|
an ACADIAN EXILE article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, March 30, 1999
Some Exiles were first sent to Georgia
by Jim Bradshaw
One of the Acadian names found in Rev. Ebenezer Parkman's diary is that of "Jacques Maurice," who was in Leicester, Mass., in November 1757. His real last name was Vigneau.
According to research published in the French Canadian and Acadian Genealogical Review, "It is impossible to know if this was the father or the son, because both had the same name...(and) both were at Leicester. This family nicknamed Maurice because the first Vigneau Sr.. (who) settled at Beaubassin, where at the time of the expulsion he was a merchant at Bair Verte." Some of these families dropped the name Vigneaux and adopted the surname Maurice. Some of these, particularly those who remained in Massachusetts, further changed the name and anglicized it to Morris.
"These families," the report continues, "were among the 400 Acadians from Beaubassin who landed (in) November 1755 at Savannah, Georgia, governor (Charles) Lawrence (of Nova Scotia), considering them as 'guilty of rebellion,' (and) having asked that they be sent as far south as possible. (In Georgia) they were sent on the plantation to work with the Negro slaves. Having built rough boats, they left in early Spring of 1756, with 'a pass from Governor (John) Reynolds of Georgia attesting their good behavior,' for their beloved Acadie, where some of them arrived during the summer and landed at the Ile St Jean, but only to be deported again... in 1758. The others were intercepted before reaching Acadia, some on Long Island, N.Y., some on Cape Cod (who were) permitted to stay in Massachusetts, (among them) members of the Vigneau family."
According to research in the Review, Jacques Vigneau led the first party of about 150 Acadians out of Georgia.
Research also showed that Massachusetts authorities let the Acadians stay, but kept the boats that they came in.
The Acadians fleeing Georgia arrived in Charleston, S.C., on March 29, 1756, and, according to a contemporary history, "A pilot was provided for them from Charles Town to Cape Fear (North Carolina). Some of the Acadians in Charles Town having proposed to go along with the Morris party, they were encouraged to do so, and Governor Glen requested provisions for them as well as a pilot."
These Acadians landed near Monument Beach on the eastern shore of the point of land that streches out into the Atlantic between Cape Cod Bay and Nantucket Sound, then carried their boats across the isthmus toward Cape Cod. It is not clear whether they surrendered voluntarily to authorities in Massachusetts or whether they were taken into custody.
According to a letter dated July 23, 1756, from an official in Boston to Gov. Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia, "I have just received information that seven boats with about ninety of the French inhabitants of Nova Scotia having coasted along shore of Georgia or South caroling whither they had been sent from your Government had put into harbor in the southern part of this province, I have hereupon ordered their persons and boats to be secured and three or four of them sent to Boston in order to be examined."
According to the Review, documents in the Massachusetts Archives show that in December 1758, Jacques Vigneau dit Maurice asked the Massachusetts government for some money, because "When he came into this Province, he brought with him a Number of Boats which were afterwards by an Order of the Honorable Court taken out of his hands, and sold by a Committee of the General Court." He said he never got the money.
A year later, on Jan. 5, 1759, the Massachusetts House of Representatives resolved that "There be allowed to be paid out of the public treasury to Jacques Morris (sic) the sum of seven pounds eight shillings and two pence, being the nett (sic) proceeds paid by Roland Cotton Esq. into the Treasury on Sales of Certain Canoes in which the said Jacques Morris and Others came to this Province from some of His Majesty's Southern Governments."
A few of the Acadians remained in Georgia, and some of them developed skills required by the local plantation and shipping industries. According to research by Carl Brasseaux, "The oaks and pikes that they manufactured were even reportedly exported to the a West Indies. Most of the remaining Acadians (in Georgia), however, remained mired in dire poverty. Thus lacking the resources to leave, they appear to have remained in the Georgia coastal region until the 1763 Treaty of Paris... (after which) most of the surviving Georgia Acadians appear to have... migrated to ... Saint-Domingue