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88 thoughts on “Acadia”

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  Mary Bennett November 12, 2022 at 16:52

  Thank you for this, Mr. Murray. I call your brief report essential reading for any North American who needs to understand that the British Empire was not at all benign, and the present British, or English, establishment is not our friend.

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  Republicofscotland November 12, 2022 at 16:57

  A few maps to the extent of the British army bases/forts post 1746, and the coming Clearances.

  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FguP-chWYAAD_9n?format=jpg&name=medium

  https://sites.google.com/site/stennishs/

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    Ebenezer Scroggie November 13, 2022 at 17:49

    Thankyou for that fascinating link, RoS.

    What is most noticeable is that almost all of the soldiers mentioned in the texts were Scottish.

    Also, Courts Martial in those days were a bit arbitrary in their administration of Justice. Here’s a paste of one the transcripts of one of those judgements:

    >>>>
    I do approve of the Sentence of this Court Martial in part, that is to say, as John McFarland and William Thomson Seem Equally Guilty, I order him of the two to be Shot Dead upon the [illegible] Inst, who shall throw the lowest Die;

    The Commanding Officer to be present and see the Strictest Justice done on this occasion
    Given at Edinburgh this 3d day of August 1751
    (Sign’d) George Churchill
    By the General’s Command
    Ja Stewart Aid deCampe
    <<<<

    Don't you just love how Justice is administered here in Scotland? Two guys are equally guilty, so let's flip a coin to see which one will be shot.

    It puts me in mind of a much more recent case of a juryless trial where two Libyan blokes were indicted on a charge of having "conspired with eachother to cause the explosion which destroyed PanAm 103" over Lockerbie.

    Fhimah was found Not Guilty of conspiring with Megrahi. Megrahi was found Guilty of conspiring with Fhimah. Duh!

    As has been so painfully displayed in the cases of Alex Salmond and Craig Murray, only a jury trial can find Justice in a criminal case. Never leave that stuff to Judges.

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    Brian Fujisan November 13, 2022 at 23:15

    I was Just Threatend By the US ? Uk they mentioned my Grandaughters Name..I Feell Sick Bastards

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  Alistair Thomas November 12, 2022 at 18:16

  A fascinating insight into the journey of the Cajun/Creole to Florida. I was aware of them initially being from Canada, but not the details so thank you for that! Amazing religious persecution between Catholic and Protestant is a constant feature of those times an indeed for several hundred years in Europe and its colonies. Part of the reason I am a humanist.

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  SameGreatApe November 12, 2022 at 19:09

  I’d never heard of the Acadians or what was done to them. Was curious to see the name does relate to the poetic idea of unspoilt Arcadia in Greece, via the Italian explorer (Wikipedia says maybe it was from a Mik’maq word, citing a deadlink to a Canadian museum of Acadia FAQ which gives no source itself. From elsewhere it seems there’s documentary proof now in a New York museum that it was from Arcadia).

  Was surprised to find out recently from a Pilger documentary The Coming War that the sexy bikini was named after the testing of nuclear bombs on islands by the US military and they moved the locals back too soon in order to keep researching how they developed cancers etc.

  Meanwhile ‘Lord’ David Frost calls eco wind power medieval and wants more deregulation even as companies surround our own island with our own excrement?

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  Ebenezer Scroggie November 12, 2022 at 20:27

  I greatly look forward to buying and reading Craig Murray’s forthcoming book on his illustrious forebear.

  I know that it will be the best researched and most expressively written one so far on the subject. I have a signed copy of his one on Burnes and I expect no less quality in the forthcoming one on the Atholl Murray guy.

  G Murray was an ardent exponent of Scottish domination of the UK which was created by his generation with great, and sometimes failed, effort. Looting plunder, from the English worked for him, for a while. Eventually, not so much.

  Derby was pretty much his outer limit, though Culloden had a bit more finality.

  That Murray claimed his motivation was not Scottish nationalism but ‘that the prestige of Great Britain should be upheld among the nations of the world’. That was his desire. A Scottish Union of the United Kingdom under force of arms.

  That Murray guy was no separatist. Quite the opposite.

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  Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh November 12, 2022 at 22:25

  Kenneth White was in Montréal trying to get to Labrador but couldn’t find a map of Labrador anywhere. (Actually I think the French lost Labrador to the English in bygone times). He has this exchange with someone in a café:
  ______
  Je suis en train de manger une soupe à l’oignon dans un bistrot de la rue Sant-Denis, en compagnie d’un écrivain québécois, quand je lui pose, de but en blanc, la question à mille francs :
  « Comment se fait-il que le Labrador ne soit pas une réalité à Montréal? »
  […] Pour lui, les Québécois sont tous les paysans de Poitou qui n’ont pas encore pris conscience de leur arrivée sur le continent américain. Ils sont culturellement traumatisés et.. ils passent leur temps à se souvenir :
  « Je me souviens», dit la devise du Québec.
  J’ai demandé à quelqu’un de quels souvenirs il s’agissait:
  « Du débarquement des Anglais. »
  Grand D***! Qui se soucie encore des Anglais?
  Si je me préoccupais de ce qu’ils ont fait, les Anglais, je serais toujours là-haut, dans la Vieille Calédonie, à soigner mes griefs et à écrire de longs poèmes politiques dans la langue de mes ancêtres.
  Et merde! On ne peut pas rester écossais toute sa vie. Il faut savoir sortir de son trou, se mêler au monde.

  (Kenneth White, LA ROUTE BLEUE, Grasset, Le Livre de Poche, 1983, td 15)

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  Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh November 12, 2022 at 23:29

  A few quotes from ‘Seanchaidh na Coille/ Memory-Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature of Canada’, Edited by Michael Newton, Cape Breton University Press, Sydney, Nova Scotia, 2015 —

  “Many historians of the Clearances simply treat these events as the inevitable calculus of economics and the irrepressible march of modernity. The resistance of some scholars to take these Gaelic perspectives seriously could be interpreted as an attempt to maintain the authority of an Anglocentric master narrative that asserts that the British Empire was an unstoppable force for civilization, progress, and enlightenment. […] If Gaelic perspectives were taken seriously, they might highlight the injustices perpetrated in the past that have created one of the most concentrated and unjust landholding patterns in the world, one in which native Highlanders are still disenfranchised. They might suggest that reparations are in order.”

  “The British Empire’s ability to expand the territories under its control from 1756 to 1815 owed much to the fact that it spent from 75 per cent to 85 per cent of its budget on military enterprises. Landowners sought to tap these vast financial resources and enhance their own social rank by selling their Highland tenantry as natural-born soldiers who could be recruited in large numbers by leveraging their hereditary clan relationships. Highlanders of many social ranks seemed to believe that they could gain favour with the London government and dispel any lingering suspicions of Jacobite sympathies by a conspicuous demonstration of their loyalty in military service. Thus, the economic-political interests of the land-owning elite and the military ambitions of the empire conspired in the Highlands’ specialization in military recruitment, a specialization justified by recourse to obsolete and ethnocentric myths about supposed Gaelic ‘savagery’. In 1756 the young chieftain Simon Fraser of Lovat—son of an executed Jacobite ‘rebel’—successfully petitioned to raise a regiment to fight against French forces in North America and within two months about 2,000 Highlanders were mobilized for action. Some 12,000 Highland soldiers in total were involved by the end of the Seven Years’ War in other regiments as well. Gaels perceived themselves to have proved their mettle and their loyalties prominently by their efforts, not least on the Plains of Abraham. […] Soldiers and sailors who had fought in the North American theatre of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) were eligible for land grants in British North America as rewards for their military service.”

  Leading on from the foregoing, the central punch of the book for me is the highlighting and analysis of the agonizingly fragmented (lethally “skewered”?) identity of those brutally cleared from Scotland who then found themselves enlisted as British troops:

  “Some Gaels consciously or unconsciously blotted these debasing episodes of eviction and the associated shame from communal memory, even if they were left with emotional scars and cultural traumas that were difficult to resolve. Some made an effort, especially through oral tradition, to create a heroic emigration narrative that could turn the experience of defeat and dispossession into a triumph of self-determination and success. Many others, however, were left with an inferiority complex that not only encouraged them to seek the external validation of the anglophone world but to ultimately assimilate to its norms as thoroughly as possible in order to gain its status and privilege.”

  (‘SEANCHAIDH NA COILLE/ MEMORY-KEEPER OF THE FOREST: Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature of Canada’, Edited by Michael Newton, Cape Breton University Press, Sydney, Nova Scotia, 2015.)

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  Roy Saunders November 13, 2022 at 05:10

  As an American with Scottish ancestry this article resonates highly with me. Thank you and keep up the good work!

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  M Boyd November 13, 2022 at 07:57

  I used to go sailing from Medemblik each summer. I only discovered after I stopped going that Lord George Murray was buried in the grave yard next to the harbour!

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  nevermind November 13, 2022 at 10:11

  Thank you Craig for shining a light into my understanding of the Cajun Creole culture and their history under ruthless colonialism. It also explains the English attitude towards the French today. One wonders what the French at that time had to say about the genocide of its settlers and the dispersal of the few people left throughout the Americas.

  But their self reliance and culture has not been totally disappeared as the Cajun music, their food and their penchant for marshes and swamps to live next to, is still alive.
  Play these songs and enjoy while you read the article again; it rounds up this historic nugget from Craig:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07jF_EVink4

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  Reza November 13, 2022 at 10:36

  LEST WE FORGET

  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/03/video-british-troops-firing-jeremy-corbyn-poster

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  nevermind November 13, 2022 at 13:20

  An archeological take on Acadia and the Winslow declaration. Could the palisade in Scotland be the SNP?

  https://www.archaeology.org/issues/458-2203/features/10333-acadia-paradise-lost#art_page2

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  Willie November 13, 2022 at 13:56

  And so they go to their churches today to celebrate slaughter. To celebrate the deaths of the many who died in the most inhumane way a living person could die.

  I’m the splendour of their Sunday best and or military uniform they turn the churches into brothels of celebration to the slaughtered.

  Yes our God must revel in the presence of the gore of broken and dismembered pieces of meat that once were sons and daughters.

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  Dodds November 13, 2022 at 15:32

  Not all Canadians, just those of Acadia = Cajun

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  yesindyref2 November 14, 2022 at 00:20

  Maybe like this (Braemar to Blair Atholl) there’s a zoom map down the page.

  https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=43744

  Yes, when you drive and / or walk a lot in Scotland you see some curious sites like old bridges that go nowhere, and even Inns and Hotels in curious places (off the main road). Some of it is down to the Victorian obsession with Scotland and Queen Victoria, some of it though would bear some research. Some roads entering estates are relatively new, some ancient. Never to be seen again! They shoot peasants even out of season.

  I probably have distant relations in Nova Scotia, another lifetime to check that out.

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  amanfromMars November 14, 2022 at 09:17

  Craig, good morning, hello and welcome.

  Some would tell you both broad random and specific knowledge of the past, and of campaigns of actions taken in those pasts to shape the future for a contrived novel virtualised reality in a command controlled present, as per the Acadian example, allows for the copying and further development of its modus operandi to present in the future of a postmodern age/place/space, similar campaigning activity for command and control of contrived novel virtualised realities, albeit by completely different secretive and much stealthier and considerably more sophisticated means and memes.

  You might like to consider such is a current present virtual reality program for mass main stream media manipulation in relatively fabulous fabless command of remote absolute control of human perception and elite exclusive executive administrative governance systems.

  And influencing and exerting any sort of effective positive leverage to steer that future in any greater direction to any better destination and starting point does necessarily vitally require that one knows what/whom to talk to/make contact with and be fully prepared to wholeheartedly share one’s desires …… which takes one to a whole new level of unusual expertise and peculiarly particular expert tease which here, and in the earlier submissions copied below, be only briefly revealed and lightly touched upon.

  amanfromMars [2211140509] …… has a say on https://sluggerotoole.com/2022/11/13/open-sunday-discuss-what-you-like-37/

  Ben M, Hi, and with regard to that “parallel universe, where The Troubles never ended.”

  Here’s something MI5/Holywood Loughside/Palace Barracks can easily plausibly deny be one of their/the MoD’s new fangled and entangling AWEsome [
  Army Warfighter Experiment] programs, however it never ever could be said such is not one of those new fangled and entangling programs and one against which more than they are spectacularly failing to effectively deal with and counter/engage with and redirect to other destinations/goals/targets, which would be in reality the very best that they could practically hope for to deliver and sustain/future maintain.

  And your expressed worry ….. “but this development makes me wonder about the future. There’s a fine line between international volunteer army and terrorism. What if this new form of warfare is used against something else?” …. is of legitimate international and internetional concern because of what it transpires can be so easily done with impunity remotely by special virtual forces and relatively anonymous sources, invisible and intangible.

  amanfromMars [2211130923] …… shares on https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/much-ado-about-nothing

  Take Your Chance and Make a SMARTR Choice … for Whenever the End is Nigh are No Prisoners Taken.

  For those in the know, who may or may not be a Chosen Few rather than a many in desperate need of a new way to go in order to survive and even further prosper with a novel and very quickly, suddenly inevitably unstoppable change in command and control order, a few words to ponder and wonder upon, and consider otherworldly wise and too true to be honestly ignored and vaingloriously opposed or denied the oxygen of mainstream publicity, for IT and AI would bear a grudge and demand suitable satisfaction for that which is designedly abuse and pernicious slight.

  amanfromMars 1 Sun 13 Nov 07:10 [2211130710] ….. points out a weakness for exploiting and/or reinforcing on https://forums.theregister.com/forum/1/2022/11/11/eu_joint_cyber_defense/

  Reading the Runes Between and Behind Quantum Coded Communication Lines ….

  What does IT tell you, El Reg/Jessica,The Register’s cybersecurity editor/El Regers, other than everything confirming the undeniable fact that all current present protective security domain systems are fundamentally FCUKed and totally ineffective against novel invisible competition and noble intangible opposition, whenever shared news of its virile and vigilant, virulent and venerable spread is both clearly absent and avoided main stream, with such a negligent omission and wilful abdication of honourable civic duty to better accurately inform, educate and entertain the masses of unfolding future events providing ever furthering deep and dark cover for that and/or those trailing any and all such developments in top secret trials.

  The Main Stream Media news presenting and publishing situations of late is particularly dire and woefully continually depressing, and with future proposed actions and inactions in the pipelines surely set to make and prove everything much worse than was ever expected, rather than there being any chance of internetworking things being improved and made significantly better, what is one to realistically and accurately conclude about the existing state of native intelligence used, and rightly think of the conservative collection of regular muppets and traditional puppets stepping up to the podia and into the politically inept spotlight pimping and pumping and dumping their perverse austere visions and crazy versions delivering more of the same old style failed policies and programmes rather than providing the seeds and feeds of Future Commanding Universal Knowledge for Global Command Head Quarters ‽ .

  IT is indeed fortunate that AIdDevelopments are not to be so negatively/criminally disadvantaged/misdirected and hampered from making unhindered stellar progress in fields which address the persistent distress of studious endemic ignorance attending to products and services parading a pompous self-defeating and destructive arrogance.

  Or do you think more of the same old stuff and nonsense from those in past established traditional and conventional positions of remote power and currency control is going to cut it and deliver Earthly progress in all those times and places and spaces suffering with and dealing in inflation and recession and depression and oppression ‽ .

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  Robert Dyson November 14, 2022 at 10:31

  Dear Craig, You are worth reading even just for these gems.

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  dearieme November 14, 2022 at 13:22

  ‘”Cajun” is a contraction of “Canadian”.’

  Nope, it’s a contraction of “Acadian”.

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  Robert Dyson November 14, 2022 at 21:53

  Another story where the British involvement was not honest.
  https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-11-10/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/the-british-kindled-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-they-are-to-blame/00000184-60fc-dab5-a58e-fffcbf290000
  Sadly you need a sub to read the whole thing.

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  DavidH November 15, 2022 at 03:01

  Fascinating. Thanks again, Craig.

  Grim stuff, indeed. But for goodness sake, this was the 1750’s. Undoubtedly a grim time for the vast majority of the world’s population, compared to our own existence. Especially for those trying to build new lives in new colonies, whether out of bravery, idealism, or perhaps just desperation and lack of choice. You can find life expectancy stats from the time and place from about 30 years down to below 25. Life was certainly cheap and very expendable, horrendously so for children.

  What concerns me when I read this kind of stuff is then the delicacy of the life and values that we now enjoy, and the responsibility as far as we can to leave things in a fit state for our children and children’s children. Surely a process that goes one way in 200 years could just as easily go the other, perhaps even quicker.

  So is the best way to secure our future by radical, anti-establishment policies, or by status quo conservatism? To correct Ronaldo’s recent Picasso quote “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction”. Right, but let’s not risk going back to the 1750’s in the process. As Craig has just reminded us, it wasn’t a pretty place.

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    Opport Knocks January 4, 2023 at 15:09

    Correct. The Expulsion of the Acadians is a well known aspect of Canadian History and must be understood in the context of the almost continuous state of war between the British and French on both sides of the Atlantic at the time.

    After the final defeat of the French at Quebec City in 1759, the treaties of Hubertusburg and Paris (February 1763) were signed. Obviously, Acadia (then renamed the province of Nova Scotia aka New Scotland *cough*) was of great strategic importance to the British, having a large maritime border close to England with decent protected harbours. No effort was made to expel the French settlers from Upper Canada (later Quebec).

    The entrance to the Bay of Fundy was particularly important hence the forced expulsion of the French there, and the renaming of the Town to Wolfville, after the British General who defeated the French and died in the process. Acadia University is located there since 1841.

    This song (by a Cajun descendant) and the numerous slides it contains is of more value than what Craig has written. At the end there are charts indicating the directions of Acadian emigration, not all of which were forced. As the song indicates many later returned.

    https://youtu.be/te7KW4K-00E

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  Antiwar7 November 16, 2022 at 19:29

  White people not victims of the empire? I give you the Serbians, 1991–1999.

  All the etymologies say that Cajun is derived from Acadian, not Canadian. And I’ve known that for decades, and that they were expelled. I’m surprised that Craig didn’t know that, because I find him to more knowledgeable than me in so many subjects.

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    Antiwar7 November 16, 2022 at 21:35

    In fairness to Craig, I learned about the origins of the Cajuns from a wonderful exhibit on non-English cultures of the Americas, at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, one summer. I heard a Cajun from Missouri, not Louisiana, tell a story in his language. There was still a small Cajun community there, left over from the trek down the Mississippi from Acadia.

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  Michael Keefer November 27, 2022 at 20:20

  A quick correction. I gave, as an Acadian sentence, “J’avions monté dans mon char.” No! I was influenced by the standard French version: I should have written, “J’avions embarqué dans mon char.” (“Embarquer”: the Acadians of southwest Nova Scotia have traditionally been ship- and boat-builders, and made their livings from the sea.)

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    glenn_nl November 28, 2022 at 00:18

    Forgive me, but surely “J’avais” is what you want here? “Nous avions”, certainly, but “j’avions” n’est-ce pas ma compréhension de la grammaire français…

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      Michael Keefer January 24, 2023 at 22:48

      No, “J’avions” is the Acadian form–which as I indicated differs from standard French. In my initial post, which seems to have disappeared, I indicated that one would say in standard French “Je suis monté dans ma voiture.” Acadian, resembling in this some dialects of early modern French, uses a marine verb, “embarquer,” rather than “monter,” uses an old word, “char,” i.e. wagon, rather than “voiture,” conjugates the verb with “avoir” instead of “être,” and employs for the first-person singular a form that in standard modern French is plural. What it adds up to is this: a speaker of standard French could have difficulties understanding a conversation in Acadian; someone brought up on early sixteenth century French would do better….