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| Once the Seven Years War was over (1763),
France turned its attention to building up their surviving colonies.
One of its colonies was Saint Domingue, and island in the Caribbean.
The Rochette correspondence that was sent to England made its way to the Acadians in the American colonies, and they subsequently petitioned Louis XV for repatriation to France. Thinking of building his colonial population, the king instructed the governors of Saint Domingue and Martinique to send ships to the American colonies (especially to New York and Boston) to pick up Acadians. The British government, however, refused to allow the Acadians to leave. But the Acadians still made their way to the French Antilles. They would secretly board merchant ships in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts and sail to the Caribbean. By September 1764, they were regularly bringing molasses and rum and exchanging them for Acadians and lumber. The French government actually hired a recruiting agent in New York. The man, named Hanson, circulated a proclamation by the governor of Saint Domingue offering to pay for the trip and to give them land and goods until they could take care of themselves. What the Acadians didn’t know was that they were headed for a work camp. The governor wanted manpower to construct a naval base at Mole Saint Nicolas. Some Acadians traveled to Saint Domingue from France in 1763-64. But most (hundreds) of them came from the American colonies. There would have been even more, but Hanson was asking the Acadians for large sums of money to book their passage, even though the Saint Domingue government had already reimbursed him for the cost of the trip. Most of the Acadians did not have that kind of money. From Jan. 23, 1764 to Jan. 26, 1765, 418 Acadians were sent to Mole Saint Nicolas by Hanson. They found that they had to clear a jungle and build a naval base in return for a little land, food, clothing, and tents. But the French didn’t supply a proper ration of food, and many Acadians died of malnutrition and tropical diseases. They protested, but to no avail. Still more Acadians were arriving in 1764-65, stretching the rations even furthers. The colony just couldn’t care for all of its new citizens. By the beginning of 1765, the 938 Acadians who had arrived at Mole Saint Nicolas in 1764 had dwindled down to 677. In 1765, German settlers arrived and the situation got worse. Beginning in August 1765, they began asking governor d’Estaing to leave Mole Saint Nicolas. Some were allowed to leave, while others deserted to other parts of the island. Those who decided to stay were able to start small farms, build a home, and find employment as laboreres, carpenters, and masons. Besides Mole Saint Nicolas, Acadians were settled in other areas of Saint Domingue. In August 1764, 180 Acadians settled at Mirebalais. The local planters objected to giving them land, so the Acadians worked on existing plantations as laborers and managers. They lived in communities such as Montagne Terrible, the Capuchin canton, and Boucan Carre. Some Saint Domingue Acadians made their way to Louisiana, but we don’t know how many. They had urged the Halifax Acadians to come down to the island, where they would join them in travelling to Illinois. But by the time The Halifax Acadians got there, the Acadians on the island couldn’t afford to make the trip. So they probably merged in with the other Saint Domingue people. When the Haitian revolution occurred in the 1790’s, some of the inhabitants (probably including some Acadians) migrated to the eastern U.S. In 1809, some 10,000 people from Saint Domingue migrated to New Orleans via Cuba. But most of them stayed in New Orleans. Any Acadians in this group probably merged into the mixture of New Orleans’ melting pot. A good resource for material is "The Acadians in St. Domingo: 1764-1789" by Gabriel Debien in The Cajuns: Essays on Their History and Culture. |
 The
1755 Exile
The
1758 Exile
The
"End" of
the Exile |
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St. Domingue | Martinique | French Guiana | Falkland Islands | St. Pierre & Miquelon | Louisiana American Colonies: Connecticut | Georgia | Maryland | Massachusetts | New York | Pennsylvania | South Carolina |
The artwork by Robert Dafford is placed at this
web site by his permission.
The artwork by Nelson Surette is placed at
this web site by permission of Chez
Surette Art®.
Thanks to these talented gentlemen for allowing me
to share their work.
Copyright © 1997-99 Tim Hebert