|
an ACADIAN EXILE article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (La) The Daily Advertiser, March 30, 1999
Falkland Islands considered as home for Acadians
Three countries claimed right to colonize islands
by Jim Bradshaw
Until 1982, most of the modern world had never heard of the 200 little islands that make up the Falklands, just east of the tip of South America; that was the year Argentina invaded the islands, and Great Britain sent a fleet there in response.
The islands are British now, but 200 years ago they were held by the French, and were considered as a potential home for Acadians.
That was the idea of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a French military officer and explorer who asked the French government for permission to establish a colony there. The government gave him permission, as long as he did it at his own expense, and gave him permission to recruit colonists from among the Acadians in France.
It wasn't the best offer the Acadians ever heard. In September 1763, when Bougainville sailed from France for the South Atlantic, there were only nine Acadian colonists aboard.
His luck changed on his second attempt at recruitment. By the time Bougainville returned to France for more colonists and for supplies, the Acadians had heard of the horrors of the tropics in the Caribbean and Cayenne and looked again at the cooler climate of the Falklands. This time, 80 Acadians sailed with him for his new colony. Another 75 soon followed, but as in 1982, Great Britain didn't like another country attempting to claim the islands, which were regarded as a potentially strategic naval base in those days. Great Britain sent two naval vessels to the island, and Commodore John Byron, claimed the islands for England. He landed on East Falkland Island, a good distance away from the French settlement, and was apparently unaware that the Acadians were there.
Capt. John McBride ,another Englishmen, found the Frenchmen in March1766, when he was exploring the islands in search of a place to establish a British naval base. He marched into the French settlement and demanded that the Acadians leave the islands or face a military invasion.
Title to the islands got even cloudier when Spain claimed them on the basis of their proximity to the Spanish lands in South America. The Spanish officials were a bit more diplomatic. They said the Acadians had to leave, but Bougainville would be compensated for his expense in setting up the colony.
On April 1, 1767, Bougainville transferred the colony to Spain. He read a letter to the Acadians settled there, explaining that they could remain as subjects of his most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain. About 95 families stayed for a while.
But the Falklands were then, as they are now, an inhospitable place. Most of the Acadians quickly gave up the settlement and , according to correspondence in the official archives of France, sailed back to that country in a "more or less miserable state."