The Acadians by Samuel Andre Aucoin
The sweeping tale of the French Acadians in America and one family’s trials over hundreds of years of persecution is revealed in The Acadians by Samuel Andre Aucoin.
Aucoin mixes history and light fiction to tell the often heartbreaking story of the Acadian experience in America. Beginning with a trip to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. with his granddaughter, Aucoin reveals to her that his fallen friend and comrade-in-arms, Roger Robichaud, was also an Acadian. When she asks what an Acadian is, Aucoin unspools the sprawling tale of the French who immigrated to northeastern America to a land called Acadia.
A New Way of Life
In the 1600s, Acadia encompassed the areas of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec. The king of France at the time, King Louis XIII, was in a race with England for control of Acadia. His decision to send farmers and their wives and children to Acadia to populate and develop a self-sustaining agricultural economy brought Francois Aucoin and his wife, Yvette, to Port Royal on the Bay of Fundy in 1636. Along with other families who survived the dangers of transatlantic crossing, the French immigrants settled deeply into their new homeland, befriending, trading and sometimes intermarrying with the dominant Native American tribe in Acadia, the Micmacs.
Blending the history of Acadia’s early settlement and relations with the Micmacs, as well as imagining scenes and dialogue of his ancestors, Aucoin shows how the French settlers worked together and absorbed the knowledge of the Micmacs to assume a new identity … one that would cause them endless sorrows as a result:
“This community effort, their reliance on extended family, their knowledge of the Micmac way of reaching village-wide decisions, and their own experience with self-governance helped shape these French colonists into a new Acadian people.”
The Damn English
Acadia changed hands often between the French and English, or as the Acadians called them, les maudits Anglais (the damn English). While the two superpowers fought for control, the Acadians hoed their own row and avoided both the French and the English. Aucoin’s ancestors maintained their neutrality during the French and Indian War as well as other conflicts, leaving the Acadians at the mercy of those in power. The French officials disliked the Acadians’ “self-serving, unpatriotic attitude,” while the English burned down and destroyed their farms, ports and other infrastructure. For this and a long litany of persecution back in France, the Acadians would never trust the English, whom they called les maudits Anglais. “Their fear, distrust and hatred of the English became deeply embedded and would be passed down to subsequent generations.”
Aucoin’s novel is more history than fiction, however. His character dialogue is on the expository side, so that the men and women fill in the contextual and historical gaps through explanation — the novel works best on an educational level. If readers can overcome the stilted conversations that begin with someone entering a room to speak to someone else, the novel works on an educational level. Aucoin’s ancestors make brief appearances for each generation included, showing how they responded to “the damn English” and efforts to rid Acadia of them through deportation to other British colonies in the southern portion of America. By the end of December 1755, a little less than seven thousand Acadians were deported from Nova Scotia to other colonies, like Massachusetts and Georgia. For this period of upheaval, Aucoin follows the peregrinations of brothers Pierre and Mondou Aucoin, who are moved to France where the native populace resented the Acadians for taking away jobs.
Against the Odds
Why so many issues with the English? Aucoin posits it was the Acadians’ refusal to sign an unconditional oath to the English king that caused their problems. Their stated intent was to remain neutral in the disputes and conflicts between France and England. Willing to sign a conditional oath (which stipulated they would not bear arms against anyone), the Acadians were constantly refusing to sign an unconditional oath to the British monarch. As Aucoin describes it, “if only the Acadians had known that this solid resistance to an unqualified oath would eventually lead to their complete downfall, the history of Acadia might have evolved differently.”
Aucoin also includes how the Acadians made their way to Louisiana in 1764 and became successful farmers and landowners by the early 1800s, soon to form a Cajun offshoot of their lineage. The coming of the American Civil War, along with forced Confederate conscription and Union destruction of Southern farms and infrastructure, devastated the Louisiana Acadians, the bulk of whom were “generally reduced to subsistence farming” after the war. Through it all, the Aucoins found a way to overcome their circumstances and survive down to the present day.
The Acadians is a pleasing mixture of historical reportage and genealogical discovery that doesn’t get weighed down by fictional plot or characters, and instead educates about a small, but proud subset of American settlers.
Sam Aucoin was born in Montreal and grew up in New Hampshire. He is of Acadian descent and heard their stories first-hand from his parents and other relatives. He has degrees from the University of New Hampshire and the the University of Hawaii. He served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and currently resides in Honolulu with his wife Janie. They have two daughters and eight grandchildren.
