Abstract
Starting in 1755, the French-speaking colonists of Atlantic Canada (known as the Acadians) were deported by the British. The expulsion was desired by the American colonists in New England but was ultimately opposed by the British government. In fact, the expulsion was enacted against the wishes of the Imperial government. Set against the backdrop of rising public debt in Britain, the costly expulsion of the Acadians (combined with the subsequent conquest of the French-speaking colony of Quebec) contributed to a change in policy course favoring centralization. Using public choice theory, I construct a narrative to argue that the Acadian expulsion contributed to the initiation of the American Revolution.
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Notes
- 1.
It is worth pointing out that William Pitt the Younger, a New Tory, was actually well-versed in financial matters. During his premierships (1783–1801, 1804–1806) that overlapped with the French Wars (1792–1815) when public debt expanded rapidly, Pitt developed a sinking fund to credibly commit to the repayment of the public debt. This shift within those of Tory sympathies shows how much the landscape of British politics had changed.
- 2.
Early on, the British governors of Massachusetts offered payments for the scalps of any Mi’kmaq (regardless of age and gender) (Akins 1869, 581–589).
- 3.
Here, I do not mean toleration in the enlightenment sense, even less in the sense of acceptation. Rather, I mean a form of pragmatic shrugging-off of differences in order to serve other purposes. Indeed, many of the government officials of Quebec, with the strange exception of Governor James Murray, held negative views of the French-Canadians. These men (which included Governor Guy Carleton who replaced Murray) nonetheless pushed for toleration of the civil and religious institutions of the French-Canadians.
- 4.
The policy paid off early on as many Canadians refused to help the Americans during the 1775 invasion—some did, but many more fought for the British and a great deal more simply engaged in a friendly neutrality towards the British.
- 5.
The policy seems to have paid off in that regard as well. During the Pontiac uprising of the early 1760s, French-Canadian militiamen heeded the call of the governor to help them fight the Native Indians. Although they were not actively engaged, their willingness to fight on the behalf of the British suggests that the toleration policy paid off.
- 6.
There is supportive evidence that this bred further waves of toleration as government policy. Indeed, it is argued that the Quebec Act of 1774—which formalized the toleration policy—formed the basis of the Irish Catholic Relief Act of 1778 which eased many constraints placed upon Catholics in Ireland (Stanbridge 2003).
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the help of Alex Salter, Adam Martin, Manuel Bautista, Art Carden, John Lovett and Joshua Hall. The Free Market Institute at Texas Tech provided financial support.
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Geloso, V. (2018). British Public Debt, the Acadian Expulsion and the American Revolution. In: Hall, J., Witcher, M. (eds) Public Choice Analyses of American Economic History. Studies in Public Choice, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77592-0_1
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