One of the
things Governor Richard Phillips found in his second and last
visit to the Acadian province was that the population was
growing rapidly. Back in London, he told the Duke of Newcastle
that the Acadians were "a formidable body and like Noah's
progeny spreading themselves over the face of the Province."
Lawrence
Armstrong, whom Phillips left behind to govern Acadia, called
the "French Neutrals" "a very ungovernable people and growing
very numberous (sic)."
There were between 4,000 and 5,000
Acadians in 1730, more than double the population of 1710.
According to figures compiled by
Charles Mahaffie, "Parish registers show that women began having
young children in their early twenties and continued until their
forties. The 295 couples who were married at Annapolis Royal
between 1702 and 1730 had, on the average 6.75 children."
The Acadian population increased so
rapidly that the old farms could no longer hold everyone. In
1732, Governor Phillips estimated the population at 800
families. A census of 1737 found 7,598 Acadians in Nova Scotia.
>That made the British nervous. They
still had it in the back of their minds that, one day, they
would get rid of the French-speaking Acadians. But the more
Acadians there were, the more difficult that would be. The other
problem was that all of the Acadians were simply taking up too
much space - and they were still hard headed.
In 1732, Armstrong reported that
"the French continue as disobedient to the Government as ever,
both in respect to what concerns the public, for they despise
all orders...and obstruct everything proposed for his Majesty's
service." When Armstrong tried to build a fort at Grand Pré,
he was run off by the Indians, who said he may have conquered
Port Royal, but he had not conquered the Minas Basin.
Also, the British would have liked
to see a bit more of the Puritan work ethic instilled in the
Acadians.
Armstrong called them "perfidious,
headstrong, obstinate, and as conceited a crew as any in the
world." Phillips thought them "a proud, lazy, obstinate and
untractable people, unskilled in the methods of Agriculture, not
(willing to be) led...into a better way of thinking." He said,
"They raise...both corn and cattle on marsh lands that wants no
clearing, but they have not in almost a century cleared the
quantity of 300 acres of woodland."
Captain Paul Mascerene, who had
studied the idea of removing the Acadians, found them "very
little industrious, their lands not improved as might be
expected, they living in a manner from hand to mouth, and
provided they have a good field of Cabbages and Bread enough for
their families with what fodder is sufficient for their cattle
they seldom look for much further improvement."
Another officer wrote that they
"raised their provision with the least labor of any people upon
earth."
Even then, in Mahaffie's view, the
Acadians were different from most other people. "They were
peasants," he says, "but they neither lived nor acted the part.
They had learned how to get by without the dawn-to-dark toil
that was the God-given lot of common people the world over, and
circumstances had let them build their society in an
under-governed, neglected corner of the world, where they were
never burdened by taxes, never subject to the heavy hand of a
seigneur, never liable to forced labor or military service. The
British paid them for the work they did and for whatever food
and firewood they delivered. Their religion was secured by the
Treaty of Utrecht, their land by Queen Anne's letter to Francis
Nicholson, their neutrality by the promises of the British
governors - and except for religion, land, and neutrality, and
big families, there was very little that Acadians thought
important."
In 1740, the acting governor in
Acadia wrote to the Board of Trade in London, "The increase of
the Acadians calls for some fresh instructions how to dispose of
them. They have divided and subdivided among their children the
lands they were in possession of....They applied for new grants
which the Governor Phillips and Armstrong did not think
themselves authorized to favor them with, as His Majesty's
instruction... prescribed the grant of unappropriated lands to
Protestant subjects only....If they are debarred from new
possessions, they must live here miserably and consequently be
troublesome, or else, they will possess themselves of new tracts
contrary to orders, or they must be made to withdraw to the
neighboring French colonies....The French of Cape Breton will
naturally watch all opportunities of disturbing the peace of
this Province, especially at this juncture, in case of war with
France, and if occasion of disgust is given to those people
here, they would soon distress the garrison if not taking the
fort which is in a very ruinous condition."
The Acadians support of the French
fort of Louisbourg at Cape Breton was a particular worry to the
British.
As Mahaffie points out, "Some of
(the Acadians) lived at or near Annapolis Royal, where they
could see British guns and hear the English language, but most
were far from British influence and authority. The settlements
at the Minas Basin held about half the population. The Isthmus
of Chignecto, even father from Annapolis Royal and the Union
Jack, was home to another fourth. Via Baie Verte, only a few
miles across the isthmus from Beaubassin, it was easy for the
Chignecto settlers to trade with (Cape Breton) and thus
reinforce their ties with France, and the people of the Minas
communities also had ready access to (Cape Breton) - by trail
through the woods from Cobequid to Baie Verte, or via even
closer Tatamagouche Bay. Through those harbors Acadians sent the
cattle, sheep, and grain that helped keep Louisbourg alive.
Through them came back the goods, money, and influence that kept
the Acadians French."
|