|
an ACADIAN EXILE article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, March 30, 1999
Cayenne was too hot for Cajuns
by Jim Bradshaw
In December 1762, Etienne-Francois de Choiseul, who was French Minister of the Navy and Colonies, ordered provincial officials to try to convince Acadians scattered throughout France to go to Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean or to Cayenne (now called French Guiana) in South American.
He particularly wanted settlers for Cayenne and promised the Acadians that they would be given land and money if they went. Only about 100 Acadians who found their way back to the settlements of St. Pierre and Miquelon, small islands in the North Atlantic, south of Newfoundland, that were still held by France. Most of these exiles escaped from Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Choiseul's agents on St. Pierre and Miquelon were Acadians named Perrault and Maurice, who were selected by the governor to urge their confreres to migrate to Guiana.
On Sept. 16, 1764, forty Acadians at Miquelon signed a letter to Perrault, telling him why they were not interested in moving to the tropics. Here are excerpts form that letter.
Sir,
We have been honored by your letter in which you describe the great opportunity afforded by the French minister's offer to colonize Cayenne. Although the plan appears on the surface to offer advantages, we beg you, Sir, to consider the following facts:
(Settlement in) a hot climate, such as that of Cayenne might be a costly mistake, as costly as when the British forcibly transported our people to subtropical lands. These were exceedingly warm in comparison with the temperate climate of North America, which we consider to be healthier for us, since it is the climate of our native country.
We value our lives more than the advantages offered us in the proposal. Regardless of the threats to force our acceptance, we will never agree to leave this climate. This sentiment is shared by all of our people, who now exist in small numbers. We have lost a large number of our people to hunger, prison, and abuse from the English, who hoped we would join their side and renounce our feelings for our fatherland has endured all the pains wrought by the fetters and the harsh treatment suffered at the hands of the enemy. Thus, the few of us who have survived the many ills inflicted on us and who have returned to the bosom of our mother country hope that our father, our good French king, will be disposed to treat us as his poor children and faithful subjects.
We also hope that he will not compel us to move to a place where the climate is so completely different from the climate of our native land. To the contrary, we hope that through his goodness he will send us help necessary to insure our survival. We will unceasingly ask God to bless our good monarch and his empire, and we will await the opportunity to shed our blood as our forefathers did in his defense. We are ready to do this a thousand times over. These are our current feelings on this subject, and we trust that our good French king will not hold it against us, since we are not doing anything against his will, and since he never intended to force anyone to go to Cayenne.