Comparing the Articles by Griffiths on the Acadians and Wicken on the Mikmaq

In these articles the similarities of the two communities dominate significantly compared to the differences. The two articles discuss the Deportations and the reasons as to what led to the two groups being deported. Both articles indicate that the questions led to the confrontations were not only involving the natural difficulties of the colonial matters of the local government but also that the relationship of the British administration with the Mikmaq and the Acadians was very complex. As such, Frances strength on the borders of the colony and its influence upon the Acadian population is a persistent problem.

Le Loutre actions of ensuring that Acadians and the Mikmaq remained under French government were influenced by the desired of preserving their religious beliefs. He aimed to stabilize their settlements, in a French-controlled territory, by strengthening and developing their farming practices. In both articles, Abbe de Lisle Dieu a French Catholic Missionary worried about the spiritual life of the Acadians and Mikmaq and was of the opinion that they should not remain under British rule. Daudin whose service was under the instructions of the Catholic faith endeavored to influence Acadians and Mikmaq to seek their future with the French.

The subsequent signing of the treaty of Utrecht had momentous consequences for the communities. This was a direct result of the Utrecht which ushered in a new political design in the history of the Mikmaq as well as how they related to France and Great Britain. Initially, the treaty recognized the British garrisons occupation of Annapolis Royal, but later, an attempt by the British in securing political control over a land occupied by the communities. It is hard to understand the sequence of actions that led to the deportation, but answering how such a catastrophe occurred goes a long way, ruining a distinguished group of people, who over more than a century and a half had built a flourishing society.

Both communities remained at the edges of the conflict even with the awareness of the tension between the two empires that fought around their homes, and the potential consequences of these for themselves. The region was important to France and Great Britain because the area was located adjacent to the North Atlantic fish stocks, a plentiful and valuable commodity traded on the open market in Europe but also use as a cheap food source to feed enslaved Africans working on British and French sugar plantations in Caribbean and also the maritime regions geography added to its strategic value, as it lay directly between New England and access to the St. Lawrence River, which cut deeply into Canada's hinterland and led directly to Quebec and Montreal. Both factors were influential in animating French relations with the communities.

The reasons for deportation differed in that, Griffiths suggests that Acadians deportation due to the climate that existed in which at this time there was national jealousies and greed in government which devoured the man and the country. Whereas Wicken suggests that Mikmaq involvement with the British was when the British attempted to extend their economic and political control over the region due to the reasons that the Mi'kmaq, unlike the Acadians, were not farmers hence for these reasons they were less vulnerable to British attack than were the Acadians, whose fields and livestock had been ravaged by New England raiders in earlier conflicts . The Mi'kmaq were a nomadic people, living in coastal areas during spring and summer and moving inland during the winter.

The contrast that has been revealed from the two articles is that. The Canadians believed themselves to have rights of settlements all over the territory, no matter who ruled a particular area. The majority of the inhabitants looked upon themselves as the rightful population of the woods they hunted, the lands they farmed and the seas they fished. Whereas the Mikmaq was no mere paw of the French king, being controlled in the protection of the Kings interest. Conversely, they disregarded the Kings advice. As such, it portrays that this community was more than the just unruly group of savages. They decided how to react to the British claims of sovereignty.

Despite the presence of the French and British, the Mikmaq continued to live in their world, outside the sight of European officials and unrecorded by their pens. The silences of the history represent their past and one that is sometimes ignored. The Acadian population was settled mostly in small communities along rivers flowing into the Bay of Fundy; Afterwards, the Acadians were always involved in shaping their own lives.

Bibliography

Belshaw, John Douglas. Canadian History: Pre-Confederation. Campus Manitoba, 2016.

Griffiths, Naomi Elizabeth Saundaus. From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604-1755. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2004.

Wicken, William. "Mikmaq Decisions: Antoine Tecouenemac, the Conquest, and the Treaty of Utretcht." Reid et al. The Conquest" of Acadia 1710 (2004): 86-100.