Newfoundland & Labrador - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - page 455

Memo to Acadians: Get Out
Charles Lawrence, the security-conscious British governor of Nova Scotia, had had
enough. A war was going on and when the French Acadian citizens in his territory re-
fused to swear allegiance to Britain his suspicions mounted to fever pitch. In 1755, he
ordered the Acadians to be rounded up and deported.
In a tragic chapter of history known as the Great Expulsion, the British burned villages
and forced some 14,000 men, women and children onto ships. (The exact number is un-
known.) Grand Pré was the heart of the area from which the Acadians were removed.
Many headed for Louisiana and New Orleans; others went to various Maritime points,
the Caribbean or back to Europe.
The Nova Scotia government maintains a website of all things Titanic ( ht-
tp://titanic.gov.ns.ca ), including a list of passengers buried in local graveyards and arti-
facts housed in the local museums.
The government gave their lands in the Annapolis Valley to 12,000 New England col-
onists called 'planters.' After peace was restored, some Acadians chose to return from
exile but they were forced to settle on the less favorable 'French Shore' between Yar-
mouth and Digby.
Ultimately the English won the French and Indian Wars, and the French colonial era in
the region ended. At the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France handed Canada over to Britain -
except for two small islands off the coast of Newfoundland, named St Pierre and
Miquelon, which remain staunchly French to this day.
A Perfect Union in Prince Edward Island
All through the first half of the 19th century shipbuilding made New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia wealthy, and Nova Scotia soon boasted the world's fourth-largest merchant
marine. The Cunard Line was founded at Halifax in 1840, and immigration from Scot-
land and Ireland flourished .
In 1864 Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island served as the birthing room for mod-
ern Canada. At the town's Province House, a group of representatives from Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ontario and Québec got together and hammered
out the framework for a new nation. It took two more meetings - one in Québec City, the
other in London - before parliament passed the British North America Act in 1867. And
so began the modern, self-governing state of Canada. The date the act became official,
July 1, is celebrated as Canada's national holiday.