M3 BEÆL‘ËË âl-‘TJAÆÆÆMQË

Victims often vomited black, con- gealed blood and bled from their eyes. And yet, after all the suffering and numerous defeats, somehow through his progeny he eventually won.

In 1763, after the majority of the Acadians had already been deported, Govemor Wilmot offered the Aca- dians still remaining in Nova Scotia, including Beausoleil, and his trouble- some rag-tag band of guerilla fighters, the opportunity to stay and become "good British subjects”, provided they took the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. Many accepted the offer, however, Beausoleil refused to do so. Why? Perhaps it was due to his obstreperous personality, his love of liberty, his unquenchable desire to escape British rule, or to his training with the Mi’kmaq. More likely, it was due to his intense passion for his Acadian heritage. Beausoleil was a descendant of the first Neo-Europeans who had left feudalism and oppres- sion behind to forge a new found freedom and identity in this place cal— led "Acadie”. That identity, inherited from his ancestors, represented the years of struggle that they had ex- perienced in order to give Beausoleil and his children the opportunity to live in a land free of servitude to tyrannical govemments where they could live in peace and practise their own religion.

Although we know that Beausoleil was extremely anti—British and had a contentious, militant character, one must conclude by the sheer number of Acadian descendants in Louisiana today that his life’s ultimate struggle did, in the end, merit him the distinc— tion of being the foremost champion of the Acadian culture. Like many other significant historical icons, he set out to accomplish one thing and ended up accomplishing something far more positive. From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, what did Bcausoleil actually accomplish? At what cost? And how and why did he become such a folk hero?

In the beginning, it appears that revenge was his motivation for lead- ing the resistance against the British. Revenge may, at times, be a natural human response to certain situations, but it is not a positive motivation.

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Because of his tenacity, many of his decisions resulted in the tragic loss of the lives of family members and fellow insurgents. Toward the end of his military efforts against the British, when he must have finally realized the fruitlessness of continuing his resistance — after even France gave up the fight — only then did he set out about uniting Acadian families and preparing to depart from his beloved homeland to what he hoped would be a better life in a "New Acadia”. ,

According to Louisiana historia‘n Dr. Shane K. Bernard in his book Thc Cajuns: Americanization of a People, the Cajun people have evolved dra- matically since Beausoleil’s lifetime. Would he recognize today's Cajuns as his descendants? The Cajuns of the early tvventieth century differed relati— vely little from their Acadian ances- tors. Like the exiles, Cajuns before the mid-twentieth century worked as subsistence farmers; if not farmers, they held other folk occupations, such as trapping, fishing, moss—picking, logging and boat—building.

Around 1940 however, the Cajuns’ world began to change with increas— ing rapidity: the engine of change was World War H. Unlike previous historical events, this global conflict and its aftermath served as major Americanization agents in south Loui- siana, resulting, for instance, in the near demise of Cajun French by the end of the century: in 1990, only about 30 per cent of Cajuns spoke the dialect as their first language, and most of these were middle-aged or elderly.

The unifying thread of recent Cajun history is Americanization - the pro— cess of becoming like the Anglo- American establishment that has tra- ditionally dominated the nation's mainstream culture. Americanization meant embracing the work ethic, materialism and patriotism of Anglo- America, all of which were foreign to the majority of Cajuns before World War II. It also meant speaking English, despite the fact that the Cajuns and their forebears had spoken French as their primary language since coming to America three centuries earlier. Americanization thus ranks as one of the most important events in the

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entire Cajun experience, along with the expulsion of the ancestors from Nova Scotia, and south Louisiana’s devastation during the Civil War. These events resulted in fundamental changes that forever altered the nature of the ethnic group.

Beginning in the 19605 however, the Cajuns, swept up in the national trend of ethnic pride and empower- ment, mobilized to save their culture. The rise of a grassroots Cajun pride movement and a parallel, more or— ganized movement led by CODOFIL (the Council for Development of French in Louisiana), signaled the Cajuns’ efforts to reclaim their heritage through a variety of measures: from protecting the French language in the state constitution of 1974, to demand- ing in the Petition of1990 that the British Crown acknowledge its mis- treatment of the Acadians during the Deportation.

The Petition alleged that the Aca— dian expulsion had not only been illegal according to international law of the period, but the expulsion order, an overt act of “ethnic cleansing" had never been repealed. On September 14‘“, 2004 on the occasion of the ope- ning of the new session of the Ca- nadian Court of Appeal in Frederic— ton, New Brunswick, Justice Michel Bastarache of the Canadian Supreme Court in Ottawa stated:

Then came the Deportafion order which itsclf was illegal becausc it was contrary t0 British public law and also because if was passcd wiflwut tht’ vote of the asscmlîly. The event which primarily inspired the Petition was passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1998, which apologized for America’s intemment of about 120,000 U.S. citizens and resident aliens of Iapanese ancestry during World War Il.

The Pt’f‘iffÙPl (if 1990 may success- fully h_ave been resolved on Decem— ber 9‘“, 2003 with Queen Elizabeth's Canadian Royal Proclamation. Beau- soleil Broussard undoubtedly would have looked upon this act approvingly as a form of redemption. Nevertheless, after the passage of 250 years, the legacy of the Acadian Deportation continues to define both the Cajun people in general and Bcausolcil in

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