Acadians Take Oath of Allegiance to Britain

The Treaty of Utrecht secured freedom of worship to the Acadians under certain conditions.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume 1. Continuing Chapter 9.

From this time forward the state of affairs in Acadia was a peculiar one. By the Treaty of Utrecht it was a British province, and the nominal sovereignty resided at Annapolis, in the keeping of the miserable little fort and the puny garrison, which as late as 1743 consisted of but five companies, counting, when the ranks were full, thirty-one men each.[1] More troops were often asked for, and once or twice were promised; but they were never sent. “This has been hitherto no more than a mock government, its authority never yet having extended beyond cannon-shot of the fort,” wrote Governor Philipps in 1720. “It would be more for the honor of the Crown, and profit also, to give back the country to the French, than to be contented with the name only of government.”[2] Philipps repaired the fort, which, as the engineer Mascarene says, “had lain tumbling down” before his arrival; but Annapolis and the whole province remained totally neglected and almost forgotten by England till the middle of the century. At one time the soldiers were in so ragged a plight that Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong was forced to clothe them at his own expense.[3]

[1: Governor Mascarene to the Secretary of State, 1 December, 1743. At this time there was also a blockhouse at Canseau, where a few soldiers were stationed. These were then the only British posts in the province. In May, 1727, Philipps wrote to the Lords of Trade: “Everything there [at Annapolis] is wearing the face of ruin and decay,” and the ramparts are “lying level with the ground in breaches sufficiently wide for fifty men to enter abreast.”]

[2: Philipps to Secretary Craggs, 26 September, 1720.]

[3: Selections from the Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 18, note.]

While this seat of British sovereignty remained in unchanging feebleness for more than forty years, the French Acadians were multiplying apace. Before 1749 they were the only white inhabitants of the province, except ten or twelve English families who, about the year 1720, lived under the guns of Annapolis. At the time of the cession the French population seems not to have exceeded two thousand souls, about five hundred of whom lived within the banlieue of Annapolis and were therefore more or less under English control. They were all alike a simple and ignorant peasantry, prosperous in their humble way, and happy when rival masters ceased from troubling, though vexed with incessant quarrels among themselves, arising from the unsettled boundaries of their lands, which had never been properly surveyed. Their mental horizon was of the narrowest, their wants were few, no military service was asked of them by the English authorities, and they paid no taxes to the government. They could even indulge their strong appetite for litigation free of cost; for when, as often happened, they brought their land disputes before the Council at Annapolis, the cases were settled and the litigants paid no fees. Their communication with the English officials was carried on through deputies chosen by themselves, and often as ignorant as their constituents, for a remarkable equality prevailed through this primitive little society.

Except the standing garrison at Annapolis, Acadia was as completely let alone by the British government as Rhode Island or Connecticut. Unfortunately, the traditional British policy of inaction towards her colonies was not applicable in the case of a newly conquered province with a disaffected population and active, enterprising, and martial neighbors bent on recovering what they had lost. Yet it might be supposed that a neglect so invigorating in other cases might have developed among the Acadians habits of self-reliance and faculties of self-care. The reverse took place; for if England neglected Acadia, France did not; and though she had renounced her title to it, she still did her best to master it and make it hers again. The chief instrument of her aggressive policy was the governor of Isle Royale, whose station was the fortress of Louisbourg, and who was charged with the management of Acadian affairs. At all the Acadian settlements he had zealous and efficient agents in the missionary priests, who were sent into the province by the Bishop of Quebec, or in a few cases by their immediate ecclesiastical superiors in Isle Royale.

The Treaty of Utrecht secured freedom of worship to the Acadians under certain conditions. These were that they should accept the sovereignty of the British Crown, and that they and their pastors should keep within the limits of British law.[4] Even supposing that by swearing allegiance to Queen Anne the Acadians had acquired the freedom of worship which the treaty gave them on condition of their becoming British subjects, it would have been an abuse of this freedom to use it for subverting the power that had granted it. Yet this is what the missionaries did. They were not only priests of the Roman Church, they were also agents of the King of France; and from first to last they labored against the British government in the country that France had ceded to the British Crown. So confident were they, and with so much reason, of the weakness of their opponents that they openly avowed that their object was to keep the Acadians faithful to King Louis. When two of their number, Saint-Poncy and Chevereaux, were summoned before the Council at Annapolis, they answered, with great contempt, “We are here on the business of the King of France.” They were ordered to leave Acadia. One of them stopped among the Indians at Cape Sable; the other, in defiance of the Council, was sent back to Annapolis by the Governor of Isle Royale.[5] Apparently, he was again ordered away; for four years later the French governor, in expectation of speedy war, sent him to Chignecto with orders secretly to prepare the Acadians for an attack on Annapolis.[6]

[4: “Those who are willing to remain there [in Acadia] and to be subject to the kingdom of Great Britain, are to enjoy the free exercise of their religion according to the usage of the Church of Home, as far as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same.” — Treaty of Utrecht, 14th article.]

[5: Minutes of Council, 18 May, 1736. Governor Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 22 November, 1736.]

[6: Minutes of Council, 18 September, 1740, in Nova Scotia Archives.]

The political work of the missionaries began with the cession of the colony, and continued with increasing activity till 1755, kindling the impotent wrath of the British officials, and drawing forth the bitter complaints of every successive governor. For this world and the next, the priests were fathers of their flocks, generally commanding their attachment, and always their obedience. Except in questions of disputed boundaries, where the Council alone could settle the title, the ecclesiastics took the place of judges and courts of justice, enforcing their decisions by refusal of the sacraments.[7] They often treated the British officials with open scorn. Governor Armstrong writes to the Lords of Trade: “Without some particular directions as to the insolent behavior of those priests, the people will never be brought to obedience, being by them incited to daily acts of rebellion.” Another governor complains that they tell the Acadians of the destitution of the soldiers and the ruinous state of the fort, and assure them that the Pretender will soon be King of England, and that Acadia will then return to France.[8] “The bearer, Captain Bennett,” writes Armstrong, “can further tell your Grace of the disposition of the French inhabitants of this province, and of the conduct of their missionary priests, who instil hatred into both Indians and French against the English.”[9] As to the Indians, Governor Philipps declares that their priests hear a general confession from them twice a year, and give them absolution on condition of always being enemies of the English.[10] The condition was easy, thanks to the neglect of the British government, which took no pains to conciliate the Micmacs, while the French governor of Isle Royale corresponded secretly with them and made them yearly presents.

[7: Governor Mascarene to Père des Enclaves, 29 June, 1741.]

[8: Deputy-Governor Doucette to the Secretary of State, 5 November, 1717.]

[9: Governor Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 30 April, 1727.]

[10: Governor Philipps to Secretary Craggs, 26 September, 1720.]

In 1720 Philipps advised the recall of the French priests, and the sending of others in their place, as the only means of making British subjects of the Acadians,[11] who at that time, having constantly refused the oath of allegiance, were not entitled, under the treaty, to the exercise of their religion. Governor Armstrong wrote sixteen years after: “By some of the above papers your Grace will be informed how high the French government carries its pretensions over its priests’ obedience; and how to prevent the evil consequences I know not, unless we could have missionaries from places independent of that Crown.”[12] He expresses a well-grounded doubt whether the home government will be at the trouble and expense of such a change, though he adds that there is not a missionary among either Acadians or Indians who is not in the pay of France.[13] Gaulin, missionary of the Micmacs, received a “gratification” of fifteen hundred livres, besides an annual allowance of five hundred, and is described in the order granting it as a “brave man, capable even of leading these savages on an expedition.”[14] In 1726 he was brought before the Council at Annapolis charged with incendiary conduct among both Indians and Acadians; but on asking pardon and promising nevermore to busy himself with affairs of government, he was allowed to remain in the province, and even to act as curé of the Mines.[15] No evidence appears that the British authorities ever molested a priest, except when detected in practices alien to his proper functions and injurious to the government. On one occasion when two cures were vacant, one through sedition and the other apparently through illness or death, Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong requested the governor of Isle Royale to send two priests “of known probity” to fill them.[16]

[11: Ibid., 26 May, 1720.]

[12: Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 22 November, 1736. The dismissal of French priests and the substitution of others was again recommended some time after.]

[13: The motives for paying priests for instructing the people of a province ceded to England are given in a report of the French Marine Council. The Acadians “ne pourront jamais conserver un véritable attachement à la religion et à leur légitime souverain sans le secours d’un missionnaire” (Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, 23 Mai, 1719, in Le Canada-Français). The Intendant Bégon highly commends the efforts of the missionaries to keep the Acadians in the French interest (Bégon au Ministre, 25 Septembre, 1715), and Vaudreuil praises their zeal in the same cause (Vaudreuil au Ministre, 31 Octobre, 1717).]

[14: Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, 3 Mai, 1718.]

[15: Record of Council at Annapolis, 11 and 24 October, 1726.]

[16: Armstrong to Saint-Ovide, 17 June, 1732.]

Who were answerable for the anomalous state of affairs in the province, — the imperium in imperio where the inner power waxed and strengthened every day, and the outer relatively pined and dwindled? It was not mainly the Crown of France nor its agents, secular or clerical. Their action under the circumstances, though sometimes inexcusable, was natural, and might have been foreseen. Nor was it the Council at Annapolis, who had little power either for good or evil. It was mainly the neglect and apathy of the British ministers, who seemed careless as to whether they kept Acadia or lost it, apparently thinking it not worth their notice.

About the middle of the century they wakened from their lethargy, and warned by the signs of the times, sent troops and settlers into the province at the eleventh hour. France and her agents took alarm and redoubled their efforts to keep their hold on a country which they had begun to regard as theirs already. The settlement of the English at Halifax startled the French into those courses of intrigue and violence which were the immediate cause of the removal of the Acadians in 1755.

From A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume 1, Chapter 9 by Francis Parkman

Volume 6 of Parkman’s History of France in North America titled “A Half-Century of Conflict” was itself published in two volumes. This means that “Volume 6” (consistent with how past books published on this website were called) must be called “Part 6”, instead – to avoid confusion. This book is Volume 1 of “A Half-Century of Conflict”. The next book in the series will be called “Part 6, A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume 2”.

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Preface to this book.

This book, forming Part VI. of the series called France and England in North America, fills the gap between Part V., “Count Frontenac,” and Part VII., “Montcalm and Wolfe;” so that the series now forms a continuous history of the efforts of France to occupy and control this continent.

In the present volumes the nature of the subject does not permit an unbroken thread of narrative, and the unity of the book lies in its being throughout, in one form or another, an illustration of the singularly contrasted characters and methods of the rival claimants to North America.

Like the rest of the series, this work is founded on original documents. The statements of secondary writers have been accepted only when found to conform to the evidence of contemporaries, whose writings have been sifted and collated with the greatest care. As extremists on each side have charged me with favoring the other, I hope I have been unfair to neither.

The manuscript material collected for the preparation of the series now complete forms about seventy volumes, most of them folios. These have been given by me from time to time to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in whose library they now are, open to the examination of those interested in the subjects of which they treat. The collection was begun forty-five years ago, and its formation has been exceedingly slow, having been retarded by difficulties which seemed insurmountable, and for years were so in fact. Hence the completion of the series has required twice the time that would have sufficed under less unfavorable conditions.

BOSTON, March 26, 1892

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