The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History (Oxford Studies in International History)
"Altogether superb: an accessible, fluent account that advances scholarship while building a worthy memorial to the victims of two and a half centuries past." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In 1755, New England troops embarked on a "great and noble scheme" to expel 18,000 French-speaking Acadians ("the neutral French") from Nova Scotia, killing thousands, separating innumerable families, and driving many into forests where they waged a desperate guerrilla resistance. The right of neutrality; to live in peace from the imperial wars waged between France and England; had been one of the founding values of Acadia; its settlers traded and intermarried freely with native Mikmaq Indians and English Protestants alike. But the Acadians' refusal to swear unconditional allegiance to the British Crown in the mid-eighteenth century gave New Englanders, who had long coveted Nova Scotia's fertile farmland, pretense enough to launch a campaign of ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. John Mack Faragher draws on original research to weave 150 years of history into a gripping narrative of both the civilization of Acadia and the British plot to destroy it.
40 illustrations, 6 mapsCountry | USA |
Brand | W. W. Norton & Company |
Manufacturer | W. W. Norton & Company |
Binding | Paperback |
ItemPartNumber | Illustrated |
ReleaseDate | 2006-02-17 |
UnitCount | 1 |
EANs | 9780393328271 |