America's forgotten atrocity

You write that the Acadians came to consider themselves a distinct people with distinct political rights. That's another strikingly contemporary concept, what we would now call ethnicity or nationality. And you indicate that the Míkmaq had that view of themselves also; they had a clear conception that the land belonged to them and that the English had no right to it. We don't customarily think about the Indians that way; this really flies in the face of any idea that they were living in primeval innocence and had no idea about property rights.

As you know, I have direct evidence of that. I quote Indians saying so: "This is the land God gave to us. We never gave it away, and we don't understand why you think you somehow have a right to it." I find those voices very remarkable. The great fear in doing a history like this is that you won't find any voices from Indians, or in this case from the Acadians, who were basically illiterate. So the fact that you can actually go into the records and recover at least some of their voices is pretty astounding.

On that question of the Acadians' rights, there's that extraordinary moment when the British governor is berating them and they reply to him by saying: "Look, we've exercised these rights for several generations. By English custom, a right that people practice, if not contravened by the king, becomes a common-law right." One of the things that really surprised me was their sophistication in handling authority, their ability to come back and make an argument. You know, one expects peasants tugging at the cap, but these folks had no reluctance at all to stand up and say, "We believe we have these rights and you're trampling on them."

The fact is that when British colonists were still a generation or two away from asserting their rights as republicans, the Acadians were standing up in front of British governors and asserting those same rights. Maybe they were premature republicans; they were a little early for their own good. But it's a remarkable story, in part because the rights they're asserting are not that different from the rights the British colonists would assert beginning in 1776.

Much of your story is about how cannily the Acadians manipulated the British authorities, and when necessary the French authorities as well, to assume this position of neutrality, this marginal position between the two warring empires. Is this something essentially unique within history?

I believe it is. I'm not expert enough to say that this happened nowhere else in the world, but I know that within the context of 18th century colonialism and imperial authority -- the 18th century notion of monarch and subject -- this was beyond the pale. In that world, everyone had to be subject to someone. And the assertion of communal rights, outside the allegiance to the sovereign, was unheard of.

Right. The 1776 or 1789 idea of citizenship does not exist yet.

No, it does not exist. It would be an anachronism to say that the Acadians are asserting such a thing; they're not. They're asserting that they're willing to pledge loyalty to a sovereign, but they want to define the terms. The American Revolution takes another quantum leap, into asserting that the people themselves are sovereign. The Acadians didn't get there, but they argued there were certain communal rights that modified their loyalty to the sovereign. Neither the British nor the French could really consider that. It's important to say that the French found that just as offensive as the British, and when they had the opportunity they tried to force the Acadians to swear their allegiance to the French king. This was just something imperialists could not understand.

This whole business of the oath the Acadians were required to swear to "His Britannic Majesty," which finally becomes the proximate reason for destroying their culture. It's a little hard for 21st century people to get their heads around this idea, but it was absolutely standard at the time, right?

Absolutely, yes. It's just routine. When the English take over New Amsterdam from the Dutch, every male head of household is required to stand up and swear allegiance to the King of England. It's universal and mandatory, it's standard operating procedure. Everyone who isn't a sovereign must be subject to a sovereign, without question.

In all these ways, the Acadians stand outside that pattern. By the 1670s the Acadians are making a preliminary statement of neutrality, and by the 1690s they're actually declaring themselves neutral. In the end, it proves to be their destruction, but not until 1755. Basically for a hundred years they thrive under this neutrality, and that's important to recall. They don't change, but the British and French finally change as they move toward what is in fact a world war in the 1750s and '60s. They both know that this is the final struggle for control of North America, and in that context the Acadians cannot sustain their neutrality.

Next Page: "I see the Acadians not as victims but as tragic figures"

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