Acadian Awakenings France Acadie

A one-name study of Girouard families who emigrated from France and settled in Canada and Louisiana.

A one-name study of Girouard families who emigrated from France and settled in Canada and Louisiana.

A one-name study of Girouard families who emigrated from France and settled in Canada and Louisiana.

A one-name study of Girouard families who emigrated from France and settled in Canada and Louisiana.

The first work devoted exclusively to Acadians in Nova Scotia, this book presents a thorough study of Acadian history from the earliest days of French settlement to present-day Acadian communities. Authors Sally Ross and Alphonse Deveau draw on original seventeenth-century texts, as well as up-to-date sources. They examine the history of the Expulsion--the Grand Dérangement--that began in 1755, and trace the return of the Acadians and their resettlement in seven areas of the province. The authors highlight the distinct features that have developed within these different regions of Nova Scotia and discuss the choices and challenges faced by Acadians today: the linguistic assimilation and preservation of a distinct culture against pressures from the mainstream culture. Acadians of Nova Scotia won the 1993 Dartmouth Book Award for non-fiction and the 1993 Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Prize for non-fiction.

Were Acadians better off than their rural counterparts in old regime France? Did they enjoy a Golden Age? To what degree did a distinct Acadian identity emerge before the wars and deportations of the mid-eighteenth century? In Something of a Peasant Paradise?, Gregory Kennedy compares Acadie in North America with a region of western France, the Loudunais, from which a number of the colonists originated. Kennedy considers the natural environment, the role of the state, the economy, the seigneury, and local governance in each place to show that similarities between the two societies have been greatly underestimated or ignored. The Acadian colonists and the people of the Loudunais were frontier peoples, with dispersed settlement patterns based on kin groups, who sought to make the best use of the land and to profit from trade opportunities. Both societies were hierarchical, demonstrated a high degree of political agency, and employed the same institutions of local governance to organize their affairs and negotiate state demands. Neither group was inherently more prosperous, egalitarian, or independent-minded than the other. Rather, the emergence of a distinct Acadian identity can be traced to the gradual adaptation of traditional methods, institutions, and ideas to their new environmental and political situations. A compelling comparative analysis based on archival evidence on both sides of the Atlantic, Something of a Peasant Paradise? Challenges the traditional historiography and demonstrates that Acadian society shared many of its characteristics with other French rural societies of the period.

Acadie Then and Now: A People's History is an international collection of articles from 50 authors that chronicles the historical and contemporary realities of the Acadian and Cajun people worldwide. In 1605, French colonists settled Acadie (today Nova Scotia, Canada) and for the next 150 years developed a strong and unique Acadian culture. In 1755, the British conducted forced deportations of the Acadians rendering thousands homeless, and for the next 60 years these exiles migrated to seaports along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, eventually settling in new lands. This tragic upheaval did not succeed in extinguishing the Acadians, but instead planted the seeds of many new Acadies, where today their fascinating culture still thrives. This collection includes 65 articles on the Acadians and Cajuns living today in the American states of Louisiana, Texas, and Maine, in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Quebec, and in the French regions of Poitou, Belle-Ile-en-Mer, and St-Pierre et Miquelon.