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John Mack Faragher

A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland Hardcover – February 17, 2005

by John Mack Faragher (Author)

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John Mack Faragher draws on original research to weave 150 years of history into a gripping narrative of both the civilization of Acadia and the British plot to destroy it.

In 1755, New England troops embarked on a "great and noble scheme" to expel 18,000 French-speaking Acadians ("the neutral French") from Nova Scotia, killing thousands, separating innumerable families, and driving many into forests where they waged a desperate guerrilla resistance. The right of neutrality; to live in peace from the imperial wars waged between France and England; had been one of the founding values of Acadia; its settlers traded and intermarried freely with native Mikmaq Indians and English Protestants alike. But the Acadians' refusal to swear unconditional allegiance to the British Crown in the mid-eighteenth century gave New Englanders, who had long coveted Nova Scotia's fertile farmland, pretense enough to launch a campaign of ethnic cleansing on a massive scale.

Print length

562 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 17, 2005
Dimensions

6.6 x 1.7 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0393051358
ISBN-13

978-0393051353
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Editorial Reviews

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

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Printing edition (February 17, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 562 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393051358
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393051353
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.6 x 1.7 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #411,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #42 in Pre-Confederation Canadian History
- #15,757 in World History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
170 ratings

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4 star		9%
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2 star 0% (0%)		0%
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Top reviews from the United States

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BlucheGirl

Rich history of the ancestors of the Cajuns

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

Excellent book detailing the development of Acadia and the brutal dispersal of them in 1755. I found four 8th-great-parents mentioned as members of the first group of Port Royal settlers. Two of my 5th and 6th great-grandparents were amongst those deported and whose names are memorialized. Quite exciting to connect with them and to know I come from such strong people who survived such a horrorific ethnic cleansing of Nova Scotia. I had no idea Acadians were dispersed to so many places, including the Fauklands.

19 people found this helpful

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Margaret E.

Great and Noble surely is used ironically in this title

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2014

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I bought this book after family members traveled to the region where the Acadians lived originally. The plight of these unfortunate people is known to most of us through Longfellow's Evangeline story. Otherwise we might see a paragraph in a history book but little else. The British did not just suddenly swoop down on the hapless Acadians and scatter their victims to the winds. This author first brings out the history of the various people who inhabited the region - the Native tribes, the French settlers and the British. Basically the Acadians were caught in the middle of a big struggle for power. They just wanted to be left alone. This geographical area was traded back and forth as the British and the French battled each other all over the globe. Surprisingly, at one point even the French wanted these people removed and I had never heard that. The French were suspicious of the Acadians for being too friendly with the English, who were suspicious of them for being too friendly with the Natives and the French. Religion was used as a pretext by both Powers to badger the Acadians, who used ambiguity and scheming just to survive. The British in particular were adamant that the Acadians swear allegiance to their king but the French made the same demands. This would include the "duty" of taking up arms against the enemies of whoever was in charge at the moment AND if the Acadians had done that they would have been attacked by the Natives, who also just wanted to be left alone. From the beginning these folks were doomed. Still, it is fascinating to read how they cleverly kept the outsiders at arm's length until the last moment before they were finally dispersed. Another point of interest is that the smarter and more fortunate of the Acadians could read the proverbial writing on the wall and left before the British could drag them away from their homes. This is a history of being caught in the middle, injustice, religious bigotry, betrayal and diabolical calculation for selfish reasons. It well demonstrates that some things remain the same.

27 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

I started researching my Thibodeau family line last Fall and ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2017

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I started researching my Thibodeau family line last Fall and had a queasy feeling when I started to see a large number of death dates from 1755-1765 range. As I typed in Nova Scotia, 1755, in the yahoo search, I read with disbelief the horrific tragedy of the Acadians. I found this book as I searched for more information. Each page with detailed accounts and names tugged at my heart. John Mack Faragher's A to Z account gave me the answers I was searching for. Thank you!

18 people found this helpful

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Roland P Cote

A heavy read but well worth the effort for anyone serious about knowing the whole story.

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2017

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"A GREAT AND NOBLE SCHEME" is a wonderful, well-researched and well-documented book about the complex story of the Acadians... much more complex than "EVANGELINE" might lead us to believe... still a tragic story, but with a lot more twists and turns than I would ever have imagined. I appreciate John M. Faragher's passion for telling the whole story.

11 people found this helpful

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Shane K. Bernard

Scholarly, Yet Reads Like Swashbuckling Novel

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2007

Verified Purchase

John Mack Faragher examines the colonization of Nova Scotia by French peasants in the seventeenth century and how their occupation of this strategically important peninsula eventually resulted in their forced expulsion by the British military -- an event that Faragher regards as an instance of "ethnic cleansing," if not outright genocide.

Faragher delves deep into colonial archives to locate obscure source material that brings to life a people who were at best semi-literate. He does so by drawing on government correspondence (between colonial administrators and government officials in London and Paris), on the personal diaries of British soldiers, on the memoirs of French missionaries, and on letters written by the few literate Acadians, among other sources.

More than previous writers, Faragher stresses the intimate relationship between the Acadians and the local Micmac Indians, with whom the Acadians intermarried much more frequently than thought originally.

He also emphasizes the leading role played by New England "Yankees" in carrying out the expulsion, showing that the event was hardly a purely British operation.

He traces the Acadians' repeated efforts to secure their New World homeland by swearing an conditional oath of allegiance to the British crown -- allegiance in exchange for wartime neutrality. To do otherwise, Faragher repeatedly notes, would have been for the Acadians to invite attack from the French military and their Indian allies . . . as did indeed happen at the village of Beaubassin, when Indians under French command burned the village in an event that mirrors the "burn-the-village-to-save-it" mentality of the Vietnam War (my comparison, not Faragher's).

The book is heavily documented, complete with detailed endnotes and bibliography; and despite the academic trappings it reads like a swashbuckling novel.

As a professional historian, I highly recommend this book to scholars and laypersons alike.

28 people found this helpful

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willie

Great book for Acadian descendants - on the post 1605 ...

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great book for Acadian descendants - on the post 1605 French settlement in Canada and their expulsion by the British in 1755.
The role of the Governor of Massachusetts and colonial troops in the "Scheme" and deportation is described. Also, the tragic loss of life and hardships experienced by the deportees are events that need to be acknowledged. This book is great book on Acadian history with the names and locations of our 1755 ancestors revealed.

8 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mary McCannon

Eyeopener

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

An excellent book about the history of the very first ethnic cleansing and introducing Acadians to the world.

Jennifer Rhodenizer

Very detailed, well written.

Reviewed in Canada on February 20, 2020

Verified Purchase

If you ever wanted to know this story in full, total detail, based on years of research for facts rather than rumors, this is the book for you. Well written, and well documented by solid sources.

One person found this helpful

Jason E. Doucette

A great historical account

Reviewed in Canada on August 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book is amazing. I'm Acadian and it's awesome to read about the actual accounts of ancestors and how things actually progressed through the years leading up to the deportation.
Is so good I ordered a copy for my parents.

Rodge

Very detailed, but worth your while

Reviewed in Canada on December 10, 2009

Verified Purchase

Faragher puts a great deal of factual detail into this work and you might think that the story would get bogged down. Not a bit of it. The Acadian deportation is a tragic tale that will never grow old, I dare say, and the factual history of the matter is as gripping as any fictional treatment. A people who just wanted to be left alone (more or less) were viewed with suspicion and also jealousy due to the quality of the country they lived in. They had very little power to bear on their fate and thus their stubborn refusal to pledge allegiance to Great Britain provided the pretext for one of the great injustices in North American history, along with the dispossession of aboriginal populations. This is a Canadian story and an American story. Read it, you'll be better for it.

5 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

It is a well researched historical gem. The reality ...

Reviewed in Canada on July 27, 2017

Verified Purchase

It is a well researched historical gem. The reality of the strategic planning that led to the deportation of Acadian settlers is narrated with an approach that goes beyond facts and events. The people involved are present throughout the reading as the ancient myths are dispelled and history is revealed as it occurred. As a person of Acadian heritage, I was reconciled with the past as paradigms shifted and the blame was exposed.

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