Ile Madame is the largest island in an archipelago situated off the southwest coast of Cape Breton. Until recent years, well over half the population of Richmond County lived on this island. Arichat, the most important town on Isle Madame, is also the capital of Richmond County. Like Pubnico in Argyle, Petit-de-Grat on Isle Madame was settled by Acadians before the Deportation.

Fishermen have frequented the waters off Isle Madame and the south coast of Cape Breton Island for more than three centuries.

After France lost Acadie to Britain in 1713, it founded the colony of Ile Royale (Cape Breton) which was protected by the immense fortress at Louisbourg. However, on 67 families moved to Cape Breton between 1713 and 1734 and even some of these went back to mainland Nova Scotia.

While some of Isle Madame's Acadian families, notably the Gerroirs, LeJeunes and Doirons, settled in Isle Madame during this period, most of Isle Madame's population was composed of French fishermen brought to Isle Madame by Hiriat and D'Aroupet. After the fall of Louisbourg in 1758 virtually all of these early settlers left Isle Madame. Most of the ancestors of Isle Madame's present day Acadian population arrived in the years after the Fall of Louisbourg. Families such as the Boudrot's (Boudreaus), Samsons, Martels (Martells), Dugas',DeCoste, Bouchers, Petitpas, Vigneau's, Fougeres, Marchands, Poiriers, and Landrys were settled in the Port Toulouse (St. Peter's) area at the time of the Fall of Louisbourg. After being forced off their land many of these families spent years in exile or hiding in the woods before finding their way to Isle Madame. Other families such as the Forets, the Theriots (Theriaults), the Babins, the LeBlancs, the Forgerons, the Bellefoutaines, the Lavandiers, the Meuniers, and the Richards were expelled from Old Acadie, that is the Bay of Fundy region, in the Great Expulsion of 1755 and like the families mentioned above made their way to Isle Madame after a number of years in exile.

The Acadians settled in the two main outports of Cape Breton - Port-Toulouse and Petit-de-Grat - and became involved in coastal trade with Louisbourg. Almost every Acadian in Richmond County today can claim descent from the cluster of families who immigrated to Cape Breton in the early part of the eighteenth century. Their family names are:

Coste

Petitpas

LaForest

Boudrot

Dugas

Boucher

Vigneau

Fougère

Langlois

Marchand

Samson

By the time the Frenchman, Sieur de la Roque, carried out his detailed census of all the settlements on Ile Royale in 1752, there were about 35 Acadian families settled on Isle Madame along with several families from France.

Hundreds of Acadians took refuge on Cape Breton, especially in Louisbourg, during the early 1750s. The majority of them were loaded onto ships and transported to France in 1758 after the fall of Louisbourg. A few of them, however, were able to escape this deportation and, along with the older Acadian families, went into hiding or fled to the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. They gradually made their way back to the region they had once occupied. Writing in his diary in 1768 while remaining on Cape Breton island for the winter, Charles Robin mentions Rhéné LeBlanc, Simon and Charles Fougère, Claude Dugat, Rhéné Therriau, and Anselme Bellefontaine.

In 1768 Lieutenant-Governor Franklin prepared a list of the inhabitants on Cape Breton Island who had made improvements to their land and who therefore should have been eligible for land titles. Seven names were mentioned with regard to Petit-de-Grat:

Charles Fougère

Charles Dugas

Louis Boudreau

Joseph Boudreau

John Peters (Pitre?)

Peter Fougère

Joseph Gaudin(Godin)

The census of 1774 indicates that there were 400 inhabitants on Isle Madame, most of whom were concentrated in Petit-de-Grat and Arichat. According to the first resident missionary on Isle Madame, Father William Phelan, there was a chapel in Arichat when he came in 1786. Unfortunately the next 50 years parish records for the whole of Isle Madame were lost when the presbytery in Arichat was destroyed by fire in 1838.

The majority of settlers lived on Isle Madame for a long time, often more than 20 years, before they obtained titles to their land. As habitable land and water frontage was limited, Acadian migrations to Isle Madame came to an end by the early 1800s. In 1811, for example, there were approximately 1,200 inhabitants, 90 percent of whom were Acadian. The same census also indicates a surprisingly large number of livestock considering the poor soil.

When settlers applied for titles to their land, they were often asked their age, where they were born and how long they had been living in Cape Breton. Below is listed a few cases from the Cape Breton Land Papers. One can see that Isle Madame was resettled not only by descendants of families who had immigrated to Ile Royale(Cape Breton) in the early 1700s, but also by Acadians who had lived in exile for many years. The following examples show the complex fabric of resettlement in Richmond Country:

Charles Landry:

requested title to his land in 1810; he was 70 years old, had 9 children, 7 of whom were living in Cape Breton;

he was born in the territory of present-day New Brunswick in 1740; he had been living in Arichat since 1780.

Nicholas Petitpas:

requested title to his land in 1815; he was 60 years old and had 9 children; he was born in Louisbourg in 1755; he had been living in D'Escousse since 1785

Moses LeBlanc:

requested title to his land in 1809; he was 44 years old; he was born in St. Malo, France in 1765; he had been living in Arichat since 1784; he took the oath of allegiance in Arichat in 1793

Paul LeBlanc:

requested title to his land in 1815; he was 46 years old and had a wife and 2 children; he ws born in Belle-Isle-en-Mer, France in 1769; he had been living in Cape Breton (presumably Arichat) since 1775

Cyprian Samson:

requested title to his land in 1815; he was 51 years old and had 12 children, allliving with him; he was born in Cape Breton in 1764; he had been living in Petit-de-Grat since 1785

Marie Babin:

is one of the very rare women whose name appears in a petition for land; she petitioned Governor Ainslie in 1818 for title to 140 hectares (340 acres) located in West Arichat for herself and her children, Joseph, Peter Paul, Abraham, Susan and Madeleine; her husband Pierre, died after receiving title to a lot of 90 hectares (230 acres) in 1803; she was granted the land immediately; Marie and Pierre Babin appear to have met and married in Arichat - Marie was born in Port-Roulouse and Pierre was born in the Grand-Pré region and deported to Massachusetts with his family in 1755.

As was the case elsewhere, Acadians were permitted to resettle provided they signed the oath of allegiance to the British monarch. Many Acadians on Isle Madame appear to have taken the oath in Arichat in 1793. This is probably due to the fact that between 1792 and 1793, several hundred Acadians who had taken refuge on the island of St. Pierre and Miquelon, returned to Cape Breton, mainly to Isle Madame. They decided to leave the French islands because they refused to take an oath under the new constitution of France instituted in 1792 after the Revolution.

SOURCE: The Acadians of Nova Scotia Past and Present by Sally Ross and Alphonse Deveau

Isle Madame Web Site