One morning in August, redcoats fanned out across the province, taking entire families into custody, burning farms and crops, and killing livestock. Falling in the middle of two centuries of intermittent warfare, this grand derangement, or great upheaval, didn’t take place in Boston or even in Massachusetts. But Boston bore responsibility for the acts carried out in its name, and Boston would host the “French Neutrals,” the human byproducts of the purge that we remember as the expulsion of the Acadians who were confined in our city for nearly a decade.
Tag: France
Taking Louisbourg, the Gibraltar of North America (episode 132)
This week’s show is about the namesake of the famous Louisbourg Square on Beacon Hill, an astonishing 1745 military victory won by a Massachusetts volunteer army made up of farmers, seamen, and merchants. After war broke out with France the year before, Governor William Shirley proposed a daring plan to attack the French fortress of Louisbourg. Located on Cape Breton Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, Louisbourg was considered impregnable. Through a combination of luck, good leadership, and gallant conduct, the New England army conquered the Gibraltar of North America. However, the victory was short lived, setting the stage for two wars that American history remembers more clearly.
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