Cajuns, Acadians, Evangeline and St. Martinville

“Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed;
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors,
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!”

-- "Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow's "Evangeline," an epic poem published in 1847, follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel, set during the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians from their homes in the Acadia region of Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island).  The lovers are separated during the Expulstion, and Evangeline searches for her love, from place to place in cities across the Eastern seaboard. She eventually gives up, settles in Philadelphia, becomes a nun and works at a hospital.  After many years, she finally encounters Gabriel once again—now a sick old man.  He dies in her arms, she soon follows him to the grave. This "fact" is noted on a brass plaque mounted to a building on Walnut Street that still stands today in Philadelphia.

The Acadians are the descendants of, and were, French colonists who settled in Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Acadia was a distinctly separate colony of New France in Canada. It was geographically and administratively separate from the French colony of Canada (modern-day Quebec). As a result, the Acadians and Québécois developed two distinct histories and cultures. They also developed a slightly different French language.

During the French and Indian War, British colonial officers suspected Acadians were aligned with France after finding some Acadians fighting alongside French troops. Because of these suspicions, the British carried out the Great Expulsion of the Acadians during the 1755–1764 period. They deported approximately 11,500 Acadians to various countries including France, England and the Caribbean.  A number were also deported to the English colonies in America and found their way to present-day Louisiana. Approximately one-third perished from disease and drowning. The result was what one historian described as an ethnic cleansing of the Acadians from Maritime Canada. Of those who survived, most had been deported to various American colonies and were forced into servitude or marginal lifestyles. After a number of Acadians were expelled to France, many of them were eventually recruited by the Spanish government to migrate to present day Louisiana state (known then as Spanish colonial Luisiana), where they developed what became known as Cajun culture.

Present-day St. Martinville, Louisiana and the region around it and Bayou Teche were the center of immigration for Acadians in Louisiana.  St. Martinville is thus widely considered to be the birthplace of the Cajun culture and traditions, and it is in the heart of Cajun Country. It is a multicultural community, with Acadians and Cajuns, Creoles, French, Spaniards, Africans, African Americans and Native American tribes. Its nickname, Petit Paris ("Little Paris"), dates from the era when St. Martinville was known as a cultural mecca with good hotels and a French theater, the Duchamp Opera House (founded in 1830), which featured the best operas and witty comedies.  The third oldest town in Louisiana, St. Martinville has many buildings and homes with beautiful architecture.

Today, we had lunch at The St. John Restaurant in St. Martinsville, and then toured a museum and some of the historic sites in the town.  After lunch, we started with the Acadian Memorial, which honors the 3,000 Acadian men, women and children who found refuge in Louisiana after British forces exiled them from Acadie.  The centerpiece of the memorial is a mural entitled "The Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana" by Robert Dafford, which measures 12x30 feet. Its figures represent actual documented Acadian refugees who arrived in Louisiana from about 1764 to 1788 and who settled in different parts of the state. Some of the figures were painted from life models who are direct descendants of the figures they portray. This mural is twinned with one in Nantes, France, also painted by Robert Dafford, which depicts the departure of Louisiana-bound Acadians from the port of Nantes in 1785.

The central figure of the mural is Joseph Broussard dit Beausolei, a resistance leader in post-expulsion Acadia, who eventually surrendered and led a group of refugees from Acadia in November 1764 and arrived in Louisiana in February 1765.  He is the figure in the center of the photo below:

Olivier Terrio, an Acadian originally deported to France, was persuaded by a French countryman to lead many Acadians to resettle in Louisiana as part of a scheme of the Spanish Government to populate the territory.  Terrio was to have been reimbursed and compensated for his efforts, but was ultimately betrayed by his French partner and stayed in Louisiana with only the satisfaction of having found a refuge for his people as his compensation.  He is the main figure on the left in the photo below.

The memorial tells the story, as well, of the four Prejean sisters, divided by the Great Expulsion, who, through fate and circumstance, found themselves all in Louisiana and discovered each other and were reunited after decades of separation without knowledge of what had happened to each other.

Outside the memorial is a garden with a replica of the original Deportation Cross erected near the Grand-Pré National Historic Site in Nova Scotia.  The original cross in Nova Scotia marks the site of embarkation of over 2,000 Acadian farmers and tradesmen and their families in 1755.

St. Martinville is the site of the "Evangeline Oak."  Nearby, at the Church of St. Martin de Tours, is a grave with Evangeline's statue.  Their connection to the fictional Evangeline is complicated:

Longfellow was reported to have said that his poem was based on a true story he heard, but he fictionalized it for the poem.  In 1907, Judge Felix Voorhies, a St. Martinville resident, published stories told to him by his grandmother, who said that she was the adoptive mother of a girl named Emmeline Labiche – whose story Longfellow heard, then renamed her Evangeline, presumably for creative effect. In Voorhies's version, Emmeline and her love, Louis Arceneaux, reunited not in Philadelphia but in St. Martinville, under a live oak tree that stretches its branches towards the chocolate brown waters of the Bayou Teche. He recounted that they embraced passionately and all was well until Louis/Gabriel suddenly remembered that he had remarried in the years that passed since they had been separated. Emmeline/Evangeline later went insane and died, and it is she who is buried in the grave at the local church.

These stories swirled through our minds as we looked out from where the Evangeline Oak stands, down the Bayou Teche:

Thus wrapped in sober thoughts, we walked over to the historic St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church on Main Street, which, aside from its role in the Evangeline story, is part of the legacy of the Acadian people. The church was dedicated to Martin of Tours in France, where a St Martin de Tours church can be found. 

The church is beautiful, and when we entered, the sunlight was playing through the stained glass windows, casting beautiful red, blue, green and yellow patterns on the interior columns:

The altar is quite striking in its elegant simplicity:

Perhaps most remarkable of the church's design features are carved Stations of the Cross which are elaborate and delicately painted:

We walked slowly back from the church to our car and mused on the rich tapestry of Cajun history, legend and culture that is woven through St. Martinsville, glad that Betty put this visit on our itinerary.