In Louisiana, Queen Elizabeth offered closure to Acadian descendants

William Taylor Potter, Lafayette Daily Advertiser
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Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday, ending a 70-year reign that was the longest in British history and the second-longest in the world.

Over the course of her reign, which began in February 1952, the Queen oversaw decades of change in the United Kingdom, and for most of her subjects, she was the only monarch they had ever known.

But in Acadiana, Queen Elizabeth II is recognized for a different feat — bringing closure to descendants of those forced out of Canada as part of the Acadian Deportation.

According to the Acadian Museum in Erath, around 10,000 men, women and children were expelled from Nova Scotia in 1755, which would come to be known as the Acadian Deportation or the Great Upheaval. Many of those who were exiled made their way to Southwest Louisiana and became the ancestors of the French-Acadian and Cajun people.

Related:Queen Elizabeth II dies at 96; Prince Charles takes the throne as king

Acadiana:On commemorating the Acadian Deportation

Around one-third of those exiled died on the journey, according to the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission.

Warren Perrin, lawyer and founder of the Acadian Museum in Erath, tells the story of how the Acadian people came to the U.S. and Louisiana with help from a map in French on display at the museum. March is Le Mois de la Francophonie, a global celebration of the diversity of those who speak French.
Warren Perrin, lawyer and founder of the Acadian Museum in Erath, tells the story of how the Acadian people came to the U.S. and Louisiana with help from a map in French on display at the museum. March is Le Mois de la Francophonie, a global celebration of the diversity of those who speak French.

More than two-and-a-half centuries after the deportation, it was Queen Elizabeth II who issued an official apology for her country's actions. The proclamation, issued in 2003, acknowledged the “trials and suffering experienced by the Acadian people during the Great Upheaval” and expressed “hope that the Acadian people can turn the page on this dark chapter of their history.”

The formal apology came after a years-long campaign led by Warren Perrin, a local lawyer and historian who founded the Acadian Museum. According to the Acadian Museum’s website, Perrin began working on the petition in 1988, and it was delivered to the Queen and then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990.

In December 2003, the proclamation was signed. The document constituted a formal apology and established a “Day of Commemoration” on July 28 of each year. People in Acadiana and Canada observe the Acadian Day of Remembrance on the same day each year.

A copy of the proclamation is in the Acadian Museum, though the original is in the Canadian archives in Ottawa.

In 2017, Perrin wrote a letter to the editor for The Daily Advertiser on the importance of Queen Elizabeth II’s proclamation and why the day of remembrance should be observed.

“Importantly, the proclamation, an act of contrition, declared a closure to the century-long debate over whether the Acadian Deportation was justified,” Perrin wrote. “It is telling that no one now argues that the ethnic cleansing carried out by the British in the mid-18th century was ‘unfortunate but necessary’ as British defenders had long argued.

“The salient point: The Acadians of that period were vindicated and a historical wrong was symbolically rectified.”

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This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Queen Elizabeth II brought closure to many Acadian descendants