Beaubassin
45°50′56.86″N 64°15′39.31″W / 45.8491278°N 64.2609194°WBeaubassin was a major Acadian settlement on the Isthmus of Chignecto in what is now known as the Tantramar Marshes, New Brunswick, Canada. The area was significant place in the struggle between the British and French empires. The settlement was destroyed and depopulated in 1750.
French colony
Jacques Bourgeois, a farmer, shipbuilder, and merchant at Port Royal sold a part of his holdings there to settle in the Chignecto Basin, where he built a flour-mill and a saw-mill.
A few years later, in 1676, the region was made into a seigneury, the holder of which was Michel Leneuf de La Vallière (the elder), a nobleman born at Trois-Rivières; the new fief, 100 square leagues in extent, was named Beaubassin. As La Vallière brought in settlers and indentured employees from Canada, two distinct establishments adjoined each other at Beaubassin; but a clause in the title to the land grant protected the interests of Jacques Bourgeois and the other Acadian settlers established on the domain; it was not long before the two elements of the population merged into one.
The Chignecto region provided Jacques Bourgeois and the whole settlement with fertile marshes, and high ground suitable for farming. The Shediac portage was an important relay station in the sea communications between Acadia and Canada and a strategic position commanding the isthmus and Baie Française (Bay of Fundy). By the time of the expulsion of the Acadians, Beaubassin had become one of the most prosperous places in Acadia.
Acadians, led by surgeon Jacques Bourgeois, founded the village between 1671 and 1672.
In 1672 Michel Leneuf de la Vallière de Beaubassin set up a fur-trading post on the isthmus of Chignecto, while devoting part of his time to the fishing, farming, settlement, and soldiering.
In 1676 Michel Leneuf de la Vallière de Beaubassin and Sieur Richard Denys of the French Navy seized three English vessels from Boston that were taking on coal at Cape Breton. As a result of his success, Frontenac granted him land which became the Beaubassin seigneury in 1684.
By 1685, there were 22 houses in Beaubassin. In 1686, the area was constituted into a parish and Father Claude Trouvé,[1] of Quebec, built Beaubassin's first church. The parish church was located on the site of the present day monument to Fort Lawrence, and the railroad crosses the church cemetery.
The village, where residents farmed, raised livestock and were involved in shipbuilding, lay at the heart of a vast trading network encompassing Île Royale, Nova Scotia and New England.
British forces led a devastating attack in the 1696 Raid on Chignecto, after which Governor Villebon wrote "the English stayed at Beaubassin nine whole days without drawing any supplies from their vessels, and even those settlers to whom they had shown a pretense of mercy were left with empty houses and barns and nothing else except the clothes on their backs."[2] Beaubassin was raided again during Queen Anne's War, in response to a French Raid on Deerfield earlier in 1704. This assault was actually the work of a Quebec led company of Abenaki, Kanienkehaka, Wyandot, and Pocumtuck along with some Frenchmen, 200 to 300 attackers in all. According to Faragher, the Massachusetts authorities knew that the Acadians had nothing to do with the attack,[3] but since the Acadians were closer than the French in Quebec the Acadians became the undeserving object of their revenge. As far as the New Englanders were concerned Acadians and French were synonymous, which was unfortunate for them.[4] Church also raided a French settlement near present-day Castine, Maine, Grand Pre, and Pisiguit.
The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, in which France ceded Acadia to Britain, did not specify boundaries, and France claimed that only the peninsular portion of Acadia (now Nova Scotia) had been ceded. Beaubassin was located near what became the de facto dividing line between French Acadia and the British province of Nova Scotia. As a result, when the British established Fort Lawrence during Father Le Loutre's War the French countered by establishing Fort Beauséjour on the opposite side of the boundary on what is now called the Aulac Ridge.
Charles Lawrence faced resistance to building Fort Lawrence. Along with initially burning the village[5] upon Lawrence's return, Mi'kmaq and Acadians were dug in at Beaubassin trying to defend the remains of the village. Forty-five buildings were burned and residents were resettled to the west side of the Missaquash River and the protection of Fort Beauséjour. Le Loutre saved the bell from Notre Dame d'Assumption Church in Beaubassin and put it into the cathedral he had built beside Fort Beausejour. Again Le Loutre was joined by Acadian militia leader Joseph Broussard. They were eventually overwhelmed by force and the New Englanders erected Fort Lawrence at Beaubassin.
Demographics
| Year | Number of inhabitants |
|---|---|
| 1671 | 127 |
| 1686 | 119 |
| 1693 | 174 |
| 1698 | ? |
| 1701 | 188 |
| 1703 | 246 |
| 1707 | 326 |
| 1714 | 345 |
| 1730 | 1,010 |
| 1737 | 1,816 |
| 1748 | 2,800 |
Legacy
Other villages in the area included Weskak, Pre des Bourgs, Pre des Richards, and Aulac, now as Westcock, Sackville, Middle Sackville, and Aulac respectively.
The site of Beaubassin was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2005.[7] Extensive archaeological resources at the site include remarkable glass and ceramic artifacts and charred building. The site includes the separately designated Fort Lawrence National Historic Site.[8] There is a stone marker near the Nova Scotia visitor centre off the Trans-Canada Highway in Amherst, Nova Scotia commemorating the village's existence.
References
- ^ http://www.biographi.ca/EN/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=1133
- ^ Reid, John (1998). "1686-1720: Imperial Intrusions" In The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History. Toronto University Press. p. 83.
- ^ Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme, 109.
- ^ The Nova Scotia Genealogist, Spring, 2009, Vol. XXVII/1, Page 16
- ^ The practice of burning one's own residences for military ends was not uncommon. For example, at the time Le Loutre burned Beaubassin for military reasons, French officer Boishebert burned the French Fort Menagoueche on the Saint John River to prevent it from falling into the hands of the British and to allow Acadians to escape to the forest (see John Grenier (2008). The Edge of Empire. Oklahoma Press. p. 179). As well, the British burned their military officers' own residences at Annapolis Royal to help defeat the French, Mi'kmaq and Acadian attacks during King George's War. (See Brenda Dunn (2004). Port Royal/Annapolis Royal. Nimbus Press).
- ^ Source: ROY, Muriel K. «Peuplement et croissance démographique en Acadie» dans Les Acadiens des Maritimes, Moncton, Centre d'études acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 1980, p. 148.
- ^ Beaubassin. Canadian Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
- ^ Fort Lawrence. Canadian Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
Bibliography
- N.E.S. Griffiths. 2005. Migrant to Acadian, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Benjamin Church, Thomas Church, Samuel Gardner Drake. The history of King Philip's war ; also of expeditions against the French and Indians in its Eastern parts of New England, in the years 1689, 1692, i696 AND 1704. With some account of the divine providence towards Col. Benjamin Church.
External links
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