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CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
Volume 9
THE ACADIAN EXILES
A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline
By ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY
TORONTO, 1916
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDERS OF ACADIA
The name Acadia, [Footnote: The origin of the name is
uncertain. By some authorities it is supposed to be
derived from the Micmac algaty, signifying a camp or
settlement. Others have traced it to the Micmac akade,
meaning a place where something abounds. Thus, Sunakade
(Shunacadie, C. B.), the cranberry place; Seguboon-akade
(Shubenacadie), the place of the potato, etc. The earliest
map marking the country, that of Ruscelli (1561), gives
the name Lacardie. Andre Thivet, a French writer, mentions
the country in 1575 as Arcadia; and many modern writers
believe Acadia to be merely a corruption of that classic
name.] which we now associate with a great tragedy of
history and song, was first used by the French to
distinguish the eastern or maritime part of New France
from the western part, which began with the St Lawrence
valley and was called Canada. Just where Acadia ended
and Canada began the French never clearly defined--in
course of time, as will be seen, this question became a
cause of war with the English--but we shall not be much
at fault if we take a line from the mouth of the river
Penobscot, due north to the St Lawrence, to mark the
western frontier of the Acadia of the French. Thus, as
the map shows, Acadia lay in that great peninsula which
is flanked by two large islands, and is washed on the
north and east by the river and gulf of St Lawrence, and
on the south by the Atlantic Ocean; and it comprised what
are to-day parts of Quebec and Maine, as well as the
provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward
Island. When the French came, and for long after, this
country was the hunting ground of tribes of the Algonquin
race--Micmacs, Malecites, and Abnakis or Abenakis.
By right of the discoveries of Jean Verrazano (1524) and
Jacques Cartier (1534-42) the French crown laid claim to
all America north of the sphere of Spanish influence.
Colonial enterprise, however, did not thrive during the
religious wars which rent Europe in the sixteenth century;
and it was not until after the Edict of Nantes in 1598
that France could follow up the discoveries of her seamen
by an effort to colonize either Acadia or Canada. Abortive
attempts had indeed been made by the Marquis de la Roche,
but these had resulted only in the marooning of fifty
unfortunate convicts on Sable Island. The first real
colonizing venture of the French in the New World was
that of the Sieur de Monts, the patron and associate of
Champlain. [Footnote: See The founder of New France in
this Series, chap. ii.] The site of this first colony
was in Acadia. Armed with viceregal powers and a trading
monopoly for ten years, De Monts gathered his colonists,
equipped two ships, and set out from Havre de Grace in
April 1604. The company numbered about a hundred and
fifty Frenchmen of various ranks and conditions, from
the lowest to the highest--convicts taken from the prisons,
labourers and artisans, Huguenot ministers and Catholic
priests, some gentlemen of noble birth, among them Jean
de Biencourt, Baron de Poutrincourt, and the already
famous explorer Champlain.
The vessels reached Cape La Heve on the south coast of
Nova Scotia in May. They rounded Cape Sable, sailed up
the Bay of Fundy, and entered the Annapolis Basin, which
Champlain named Port Royal. The scene here so stirred
the admiration of the Baron de Poutrincourt that he
coveted the place as an estate for his family, and begged
De Monts, who by his patent was lord of the entire country,
to grant him the adjoining lands. De Monts consented;
the estate was conveyed; and Poutrincourt became the
seigneur of Port Royal.
The adventurers crossed to the New Brunswick shore, turned
their vessel westward, passed the mouth of the river St
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