|
a ACADIAN REBIRTH article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, April 27, 1999
Hardships did not keep Acadians from coming
by Jim Bradshaw
Despite the sickness and hardships found when they settled in Louisiana, Acadians continued to arrive. Many of them wanted simply to escape English rule, others hoped that they would be reunited with friends and family whom they had not seen since their expulsion from Acadie.
They continued to arrive penniless, sick, and near starvation. In a letter written Sept. 29, 1776 to Jeronimo Grimaldi, Gov. Antonio de Ulloa described the arrival of a group of Acadians from Maryland.
An English sloop carrying the French Acadian families arrived here on the twenty-eight. After a voyage of three months-since June 26, when it departed Maryland, New England-it brought 224 men, women, and children, 150 in the last two categories. During the voyage fourteen died and three (others died) after they had (arrived at Balise at the mouth of the Mississippi River) and obtained some provisions. Three of them were born during the trip and two more have died (while the ship sailed upriver to New Orleans). Because these people arrived in misery and in great need, they were helped immediately, by order of the French general (Charles-Philippe Aubry) and myself,... given drinks and biscuits which had been reserved for the first needy who might arrive; I also gave them a bull and a calf, which I had brought from up-river for consumption by myself and my companions. I did so the same night in which the boat carrying them was discovered. The shipmaster assured me that as soon as they received the animals, they killed them and ate the meat raw. The sloop continued upstream until it joined the boats that had been summoned... so that they could be transferred and then taken to New Orleans.
The arrival of these people, together with those of the same nationality who are already here and with those who may come, is a source of great embarrassment for me, as it would be for any other ruler, because as soon as they arrived, we must spend money on them, give them what they need, and continue doing so until they have a way to support themselves, which requires at least two years. To settle them we must provide them with arms and ammunition, tools, etc. Widows and orphans have to be furnished everything, and all of them need a physician , medicines and food. In the first two years after their arrival, many fall sick and the number of deaths is large, as is the case now, and having no orders from His Majesty, we do not know what to do: On one one hand, we are motivated by charity and obligation to hospitality, because if they are not helped, they will inevitably die; and , on the other, we are duty-bound not to use money for ends that are not authorized by royal decree, so we are uncertain about what course to take.
My thoughts on this matter always lead to the conclusion that I previously explained to Your Excellence. If it is His Majesty's desire to preserve the colony as a buffer for the kingdoms of New Spain, because he considers it advantageous or the surest means of safeguarding them, without expecting any kind of profit, now or later, then it should be populated, and, to do this, it is necessary to spend large sums and to do so immediately. If His Majesty believes that the colony may be commercially valuable to his royal treasury or to his vassals in the future, then, of course, it should be reconsidered. ... The increasing number of Acadians that may come, once settled, will get by if they are helped, but that is all, since they are not capable of cultivating indigo or tobacco unless they have sufficient Negroes to do so. They are reduced to having a few head of cattle and to cultivating grain and roots for their own consumption with which they will enrich themselves, but will not enrich the colony or expand its trade, which will never be anything but wood, indigo of the worst quality, and tobacco in small qualities and of mediocre quality. The increasing number of ships that come here from France and that have traded with Saint-Domingue and Martinique have carried back nothing but this and what the illicit commerce with our ports has produced.