Louisbourg was a French fortified town from 1713 to 1758 and the capital of the colony of Ile Royale. It was the center of the lucrative cod fishery and a mercantile shipping point between Europe and the New World with regular commercial contact with France, the West Indies, Quebec and New England. The community of 1200 civilians was protected by stone fortification walls and a garrison of 500 soldiers employed by the Department of the Marine and managed by a hierarchy including a governor and civil administrator with the associated bureaucracies. Louisbourg was a community of homes, warehouses, gardens, wharfs, a massive barracks, royal storehouse, lighthouse, careening facility and monumental entrance gates.

In 1745, the Fortress community was attacked by a rag tag New England military force supported by an English naval contingent. After a siege of seven weeks the garrison and civilian population surrendered. Most of the inhabitants were sent to France and Louisbourg was garrisoned by New England and then English troops until 1749. In that year the town was returned to the French and for the next decade flourished as a commercial centre.


In 1758, as part of the major English offensive against the French, Louisbourg was besieged and once more captured. In 1760 the fortification walls were systematically dismantled and by 1768 the garrison moved to Halifax.


Following the years of exile, the Acadians went in large enough numbers to settle in the area of Canso on Ile Madame, Cape Breton. The 1771 census indicates that there were already about 284 Acadians at Arichat, d'Escousse and Petit-de-Grat, Ile Madame. If we include the Acadians who were also at l'Ardoise, Bras-d'Or, Louisbourg and the Bay of Gabarus, that would give us an accounting of 439 peope.

At that time, Charles Robin who had also been at Pasp?biac, Baie des Chaleurs/Chaleurs Bay, was exploring the possiblies of establishing a considerable fishing industry on Canso Straights where many Acadians were in his employ. Most of these Acadians had come from St. Pierre et Miqulon. In 1774, the population of Cape Breton was about 1,011. Half of them lived at Arichat and Petit-de-Grat, Cape Breton.

It would seem that some Acadian families managed to remain in this area fter the fall of Louisbourg in 1758 until the Treaty of Paris was ratified in 1763. In 1860, Rameau de Saint-P?re who had visited St. Peters [temporarily named Port-Toulouse at some point], on Cape Breton told the story that he had met an Acadian by the name of Foug?re who told him that his father had come from Port-Toulouse. He also told him that he himself had been born in Arichat in 1761. When he was a child he told of how there had been eighteen houses in Arichat, five in d'Escousse, four at Petit-de-Grat. During the American Revolution in 1775, the Acadians had been obliged to leave Ile Madame as they were being threatened by that war. At that point only six families remained and the rest escaped to Halifax and from there some settled in Chezzetcook. After the war, most returned to where he was now living. As for the elders among the Acadians of Port-Toulouse, some migratred to St. Pierre, others to L'Ardoise. He told how he had remained in Chezzetcook for three years. Of course this Acadian was none other than Charles Foug?re, son of Charles Foug?re and Marguerite Coste who lived in Petit-de-Grat in 1771.

Among the families living in Arichat, Petit-de-Grat and d'Escousse were the following: Gillaume Benoit from Pisiguit. He was the son of Cl?ment and Anne Babin and his spouse was Marie Josephe Benoit; Louis Boudreau from Port-Royal. He was the son of Joseph and Marguerite Dugas married to Barbe Foug?re; Simon Forest from Pisiguit, son of Pierre and Madeleine Babin, married to Marguerite Gauterot; Jean Foug?re from Port Royal, son of Jean and Marie Bourg, married to Madeleine Belliveau; his brother Joseph Foug?re, married to Marguerite Coste; Pierre Girouard from Pisiguit, son of Pierre and Marie Doiron, married to C?cile Decheverry; Augustin Guidry from Port Royal, son of Pierre and Marguerite Brasseau, married to Fran?oise Jeanson; Jean-Baptiste Landry from Pisiguit, son of Jean-Baptiste and Marguerite Gauterot, married to Marie Joseph Leblanc.

Around 1775, fourteen Acadian families from Prince Edward Island settled on the northwest side of Cape Breton where they worked for the Robin company. Some of the surnames: Aucoin, Bois, Chiasson, Cormier, Deveau, Doucet, Gaudet, LeBlanc, Maillet and Poirier. They would winter either at St-Pierre or Arichat but by 1785 they settled permanently at Ch?ticamp where in 1803 there was a population of 353.


? Lucie LeBlanc Consentino
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