II.

History

The struggle between Great Britain and France for dominance in North America culminated in the French and Indian War (1754-1763). In 1755 British military forces drove thousands of Acadian exiles into France, England, and the English colonies on the Atlantic seaboard. At the end of the war in 1763, the Treaty of Paris granted the exiles an 18-month grace period in which to relocate to France. Between 1764 and 1788, about 2,500 to 3,000 Acadians arrived in the French colony of Louisiana. They settled along the bayous Teche and Lafourche, and along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

The Acadians quickly adapted to their new surroundings. Within a decade of their arrival in Louisiana, many achieved a standard of living comparable to that of their former settlements. However, many in the established community of Louisiana-born French-speakers, known as Creoles, did not welcome the Acadian immigrants. The most ambitious Creoles hoped to create a colonial society modeled on French feudalism, in which Creole aristocrats would rule over impoverished tenant farmers and slaves. In contrast, the Acadians, descendants of French peasants, had consciously attempted to build a democratic society based on equality during their 150-year residence in North America.

Friction between these two groups grew as slavery and the plantation economy took root in the areas originally settled by the Acadian exiles. First-generation Acadian immigrants remained unimpressed by the aristocratic trappings of slave ownership. However, second- and third-generation Acadians envied their affluent Creole neighbors and consciously altered their lifestyles to gain acceptance by them. By 1810 a majority of Acadian households in the original settlements owned slaves, and the children of Acadian planters began to intermarry with the children of the local Creole elite.

Many Acadians who were unable or unwilling to adapt to the rapid transformation of the fertile bayou and river regions migrated to less desirable prairie, swamp, and marsh areas. In these marginal areas, the Acadians continued working as their ancestors had, engaging in small-scale farming and ranching. These farmers and ranchers constituted the majority of the Acadian population at the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865). At the beginning of the war, Acadian slave owners flocked to the Confederate cause. Less affluent Acadians were forcibly drafted into the Confederate Army, only to later desert the army in large numbers.

The upper and lower classes developed along different paths after the war. By the 1880s, the assimilation of the Acadian elite into the Creole planter class was largely complete. Common economic circumstances and increasing intermarriage between the two groups blurred the lingering differences between them. Likewise, less affluent Acadians intermarried with poor Creoles, British Americans, and European immigrants. Over time, these non-Acadian groups became completely absorbed by Acadian culture. Outsiders soon came to label all poor, French-speaking whites in southern Louisiana as Cajuns.

Economic circumstances in the late 1800s forced many small landowners in Louisiana to sell their property and rent fields from wealthy landlords. By 1900 nearly half of all Cajun families in southwestern Louisiana were tenant farmers. The resulting economic hardships forced many Cajuns to migrate to the newly established shipyards and refineries in eastern Texas during the early 20th century.

The impoverished Cajuns who remained in Louisiana found their French language and culture under siege. In 1921 the state of Louisiana mandated that all public school classes be taught in English. Some Cajuns who agreed with the negative stereotypes outsiders associated with their culture joined in the vigorous attempt to eradicate the French language spoken by Cajuns. This linguistic campaign, which lasted until the 1960s, gradually drove the Cajun culture to the brink of extinction.