|
an ACADIAN EXILE article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, March 30, 1999
Saint-Domingue was nearly slave-labor camp
Acadians endured forced labor to receive land grants
by Jim Bradshaw
At the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, Etienne-Francois de Choiseul, the French minister in charge or rebuilding its overseas empire, looked for colonists to help reinforce its Caribbean possessions. Not many native Frenchmen wanted to go to the tropics, so he thought about the Acadians who were looking for a home.
At first, Some of them were receptive to the idea. They were willing to go practically anywhere that was French and Catholic. Choiseul recruited Acadians not only from those who had been sent to France, but also began to look for potential settlers in the English colonies in North America. Indeed, in September 1764, the French government encouraged French traders who brought rum and molasses from Caribbean to New England to exchange their cargoes for Acadian passengers and for the lumber that would be needed to build homes for them. One of those traders was Captain Hanson, a New York merchant "well known" for his "lucrative smuggling operations and by the supplies which he can furnish in time of war." Hanson was authorized to take aboard "as many Acadians as possible." From September 1764 to January 1765. Hanson's ships transported 418 exiles to Saint-Domingue. It looked like a good deal, until the Acadians got there
As part of his plan to reinforce the islands, Choiseul wanted to build a naval base in northern Saint-Domingue. As Carl Brasseaux points out in his book, "Scattered to the Wind," "The prospective naval base site was situated in the midst of a dense jungle. Just clearing the site would be a long, back-breaking task requiring a large work force." The Acadians who were sent to do the work were treated virtually as slaves.
According to Brasseaux, "The Acadians grudgingly endured their new status as forced laborers only because of their promised land grants which would allow them to reestablish their agrarian way of life. Ill-will between the Acadians and the French administrators, however, became increasingly evident as the project progressed, largely as a result of the officials' arrogance and the conditions the exiles were forced to endure: The settlement's source of drinking water was of dubious salubrity, and, within, a week of their arrival, the exiles were stricken with severe diarrhea ... (soon) many of the Acadians were showing signs of scurvy as a result of their inadequate diet. Health concerns were exacerbated by the occasional reduction of food rations to Acadian children. ... By mid-summer, Acadian children were dying of scurvy, while the local administrator ... 'daily used milk in his coffee.' ... By the beginning of June numerous Acadians had fallen victim to scurvy, malaria, and other tropical diseases. Lacking physicians and hospital, those Acadians contracting disease had little hope of recovery. Seven Acadians are repotted to have died in May and the death toll climbed throughout the summer."
By 1765, The Acadian workers had grown discouraged, and those who could were fleeing the Caribbean, many of them for Louisiana. Those who stayed were still poor, landless, and forced to work as common laborers or, at best, overseers, on lands owned by other people.