“A Standing Affliction to us:” French Acadian Refugees in Concord

By Thompson Dasher, Park Ranger, Minute Man National Historical Park

In the fall of 1755, Captain Ephraim Jones of Concord was far from home. He had joined Massachusetts Provincial forces as a surveyor earlier in the year, and now found himself at a very lonely post – a cold, wind-swept fort on the coast of present-day New Brunswick. The campaign season was nearly over, though Jones suspected he would not be returning to Concord any time soon. Peering out into the Baie Verte, he witnessed the most dreadful, disconcerting sight. In a letter home to his wife, Alice, Jones wrote: “The French people are Great Numbers of them on board the vessells in order for Transportation, and it is thought they will be sent to New England, but Nothing Certain Can at present be Known in the affair.”¹ Jones certainly understood the gravity of the situation that was unfolding before his very eyes; Acadian refugees were being forcibly loaded onto British vessels and deported to other British American colonies, including Massachusetts. Jones’ thoughts turned to his own home, and wondered how this act would affect daily life in Concord. For the Acadians, it meant the dissolution of their culture.

The Acadian people were French-speaking colonizers of the Acadian peninsula (present-day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) that had inhabited the area since the early 17th century. Their expulsion was intended to assert British sovereignty over a region whose people had actively resisted it for decades. Much of Acadia had been under nominal British control since 1713, though its people had refused to submit. They feared a wave of interlopers from both Britain and New England that would not only swallow up their land, but also harm the local economy and the relationships they had built with the Abenaki and Mi’kmaq people. The crisis came to a head in 1749, when Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, a French missionary, incited a rebellion among the Acadians and their indigenous allies. The following year, the French constructed Fort Beauséjour on the strategically important Isthmus of Chignecto, which connects present-day New Brunswick with Nova Scotia. The British quickly responded by building a nearby fort of their own, and a stalemate ensued between the opposing forces.

It was not until war broke out in the backwoods of Pennsylvania in 1754 when the British empire again set its sights on Acadia. After a year of military setbacks, the ministry approved a plan put forth by Massachusetts Governor William Shirley to seize Fort Beauséjour and solidify Britain’s hold over Acadia. New Englanders enthusiastically supported the effort, with nearly two thousand men joining the expedition, including Ephraim Jones and other Concordians. They saw the prospect of new opportunities; new lands meant a way out of an increasingly crowded New England. The forces mobilized quickly, landing and capturing Fort Beauséjour after a two week siege in June, 1755. While the Acadian military threat had been neutralized, the issue of the Acadian peoples’ status as British subjects remained. They had previously been granted a neutral status in all disputes between Britain and France, and also allowed to retain their lands and Catholic faith. However, after the fall of Fort Beauséjour, this would no longer be the case.

Nova Scotia Governor Charles Lawrence demanded an unquestioned oath of allegiance to King George II from the people of Acadia. There were no guarantees of freedom of worship, ownership of property, or trade with the native peoples. The Acadians refused, seeing this demand as yet another effort to deprive them of their individual rights. Governor Lawrence saw their refusal as an act of defiance. He believed that allowing them to remain in Nova Scotia would pose a threat to future Anglo-American settlers, and ordered their immediate detention and deportation. Over the next few months, ten thousand French-speaking Acadians had their lands and livestock seized, and were loaded onto Royal Navy vessels with only the possessions they could carry. Historians have noted the similarities between the operation and more recent examples of ethnic cleansing, given the “coldness and calculation” in which it was executed.²

The refugees were soon scattered throughout the British colonies in North America. Those sent to Massachusetts arrived in Boston Harbor in November, but were not permitted to disembark from the ships for nearly a month. When they finally were, they were further dispersed among various towns by the Great and General Court, and eventually transported to their respective communities. The town of Concord was selected as the destination for a family of thirteen refugees; 45 year-old Claude LeBlanc and his 42 year-old wife, Judique (Benoit), along with eleven children aged between one and seventeen. Claude and Judique were married in 1738 at Pisiguit, a settlement near Gran-Pré in present-day Nova Scotia.³ Pisiguit was an important agricultural community and breadbasket of 18th-century Acadia. It was targeted early on during Father Le Loutre’s War, which forced many of its inhabitants to flee towards the Isthmus of Chignecto. This means that the LeBlancs may have already been displaced before the deportations began. The family likely arrived in Concord around the new year of 1756 and received a cold welcome by their new neighbors.

The task of supporting the LeBlanc family fell upon the town selectmen: Benjamin Brown, James Chandler, Andrew Conant, John Jones, and future militia leader James Barrett. The town had a built-in budget for poor relief, but it was not used for refugees. Instead, the people of Concord would need to front the provisions for the LeBlancs first before being reimbursed by the province at a later date. It would be up to the selectmen to not only ensure that the LeBlancs were provided with food and supplies, but also to make sure that their neighbors would be adequately compensated for their efforts. Their first task was to assess the family, noting their age, health, and most importantly for them, their ability to work. In a descriptive list, the town selectmen Anglicized the family’s names: Claude LeBlanc became “Cloud White,” Judique became “Juda,” Marie became “Mary,” Jean-Baptiste became “John,” Rose became “Ruth,” and Isabelle became “Abigail.” This could have merely been a misunderstanding of their names by the selectmen, or it could have been a contemptuous mocking of the LeBlancs now that they lived in the English world. In the same town record, the Concord selectmen described the family as “very shiftless,” adding that Claude was apparently infirm and incapable of hard labor.⁴ They also noted that the children were small, helpless, and “a standing affliction to us.” ⁵ Communities such as Concord were very accustomed to “warning out” people who could not provide for themselves or contribute to the public good. The prospect of having to take in refugees who were completely incapable of supporting themselves, yet alone others, was unfathomable. Not to mention, the LeBlancs’ Catholic faith certainly earned them the ire of their Protestant neighbors.

Despite the LeBlanc family’s inability to labor, the town selectmen resolved to put them to work. Selectmen and overseers of the poor from certain towns adopted the practice of binding them out to other families for work within the community.⁶ Some communities, including Concord, took this one step further, and began separating refugee children from their families when binding them out. The General Court introduced legislation to suspend binding out altogether, but it was struck down. For selectmen, the practice was a necessary evil for the productivity and prosperity of their communities. For the refugees, this was the zenith of inhumanity. Having endured so many prior hardships, the Acadian people decided to make a stand. In April 1756, the LeBlancs and eight other refugee families from Chelmsford, Oxford, Concord, Worcester, Andover, and Waltham drafted a petition to Governor William Shirley protesting the actions of the selectmen:

“Whereas we are grievously afflicted by reason of our children, we exercise the right to present this petition. The loss of our homes, being brought here, and separated one from another are as nothing to what we now experience: the forcible taking away of our children from before our very eyes. Nature can not endure this. Were the choice ours, we would rather give up body and soul than be separated from our children. Hence, we appeal to your mercy and your honor that you will have the good will to end this cruelty. In no manner do we refuse to work for support of our children, provided the work produce enough for us to support our families. Begging you in mercy and kindness that you consider our petition; and in doing so you will obligate your very humble and very obedient servants.”⁷

The families’ efforts did not go unnoticed by the Governor. The Great and General Court formed a committee to deliberate on their plight, and determined:

“That it should be Recommended to the Selectmen of the several towns where they reside ^[or overseers of the poor] That for the present The sd. Select men ^[or overseers] should desire binding any them out, That Houses be provided for Each Family so they may keep Together If they see cause ‘till further orders That those of ‘em who are able to work support Their Familys by their Labour and that sd. Select men or overseers assist ‘em in finding work & a Reasonable Price for it.”

In a remarkable exercise of agency, the heads of the refugee households had achieved their goal. They had managed to appeal to the highest levels of a society that viewed poor relief as a public burden. It was a step in the right direction, but a very small victory within the scope of their entire experience. Not everything would improve for the LeBlanc family in the coming years; they still had to contend with adversity within their assigned community.

In late 1757, Judique gave birth to a son, Simeon. Already struggling to scrape by in exile, the family now seemingly had another mouth to feed. However, Massachusetts records indicate that one of the other children passed away around the same time. At first glance, it appears to have been the youngest daughter, Isabelle, known as Abigail. She had been recorded in the descriptive list compiled by town selectmen in June, but is absent in each subsequent list. It is equally likely that the selectmen’s record-keeping was inaccurate, and that the names they included, excluded, and changed on each list mattered very little to them.

It is difficult to say how life changed for the family that year, but it seemed as though the people of Concord had exhausted their charity for them. In the same account to the Great and General Court, the town selectmen listed the expenses accrued over the past 28 weeks of supporting the LeBlancs at 29 pounds, 5 shillings. The subsequent account for the next 16 weeks of support totalled 16 pounds, 10 shillings.⁸ In less than a year, the town had requested 46 pounds worth of aid from the Great and General Court for supporting the LeBlanc family. There was concern over whether the Province would grant such an exorbitant sum for the account, so the selectmen desired they would “as soon as possible may be freed from this Trouble.”

This request was very likely a timely and calculated response to the LeBlanc’s petition

the previous year. The selectmen presented the family’s unfortunate condition and their financial toll as justification for their relocation. However, the Great and General Court made no immediate effort to move the LeBlanc family, or to relieve Concord’s support of them. As such, the family remained in Concord for the next two years, and the town selectmen made no further requests. The selectmen did begin making more detailed accounts regarding the aid they provided, which provides an important insight into the scope of their efforts. In February 1759, the selectmen submitted the following account beginning in the previous April:
Mr. Josiah Hayward for House Rent for Meal and

For pork & milk the sum of – – – – £8: 18:11:3

Mr. Abishai Brown for Beef – – – – 0:18:8:0

Thomas Davis for Beef – – – – £2:4:7 – 0

Mr. Tilly Merrick for Rum & Sugar in Sickness – – 0 – 9:11:0

Doctor Abel Prescott for medicine – – – – 0 – 12:0 – 0

Mr. Ezra Conant for Meal & a Farm to work – 0 – 10:10 – 0

Col. Charles Prescott for Salt & a cask & ox work 0 – 6 – 6 –2

Capt. Thomas Jones for pork & Beans and meal – – 0 – 14 – 9 –2

Mr. Jonathan Heywood for Beef – – – – 0 – 5 – 5 – 0

Mr. Thomas Barrett for pork Cheese & Meal – 2 – 16 – 0 – 0

Likewise the Selectmen Desire to be allowed for their Trouble the sum of – £1 – 10 – 0:6

Total £19:7:8:3 ⁹

The town’s requested aid was substantial compared to other communities. For instance, the town of Medway’s own account detailing the support of a family of nine from roughly the same period totalled only £5 8s. ¹⁰

Finally, in May 1760, the LeBlanc family was ordered to leave Concord. The town selectmen received a directive from the Secretary of the Commonwealth to relocate them to Boston. The Selectmen soon organized a team of either horses or oxen and a driver to transport the LeBlancs and their few possessions down the Bay Road.¹¹ The family had recently been supplied with 60 pounds of salt pork, a bushel and a half peck of beans, a bushel and 30 quarts of rice, two bushels and 15 quarts of corn, along with salt, hog’s fat, and milk.¹² This would be the only food the family could hope to subsist on during the time of year known as the “hungry gap” when foodstuffs from the past harvest had run out and before the next one could take place.

They likely lived in Boston for the next three years, until the war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February, 1763. With the end of the war came a dilemma of what to do with the refugees. They could not all remain in the province, nor could they all be allowed to return home to Acadia. The solution was to organize transportation for them to either France, Quebec, or Haiti. While these areas had French populations, they were by no means familiar to the Acadians. The LeBlancs appeared in “List of the French who desire to go to old France” from some time that year, which mentions only Claude as the head of household, along with five sons and six daughters with a total of twelve members of the family.¹³ It appears as though Judique succumbed to illness sometime between 1760 and 1763, leaving the family motherless. Unfortunately, much of their trail runs cold soon after this. A parish register from l’Assomption parish in 1767 suggests that Isabelle, or “Abigail” had actually not died in 1757 and had returned to Nova Scotia and married Francois LeBlanc at a rather young age.¹⁴ If this was the case, Isabelle would have been among the lucky few to actually return to Acadia, albeit not to her original home. What became of Claude and most of the other children is difficult to discern.

The ensuing mass exodus of the refugees from the British American colonies became known as the Acadian Diaspora. The people were further scattered across North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Despite this, they retained their distinct cultural identity and never forgot their experiences at the hands of the British Empire during “Le Grand Dérangement.” The trials and tribulations of people like the LeBlancs were ingrained into the tragic narrative of the Acadians, made famous through works such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline. However, their accomplishments and agency often go unnoticed. It is true that the LeBlanc family suffered greatly, losing a mother and a child, but their resilience and ability to fight to stay together is nothing short of remarkable. Unfortunately, much of their experience remains unrecorded or misinterpreted. What we do know, however, sheds light onto a disregarded chapter of pre-revolutionary history.

Sources
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.

Jones, Ephraim. Letter to Alice Jones. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society. 7 October 1755.
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:br86bq270

Fonds de la paroisse catholique Saint-Charles-des-Mines, 12 February 1738, 1869, page 176, Library and Archives Canada.
https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1869/722

List of French Neutrals Residing in Concord with a description of their names, numbers, and health, 14 June 1757. 2417, Vol. 23, page 438, Massachusetts State Archives collection.https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BM-TD66-H?cat=1055547

Account submitted to the General Court by Jonas Hayward, town clerk, under the direction of the selectmen of Concord for the support of French Neutrals and requesting that the town be freed from this responsibility, 26 December 1757. 2417, Vol. 24, page 34, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-SG3T?i=104&cat=1055547

General Court order directing the selectmen and overseers of the poor of various towns to suspend binding out French Neutrals until further order of the court, 22 January 1756.230, Vol. 23, page 20, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BM-TDNY-5?i=280&cat=1055547

Petition (in French) to Governor and council from French Neutrals requesting that their children not be taken from them, presumably to be bound out to service, their families unable to support them, 13 April 1756. 230, Vol. 23, page 49, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BM-TD86-7?i=328&cat=1055547

Account submitted to the General Court by Jonas Hayward, town clerk, under the direction of the selectmen of Concord for the support of French Neutrals, 10 May 1758. 2417, Vol. 24, page 33, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-SJBN?i=102&cat=1055547

Account submitted to the General Court by Jonas Hayward, town clerk, under the direction of the selectmen of Concord for the support and medical care of French Neutrals, 27 February 1759. 2417, Vol. 24, page 142, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-S216?cat=1055547

Account submitted to the General Court by the selectmen of Medway for the support of James Amirault and family, French Neutrals, with a list of their names, ages, and health, 5 March, 1759. 2417, Vol. 24, page 143, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-S2R5?i=300&cat=1055547

Letter to Samuel Danforth from the selectmen of Concord listing the names of the French Neutrals residing within their jurisdiction and the expense of removing them to Boston, 11 May, 1760. 228, Vol. 24, page 309, Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-SKTZ?i=562&cat=1055547

Account submitted to the General Court by the selectmen of Concord for the support of French Neutrals, 13 May, 1760. 2417, Vol. 24, page 307, Massachusetts State Archives collection.https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-SPLK?i=558&cat=1055547

List of French Neutrals desiring to relocate to France, 24 August 1763. 378, Vol. 24, page 488,
Massachusetts State Archives collection.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y1-SG8J?i=846&cat=1055547

The 70 signers of the Founding of Arichat Parish, Cape Breton, CO 217, Vol. 104, pp. 409-410,
RAC of 1905, app A, 3rd part, app J, page 308.
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~pclandry/Lardoise/70signers.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawE8GatleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZYsq8rHbFlSZW7021UU6pKGUlFEc3Pou74x_mfli-ayVL-yo07nF5tRCQ_aem_ktVCuUdQ_O4seHDTUNstCg





Notes

^[1] Ephraim Jones to Alice Jones, October 7, 1755, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society.

^[2] Anderson, 114

^[3]1738 Saint-Charles-des-Mines Parish Record

^[4] 6/14/1757 Concord List

^[5] 12/26/1757 Concord Account

^[6] 1/22/1756 General Court Order

^[7] 4/13/1757 Petition

^[8]5/10/1758 Concord Account

^[9] 2/27/1759 Concord Account

^[10] 3/5/1759 Medway Account

^[11] 5/11/1760 Concord Selectmen Letter

^[12] 5/13/1760 Concord Account

^[13] 8/24/1763 Boston List

^[14] 1767 Arichat Parish Record