For the first 10 years of the exile (1755-1764), there is no documentation that Acadians made their way to Louisiana.  In this period, they were still in French Canada, the American colonies, England, and France.  It seems as though they were still anticipating the return of their homeland.  Some tried to return even before the war was over, but they were often put into "prison camps" near Halifax or deported again. 
     There has been some discussion that a few Acadians made it to Louisiana by land. In Felix Voorhies' book, Acadian Reminiscenses, he relates the story as told to him that some Acadians made their way to Louisiana through the Ohio Valley and down the Mississippi River. A few other families claim that their ancestors made it to Louisiana before 1764, such as the Moutons, but the documentation has yet to be found for such a claim.
     D'Abbadie, the French officer in charge of Louisiana, died on Feb. 4,1765.  The next highest officer, Capt. Charles Philippe Aubry, took charge until Spain sent someone.  The only money in use, French paper money, had gone down in value.  The French government wouldn't redeem it at face value. The Acadians would be arriving to find what paper money they had wasn't being accepted.
    The first Acadians to arrive in the Louisiana territory consisted of 20 people in 4 families who came from New York and arrived in Mobile.  Based on church records, we know that this group included: Joseph BLANCHARD, Jean POIRIER/Madeleine BLANCHARD, Firmin GIROIR, Joseph GUILBEAU, Charles MOUTON, Charles SAVOIE, and Francis SAVOIE.  They made their way to New Orleans, and eventually settled along the Mississippi River on what was to be called the Acadian Coast. 

     In the final week of February, 1765, almost 200 Acadians arrived in New Orleans.  Led by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, they were Acadians who had been kept at Halifax.  After sailing to Santo Domingo, they changed ships and sailed for Louisiana.  Though directed to provided them with the bare essentials, Foucault took pity on them and spent 15,500 livres on food, tools, guns, and construction material for them.  [The Founding of New Acadia, Brasseaux, p. 74]

FIRST CAJUNS  by George Rodrigue

The acting governor, Charles Philippe Aubry, was familiar with their plight, since he had encountered the Acadians a few years earlier when in New England.  He planned to put them on the right bank of the Mississippi River close to New Orleans.  But the area he chose was covered with hardwood forests and was susceptible to flooding.  Clearing the land and building levees would not allow them to begin farming.  So he allowed them to go to the Attakapas region. The following year, a decree was made ordering any new Acadian arrivals to be settled along the Mississippi River.  Due to a couple of reasons, Acadian immigration basically ceased in 1768.  Over 1000 of them had  arrived from 1764 to 1768.  It is probably that a few arrived on various ships in succeeding years.  A few even made it by land.  For example, a small group made their way to Louisiana by way of Texas in 1770.  The next significant arrival of Acadians wouldn't come till 1785.

Background: Non-Acadian Louisiana History of This Period

     South Louisiana, west of the Atchafalaya, was divided into 2 districts.  Named after the Indians of the area, there were the Attakapas area and the Opelousas area.  Each had a military post as its headquarters.  The Attakapas post was around today's St. Martinville.
     Attakapas (named after an Indian tribe ... the man-eaters ... that had since moved out) had been recently settled by a few French families from the Mobile area.  It encompassed some or all of present-day parishes Iberia, Lafayette, St. Martin, St. Mary, and Vermilion.  Crops could be started right away on the prairie lands.  Aubry was also interested in developing cattle farming to provide for New Orleans.  Antoine Bernard Dauterive made a contract with 8 of the Acadians on April 4 to raise cattle.  Dauterive, a retired French officer, and Edouard Masse had obtained a large land grant in 1760 in the region.  The Acadians would supposed to work for him for 6 years; in return, they got the land and half of the increase in livestock. 

     Although the Acadians related that thousands of Acadians would like to relocate in Louisiana, such a mass movement never took place ... due to lack of funds on the part of Acadians in the colonies or the colonial governments' interference ... or both.  Still, more Acadians continued to arrive. 
     The first 20 Acadians (in 1764) were apparently settled at Cabannoce by d’Abbadie.  In May, 80 Acadians from Halifax (and maybe a few from Santo Domingo) were also settled there, though Foucault notes that he had run out of supplies.  Even if he might have wanted to allow them to join their friends and family at Attakapas, he didn't have the supplies and boats to send them there.  Though he did buy 8,890 livres of supplies from local merchants, he wasn't able to send them to Attakapas and settled them along the Mississippi River on the right bank just upriver of the German Coast ... the original area selected for the Acadians.  But in the middle of September (1765), 82 Acadians and the priest (Jean Francois) moved there to avoid the epidemic. 
      In March 1766 a decree from the governor required that future Acadian arrivals be settled along the Mississippi River.  The military engineers would decide where the Acadians were to go. 
      In 1766, 216 Acadians arrived from Halifax. There were 406 who arrived from Maryland from 1767 to 1768.  Commandant Joseph Orieta placed one group of Acadians at St. Gabriel.  The 47 land grants along the east bank of the Mississippi River went from about 2 ½ miles south of the fort down to 6-8 miles away (near today’s Ascension/Iberville border).  Other Acadians were assigned land along the river at San Luis de Natchez, reaching a point about 2 ½ miles south of today’s Vidalia, Louisiana. 
        The problem with the land at St. Gabriel was that it was eroding into the River.  At San Luis, the Acadian lands were open to Indian raids and lacked fresh water.  Dysentery was a common problem.  But the governor (Ulloa) wouldn’t let the Acadians at these two places move.  This perhaps was one of the reasons some Acadians joined in the revolt against Ulloa on Oct. 28, 1768.  (The Founding of New Acadia, Brasseaux, p. 102-3)

    The settlement area on the River became known as the Acadian Coast (in St. James Parish). These first Acadians on the River were mainly from the Cobequid area.  As the population grew, the Acadians took even more land upriver and a second Acadian Coast was formed (in Ascension Parish).  Most of the Acadians who followed the first group were from the Minas/Pisiquid area of Acadia.

     For the first few years, things were good and bad.  The Acadians were given land and supplies. But many died of disease caused by their exile and in becoming acclimated to their new land.  As time went by, they became adjusted to their new land.  The Attakapas Acadians developed ranches.  The Mississippi River Acadians developed farms.

     As previously mentioned, it is thought that small numbers of Acadians made their way to Louisiana between 1768 and 1785.  Some probably found passage on ships.  There is at least one example of Acadians entering Louisiana by land (though it started out as a sea trip). 
     Thirty Acadians sailed from Port Tobacco, Maryland on the schooner Britain for New Orleans on Jan. 5, 1769.  They got to the mouth of the Mississippi by Feb. 21, but they couldn’t travel upriver due to heavy fog.  A strong east wind blew them to Matagorda Bay, Texas, where it was seized by the Spanish.  The crew and passengers were arrested as smugglers and had to work at hard labor in Presidio de La Bahia (today’s Goliad, Texas).  When they were released, they traveled overland to Natchitoches, arriving in late October.  The fellow in charge, Commandant Athanaze Demezieres tried to get them to stay there, but they convinced him otherwise.  The made it to Iberville Parish, and were given land on the west bank of the Mississippi River by mid-April.  A number of these Acadians later moved to the Opelousas area.  (The Founding of New Acadia, Brasseaux, p. 104) 

The Attakapas and Opelousas Acadians Settle In

     Most of these first Acadians at Attakapas were from the Beaubassin area, where they had raised livestock.  So the cattle business was not new to them.  They did even better at it in Louisiana, which had a warmer climate.  By 1771, the average Acadiana in the area had 22 cattle.  He also had 6 horses, a luxury they hadn't  known in Acadia.  By the end of the century, most Acadian ranches had increased their holdings of livestock to over 100 head.  They still raised crops, if only to provide vegetables for their meals.
     Although the Acadians started bringing cattle to New Orleans in the 1770s, they were only bringing the cattle of the larger ranchers.  Amant and Pierre Broussard and a group of assistants started cattle drives to New Orleans along the Old Spanish Trail (down the Colette Trail, then along Bayou Teche, Bayou Black, Bayou Lafourche, and to New Orleans).  The average drive consisted of 100 to 150 cattle.  By the end of the decade, though, they were able to sell some of their own stock.  As the years went by, and the Acadians' herds shot up in number, they were able to bring more of their own cattle to New Orleans.

COURTAINBLEU by Robert Dafford

The Prairie des Courteaux Acadians finally got patents after surveys in 1776 and 1778.  But they were ready to leave, and sold the land to Creole and English settlers.  They moved to Prairie Bellevue, between Bayou Bourbeux on the south to Bayou Silvain on the north.   Prairie Bellevue became the most crowded settlement in the Opelousas district by 1788.  (The Founding of New Acadia, Brasseaux, p. 99)

The Mississippi River Acadians Settle In

     While the Attakapas Acadians were concentrating on raising livestock, their emphasis along the Mississippi River was agriculture.  But the type of crops had to change, given their new climate and conditions.  In Acadia, a typical farm in the Minas area consisted of vegetables, oats, rye, barley, flax, and wheat.  In their new land, the main crops were corn, cotton, and also some rice and tobacco, though a smaller garden of vegetables was kept for household consumption.  But even the types of vegetables had to change.  Turnips and cabbage grown in Acadia were replaced by different types of beans and peas.  Today's okra, a staple of gumbos, didn't come along until the Africans brought it in the 1800s.  Their fruit trees also changed ... from the apple trees of Acadia to peach and fig trees in Louisiana.  Some farms even grew grapes.
     One thing that they weren't used to was clearing forest land.  They weren't able to reclaim salt marshes as they did in Acadia.  So they had to learn to clear land.  That's not to say their land wasn't inundated by water from time to time.  As a condition of the land grants, they had to build levees (about 6' high) and a road along the riverfront.  But the occassional flood swamped their lands.  Not everyone kept up their levees.  This caused some of the Acadian Coast residents to move to the drier Attakapas area.
     Those who stayed learned to change their farming methods.  In Acadia, plows were scarce.  Seeds were sown close to the surface.  But this kind of farming didn't work in Louisiana, where the rains would wash away the seeds.  The Acadians learned that they had to plow the fields and plant the seeds deeper.  This required more oxen. 
     Just as the Acadian ranchers of Attakapas still grew gardens for food, the River Acadians also kept livestock for food.  They took the 7 chickens and 2 cows given to them when they first arrived and expanded their livestock.  They also bought pigs to raise.  In just a few years, most Acadians had at least 2 dozen pigs and a similar number of chickens.
     The average Acadian maintained a small farm.  They were called petits habitants.  He made enough to feed his family.  But he only grew enough crops so that money could be raised to buy items they couldn't grow or make themselves. 
     Just as the Attakapas Acadians began selling cattle to New Orleans, the River Acadians sold their produce.  But they also found another market for their goods.  The government in New Orleans had set low prices for goods.  The Acadians found that they could travel to the Manchac and sell to the English at much better prices (though against the law).  They were used to this, as they had engaged in such illegal trade in old Acadia.

The Revolutionary War

     Spain became an ally of the American Colonies during the American Revolution.  The Acadians didn't mind being on the side of the enemies of England and a number of them joined the Spanish militia.  You can find some of the militia lists at the Cajun Genealogy section.
     As a result of wartime activities, Galvez took British West Florida.  Needless to say, trading at the Manchac slacked off at this time!   The English were no longer at Manchac, and the Acadians had to sell their goods at the lower New Orleans prices.

     This is an abbreviated version of the historical happenings in Louisiana while the Acadians were getting established in Louisiana.  The new Spanish governor Ulloa finally arrived, with 90 soldiers, on March 5, 1766.  But Ulloa left N.O., without even taking down the French flag, and Aubry was still basically in charge.  [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 137]
     Ulloa was told by Spain to allow Louisiana to stay as French as possible.  He and Aubry visited the interior settlements.  Then Ulloa went to Balize in September and "governed" from there.  He started making rules that upset the locals ... such as only Spanish ships could be used in commerce and trade was restricted to Spanish ports (so no French wine, etc.)    He and Aubry signed a deal in 1767 that they would rule jointly (until Spanish troops could arrive).  He married down in Balize and ingnored the New Orleans social crowd, which upset them.  [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 138-9]
     Finally the native population were tired of Ulloa and his rules and a revolt took place on October 28, 1768.  About 400 people (including some from the Acadian and German Coasts) assembled.  Ulloa took refuge on a ship in the harbor.  Aubry's troops refused to fight against the crowd.  They made up a petition and sent it to Spain protesting Ulloa's actions.   Ulloa left for Havana.  Another petition was sent to France that October.  The series of acts that year were referred to as the Revolution of 1768. [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 141-2]
     It's thought that the Acadian participation in the revolt is one of the things that stopped Acadian immigration into Louisiana.  Also, the forced settlement pattern, which didn't allow the Acadians to settle where they wanted to, is believed to have had a hand in stopping the immigration.
     Alejandro O'Reilly arrived at Balize on August 17, 1769 with 24 ships and over 2000 men.  He brought Don Luis de Unzaga with him to be governor when he left.  O'Reilly, a great general in Europe, had orders to stop the rebellion.  The colony was officially transferred by Aubry to O'Reilly in a ceremony on 8/18/1769.  The leaders of the rebellion were put on trial.  Some were executed, some put in prison.   The French hated "Bloody O'Reilly" as they called him.  He changed the govt. from French to Spanish.  He visited the interior to survey the land and people.   He had surveyors map out property lines.  He issued a land ordinace on 2/18/1770.  Each newly arriving family would get 6-8 arpents of frontland (by 40 arpents in depth) on a river or bayou.  The grantee had 3 years to build a levee and drainage ditches, to clear the front 2 arpents deep, and to build a fence around the cleared land.  A road behind the levee with bridges over the ditches had to be built.  They couldn't sell it for 3 years.  Some areas (Opelousas, Attakapas) could get larger grants for cattle raising.  Cattle had to be branded before 18 months old.  All wild cattle were killed by July 1, 1771.  He also had a census taken.  The Louisian colony had 13, 538 people ... 3,190 of them in New Orleans.   He divided Louisiana into 21 parishes.  And he moved the authority over the Louisiana Catholic church from Canada to the bishop of Santiago de Cuba. [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 143-8]
     O'Reilly made Unzaga governor on Dec. 1, 1769 and left for Spain on Oct. 29 of the following year.  Unzaga, an old man, married a French woman.  He was easier on the colonists.  He let them "go to the Manchac" (trade with the English).  Paper money was replaced by hard money.   He left in 1776.  Galvez, commander of the Spanish troops, became governor in 1777.  [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 149-51]
     During the American Revolution, Galvez assisted the Americans.  France joined Spain in 1779 as an ally to the colonists.  Galvez took some British forts (Ft. Bute, Fort New Richmond, Fort Panmure) in 1779, 1780 (Fort Charlotte, Mobile), 1781 (Fort George, Pensacola).  [Eakin, Culbertson.   Because of his victory, Spain got the Floridas when peace was made in 1783.  A total of 1,582 Canary Islanders arrived by 1779.  The 1784 census showed an LA population of 32,114 (probably LA and the Floridas).  A 1778 royal decree encouraged settlers to come to LA.  The head of each family got 5 arpents fronting a stream.  He could own as far back as he could clear.  He also got 1 bushel of corn for each adult and 1/2 a bushel for each child for the first year.  Each family also got an axe, a hoe, a scythe or sickle, a spade, 10 hens and a cock, and a 2 month old pig.  Trade was easier under Galvez ... ie. with the French West Indies and France.  [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 152-4]
     The very successful and well-liked Galvez left in 1784 to become viceroy of Mexico, but died in 1786 at age 38.  Don Estevan Miro became governor in 1784.  Americans (who were mostly Protestant) were allowed to settle the Florida parishes and not convert to Catholicism.  But in the rest of the colony, settlers had to pledge allegiance to Spain and practice Catholicism. [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 155]
     A 1788 census found 43,111 residents (19,945 blacks), most living around N.O.  N.O. was a busy port town.  About 40 boats were docked at any one time.  But the city was dirty, with sewage floating into the streets after a rain.  The town was infested with insects and reptiles.  A big fire destroyed much of N.O. (856 buildings) in about 5 hours on Good Friday, March 21, 1788.  Over 1000 people were homeless.  It started in a private chapel in the home of the treasurer of the colony (Vicente Jose Nunez) when a lit candle fell against some lace draperies.  Miro became favored when he supplied tents and food to those in need.  The richest man in the colony, Don Andres Almonester helped replace the buildings ... featuring Spanish architecture of course.  [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 156]
     Miro also gained favor with colonists when he turned back Father Antonio de Sedella, who was sent from Spain to hold Inquisition hearings (... so no Inquisition in LA).  Miro also allowed trade with Americans.  He also sought good relations with the Indians.  Old and tired, Miro was allowed to return home in 1791.  He was replaced by Carondelet, who came from San Salvador, on Dec. 30, 1791.  [Eakin, Culbertson: p. 158]