A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland Book

"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.Read More