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Tag: Acadian history (Page 1 of 3)

An Interview with Historica: Making a Heritage Minute

August 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

image of Acadian woman in field

Welcome to the last of our Summer Series on Acadian history! This week marks not only the end of our series, it’s also the fête nationale d’Acadie on August 15th! From the amount of people who tried to wish me a “Joyeux Saint Jean Baptiste” on the 24th of June, there seem to be quite a few people who are unaware of the fact that Acadians have their own national holiday, chosen specifically to be separate from that of the Québec St-Jean Baptiste day by the convention nationale d’Acadie in 1881. (If you want to find out more about that process, both Chantal Richard and Ron Rudin have written about it.)

This year’s fête nationale comes with its own special surprise – our own heritage minute! I’ve been a big fan of the heritage minutes since I was a kid, so to get one that features Acadian history is pretty special. The debut will be on stage in Moncton during the Congrès Mondiale Acadienne 2019, after which everybody can see it on YouTube! I’ll be sure to post it on twitter for everybody to see, so be sure to watch that space! And, as always, you can catch the rest of the summer series here.

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A Guide to Online Resources for Teaching and Learning Acadian History in Higher Education

August 8, 2019 / / 1 Comment
The church at Grand-Pré

Grand-Pré, UNESCO World Heritage site. Photo Credit Claire Campbell.

Once again, I have stuck to sources that are produced by institutions, museums, archives, and historical societies. This is again to ensure that the sources presented are authentic and their provenance clear. In order to keep this guide to a manageable size, I have excluded websites that are narrative-based,  rather than providing primary sources and/or learning tools. While I have included material from a range of different periods in Acadian history, the majority of this material deals with Acadian history in Canada. In other words, you won’t find information here about what happened to Acadians who were deported and never returned. Also, considering the subject matter, I have indicated the languages in which each resource is available. There will be three separate guides: one for educators working in K-12 institutions; one for educators working in higher education; and one that provides an introduction to the field of study.  For this particular guide, I have focused exclusively on material that will be of interest primarily for educators working in K-12 institutions, but some duplication is to be expected.

This guide assumes you have a basic familiarity with Acadian history. If you don’t, or would like to brush up on what you know, I would highly recommend the CHA booklet on Acadian history, written by Caroline-Isabelle Caron.

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A Guide to Online Resources for Teaching and Learning Acadian History in K-12

August 7, 2019 / / 3 Comments
A map of Beaubassin in 1755

A map depicting the Beaubassin region of Nova Scotia in 1755. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Once again, I have stuck to sources that are produced by institutions, museums, archives, and historical societies. This is again to ensure that the sources presented are authentic and their provenance clear. In order to keep this guide to a manageable size, I have excluded websites that are narrative-based,  rather than providing primary sources and/or learning tools. While I have included material from a range of different periods in Acadian history, the majority of this material deals with Acadian history in Canada. In other words, you won’t find information here about what happened to Acadians who were deported and never returned. Also, considering the subject matter, I have indicated the languages in which each resource is available. There will be three separate guides: one for educators working in K-12 institutions; one for educators working in higher education; and one that provides an introduction to the field of study.  For this particular guide, I have focused exclusively on material that will be of interest primarily for educators working in K-12 institutions, but some duplication is to be expected.

This guide assumes you have a basic familiarity with Acadian history. If you don’t, or would like to brush up on what you know, I would highly recommend the CHA booklet on Acadian history, written by Caroline-Isabelle Caron.

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An Introduction to the Field of Acadian History

August 6, 2019 / / 4 Comments
A painting of Acadians from 1751, considered the earliest known depiction of Acadians

Acadians at Annapolis Royal by Samuel Scott, 1751; earliest known image of Acadians. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

Can you believe it’s been over two years since the last time we did one of these? Oops. But welcome back to our latest resource guide on material relating to learning and teaching Acadian history.

Once again, I have stuck to sources that are produced by institutions, museums, archives, and historical societies. This is again to ensure that the sources presented are authentic and their provenance clear. In order to keep this guide to a manageable size, I have excluded websites that are narrative-based,  rather than providing primary sources and/or learning tools. While I have included material from a range of different periods in Acadian history, the majority of this material deals with Acadian history in Canada. In other words, you won’t find information here about what happened to Acadians who were deported and never returned. Also, considering the subject matter, I have indicated the languages in which each resource is available. There will be three separate guides: one for educators working in K-12 institutions; one for educators working in higher education; and one that provides an introduction to the field of study.  Continue reading

Decorous Dispossession: Legally Extinguishing Acadian Landholding Rights

July 30, 2019 / / 0 Comments
A view of George Street in Halifax by Richard Short in 1759

“Halifax looking down George Street, Nova Scotia 1759” by Richard Short, 1759. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to the fourth post of our Acadian History Series! Our post this week is by Elizabeth Mancke, CRC in Atlantic Canada Studies at UNB Fredericton, and amazing mentor to many, including myself. In fact, this particular blog post is part of a project that she has been working on for a while with two of her students – myself and Keith Grant (Borealia, now a graduated former student of Elizabeth Mancke). As always, this content is cross-posted on Acadiensis and Borealia; you can find an index to the rest of the series here.

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Wide Angles, Close Quarters: A Human History of the Grand Dérangement

July 23, 2019 / / 1 Comment
Archival image taken by author of a letter written by Joseph Leblanc to his brother

Joseph Leblanc’s 1757 letter to his brother Charles, sent from Liverpool to an unnamed British city.

Welcome to the third post of our Acadian History Series! Our post this week is by Christopher Hodson, historian and associate professor at Bringham Young University, and author of The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History. This is the third post of a six week series which is also being posted on Acadiensis and Borealia; you can find an index to the rest of the series here. If you would like to hear more about this topic, Dr. Hodson will be joining us for our Pointe Sainte-Anne visiting lecture series the evening August 28th in Fredericton, at Government House.

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Reconciling Chignecto: The Many Stories of Siknikt

July 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments
A map dating from the 1750s which shows the Chignecto Isthmus, and various features including Acadian dykes.

This map, A DRAUGHT of the ISTHMUS which joyns Nova Scotia to the Continent with the Situation of the ENGLISH and FRENCH FORTS & the Adjacent BAYS and RIVERS, was drawn at some point between 1751 and 1755. The sites marked “O” are captioned as: “Dykes levelled by the English from which the Indeans used to Fire at the Vesells as they came up the River Mesiguash” and the villages in red, all Acadian, are indicated as those “burned by the Indeans.” Those villages were burned in September of 1750, when the British took control of the region. (There is also an indescribable image of an Indigenous person shaking hands with a European, behind the cartouche.) This work is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License. , https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:hx11z5039

Welcome to the second post of our Acadian History Series! Our post this week is by Anne Marie Lane Jonah, historian for Parks Canada and editor of the Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. This is the second post of a six week series which is also being posted on Acadiensis and Borealia; you can find an index to the rest of the series here. Enjoy!

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Pointe Sainte-Anne: The Continuity of a Destroyed Eighteenth-century Acadian Village

July 9, 2019 / / 11 Comments
A map of the Saint John River drawn by royal surveyor Charles Morris in 1765.

“Map of the River St. John in the Province of Nova Scotia, exhibiting the grant to officers &c. in 1765, with other patents.” Charles Morris (1765) Library of Congress

Content Warning: The history of Pointe Sainte-Anne’s displacement is violent, and mentions specific instances of violence and murder; in particular, child death & torture. Proceed with caution.

 

Editor’s note: This blog post has been cross-posted on Acadiensis and Borealia, along with the rest of the series; be sure to check them out!

As I mentioned in the last blog post, today we will be starting with general overview with the history of Pointe Sainte-Anne, the events of 1759, and what we are attempting to achieve with the exhibit at the FRM.

But first, we need to emphasize that the history of Pointe Sainte-Anne obviously does not begin with the French at all, but with the Wəlastəkwiyik. Sainte-Anne (and thereby Fredericton) is located on Wəlastəkwiyik territory, which was never ceded. The first thing we aim to do with our exhibit is disabuse ourselves of the notion that the Acadians always peacefully co-existed with the local indigenous people. They did not. Although Acadians mostly managed to avoid outright war with the indigenous communities nearest to them, that doesn’t mean they didn’t outright displace them, and it certainly doesn’t mean that the local indigenous communities benefited from their presence.[1]

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