Jeanne Dugas of Acadia

by Cassie Deveaux Cohoon

Not all the Acadians from Paspébiac went to the Îles de la Madeleine, but Jeanne and Pierre’s group stayed together. Marie and Raymond sailed with her parents and others followed in several shallops.

  The living conditions were much the same as at other outports and they were used to living this way. In fact, the weather at Havre-Hébert was more temperate than at Paspébiac, with milder winters and fresh summers. But the wind blew year round – stronger in the winter. When the island was locked in by ice in the winter months, they were truly isolated, with no other land in sight.

  The men were used to the cod fishery, but the hunt for walruses and seals out on ice floes in the bitterly cold sea in winter and early spring was numbing. Dressing the walruses and seals was equally hard work. Pierre was the oldest man in the group and Jeanne was afraid it was too much for him, though he would not admit it.

  In the spring of 1781, the first ship brought the news that the war between Britain and its North American colonies was coming to an end and that the colonies had won their independence.

  Jeanne was determined they should return to Île Madame, or at least to Cap Breton. She shamelessly bullied Marie and Raymond to agree with her. But as the group argued the pros and cons of returning, Pierre was not at all convinced that they should go anywhere. Jeanne wondered if it was because he thought it safer to stay here or because he could not face another move.

  Worried and frustrated, Jeanne told him, “I cannot stay silent and just wait to see what you men will decide.”

  Pierre replied, perhaps only half jokingly, “Well, in any event, you have always had your own way.” She looked at him.

  “For half our lives,” he said, “we followed your brother Joseph.” His answer and the truth of it shook her.

  “Pierre, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. But please, please, listen to me one more time. You did promise me that we would go back.” It was decided they would go.

  Part 5

  The Return Home

  Chapter 43

  In the early summer of 1781, Jeanne and Pierre, Marie and Raymond Poirier, and their extended families returned to Île Madame. There they found more Acadians than when they had left five years before – people who, like themselves, were eager to live in what had been their homeland. Jeanne and Pierre and their group found that their simple houses had been taken over by these other Acadians. Since they had never had legal ownership of their homes, they could not claim them back. Once more, they started over. Once more, with nothing.

  Even their connection with the Robin company was changed. Both John and Charles Robin had retreated to the Jersey Islands during the Revolutionary War. The Robin company was still operating in Neireishak, but much diminished. Other Jerseymen had arrived to do business on the island, such as the Janvrins, Bournots and Malzards. The Robin company no longer had a monopoly, but this did not seem to shift more control to the fishermen.

  Joseph Gaudet, Raymond Poirier, and Augustin Deveau took their families to Petit-de-Grat. Pierre Bois and Joseph Richard dit Matinal stayed in Neireishak. Jeanne thanked God for the decision, for she felt she could not face any more fog-choked months at Petit-de-Grat. But their first fishing season at Neireishak was disappointing and their living conditions very basic.

  —

  They knew that the Robins had had a seasonal fishing outport on the northern coast of Cap Breton Island since the late 1760s. The area, known as Chétican, was the site of a seasonal Mi’kmaw camp but had no permanent inhabitants. Fishermen of all nationalities had used this convenient spot for their activities for many years before the Robins had arrived. By the late 1770s, the Robin’s fishing outport had a large system of wharfs and sheds around the cove known as La Pointe.

  After a brief visit there at the end of the 1781 fishing season, Pierre and Joseph Richard contracted to fish for the Robin outport at Chétican the following summer.

  The two families spent three summers fishing for the Robin company at La Pointe. They were housed in shacks along the sandbar known as Le Banc opposite the Robin wharf. This was not too uncomfortable during summer months, and the cod catch was very good. At the end of each season, because they were fishing for their own account with their own boats, they came away with a reasonable profit, even after their purchases at the company store were deducted.

  Jeanne and Marguerite, Joseph Richard’s wife, worked on the flakes on the beach where the cod was dried. During their first summer there, the Robin’s manager offered to hire Régis as a full-time worker during the season but Jeanne refused and Pierre agreed with her – Régis was only sixteen years old. In Paspébiac Jeanne had seen boys as young as fourteen recruited, spending their lives working for the Robin company because they were forever in debt to it.

  The Robin company at Chétican was obviously doing well, better than that at Neireishak, and there was always a shortage of fishermen and shore workers. The manager asked Pierre and Joseph Richard to consider settling there and to recruit others to come with them. The Robin company, in turn, would make the outport a year-round enterprise. The settlers would have a market for their fish and the company store to provide their needs.

  It was a daunting prospect. They would be pioneers – it was absolutely virgin land. The two families discussed it at length during the long summer evenings, and then in the fall with the rest of their Acadian group in Neireishak.

  Marie and Raymond were all in favour. Jeanne thought to herself, They are so young, they don’t understand how hard a life it could be. But conditions in Neireishak and Petit-de-Grat were still difficult and there was for once general agreement that they should not pass up this opportunity. The isolation should mean relative safety from marauding pirates and privateers, they were assured of a market for their fish catches, and the presence of the Mi’kmaq during part of the year would ease their isolation without being a threat. It was agreed that Pierre and Joseph Richard would make final arrangements with the Robin company during the summer of 1784.

  They spent the summer of 1785 at Neireishak and Petit-de-Grat, preparing for their move. Early in the fall, Jeanne and Pierre Bois, Marie and Raymond Poirier, Joseph Richard dit Matinal, Augustin Deveau, and Joseph Gaudet and their families sailed for Chétican. Three other Acadian families followed a month later.

  Chapter 44

  The harbour at Chétican was formed by a peninsula running northward, parallel to the to the mainland. The harbour itself was almost completely closed off by sand deposits, allowing only very shallow small boats to enter. This peninsula, which everyone called “the island,” was joined to the mainland by an isthmus – Le Banc. The Robin company had set up its wharf and buildings at the southwest tip of the island to take advantage of the good harbour there.

  The coastland was rocky, covered with fir, maple and birch trees, and with mountains in the background. There was a hill facing Chétican Harbour that ran parallel to the peninsula – the island – and a valley was nestled between the hill and the mountains. It would have been logical to make their homes near Le Banc, but the Acadians chose to settle in the valley, hidden from the sea and out of sight of pirates and privateers. The area became known as Le Platin. A smaller group settled to the northeast of Le Platin and this settlement became known as La Petite Étang. Both areas had a good supply of fresh water. They were, however, situated some distance from the Robin company and the harbour where their boats would be anchored.

  —

  Jeanne and Pierre Bois chose a spot for their new home that was not too heavily wooded and near a sparkling, clear stream. Marie and Raymond picked out a spot nearby but across the stream. Before Jeanne could even voice her thoughts about why the other side, Raymond said, “Belle-Mère, I’m going to build a bridge!” They had to work quickly to build houses before winter set in, but by now they were good at it. Here there was plentiful wood. Their first houses were made log-house style with roughly prepared wood, but they were snug and built to withsta
nd the elements. When the work required more than one or two men, all the others pitched in. As other families arrived, they were ready to help them with their houses.

  The Robin company kept their word. The manager and two other staff members stayed over the winter and readily supplied the Acadians with whatever they needed, on credit until the next fishing season.

  Pierre and Raymond were full of plans. It did Jeanne’s heart good to see Pierre so heartened and once again she let herself be carried away by the enthusiasm of her family.

  The winter was busy. The men cut down trees to clear their land and to use for firewood. There were plans to cultivate the land and bring in farm animals the following spring. They hoped to grow wheat. And there were good prospects for shipbuilding.

  —

  At the end of their first fishing season in Chétican, Joseph Richard dit Matinal and his family left to go to settle at Tracadie on St. George’s Bay. His wife Marguerite’s health was failing and he believed that the conditions at Chétican were too harsh for her. Jeanne was sorry to see them leave; Joseph, her second cousin, had been the only relative still part of her daily life.

  Their departure made her realize that she had not spent much time thinking of her brothers since she and Pierre had been released from Georges Island. She had heard from fellow Acadians that Joseph had been deported from Saint-Pierre et Miquelon to France, but had heard nothing of Charles or Abraham. It was a source of sorrow for her, but their absence from her life now was not the urgent pain of earlier years.

  She had another family now, not just her children and grandchildren, but the whole group of Acadians in their new community, where Jeanne knew she would be needed again in her role of midwife and comforter of the sick. From time to time Mi’kmaq came to visit, greeting them as friends. Several of them knew of the Dugas family, mainly because of Jeanne’s brother Joseph. This brought back memories to Jeanne, but she did not mention Martin Sauvage; so much time had passed.

  Jeanne sensed that it was the breaking up of families and family ties that had dealt the strongest blow to the spirit of the Acadians and wondered if it could be built up again for those who chose to remain on this land.

  —

  The little community of Chétican grew. They were soon joined by a group of Acadians who came from Île Saint-Jean. After the fall of Louisbourg, they had either been deported or fled the island to go to the Miramichi. When they returned to the island in the late 1760s, they found that Île Saint-Jean had been divided into sixty-seven cantons that were given to absentee British landlords. The Acadian settlers were considered tenants and had to pay a rental fee for the use of the land. Needless to say, this was impossible. In some cases, they had not been made aware of the situation, finding out only when they were asked to pay an exorbitant fee at the end of a season’s hard work.

  Others shared their stories. A man who had been deported and crossed the Atlantic on the Mary said that at least 250 of the 560 Acadians it carried died, most of them children, for want of “the necessities of life.” Another ship, the Ruby, was blown off course and ran aground – only 120 of the 310 Acadians on board were rescued. Two other ships, the Violet and the Duke William, sank along with their passengers. For those who survived the voyages, the conditions they met when they arrived at their destinations were horrific. It was believed that almost 2,000 Acadians died during the deportations from Île Saint-Jean.

  Pierre Aucoin and his brother Joseph, both born in Acadia, had been deported to Virginia in 1755. When that colony refused to accept them, they were sent on to England and imprisoned in barracks on the docks of London. When released and sent to France in 1763, only about 350 of the original 1500 prisoners had survived. Most had succumbed to cold, hunger and sickness – many of them were children.

  Grégoire Maillet had fled Grand-Pré before the Deportation of 1755, but had been captured and deported to France on the same ship as Joseph Deveau.

  Joseph Boudreau had been born in France, where his parents had eventually been sent after being refused asylum in Virginia and then imprisoned in England. They arrived in France in 1763, where Joseph was born two years later. He was only twenty-one years old when he arrived in Chétican.

  The Aucoin, Maillet, Deveau and Boudreau families had all returned to Acadia from France on the Robin company ships in 1773. Chased from the Gaspé peninsula by colonial privateers, like the Bois family and their group, they had then travelled from pillar to post seeking a permanent refuge. Some of them had spent years on Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.

  While Jeanne and Pierre Bois and their group, as well as Paul, Basile and Jean Chiasson and Lazard Leblanc, had not been deported, they had equally harrowing stories to tell of their escapes, their imprisonment and their losses.

  All the stories revolved around the sea. The sea had been their means of transport, their means of escape and their means of earning a living when circumstances made them fishermen rather than farmers. It had inspired their songs and their culture. But the sea had also been their enemy. The sea had brought war and displacement. It had wrenched them from their homes, and had deported them to foreign lands – often it had been their burial ground. Jeanne understood and shared this strong attachment the Acadians had to the sea. She felt it in the very marrow of her bones.

  Each year a few more seekers of asylum came to Chétican. By 1790, there were twenty-six Acadian families in the new settlement.

  Chapter 45

  In 1784, Cap Breton Island had become a separate and distinct province in the new British colony and the provincial authorities were willing to give land grants to returning Acadians. The authorities wanted the Acadians to settle here to prevent them from strengthening the French presence in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon and to prevent them from competing with the English trade there.

  Pierre Bois was determined that they should obtain title to the land they had settled.

  In the spring of 1788 he recruited four of the earliest settlers and set off for Sydney to approach the governor with a written request for title to their land. His son, Régis, who had written the letter, accompanied them. Régis was for some years the only man in Chétican who could read and write and became the unofficial clerk for the new settlement. Jeanne asked God to forgive her for the sin of pride, for she was indeed very proud of both her husband and her son.

  On September 20, 1790, a Charter was signed by the authority of William Maccormic, lieutenant and commander-in-chief of the province of Cap Breton, granting a total of 7,000 arpents of land to fourteen of the Acadian settlers at Chétican.

  The fourteen men who carefully drew an “X” beside their names as they appeared on the grant were: Pierre Bois, Pierre Aucoin, Joseph Boudreau, Joseph Gaudet, Paul Chiasson, Basile Chiasson, Joseph Deveau, Grégoire Maillet, Jean Chiasson, Lazard Leblanc, Raymond Poirier, Anselme Aucoin, Joseph Aucoin and Augustin Deveau. Pierre Bois’s name was at the head of the list and for many years the grant was known as “la grant à Pierre Bois,” and rightly so, for he had been the prime mover in obtaining it.

  —

  Jeanne knew that if the men arrived with the grant in hand it would be a victory and a milestone for their small Acadian village. They had been confident they would obtain the grant, so the women of Chétican had prepared a feast to welcome them back.

  By mid-afternoon, when everything was ready, Jeanne returned to her home alone and, during a few moments of quiet and repose, took time to reflect on her life and her community.

  She was approaching her sixtieth year. She had spent most of her life like a sailor without a home port – now her children would have a real home. In five years, they had helped to create an Acadian village out of the wilderness, built a homestead, made improvements to the basic log house built so hastily on their arrival. They had acquired an ox and a few farm animals and then increased their stock and built a barn and a shed; there was plentiful grass and hay for the animals. They had
milk and eggs and fresh meat again. They planted a kitchen garden that became larger each year.

  The men hunted moose for its meat and hides, and other smaller animals to supplement their food supplies. They had sheep for wool and they planted flax for linen. The women were busy all winter spinning and weaving and knitting. They made maple sugar in the spring as they had learned to do from the Mi’kmaq. They planted tobacco for the men to smoke in their pipes. They made soap, candles, moccasins and remedies from plants. And they had pure fresh water from their stream.

  They had learned to live to the rhythm of nature in their new community, enjoying the mild climate afforded by their nearness to the sea and coping with the violent storms that came with it. They had learned the signs that announced the arrival of a suête (southeast) gale-force wind. Fishermen at sea would head for home port and everything at home would be secured while they rode out the storm. The suête was as frightening and potentially as destructive as heavy thunder and lightning.

  Two years after their arrival, Jeanne had delivered Frédérick – a son for Augustin Deveau and Rose Richard – the first baby to be born in Chétican. Jeanne wrapped him in her beautiful embroidered shawl when she baptized him, and asked la bonne Sainte-Anne to protect him. They had no clergy in these early years, but Joseph Aucoin, somewhere on his travels, had received the Church’s authority to perform “white ceremonies,” and he served as their elder. They would gather at Augustin Deveau’s house, which was central, to sing hymns and sometimes even simple folk songs, and recite the prayers they had learned so long ago. Joseph Aucoin performed the “white marriages” and he had agreed with Jeanne that she should baptize the newborns.

  And now, Jeanne fervently hoped, they would be legally entitled to this land and its bounty, and to the bounty of the sea. She was grateful too for the friendship of the Mi’kmaq. They had always been a part of her and her brother Joseph’s lives. It was comforting to have them nearby. And it helped to keep Martin’s memory alive.