. Because, yeah, if he came over with 50 to 60, how could you have 40 killed and 40 captured? i I don't know if some of the forces on the other side of the river...
00:20:14
Speaker
and don't I don't believe they were able to cross and help. Yeah. yeah So regardless, we can say safely at least 20 killed for sure.
00:20:25
Speaker
But um yes. glad we were both able to do the math on those numbers and be like, that doesn't really make sense. We're no historians, but we're not that dumb.
00:20:35
Speaker
yeah One interesting note, though, is there were more casualties in this skirmish than in the entire siege of Fort Beausjour for the British. Because that was a ah pretty textbook, pretty easy siege for the British. The French held out for just like two weeks. They had very low morale. And then ah one of the bombardment ended up causing a lot of damage. Like one of the shells landed in the like the officer mess room and killed a bunch of officers. So that siege went very smoothly for the British. But this little skirmish actually caused them more casualties than that.
00:21:10
Speaker
Some aftermath for this skirmish, very positive for the French. One, it's a morale booster for the very unfortunate Acadians dealing with the the ongoing deportation.
00:21:22
Speaker
Two, they were able to rescue the families that had just been captured in the area. ah There's about 30, I believe. And this also delayed the British a lot more time for Acadians that were on this river to flee westward.
00:21:40
Speaker
They also got some food and supplies in the area, which will be very critical because the fall of Acadia is happening in summer, mid and late summer of 1755.
00:21:53
Speaker
And that means the harvest is disrupted. You got thousands of people being deported. Oh, you meant the fall of Acadia. I thought you meant like the actual fall of Acadia. Oh, no. well So, yeah, I guess. Okay, let me let me rephrase. the The autumn. Well, no, I did mean like the fall as in it is collapsing. The British are are taking it over. Oh, okay. So you did mean that. Well, then you mentioned the harvest. So I was like, I'm so confused right Both things. Okay. Regardless, the British...
00:22:22
Speaker
Operations are taking place in summer and fall of 1755. That means the harvest is disrupted. That means people are, the food supplies are going to be very low. You know, the workers got deported or had to flee their farms.
00:22:36
Speaker
So getting some of the, being able to harvest some of the food in these villages gets extra supplies is going to be very, very helpful in a desperate situation. I'm glad we could get that fall, fall situation. Yes. Figured out. Fall in the fall.
00:22:53
Speaker
um So there is the the battle at Ptikodiak. ah Small scale compared to like Fort William Henry or Oswego, but very crucial on this regional level.
00:23:08
Speaker
next up I've got because there's a lot of little small scale actions I could have picked so it's very hard to not none of which go very well for the British so I think yes collectively have a a pretty profound impact on the French influence in the area especially the next one that we'll talk about but um yeah so yeah I agree like you know these are smaller rates and stuff but if you're looking at this in the grand scheme of things you know this could equate one large a defeat for the British forces in the area so yeah yeah and i think i had read in some source that of the dozen or two dozen or whatever you know like small scale raids and skirmishes the british did not win a single one in this time span like between 17 end of 1755 to 1757. so a lot of small things but they are all adding up and they contribute to that quote we read in the beginning where
00:24:03
Speaker
ah The British felt like prisoners in their forts because they could not leave safely. So next up, Bois Hébert, he's like the head of the Acadians now, like leading the Acadian resistance movement here. He's he's still getting, he still communication with the government in Quebec. He's still getting orders. I found in one letter where Vaudray is writing back to France.
00:24:31
Speaker
he He has like a copy of what he's kind of ordered Bois Hébert to do. So he's saying as long as he occupies the, you know, that basically the New Brunswick region, the Petit Kodiak River, the St. John River, a detachment will be there. I shall preserve the possession of Acadia for the king.
00:24:52
Speaker
He mentions securing the fidelity of the Acadians and Indians. So the Acadians are in a tough spot where, um you know, they've lost their homes, they've had to flee, they have families to look out for, they don't know if wholehearted joining on on the French because a lot of these were technically under British rule when the war started.
00:25:14
Speaker
ah They don't know if fighting for the French is going to like ruin their chances of ever seeing their homes again, or you know their their morale can waver.
00:25:25
Speaker
um Then he mentions in these... orders, things he's doing. monsieur de boisette will draw over to him all the acadians those at his post as well as those at a distance will endeavor to reunite them with their families and to form them into one core the acadians thus reunited will be obliged for their own safety to repel the enemy with vigor should he make his appearance He also writes, he will occupy himself in like manner to reunite the Indians and will form an equally considerable core of them working together with some of the missionaries working among them to oppose the progress of the enemy.
00:26:03
Speaker
He will be in a position to have spies constantly at Beaux-sur-Jours at Halifax and to make prisoners who will inform him on the situation and strength of the English. He will organize parties of Acadians and Indians to continually harass the enemy at Beaux-sur-Jours and to prevent them from cutting firewood.
00:26:20
Speaker
By holding the River St. John, he'll be able to get news easier from Louisbourg. Oh yeah, I've given orders to Monsieur de Bois-Hébert in consequence and have particularly recommended him to act on all occasions with much prudence and to concert matters with the Reverend Father Germain.
00:26:38
Speaker
It's just a little look at how religion and politics were absolutely enmeshed together for France and New France, the missionaries and priests among both the Acadian and Native American populations.
00:26:53
Speaker
not we're not just There wasn't the divorce of the spiritual moral. There was separation of churches. they were both preaching and also working for the government of New France.
00:27:06
Speaker
And of course, at this time, there there weren't really these ah Protestant Catholic religious wars anymore, but the animosity absolutely was still there. And so in the in the these missionaries' eyes, and we'll talk a little bit more about this later on this episode, but not only were the English enemies of their king, the liege, but they were also heretics and enemies of God. So using both ammunition to rile up the population and get them ah to be motivated attackers and resist the British on both fronts.
00:27:41
Speaker
But he wraps up the this summary of the orders he gave with, I hope, my lord, to adhere to this arrangement until I shall have received your orders next year. He's writing to Mashal, the minister of navy.
00:27:55
Speaker
And should you decide on the impossibility of obliging the English to withdraw from Acadia or of maintaining ourselves there in sufficient force to keep them in check, I shall be able to withdraw the Acadians and Indians into the heart of the colony. The Akkadians in the hole may consist of about 2,000 souls, whereof 700 are men under arms. It would be unfortunate were they to belong to the English.
00:28:15
Speaker
So this is the ah view into the strategy coming from the leadership of New France. and when They want to keep the Acadians within striking distance of the English positions.
00:28:26
Speaker
If worse comes to worse and the British really push forward, then they're thinking, okay, we'll bring them into the heart of the colony, like port more towards Quebec City. We'll ah we' protect them there. But for now,
00:28:40
Speaker
Vaudreuil wants Boiseubert to rally the Acadians, rally the Indians, and to continually attack and harass the British, which he absolutely does.
00:28:51
Speaker
That's crazy. like thinking Like, oh, you know, we have this portion of our populace that, you know, we're going to we're gonna leave them out there. You know, they're effective. and And so, you know, like you said, bring them into the heart of the empire and, you know, protecting them is...
00:29:08
Speaker
as normal citizens or colonists, but you know, instead using them as like a paramilitary force is interesting. Yeah, pretty much. And then he mentioned like having, you know, when they're united with their family. So another way that Battle of Petit Kodiak contributes to this mission is by rescuing some of those
Struggles of Acadian Refugees
00:29:25
Speaker
families. but You know, if the family is united, these Akkadian men will have something to fight persistently for and defend. So they will become more effective warriors. That's crazy. It's like, yeah, you don't want them to take your home, then you gotta to fight them. Sorry.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah. And of course, the Cadians, they have seen plenty of friends and neighbors get deported, so uh project they probably didn't need a ton of convincing but yeah a lot of interesting factors at play here and the acadians will kind of get caught up in the middle of some of these like political games and maneuverings because a lot of them are just they're just you know they're just farmers they don't uh they're not professional soldiers or anything but they're put into very difficult situations and uh and take up arms to survive
00:30:13
Speaker
So Boisebert, along with the Acadians under his charge, they go up to the Miramichi River and set up basically a refugee camp. This river is in more central central northern New Brunswick today.
00:30:29
Speaker
The camp was where the modern town of Miramichi, Newcastle, and then Beaubert Island, right in the middle of the river, where this area.
00:30:39
Speaker
This river goes up into the St. Lawrence Gulf. But this camp is set up in 1756. It will last for a couple years. It's called Camp de l'Espérance, or Hope Camp, Camp of Hope.
00:30:57
Speaker
Unfortunately, the reality on the ground is kind of anything but. So the settlement very quickly gets ah basically afflicted by famine and sickness.
00:31:12
Speaker
You know, they're already refugees, so their food stores aren't aren really significant. Then, of course, stuff like smallpox and other illnesses start ravaging the settlement.
00:31:26
Speaker
had to estimate The estimates of how many people were actually there vary, but seems there was at least 1,300. Estimates are more, but about 1,300 people living there.
00:31:39
Speaker
that Some of the natives of the Wabanaki Confederacy also joined them there. But ah the winter is extremely harsh. About 10% are oh it I think it's actually more there considering.
00:31:56
Speaker
I got different figures, but hundreds at least, a few hundred died over the course of the winter from starvation or sickness.
00:32:07
Speaker
you know that We were talking about the food supply shortages in New France in some of the last episodes. 1756 was a bad harvest across all of New France.
00:32:18
Speaker
And then here in Acadia, you have the additional strain of being refugees. so a lot of people don't have food to survive um and then they're also being forced out of their homes trying to yeah round up to to flee somewhere else or kick out of the colony yeah Yeah, a lot of food was left in the fields unharvested, unfortunately. So this this little refugee camp is and almost entirely dependent on help coming from either Louisbourg or Quebec City or France, which doesn't often come.
00:32:56
Speaker
And yes, it's a very precarious situation. The natives that do move in with them as well, they provide some crucial aid from those Mi'kmaq and Maliseets.
00:33:07
Speaker
One example of that is, believe I read that some natives had recaptured maybe like 30 or 40 cattle that the British had taken when they first started conquering Acadia. And they bring them back and those are gladly eaten during some of these hard times.
00:33:25
Speaker
um At one point, just to show the level of desperation in some of these winters, in the winter of 1756 to seven, Boisebert sends a detachment of 500 Acadians up north to another river, the Pokémouche. You do fishing there because it's supposed to have some pretty good supply of fish, but you know they're crossing over in winter.
00:33:48
Speaker
And so many of them haven't been eating enough for a long time, you know, half rations, stuff like that. 83 of like the 500 people who he sends up there to go fishing and bring back food end up dying on the way.
00:34:01
Speaker
Um, the people are reduced to eating oxen hides, deer skin shoes and beaver tails. And eventually I do get some like successful fishing expeditions to help bolster the food supply. But in general, uh, a lot of people just simply do not have enough to eat in this, you know, wilderness corner of new France on these refugee camps.
00:34:25
Speaker
The kind of sad irony of it is that even with hundreds dying from this population of 1,300 more, that it still ends up being a better place to be if you're an Akkadian than if you were captured by the British. Because about half of those who in total were deported by the British ended up dying from disease or shipwrecks and drowning or starvation. So proportionally, unfortunately, this refugee camp is actually a better place for these people who have already been through a lot.
00:35:03
Speaker
So we've covered some of the early skirmishes, the conditions of the Akkadians.
Raids and Espionage
00:35:11
Speaker
Last bit I wanted to cover here in this episode were the Lunenberg raids.
00:35:16
Speaker
So these are raids ordered from Vaudray to Boisebert and Boisebert to his native allies. to target the settlement of lunenburg in nova scotia quick note for our listeners if you're researching this topic there is also a raid on lunenburg nova scotia that happened in 1782 as part of the american revolution so don't make the same mistake i did and start reading about that and i quickly read about the wrong the wrong uh raid so yeah i think lundinburg has been raided several times because it is a very um important port city so uh yeah just keep that in mind
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think yeah during the course of this war, I think I had read it was raided like seven separate times or something like that. so we're just going to look at one incident. This is in southern Nova Scotia, southwest of Halifax on the coast, that rocky island riddled Nova Scotian coast. coast um This is a population not of British settlers. ah Matt, do you actually know who is settled there? do you have a guess?
00:36:25
Speaker
Ooh. I do not, no. I would have assumed it was British. So as part, it's under the British flag, but as part of the British Empire's campaign to more rapidly populate Nova Scotia with British-affiliated civilians to help counterbalance the almost 11,000 French Acadians in the area at the start of the war, whether under British control or French control, The British have been importing what is known a group known as foreign Protestants.
00:36:57
Speaker
So these are mostly German and French Protestants who for some reason or other are looking for new homes. you know A lot of the French Protestants fleeing persecution from France, which is very firmly enshrined Roman Catholicism as its state faith and persecuted the Protestant population there. And then, you know, in Germany, I don't know the exact reasons, but a lot of those European wars devastated some areas of Germany.
00:37:29
Speaker
So there's a lot of people who lived on the front lines in the war, whether it was wars past or the current war. i mean, Europe's always at war at this time, but some German Protestants are also recruited to, you know, start a new life in Nova Scotia. so Lunenburg is mostly populated by these French and German Protestants.
00:37:53
Speaker
these ah These kind of towns like Lunenburg that are in Halifax, which only really popped up within the last 10 years of the time frame we're talking about. They're very recent establishments.
00:38:06
Speaker
They quickly become targets for raids. You know, the Mi'kmaq, the Maliseet, and of course the Acadians are not happy to see boatloads of new British-affiliated soldiers.
00:38:18
Speaker
settlers you know pop up in land that used to be theirs. So Lunenburg is targeted for a raid and some of the native allies will go strike against it. So there's a couple areas in Lunenburg that are targeted.
00:38:32
Speaker
First, some warriors arrive on May 8th, 1756 this happens. and they go to Rus Island first. Now, if you're looking at Lunenburg on a map, it's got a very jagged coast, lots of tons of little islands all around it. Rus Island, you can find it by typing in the search bar in Google Maps. It is north of Lunenburg, one among many, but there must have been some a settlement there, at least at least one homestead or something like that.
00:39:01
Speaker
So warriors arrive there. They will kill a couple people and capture one who they will use as a guide to get to the next settlement, which was in Paisant Island, which has since been renamed. Oh, what was it? It might be Covey's Island. Yeah, it's Covey's Island.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yep. Okay, thank you. So which is just south of Rus Island. So I don't know if these natives, if they just were swimming from island to island, or if they had brought canoes with them, or if they knew where like canoes were hidden because yeah, I'm not exactly sure because they're, i mean, they're going, if they were starting from what is now New Brunswick to do this raid, they would have traveled quite a long distance to get here. So I don't know exactly if they're swimming or boating.
00:39:48
Speaker
But either way, they go to another island. Peasant Island, it was named that because the Peasant family was settling there. These were actually like French speaking Protestants.
00:40:01
Speaker
One of the captives, mary peant Marie she is pregnant at the time. She gets captured along with four of her children. they uh end up once uh she gets taken back they end up getting separated unfortunately where marie gets sent all the way to quebec city while her children remain at an indian village uh i don't think it was far from miramichi um i don't know exactly where it was but one of the uh the maliseet indian villages
00:40:34
Speaker
ally to the French somehow which really surprised me because I did not expect to to read this but the child that is born to her in captivity survives which is great and then the next year she will actually get reunited with her family who will be sent her well her surviving family I think her husband and father were killed in the raid But her children end up being able to join her in Quebec City until the end of the war, once the British conquer Quebec City and release her, which she will go back to Nova Scotia and settle down.
00:41:07
Speaker
But one interesting note is that one of her children who was taken and was staying in that Indian village, He ended up being adopted by the family that had been holding him captive, and he ended up learning some of the language and served as an interpreter.
00:41:22
Speaker
And then after the war, he returned home and I think became a a minister. But unfortunately, you know, we can look at something like the Battle Petit Kodiak and think, oh, what like what a nice like heroic victory for these Akkadian resistance fighters and their native allies.
00:41:39
Speaker
Lunenburg raid is kind of more of what we have been seeing like along the Pennsylvania Virginia frontier where it's just like killing and scalping and capturing civilians. You know there was ah an infant and another child who died in the raid as well as an elderly man so it's that typical frontier violence that we see yeah all across This was a fighting against British regulars as it was before.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yes. P-Man is fighting against people who aren't even British. They just arrived there in the last like five, ten years. Could Frenchman killing other Frenchman too. Yeah. So I wonder, i don't I didn't get a chance to dive deep into this aspect of it because it would whole other thing. I was wondering if the fact that they were French speaking, at least some of them,
00:42:29
Speaker
would that have mattered at all? Like if Boisebert and Vaudray, if they knew that there were French speakers there, would that cause them to pick another target? Or since they were Protestant French speakers, would that not even factor at all? Like would work the bonds language. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting dynamic and i I don't know too much about how, you know, if full knowledge was known, if if everything would still kind of proceed in the same way.
00:43:01
Speaker
But yeah, so just a kind of classic raid against a small settlement in the frontier there with Lunenburg. One last bit I've got here. We talked a little bit a bo before about how the priests and missionaries on the French side were of both spiritual and political actors.
00:43:22
Speaker
um I ended up finding a note from Thomas Pichon, We actually mentioned it very briefly in our episode about the fall of Fort Beausjour, not by name because I didn't think him important enough to know by name, but I ended up seeing another quote from him and looked a little bit into his life.
00:43:42
Speaker
Very interesting figure. So he, if you might remember for Beausjour, there was an English spy that helped relay information about the fort and the forces defending it to the British.
00:43:53
Speaker
That was Thomas Pichon. Ah. So he was ah a French government agent during the Lutres War, so the previous kind of guerrilla war in Acadia, based out of Louisbourg and then Fort Beaussejour.
00:44:07
Speaker
And he ended up becoming, a due to like disgruntlement with French colonial political drama and some of the stuff he had seen in the last war,
00:44:17
Speaker
He ended up becoming a spy for the British, assisted them in their taking of Fort Beaus-sur-Jour. And then as the British take over Acadia, he becomes like an interpreter and and works with them.
00:44:29
Speaker
to To some, he is known as the Judas of Acadia, which is quite a title. He ends up dying in England as a Protestant after living most of his life as kind of like an Enlightenment skeptic atheist. But the reason I bring him up is because he has a quote.
00:44:46
Speaker
Obviously, it's going to be tinged with a little bit of bias here because at this time he was an atheist and he was getting sick of some of the French colonial practices that he was seeing. But anyway, He remarks on how the priests manipulate or or rile up the Akkadians and natives to go commit acts of great violence against the British settlers.
00:45:15
Speaker
I've got quote here in French, so I'll try to translate here. Let me find the... Oh, okay, okay. I found the found the... I took a screenshot of the archives.com thing. So he writes, we have six missionaries of which the perpetual occupation is to bring spirits to fanaticism and vengeance.
00:45:36
Speaker
I admit that these are weapons that they turn against the enemy very naturally. but this enemy had not yet broken the peace that was between us and them. So he's referring to like Leloutre's war when there technically was not war going on between France and Britain, but the father Leloutre was riling up and sending out raids to attack British settlements.
00:46:02
Speaker
But ah he also writes a little bit later on, ju du i doubt that Christianity permits to... ah you know, permits these kind of actions that go to hatred, to the destruction of our those who look like us.
00:46:17
Speaker
And he cannot bear that our priests offer these denouncements, which they make every day to the natives. The English are the enemies of God, the companions of the devil.
00:46:32
Speaker
because they do not think like us. Therefore, do them as much bad as you wish. So, of course, he's like paraphrasing Leloutre here. But, you know, he he's looking at this like, I'm not even a Christian, but I don't think that's what what it's about. yeah There is another story about Leloutre because he's a very colorful figure.
00:46:57
Speaker
He ends up getting arrested or intercepted by the British. And as he's being sent off back to Europe, one of like the sailors was one of the captives that he had taken in a previous raid.
00:47:12
Speaker
And he goes ballistic and tries to kill Leloutre because Leloutre not only had like caused the raids to get him to capture, but he himself was starting to like scalp the guy himself.
00:47:24
Speaker
um So it kind of just shows you the level of violence and the the odd and scary mixing of spiritual and temporal authority and i'm sure how messy it could get over there.
00:47:38
Speaker
But yeah, Pichon provides that quote to pigavis some color and a slightly biased but very important perspective on the level of violence going on over there.
Conclusion & Teaser for Louisbourg Expedition
00:47:50
Speaker
But all in all, So the British have technically conquered the majority of Acadia, but in reality, it's all unrealized gains at this you know midway point in the war that we've been settling in.
00:48:03
Speaker
ah The Acadians, the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet militias led by their charismatic and bold leaders both french and native they are raising hell throughout all of no nova scotia during this time and that will continue until the british can finally get better control of the area but that doesn't come until 1758 and later yes so well that's where we at awesome well thank you so much jackson Huge shout out to Jackson in this episode. If you can't tell listeners, he did almost all the research for this one. And I am the mere the mere co-host, mere observer for this one. So i appreciate it Promise I will be back in full force after our move is over. But I am glad that you were able to tell her listeners a good tale of Acadia and everything going on there. And I believe our next episode, we will be touching on Louisburg. Is that correct? Or am I...
00:48:57
Speaker
making things up. Yes. I'm hoping to take the backseat on that one. we had i was taking the lead on this one. Matt will take the lead on the 1757 Louisbourg expedition.
00:49:09
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to that. There will still be a couple more 1757 stuff we have yet to talk about. you know I love the level of detail we're operating at in this episode.
00:49:21
Speaker
uh in this war and we get to dive into a lot of small scale stuff and learn a ton on the way yes so sounds good really looking forward to it all right yeah and thanks again to everyone who has left us comments please keep doing that uh give us episode suggestions so we can make this podcast go on even longer before we start our next podcast which will inevitably be everything that happened in acadia in uh you know in 1757 as jackson mentioned you know that was a foreshadowing about how we could have a whole podcast on this we will uh no just kidding unfortunately there's a there's a lot of things in this like 50 year time span where i'm thinking hmm after the french and indian war we could do this one we could do this we could do this uh we'll be back actually talk more about that when we get to the end of this war we'll we'll do some uh brainstorming Yes. Well, all right. Well, thanks again, everyone, for listening, and we'll catch you next time.
00:50:17
Speaker
Bye-bye.