The conquest of Port-Royal by British forces in 1710 is an intensely revealing episode in the history of northeastern North America. Bringing together multi-layered perspectives, including the conquest's effects on aboriginal inhabitants, Acadians, and New Englanders, and using a variety of methodologies to contextualise the incident in local, regional, and imperial terms, six prominent scholars form new conclusions regarding the events of 1710. The authors show that the processes by which European states sought to legitimate their claims, and the terms on which mutual toleration would be granted or withheld by different peoples living side by side are especially visible in the Nova Scotia that emerged following the conquest. Important on both a local and global scale, The 'Conquest' of Acadia will be a significant contribution to Acadian history, native studies, native rights histories, and the socio-political history of the eighteenth century.

The former French colony of Acadia—permanently renamed Nova Scotia by the British when they began an ambitious occupation of the territory in 1710—witnessed one of the bitterest struggles in the British empire. Whereas in its other North American colonies Britain assumed it could garner the sympathies of fellow Europeans against the native peoples, in Nova Scotia nothing was further from the truth. The Mi'kmaq, the native local population, and the Acadians, descendants of the original French settlers, had coexisted for more than a hundred years prior to the British conquest, and their friendships, family ties, common Catholic religion, and commercial relationships proved resistant to British-enforced change. Unable to seize satisfactory political control over the region, despite numerous efforts at separating the Acadians and Mi'kmaq, the authorities took drastic steps in the 1750s, forcibly deporting the Acadians to other British colonies and systematically decimating the remaining native population. The story of the removal of the Acadians, some of whose descendants are the Cajuns of Louisiana, and the subsequent oppression of the Mi'kmaq has never been completely told. In this first comprehensive history of the events leading up to the ultimate break-up of Nova Scotian society, Geoffrey Plank skillfully unravels the complex relationships of all of the groups involved, establishing the strong bonds between the Mi'kmaq and Acadians as well as the frustration of the British administrators that led to the Acadian removal, culminating in one of the most infamous events in North American history.

"Altogether superb: an accessible, fluent account that advances scholarship while building a worthy memorial to the victims of two and a half centuries past." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 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. 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.

Despite their position between warring French and British empires, European settlers in the Maritimes eventually developed from a migrant community into a distinctive Acadian society. From Migrant to Acadian is a comprehensive narrative history of how the Acadian community came into being. Acadian culture not only survived, despite attempts to extinguish it, but developed into a complex society with a unique identity and traditions that still exist in present day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

The Acadian Diaspora tells the extraordinary story of thousands of Acadians expelled from Nova Scotia and scattered throughout the Atlantic world beginning in 1755. Following them to the Caribbean, the South Atlantic, and western Europe, historian Christopher Hodson illuminates a long-forgotten world of imperial experimentation and human brutality.