A Great and Noble Scheme

"On September 4, 1755, The Pennsylvania Gazette printed a dispatch from the maritime province of Nova Scotia: "We are now upon a great and noble Scheme of sending the neutral French out of this Province, who have always been secret Enemies, and have encouraged our Savages to cut our Throats. If we effect their Expulsion, it will be one of the greatest Things that ever the English did in America; for by all Accounts, that Part of the Country they possess, is as good Land as any in the World: In case therefore we could get some good English Farmers in their Room, this Province would abound with all Kinds of Provisions."" "At the time these words were published, New England troops acting under the authority of the colonial governors of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts were systematically rounding up more than seven thousand Acadians, the French-speaking, Catholic inhabitants who lived in communities along the shores of the Bay of Fundy. Men, women, and children alike were crowded into transport vessels and deported in small groups to other British colonies across the continent of North America." "Piecing together the scattered remnants of Acadian civilization in documents and sources buried deep in archives, historian John Mack Faragher provides the first comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and historically accurate account of the expulsion from both British and Acadian points of view."--Jacket.