Cajun Historiography
"Historiography” is not the study of history. Instead, it is the study of the writing of history. The way in which an individual, a people, or a nation writes its history reveals much about those who wrote it. The past itself does not change, but the way that people interpret it does. The elements of history that are emphasized or downplayed, and the value judgments assigned to them, all change—reflecting the writer’s own personal and cultural biases.
For nearly 300 years, the European colonial powers of France, Great Britain, and Spain engaged in an intense rivalry for the control of territories and trade in the New World. The years 1688-1713, in particular, were a period of almost continuous warfare between France and Great Britain, which ended in the first dismemberment of France’s North American empire.
Fulfillment of France’s long-held desire to penetrate Spanish trade networks in the Americas – the veritable fountainhead of Spanish silver, colonial staples, and access to its colonial markets – extended the French presence in the Americas and seriously challenged Britain’s bid for commercial dominance in the 18th century. Indeed, much of west European history, from the War of the Spanish Succession to the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, can be explained by this Franco-British commercial rivalry.
European warfare in the Americas during the early colonial period usually had its origin in Continental politics. In the years 1688-1713 two major wars dominated European affairs, with far reaching consequences for European history. The first conflict, the War of the Grand Alliance (1688-97), also known as the War of the League of Augsburg, began in 1688, when Louis XIV attempted to seize territories along the Rhine River in what is now western Germany. That same year, Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688 brought the Protestant William of Orange (1650-1702) to the throne in England. William formed a coalition aimed at thwarting French ambitions.
The conflict ended in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick. Louis XIV obtained confirmation of his 1681 annexation of Strasbourg. In return, he was forced to recognize William rather than the deposed Catholic, James II (1633-1701), as the legitimate king of England and to grant commercial privileges to the Dutch.
The second conflict, known as the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), began five years later when Louis attempted to place his grandson, Philippe d’Anjou, on the Spanish throne. England and Austria went to war to try to block this expansion of French power. The conflict ended with the 1713 Peace of Utrecht, in which Philippe was recognized as the legitimate ruler of Spain. In exchange, Austria was awarded formerly Spanish territories in Italy and England acquired Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Hudson Bay from France, and Gibraltar from Spain.
In the Americas, rivalry between France and Spain was economic, religious, and political. The French crown and its many privateers (privately-owned ships operating under royal charter) hoped to secure for themselves a portion of Spain’s lucrative silver trade, while French missionaries sought to convert to Christianity native peoples, many of whom lived in the widening arc of the Spanish border regions of California and the Mississippi Valley.
Spain’s late-17th century alignment with Britain against France led to increased conflict between the French and the Spanish in the Americas. In 1683 French forces attacked Spanish settlements at Vera Cruz in present-day Mexico. During the War of the Grand Alliance, French privateers harassed Spanish colonists and missionaries in the settlements along the Gulf of Mexico. Major fighting took place between Spanish and French navies in the West Indies. The War of the Spanish Succession also sparked major fighting in the Americas, this time with France and Spain allied against Britain. Despite the formal Franco-Spanish alignment, however, a primary motive for French “protection” of Spain’s American possessions was the access that it gave to French merchants seeking to engage in trade with the Spanish empire. French merchants had long maintained significant trade communities at several Spanish ports, most notably at Cadiz on Spain’s southern Atlantic coast. These outposts grew after 1702.
In 1754, after several decades of calm (and two years before the official outbreak of the Seven Years War), a new conflict broke out between the two powers over settlement in the Ohio Valley. This conflict, also known in Anglo-American historiography as the French and Indian War, led to the disappearance of New France, as ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
Francis Parkman (1823-1893) concluded that French power in North America ultimately was doomed by the rigidities and weaknesses of the absolutist regime in pre-revolutionary France. Parkmen saw the French Canadians as an "... ignorant population, sprung from a brave and active race, but trained to subjection and dependence through centuries of feudal and monarchical despotism, was planted in the wilderness by the hand of authority, and told to grow and flourish. Artificial stimulants were applied, but freedom was withheld. Perpetual intervention of government, regulations, restrictions, encouragements sometimes more mischievous than restrictions, a constant uncertainty what the authorities would do next, the fate of each man resting less with himself than with another, volition enfeebled, self-reliance paralyzed.
" Against absolute authority there was a counter influence, rudely and wildly antagonistic. Canada was at the very portal of the great interior wilderness. The St. Lawrence and the Lakes were the highway to that domain of savage freedom; and thither the disfranchised, half-starved seignior, and the discouraged habitant who could find no market for his produce, naturally enough betook themselves. Their lesson of savagery was well learned, and for many a year a boundless license and a stiff-handed authority battled for the control of Canada....
" In spite of its political nothingness, in spite of poverty and hardship, and in spite even of trade, the upper stratum of Canadian society was animated by the pride and fire of that gallant noblesse which held war as its only worthy calling, and prized honor more than life. ...
"In the building up of colonies, England succeeded and France failed. The cause lies chiefly in the vast advantage drawn by England from the historical training of her people in habits of reflection, forecast, industry, and self-reliance, — a training which enabled them to adopt and maintain an invigorating system of self-rule, totally inapplicable to their rivals.
"The New England colonists were far less fugitives from oppression than voluntary exiles seeking the realization of an idea. They were neither peasants nor soldiers, but a substantial Puritan yeomanry, led by Puritan gentlemen and divines in thorough sympathy with them. They were neither sent out by the king, governed by him, nor helped by him. They grew up in utter neglect, and continued neglect was the only boon they asked."
The Acadian story begins in France. The people who would become the Cajuns came primarily from the rural areas of the Vendee region of western France. In 1604, they began settling in Acadie, now Nova Scotia, Canada, where they prospered as farmers and fishers. Over the next century, the ownership of the colony of Acadie changed hands several times. In 1713 Great Britain acquired permanent control of Acadie, but many Acadians did not become cooperative British subjects, preferring to maintain their independence and refusing to swear allegiance to the British crown and church.
In 1755 the British began the removal of the Acadians from their homeland. The "outlaws" were taken into custody by a British officer, then herded onto British ships setting sail for destinations unknown to the exiles. Le Grand Dérangement dispersed the Acadians to France, the Caribbean, Britain, and to British colonies along North America’s east coast. Many of the exiles were unhappy in their new homes and moved on. Some of them found their way to south Louisiana and began settling in the rural areas west of New Orleans.
By the early 1800s, nearly 4000 Acadians had arrived and settled in Louisiana. Many lived in the bayou country where they hunted, fished, trapped, and lived off the bounty of the Mississippi River delta. Some moved beyond the Atchafalaya Basin onto southwest Louisiana’s prairies to raise cattle and rice. The new arrivals learned new skills and shared what they brought with them with the many peoples already in the area: American Indians, free people of color, enslaved Africans and their descendants, and immigrants from Europe, Asia, and North and South America.
The Acadians became Cajuns as they adapted to their new home and its people. Their French changed as did their architecture, music, and food. The Cajuns of Louisiana today are renowned for their music, their food, and their ability to hold on to tradition while making the most of the present.
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