Acadia (in the French language Acadie) was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day New England, stretching as far south as Philadelphia.

The actual specification by the French government for the territory refers to lands bordering the Atlantic coast, roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels. Later, the territory was divided into the British colonies which became Canadian provinces and American states.

Etymology

The origin of the name Acadia is credited to the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, who on his sixteenth century map applied the Greek term "Acadie", meaning the proverbial land of plenty, to the entire Atlantic coast north of Virginia.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says "'Arcadia,' the name Verrazzano gave to Maryland or Virginia 'on account of the beauty of the trees,' made its first cartographical appearance in the 1548 Gastaldo map and is the only name to survive in Canadian usage. It has a curious history. In the 17th century Champlain fixed its present orthography, with the 'r' omitted, and Ganong has shown its gradual progress northwards, in a succession of maps, to its resting place in the Atlantic Provinces."

Geography

The Acadian peninsula was a series of coastal lowlands ringed by salt marshes. The area is subject to very high tides – regularly as much as 25 feet in change. The interior of the peninsula was heavily wooded and crisscrossed with creeks, lakes, and bogs. Acadia was very geographically isolatedBrasseaux (1987), p. 3. because transportation overland was difficult and the peninsula was not near the shipping lanes to Quebec City or Boston, Massachusetts.

Median temperatures in January and February were often 15 to 20 degrees colder than western France, where many of the settlers were from.

History

main: History of the Acadians

The French took control of the Abenaki First Nations territory. In 1654, King Louis XIV of France appointed aristocrat Nicolas Denys as governor of large portions of Acadia and granted him the confiscated lands and the right to all its minerals.

The Netherlands asserted sovereignty over Acadia in 1674 after privateer Jurriaen Aernoutsz captured the forts at Pentagoet and Jemseg. Control over the region reverted to France when Aernoutsz's appointed administrator, John Rhoades, was captured by New England within a few months. The Dutch West India Company continued to assert a paper claim over Acadia until 1678, appointing Cornelius Van Steenwyk as its governor, although they never successfully recaptured actual control of the territory.