On May 10, 1785, the Bon Papa, a modest three-master of 280 tons, hoisted its sails at Paimboeuf, France, near Nantes, and headed west. On board were thirty-six families whom the owner of the boat had promised to bring to port. The ship, which arrived at its destination on July 29, 1785--after eighty days on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico waters--was only the first of seven ships carrying nearly 1,600 Acadians to Spain's Louisiana colony. Thirty years, almost to the day, before the arrival of Bon Papa in New Orleans, seven or eight times as many Acadians had embarked on ships from Nova Scotia, Canada. Between July 28 and July 31, 1755, the English governor of the colony, Charles Lawrence, as a prelude to the Seven Years' War, made the decision to expel all inhabitants of French origin within his territory. Many of the exiled Acadians were deported to the American colonies, the Caribbean, Britain, or France. Nearly one-third of those deported died from disease or drownings. Those who did survive the journey often struggled to survive and assimilate in their new communities, even in their motherland of France. This book examines the Acadians while exiled in France. Based on a tremendous amount of primary source research, Mouhot tells their story in great detail, while he also challenges many previous interpretations and understandings of their experiences in their "homeland."

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"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.

For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.