1 OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE DATE BACK TO FEUDAL TIMES in Europe.1 Oaths, or pledges, were an essential part of the contracts between land-holding nobles and lower class persons benefitting from the use of land. In the 17th century it became common for the monarchs of European countries to require subjects to pledge loyalty through an oath of allegiance in return for certain protections and rights. This was particularly important to monarchs in times of political turmoil, rebellion, and civil war, when royal authority could be challenged and sovereigns overthrown. During the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and 1746, for example, it was very important for the Protestant George II and his government officials to know whom among the populace supported them and who did not. Kings and queens relied on oaths of allegiance as a means of obtaining or demanding loyalty; those who refused could be banished or face other penalties. Concerns relating to loyalty to the British Crown spilled over into the colonies, including Nova Scotia, particularly in the early 1750s, as this was a time when tensions between Great Britain and France were significantly increasing. The Roman Catholic Acadians greatly outnumbered British settlers in Nova Scotia, and they were suspected by colonial officials to be still yearning for a restoration of Acadia to France.2 The oath of allegiance of the 17th century, both in England and France, was infused with religious overtones, and taking the oath was not something to be done lightly. As pointed out by Yves Durand, a 17th-century French dictionary compiler by the name of Furetière wrote: “The oath is therefore not a simple contract one can easily renounce; it is an engagement before God.”3 More modern versions of oaths of allegiance may have fewer words that speak to a religious element within them, but they have generally retained at least a reference to God. As we shall see, the oath of allegiance was taken more seriously by Acadians at certain times of their history than others.
2 The oath of allegiance played an important role in the political life of the Acadians of Acadie, or Nova Scotia, from 1670 until 1755, and for some years beyond, but most notably from 1710 until 1755. Indeed, in the latter year it played a pivotal role. Their refusal to take an unqualified oath of allegiance in 1755 was the principal justification cited by Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence and his council for their decision to deport all of the Acadians to the American colonies. In the fall of that year Lawrence succeeded in deporting about 7,000 of an estimated population of 10,000.4 During the seven years that followed, there would be additional waves of Acadian deportations from Nova Scotia, Île Saint-Jean, and Île Royale. In 1758 roughly 3,000 Acadians from Île Saint-Jean (about two-thirds of the population) were deported to France while the remainder escaped to Miramichi or Bay of Chaleur. Of those deported from Île Saint-Jean, one-half died from drowning and shipborne disease during the passage to France and still more died of disease soon after arriving.5 Some of those who had escaped to the mainland began to filter back to the renamed Saint John’s Island in the early 1760s.6 It has been estimated that by the time that the Seven Years War officially ended in 1763, some 10,000 Acadians had died of disease, drowning, and/or malnutrition as a direct result of the Grand Dérangement – a term that refers to the colossal upheaval in the lives of Acadians as a result of the British campaign to remove them from the Maritime region between 1755 and 1763.7
3 The Acadian attitude about taking an oath of allegiance during the one or two decades immediately after the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, is a subject that has been seldom explored by historians. This research note examines the attitude of Acadians who returned to Saint John’s Island during the 1760s towards the oath of allegiance and fidelity to the sovereign. It will draw on four newly discovered documents, three of which relate to loyalty to the French king, in conjunction with previously known documents.8 It will also compare the attitude of these returnees with that of Acadians residing in mainland Nova Scotia.9
4 Several of these newly discovered documents, all of which relate to Acadians on Saint John’s Island during the first half of the 1760s, have been presented in transcribed form in an earlier paper that focuses on the genealogical information that can be derived from two of them.10 The present research note makes use of these documents in a new way – namely, to shed light on the matter of the oath of allegiance.
5 The concept of Acadian neutrality, in the context of their taking a qualified oath, emerged in 1717 when the Acadians informed colonial officials that they were prepared to take an oath of allegiance to the British monarch only if it were understood and accepted that they would not be required to take up arms against the French and Mi’kmaq in future conflicts.11 Acadian intransigence regarding the oath of allegiance would be a thorn in the side of colonial officials for much of the next four decades. The manner in which these officials decided in 1755 to resolve the matter once and for all – by deporting the Acadians – resulted in two or three decades of immense hardship and disruption in the lives of not only the deported Acadians, but also those Acadians who managed to flee. Over the following century, the collective memory of the event was instrumental in helping Acadians to overcome adversity, to rebuild, and to re-establish a cohesive ethnic identity. For more than two-and-one-half centuries, the oath of allegiance has been a central and controversial theme of Acadian historiography. During the last two decades of the 19th century and first two decades of the 20th, it elicited fierce debates between anglophone and francophone historians.12
6 It was more than a century after the Acadian deportation took place before a significant Acadian historiography emerged. The main contributors initially were historians in France and Acadia or Québécois historians in Canada.13 In recent decades a number of English-language monographs that deal comprehensively with Acadian history have appeared. They deal with the oath of allegiance up until the deportation of 1755 to varying extents as part of the broader narrative.14 And during the last decade or two, anglophone authors have published in academic journals several papers that are devoted largely to the oath of allegiance and the role it played in the Acadian experience.15 During the same time period, contributions to the French-language historiography, as regards 17th- and 18th-century Acadian history, have been fewer. Several deal with the history of Acadians in more restricted geographical areas, such as Prince Edward Island (Saint John's Island officially became Prince Edward Island in 1799) and what is today peninsular Nova Scotia. The oath of allegiance is a subject that has been addressed in depth by almost no francophone historians in recent decades.16
7 Although, as mentioned earlier, there has been little work regarding Acadians and the oath of allegiance after 1760, particularly after the Treaty of Paris of 1763, various well-known archival fonds may contain historical documents that can shed light on this subject.17 These would facilitate a yet-to-be-undertaken comprehensive and thorough regional study. Such investigation would help to establish whether or not there were significant regional variations in the attitude of Acadians toward the oath of allegiance in the post-1763 period.
8 Given the substantial degree of communication that existed between Acadians living throughout what are now the Maritime Provinces, as well as the Magdalen Islands and the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, there is reason to believe that the attitudes prevalent in Saint John’s Island were typical of those elsewhere in the region.18 The recently discovered documents and others utilized or cited in this research note support this thesis. A common thread running through a number of these documents is the attitude of Acadians, particularly those on Saint John’s Island, toward loyalty to the king of England or the king of France at the end of the Seven Years War and beyond.
9 The Seven Years War resulted in all of the eastern part of North America, except for the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, becoming, or remaining, British colonial territory. That meant that practically all Acadians in this vast area, many of whom had been deported to the American colonies in 1755, were now living under British rule. Many who had escaped deportation were scattered across Nova Scotia, the Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands, other parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in parts of the St. Lawrence Valley in Canada. In early 1763 an officer in the French embassy in London issued an invitation to Acadians in North America to remove themselves to French soil – in other words, to France itself, to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and to colonies still held by France in the Caribbean and the northeast coast of South America.19 Acadians wishing to remove to French territory were requested to draw up lists containing the names of the men, women and children who sought to be transported.
10 Such a list (for a transcription, see appendix) was prepared by, or on behalf of, the Acadians then residing on Saint John’s Island and the Magdalen Islands, together with two covering letters or memorials: one to the king of France and one to the Duc de Nivernais, who was the French ambassador in London.20 These are three of the four newly discovered documents referred to earlier. In the two letters, which are similar to each other, the Acadians declared their loyalty to France. In the letter to the Duc de Nivernais, they referred to the French king as their “father” and to themselves as his “children.”21 Further, they “will always be ready to shed their last drop of blood in the service of the king and for the royal family.”22 In the letter to the king, the Acadians declared that they had never wavered in their obedience to him and that, as his faithful servants, they humbly “prostrate themselves at the foot of his throne.” There is no evidence that French officials ever provided assistance to these Acadians, or other Acadians, to relocate in the 1760s from British territory to French territory, and it has been suggested that their removal may have been discouraged or blocked by the British government.23
11 Samuel Holland, a surveyor and cartographer appointed by the British government, arrived on Saint John’s Island in the fall of 1764 to begin his survey of the coast of northeastern North America. In letters to Lord Hillsborough, president of the British Board of Trade and Plantations, and Nova Scotia Governor Wilmot, Holland briefed them on the Island Acadians, whom he described as “Prisoners [who] are kept on the same footing as those at Halifax.”24 According to Holland, the Acadians had approached him “to beg protection, as the present Commanding officer lays claim to everything they have; the Captain [Ralph Hill, the commanding officer at Fort Amherst] says that they refused the oath of allegiance, but they told me they would do anything required and become good subjects here, or they would be glad to be transported to Canada.”25 Since the Canada they had in mind (what is now the province of Quebec) was by 1764 a British colony, these Acadians seemingly were now much less inclined to shed their last drop of blood for the king of France than they had professed to be one year earlier.26
12 A list, dated 31 August 1765 at Amherst Harbour (now Havre-Aubert) in the Magdalen Islands, contains the names of 22 Acadian men, most of whom had been living on Saint John’s Island until they fled in 1758 to escape deportation. In 1765 they were in the employ of Richard Gridley, a New England entrepreneur engaged in walrus hunting in the Magdalen Islands. The list is prefaced by the statement that these Acadians “do sincerely and severally promise and swear, that we will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King George.”27 Being illiterate, each had applied his mark in the form of a cross or “X” in lieu of a signature on the document that had been drawn up by a Royal Navy captain named Thomas Allwright.
13 Such a declaration would have been a requirement for employment. It was common practice during the 17th and 18th centuries for British governments to require subjects to take or retake an oath of allegiance when a new monarch ascended the throne and when, as a result of armed conflict leading to a regime change, the subjects found themselves residing in territory ruled by a different kingdom.28 In 1765 Captain Hill was replaced by Captain Joseph Williams, and several documents prepared by him are revealing of his views although perhaps also coloured by those of his predecessor. In the summer of 1765, Williams wrote to General Thomas Gage, based in New York: “The French Inhabitants or rather vagrants settled without authority on this Island have refus’d to take the oath of allegiance tender’d to them.”29 In December of that year, he again wrote to Gage that upon arriving on the Island he had corresponded with Governor Wilmot to apprise him of the situation on the Island and to specifically inform the governor that he “required some directions concerning the French.” According to Williams, Governor Wilmot had responded that “respecting the French whom he is pleased to stile [call] Acadians tho’ they do not come under that denomination . . . the Government had not yet resolved what to do with them.” Williams further pointed out that the Acadians who had not been “sent off this Island” in 1758 had “infested these seas as Pirates” and had “thrown themselves . . . on the clemency” of his predecessor, Captain Ralph Hill. The Acadians had “no other licence but [Hill’s] liberty to settle here, & His Indulgence was only meant ’till He knew the Government’s pleasure concerning them.”30 Williams concluded his letter to Gage by enclosing a list of the Acadians then residing on the Island, prefacing the list by the words “These have & do all refuse to take the oath of allegiance to His Brittanick Majesty.”31 This is the fourth of the newly discovered documents relating to the position of Acadians on Saint John’s Island regarding the oath of allegiance.32
14 However, employment opportunities can change minds. An affidavit from the fall of 1768 relates to the illegal cutting of large white pine trees at Three Rivers by a British entrepreneur who employed Island Acadians.33 Nine Acadians were involved, including Jean LeBlanc who had been deported in 1755 from Grand-Pré to Massachusetts where he apparently learned some English. This enabled him to act as a spokesman for his workmates and accounts for his being the person who made an affidavit in English. According to the affidavit, LeBlanc had “taken the oaths of allegiance and fidelity to his majesty King George the third.” Acadians who took an oath of allegiance to George III did so orally. In at least some instances a written certificate was produced at the time the oath was taken, to provide proof. Such documents were printed forms in which pertinent information was entered by hand – the name of the person taking the oath, place, date, and name and signature of the administering officer.34
15 Two of the foregoing documents clearly state that these Acadians’ loyalty was to the King of France, at least at the time of their writing. In subsequent, English-language documents, many of the very same Acadians are reported to have taken an oath of allegiance to the British monarch, coincident with their taking employment with British entrepreneurs. In still later instances, the very same Acadians are said to have not yet taken the oath of allegiance or to have refused to take it.35
16 The evidence suggests a considerable degree of flexibility concerning the oath of allegiance on the part of these Acadians that was not characteristic of the majority of Acadians living in Nova Scotia from about 1717, when the idea of their neutrality emerged, until the deportation of 1755. During this period they were inflexible, being prepared to take the oath only on condition that they not be required to bear arms. However, the attitude of Acadians in Saint John’s Island in the 1760s had similarities with that of Acadians in peninsular Nova Scotia prior to the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. When the New Englander Sir William Phips captured Port Royal in 1690 he administered an oath of allegiance to adult male Acadians. Whether the oath was taken willingly (as stated by Phips) or under extreme duress (according to a French account) there was, as stated by Gregory M.W. Kennedy, “little expectation that this meant very much.”36 Similarly, as A.J.B. Johnston noted in reference to the 1690 event, “allegiance was something that could flow one way or the other, depending on the context,” and “oaths of loyalty were variously seen as something sworn when forced to, something reinforced on a regular basis, and something akin to a protective talisman.”37 In the words of yet another historian, the Acadians “swore as Phips asked because it seemed a way to be rid of him and his men, and it worked.”38
17 By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Acadia, or Nova Scotia, officially became a British colony. However, the unwillingness of the inhabitants to swear an unconditional oath of allegiance to their new sovereign soon emerged as a sticking point and became a recurring issue over the subsequent decades. The several decades prior to 1750 were ones of relative stability for the Acadians.39 By 1720 many, if not most, had taken a conditional oath of allegiance, seeking to be militarily neutral. Later, a few may have taken the unconditional oath required by Governor Edward Cornwallis in 1749 while a few others may have taken no oath at all.40 From 1750 to 1755 Acadians in Nova Scotia were under increased pressure from British colonial officials to take an unconditional oath but they steadfastly refused to alter their position, just as they had done repeatedly since 1717. During the same period, many Acadians were encouraged by some of their priests – notably Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre – to be loyal to France. Indeed, in 1750 Le Loutre played a key role in torching the homes in Beaubassin of close to a thousand Acadians in order to force them to relocate to “Acadie française” (i.e., lands to the west of the Missaguash River, which is today the dividing line between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick).41 Subsequently, they were subjected to pressure by local French military officials to take an oath of allegiance to the king of France.42 Recalcitrants who were reluctant to swear allegiance to the French king and to serve in the militia under Chevalier Pierre la Corne were threatened with swift deportation and forfeiture of their lands.43 In addition, many Acadians became worried by the growing militarization of Nova Scotia – the establishment of Halifax as a naval base and the construction of forts Beauséjour, Gaspereaux, and Lawrence. Some Acadians responded by relocating to French territory, principally Île Saint-Jean, a move that was promoted and supported by the French government as a matter of policy. By far the largest block, however, was comprised of those who remained in what was called “Acadie anglaise,” the lands of present-day Nova Scotia, excluding the island of Cape Breton.44 Those who did so generally did not revert from one position concerning the oath to a less, or more, onerous one, let alone back again, at any time during the 1713 to 1755 period.45
18 However, the circumstances of the 1760s, particularly the early 1760s, were quite different. After the fall of Quebec in 1759, many Acadians were not yet ready to accept British rule. Indeed, any who may have been aware of how British officials handled the oath of allegiance in relation to thousands of Canadiens after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham perhaps had good reason to equivocate or hold back. The Canadiens cooperated with the British to a degree “by surrendering their arms, taking a nominal oath of allegiance, and obeying British ordinances while reserving their ultimate allegiance to France and assisting the French armed forces wherever possible.”46 Some Acadians engaged in attacking and harassing British civilian ships.47 In 1759, Father Pierre Maillard, a missionary to the Acadians and Mi’kmaq, tried to dissuade the perpetrators of such actions and encouraged them to submit to British authorities peaceably.48 The threat to British shipping continued for at least two more years. In late 1761 a Boston newspaper reported that the Acadians of the Bay of Chaleur had “done much Mischief these two or three Years past in intercepting our Vessels bound to Halifax, Louisbourg and the River St. Lawrence . . . . ”49 During the summer of 1761, three armed Royal Navy vessels patrolled the Gulf of St. Lawrence in case “any of the discontented Inhabitants should attempt to fit out chaloupes against our Trade.”50
19 Several hundred Acadians served in the militia of New France, along with Canadiens and Indigenous warriors, under Chevalier François-Gaston de Lévis at the Battle of Sainte-Foye in the spring of 1760.51 Two months later, an estimated 700 Acadians took part in the Battle of the Restigouche at the head of the Bay of Chaleur, serving both on land and on the water.52
20 Leading up to the Treaty of Paris in 1763, some Acadians no doubt hoped that Nova Scotia would be handed back to the French, as was Île Royale in 1748 by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and as was Acadia itself on four occasions by treaty during the 17th century. For the Acadians, the post-1763 political landscape in their region was a shifting and uncertain one from every point of view. Acadians in Nova Scotia, Saint John’s Island, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence region were likely aware that in 1762 French forces had captured St. John’s, Newfoundland.53 Although the British regained the port about three months later, and France and Great Britain signed a peace treaty early the following year, Acadians could not help but know that Acadie had shifted back and forth between the French and the British seven times.54 In far-off France, government policies were also shifting and evolving, one manifestation of this being the circulation of rumours of a French military expedition that would retake Acadia.55
21 In the early 1760s it was still illegal for Acadians to reside in peninsular Nova Scotia. General Jeffery Amherst had ordered that the Acadians residing in the Bay of Chaleur area should be dispersed among the Canadiens in Quebec. To this end, Governor of Canada James Murray wrote to Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor Jonathan Belcher in the fall of 1761 and proposed that these Acadians be brought “to the upper parts of Canada.” In his response the following March, Belcher fully endorsed this plan, noting “that it will by no means be safe to suffer the Acadians to remain in this Province as Settlers . . . and that the placing of them some where in the distant Precincts of Canada will be most advantageous in every respect . . . if they should be permitted at all to remain in America.”56 In the meantime, however, a raid led by Captain Roderick MacKenzie on Acadian settlements on the shores of the Bay of Chaleur had resulted in some of the Acadians being taken into custody and brought to Fort Cumberland.57 Raids and roundups continued. From June 1763 to March 1764 British authorities apprehended and detained 343 Acadian men, women, and children at Les Mines alone.58
22 For their part, British colonial authorities showed indecisiveness and a degree of unease regarding the Acadians during the 1760s. Depending on the year and the men in power, the local British authorities did not know whether they should mistrust the Acadians or court them. These officials were well aware that the Acadians were useful for building forts and roads, building and repairing dykes, clearing land, supplying fuelwood, acting as pilots, helping to deal with the Mi’kmaq, and providing translation services. Very probably the Acadians’ ambivalent loyalties exacerbated the mistrust and fears of colonial officials, sentiments reflected in the decision to ensure that the Acadians be settled in small, scattered groups.59 Acadian ambivalence regarding loyalty and the oath of allegiance was mirrored by the ambivalence of British colonial officials on the question of whether they wanted the Acadians as colonists. Lower-level officials often deferred to higher-ups for guidance regarding treatment of the Acadians. Senior colonial officials, in turn, looked to the British government for direction.60 An interesting question is how the Acadians’ own attitudes, throughout Nova Scotia, indecisive or otherwise, regarding allegiance to France and Britain, coupled with the indecisiveness of British colonial officials about whether of not they wanted the Acadians in Nova Scotia (including Saint John’s Island), may have contributed to the Acadian odyssey and peregrinations that extended throughout the 1760s and well beyond.
23 It is clear that at this time the Island Acadians, like their kin on the Nova Scotia mainland, were unsure of their legal status – an uncertainty shared by the commanding officer at Fort Amherst as well as government officials at Halifax. Such uncertainty is consistent with that exhibited by General Jeffrey Amherst, dating back to 1760. In finalizing the articles of capitulation of Montreal, Amherst refused Vaudreuil’s attempt to have the Acadians who were then in Canada, and also those who were near the eastern frontiers of Canada, treated in the same manner as the Canadians. While agreeing that the Acadians would have the same privileges, Amherst refused to grant them the same treatment – indicating that the Acadians would be “disposed of” according to his Britannic Majesty’s pleasure; apparently he did not know what the king’s intention was, or might be, and so decided to “buy time.”61 The uncertainty persisted: a group of Acadians at Bonaventure, in the region of the Bay of Chaleur, offered to take the oath of allegiance before a justice of the peace in 1775 and were refused by the officer until he had received orders from the governor at Quebec.62
24 British colonial officials’ mixed, and perhaps contradictory, views of the Acadians during this time period are well illustrated by a comment of Captain Joseph Williams of Fort Amherst in 1766: “The French on the Island who refuse to take the Oaths are all illiterate, yet have a kind of innate Policy that surprises me; always on their guard, over cautious of shewing the English their method of Furrying fishing or fowling, pretending the greatest Ignorance, and yet amazingly dexterous – naturely indolent never inclin’d to work, but when compelled by hunger.”63 Dichotomous views of Acadian work habits – lazy, yet possessing valuable, innate knowledge in relation to such varied pursuits as hunting and dyke building – serve, perhaps, as a microcosm of the broader sense of uncertainty, ambiguity, and flexibility evinced by the Acadians regarding the oath of allegiance and by British colonial officials in their view of the Acadians as new subjects.
25 Ensuring one’s own survival and that of one’s family is a profoundly powerful force.64 In the 1760s life was difficult for Acadians. The opportunity to provide for one’s family by accepting short-term employment with British entrepreneurs was very attractive, whatever the precondition concerning the oath of allegiance and whether or not an oath taken was an enduring one.65 As remarked by Geoffrey Plank: “Confronted by armies and warriors who made demands on them . . . Acadians exerted self-preservation over ideological consistency more often than British officials would have wished.”66
26 One might conclude that by 1768 the oath of allegiance was no longer an issue. In that year, Isaac Deschamps came to Saint John’s Island from Nova Scotia as part of a team of people charged with making preparations for British settlers who, it was anticipated, would soon be arriving in substantial numbers. He conducted a census of the few residents then on the Island, finding 68 people of British extraction and 203 Acadians, the latter living at St. Peters Harbour, Rustico, Tracadie, Fortune Bay, and Malpeque Bay. Most of the Acadians were in the employ of British entrepreneurs, principally in the fishery. Without any apparent sense of concern or anxiety, Deschamps wrote: “The greatest part of [the] Acadians have taken the oath of allegiance and fidelity and the others will take them as soon as they return from the fishing.”67
27 In reality, the oath of allegiance remained an issue on Saint John’s Island until at least the 1770s. Not only that, but the Acadians were still seen by at least one official as a threat. Governor Walter Patterson arrived on the Island in 1770, two years after the garrison at Fort Amherst had been withdrawn. Shortly after arriving on the Island, Patterson wrote to Lord Hillsborough, president of the Board of Trade and Plantations, about the local Acadians. If Fort Amherst were repaired and maintained, wrote Patterson, “the French inhabitants on the Island would be kept peaceable in case of a war which we have no reason to suppose would be the case in our present defenceless situation, as they may at any time cut us all off in a few days without our having it in our power to prevent them.”68 In the following spring Patterson wrote to General Thomas Gage, expressing his fears, heightened perhaps by strained relations between Great Britain and Spain, which, if war were to erupt, would bring France into the conflict on the side of Spain. He advised Gage that there were “200 Frenchmen” on the Island and that they anticipated that France would retake the Island. According to Patterson, the oath of allegiance was still a problem. He understood, also, that a visit from “the Indians of Nova Scotia” was imminent. A jittery Patterson requested Gage to send troops to Saint John’s Island.69
28 Gage responded by attempting to calm Patterson, indicating that he did not think the Acadians were a serious threat and that relations between Great Britain and Spain had improved through these countries having signed a convention. Nevertheless, Gage advised Patterson that “if those People refuse becoming Subjects, your Legislature will best know what is proper to be done with them.”70
29 Patterson’s fear of a possible Acadian reaction in the event of Great Britain finding itself at war with France was not unique among colonial governors in the region. Although the Nova Scotia government began granting land to Acadians as early as 1767 under Lieutenant-Governor Michael Francklin, in 1774 newly appointed Governor Francis Legge expressed apprehension that the Acadians would, in time of war, and notwithstanding their oath of allegiance, incite the Mi’kmaq to attack the English settlers as well as supply them with ammunition and provisions.71 Clearly, trust would take time.
30 As colonial officials in British North America, particularly Nova Scotia, gradually became more comfortable with the continuing presence of the Acadians, the Acadians themselves gradually became reconciled to the reality that their future would be under British rule. The prospect that traditional Acadian homelands would one day again lie within a colony of France became, for them, increasingly remote.
31 Influences from outside the region also played a role in causing Acadians to adjust to the new reality. Perhaps most telling was pressure applied from Quebec – the weight and authority of the Bishop of Quebec Jean-Olivier Briand, who had responsibility for the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the eastern part of what is now Canada. Bishop Briand was appointed in early 1766.72 His second pastoral letter was dated 16 August 1766 and directed to “the Acadians of Île Saint-Jean, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and the Gaspé.” After assuring the Acadians that he would be sending a priest to minister to their needs, the bishop wrote: “We therefore urge you, my very dear brethren, to hold yourselves as scrupulously faithful to our king as to our God, because you can please God only by submitting to the king in matters that do not conflict with your religion . . . .”73 The bishop was referring to the king of England, not the king of France, and he was reflecting the official position of the Catholic Church at Quebec, Paris, and Rome. As a devout people, the Acadians of Saint John’s Island and elsewhere were, one may presume, influenced to some degree by the bishop’s message.
32 The influence of the clergy on Acadian thinking was reinforced through the work of Abbé Charles-François Bailly de Messein. He was a Quebec priest sent to Nova Scotia in 1767 to replace Pierre Maillard who ministered to the Mi’kmaq and Acadians until his death in 1762. From 1767 until 1772 Bailly de Messein laboured among the Acadians and Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, including what is now New Brunswick. He developed close links with colonial officials at Halifax, and was instrumental in encouraging the Acadians to accept and adapt to the new political reality signified by the Treaty of Paris signed in 1763.74
33 According to Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor Michael Francklin, Bailly’s mission had been “of great benefit to this Province” and that it “had the good tendency of reconciling the conscience of the Acadians, who have lately taken the oaths of allegiance to His Majesty’s Government.”75 Bailly is not known to have visited Saint John’s Island, although at Nepisiguit (present-day Bathurst) on 21 June 1772 he baptized 15 children, all or most of whom had apparently been brought to him by their parents from Île Saint-Jean.76 Bailly influenced the thinking of many Acadians living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and through them, likely had an indirect effect on those living on the Island. The Acadians on Saint John’s Island owned schooners and would likely have had broad contacts as a result of conducting trade with the mainland.77
34 For Acadians returning to Nova Scotia during the 1760s and early 1770s from exile in New England or from places to which they had taken refuge, there existed the prospect of receiving land grants from the government. This no doubt provided significant motivation to acquiesce to the oath of allegiance and to pursue a more settled way of life.78 Lieutenant-Governor Michael Francklin had married a Huguenot in 1762, spoke French fluently, and, as a merchant, had traded with the Acadians before becoming lieutenant-governor in 1766. He was not given to francophobia like many of his colleagues. During his six years in office, Francklin was influential with the Acadians. As already mentioned, in 1767 he began to grant land to them in southwestern Nova Scotia. For Acadians on Saint John’s Island, things were quite different. Until Governor Patterson’s arrival in 1770 there was no extant civil authority present and Patterson did not share Francklin’s openness. Further, Patterson, even had he been inclined to grant land to Acadians, had very little Crown land to grant. The British government had already granted almost all of Saint John’s Island in 1767, mostly to individuals then resident in Great Britain.79 Nevertheless, Acadians on the Island maintained their connections with kinfolk in Nova Scotia and were likely influenced to some extent by developments and changing attitudes there under Francklin.
35 Despite various factors that may have played a role in shaping a positive Acadian attitude toward King George III, the process of adjustment appears to have been less than swift. The American Revolution gave some Acadians hope that Nova Scotia would fall to the rebels and that an oath of allegiance to George III would become moot, or at the very least make it questionable as to what authority they might be eventually swearing allegiance. After all, more than 20 of their number had formed a militia called the “Company of Frenchmen” in the fall of 1776 under Captain Isaïe Boudrot to fight alongside Colonel Jonathan Eddy in the unsuccessful siege of Fort Cumberland.80 In 1775 Bishop Briand had found it necessary to issue a pastoral warning against any Canadien who had failed in his oath of allegiance, and in the following year he instructed that “all sacraments, including those for the dying, [be] withheld from those who persisted in repudiating their oath of allegiance.”81
36 In the 1770s, governors Patterson and Legge no doubt brought their own prejudices to their new offices in Saint John’s Island and Nova Scotia, respectively, and there may also have been some lingering mistrust of Acadians. It seems that the question of loyalty to the British Crown played out over at least a couple of decades. As late as 1787, Bishop of Quebec Louis-Philippe Mariaucheau d’Esglis saw fit to delve into the matter with a pastoral letter. The pastoral letter was directed to Acadians and to Catholic Scots, Irish, and English in what is today Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. To some degree, a specific message was directed to residents in specific places. The message to the Acadians of Cape Sable and St. Mary’s Bay concerned solely the priest who was serving them. The message to residents of Saint John’s Island, Cape Breton, Miramichi, and Annaréchaque (Arichat) concerned solely the matter of “submission.” They were exhorted to be “faithful to the King God has chosen to reign over you, be aware that you cannot be good Christians nor real Catholics if you are not good and loyal subjects of His Majesty.”82 While the bishop’s remarks were aimed at Acadians, his inclusion of Scots and Irish may have been a reflection of lingering Jacobean sympathies among some of them dating back to before their emigration to what are now the Maritime Provinces.83
37 One writer has posited that at the time of the French Revolution, the Canadiens, although having sworn an oath of allegiance to the king of England, were “still faithful to the king of France.”84 That may, or may not, have been somewhat of an exaggeration, but in the fall of 1793, half a year after news of the execution of Louis XVI had reached Quebec, Bishop Jean-François Hubert felt it appropriate, if not necessary, to remind the faithful of the loyalty that they owed to the king of England. He cited six reasons why this was so; the second reason was closely connected to their Roman Catholic religion. Hubertt pointed out that the oath they had taken upon Canada’s becoming a British colony bound them in such a way that they could not violate it without being grievously culpable toward God himself.85 It is unlikely that the bishop would have considered the Acadians to be less in need of such cautionary counsel than the residents of what had recently become Lower Canada.
38 The agonizing over the oath of allegiance was apparently not soon forgotten among the Acadians of Prince Edward Island, though the passage of time may have resulted in distortion or embellishment. The Bishop of Quebec Joseph-Octave Plessis visited the Island in 1812 and recorded his trip and contacts in his diary. In referring to the Island Acadians in the 1760s, he wrote: “Because of a religious misunderstanding, some of them believed that they could not, in good conscience, swear an oath of loyalty to a heretic prince; and others that did foolishly convinced themselves that such an oath was not binding, consequently they broke it and joined the French armies again.”86 The bishop’s words refer to a time when the oath of allegiance and loyalty were subject to ambiguity, hesitation, and vacillation for Acadians on the Island and for many Acadians elsewhere in the region.
39 Even before 1713, the Acadians as a people were, alternately and sometimes simultaneously, living at the beck and call of two imperial powers. As a population “on the periphery of French power” and, subsequently, a “border people of the English empire,” for the sake of survival they quickly learned to deal with reality whatever government was in power and whoever was asking for their labour, services, produce, or loyalty.87 As explained by historian Guy Frégault, “Oaths of allegiance, expulsion: these were, in Acadia, the instruments of imperialism – whether French or British.”88 As noted by one of the anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this research note, “Acadian loyalty was contingent, pragmatic, and transferable.”
40 From the time that Acadians first began to settle on Île Saint-Jean in 1720 until late in the 18th century, those residing on the Island maintained close connections to their kin throughout Nova Scotia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence region. There were, however, differences in the circumstances between the Acadians on Saint John’s Island and those residing elsewhere, particularly in peninsular Nova Scotia. In the latter location, the Acadians were under closer scrutiny in the 1760s on account of there being a civil government and substantial military presence there, whereas on Saint John’s Island there was only a small garrison at Fort Amherst, and it existed only until 1768. Island Acadians were able to gain employment from British and New England entrepreneurs and began to become self-employed in the fishery whereas in peninsular Nova Scotia some Acadians were employed as labourers in various sorts of construction projects, including the building and repairing of dykes.89 From 1766 to 1772 a French-speaking governor at Halifax, Michael Francklin, got along with the Acadians, and it was he who began the process of Acadian resettlement by granting them Crown land. After a colonial government was established on Saint John’s Island in 1770 it largely ignored the Acadians, letting them shift for themselves during the next few decades. This meant that, like Anglophone settlers, they had to deal with the land proprietors or their agents in order to gain access to land.90
41 Did these differences in circumstances lead to differences in how the oath of allegiance was regarded by Acadians on the Island and those on the mainland, or in the timing of the acceptance and taking of the oath? If their position and experience with the oath of allegiance, post-1763, significantly differentiated them from their mainland cousins, that remains to be demonstrated.
42 It is to be hoped that additional scholarly research will shed light on the broader subject of how colonial government officials at Halifax, military officials at outposts such as Louisbourg and Fort Cumberland, and British and New England entrepreneurs in the region handled the oath of allegiance respecting Acadians during the decade or two following the end of the Seven Years War. As importantly, how did Acadians throughout the wider region react and adapt given the political and economic exigencies to which they were subjected? A comprehensive and thorough study remains to be undertaken. To what extent did uncertainty and indecisiveness in the attitudes of both British colonial officials and the Acadians play a role in the relocations – often multiple relocations – of Acadian families throughout the Atlantic region, including St. Pierre and Miquelon, during the 1760s and the following decade or two? How widespread was the belief among Acadians living in the Maritime Region during the early 1760s that France would soon regain Île Saint-Jean and other former French possessions in the region? Who or what was giving them such an impression? These questions invite further investigation.
43 One thing, however, is apparent. The period between 1713 and 1755 was, for the Acadians of peninsular Nova Scotia, more peaceful and prosperous than the decades before, and it was certainly more peaceful and prosperous for Acadians, regardless of where they were living, than during the decades immediately after. During this period, Acadian society was becoming increasingly well established and a societal identity was becoming more evident. Such an environment gave the Acadians of peninsular Nova Scotia a degree of self-assurance that enabled them, as a group, to cling to one position vis-à-vis British colonial officials for four decades concerning the oath of allegiance. The decades before 1713 saw a number of wars and Acadia was handed back and forth between England and France several times. This was an environment that, of necessity, caused the Acadians to be more flexible regarding the oath of allegiance. As Acadia alternated between being a French colony and an English colony, new demands were made of the Acadians regarding loyalty – reflected in a new oath of allegiance on each such occasion. Acadians reacted and adapted as political circumstances required, perhaps presuming, suspecting, or hoping that one change would not long be followed by another. For Acadians who were still in the Maritime region in the post-1758 period (the group considered in this study), including those on Saint John’s Island, the Grand Dérangement caused so much upheaval and hardship that a return to flexibility in matters relating to the oath of allegiance was a virtual necessity.
44 Oaths of allegiance to a sovereign, as pointed out by N.E.S. Griffiths, were commonplace in both Great Britain and France, but how permanently binding they were could depend on circumstances: “It was possible to renounce and forswear past loyalties,” and to embrace or affect new ones, depending on military, political and economic exigencies.91 The Acadians residing on Saint John’s Island during the decades after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 evidently subscribed to that principle.