"Chez les Anciens Acadiens: Causeries du Grand Père Antoine." 1911

Excerpts from a book that was published in 1911 by Père André-Thomas Bourque and is entitled, "Chez les Anciens Acadiens: Causeries du Grand Père Antoine." Père Bourque was born July 27, 1854 at Beaumont, New Brunswick and died on June 28, 1914 at Memramcook, New Brunswick. Therefore, he was very familiar with the Acadians of the Maritimes during this period. He appears to have been the P. Bourque who's writings were referenced in the December 1944 edition (no. 48) of the Montréal, Québec magazine entitled, “Relations.”

I’ve chosen to discuss a few important excerpts from this book and it should hopefully become apparent why I’ve chosen to discuss these excerpts.
The first excerpt is found on page 59. It is very self-explanatory and is as follows:

"Il y a quelques années, la plus grande insulte qu'on eût pu faire à un Acadien, aurait été de lui dire qu'il avait du sang indien dans les veines."

This loosely translates to:

"A few years ago, the greatest insult one could have made to an Acadian, would have been to tell him that he had Indian (First Nations) blood in his veins."

Yes, this should be pretty self-explanatory. Obviously there was a historical reason for this AND this most definitely caused Acadian-Metis families to "go underground."

A second excerpt is as follows:

"Sans doute, et c'est un fait admis de tout le monde, dans les commencements de la colonie, plusieurs des immigrés d'Europe, se trouvant sans femme et eu bonne voie de rester vieux garçons, finirent par s'allier à des femmes aborigènes du pays.”

This excerpt loosely translates to:

“Without a doubt, and it is an acknowledged fact of the whole world, at the beginning of the colony, many of the immigrants from Europe, finding themselves without a wife and having a good way of remaining old boys, ended up allying themselves with indigenous women of the country.”

Another important excerpt from this document is found on pages 60 and 61 and is as follows:

“Aussi il ne sera point difficile aujourd'hui, à l'observateur des types de la race humaine, de reconnaître, dans les descendants de la tribu micmacque, si décimée de nos jours, des individus de sang mêlé, des métis dont les noms français, anglais, irlandais ou écossais proclament assez souvent l'origine de leurs ancêtres du côté paternel au moins, car il n'est point de la connaissance de personne que des femmes blanches se soient jamais alliées aux naturels du pays, dans ces temps-là et depuis. Que dire maintenant de la manie d'autrefois qui voulait qu'un blanc eût à rougir de quelques gouttes de sang indien mêlé à celui de ses veines.”

This excerpt loosely translates to the following:

“It would not be difficult, today, for the observer of the types of the human race to recognize in the descendants of the Micmac tribe, so decimated in our day, individuals of mixed blood, half-breeds whose French names, English, Irish, or Scotch, often proclaim the origin of their ancestors on the paternal side at least, for it is not from the knowledge of any person that white women ever allied themselves with the natives of the country, in those days and since. What now is to be said of the mania of the past, which wished a white man to blush with a few drops of Indian blood mixed with that of his veins.”

A final important excerpt from this document discusses a man who wished to marry a First Nations woman in more recent times to the writing of the book. This excerpt can be found on page 70 and is as follows:

"Mais il n'y a point de doute, qu'avec les préjugés de ces temps-là, il n'aurait jamais obtenu le consentement de ses parents à une alliance, qui lui aurait impitoyablement fermé la porte de la demeure paternelle, et l'aurait ostracisé à tout jamais de la société de ses voisins."

This excerpt translates to:

“But there is no doubt, that with the prejudices of those times, he would never have obtained the consent of his parents to an alliance, which would have mercilessly closed the door of his paternal home, and would have forever ostracized him forever from the society of his neighbors.”

It has become apparent based on these three excerpts that in the year 1911, which was when Reverend André-Thomas Bourque published this book, to be an Acadian of Mixed-Blood regardless of whatever degree was not something to be talked about and was considered a source of great shame for many Acadians. No wonder many Acadian families have oral traditions of First Nations blood and a history of hiding this fact and “going underground.”

It also appears as if there was an initial acceptance of inter-marriages between the French settlers and the Mi’kmaq based on a lack of European women however, this acceptance “did a complete 180 degree turn” and became a source of embarrassment for families and could have easily resulted in shunning by the rest of the community. The excerpts taken from this document easily correlate with other documentation I have included in this collection from the same time periods.