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The
third French connection concerns the role of John Winslow (1703-1774)
of Marshfield in the tragic history of the expulsion of 7,000 Acadian
families from their homes in Canada in 1755.
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John was the great-grandson of Mayflower passengers Edward
Winslow and Susanna White Winslow.
He rose quickly in the ranks of the colonial British military.
Campaigns in the Caribbean and Canada preceded his expedition
to remove the Acadians from their homes.
As soldiers far from home often did, John Winslow kept a diary
which is treasured today as the “best firsthand account of the
physical removal of the Acadians…” (Plank 2001, 146).
Not insensible to the great tragedy that would follow, Winslow
wrote, “this affair is more grievous to me than any service I was
ever employed in…” (quoted in Coons/Krusell 1975, 27).
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| Portrait of General
John Winslow |
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The Acadians, settlers from different parts of France, began arriving
in a region of the New World they called “l’Acadie” (in
modern-day Nova Scotia), in 1630.
There they maintained their agricultural lifestyle and French
identity. Under the terms
of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, however, France gave Acadia and
Newfoundland to the British. Cut
loose from their mother country, the Acadians retained their common
language and religion as well as the independent spirit developed over
the decades as Acadians. When
they refused after 40 years to take the oath of loyalty to King
George, the British sought to neutralize their identity by scattering
them among their colonies. Winslow
saw to the removal of over 2000 men, women and children from Grand
Pre. At
least 4000 more were taken from the coasts of the Bay of Fundy, put on
vessels, often with no provisions, and carried away, their homes and
fields burned. It is
estimated that southeastern Massachusetts received about 2000 persons,
Connecticut 700; others were removed to Virginia, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Georgia and New York (Plank
2001, 148-149).
Nearly a century after the expulsion, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
wove a romantic tale around a young Acadian woman in Evangeline (1847).
Expelled from her homeland and separated from her lover,
Evangeline’s courage and faithfulness lead her first to Cajun
Louisiana and later to Philadelphia.
They do not, however, lead her back to her own land.
Rather, her sterling qualities are viewed as the means of her
transformation into an American. Ironically, this story of the integration of foreigners into
American culture brought Acadian culture into the popular imagination.
Selected bibliography
Austin, Jane G. A Nameless Nobleman
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1881).
Other Austin titles include Standish
of Standish (1889), Dr.
LeBaron and his Daughters (1890), and Betty Alden: The First-born
Daughter of the Pilgrims (1891).
Coons, Quentin and Cynthia Hagar Krusell. The
Winslows of Careswell: Before and After the Mayflower (Plymouth
: The Pilgrim Society, 1975).
Plank, Geoffrey. An Unsettled Conquest: The British
Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
Moody, Barry. The
Acadians (Toronto: Grolier Limited, 1981).
Thacher, James. History of the Town of Plymouth
(Salem : Higginson Book Co., 1991 reprint, first published 1832).
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