|
an ACADIAN EXILE article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, March 30, 1999
Governor didn't know what to do with Acadians
Ulloa gave them immediate aid but later quarreled with exiles
by Jim Bradshaw
The Acadians began arriving in large numbers in Louisiana at an awkward time in the colony's history. Some Acadians made it here as early as 1756. But most of them came later, during a period when France had given Louisiana to Spain. At the time, Spain had not yet actually begun to govern here.
Neither the French officials who governed in the interim period while the colony was changing hands, not the Spanish governor who finally cam to take charge knew just what to do with the new arrivals.
Charles Aubry, military commander in Louisiana, wrote in May 14, 1763,"When I saw the arrival of 60 Acadian families form Saint-Domingue, I did not foresee the many others who were to follow and who keep arriving and who will make Louisiana a new Acadia. At this instant, I learned that there are 300 on the river (Mississippi)... men, women, and children... We do not speak of them in hundreds anymore, but thousands. I am told that there are at least 4,000 who have picked Louisiana as their destiny after an erratic ten years. ...This unexpected event puts me ... in the greatest difficulty. Nothing was foreseen to settle so many people; and the circumstances we find ourselves in are, to say the least, critical. Never was the colony so short of food as it is today. ... To add to the problem, they have brought smallpox with them which will afflict our colony with a new plague. However, under such circumstances, it is our duty not to abandon them."
On May 9, 1766, Gov. Antonio Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, informed his superiors about the Acadians.
"A large number of Acadians have come to this colony," Ulloa wrote. "Many other have gone to Saint-Domingue and Martinique, and all have traveled aboard English ships, without that nation's opposition, when they were charted with funds earned during the war. Those who come here are being settled in an area ten leagues above the capital. ... Each of them has been assigned land and housing, given tools so they can work the land, and some provisions, though only in small quantities. Consequently, many of them have died in misery because there was not enough food. ...The French leaders have aided them as much as possible, assigning them two leaders to govern and guide them, but, since this does not provide their daily bread and shelter, we lose in those who die what is gained in those who come to increase the population.
"To ensure their survival," the governor continued, "we should provide each family with a Negro, a pair of oxen, and the necessary tools to cultivate the land; sufficient provisions for a year and seed for planting, maintaining a record of the latter so that (the government) may be reimbursed as (the Acadians) become self-sufficient, even if they pay with foodstuff, because here everything is money. In this way, many would come without being called and, according to what the leaders tell me, they are people who deserve any assistance because of their morality, piety, and industriousness, since they actually work themselves to death before being able to enjoy the fruits of their labors."
"By way pf aid, these unfortunate Acadians have asked me for two pounds of gunpowder per person in order to be able to subsist by hunting; and...I would give it to them if I had enough to do so, but, since there are so many of them and since I have so little gunpowder, I cannot deal as I would like with such a demand. I shall not leave them disconsolate. I am thus giving them all I can after having satisfied the Indians. ...Gunpowder and ammunition are more valuable than silver here, for many of the retired offices' salaries in this post are paid with it; thus the more gunpowder we receive, the less money we need."
Ten days later, on May 19, Ulloa wrote, "The Acadians established in this colony unanimously agree that seven to ten thousand families in the English colonies with to come here, as soon as they are given the necessary protection, to enjoy religion, and rid themselves of English rule. Acadian emigration will not displease the (English), nor will the English consider stopping it, because those who have come have been provided passports and ships by the British government." Six months later, on Sept. 28, and English ship from Maryland docked in New Orleans with another 234 Acadians aboard, including 150 women and children. They were penniless, starving, and scared.
Ulloa did what he could for them. He wrote in his journal, "Since these people arrived consumed in wretchedness and in the greatest possible need, through the orders of the French General (Aubry) and mine they were helped immediately with fresh bread and biscuits which had been prepared for the first needy ones who might arrive. I ordered that an ox and a calf, which I had sent for ... my own consumption...be given to them. This was done on the same night that they encountered the launch which was transporting them, and pilot assured me that immediately upon receiving these animals they slaughtered them and ate the meat raw."
Ulloa provided the aid on his own authority. He didn't know what the position of official Spain might be. On Sept. 29, he sent a letter to ask his superiors in Spain for instructions.
"The arrival of these people," he wrote, "together with those of the same kind who were already in the colony and others who might come, is a very great problem for me and for anyone else who might govern because from the moment they arrive it is necessary to spend money on them in providing the necessities of life and to continue to do so until they have a way to subsist by themselves, which takes at least two years."
"In order for them to establish themselves," Ulloa continued, "it is necessary to provide them with arms and ammunition, tools and everything else. It is necessary to give widows and orphans everything and to provide them all a surgeon, medicines, and special diets, since shortly after their arrival and in the first two years they become ill a great deal and a high number of them die."
"On the one hand, one is moved by charity and the obligations of hospitality," the governor wrote, :for ig one fails to help them they will without doubt perish; and on the other hand one is pressed by obligation not to use funds for purposes which are not determined by royal decision."
Luckily, Spain recognized the value of Acadian settlers in Louisiana. She needed warm bodies to populate the colony. The Acadians knew how to build dikes that would hold back the Mississippi River and knew how to reclaim homelands for farms and pastures. Their farms could help fed a growing New Orleans.
Ulloa also thought that the Acadians would be good soldiers, and that was important, he said, "...in this colony which must always depend upon the settlers for its defenses."
Ulloa sent some of the Acadians to St. James Parish. Others were sent farther up the Mississippi River to its junction with Bayou Manchac, were they built a fort and town called St. Gabriel de Manchac. Each family was given some land, six hens, a rooster, a cow and calf, corn, gunpowder, bullets, and a musket.
Ulloa's successors sent later Acadian emigres to other communities in an attempt to place settlements strategically along the Mississippi and some of its tributaries. Some Acadians were sent down Bayou Manchac to Galveztown, southeast of Baton Rouge and midway between Lake Manchac and the Mississippi River, which was abandoned in the 1800's. Others went to French Settlement, also in the Bayou Manchac area, and to Lafourche des Chetimachas, the junction of the Mississippi River and Bayou Lafourche where Donaldsonville is today. A new settlement was established down Bayou Lafourche at Valenzuela, which is now Plattenville.