Though the French initially colonised the area, various treaties traded possession of the region between the British and French through the 1600s and beyond. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 cemented the Acadians as British subjects. They were forced to swear an oath in 1730 giving their allegiance to the British crown but with a caveat that they would not be forced to bear arms against the French or Indians. In 1754, the French and Indian War broke out and the Acadians were being forced to remove the caveat of fighting the French from their previous oath. The majority of Acadians refused.
Thousands of the French-speaking inhabitants were gathered together on ships and sent south, with some congregating in Cajun Louisiana, at the encouragement of the King of France. The homes and farms around the Bay of Fundy were burned or given to English-speaking Protestant colonists.
The deportation was commemorated in 1847 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem Evangeline. In December 2003, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, representing Canada's head of state, declared the Crown's acknowledgement (but without an apology) of the event and designated July 28 as "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval."
