A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland
2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 93; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/4486433
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis
ResumoThis book is a model of how to do North American history. Scholars often talk of a way North American history can be presented that will bring U.S. and Canadian history into the same framework (although Mexico is rarely mentioned in this context), but few actually do it. John Mack Faragher shows how it can be accomplished. He tells the story of the French-speaking Acadian settlers who were expelled from Nova Scotia in 1755 and scattered throughout the Atlantic world, with the largest number of refugees eventually ending up in Louisiana. The story is well known but in Faragher's sure hands it takes on a much wider significance—not just for North American history but for world history. In this meticulous account no dimension is left unexplored. Faragher weaves together British and French imperial history, the history of the various Euro-settlers in Massachusetts and other English Atlantic colonies, and the history of native peoples such as the Mikmaq, Abenakis, and Maliseets, all of whom shaped the region's history in this era. He portrays the Acadian settlers as a people trying to occupy a middle ground in Nova Scotia as the imperial struggle between France and Britain for North America reached its most intense phase in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Like the Native Americans who were similarly situated in the Ohio and Great Lakes country, the Acadians had to be resourceful, tenacious, and creative in their interactions with French and British regimes. In the end, the middle ground proved untenable, and seven thousand Acadians were expelled.
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