New Brunswick could have been the "fourteenth colony"
Cardinal Richelieu tried to initiate plans to colonize North America. In 1627, he revoked all previous French monopolies for North America and in their place, launched the Company of New France, also known as the Company of One Hundred Associates. In return for the fur trade monopoly, the company had to guarantee that two hundred migrants would emigrate per year.
In 1627, La Rochelle was the last stronghold of the Huguenots in France. During the siege that took place around this city, which he himself led, Richelieu drew up the charter for the One Hundred Associaties. A merchant family by the name of Kirke, who had been forced out of France for their religious beliefs and now living in London, wanted to revenge the defeat of La Rochelle. Leaving England in 1628, three Kirke brothers in three boats that were given to them by Charles I, captured four boats with four hundred settlers belonging to Company of the One Hundred Associates. One of the prisoners was Claude de La Tour. The Kirke brothers continued on to Québec where Champlain's habitation was sacked, the area was taken for the King of England, and Champlain himself was kidnapped. It was not until the treaty of St.Germain-en-Laye in 1632 that the lands were returned to France. In 1631, Charles La Tour had become governor of Acadia, and moved to the mouth of the St.John River and built a new fort there, where in 1635, he was formally granted a seignory.
In 1621, James I King of England had granted a charter to the Scot Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling to a large portion of north-eastern coast of North America to develop New Scotland (Latin: Nova Scotia). The aim of the charter was to supplant the French colony that had been established. In the late 15th century, Giovanni Caboto, an Italian explorer for the English crown had discovered the north-eastern shores of North America. The charter granted to William Alexander by James I was based on these earlier discoveries. It was not until 1629 that the Alexander group set sail. During the first winter, many of the settlers died from scurvy. By 1631, the English agreed to return Nova Scotia to the French crown and the Scottish settlement was dismantled. One Scotsman remained, married a French settler, and the name, Melanson (also Melançon), has since become an Acadian family name.
In 1632, Richelieu sent his cousin, Isaac de Razilly to Port-Royal, with the title Lieutenant-general of all of New France and governor of Acadia. With him were two men who would play a significant role in the development of Acadia: Charles de Menou d'Aulnay and Nicolas Denys. Razilly and La Tour agreed to divide control of Acadia: the former controlling all of the eastern side of Nova Scotia, the latter controlling the south-western corner of Nova Scotia and the territory along the Saint John River.
In 1633, merchants from Massachusetts established a trading post at Machias, Maine. Razilly used this incident to identify the Kennebec River, near Portland, Maine, as the line at which the English must not cross. In 1635, Razilly died a sudden death at the age of 48. His legacy was his role in promoting emigration to Acadia. His immediate successor, d'Aulnay, succeeded him. Unfortunately for Acadia and the colonists, a long and wasteful struggle was about to begin between these two men.
In the end, the struggle between La Tour and d'Aulnay would cost hundreds of thousands of livres. La Tour found allies in Massachusetts and on August 6th, 1643, La Tour and his paid army descended on Acadia, killing three, injuring seven others, and taking a prisoner. By 1645, several hundred people were living in Port-Royal, including Capucins who had established a monastery there. Charles La Tour sought refuge in Québec. In 1647, d'Aulnay became governor-general and seigneur of Acadia by royal proclamation. Others that made claims against Madame d'Aulnay included Nicolas Denys, the holder of one of the largest seigneuries in Acadia. With the exception of Denys's sieugneury, La Tour, once again, came to control Acadia. During the English occupation of Acadia, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister forbade the Acadians from returning to France.
The Treaty of Breda, signed July 31, 1667, returned Acadia to France. As a result of the English occupation, no new French families would install in Acadia between 1654 and 1670. As a result of the English occupation, no new French families would install in Acadia between 1654 and 1670. In the spring of 1671, more than fifty colonists left La Rochelle aboard the l'Oranger. Others arrived from Canada (New France) or were retired soldiers. In 1670, the new governor of Acadia, the chevalier Hubert d'Andigny, chevalier de Grandfontaine, was responsible for the first census undertaken in Acadia. The results did not include those Acadians living with local First Nations. French efforts in North America were concentrated on New France. By 1683, however, the population of Port-Royal had grown to around 800 inhabitants. An Acadian delegation arrived in Halifax in 1755 with a petition to present to the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, Colonel Charles Lawrence. Under pressure from the Province of Massachusetts Bay and the British admiral in Halifax, Lawrence ordered the mass deportation of the Acadians despite earlier cautions from British authorities against drastic action. In the Great Expulsion of 1755, a large percentage of- more than 12,000 Acadians of Nova Scotia were driven out of Acadia by the British to France; many later resettled in Louisiana, where they became known as Cajuns. The British destroyed around 6,000 Acadian houses and dispersed the Acadians among the 13 colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia. Other Acadians were deported to France, where many had to live in the slums of Nantes or on Belle-Isle off Brittany. The French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon near Newfoundland became a safe harbor for many Acadian families until they were once again deported by the British in 1778 and 1793.
The Acadians eventually intermarried on the semitropical frontier, including Louisianians of Spanish, German, and French Creole heritage. Cajuns do not descend solely from Acadian exiles who settled in south Louisiana. Their populations descend in many cases from settlers who migrated to the region from Québec, Mobile, or directly from France. The largest group of Acadians, 3,500, were sent to Poitou, France. From Prince Edward Island, many fled the French Colony from Acadia to mainland Nova Scotia. At the time there was a war going on in what is now Canada between France and Great Britain over the colony of New France: it is generally considered only one theater of the Seven Years' War (1754 and 1756–1763). Acadians were allowed to return to Nova Scotia as long as they did not settle in any one area in large numbers; they were not permitted to resettle in the areas of Port Royal or Grand-Pre. Some Acadians resettled along the Nova Scotia coast and remain scattered across Nova Scotia to this day. Beginning in 1764, groups of Acadians began to arrive in Louisiana- They eventually became known as Cajuns.
New Brunswick separates the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island from the mainland provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and some of the warmest ocean water temperatures on the Atlantic coast north of Virginia. Its capital is Fredericton. Known as the "Garden of the Gulf", Prince Edward Island is located in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence north of Nova Scotia and east of New Brunswick, with which it forms the Northumberland Strait. The area, presently known as Fort Lawrence, located on the East side of the Missaguash River, in the region known as Chignecto which consisted of the area surrounding the border between present day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, was originally called Beaubassin, meaning "beautiful bay". Beaubassin was founded in 1671 and was the first major French settlement, outside of Port Royal, in Acadia. The French named the area that includes Maine as Acadia.
