Ally: Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, 1702-1765

European settlers hadn't been in North America long before they realized that survival required different skills at hunting, and most of all fighting.  Guerrilla-type tactics had been known since the days of Roman general Fabius, but Native warriors perfected the arts of marksmanship, ambush, and hit-and-run raiding.  Local militias, be they French, Dutch or English, soon picked up these skills and used them, both against Natives and against other colonial powers.  Some of these men became household names.  Acadiens and Cajuns alike still remember Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, 1702-1765, a guerrilla leader who led Acadien and Native resistance fighters against the British in Nova Scotia in the 18th century.

Joseph Broussard was born in what is now Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.  He lived in present-day Stoney Creek, New Brunswick, along with his wife Agnes and their 11 children.  How he picked up the alias Beausoleil (Beautiful Sun) isn't clear today.  Broussard would most likely have been a unknown Acadien farmer had he not participated in Father Rale's War, when he participated with other Acadien militia in a raid on Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia in 1724.  The French lost Nova Scotia, including the area of Acadia, what is now roughly Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, parts of Quebec and Maine.  At first, the British were tolerant of the local French Catholic population and the Native Mi'kmaq and other tribes.  However, as more settlers poured into the area, frictions mounted.  Following King George's War, 1740-1744, the British began to fortify Nova Scotia, and to demand that the Natives cede land and that the Acadiens swear loyalty to Britain and give up Catholicism.  This was too much to ask for men such as Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre and Joseph Broussard.  His leadership skills allowed him to rise in the local militia to captain. 

The French hadn't lost all their possessions in New France and provided advice and armament to the Acadien resistance but, for the most part, they were on their own, battling one of the most powerful armies on earth at the time.  In 1747, Broussard led a force of Acadiens and Mi'kmaq at the Battle of Grand Pre.  During Father Le Loutre's War, 1749-1754, Broussard led raids composed of both Acadiens and Mi'kmaq against Annapolis, Port Royal, Dartmouth and other towns in Nova Scotia.  The British were forced to abandon their settlements and withdraw to Halifax.  The French government provided knives for the Natives and Acadiens, but the shipment was intercepted on June 8, 1755.  Father Le Loutre was imprisoned, leaving Broussard to lead the Acadien resistance on his own.

Resistance had become imperative, as the British were now demanding and forcing Acadien families to leave their homes.  Acadien farms and settlements were burned out, and the inhabitants placed on ships bound for France or Santo Domingo, now Haiti.  Broussard and his Acadiens, including Mi'kmaq, fought as partisans on the side of the French during the French and Indian War (1755-1762).  At times, his men often made raids on ships, daring the might of the British Navy.  But the British caught up to Beausoleil in 1762.  He was captured and imprisoned, later sent to Haiti with other Acadiens.  Acadiens in Haiti soon found that the climate was unlike that they had known in Acadie, and they weren't welcomed by the local French population, which depended on slave labor and not free farmers for their workforce.  In 1765, Beausoleil was allowed to leave Haiti with 200 other Acadiens, including some members of his own family.  They settled in what is now St. Martinville, Louisiana.  Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil died soon after arriving in Louisiana.  His burial place is unknown.

But his name lives on.  Families in Nova Scotia and Louisiana claim descent from Joseph Broussard, including the family of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.  A popular Cajun band, BeauSoleil, is named for him. 

Natives versus Settlers: the Dartmouth Raid, May 13, 1751

The Mi'kmaq and other Native tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy found an unlikely ally as English settlers moved into Nova Scotia, the Acadiens.  Nova Scotia had been part of New France since the landing of Samuel de Champlain in 1600.  Some of the earliest European settlements in North America were located there.  In time, portions of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and what is now Maine became a distinct district in New France known as Acadie or Acadia.  When the British took over Nova Scotia in 1710, they guaranteed the religious freedom of the local people.  What they did not guarantee or try to prevent was the influx of English settlers coming into the region.  These Settlers became increasingly hostile to the French-speaking, Catholic population, demanding that the mother country do something about them and about the local Mi'kmaq people. 

Following King George's War, 1744-1748, the English began building more fortifications in Nova Scotia and issuing harsher laws against the Catholic religion.  The Acadiens and the Mi'kmaq responded by a series of raids on British settlements, particularly Annapolis and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  Fed up after a raid in 1749 on Dartmouth, commander Edward Cornwallis, brother of the Revolutionary War general, issued scalp bounties for every Mi'kmaq male killed in battle.  Unlike in the American Revolutionary War, where the Redcoats didn't offer scalp bounties, there were scalp bounties offered in this conflict.  Not to be outdone, French commanders offered bounties to their auxiliaries for any British scalps collected.  The fighting became more intense as Dartmouth and other towns in Nova Scotia were raided again and again.  The British were under the impression that they could simply fight the Natives off their land while cracking down on the Acadiens at the same time.  They would learn the error of their ways soon enough.

Several Mi'kmaq warriors joined themselves to a guerrilla force led by Joseph Brousard dit Beausoleil.  Beausoleil remains a hero to Acadiens and Cajuns alike for his resistance to the British during the windup to what Acadiens and Cajuns call the Great Upheaval, the Expulsions beginning in 1755 when Acadien families were forcibly removed from their land and sent to France, Haiti and eventually Louisiana.  Beausoleil had teamed up with a parish priest, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre, to organize an armed resistance to the British.  Thus, the Mi'kmaq and the Acadiens formed an alliance, both fighting for territory that they each considered theirs.  On May 13, 1751, Broussard led sixty Acadiens and Mi'kmaq down the Shubenacadie River from Chignecto in an early morning raid on Dartmouth.  They burned 36 homes, killed 20, and captured several Settlers.  They also captured a sergeant and three soldiers, who were tortured and put to death. 

British soldiers gave chase but could not find the raiders.  All they found were scalped bodies, which they took to Halifax for burial.  The British retaliated by raiding the town of Chignecto, destroying Acadien foodstores, something that proved a hardship for both the Acadiens and the Mi'kmaq.  However, the raid did accomplish one thing.  Cornwallis pulled all Settlers out of Dartmouth.  They wouldn't return for another 30 years.  Acadien and Mi'kmaq raids continued through Father Le Loutre's War, 1749-1755, and the French and Indian War, 1755-1763.  The cession of New France by France to Britain later did induce the Mi'kmaq to sign treaties of peace, but they steadfastly refuse to cede any land.