From Publishers Weekly
Faragher relates, in all its complex, searingly sad details, the story of how the hapless French Acadians were run out of their Nova Scotia homes—a story known to most from Longfellow's Evangeline. Caught between French and British empires, these peaceful farming and fishing families, descendants of French settlers, struggled to maintain their neutrality and their birthright ways. But in 1755, British and colonial New England forces rounded them up and dispersed them by sea throughout North America. Families were broken up; hundreds died on their voyages; their towns were torched; and only small, scattered communities, like the Cajuns of Louisiana, survived into the modern era. "The removal of the Acadians," concludes Faragher (the Yale biographer of Daniel Boone), "was the first episode of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in American history." More than that, the communities destroyed, some 150 years old, had lived peaceably and intermarried with the Mikmaq natives of the Canadian shores. A way of life that could have been a harbinger of our own era of diversity was destroyed. Unfortunately, the book overwhelms the reader with detail, as if Faragher wanted to set down every fact of Acadian history so it would never again be lost. Instead, it is readers who'll be lost in this gripping tale of a dishonorable affair in American history. B&w illus. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
French Acadia--today's Nova Scotia and New Brunswick--was destroyed in 1755 when British officers expelled an entire people. Here Faragher perceptively narrates the 150-year-long history of French Acadia, profiling its founding personages, significant events, and the Acadians' gradual acquisition of a distinct identity. Grown from intermarriage with the indigenous Mikmaq, this identity resisted pledging fealty to the French or British sovereigns, but to say the Acadians' fate was the consequence of being crushed between imperial millstones would be simplistic. To paraphrase the author, not inexorable forces but willful men determined what happened, a thesis supported by lenient and diplomatic British officials (Britain held Acadia after 1709) who understood the Acadians. Army officer Charles Lawrence was not such a man--with expedient though specious arguments about Acadian hostility, he ordered destruction and removal as a preliminary to the incipient French and Indian War. Faragher estimates expulsion cost about 10,000 lives; the survivors scattered to Louisiana and elsewhere. From the author of the definitive Daniel Boone (1992), this is a superior work of history. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Edmund Morgan
Meticulous scholarship....vivid detail....This is a major work.


Thomas Fleming, author of Liberty!: The American Revolution
One of those landmark books that everyone interested in American history will want to read and keep in his library.


Michael Kammen, Professor of American History and Culture, Cornell University
Faragher's impressive account of the Acadian tragedy is notable for its narrative drive, drama, clarity, and comprehensive research.


Christopher Benfey, author of Degas in New Orleans and The Great Wave
From Acadia to zydeco, John Mack Faragher's extraordinary narrative of 'New France' unfolds with epic scope and vivid, novelistic detail.


Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University
John Faragher has had the wit and skill to tell the story of 'le grand dérangement'—a moving and humane book.


Thomas Bender, University Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History, New York University
We are indebted to Faragher for his lively yet thorough and morally compelling account.


Book Description
"Delves deeply and with rueful wisdom into a terrible crime perpetrated by European imperialists and American colonists."—Thomas Fleming On August 25, 1755, the New York Gazette printed a dispatch from the maritime province of Nova Scotia: "We are now upon a great and noble Scheme of sending the neutral French out of this Province, who have always been our secret Enemies....If we Effect their Expulsion, it will be one of the greatest things that ever the English did in America..." At the time these words were written, New England troops were rounding up some 18,000 French-speaking Acadian residents ("the neutral French") at gunpoint and loading them onto transports, separating parents from children and husbands from wives. They were scattered throughout the British Empire. Thousands died. Their lands were expropriated by Yankee settlers from New England. Drawing on original primary research, John Mack Faragher tells the full story of this expulsion in vivid, gripping prose. Following specific Acadian families through the anguish of their removal, he brings to light a tragic chapter in the settlement of America. 40 illustrations and 6 maps.


About the Author
John Mack Faragher is professor of history and director of the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale University and the author of Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"On September 4, 1755, The Pennsylvania Gazette printed a dispatch from the maritime province of Nova Scotia: "We are now upon a great and noble Scheme of sending the neutral French out of this Province, who have always been secret Enemies, and have encouraged our Savages to cut our Throats. If we effect their Expulsion, it will be one of the greatest Things that ever the English did in America; for by all Accounts, that Part of the Country they possess, is as good Land as any in the World: In case therefore we could get some good English Farmers in their Room, this Province would abound with all Kinds of Provisions."" "At the time these words were published, New England troops acting under the authority of the colonial governors of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts were systematically rounding up more than seven thousand Acadians, the French-speaking, Catholic inhabitants who lived in communities along the shores of the Bay of Fundy. Men, women, and children alike were crowded into transport vessels and deported in small groups to other British colonies across the continent of North America." Piecing together the scattered remnants of Acadian civilization in documents and sources buried deep in archives, historian John Mack Faragher provides the first comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and historically accurate account of the expulsion from both British and Acadian points of view.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Faragher relates, in all its complex, searingly sad details, the story of how the hapless French Acadians were run out of their Nova Scotia homes-a story known to most from Longfellow's Evangeline. Caught between French and British empires, these peaceful farming and fishing families, descendants of French settlers, struggled to maintain their neutrality and their birthright ways. But in 1755, British and colonial New England forces rounded them up and dispersed them by sea throughout North America. Families were broken up; hundreds died on their voyages; their towns were torched; and only small, scattered communities, like the Cajuns of Louisiana, survived into the modern era. "The removal of the Acadians," concludes Faragher (the Yale biographer of Daniel Boone), "was the first episode of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in American history." More than that, the communities destroyed, some 150 years old, had lived peaceably and intermarried with the Mikmaq natives of the Canadian shores. A way of life that could have been a harbinger of our own era of diversity was destroyed. Unfortunately, the book overwhelms the reader with detail, as if Faragher wanted to set down every fact of Acadian history so it would never again be lost. Instead, it is readers who'll be lost in this gripping tale of a dishonorable affair in American history. B&w illus. Agent, Gerard McCauley. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Faragher (history, Yale Univ.; Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer) here looks at the history of the French Acadians from the early 1600s to today. He follows the development of their prosperous farming communities in l'Acadia (Nova Scotia), their symbiotic relationship with the native Mikmaq Indians, and their staunch neutrality in all things imperial. The book centers on the tragic years of 1755-63 when the British forcibly removed the Acadians, destroyed their villages and homesteads, and resettled the area with New Englanders. During this period, approximately 18,000 Acadians were dispersed throughout the British Empire, with devastating consequences: about 10,000 perished owing to starvation, exposure, disease, and warfare. While the royal governor of Nova Scotia claimed their removal was a "cruel necessity" since the Acadians were of French descent and Catholic and therefore not trustworthy as British subjects, Faragher makes the case that the removal of the Acadians was in reality an "ethnic cleansing" similar to what happened in Yugoslavia in the 1990s; he also looks at the aftermath and subsequent historical debates. Well written and researched, this important look at an often overlooked period in American history will appeal to both lay readers and scholars. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-Robert Flatley, Kutztown Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews