8 Pedigree mattered to identity-seeking New Brunswickers. As a result, family stories figure prominently in newspaper articles – in accounts, for example, of Acadian life both before and after the Deportation and in accounts of the Loyalist migration (such as the story of Jean Laramondelle and his daughter Marie from the Fort Beausejour area⁸ or Benedict Arnold and his wife Peggy Shippen⁹). Issues involving which families are profiled and the values they represent warrant further examination, but these are beyond the scope of the present study. One contemporary commentator even went so far as to link the two diasporic tragedies, suggesting that the “barbarous Winslows”¹⁰ who were implicated in the Acadian Deportation at Grand Pré then experienced their own diaspora a generation later during the American Revolution.

9 The late 19th century was a high point in the women’s club movement in New Brunswick. Anglophone women, in particular, were acknowledged as willing workers, sometimes as donors and fundraisers and, more often, as members of the audience for public events. They occasionally wrote letters to the editor. J.W. Lawrence, president of the Loyalist Society, which was based in Saint John, even published an account focused specifically on “The Ladies of New Brunswick and the Centennial Celebrations, 1883.” In a talk given the previous year, Lawrence had noted that “Loyalty was not alone with the fathers and sons of the Revolution; there were mothers and maidens, with husbands and brothers, faithful to the Crown.” His focus was on the Loyalist elite, including “Mrs. Inglis, the wife of the last rector of New York, the first Bishop of the Church of England in the colonies,” and “Mrs. Robinson, whose husband was appointed to a seat in the first Council of New Brunswick, and whose two sons, Beverly and John, subsequently were members, with her sister Mrs. Morris.”¹¹

10 In drawing upon the past to establish identity, women often became the focus of historical narratives that were popular in New Brunswick newspapers at this time. These women included, for example, the heroic story of Françoise-Marie Jacquelin, wife of Charles de la Tour, who died after leading an unsuccessful attempt to defend her husband’s fort at the mouth of the St John River in 1645,¹² and the reflections by Marguerite Landry d’Entremont in Pubnico after the Deportation.¹³ In 1882 J.W. Lawrence commented on the progress made in Loyalist women’s domestic life since their arrival a century before, giving us a unique insight on what was defined as progress in this period:

Beyond the prescriptive roles determined by the patriarchy, gendered social roles are also evident within the literary works of this time – many of which were published in various forms in the newspapers.

11 Many newspapers published poetry, short stories, and serialized novels where women figure prominently in the cautionary tales and romances that appealed especially to a female readership (for example, those of Charles G.D. Roberts).¹⁵ Longfellow’s Évangéline¹⁶ is the best example, of course, and is the name given to a prominent Acadian newspaper. Another example is Jacques et Marie: Souvenir d’un peuple dispersé by Napoléon Bourassa, which was published in 28 installments in L’Évangéline from May 1888 to April 1889. No Maritime female poets and novelists have been found in our database, but newspapers published stories by two prominent female authors from the United States. Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885, pen name H.H.), born Helen Fiske, was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Indigenous Americans by the United States government. Her work was published in the Chignecto Post in June 1886. Lizzy W. Champney (Elizabeth Williams Champney, 1850-1922) was a graduate of the Vassar class of 1869 who gained fame for her “Three Vassar Girls” novels. Her work was published in the Saint John Daily Sun in March 1881.

12 In English-language newspapers, we find numerous references to Queen Victoria and her daughter Princess Louise, wife of the Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada (1878-1883). But the notion of loyalty to the British Empire figures in the emerging identities of both linguistic groups. Note this statement in the inaugural issue of L’Évangéline, defining the newspaper’s mission:

Indeed, religion was very important for both Protestants and Roman Catholics for framing identities. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned frequently in francophone papers as a source of inspiration; women’s role in supporting church improvement projects (especially Anglican) is underscored in anglophone newspapers.

13 What is commonly referred to at this time as the “women’s movement” was getting underway during this period, but it is rarely addressed in the newspapers we examined except obliquely. Take, for example, this report in the Chignecto Post:

14 A major exception to the generalization that gender issues are ignored is the example of Marichette, author of 13 letters on Acadian issues and women’s rights published in L’Évangéline between 1895 and 1898. The character of Marichette stands out as exceptional against the background of the printed press of this era and as such, is deserving of her own sub-category. Between 1895 and 1898, a schoolteacher named Emilie C. LeBlanc wrote 13 letters to the editor of the newspaper L’Évangéline under the pen name “Marichette.”¹⁹ These letters are noteworthy in both content and form. In terms of content, Marichette is an outspoken early feminist who writes to campaign for women’s rights at a time when they did not have many. Significantly, Marichette chose to draft her missives in the Acadian French spoken in Clare, Nova Scotia (where she lived), though as a teacher she would have been very proficient in the standard French favoured by the Acadian elite. This choice suggests she wanted to be the voice of the people – specifically, Acadian women who did not always have access to education at this time.

15 In her letter published 14 February 1895, for instance, Marichette advocates for women’s voting rights, which she jokingly refers to as “le souffrage” rather than “le suffrage” – a play on the word “souffrir” (to suffer). She goes on to expresses her contempt for her husband Pite, and for men in general, whom she considers to be drunks whose votes are easily bought with whiskey.²⁰ In her letter published 18 March 1897, she argues that God gave women more sense than men: “Quanc qu’il a fait la femme il a trouvé Adam, le boss de tous les hommes, endormi un beau jour, le ventre au soleil, trop paresseux pour travailler dans son jardin, on y a arraché la cervelle et pris le meilleur stuff de dedans et on a fait la femme qui a sauvé les hoummes du naufrage.”²¹ She also points out the many struggles and inequities faced by the working women of her time, explaining that in order to publish her letters in the newspaper she must hold “l’Evangéline d’une main, le dictionnaire de l’autre et le bébé sur les genoux.”²²

16 Marichette’s views on language were as just as avant-garde as her feminist discourse. In a letter published 3 February 1898, reacting to criticism of her choice to write in the local vernacular, she defends “note belle langue que j’parlons dampi que j’sont sortis des bois,” pointing out that France is “full of Marichettes” and even suggesting that if the editor refuses to publish her letters she will start her own newspaper staffed exclusively by women: “J’startrons une gazette icite, à Chéticamp, parmi les creatures, et pas un houmme pourra entrer, et je busterons le Moniteur et l’Evangéline.”²³ Marichette was very much ahead of her time in her arguments for the legitimization of Acadian French, an issue that is still debated today.

17 Marichette, despite her radical views on Acadian French, does agree with the Acadian elite that the French language is an important component of Acadian identity and must be maintained to ward off cultural assimilation and Americanization of Acadian young people, many of whom are moving to the US to work in factories. To this end, 82 years before Québec’s Loi 101, she proposed a language bill: “Y aurait ti pas moyen de faire passer un bill pour defendre d’enseigner l’anglais à nos enfants avant d’apprendre notre langue et prier en français?”²⁴ Language and religion go hand in hand in Acadian nation-building, and Marichette fears that the loss of French will entail the loss of religion and will send Acadians to hell “comme les Américains.”²⁵

18 Marichette was criticized for her radical views. In an editorial in the Moniteur acadien, titled “Le genre ‘Marichette’,” the editorialist denounced the publication of correspondence written in the style of Marichette and accused Marichette of “denigrating our language” and of writing in a “detestable” prose²⁶; the editorial also asserted that her contribution was minor while, somewhat ironically, giving her own “genre”: “Mais serait-il [Le Moniteur] aussi aggressif si l’ennemi était négligeable?”²⁷ She was also called a “shrew” by an Old Town (Maine) reader identified as G.M.,²⁸ and a resident of Salmon River (Nova Scotia) called her “an old fool” for her interest in politics and her defense of women’s suffrage.²⁹ The author behind the letters of Marichette, Emilie LeBlanc, also described various accounts of harassment she had suffered because of her writing: a man swore at her for reporting on a bull race,³⁰ people abused and insulted her daily,³¹ and every night a crowd of young men hurled insults at her through her window, calling her an old witch, to the extent that she considered moving.³²

19 How is it that Emilie LeBlanc – aka Marichette – had the courage and the opportunity to publish these radical views in L’Évangéline? For one, LeBlanc was educated: she had gone to school in Memramcook (l’école des Soeurs de Memramcook) and also studied pedagogy at the Provincial Normal School in Fredericton. She had excellent French skills, as evidenced by the playful yet precise language of her letters. Further, it is thought that Emilie LeBlanc was involved romantically with Valentin Landry, the editor of L’Évangélin,³³ which would have been another factor contributing to her agency in expressing her progressive opinions. The persona of Marichette and her reputation persist even today where, in Acadian circles, to be called “une Marichette” is to be qualified as outspoken and rebellious.

21 To examine more closely the lexicon associated with men and women, we turned to word frequencies and then word associations in the articles in both languages. The most frequent words designating women in the English- and French-language articles are represented in the two tables and two figures below.

22 The most common word designating women in the English-language newspapers is “mother/mothers” (179 occurrences, which also include “mother land,” “mother tongue,” etc.), followed closely by the keywords “woman/ women” (163), “ladies/lady” (170), and “wives/wife” (149) while “girl/girls” is less present in the database – certainly in comparison with “boy/boys,” which occur more than twice as often. In comparison, “man” and “men” occurred 1,545 times or nearly ten times more frequently than “woman/women.” “Father/fathers,” similarly, are two-and-a-half times more frequent than “mother/mothers,” and while the Loyalist “lady/ladies” are very present in this corpus, they are beat out by “gentleman/gentlemen” (which occur 1.4 times more often). “Husband/ husbands, on the other hand,” are nowhere near as frequent as “wife/wives,” which occur three times more often than their male counterparts. This suggests the speakers and journalists were specifically interested in defining the roles of married women, whereas very little attention was given to the role of married men.

23 The comparison of key words associated with “man/men” and “woman/ women” in the English-language newspapers reveal that while men tended to be associated with religion (keywords “Catholic,” “protestant,” “religion,” “God,” and “religious”) and ethnic or political identity (“Irish,” “party,” “orange,” “leaders,” and “native”), the singular “woman” tends to be defined in terms of wife and mother as represented by associated words such as “man,” “unmarried,” “breast,” “stoves,” “kiss,” “cooking,” or “child” as in the following excerpt: “It is interesting from the fact that it contains some of the blue-laws of Connecticut, one of which is no woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath day.”³⁶

24 However, when used in the plural – “women” – the discourse shifts to warfare, as “children,” “men,” and “killing” top the list of co-occurring words followed by references to specific “battles,” place-names, and an insistence on the brutality of war (“bitterly,” “thousands,” “defended,” “surrounding,” “perish,” “souls,” “burning,” “war,” “artillery,” etc.) as in this example from the Daily Telegraph: “The winter was one of the great severity; many died, especially women and children”³⁷ and another from the Saint John New Freeman: “The settlement at St. Anne’s was ruthlessly destroyed by a party of New England Rangers under Lieutenant Moses Hazen. Their conduct was disapproved by General Amherst, who strongly reprobated the killing of women and helpless children.”³⁸ Thus women serve as a symbol of virtue under attack, which allowed the discourse to focus on the bravery of those who defend them and who faced a cruel and heartless enemy.

25 Education emerges as a theme for both “men/man” and “woman” (though not for the plural form). Not surprisingly, we found it even more prominent in the comparison of “girl/girls” and “boy/boys.” Words common to boys and girls include “school,” “pupil,” and “recitation.” The words most frequently associated with “girl/girls” tend to be diminutive as in “young” and “little”; abstract concepts or emotions such as “happiness,” “dreams,” “kind,” and “thought” (noun and verb); related to appearances as in “flowers,” “pink,” “hats,” “admired,” and “features” (in expressions such as “attractive features,” “pleasing features,” and “best features”); in terms of special occasions such as “holiday” and “occasion”; and traditional roles as homemakers such as “household,” “wife,” and “modern” as in the following excerpt from the Chignecto Post:

26 The words most frequently associated with boys include “education,” “practical,” “work,” “training,” “compositions,” “Tennyson,” “schooling,” “teachers,” “lawyers,” “intellectual,” “college,” “mind,” “write,” “offices,” “working,” “useful,” “gentlemen,” “service,” “knowledge,” and “facts.” They also tend to include words indicative of absolute values (as opposed to abstract concepts), such as “trust,” “ideal,” “beyond,” “highest,” “sacrifice,” “always,” “true,” and “higher.” The main difference in the references to girls and to boys is the reinforcement of traditional gender roles in which girls are meant to grow up to be attractive homemakers and boys become serious, career-oriented young men. The dichotomy between abstract, affective values and concrete, absolute – one might even say heroic – ones is perhaps more insidious.

27 We also explored the levels of meaning for “mother/s,” which provided multilayered semantic clusters as shown in Figure 1 above; this is a factorial analysis of the words most frequently associated with “mother/s” as represented by the software program Hyperbase.⁴⁰ The lines represent the relationships between the core words (“mother” and “mothers”) and the words that most frequently occur within the same paragraph. Red lines indicate the strongest relationship (most frequent association), blue lines show the relationships these associated words have amongst themselves, and black lines show tertiary relationships to these semantic clusters; the online version of this research note is in colour. The strength of the association is shown in the thickness of the lines.

28 Beyond the role of mothers in immediate family relationships, which are represented in words like “husbands,” “fathers,” “wives,” “daughter,” “sons,” “children,” “parents,” and their affective counterparts “love,” “loyal,” “dear,” “faithful,” and “home,” we find the terminology of nation-building. Associating national and cultural identity with maternal attachment is common in many cultures. In this logic, “mother” is associated very strongly with “country,” “tongue,” “colonies,” “land,” “England,” “language,” “root,” “nations,” “crown,” “imperial,” “federation,” and even terminology referring to Loyalist history such as “revolutionary” (war), “lost,” “sides,” “annexation,” and “revolution” as in the following example from the Daily Telegraph:

This language of the country as mother is not innocent, as it has strong affective connotations. While the presence of the “Loyalist Ladies” was very much in the public sphere in the printed press of this time period in New Brunswick and Acadie more broadly, their role remained a supportive one as the frequently associated words “assist” and “assistance” suggest.

29 In the French-language articles, the keywords shown in the following table yielded the most results.

30 A similar trend is noticeable in the French-language articles, in which the keyword “mère/mères” is the most frequent designation for the female gender while “fille/filles” (daughter or girl, since this word contains both meanings) follows and is only slightly more frequent than “femme/femmes.” Since the French allows for a search of the feminine for teacher – “institutrice/ institutrice” – this yielded significant results at 134 occurrences. In comparison, the keyword “homme/hommes” occurred four times more often than “femme/ femmes.” “Père/pères” was only slightly more frequent than “mère/mères,” but “fille/filles” occurs nearly four times more often than “garcon/garçons.” However, this is likely explained by the fact that “fils” can also be an equivalent to “fille/filles” since it designates sons and is found slightly more often than the latter in our database. “Époux/mari” and “épouse/épouses” are roughly equivalent, at 53 and 45 occurrences each. However, it should be pointed out that “femme” is often used in place of “épouse” and therefore the number might be quite a bit higher.

31 A comparison of “femme/femmes” and “homme/hommes” in the French-language newspapers clearly shows the demarcation of gender roles in Acadian society at this time. The key words “femme/femmes” tend to attract words that suggest her most important role according to authors of these articles are related to family and home life, which included the demands of animal husbandry. These include, for example, “enfants,” “filles,” “baptisée,” “née,” “garçons,” “fille,” “maison,” “mères,” “maris,” “vaches,” “bêtes,” “fermière,” “mère,” “garcon,” “jeunes,” “enfant,” “famille,” “fils,” “noces,” “ménage,” “épouse,” “petits,” “marriage,” “né,” “familles,” “père,” “soeurs,” “vie,” “foyer,” “amour,” and “maisons.” Consider the following example from the Moniteur acadien: “Les femmes de l’Ile n’ont pas peur de traire les vaches.”⁴³

32 There is also significant emphasis on women’s roles as general caretakers of the sick and the vulnerable as the following associated words suggest: “vieillards,” “soins,” “bras,” “genoux,” “sein,” “âgée,” “vieille,” “vieux,” “sauvages,” “visiteurs,” “parents,” “âge,” and “sauvage”⁴⁴ as in this excerpt from L’Évangéline: “Marie tenait toujours le vieillard embrassé, quand tout à coup elle sentit qu’il pesait de tout son poids sur elle.”⁴⁵

33 Beyond the day-to-day roles as the core of the family unit, women can be used on a more affective level to evoke collective memory as victims of the cruel events surrounding the Deportation of Acadians. Much like the women and children found in the English-language papers, women are often used in this way to accentuate the violence of the attacks, and by extension, the heroism of the men who defended them bravely. The following list of words is frequently associated with women in this type of discourse: “pauvre,” “vaisseaux,” “morte,” “navires,” “larmes,” “captifs,” “chagrin,” “brave,” “transportés,” “morts,” “soldats,” “malheureux,” “gloire,” “rivage,” “scènes,” “victims,” “1755,” “douleur,” “exil,” “misère,” “déportation,” and “armes.” These associations are illustrated in the following example from L’Évangéline: “Loin de chercher à adoucir le sort des déportés en réunissant les familles sur le même vaisseau, il donna des ordres pour embarquer et expédier les hommes d’abord, les femmes et les enfants ensuite.”⁴⁶

34 Words associated with “homme/s,” by contrast, are related to education, liberal professions, or represent values or qualities considered important in Acadian society as the following list suggests: “instruits,” “profession,” “science,” “éclairés,” “créateur,” “intelligence,” “trempe,” “esprit,” “honnête,” “éminents,” “génie,” “vertu,” “coeur,” “respectable,” “amour,” “richesse,” “médecins,” “talent,” “honneur,” “distingués,” “professions,” “commerce,” “rang,” “avocats,” “orgueil,” “toujours,” “sage,” “grands,” “expérience,” “dévoués,” “capables,” “talents,” “utile,” “principes,” “digne,” “travail,” “députés,” “noble,” “moral,” “volonté,” “aspirations,” “caractère,” “confiance,” “devoirs,” “prêtres,” “poste,” “affaires,” “éducation,” “qualités,” “position,” “valeur,” “âme,” and “aime.” This is evident in the following example from L’Impartial: “Certainement, notre province soeur possède des hommes dont les capacités et la renommée sont amplement capables de nous inspirer la plus entière confiance.”⁴⁷

35 In these French-language newspapers, men are also represented as defenders of the moral, religious, and political rights of Acadians in society as the following associated words suggest: “publics,” “social,” “citoyen,” “nation,” “préjugés,” “droits,” “justice,” “patrie,” “juste,” “lutte,” “condition,” “besoins,” “représentants,” “action,” “politiques,” “rôle,” “citoyens,” “nations,” “peuples,” “monde,” “patriote,” “patriotisme,” “patriotes,” and “politique.” Consider the following example from L’Évangéline: “Chaque homme qui a du coeur aime son pays et doit fournir à sa patrie, quand sa patrie le demande, les preuves de son attachement.”⁴⁸

36 Interestingly, we did not find many occurrences of the word “garcon/s” (75), compared to the number of occurrences of “fille/s” (289). This appears to be due to the tendency to call young males “jeune homme” but young females “jeune fille,” which is a bit redundant since the word “fille” already designates a young woman. The common expression “jeunes gens” – 89 occurrences – also refers exclusively to boys.

37 Given that Acadian women are primarily represented in their roles as caretakers and homemakers, we explored the words most frequently associated with “mère/s” in the French-language papers. Figure 2 shows the relations that emerge from these semantic clusters. We observe three main clusters from this word-association graph: family, the affective connotations around language (the mother tongue), and education (both linguistic and religious). Under family, we find a very broad role in society, extending beyond the children, as suggested by the words “enfants,” “enfant,” “soeurs,” “frères,” “père,” “pères,” and “parents.” Under language we find “langue,” “langues,” “appris,” “apprise,” “genoux” (as in “langue apprise sur les genoux de la mère”), “langage,” “doux,” “naturel,” “instuire,” “belle,” “anglaises,” “France,” and “maternelle” (as in “langue maternelle”). And religious education is associated with words such as the following: “église,” “devoirs,” “spirituelle,” “dieu,” “Chrétien,” “catholiques,” “sainte,” and “sacerdoce.” The keyword “mère,” however, can also have a more symbolic value, as in the patron saint of Acadians, the Virgin Mary (“patronne,” “maris” for Ave Maris Stella, the national hymn of Acadians) as well as “patrie” (for “mère-patrie”⁴⁹) as in the following example: “Une révolution, qui devait être trop durement réprimée en 1769, couvait déjà dans le coeur des colons français, inconsolables d’avoir été séparés, sans leur consentement, de la mère-patrie.”⁵⁰

38 Many words also suggest an affective relationship with “mother/s,” as in “amour,” “affection,” “malheurs,” “reconnaissance,” “soumis,” “chère,” “coeurs,” “digne,” and “aimer” as in the following example from the Moniteur acadien: “Quelle est l’âme qui nous a initiés à la vie? C’est l’âme de notre mère, c’est-à-dire l’âme qui nous a aimés d’un amour unique par sa pureté, sa tendresse et son abnégation.”⁵¹