The poem, Evangeline, tells the story of the 5th of September, 1755, and
what followed.
As the crops were to be gathered early in that dry year, this date was
fixed upon for summoning the men and boys of the district to the church
to receive their brutal orders--to hear the proclamation declaring them
prisoners of the Crown; their homes, their lands, their holdings,
confiscate. It was a bitter time for both those who spoke and heard. It
is not difficult to imagine the emotion of Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow,
as he delivered his blighting message of exile to these strong sunburnt
fathers and sons of Minas, anxiously waiting his words.
When Winslow departed from Grand-Pré in November, all the outlying
villages had been destroyed. Canard's church, the mills, houses, and
barns were in ashes. Except for the shelterless animals that wandered
about close upon starvation, nothing remained. The inhabitants, carrying
with them as many of their household effects as the weather and the
cramped accommodations of the ships would permit, had gone. A pitiful
season followed. The pathetic scenes of the deportation are almost
indescribable. Through military necessity, perhaps fear of
insubordination, parent was separated from child, lover from lover,
brother from brother. As many as possible were loaded immediately upon
the waiting vessels. Six hundred and fifty were quartered about the
villages of the Le Blancs, three hundred of whom were embarked in
December. A week later, the remainder were sent off, and the houses they
had occupied destroyed. The church which the soldiers had used as
quarters was probably the last building to stand.