Shedding light on Acadians

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Shedding light on Acadians
Archeology professor publishes diary detailing expulsion
By KELLY SHIERS Staff Reporter
Fri. Nov 27 - 4:46 AM

Jonathan Fowler doesn’t remember the first time he heard the story of the deportation of the Acadians, only that he learned it in elementary school like generations of other Nova Scotia kids.

But somewhere along the line — perhaps when he began to skip out of class at Acadia University to scour the local landscape for clues of a life before the Great Upheaval of 1755 — he began to realize there was more to the story than those cursory facts he had memorized in school.

At 37, he’s spent much of the past decade searching old documents, sifting through oral histories and digging deep to shed new light on a powerful story that is focused at the Grand Pre National Historic Site.

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This week, the Saint Mary’s University archeology professor and research partner Earle Lockerby published the diary of New England soldier Jeremiah Bancroft, whose journal provides only the second eyewitness account of the deportation of the Acadians from Grand Pre in 1755.

Until this diary came to light, only the military writings of John Winslow, the commanding officer, described the deportation of Acadians in Nova Scotia, outside of what was happening in Chignecto.

For centuries, Grand Pre has been synonymous with the deportation as the emotional homeland for generations who trace their families to this region where, in 1755, 418 Acadian men and boys were summoned to their church and heard that they and their families were prisoners who were about to be exiled.

But the story of Grand Pre began long before that, with the people who settled there, forged friendships with the natives and worked hard to develop a community that remains, even today, the heart of Acadie despite those efforts to erase it.

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"It was a puzzle. There were 3,000 people deported from here. We had these questions (like) where did they live? Nobody had really any answers. So it started as a puzzle," Mr. Fowler said.

"Then, of course, it deepens and it becomes an obsession."

For three weeks each summer since 2001, in co-operation with Parks Canada and the Societe Promotion Grand-Pre, he’s led groups of students in an archeological field school project to the Grand Pre National Historic Site.

There, they’ve painstakingly searched for clues that help paint a picture of the lives of the Acadians and their village.

They’ve unearthed thousands of artifacts, including lethal leaden musket balls the size of large marbles, early brick (a rare example of industrial activity among a people better known as farmers and fishermen), an iron key, bits and pieces of glass wine bottles, coins and a clay pipe.

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Along the way, there have also been eureka moments like the time they discovered a solid silver cross that had probably been attached to some sort of chalice.

"These are the greatest hits," he said with a laugh, as he recently removed articles from a glass display case at the historic site.

"We find a lot of things that don’t look like things."

They’ve also found the rock foundations of three buildings, and recently uncovered an edge of a cemetery near the spot long suspected to be the early settlers’ burial ground.

"That has real meaning for Acadian people. Descendents say to us (that it would) be nice to know where their ancestors are so they can mark the site and remember it. We’re getting much closer to that," he said.

With more than 10 years of research behind him, Mr. Fowler said he counts himself "as one of the lucky ones" to be working to shed light on the Acadian story.

"They’ve got a powerful story. These are families who were put through so much and still retain not only their ties to one another, but a real vitality," he said.

"With archeology, it’s one of the ways we are able to make a contribution to that."

( kshiers@herald.ca)

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200911250132.html

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A section of the transcript of Jeremiah Bancroft’s diary.

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Saint Mary’s University archeology professor Jonathan Fowler and historian Earle Lockerby display a 1925 transcript of the diary of Jeremiah Bancroft, a Massachusetts soldier who was present for the deportation of the Acadians from Grand Pre. (Photos by CHRISTIAN LAFORCE / Staff)