Prior to 1758, Acadians were deported to the Thirteen Colonies, then later transported to either Britain or France. Of an estimated 14,100 Acadians, approximately 11,500 were deported, of whom 5,000 died of disease, starvation or shipwrecks. Their land was given to settlers loyal to Britain, mostly immigrants from New England and Scotland. The event is largely regarded as a crime against humanity, though the modern-day use of the term "genocide" is debated by scholars.^[7][e] A census of 1764 indicates 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony, having eluded capture.^[9]


In 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the British captured Port Royal, the capital of Acadia. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded the territory to Great Britain while allowing the Acadians to keep their lands. Reluctant to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain, over the following decades some participated in French military operations and helped maintain supply lines to the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Beauséjour.^[10] As a result, the British sought to eliminate any future military threat posed by the Acadians and to permanently cut the supply lines they provided to Louisbourg by removing them from the area.^[11]


Without differentiating between those who had remained neutral and those who took up arms, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered all Acadians to be expelled.^[f] In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British North American colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, and from there a significant number migrated to Spanish Louisiana, where "Acadians" eventually became "Cajuns". Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island), and Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island). During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported.


Along with the British achieving their military goals of destroying the fortress of Louisbourg and weakening the Mi'kmaq and Acadian militias, the result of the Expulsion was the devastation of both a primarily civilian population and the economy of the region. Thousands of Acadians died in the expulsions, mainly from diseases and drowning when ships were lost. On July 11, 1764, the British government passed an order-in-council to permit Acadians to return to British territories in small isolated groups, provided that they take an unqualified oath of allegiance. Today Acadians live primarily in eastern New Brunswick and some regions of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec and northern Maine. American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the expulsion in the popular 1847 poem, Evangeline, about the plight of a fictional character, which spread awareness of the expulsion.

Commemorations[edit]

In 1847, the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a long, narrative poem about the expulsion of the Acadians titled Evangeline, in which he depicts the plight of the fictional character Evangeline.^[118] The poem became popular and made the expulsion well known. The Evangeline Oak is a tourist attraction in Louisiana.


The song "Acadian Driftwood", recorded in 1975 by The Band, portrays the Great Upheaval and the displacement of the Acadian people.^[119]


Antonine Maillet wrote a novel, called Pélagie-la-Charrette, about the aftermath of the Great Upheaval. It was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1979.


Grand-Pré Park is a National Historic Site of Canada situated in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, and preserved as a living monument to the expulsion. It contains a memorial church and a statue of Evangeline, the subject of Longfellow's poem.


The song "Lila" by The Brothers Creeggan was written to commemorate the expulsion of the Acadians, and was specifically inspired by the Evangeline statue in Grand-Pré. The song was included on their 2000 album Trunks.^[120]


The song "1755" was composed by American Cajun fiddler and singer Dewey Balfa and performed on his 1987 album Souvenirs, and later covered by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys on their 1994 live album.


According to Acadian historian Maurice Basque, the story of Evangeline continues to influence historic accounts of the deportation, emphasising neutral Acadians and de-emphasising those who resisted British America.^[116] In 2018, Canadian historian and novelist A. J. B. Johnston published a YA novel entitled The Hat, inspired by what happened at Grand-Pré in 1755.^[121]


In December 2003, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, representing Queen Elizabeth II (Canada's head of state), acknowledged the expulsion but did not apologize for it. She designated July 28 as "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval".^[122] This proclamation, officially the Royal Proclamation of 2003, closed one of the longest cases in the history of the British courts, initiated in 1760 when the Acadian representatives first presented their grievances of forced dispossession of land, property and livestock. December 13, the date on which the Duke William sank, is commemorated as Acadian Remembrance Day.^[123]


There is a museum dedicated to Acadian history and culture, with a detailed reconstruction of the Great Uprising, in Bonaventure, Quebec.^[124]