corey porter!

3.22.2008

Acadia and Iraq: Colonialism Then and Now

            Working for a pittance on the concrete floors of retail, I’ve found plenty of time to jaw on with my coworkers whilst avoiding the measuring gaze of management. Such conversations are usually repetitive or roundabout, though one in particular piqued my curiosity enough to more deeply explore its subject: A coworker lent me A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland, by John Mack Faragher, and after thoroughly and fervently explaining to me that these were her people—this, her story—I took the book home and googled Acadia, or “l'Acadie.” I’ve been sitting on the subject for nearly a year with nowhere to go, no one to tell about it, but this class—this assignment—gives me due reason to explore what may be the preeminent example of European colonialism in the Americas gone awry. Acadia ended in mass exodus, when nearly the entire population was forced out of the region by politicians and lawmakers who knew nothing of its geography, its inhabitants or their culture. As history oft repeats itself, it might be advantageous to study the destruction of Acadia to appreciate contemporary American foreign policy.

            The obvious resource to which to [re]turn is Faragher’s text. The book is historically comprehensive, chronologically covering Acadia’s inception through its destruction. Acadia was the first French agricultural colony established in North America. The first French ship weighed anchor outside of the French outpost at Port Royal, preceding the English at both Jamestown and Plymouth Rock (Faragher). Scheme goes into detail about Poutrincourt and de Monts, the two French nobles who two years previous had come to the French-Canadian shore in search of agriculturally-viable lands. Poutrincourt’s contract with King Henri required him to grow the French crown and its power in the Americas, but de Monts intended on rebuilding his lost fortune by establishing a feudal farming system in Acadia (Faragher). In its outset, Acadia is born into dispute; a century of British, American, and French campaigns into the region do nothing to calm any conflicts, and eventually, the Acadians are displaced and Acadia is destroyed. Faragher’s text is the penultimate source for the Acadian story, though it’s challenging to keep the myriad names and places straight without an accompanying reader.

            I turned to both Wikipedia and the Acadian Tourism Commission for help in deciphering Faragher’s text. The online summations of nearly 500 pages of text are noticeably more malleable than and just as helpful as the primary source. Only a year after its establishment, Acadia is ruled unprofitable by King Henri, and its charter is revoked; its people leave their establishments and possessions in the hands of the Mi’kmaq, a native tribe, and many return to France. Three years later, Poutrincourt returns to an Acadia running itself in the hands of the Mi’kmaq (Wikipedia). Throughout the next century, in the midst of capture, liberation, and recapture by the British, the Acadian people coexist peacefully with the Mi’kmaq, living amongst them, adopting a number of their customs, and collaborating with them in both trade and agriculture—the Acadian farming culture was an advanced system of irrigation lines and levies, both high-maintenance and labor-intensive. Over time, the European-born colonizers’ and native population’s coexistence became the foundation for Acadian independence.

            After the second reclamation of Acadia by the British, the Acadians were forced to pledge their allegiance to England in a written contract. Never having signed such a contract in their previous dealings with the British, and citing their reluctance to raise arms against anyone, be they French, British, or native, the Acadians refused the oath. British authorities then began the forced expulsion of 6,000-7,000 Acadians (L’ACADIE). What these online sources fail to explore is the thoroughness with which the Great Upheaval was conducted. Faragher spends a considerable amount of time explaining the process of separation and the various locales at which the Acadians finally ended their journeys.

            The British sought to utterly destroy the population by separating close-knit extended families among the various Atlantic colonies. Support groups of grandparents, aunt and uncles, etc. were dispersed—seemingly at random—to the American colonies, islands in the Caribbean, and across the Atlantic to Europe. Great pains were taken to destroy the Acadian culture; however, a large number of refugees (some 3,000), relocated to the Spanish territory of Louisiana, giving rise the Cajun culture of today.

            I don’t believe it’s too much of a stretch to envision America storming into a disputed area and sorting things out with an impersonal and illogical act. Is it too far beyond the realm of imagination to picture American forces separating families from one another in a region they (American forces) know so very little about? Right now, Washington continues to make decisions that affect three very distinct religious populations within Iraq, though said decisions rarely deal with the individual groups; rather, said decisions treat the groups as a united, oppressed population with no sense of direction or voice, and lawmakers half the world away continue to believe American forces are welcomed as liberators.

At what point does the role change from occupation to colonization? Along with military forces we send contractors, journalists, translators… but who speaks for those in Iraq? Who is the great Sunni voice, the Shi’a hope, the Kurdish, the Christian? Henry Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” a romanticization of the Acadian plight, might summarize this untold American colonization by degrees, “Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches/Dwells another race, with other customs and language.” America is sapping the Middle East, or trying its damnedest, anyway. We are the other this time. It’s not our shade, so let’s give it back.

Works Cited

“Acadia.” Wikipedia. Online. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadia> 22 Mar. 2008.

Faragher, John Mack. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. New York: Norton & Company, 2005.

L’ACADIE. Webmaster Geneviève Lanteigne. Historical Overview. Online. <http://www.acadievacances.com/en/default.asp?id=15> 22 Mar. 2008.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie.” Ed. Stewart A. Levin. New York: Van Cleve-Andrews Co., 1895. Online. Project Gutenberg. 22 Mar. 2008.