THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR AND THE STORY OF THE ACADIANS
HAVE any of my young readers read the beautiful poem of "Evangeline,"
written by the poet Longfellow? Very likely it is too old for you,
though the time will come when you will read it and enjoy it greatly.
Evangeline was a pretty and pious woman who lived in a French settlement
called Acadia, on the Atlantic coast. You will not find this name on any
of your maps, but must look for Nova Scotia, by which name Acadia is now
known. The story of Evangeline tells us about the cruel way in which the
poor Acadians were treated by the English. It is a sad and pathetic
story, as you will see when you have read it.
It was one of the wicked results of the war between the French and the
English. There were many cruel deeds in this war, and the people who
suffered the most were those who had the least to do with the fighting.
In one place a quiet, happy family of father, mother and children,
living on a lonely farm, and not dreaming of any danger, suddenly hear
the wild war-whoop of the Indians, and soon see their doors broken open
and their house blazing, and are carried off into cruel captivity--those
who are not killed on the spot. In another place all the people of a
village are driven from their comfortable homes by soldiers and forced
to wander and beg their bread in distant lands. And all this takes place
because the kings of England and France, three thousand miles away, are
quarreling about some lands which do not belong to either of them. If
those who brought on wars had to suffer for them they would soon come to
an end. But they revel and feast in their splendid palaces while poor
and innocent people endure the suffering. The war that began in the
wilds of western Pennsylvania, between the French and Indians and the
English lasted seven years, from 1754 to 1761. During that time there
were many terrible battles, and thousands of soldiers were killed, and
there was much suffering and slaughter among the people, and burning of
houses, and destruction of property, and horrors of all sorts.
It is called the French and Indian War, because there were many Indians
on the side of the French. There were some on the side of the English,
also. Indians are very savage and cruel in their way of fighting, as you
already know. I shall have to tell you one instance of their love of
bloodshed. One of the English forts, called Fort William Henry, which
stood at the southern end of Lake George, had to surrender to the
French, and its soldiers were obliged to march out and give up their
guns.
There were a great many Indians with the French, and while the prisoners
stood outside the fort, without a gun in their hands, the savage men
attacked them and began to kill them with knives and tomahawks. The
French had promised to protect them, but they stood by and did nothing
to stop this terrible slaughter, and many of the helpless soldiers were
murdered. Others were carried off by the Indians as prisoners. It was
the most dreadful event of the whole cruel war.
I must now ask you to look on a map of the State of New York, if you
have any. There you will find the Hudson River, and follow it up north
from the city of New York, past Albany, the capital of the state, until
it ends in a region of mountains. Near its upper waters is a long,
narrow lake named Lake George, which is full of beautiful islands. North
of that is a much larger lake named Lake Champlain, which reaches up
nearly to Canada.
The British had forts on the Hudson River and Lake George and the French
on Lake Champlain, and also between the two lakes, where stood the
strong Fort Ticonderoga. It was around these forts and along these
lakes that most of the fighting took place. For a long time the French
had the best of it. The British lost many battles and were driven back.
But they had the most soldiers, and in the end they began to defeat the
French and drive them back, and Canada became the seat of war. But let
me tell you the story of the Acadians.
Acadia was a country which had been settled by the French a long, long
time before, away back in 1604, before there was an English settlement
in America. Captain John Smith, you know, came to America in 1607, three
years afterwards. Acadia was a very fertile country, and the settlers
planted fields of grain and orchards of apples and other fruits, and
lived a very happy life, with neat houses and plenty of good food, and
in time the whole country became a rich farming land.
But the British would not let these happy farmers alone. Every time
there was trouble with the French, soldiers were sent to Acadia. It was
captured by the British in 1690, but was given back to France in 1697,
when that war ended. It was taken again by the British in the war that
began in 1702, and this time it was not given back. Even its name of
Acadia was taken away, and it was called Nova Scotia, which is not
nearly so pretty a name.
Thus it was that, when the new war with France began, Acadia was held
as a province of Great Britain. To be sure the most of its people were
descended from the old French settlers and did not like their British
masters, but they could not help themselves, and went on farming in
their old fashion. They were ignorant, simple-minded countrymen, who
looked upon France as their country, and were not willing to be British
subjects.
That is the way with the French. It is the same to-day in Canada, which
has been a colony of Great Britain for nearly a century and a half. The
descendants of the former French still speak their old language and love
their old country, and now sometimes fight the British with their votes
as they once did with their swords.
The British did not hold the whole of Acadia. The country now called New
Brunswick, which lies north of Nova Scotia, was part of it, and was
still held by the French. In 1755 the British government decided to
attempt the capture of this country, and sent out soldiers for that
purpose. Fighting began, but the French defended themselves bravely, and
the British found they had a hard task to perform.
What made it worse for them was that some of the Acadians, who did not
want to see the British succeed, acted as spies upon them, and told the
French soldiers about their movements, so that the French were
everywhere ready for them. And the Acadians helped the French in other
ways, and gave the British a great deal of trouble.
This may have been wrong, but it was natural. Every one feels like
helping his friends against his enemies. But you may be sure that it
made the British very angry, and in the end they took a cruel
resolution. This was to send all the Acadians away from their native
land to far-off, foreign countries. It was not easy to tell who were
acting as spies, so the English government ordered them all to be
removed. They were told they might stay if they would swear to be true
subjects of the king of England, but this the most of them would not do,
for they were French at heart, and looked on King Louis of France as
their true and rightful ruler.
Was not this very cruel? There were hundreds of boys and girls like
yourselves among these poor Acadians, who had happy homes, and loved to
work and play in their pretty gardens and green fields, and whose
fathers and mothers did no harm to any one. But because a few busy men
gave news to the French, all of these were to be torn from their
comfortable homes and sent far away to wander in strange lands, where
many of them would have to beg for bread. It was a heartless act, and
the world has ever since said so, and among all the cruel things the
British have done, the removal of the Acadians from their homes is
looked upon as one of the worst.
When soldiers are sent to do a cruel thing they are very apt to do it in
the most brutal fashion. The Acadians did not know what was to be done.
It was kept secret for fear they might run away and hide. A large number
of soldiers were sent out, and they spread like a net over a wide
stretch of country. Then they marched together and drove the people
before them. The poor farmers might be at their dinners or working in
their fields, but they were told that they must stop everything and
leave their homes at once, for they were to be sent out of the country.
Just think of it! What a grief and terror they must have been in!
They were hardly given time to gather the few things they could carry
with them, and on all sides they were driven like so many sheep to the
seaside town of Annapolis, to which ships had been brought to carry them
away. More than six thousand of these unhappy people, old and young,
men, women and little ones, were gathered there; many of them weeping
bitterly, many more with looks of despair on their faces, all of them
sad at heart and very likely wishing they were dead.
Around them were soldiers to keep them from running away. They were made
to get on the ships in such haste that families were often separated,
husband and wife, or children and their mothers, being put on different
ships and sent to different places. And for fear that some of them might
come back again their houses were burned and their farms laid waste.
Many of them went to the French settlements in Louisiana, and others to
other parts of America. Poor exiles! they were scattered widely over the
earth. Some of them in time came back to their loved Acadia, but the
most of them never saw it again. It was this dreadful act about which
Longfellow wrote in his poem of Evangeline.
Now I must tell you how the French and Indian War ended. The French had
two important cities in Canada, Montreal and Quebec. Quebec was built on
a high and steep hill and was surrounded by strong walls, behind which
were more than eight thousand soldiers. It was not an easy city to
capture.
A large British fleet was sent against it, and also an army of eight
thousand men, under General Wolfe. For two or three months they fired at
the city from the river below, but the French scorned them from their
steep hill-top. At length General Wolfe was told of a narrow path by
which he might climb the hill. One dark night he tried it, and by
daybreak a large body of men had reached the hill-top, and had dragged
up a number of cannon with them.
When the French saw this they were frightened. They hurried out of the
city, thinking they could drive the English over the precipice before
any more of them got up. They were mistaken in this. The English met
them boldly, and in the battle that followed they gained the victory and
Quebec fell into their hands.
General Wolfe was mortally wounded, but when he was told that the French
were in flight, he said: "God be praised! I die happy."
Montcalm, the French general, also fell wounded. When he knew that he
must die he said: "So much the better; I shall not live to see the
surrender of Quebec."
The next year Montreal was taken, and the war ended. And in the treaty
of peace France gave up all her colonies in America. England got Canada
and Spain got Louisiana. All North America now belonged to two nations,
England and Spain.