Crossing Borders, Changing Worlds: Eighteenth-Century Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Connections

Abstract

Jeffers Lennox From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People 1604-1755. By N.E.S. Griffiths. Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration, Universite de Moncton. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. 633 pp. $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-773-52699-0. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of Expulsion of French Acadlans from their American Homeland. By John Mack Faragher. New York: WW. Norton, 2005. 562 pp. $42.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-393-05135-8. $25.00 (paper). ISBN 0-393-32827-9. Rough Crossings: Britain, Slaves and American Revolution. By Simon Schama. Toronto: Viking Canada, 2005. 478 pp. $36.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-670-04470-2. The Fault Lines of Empire: Political Differentiation in Massachusetts and Scotia, ca. 1760-1830. By Elizabeth Mancke. New York: Routledge, 2005. 214 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-95000-8. $32.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-415-95001-5. $95.00 (cloth). At dawn of eighteenth centary, Nova was little more than a name on a map. On ground, colony was l'Acadie to French, or Mi'kma'ki to region's most powerful inhabitants, Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik. By end of centary, had secured Scotia by expelling most of region's French inhabitants, welcoming thousands of loyal subjects who fled rebelling American colonies, and overpowering local Mi'kmaq. This shift occurred during a truly Atlantic period in Scotia's history. CisAtlantic history, described by David Armitage as the history of any specific place ... in relation to wider Atlantic word, including the local effects of oceanic movements, provides an excellent framework for investigating this era (2002, 22-23). Scotia/l'Acadie, a place whose changes were so great and whose history is so intertwined with complex shifts of America, France, Britain, and Mi'kma'ki, offers rich ground for Atlantic world historian. Recent works are questioning sustainability of Atlantic world framework. Historians attracted to global perspectives are calling for a more encompassing approach to historical investigation: Linda Colley has argued that the future of Atiantic past must now be in some doubt, anticipating Atlantic history's incorporation into world history (2006,45); Alison Games recently suggested that though historians may limit themselves to a single oceanic basin, inhabitants of early modern world did (2006, 692; see also Wigen et al. 2006); John Reid takes issue with Atlantic history's exclusion of Aboriginals (2005); and finally, an upcoming symposium entitled British Asia and Atlantic, 1500-1820: Two Worlds or One? will no doubt raise concerns about framework's limitations. The four monographs reviewed here suggest, however, that there is still much to be learned about Atlantic world. As demonstrated by N.E.S. Griffiths, John Mack Faragher, Simon Schama, and Elizabeth Mancke, Scotia m eighteenth centary was influenced by distinctly Atlantic connections that demand historical attention. In her sweeping and meticulously researched narrative of pre-Expulsion Acadian experience, N.E.S. Griffiths explores social, religious, and political world of one of North America's first European settler populations. From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604-17SS draws from a distinguished career of bilingual research and writing to provide what should become definitive history of Acadia. Griffiths argues that Acadian expulsion resulted not from their Catholicism or their possession of best lands in Scotia, but because they failed to swear an unconditional oath of allegiance to Crown and raise arms in its defence (2005, 387). Griffiths argues that Acadian expulsion was different from other forced removals m Atlantic Worldincluding English from Newfoundland in 1697, French from St. …