Just the facts, man

In a previous posting, I talked about the stance taken by Daniel N. Paul, author of We Were Not The Savages concerning relations between the British and the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia. Perhaps a little more context is in order.

I was “inspired” to write the preceding post after reading a series of letters published in the Chronicle Herald, a Halifax newspaper. In its Jan. 29, 2010, edition, the Chronicle Herald published a letter in which D.L. Nicholson, who says he is a descendant of a certain Charles Morris, said Morris’s residence in Halifax should be preserved as a historic site even though Mr. Morris had played a part in the Deportation of the Acadians. He was reacting to another descendant of Charles Morris who held the opposite view and had stated his case on a local radio station. Nicholson’s main point was that history should be preserved whether the events recalled are good or bad. As two examples, he noted the Auschwitz concentration camp and the monument to Edward Cornwallis, founder of Halifax, who offered a bounty for the scalps of Mi’kmaq when he was Governor of Nova Scotia in colonial times.

To this, a certain Eric Hamblin sent in a letter of his own, which was published Feb. 3. Among his statements: “Edward Cornwallis offered the ‘scalping bounty’ after Indians had descended upon a family of settlers in Dartmouth and had scalped the lot. It was rough justice of an eye-for-an-eye type that the Indians appreciated.”

This moved Daniel N. Paul to react with a more condensed version of what I wrote in previous post. From his letter, published Feb. 8: “During a time of war, to allow men to go into the woods unprotected bespeaks of military incompetence. To react by placing a bounty on the heads of a race of people, including innocent women and children, is barbarism in the extreme.”

Paul goes on to say that British Crown officials issued hundreds of scalping proclamations throughout their colonies in North America, and this led to the extinction of countless tribes.

Going back to Hamblin’s letter, he also contends that France had “transferred power in Canada” to the British after the battle of the Plains of Abraham, and that one of the consequences of this transfer was the expulsion of the Acadians. He says, “It was the normal practice of the victors in such conflicts to demand that inhabitants give allegiance to the new rulers. The Acadians refused.” He adds that “after due notice of the consequences of their refusal, they were shipped off to Louisiana.”

He ends by saying “... let’s not confuse the facts with what we would like them to have been.”

In the Feb. 8 edition, Zach Chisholm points out numerous instances where Hamblin got his “facts” entirely wrong. First, he notes that “Canada” (New France, actually) was not ceded to Britain until 1763, through the Treaty of Paris. He adds that the Acadian Deportation started in 1755, well before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, and by the time Canada was ceded, most Acadians had already been deported.

Chisholm adds that Acadia was captured in 1710, and the Deportation started nearly 45 years later. Furthermore, Acadians who settled in Louisiana did so on their own. During the Deportation, they were sent to the New England colonies, for the most part, while others wound up in English internment camps, and others in France.

I sent in my own contribution which, as far as I know, was never published. Here is a condensed version of that letter after removing the arguments already presented – very competently, I might add – by Chisholm.

When the Deportation occurred, almost 42 years after the British officially took over the colony, most Acadians living at the time had actually been born in what the British themselves considered British territory. Therefore, the British deported people born on British soil without benefit of a trial. Whether their parents and grandparents swore allegiance or not is irrelevant. The Acadians, especially those aged 40 and under in 1755, were not foreigners, at least not any more so than the English settlers who followed.

A little footnote from Wikipedia: When the Treaty of Paris was being worked out France had to choose between holding on to New France or its Caribbean colonies. France chose the Caribbean colonies, probably because of their easily exploitable natural resources and also because defending the Caribbean colonies would be easier than defending New France against the prosperous British colonies.